• The 10 Commandments of Using Images on Church Websites

    old camera photograph1 – Thou shalt remember that a burning candle is not the only image of all that is holy and all that is true.

    2 – Thou shalt not put the vulnerable at risk by revealing their identity and location.

    3 – Thou shalt remember when using pictures of people that the Lord thy God made them in great and glorious diversity.

    4 – Thou shalt not waste bandwidth and so shall learn how to reduce the size of thy photographs tenfold, fiftyfold or even a hundredfold.

    5 – Thou shalt not use photographs of church meetings to illustrate the life of the church for to believe that the meetings of the church represent the life and joy that the Lord thy God brings unto thee is to have heard and believed the lies of the Evil One.

    6 – Thou shalt not use photographs of groups of people where half the people have their backs unto the camera.

    7 – Thou shalt not include more than one photograph of the bishop (or the moderator, the pope or the Lord High Executioner of Titipu) standing around in robes next to other people standing around in robes.

    8 – Thou shalt love thy neighbour’s photographs as thine own, by setting up a Flickr group for them to post their images to so that you have a greater range of photographs to use on thy church website.

    9 – Thou shalt respect the copyright of every image that thou shalt use and give credit where it is due.

    10 – Thou shalt change thine images once in a while for to worship one image alone is not merely idolatry but risks the masses believing that the house of the Lord thy God is dull. And dullness is the sin against the Holy Ghost whereof many have spoken.

    Photo Credit: Afonso Lima of Brazil

    If you’ve any further commandments – do chip in with them in the comments.  “Why just 10?” as Moses said as he staggered down the mountain…

8 responses to “What is a wiki?”

  1. Chris Avatar

    I wanted to comment on your wiki post, but there is a gremlin preventing me – no box to write in, so no writing!
    [Comment now moved]

    This is what I’d have said:
    Great clip! A really clear description – can we get it incorporated into an educational package for the church? See http://scotedublogs.wikispaces.com/ for a good example of a wiki in use for over a year.

  2. Tim Avatar

    Yeah. Wikis have huge potential. When I was setting up my church website I sat down and thought:
    a) lots of pages
    b) easy editing
    c) uniform appearance across pages
    d) ability to allow some people to (not) edit certain pages

    End result was dokuwiki.

    The real trouble is still persuading people that they’re capable of contributing…

  3. kelvin Avatar
    kelvin

    Yes, it is odd getting people to post on a wiki is very much harder than getting them to post a comment on a blog. Something about a fear of being the authorial voice.

    I think that it is fear of being contradicted and corrected, which is a shame, as whenever I post to a wiki, I’m hoping that someone can improve on what I’ve written.

  4. Kimberly Avatar

    Fabulous video. Thanks for linking it.

    I wonder if this is one of the ways we should be trying to respond to the Draft Anglican Covenant.

  5. Stewart Avatar

    Wikis are great – look forward to seeing the St Mary’s Wiki developing (and adding to it!)

  6. jimmux Avatar

    Thanks for a very clear explanation! Now that I understand how they work, I’ll be raising a discussion on how we might be able to use them on the National Postgraduate Committee of the United Kingdom. They seem a very useful tool for sub-committees which do a lot of work by e-mail.

  7. Kennedy Avatar
    Kennedy

    I had a look at Tim’s church website and looked at the bit with the contributions from the congregation and saw this statement:

    ‘Please note: the content in this section is contributed by members of the congregation and should not be considered official statements by the Church.’

    I am a great fan of wikis for collaborative work, but I think this indicates one of the issues with ‘public’ wikis. These problems tend not occur when wikis are being used for internal usage or for a closed group. Open editing is very attractive but you need some form of management to ensure that defacement doesn’t occur or statements which might be damaging are published.

    Also, how do I tell the difference between ‘the Church’ and ‘ members of the congregation’? Are they not the same thing?

    Kennedy

  8. […] First posted quite a while ago here. […]

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Previous Posts

  • Adding spice to the liturgy

    Much puzzlement this morning over the wine at the 8 am communion. I knew something was wrong with it the last time I celebrated (on a Wednesday). There was a taste of something familliar, yet I could not quite put my finger on what it was. What it was, was cinnamon. And the wine was…

  • Clergy Conference

    Somehow the heather managed to avoid being set alight at the diocesan clergy conference this week. No buzz groups. No buzz. Then back last night to the Book Club. This month’s book was The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. This was a good discussion. I’m still mulling over whether the central character…

  • Snow

    Came back from the West today as fast as possible to avoid being on the wrong side of a blizzard. The snow has finally caught up with me. Drove over the hills as though running with Elijah for Beer-Sheeba. Tomorrow is supposed to be Clergy Conference Day, in a place which does not have the…

  • Maniple Spotting again

    I’m not preaching this week, so there is no sermon on for the blog today. Instead, I’m maniple spotting in Argyll. Score so far: 1 maniple