So who are you exactly?
The Afterword is the new home of The Word magazine readers’ community (aka The Word Massive or The Word Blog). The Word sadly folded in July 2012. However we are keeping the spirit of the magazine and the old online community alive.
Can anyone join in?
Yes, newcomers are very welcome but please familiarise yourself with the website, and read the posting guidelines first. Consider lurking for a few days to get a feel for the place.
Is this site officially connected with Word Magazine or their publisher Development Hell?
No. But they’ve been very helpful regarding this site.
What happened to the old site?
Unfortunately we were the victim of hackers who did a blanket attack on thousands of sites in late 2014. We’ve since rebuilt the site from scratch and we hope you will enjoy using it even more than before. The previous blogs and comments are not loaded in but we hope to restore those at a later date or provide an archive. For now, we just wanted to get back online.
You can still retrieve some old content from here: http://web.archive.org/web/*/theafterword.co.uk
Where are the Word Podcasts?
Still available here. The old Word writers are still creating Podcasts and regular live ‘Word in Your Ear’ events
We also create our own Afterword Podcasts…check ’em out!
Who runs this site?
The Afterword is designed, run, hosted, maintained, funded and moderated by an informal group of volunteers from this community.
Does the site use Cookies?
Yes – but only to make parts of the site work properly (including the ‘new’ symbols that indicate whether you’ve seen a post before – the site also uses Google Analytics to track site traffic. The Cookie policy can be found here
I’m not registered but I want to contact you about something
Contact us or tweet @theafterword1
Can I donate money to keep the site running?
Yes! Right here!
How do I register for the site?
For instructions, go to the Register page.
OK. I’m in. How does this work?
The Afterword isn’t so much an online forum as a collective blog and magazine. Users create blog posts, and you can browse through exceprts on the main page. To read in full click the header of the blog post and you can also leave comments and join the discussion.
Users also create reviews of Records (nights-in), Gigs (nights-out), Films, Books and if you feel like writing a full length article create a ‘Feature’.
Create Content
Click on Create Content at the top of the right-hand pane (this is available from any page except the homepage). Alternatively you can access the menu from a hidden ‘drawer’ at the top of the screen – click the ‘+’ button in the top right. Handy if you’re on a mobile device.
To create a blog post choose Create Blog Post. To post a review or a feature click ‘Create Article’ (note the format is different depending on the type of article so choose whether you want to post about a Book, Film etc in the drop-down meny first. )
Discussion
To reply to a blog post, simply enter your comment in the big box below and click submit.
To reply directly to another person’s comment, click the Reply button under their specific comment. You can also use ‘mentions’ using the @ tag. Just add @ before their username to reply to a specific person, they’ll also get a message in their profile to remind them to check your reply.
Are there any posting guidelines?
Yes, and we’d be grateful if you adhered to them. If you were previously posting on the former Word Magazine website these will be familiar (if it ain’t broke … etc). If not, please read and familiarise yourself before you start posting and replying to comments.
Can I edit my posts?
Under ‘Create Content’ select ‘edit a post’ or edit an article’. There is a a time limit of 15 minutes after posting. If you want to delete a thread (because you’ve accidentally posted it twice, for example) or make an edit after 15 mins please contact us and an admin or moderator will help you out.
Can I edit my comments?
Currently not, we hope to implement this feature soon. If you’re writing something very long we recommend typing in a word processor or an app like Evernote first, then paste in when you’re happy with it.
Can I use the blog to plug my own content?
Yes, we have a Noticeboard section for you to use – go to Create Content and create a Noticeboard item. It’s the place to post details of mingles and other meet-ups, as well as gigs, podcasts, record releases and any other performances involving yourself. If you fill in the date field in your post, then it will appear in the Events section on the front page. We’ll take a dim view if you simply register to advertise yourself.
There’s also a link in the footer to users’ websites and Twitter feeds. To add yourself to this list, edit your user profile and fill in the relevant fields.
Why doesn’t my full post appear on the blog page?
The system takes the first 75 Words of your article to use as a teaser for the front page. It will also cut off the text if it encounters a full-stop. You may want to edit your opening sentence to take account of this.
Inserting a video or audio track
When creating a blog post you will see an (optional) field to “Video or Song Link”. For YouTube & Vimeo: Simply paste the URL into the ‘video link’ field (e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdSViaW6lUA or http://vimeo.com/42618943). This should also work for many other video and audio sites including Spotify, Soundcloud and Mixcloud. In some cases you’ll need to click ‘share’ on the originating site and it should provide a plain URL for you to share.
Note that some YouTube clips will still not display if the person who originally uploaded it to YouTube disallowed embedding for some reason – a link to the clip will still show but you will have to go to YouTube to watch it.
Posting video or audio in comments
If posting a YouTube clip in a comment just paste the URL of the video after your comment.
Please note, the clip needs to be on a separate line to work so please press enter/carrriage return before you paste in the clip into a comment.
Posting an image with a review, article or feature
Articles, Reviews and features require a ‘Featured image’ – this is because they go onto the front page of the site and make it look nice. Please find a suitable image and click ‘browse’ under “set featured image” and the pic will upload.
Posting an image on a blog entry
Displaying images hosted on other people’s servers is considered bad form, as you’re using their bandwidth. We recommend you upload the image to a photo-sharing site such as Imgur.com or Photobucket. This also has the advantage of providing you with a direct link which you can just paste into the post.
You now don’t need to use HTML or any special codes to share an image.
For blogs – please enter a direct link to the image in the field marked “image URL”
A direct link is basically a URL that will only display the image itself. It should usually end with something like .jpg, .gif, .png depending on the type of image.
To get a direct link from Photobucket you should see “share links” in the side bar – click the one marked “DIRECT” and it should automatically copy. Just paste that in.
You don’t need an account to post from imgur.com. Just upload the pic (or you can even cut & paste or share from an existing link)
To get a direct link from imgur.com – look for the sidebar and select the link under “Direct Link”
If you like HTML…
If you prefer, and want the image to appear in a specific place you can use HTML markup
If you just need to resize an image a bit
<img src="http://www.gubbins.com/gubbins.jpg" alt="" width="300px/" />
The code between the quotes is the address of the image on the internet – you can usually get this by right-clicking an image and selecting Copy Image Location (or similar, depending on your browser). Replace the address – remembering the quotes – and you should be good to go.
If you’re feeling ambitious, you may want to make better use of space by wrapping text around an image. Of course, this works best for small images. Here’s the code to left- and right-align an image, with a width of 100px:
<img src="http://www.gubbins.com/gubbins.jpg" alt="" width="100px" align="right/" />
Posting images on comments.
To post an image in a comment please upload to an image sharing such such as photobucket or imgur.com, find the direct link (see above) and just paste it in on a separate line (after a carriage return) in your comment.
Creating a hyperlink
To enter a ‘clickable’ link in your blog page there is a field “another link” – just paste your URL in there and it will be converted to a clickable link.
If you want the link to appear in a specific place please use HTML markup like this:
<a href="PASTE YOUR LINK HERE IN BETWEEN THE QUOTES"> Followed by the text </a>
Why is it so complicated?
We’re not Facebook, or a regular online forum – we’re actually one giant blog that has hundreds of contributors. We’ve tried to make posting images and videos as straightforward as possible but because of the nature of how The Afterword works it does require a few more steps than posting to Facebook or Twitter. We think it’s worth it!
Do you offer RSS feeds?
Yes, although the RSS button is on the to-do list. The feeds do exist – simply add ‘feed’ to the end of a URL. For instance the RSS feed for the blog is https://theafterword.co.uk/blog/feed
Abbreviations, acronyms and memes
We do try to be inclusive but, as with any long-running forum, in-jokes do creep in. The more common ones are:
HJHs: Hey Jude hitmakers, aka The Beatles. Inspired by a Daily Express feature
TMFTL: “Three more from them later”. Usually a response to a word or phrase that unintentionally sounds like a band that would have done a session on the John Peel show (© Mark Ellen)
FPO: Fun prevention officer. Somewhat disparaging term for one’s spouse or partner
WWFD: “What would Fraser do?” This is in reference/deference to the former webmaster of wordmagazine.co.uk, Fraser Lewry. ‘A tough act to follow’ doesn’t even begin to cover it.
ATM: Ask the Massive – a prefix used to ask the Afterword community for help and advice, something we are usually very good at. Alternatively, you could just use a question mark.
Gerry Rafferty: A reference to multiple postings on the same topic, instanced by the several threads that appeared on the board following Mr Rafferty’s demise.
Last updated 02 MARCH 2015
