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Move/Edit, Delete and Merge/Demerge Submissions

As your site becomes known as a place for people to contribute in a meaningful way, you'll find yourself with more and more submissions and comments to manage. This is the central location where you manage all your existing submissions.

Management involves just five sets of actions for your submissions.

1. Moving submissions from one invitation to another.
2. Editing submissions (ex., you find a typo in a submission you accepted previously).
3. Deleting submissions that you previously accepted.
4. Merging and demerging submissions (putting two or more on the same page, or removing one or more from a merged page).
5. Managing merged submissions.

There's a sixth set of actions that you can take -- managing comments, which includes editing or deleting them, or deleting them and banning the commenter. You'll see the word "comments" next to "delete" if a submission has comments.

Learn more about managing comments here.

Learn more about sorting and using the Information button here.

Moving Submissions

If, after you've approved a submission, you decide that it would fit better with another invitation, you can move it to that invitation. If you have that invitation on more than one page, you'll see a listing for each page. You can then choose the new destination page for that submission.

Tip

• You can move a submission and edit it at the same time. Then click on Build It! to rebuild the page. This will make your editing changes appear on the page, and move the page to its new location.
• You cannot move a merged page. You can move a merged submission by first demerging it, then moving it to the relevant invitation.

Editing Submissions

Since you're working in the Manage Existing Submissions/Comments section, you have already accepted the submission. So it's unlikely that you'll need to edit it again. However, there may come a time that a change in circumstances requires an edit.

Perhaps you noticed a typo you missed when you first accepted the submission. Or information presented in the submission is now outdated (perhaps a restaurant moved to a new location, or a favorite store has new business hours). Or the contributor e-mailed you and asked you to change her location.

Steps To Edit Submissions

1. Click on the edit link to the right of the submission title. That opens a new window displaying the personal information of the contributor (if any was provided) along with the title, author's name and city (again, only if provided), photo (if submitted) and text of the submission. You can edit anything inside the dashed lines, except the photo.

2. Click on whatever you want to change. That section converts to an edit field where you can add or remove text, or make something bold by putting it inside square brackets ( [ and ] characters; ex., [Anguilla] produces Anguilla on the final page).

   You can also remove an old photo and associated caption and upload a new photo. The new photo can take up to 45 minutes to appear.

   

3. Choose whether to include the page in your RSS/Blog It! feed again, and, if so, whether to update your feed.
4. Once you're done editing, preview the page. Make any other changes until you're satisfied with it. Then build the page.

Tips

• Although you can edit anything you want, remember that this is your visitor's work. She offered it with the expectation that she would recognize it as hers when she viewed it live. If you edit too much, it may start to read like your work, instead of hers. If you need to edit, do it with a light touch, cleaning up typos and other errors. Let your contributor speak to your other visitors!

• Edit to add the Specific Keyword, or a variation or synonym of it, once in the Title (since the Title becomes the first keyword in the Meta Keywords tag) and once in the body copy (early preferably), if needed.

  Beyond that, don't edit the submission to optimize it for on-page criteria. (One exception: if the submisison is less than 150 characters -- typically a question that you'll answer -- add some content (your answer) to the submission itself, to pad it to about 500 characters.) This page will become a "long tail" page that's found for very specific keywords (likely three, four or five word phrases). It also supports the content page that holds the invitation.

• See The C2 Guide for editing tips and strategies.
• To learn more about RSS feeds and Blog It!, check out the RSS series in TNT HQ.

Deleting Submissions

Since you're working in the Manage Existing Submissions/Comments section, you have already accepted the submission. So it's unlikely that you'll need to delete it from here. However, there may come a time that circumstances require removal of a submission.

For example, if you learn that a restaurant has shut its doors, review submissions about it will no longer be useful, and could even make your content look dated.

Steps To Delete Submissions

1. Click on the delete link to the right of that submission's name. A confirmation page opens.
2. Choose whether to ban this contributor from ever submitting to your site again. Add a check if you want to ban this person.
3. Then click on the Delete Submission button to delete it.
4. Click on the Cancel this Deletion button if you decide to keep the submission.

Tips

• Reasons for banning a contributor include abusive language; use of spam; continually trying to advertise a product or service; multiple submissions of very poor quality; and multiple submissions that aren't related to the focus of the invitation.
• Once you've banned someone, she will still be able to submit another contribution, but it will be deleted from the database immediately and you will not be notified. The visitor will receive a thank you page, but no other notifications from you.

Merging Submissions

At some point, you may have several submissions all about the same subject (ex., four reviews of Anguilla Great House). You can merge these submissions from separate pages into one new page.

Once you merge the individual submissions, the existing pages are removed from your site, and the new merged page, containing two or more submissions, is live on your site.

Important Note: What was once a series of submission pages is now a set of submissions on one merged page. Everything that is done after that occurs on the merged page only.

Steps to Merge Submissions

The owner of anguilla-beaches.com wants to improve her visitors' experience by merging several pages with reviews about the Anguilla Great House. This will allow visitors to read all the reviews on one page rather than having to click on links to see each one.

1. She adds a check to each submission she wants to merge.
2. Once two or more submissions are checked, the Merge Checked Submissions button becomes active. She then clicks on the button to merge all the checked submissions.
3. This takes her to a new tool page, where she gives the page a title and adds keywords and a description. She can also add additional submissions and/or change the order of appearance on the merged page.

Tips

• You can add HTML to the title (ex., italics or a different font color). This will allow you to make the headline match other pages on your site. Any added code will be stripped out of the title so that it does not cause problems with the RSS/Blog It! RSS feed.

  The following TNT articles will help you customize the headline (via the title of the page).

  Useful HTML Tags To Customize Your Page -
  http://sbitips.sitesell.com/tags.html

  Changing Your Headline Color -
  http://sbitips.sitesell.com/color-headlines.html

Demerging Submissions

Any submission that you demerge is separated and returned to its original standalone page format. Its original page title, keywords and description (generated by SBI!) are restored, and the page appears as a separate link again on the invitation page in the What Other Visitors Have Said section.

Tips

• You can demerge any submission from the merged page, which then reformats to display only the remaining merged submissions. The Manage Existing Submissions page for this invitation also updates to reflect the separate submission.

• You can also delete any submission while it's merged. This removes it from the merged page but does not rebuild it as a separate page.

  Important Note:

  If you delete a merged page, all the submissions on the merged page are also deleted. If you want to delete only one submission, click on the delete link for that submission.

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