Work.com Enhancements: HTML in Guide Creation and Comments

There is a discussion going on over at Barbara Payne's Guide to Writing a Successful Corporate Blog - 5 Steps about the use of HTML in guides and comments. Barbara, thanks for your feedback. Currently the only HTML Work.com allows is hyperlinking within the "I recommend" section of the guide action steps and within comments, with an eye to keeping guides consistent. But we are open to members' thoughts on this issue, and will take them into consideration as we go forward.

Which HTML tags would you most want to use within the guide and comments, or are you satisfied with the way it is now?

Technorati tags: barbara payne, corporate blogs, corporate blogging business blogging, business blogs, work.com

Comments

[Barbara Payne]

Hey, Shara. As we said in our comments over there, it's hard for readers when they can't jump to a link to an article right in the context where it's mentioned. Not sure why Work.com wanted to exclude links within the text, but it seems a bit against the grain of standard consumer digital behavior. Also, it would be nice (though not essential) to be able to add emphasis, bold, etc. within comments. Guess allowing the ability to add hyperlinks might be tough to control? Anyway, thanks for a great site.

How does one apply to become a Work.com Expert? " ))

[Frances Sharpe]

Hi Shara,
I would love to see a list of contributors or a "Meet the Work.com Experts" section somewhere on the site.

[Shara]

Thanks Barbara and Frances for your feedback. Regarding HTML in create guide, I'd love to hear from other guide authors on this. Regarding a list of contributors - we are discussing a member directory/search as an enhancement. We have such interesting members from such varied industries, it'd be great to showcase them even more. Just today we got a new member from Kabul and another who has a pet relocation business, for example.

P.S. I can see why it's annoying not to be able to add HTML - I tried to use href tags above, and at first Typepad edited out my HTML, so I had to paste in the not-so-pretty links - until I re-configured this blog to allow HTML in the comments! Looks much better now.

[Shara]

Barbara, by the way, regarding how to become a Work.com Expert, I'll be posting on that soon...meanwhile, keep participating and writing good guides!

[Ian Silverstein]

I'd like to add a couple of other suggestions to enhance work.com for authors.

-Add a spellchecker!

-Add formatting tools so that authors can add things like bullet points, underlining, etc...

[Shara]

Thanks, Ian. You are definitely not the first who has asked for a spellchecker. I think that's a great idea. I'm adding you to the list of customers requesting more formatting capability in guides. Work.com is evolving, so keep up the great feedback!

[Melissa Paxton]

I second Ian's suggestions and add one more.
-Would it be possible to have the links within guides open in new windows? I often find it difficult to track back to the original guide I was using...

[Shara]

Melissa, thanks for your comment. Links within the "action steps" section of a guide do open in new windows, though links in comments (which users enter) usually don't open in new windows unless users specifically write their HTML that way. Navigational and related guide links also open in the same window.

Interesting to think about how we can "anchor" users better in the guide that is a starting point.

[Scott Allen]

It took me a little bit to get used to making the distinction between the "Description" and the "I Recommend". Now that I've gotten comfortable with it, I haven't found that I've wanted to put links in the description section and can instead work everything into the "I Recommend". I think there's something to be said for the consistency that provides -- all of the external links are in the "I Recommend" section.

On the other hand, I can see, on rare occasion, where a link might be appropriate in the article intro and perhaps even an action step description. But generally speaking, I'd recommend that guides try to figure out a way to work it into the existing format.

The one bit of HTML that I think needs to be allowed everywhere - comments, guide intro, descriptions, etc. - is the <em> tag. We need some way to emphasize a word or phrase other than ALL CAPS or *asterisks*, both of which look very dated - listservs and Usenet. Also, any time you refer to the title of a book, movie or TV show, it's customary to italicize it. Again, you can use quotes, but it looks amateurish.

Ordered and unordered lists in the intro text could be useful, but I also know that they don't behave very well around ad units, so that could potentially be an issue.