Content:
Q: Should our Local Community website include photos of local believers?
A: The Bahá’í Office of Communications recommends that the site include photos of local Bahá’ís*. Your website has a “slidshow” capability which enables you to do this. It’s also possible (and generally advisable) to include photos in each “post” so this is another way to include photos of Bahá’ís on your site.
Q: Can we just have our website set-up and then just leave it untouched?
A: It is most important that your Bahá’í Community Website should look “fresh”. This means that it should have recent content at all times – preferably no more than a few weeks old. If the content is more than a few months old, visitors will get a poor impression.
Q: Any special instructions regarding the Calendar?
A: Your website comes with a powerful and comprehensive Calendar. The Bahá’í Office of Communication strongly recommends that your community’s website calendar be kept up-to-date: “An empty or out-of-date calendar gives a poor impression. If it is not possible to maintain, it may be better not to include one.” * .
Q: How about Bahá’í-only events?
A: The Bahá’í Office of Communications advises that this type of information should be avoided on a Local Community’s site, including: “Information intended specifically for the Bahá’í community, such as letters from Bahá’í institutions, or information about activities that are restricted to Bahá’ís, such as fund-raising events, Feast dates or Local Spiritual Assembly meetings. (These may be posted in a password-protected section.)” *.
Q: Do we need to keep the set of Posts and Pages that come with the original installation.
A: The set of posts and pages that come in the original template installation are only there to help you get started. Once it’s installed, the site belongs entirely to your community so you should feel free to customize it as you see fit.
Ownership:
Q: Whose website is this?
A: This website belongs entirely to the Local Spiritual Assembly of your community. The more fully you take ownership of it the better. However we are always available to give you technical advice and to add or modify content for you – especially if you are hesitant at first.
Q: What about the domain name?
A: For most communities the domain name is renewed/maintained personally by Patrick and the annual charge is passed along to the community. However it is normally set with the Spiritual Assembly as the “registrant” so the Spiritual Assembly is the owner. If you don’t know the registration information please feel free to ask at any time. Also if you have one or more believers in your community who would like to take over the responsibility of registering the domain please let us know – that’s the best way to do it.
Misc:
Q: Can several very small communities “go in together” on a joint website.
A: Yes, however the NSA’s Bahá’í Office of Communication advises that in this case one LSA takes responsibilty for the website (an inter-community committee may be appointed).
Q: Caution regarding photos of children?
A: It is usually advisable to obtain consent of parents when including photos of children. An added precaution that may be advisable in some cases would be to remove the geographical data that is often included in the digital files carrying the digital photos.
Q: What are the advantages of this system?
A: Normally it would cost much more to have a website that would have an appearance as dignified as this and be this easy to maintain and customize. A local Baha’i Community Website needs to have a dignified look and feel and it needs to be maintainable by local non-technical Baha’is who know about the events in the community. This system fills those requirements very well.
Q: Is this system for Bahá’í Websites entirely the result of individual initiative?
A: Much of the original advice and design -including even some preliminaryu technical advice- came from the National Spiritual Assembly’s Bahá’í Office of Communications. After that -as an individual service project- it was further developed into a system to be shared easily among multiple Bahá’í Communities so as to reduce their expense, enhance appearance options and provide a ready reference point for technical support. Note however that the NSA and its Bahá’í Office of Communications do not mandate any particular system. But they strongly encourage Bahá’í Communities to get online and they provide guidelines so that communities will do it in the right way. Within these broad guidelines, various communities have many different arrangements for maintaining their websites.
*See “Guidelines for Local Bahá’í Community Websites” (2016).