Website Policy

Purpose of the CVUUS Website

The CVUUS website provides easily updatable news and information about CVUUS and Unitarian Universalism. The website’s primary purpose is informational rather than social or interactive. The website serves the following audiences:

  • The congregation at large
  • Newcomers
  • Members and friends
  • The CVUUS Board and lay leaders
  • Staff
  • The broader community

Domain Name

Our website address is www.cvuus.org, www.cvuus.net, or www.cvuus.com (all three work). The URL cvuus.org should be used in any communications or publications about CVUUS.

Website Maintainers

A core group of four to five organizers, including designated lay leaders and staff, coordinate and manage the CVUUS website. They have broad working knowledge of Unitarian Universalism and of CVUUS, and are comfortable with website technology. They may

  • Give CVUUS members and staff accounts with which to edit the site
  • Create, edit, and delete pages and uploaded files

Normally, website account holders are CVUUS staff, board members, committee chairs, and affinity group coordinators. To request an account, please contact the church office.

Website Editorial Guidelines

CVUUS website content will:

Currently all web pages are public. At this time, there are no discussion groups on our site.

Calendar

Because calendar management is essential for the coordination of overall building use, the CVUUS office administrator is the primary calendar-keeper. All event-scheduling is coordinating by the office administrator, so that they can make sure there are no calendar conflicts and no competing requests for space use. This avoids situations where committee chairs or individuals are posting events to the calendar directly, potentially bypassing the office. After the weekly news blast and the monthly newsletter, the office administrator, or a designated back-up calendar-keeper, posts events to the CVUUS  calendar.

Google Docs (Google Drive)

Note: Some CVUUS committees also keep basic working documents on Google Drive (drive.google.com). If your committee keeps working documents on Google Drive or elsewhere on the web, please make sure that the CVUUS office administrator knows and has permission to access that information.

When uploading files, and unless a file will need to be edited, it’s helpful to provide a PDF version in case people have trouble opening Word or other documents. Name files and images with easily identifiable names, using consistent terms for similar kinds of files. Files and images appear alphabetically in our website’s general list of files. They’re easier to locate, if needed, when names are basic, logical, and consistent.

Contact Information

Web page editors are encouraged to use official CVUUS contact information, rather than personal information, on web pages: office@cvuus,org, 802-388-8080, 2 Duane Court, Middlebury, Vermont 05753. This protects congregants from email spammers and unwanted phone calls, and provides content continuity when committee and Board leadership changes. It also avoids broken personal email links. Refer people to Breeze for personal contact information. Staff will decide which contact information to use for themselves on the website.

Privacy

Although CVUUS does not yet have a Board-approved personal and website privacy policy, privacy issues are very important to consider when authoring and editing CVUUS web pages. Please review The Website Privacy Policy Page of Your Congregation’s Website (UUA). See also Privacy Policy and Web Site Privacy Policy of the First Unitarian Universalist Church (Rochester, Minnesota) for helpful and detailed guidelines about the use of individual names, contact information, and photos.

Ask permission before posting:

  • Personal information about members (phone numbers, addresses)
  • Photos of members.
  • Note: For CVUUS purposes “members” means members and friends, including children. “Addresses” includes personal email addresses.
  • See, also, Contact Information above for preferred approach to providing contact information.

Editorial Style and Voice

When information is posted to the CVUUS website, it’s posted for all the world to read. The best web style is expository or journalistic, simple, clear, and direct, and above all, BRIEF.

Assume that your audience knows very little about the aspect of CVUUS that you’re describing. Provide basic information. Remember to spell out acronyms and abbreviations! For reference and for consistency, see the Unitarian Universalist Association’s Editorial Guide.

Recommended Practices

Observe copyright. Cite all sources of information, images, and other media.

Test links: Periodically test links on your web pages. If you find broken ones, let the office or a website editor. know Some sites and information may disappear entirely from the web, in which case, those references can be removed. In some cases, website information can be retrieved from the Wayback Machine, if it seems important to have for historical or other reference purposes.

Link URLs to words, whenever possible: This give a less cluttered look to the page, as raw URLS are often long and difficult to read.

Think carefully about link wording: When creating or editing a link, try to use a several words, a whole phrase, or the name of another page, book, or website rather than just the word “here” if you want to direct people to another site or more information. The single word “here” is very hard to search for and edit later on, especially among a lot of text, because that letter pattern occurs in many words. More importantly, a URL linked only to the word “here” is harder for people with visual challenges to spot and to understand.

Image captions: It’s a good idea to add an image caption to an image so that, later, if an image link is broken, we know specifically which image and not just any item referred to as “image.” This also helps readers understand more about the image.

Refrain from using personal email addresses, except for official CVUUS or other official email contacts. Email addresses can change and are also easily “harvested,” i.e., collected from websites for nefarious purposes. Use only the names of CVUUS people to contact for information about affinity groups, activities, or other matters. Direct people to our Breeze directory. In many cases, it may be cleaner and less repetitive to add a general note about Breeze at the top of or at an obvious spot on a web page.

Removing images or documents from our WordPress Media library: Be aware that if you remove an image or document from the Media library, it will create a broken link and blank space when that item is still in use on an active page. The active page needs to be edited accordingly.

Suggestions for Council of Ministries Leaders

When describing your team, group, or committee, consider including some of the following information. Many of the subtopics below are drawn from previous Leadership Development Committee forms. Information may be posted on a single page, but consider page length and layout. Related policies, procedures, documents, and UUA resources may appear on separate pages linked to your main page.

  • Name of team, group, or committee
  • Contact information (i.e., the church office)
  • Committee charge or group purpose
  • Key tasks, responsibilities, or activities
  • Skills, attributes, characteristics of committee members
  • Number and composition of committee members
  • Amount of time required
  • Length of commitment
  • Support and training needed
  • Succession planning
  • Committee budget needs—general overview
  • Committee calendar
  • Committee policies (as approved by Board)
  • Photos of committee activities
  • Other committee documents
  • Related UUA resources

UUA Website Resources