Introduction

A simple step-by-step approach to setting up your network23 blog.

  1. Log in to your admin panel using the details you were sent when we created your blog.
  2. Remember that you’re not using wordpress.com, so any accounts or settings you have there won’t work here. We run the same software as them, which is known as wordpress.org – that’s why the screens look so similar. You can however export your wordpress.com blog, and others, and import it into network23.org
  3. From the menu bar on the left, choose ‘Users’ > ‘Your Profile’. Here you should set your preferred language, change your password to something unique, and if you want, upload a picture to use as an avatar. We don’t recommend Gravatar, or filling in all the personal information fields, but it’s your choice.
  4. Under ‘Users’ > ‘Add New’, invite people who you want to help or interact with your blog. You can give them different roles depending on what they need to do and how trust works in your group. Having at least one other administrator, who must be someone you really trust, is essential if you want your blog to keep running if something bad happens to you.
  5. If you’re moving your blog from somewhere else, activate the ‘wordpress importer’ plugin and follow its instructions.
  6. Under ‘Appearance’, choose a theme that you like the look of. You can change it later.
  7. Have a look at the available plugins. There are some plugins here that we used to think were OK, but no longer recommend. We’ve kept them so as not to break sites that are relying on them already. These are the ones to avoid:
    1. Akismet Anti-Spam
    2. Captcha by BestWebSoft
    3. Events Manager
    4. qTranslate-X
    5. WPtouch
  8. If you really need some functionality that the themes and plugins provided don’t give you, get in touch and we’ll try to find a solution. We do sometimes add new themes and plugins requested by users, cautiously.
  9. If you haven’t used a wordpress blog before, read some basic guides about creating content with wordpress, for example here.
  10. Always remember, people will only read your blog if they know about it. Consider putting your URL on fliers, posters, emails, and posting links to your blog on whatever social media you use.

That’s about it for the basics – get blogging!

If you want to continue reading, we also have help pages on:

Using your own domain with network23.org

SSL certificates

FAQ