Fix-The-Grid Website Post Contribution Guide

Fix-The-Grid Website Post Contribution Guide

Overview

There are two methods by which you can contribute to Fix-The-Grid’s blog posts:

1. Email Turibius (current maintainer, turibius@bu.edu) with your unformatted post, any images/links to include, and your name.
2. Make posts yourself on FTG’s Github page.

This guide covers the latter:

1. Getting access to contribute posts to the website.
2. Making a post.
3. Submitting the post.

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Getting Access

This step should take less than 4 minutes on your part:

1. Go to https://www.github.com.
2. Click ‘Sign up’ on top right.
3. Enter your email, password, username. Remember to save your password somewhere safe!
4. Verify your email.
5. Email your username to current maintainer at turibius@bu.edu.
6. At some point within 2 business days, check your mail box for an invitation link. Accept on ‘view invitation’, and then accept it.

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Making a Post

1. Open the _posts folder on GitHub. Direct link to posts
2. Click on ‘Add file’ near top right, and then ‘Create new file’.
3. Follow the “Post Guide” below.
4. Submit a pull request (a review request).
5. The site owner reviews it, approves any changes, and publishes it.
6. You are notified when your post goes live.

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Post Guide

1 — Naming

In the name field at the top of the editor, type your filename in this exact format:

YYYY-MM-DD-your-post-title.md

Rules:

• Begin with the post date: YYYY-MM-DD (e.g., 2026-05-14)
• Use only lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens (-)
• No spaces, capital letters, or special characters (!, ?, &, #, etc.)
• End with .md

✅ Good	❌ Bad
2023-03-22-solidarity-work.md	Soliditary Work.md — spaces, no date, uppercase
2023-08-23-global-power-up.md	2023-08-23 global-power-up!.md — space and !

2 — Write Your Post

Copy the post template from below into the editor. Replace all placeholder text with your content. See Formatting Reference for help.

---
title: "Your Title Here"
date: YYYY-MM-DD HH:mm:ss +0000
author: your_last_name_lowercase
categories: ["Action"]
---

## Your Main Heading

Write your opening paragraph here. You can use **bold text** and _italic text_ anywhere
in your content. You can also add [a hyperlink](https://example.com) using that format.

### Another Section Heading

Add more paragraphs and sections as needed. Leave a blank line between each paragraph.

### Inserting an Image

![Description of the image here](/assets/images/your-image-filename.jpg)

### Embedding a YouTube Video

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VIDEO_ID_HERE"
frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Available categories — choose exactly one, replacing "Action" with your choice:

• "Technical Analysis"
• "Action"
• "News"
• "Technical"
• "Events"
• "Commentary"

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Front Matter Fields Explained

The block at the very top of every post (between the two --- lines) is called front matter. All four fields are required.

Field	What to enter	Example
title	Your post title in double quotes	"Summer Blockbusters Ranked"
date	Post date and time	2026-05-14 10:00:00 +0000
author	Your last name, all lowercase, no spaces	smith
categories	Exactly ONE category from the list, in brackets and quotes	["Action"]

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3 — Submit as a Pull Request ⚠️

Scroll to the bottom of the editor page to the “Commit new file” section.

1. Optionally type a short description in the first box, e.g., Add post: Summer Movie Review.
2. Select “Create a new branch for this commit and start a pull request.”
3. Do not select “Commit directly to the main branch” — this bypasses the review step.
4. Click Propose new file.
5. On the next page, click Create pull request.

Done! The site owner will review and publish your post when it is ready.

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Formatting Reference

Bold and Italic Text

Style	Type this	Result
Bold	**your text**	your text
Italic	_your text_	your text
Bold + Italic	**_your text_**	your text

Headings

Use ## for main section headings and ### for sub-sections. Do not use a single # — that level is reserved for the page title.

Hyperlinks

Format: [Visible text](https://the-url.com)

Example: [Visit Google](https://google.com) → creates a clickable link reading “Visit Google”

Images

Image already hosted online:

![Description of the image](https://example.com/image.jpg)

Uploading an image from your computer:

1. Navigate to the assets/images/ folder in the repository.
2. Click Add file → Upload files.
3. Upload your image. Name the file with lowercase letters and hyphens only (e.g., summer-poster.jpg).
4. For this upload step only, committing directly to main is acceptable — image uploads do not affect the site layout.
5. In your post, reference it like this:

![Description of the image](/assets/images/summer-poster.jpg)

Tip: Always write a meaningful description in the [ ] brackets — e.g., [Protest Outside Of ISO-NE]. This helps screen reader users and improves search engine visibility.

Embedding a YouTube Video

1. Find the video ID in the YouTube URL — the part after ?v=.
   • URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
   • Video ID: dQw4w9WgXcQ
2. Paste the embed code below into your post on its own line. Replace VIDEO_ID_HERE with the actual ID.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VIDEO_ID_HERE"
frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Bullet Lists

- First item
- Second item
- Third item

Numbered Lists

1. First item
2. Second item
3. Third item

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Common Mistakes to Avoid

Mistake	How to fix it
Missing --- in the front matter	Both --- lines must be on their own line with nothing else on it
More than one category selected	Use exactly one, keeping both the [ ] brackets and " " quotes
Using Tab key in the front matter	Use the spacebar — tabs break the formatting
Committing directly to main	Always choose “Create a new branch → Pull request”
File not in _posts/	Confirm you are inside _posts/ before clicking “Create new file”
Spaces or capitals in the filename	Lowercase, numbers, and hyphens only — no spaces
Forgetting .md at the end	Every post file must end with .md

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