Our webmaster manages the website’s technical resources and behaviors (in the “back end”) that support the messages and content (on the “front end”). The actual content is created and managed by the members of various organizational teams of volunteers. You need basic familiarity with WordPress back-end and ability to follow the WordPress release notes and comments to decide when to apply an upgrade. You don’t need to know it ALL already because the creator of the website is willing to provide a bit of free coaching.
This position is currently vacant. If you are interested please contact
the Guild president, Lyn Kennison
Details
- Webmaster is the person/people who knows the structure of the website and how the main players (WordPress, Ultimate Member, WooCommerce, and MailChimp) share information and coordinate with each other. The lifecycle of a membership subscription is the product of their activity. Your knowledge of the basics of this collaboration is what allows you to see where somebody has made a mistake or missed an important process step when they contact you for help with an apparent problem, and quickly get them back on track.
- Occasionally bail out a member or volunteer who has made an error that requires an Admin to repair their account or do an action that exceeds their credentials.
- Perform basic maintenance such as installing, testing and deciding whether to implement software updates as necessary.
- Check the WordPress Dashboard weekly for updates to the WordPress core, themes, and plugins.
- When one of the above items shows “Update Available”, read its notes to see whether it is a major or minor update. If minor, run the update to one resource at a time, then visit the site to make sure nothing is obviously broken. If major and you have a concern about the risk, wait a week or two (unless it is a security update) then search the web for complaints about the recent update. If it has been clean, go ahead with the update. A good place to look is WordPress.org > Support > then find the plugin by name and see what the most recent tickets say.
- Manage the email forwarders: (very simple editing task but requires access to the TigerTech hosting account). When a new volunteer comes on board, create one or more forwarders so they can receive notifications of form submissions and other messages, without their personal email being exposed to the public. Likewise, remove the forwarders of departing volunteers. After annual Board elections, update the Board’s group forwarder. If a new committee is formed, they may need a group forwarder.
- In conjunction with the Treasurer make sure payments for plugins, hosting, and the like are kept current. Know the basics of the web host’s daily backup system in case the site ever needs to be restored from one of the backups (hasn’t happened yet in over 5 years). Maintain the list of all logins, passwords, plugin developer help contacts etc. (Keys to the Kingdom). See that the Treasurer’s copy of these items is also kept up to date every time something is changed. Must be given a reasonable time to make such changes (anything under a week is not reasonable).
- If someone (probably a web-help volunteer, see teams) reports a problem with website or email behavior, let them know you’ll look into it, get more info from them if needed, and try to replicate the reported behavior. Then try to find the cause. Check the date of the last update to any related plugins and read their update note to see if the problem is related to a recent change in the plugin. Look for reports of the problem on the plugin’s page on WordPress.org > Support. Check the web for similar reports and workarounds. If broken in a way that must be fixed and you can’t do the fixing, make a report on WordPress.org > Support on the plugin’s page.
- The Webmaster will not be requested to make major changes to website structure for at least 1 year. A volunteer or team might propose modifications to some part or process of the website that can be done by adjusting one or more controls in WordPress or a plugin. Webmaster would provide the knowledge about feasibility, time and effort required, and tradeoffs that might result from the requested change. After reaching agreement about what should be done, webmaster would make it so by making the change and testing it. Examples: How many posts to show per page in an archive view; Different image for the background of the sitewide header and footer; order of the items within a menu. Some of these examples would take under 5 minutes to implement after the decision is agreed. Other things may take a couple of days to change and troubleshoot. In that case they should be properly specified, budgeted, and paid for.