Outreach Material Guidelines

Thank you for making outreach materials for NYC Mesh! When making outreach material or working on other projects for NYC Mesh, keep some things in mind:

• The "shelf life" of physical and digital literature given to possible members and volunteers is longer than one might expect. It may be weeks, months, or even a year before someone comes back to a flyer, card, or link you send to them today!
• What would happen if tomorrow, you win the lottery and moved from NYC to Hawaii? Will everything you started with NYC Mesh continue operating as expected while you enjoying life at the beach?

The Problem

The issue is that links added to documents or outreach materials can become out of date over time. This leads to members being directed to pages that 404, or have incorrect and out of date information.
For example, directing people to a hard coded google forms link, vs a NYC Mesh page that embeds or links to the google form. Doing it via the hard coded google link means that we can't later change that link if we need to replace the form later.

Suggestions

Try to plan for your creations to outlive yourself (or your time volunteering for the mesh at least). Try to think about the fact that someone might still have this flyer you're making stuck to their fridge 6 years from now. What needs to be done to make sure the links and information on that flyer are still accurate?

Here are a few suggested practices:

1. Share the templates/materials for your awesome new outreach material on the wiki so that others can benefit from it in the future. Included editable version in addition with the final export, so someone who needs to edit your work later can do so easily.
   
2. Only include links within the NYC Mesh organization domains. (This includes QR code links.)
   
   1. For example, include nycmesh.net/your_new_thing or something.nycmesh.net
   2. If you need to link to a Google Form, link to our website first, then link that to the form.
      1. For example, link to nycmesh.net/volunteerform, then have that link forward to forms.google.com/yourform
   3. Do not use external link shorteners. (Tiny URL, Goo.gl etc.)
      
   4. Ask in #outreach if you'd like assistance setting this up.
3. Prefer to add content to existing sites (such as nycmesh.net) instead of creating new standalone or independent sites. Reach out in #website if you need help adding a page to the website for your project.
   
4. Never include email addresses on documents that do not end in @nycmesh.net
   
5. Make sure NYC Mesh has the rights/license to use any images/artwork included in the outreach material.
   
   1. For photos not taken in public (ie, on the street, at an event, etc) ask for permission before using the photo. Don't use photos from inside member's homes without explicit permission from the member.
6. (Future when practical) For email references, request and use shared mailboxes instead of referencing your own @nycmesh.net mailbox. Ask in #outreach if you'd like assistance setting this up.