Local Body Website Policies

Revised 2004/9/12 e.v.
by Craig Berry, Internet Secretary, US Grand Lodge OTO

Every US local body of OTO is encouraged (but by no means required) to operate a website. A website provides a useful contact point for your body, and is also an easier and cheaper way to showcase local interests, talents, and achievements than a paper newsletter. We fully expect that local body websites will excel in creativity, diversity, and novelty. However, as these sites also represent the Order as a whole, there are a (very) few simple policies governing them.

If ambiguous or marginal cases arise in the application of these policies, or if you wish to stretch the boundaries, please feel free to contact the Internet Secretary at webmaster@oto-usa.org.

The policies set forth in this document are intended to increase the value of local body websites to OTO as a whole. As such, the gravest penalty for violating many of them will be that your site will not be linked from the USGL body list. Our hope is that local bodies will comply with these policies as an exercise in collective magick, with each local body site contributing its own thread to a harmonious and beautiful tapestry.

Domains

If your local body site will have its own domain (e.g. "ahbh-oto.org"), that name should ideally consist of the local body name followed by "-oto". The domain should not include the body type ("camp", "oasis", "lodge"), as this will become obsolete if the body is ever reclassified. If your domain name differs from this pattern, please get prior approval from the Internet Secretary to ensure that there are no issues regarding trademark conflicts or the like. (Bodies already using other domain naming styles as of 2003/5/1 are considered pre-approved and may continue using such domains indefinitely.)

Ownership and access

Website hosting should be paid for and controlled by the body rather than by any one individual. In all cases, at least one person other than the local body webmaster must have both legal authority and appropriate access information (including passwords) to modify or remove the site on minimal notice if necessary. At least one person holding such authority and information must be a primary officer (Master, Treasurer, or Secretary) of the body.

Should a local body with a website be closed or suspended, or if otherwise directed by USGL, the Master and officers of the body are responsible for immediately either taking the site entirely offline, or modifying it in a way which leaves no suggestion that it is an official OTO site. If the body is closed permanently and the site is hosted at a domain having the "-oto" suffix recommended above, use of that domain should be phased out at the earliest opportunity. Meanwhile, extra care should be taken to warn visitors explicitly that the site is no longer officially sanctioned by OTO.

If desired, site access information may be placed "in escrow" with the Internet Secretary, who will store it securely, and provide or use it should unforeseen circumstances leave the local body unable to manage its own site.

Required content

Given the enormous scope for innovation and creativity in website design, it is impossible to specify where and how content items must appear. A pure Flash site has no "front page" per se, a site may have a text-free "splash page" as its primary entry point, and so forth. Therefore, this set of requirements is phrased in terms of relative prominence and ease of access. On more traditional sites, the intent is that prominent information appears on the "main page", and that easy-to-find information is either on that same page or clearly reachable via a link from that page. More unusual sites will be evaluated on a case by case basis.

All local body websites must make the following information prominent:

The name of the local body, as chartered by the Electoral College.
The letters OTO (with or without periods) or the words "Ordo Templi Orientis".
The location of the body (city and state). If the body is in a small town or unincorporated area which is part of a better-known metropolitan region, the latter may optionally be given here.

All local body websites must make the following information easy to find:

The contact email address of the body.
The contact postal address of the body.
A link to the US Grand Lodge website primary URL (http://oto-usa.org/).

Content restrictions

No copyrighted content may appear without prior permission from the copyright holder. Proper copyright notices must be displayed if required.

No content which violates or advocates the violation of OTO USGL policies may appear. See the Camp, Oasis, and Lodge Masters' Handbook for details.

No content which could reasonably be expected to expose the OTO to risk of legal action (civil or criminal) may appear. This involves judgement and discretion. If in doubt, contact the Internet Secretary, who will discuss the proposed content with other USGL officers and advise the local body on how best to proceed.

Responsibility

The local body Master is responsible for all content appearing on that local body's website, so it is suggested that Masters review all site changes for conformance to these policies.

USGL Listing

There are two ways for your site to get listed on the USGL website.

The local body Annual Report Form submitted to the Electoral College includes an entry for the local body's website URL. Each spring the entire body contact database used by the USGL contacts page will be regenerated based on ARF information.
If your body launches a new site or changes to a new URL between ARF submissions, send an email to bodyinfo@oto-usa.org describing the change. This will serve to notify both the EC and the webmaster of your new information. If there are no problems, your site listing should be added or changed within about two weeks. If your site hasn't appeared on the list by then, and you haven't received any email from a USGL officer explaining the delay, please feel free to send a second (or third...) gently prodding email.

Suggestions

The following are suggestions rather than policies, to be followed or ignored as you will.

We suggest that you design your site with accessibility in mind. Simply using standard, validated HTML is a good first step in this direction; this makes your site easier for tools like screen readers (and incidentally, search engines) to deal with. Then consider your choices of font sizes, colors, and so forth. For example, dark red letters on a black background will be all but invisible to many even slightly vision-impaired people. These can be used for striking header and caption text, but consider using a higher-contrast color pair for body text.

Unless otherwise marked, graphics appearing on the USGL site are available for use on local body sites. Feel free to create your own, of course, but you are also welcome to use these.

If your site includes material that should change over time (most typically, event calendars and time-sensitive announcements), make sure to keep it up to date. A "Calendar of Current Events" with the last event being a year ago sends a poor message about your body.

Subscribe to the relevant official and semi-official mailing lists, blogs, and other communication channels covering local body policies and OTO-related web issues. These change over time, so I won't attempt to list them here. Contact the Internet Secretary for suggestions if needed.