SF.gov newsletter
September 2023
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Hi SF.gov editors,
Bringing you the September edition of our newsletter with announcements, trainings, publishing tips, good reads, and more!
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SF.gov outage on Sept 14
SF.gov was inaccessible due to an infrastructure outage on September 14. The complete outage took place from 9:53am to 11:26am and affected all SF.gov users.
This issue was caused by an outage on our hosting platform Pantheon. All SF government sites hosted by Pantheon were impacted. This includes SFUSD, FlySFO, SFBOS, and SFMTA, among others.
Once SF.gov came back online, there were no lingering issues.
In response to this incident, Pantheon is implementing preventative measures that should ensure outages of this nature and scope do not occur again.
We apologize for any inconveniences caused by this outage.
Read the full SF.gov outage report.
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Share your SF.gov feedback
Tell us what it's been like working on SF.gov so that we can make the experience better for you. We've put together a brief survey to learn about editors’ experiences. Take the survey by Friday, October 6. It'll take you about 10 minutes.
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As a thank you, this is what we'll do:
100 responses: Digital Services team members will put on our silliest hats for a photo in the next SF.gov newsletter.
150+ responses: Researcher Jennifer Ng (right) will make ice cream! And you can suggest flavors. Btw, her ice cream is pretty great - she's written a book about ice cream around the world!
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SF.gov homepage spotlight
Do you have an upcoming announcement that you'd like us to feature on the SF.gov homepage? Contact Liz Avalos to find out if we can promote it!
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GET HELP
Training and support
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Sign up for trainings
Visit our bookings page to view our schedule and sign up for:
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SF.gov concepts and structure
- Working in the SF.gov content management system
- Writing for SF.gov
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THE LATEST
What's new for editors
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Google search
It might take a little while for your new page appear on Google Search. This is because Google needs time to crawl it, and more time after that to index it.
Google Search works in 3 stages:
- Crawling: Google downloads text, images, and videos from pages it found on the internet with automated programs called crawlers.
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Indexing: Google analyzes the text, images, and video files on the page, and stores the information in the Google index, which is a large database.
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Serving search results: When a user searches on Google, Google returns information that's relevant to the user's query.
So if your page isn't showing up right away, don't worry! That's normal. It typically takes anywhere from a day or two to a few weeks.
Learn more about Google's crawling and indexing process.
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PUBLISHING TIPS
Best practices
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Alternatives to "click here" for descriptive link text
"Click here” is not accessible nor useful for people using screen readers, or anyone skimming your page to quickly find what they need.
Screen readers read link text down a page, so if you use "click here" on multiple links on a page, the software will read out "click here click here click here click here."
It doesn't help people get things done.
Since blue underlined content already indicates that content is a link, describe the action you expect users to take on the destination page.
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✅ Do for links
Download a list of approved lenders
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| ❌ Don't do for links
Click here to upload your documents
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GOOD READS
What we're reading
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Making the case for sentence case on USAGov
When creating content for their newly reimagined websites, the USAGov content team spent many hours researching topics, analyzing data, and writing user-friendly copy. They also spent a fair bit of time thinking through one small, but impactful detail: What is the best case style to use for titles and headings?
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Building Digital Experiences for the American People
Digital is now the default way the public interacts with their government. More than ever, digital experience is central to Federal agencies’ mission delivery and our government’s ability to serve the American people. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released policy guidance to Federal agencies which will transform the way government communicates with the American people digitally to ensure it is providing information that is easy to use, trustworthy, and accessible.
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Hope to see you on Teams! Happy editing!
Thanks as always for being fantastic partners, getting services and information to all San Franciscans.
Liz, Persis, Sharon, Joanne, Bridget, Wat, and the SF.gov team
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