               [1]Billy-Bob Ming
             [2]Get The Good Stuff             * [3]Billy-Bob's Ming Server

                MingZine Manual

    The Ming Server's MingZine

    The Ming Server's MingZine is a  complete revenue-generating solution for e-publishers.  Content is previewed and sold  as
    dynamic pages containing either  complete works or  complete sets of smaller  works, such as  poetry collections. It  also
    includes a submissions queue accepting multiple types of submissions and overseen by multiple editors.

    MingZine is a superset of The Ming Server. For basic instructions  on how to install the The Ming Server part of  MingZine
    on your site, see the The Ming Server manual which is also on this site.

    This manual describes those elements of MingZine which have been added to the The Ming Server. The sections of this manual
    are:

      * [4]Overview
      * [5]Subsites
      * [6]Selling Digital Properties
      * [7]The Titheing System
      * [8]The Submission Queue
      * [9]The Editorial Queue
      * [10]The Open System

    Overview

    As a package The  Ming Server's MingZine  comes as the reduced  archive of this  site, which is running  on Linux. So  the
    package should install and run on any Unix system. All of the programming is done in Python. So the package should run  on
    Win32 and Mac servers too. Contact us at the email below if you have non-Unix OS issues and we'll iron them out.

    MingZine uses The Ming  Server's MingMods PayPal modules  so that not  only does the audience  buy the digital  properties
    directly from the author  but a percent  of those purchases  are diverted to the  site's PayPal account  to make the  site
    self-supporting.

    So straight out of the box, MingZine can:

      * run one or more sites internally;
      * sell digital properties, text or HTML;
      * divert a percentage of sales to any PayPay accounts in the titheing system;
      * accept submissions of new properties from the audience;
      * allow editors to request or reject those submissions; and
      * generate static pages of properties for search engines to harvest.

    Note: the example links below are The Ming Server's 3tml links without the leading at symbol.

    Subsites

    An important concept in MingZine  is the subsite. Most  websites come as a double  directory structure of public_html  and
    cgi-bin. The  first name  may vary  but  in any  case, the  web sites  park  their index.html  in public_html  and  create
    subdirectories and files as needed.

    MingZine uses the same structure.  But all of its sites,  whether you are running a  single self-publishing domain or  one
    hundred separate  e-zines,  are  all subdirectories  of  public_html/sites.  In  the distribution,  the  example  site  is
    public_html/sites/ludmilla.

    While you can have  general pages up  in public_html, MingZine  is designed so that  each subsite will  open a domain  and
    redirect the domain  into the  sub-site. In this  way, subsites  can move to  their own  site at any  time without  anyone
    noticing. You simply have your new provider update DNS and stop redirecting into the old site.

    MingZine doesn't care what you put in public_html or in cgi-bin. It works with files in cgi-bin/TheMingServer, data/sites,
    data/open, and dsta/private.

    Selling Digital Properties

    WARNING: At this time, only the Direct MingMods work with MingZine.

    MingZine uses MingMods to sell the digital properties. And MingMods comes with its own instructions.

    The Tithing System

    You can divert a percentage of the payments to the site's business or premiere PayPal account by using the tithing system.
    Each subsite MUST have a tithes.txt  with at least one line  in it. Each line in it  diverts ten percent of the  payments.
    Each line takes the form of:

      your_paypal_acct@some.com|description of this tithe

    The system diverts the first payment to the first line, second to second line, and so forth. When it runs out of lines, it
    sends the audience to the PayPal account of the property's author as found in the email section of the property file.

    The Submission Queue

    MingZine manages multiple submissions queues by subsite. Each subsite  can have a submission_types file. Each line of  the
    file takes the form:

      descriptive name|single_token_name

    such as "children's stories|childrens_stories". Entering a  line in this file allows the  audience to submit this kind  ot
    submission to the subsite. You must also create a link on a page in your site for submissions, such as:

      /cgi-bin/ming.cgi?page=open/submissions/submit/submit&params=ludmilla submissions page

    The "params=ludmilla" tells MingZine which subsite to use.

    The queue takes the name,  email, title and first  three pages or so  of the submission and  stores it in the  appropriate
    queue.

    The Editorial Queue

    Each subsite with submissions active needs a "editor_passwords" file. Each line takes the form:

      Editor's Name|password

    Editors can then log into this link:

      /cgi-bin/ming.cgi?page=private/submissions/queues/queues&params=ludmilla Queues.

    The drop-down box shows which queues have submissions. Once logged in, you can reject or request a submission.  Rejections
    write the title  and submission  time to the  site's not_chosen  file, which  is shared by  all subsites,  and remove  the
    submission from the queue. Requests move the submission to the pending queue.

    In the pending queue, rejections remove submission from the queue but do not write to not_chosen. Requests simply move the
    submission to the end of pending.

    This means that if you want to request a property, you have to take down the information and write an email to the author.

    You will need a link to the not_chosen list:

      /cgi-bin/ming.cgi?page=open/submissions/not_chosen/list submissions not selected

    The Open System

    Two things are made available to  users of an MingZine site: a  view of the tithes file and,  for authors, a log of  their
    sales.

    This link is used to show the tithes file:

      /cgi-bin/ming.cgi?page=open/tithes/tithes&params=ludmilla where the money goes

    and this for the sales log:

      /cgi-bin/ming.cgi?page=private/sales/request/request sales

    Author's need their name and password in the subsite's "author_passwords" with the usual format.

    WARNING: Authors must have a single password across all subsites.

                 [11]We Publish                          [13]You Publish                          [15]You Write
                 [12]We Publish                          [14]You Publish                          [16]You Write
                                                  [17]WHAT'S HOT ON BILLY-BOB?
          [18]Free Software Foundation                 [20]billy-bob ming                  [22]Creative Commons License
               [19]GPL'D Software                       [21]Our Founders                      [23]Copyrighted Works

References

   Visible links
   1. http://192.168.56.2/billybobming.html
   2. http://192.168.56.2/billybobming.html
   3. http://192.168.56.2/cgibin/ming.cgi?page=sites/ming/index
   4. http://192.168.56.2/cgibin/ming.cgi?page=sites/ming/03ezine/index#Overview
   5. http://192.168.56.2/cgibin/ming.cgi?page=sites/ming/03ezine/index#Subsites
   6. http://192.168.56.2/cgibin/ming.cgi?page=sites/ming/03ezine/index#Properties
   7. http://192.168.56.2/cgibin/ming.cgi?page=sites/ming/03ezine/index#Tithes
   8. http://192.168.56.2/cgibin/ming.cgi?page=sites/ming/03ezine/index#Submissions
   9. http://192.168.56.2/cgibin/ming.cgi?page=sites/ming/03ezine/index#EditorialQueue
  10. http://192.168.56.2/cgibin/ming.cgi?page=sites/ming/03ezine/index#Open
  11. http://billy-bob-ming.com/cgibin/ming.cgi?page=sites/billybob/breakfast
  12. http://billy-bob-ming.com/cgibin/ming.cgi?page=sites/billybob/breakfast
  13. http://billy-bob-ming.com/cgibin/ming.cgi?page=sites/ming/index
  14. http://billy-bob-ming.com/cgibin/ming.cgi?page=sites/ming/index
  15. http://billy-bob-ming.com/ghostwriter/
  16. http://billy-bob-ming.com/ghostwriter/
  17. http://192.168.56.2/cgibin/ming.cgi?page=open/logger/hits
  18. http://www.fsf.org/
  19. http://www.fsf.org/
  20. http://billy-bob-ming.com/billybobming.html
  21. http://billy-bob-ming.com/billybobming.html
  22. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/
  23. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/
