How to Post an Article on blogs.perl.org
When creating an article for blogs.perl.org, place only one or two paragraphs in the BODY section. This is the lead (pronounced "leed") to the article. Place the bulk of the article in the EXTENDED section.
The bulk of the article goes in the EXTENDED section.
Although this one's not too bulky. ;)
Image of BODY section: 
.
Image of EXTENDED section: 
wizard
Thanks for this, wasn't immediately obvious to me.
Why are the tabs labeled "body" and "extended" if we should really be using them as "lead" and "body"?
Perhaps you could explain why we should do this when stuffing it all in the body tab works just fine. Is it documented anywhere?
TIL... I have to say the UI is not very intuitive. Not to mention the choice of words (body vs extended).
Is the extended image in the extended section? Does this affect the ability to read the entire article in the RSS feed? Does a "Read More..." link get added automatically to both RSS and main page? I'd do some tests, but they'd spam up peoples' feeds.
No problem, I'll be glad to do it.
Thanks for providing blogs.perl.org.
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I didn't design this so redirect any complaints to Movable Type. The reason why you'd want to keep the BODY section small is so people don't have to scroll over a long article if they don't want to read it. Cutesy, that's all.
Seems like a poor decision by the MT folks. Blogging software should provide the functionality where it automatically finds the lead and uses it where appropriate instead of relying on users to know that it is 1) possible and 2) the polite thing to do.
BTW, I think you meant "courtesy" in your last sentence.
Thanks for writing this, Shawn.
I don't mean to offend or disrespect, but the reason I use an RSS reader is not just for notifications, but to also read the articles in it. I hate getting an article in the RSS that just has a few lines and then I have to click it, go to a website and read it there. I like reading it in my reader. :)
If I don't want to read it, I just press the button for next, which is "j" in Google Reader, for example. Shows me the next article.
Then fret not, because you won’t have to. All the Body/Extended dance does is make things nice to people scanning the front page of the site or of your blog. The newsfeed continues to carry the full text of the entry.
I’ve never seen a heuristic for finding a lead that produces acceptable results sufficiently reliably for me to like it.
Alright, I'm convinced! :)
I'll start using the Extended method the way Shawn described.
How to you get an account to write an article on blogs.perl.org in the first place? I just logged in with OpenID and cannot find a link to create an article.
After you sign in, at the top, the menu should end with "...| Edit Profile | Post | Sign out". Click on the Post.
This is good to know — I'm certainly going to use this from now on, even though, like Sawyer, I generally read BPO via RSS.
An OpenID sign-in alone is not enough, sorry. You have to register here. (Signing in with OpenID creates an account but does not set up a weblog for it.)
It would be also interesting to teach people how to enable anonymous comments on their blogs. This is in the "Registration settings".