UNODA Meetings Place – Workflow and Style Guide
Workflow
To create a page for a new meeting, the following steps must be followed:
- Log on to the WordPress editor: https://meetings.unoda.org/wp-admin/
- In the left navigation column, select: Meeting -> Add New
- Enter the URL slug and click “Save draft” from the top menu
- Enter the mandatory fields (see below for descriptions)
- Title
- Meeting type (e.g. name of the body)
- Session year
- Start date
- Overview page
- Enter the optional fields
- End date
- Session
- Click “Preview” to see the page in your default web browser without publishing
- Click “Publish” from the top menu to make the page appear on the live server
URL slugs
URL slugs are the part of the web address that appears after the domain address, i.e. after https://meetings.unoda.org/. URL slugs must be created for all meetings, including those hosted on external websites, like PaperSmart.
The convention to be followed is: <body>-<meeting type>-<meeting>-<start/session year>
- e.g. npt-prepcom-2019
- e.g. gge-ndv-2018
- e.g. bwc-mx-2020
Common acronyms and abbreviations should be used as much as possible to limit the total length of the URL and to maximize search engine optimization. These should generally make use of the relevant elements from the corresponding tags from the table below.
There should be no spaces in the URL.
All letters should be lowercase.
For meetings pages hosted outside Meetings Place (i.e. on un.org/disarmament/):
Check “Yes” on “Is External” and enter the full URL of the meeting homepage
Titles
Meeting titles should include the short name of the body/treaty/instrument and, separated by a hyphen with one space on either side, the short title of the meeting type.
- e.g. Biological Weapons Convention – Meeting of Experts
- e.g. Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons – Amended Protocol II
Titles SHOULD NOT include acronyms or session information (dates or ordinals).
Meeting types are not applicable for bodies that meet exclusively in plenary or to subsidiary bodies of meetings (e.g. working groups, committees).
Meeting type
Meeting types corresponds the “body”. See table below under Tags.
Tags
Within each body/treaty/instrument, users will also be able to filter by meeting type. The tag (not the title) will be the primary way in which a meeting is categorized by the database. Each meeting must be assigned a tag, corresponding with its meeting type. The following tags are available (if an additional tag is required, please contact the administrator):
| Body | Meeting type | Tag |
| First Committee | (N/A) | C1 |
| Conference on Disarmament | (N/A) | CD |
| Disarmament Commission | (N/A) | UNDC |
| Conference on the Middle East Zone | (N/A) | ME-NWMDFZ |
| OEWG on ICTs | (N/A) | OEWG-ICT |
| OEWG advancing nuclear disarmament | (N/A) | OEWG-ND |
| OEWG on SSOD-IV | (N/A) | OEWG-SSODIV |
| Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty | Review Conference | NPT-RevCon |
| Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty | Preparatory Committee | NPT-PrepCom |
| Biological Weapons Convention | Review Conference | BWC-RevCon |
| Biological Weapons Convention | Preparatory Committee | BWC-PrepCom |
| Biological Weapons Convention | Meeting of States Parties | BWC-MSP |
| Biological Weapons Convention | Meeting of Experts | BWC-MX |
| Biological Weapons Convention | Ad Hoc Group | BWC-AHG |
| Biological Weapons Convention | Special Conference | BWC-SpCon |
| Biological Weapons Convention | Special Conference Preparatory Committee | BWC-SpConPC |
| Biological Weapons Convention | Formal Consultative Meeting | BWC-FCM |
| Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons | Review Conference | CCW-RevCon |
| Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons | Preparatory Committee | CCW-PrepCom |
| Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons | Meeting of High Contracting Parties | CCW-MHCP |
| Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons | Group of Governmental Experts | CCW-GGE |
| Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons | Amended Protocol II Conference | CCW-APII |
| Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons | Amended Protocol II Group of Experts | CCW-APII-GX |
| Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons | Protocol V Conference | CCW-PV |
| Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons | Protocol V Meeting of Experts | CCW-PV-MX |
| Convention on Cluster Munitions | Review Conference | CCM-RevCon |
| Convention on Cluster Munitions | Preparatory Meeting | CCM-PM |
| Convention on Cluster Munitions | Meeting of States Parties | CCM-MSP |
| Anti-Personnel Landmine Convention | Review Conference | APLC-RevCon |
| Anti-Personnel Landmine Convention | Meeting of States Parties | APLC-MSP |
| Programme of Action on Small Arms | Review Conference | SALW-RevCon |
| Programme of Action on Small Arms | Preparatory Committee | SALW-PrepCom |
| Programme of Action on Small Arms | Biennial Meeting of States | SALW-BMS |
| Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters | (N/A) | ABDM |
| Groups of Governmental Experts (all) | (N/A) | GGE |
| Workshops and other events (all) | (N/A) | Event |
Session information
Session year (mandatory): For all meetings, the four-digit year must be inputted into the “Session year” field before the meeting page is published. Input the year in which the first official meeting took place. The year will appear in parentheses (YYYY) on the right-hand side of the list view.
Start date (mandatory): For all meetings, the calendar date of the first official meeting must be inputted into the “Start date” field. Either select the date from the menu that appears when clicking in the text box or paste in the following format: M D, YYYY (The WordPress editor uses US date style. The full name of the month is spelled out. No leading zero for single digit days). Meetings are sorted by start date in the list view.
End date (optional): The calendar date of the last official meeting.
Session number (optional): This is ONLY for conferences, committees and other meetings that serially number their sessions (e.g. the seventy-fifth session of the First Committee), the session number will appear before the year. Session numbers should also be spelled out: e.g. First session, Second session. The ordinal number is uppercase, “session” is lowercase. This should be left BLANK for meetings that only use the calendar year to identify their sessions.
Overview page
Any content included in the section underneath the title (text, tables and images) will appear on the homepage for your meeting. This content will also appear in the list of meetings when a “see more…” is clicked. It is recommended that any basic information that users might seek be accessible on the overview page, including hard links to essential documents, such as: information notes (pre-session); agenda and work programmes (pre-session and in-session); and outcome documents (post-session).
Links to official documents
In general, all existing documents for disarmament meetings, whether contained in ODS, on Lotus servers or on AWS, will be migrated into the Documents Portal. Accordingly, there is no need to systematically migrate documents into Meetings Place.
Meetings Place should be used, however, to highlight key documents that users would expect to find or require expedited access to. (See “overview page” above for examples.)
Documents contained in ODS should use the following: http://www.undocs.org/<symbol>
Documents listed directly on Meetings Place (in addition to the Documents Portal) should generally appear as follows: <Document title> – <Symbol>.
The entire symbol is hyperlinked. If a symbol is not available, include the date, which should be hyperlinked instead.
Other resources
UN Web Style Guide: https://www.un.org/styleguide/
Tips for using the WordPress Editor
In the list of Meetings:
- Clicking on the “Tag” for meeting will filter the list by that tag
- Clicking on “mine” will filter the list by meetings you have created or edited