Creating a New Memorial Post

If you hear about someone or know they are missing from this archive, please create a new memorial post for them.

This page covers the general process for creating a new memorial page if someone from our community has passed. Please ensure that before you create a post that you have confirmation and an obituary or other information from the next of kin.

This post is based on the basic jekyll instructions for a new post.

Create a New File

Each memorial post is a new blog post in the Jekyll system. Please use the date of death (as best determined) for the name of the file, along with the name of the person.

The format ought to be: YYYY-MM-DD-nameofperson.md

As an example, for Gareth Swanepoel, who passed on 8 Jan 2021, a post is created with the name: 2021-01-08-garethswanepoel.md

The file ought to be created in the /sqlmemorial/_posts folder.

File Structure

The current structure of files includes the following sections:

  • heading
  • obituary
  • memories from friends
  • contributions to the community

The top of the file has the heading, which isn’t visible to users, but is used by Jekyll in building the site. The heading in the file ought to be include this data:

---
layout: post
title:  "In Memory of Gareth Swanepoel"
date:   2021-01-14 00:00:00 -0500
categories: memorial
---

The title should be changed to reflect the individual’s name. The date/time should reflect the date/time of passing. For now, the category for these pages is the memorial.

Official Obituary

Below this, the first heading should include the person’s formal name and title, i.e. Mr. Gareth Swanepoel

You can include an offical picture here, and I would style this with HTML and set an appropriate size.

Include an obituary or statement from a close friend here.

Thoughts and Memories

Under this heading, include an H2 heading with the text “Thoughts and Memories from Friends”. The text under this section ought to be items submitted by individuals that knew the person. You can link to blog posts or other notes from individuals.

Contributions to the Community

This section ought to have links to the individuals LinkedIn, Twitter, blog, and any work they’ve done. You can also include author pages if appropriate.

File Format

The file ought to be in markdown format. This will be converted to HTML by Jekyll during the build process.

A markdown cheat sheet can help you to format the text.

Other Items

If there are other items to include, please alter this page and submit a PR to update the guidance for all future posts.