| Making an Account
Click on Make a New Account in the left hand column under About Us on the front page. The link is right above the fields for username and password. The link will direct you to a registration page, where you will be prompted to enter a user name and an e-mail address, and your password will be mailed to you promptly -- usually within 15 minutes or so.
For some, the reply email with your temporary password winds up in your junk/bulk mail. This seems to happen randomly regardless of your email service. If you have waited the 15 minutes, looked in your inbox and your junk/bulk mail box and still don't see it, Have No Fear! Send an email to progressiveblueblog at gmail dot com with your sign-up username and email address, and we'll send you a non-auto email back. This may take a little bit longer being humans and all, but it works!
Changing Your Password
In the Menu section in the upper right hand corner, go to (your username's) Page.
In the tabs on your page, click on Profile.
Underneath Profile, click on Email & Password.
There you can change your password. You'll have to enter your current password and then enter your new password twice and click Save.
Writing a Comment
This is where the fun begins! If you have any feedback for a diary, whether it's on the front page or in the Recent Diaries section, click on Post a Comment on the bottom of the diary. If you would like to respond to another commenter, click Reply on the comment you wish to respond to. After you write your comment, hit the Preview button before you post, just to make sure that the comment has no errors.
Please consider when writing comments that sometimes less is more. A comment or reply should enhance discussion or communication. In some cases, the best comment is the one written, but never sent. Please exercise discretion and make comments productive.
Rating a Comment
Note: Only Trusted Users are able to rate other comments. You will gain Trusted User status after posting a number of comments rated as Excellent by the community.
With regard to the ability to rate the comments of others, if you really find a comment helpful, insightful, or especially well-written, regardless of whether you agree with the comment, you may give the author a 3 or Excellent rating. If a particular comment was written in a way that strikes you as abusive or degrading the conversation, disrespectful, or void of substance, regardless of whether you agree with the comment, you may give it a 1 or Unproductive rating. If the comment is so offensive that it should be hidden from view, you may give it a 0 or Hide rating.
Please consider that rating of comments should be for that sole purpose, not as a basis for a popularity contest or to punish, except in appropriate circumstances when a 0 or Hide rating is necessary.
WARNING! Downrating comments based solely on disagreement will be considered ratings abuse and grounds for either loss of Trusted User status or banning the offender. Our bias is towards a progressive point of view, but we encourage respectful debate and dialogue no matter the point of view expressed.
Writing a Diary
If you've got more than a few sentences to share with us, even if it is in response to a diary or comment, by all means, put that down in a diary! Click on New Diary in the menu on the right hand side of the front page. Make sure that you Preview your new diary before you hit the Save button. When you have saved your diary, it will appear on the right side in the Recent Diaries section. Well-written, insightful diaries may be promoted to the front page.
When writing a diary, you can post it to one of the Subject Pages by choosing a Diary Topic in the Diary Topic drop-down list. If your diary covers more than one topic, you can post it to additional pages by inserting a tag that matches the name of the desired page. Please make sure your post is relevant to the subject page(s) chosen.
Copying from other Sources
1. Limited copying within the bounds of the doctrine of "fair use" is permitted. Note that quantity is evaluated relative to the length of the entire original and in light of the amount needed to serve a proper objective. A reasonable rule-of-thumb is that copying three paragraphs from a normal-length news article or editorial is acceptable. (This, however, is not a safe-harbor. If even three paragraphs seems like "too much," then copy less or nothing at all.) Lack of credit, or improper credit, weighs against finding fair use. For more on fair use, please visit this site.
2. When you quote material that is not your own, please provide a link or attribution to the source whenever possible. Also, use the "blockquote" tags to set off the copied material so that your own writing is distinct and apart from the material you are copying.
Using Tags Properly
Make sure that you add proper tags to your diary. Tags are terms that represent the content of your diary and make searching for diaries based on content much easier. Tags can be added for different sections as in the tabs. If you use the Environment & Science tag it will place your diary on the front page of that section. We believe grouping diaries in this way will make your experience much more enjoyable.
Also tags are used for specific purposes. For example, if your diary was on a vote by Russ Feingold in the US Senate, you might add Russ Feingold, US Senate, and roll call vote as tags.
You may write on whatever you wish within the bounds of our Community Guidelines. However, as this is a blog about progressive issues and candidates, you'll have a greater chance of getting a response if you write something along those lines.
Formatting
To embed a hyperlink, enclose the URL with the text you want to link to in square brackets, and separate them with a space.
Example: {http://www.progressiveblue.com/ Progressive Blue} (but with [ ] instead of { }) produces Progressive Blue
To italicize, surround the text you want to italicize with <i> on the left and </i> on the right.
Example: <i>your text here</i> produces your text here.
To bold, surround the text you want in bold with <b> on the left and </b> on the right.
Example: <b>your text here</b> produces your text here.
To strike a line through the text, surround the text you want struck with <s> on the left and </s> on the right.
Example: <s>your text here</s> produces your text here.
To underline, surround the text you want underlined with <u> on the left and </u> on the right.
Example: <u>your text here</u> produces your text here.
To blockquote, surround the text you want to blockquote with
<blockquote> on the left and </blockquote> on the right.
Example: <blockquote>your text here</blockquote> produces your text here
Please note that the difference between the opening tag and the closing tag is a slash in the closing tag. This tells the html code that that function is now complete.
For a more detailed account of the various diary features, you may want to check out this informative page at Soapblox.
A note of thanks to Clark and Show Me Progress for the template and help in creating this section.
Thank you for exploring and for participating here at EENR, and happy blogging!! |
