Help Desk - Using the blogs

A blog is a diary which can be added to at any time by the blogger and commented upon by other users. This will give you some assistance.

Guidelines

If you wish to write a blog we would offer you the following guidelines for your personal security.  Whilst your Persona page offers some personal information that allows other users to know a bit more about you, please bear in mind that this profile is only meant to provide some background to your posts and views. Do not include any specific information that allows other users to identify you. Giving out your full name, home address, or phone number is not recommended, neither is providing the name of your workplace or place of study. If you share any information about yourself online, be it on the Persona page, blog or forums, it could be collected and used by third parties to send you unsolicited materials.

Please also remember this is a public site visible by the whole world and his wife, including Uncle Tom Cobley and all.  Do not write anything you don't want your children, partner, family, neighbour, and every Tom, Dick or Harry to know about.

Please note too that the forum rules also apply to the blogs.  No advertising or soliciting is allowed.  No defamation or libellous allegations can be made.  Please read the rules before you start so you know what you may and may not include here.

Writing a blog

To write a blog you will need to be logged in to the site.  From your Persona page click on the blog tag under your profile.  This will bring you to your Blog Home page.  From here you can write a new post ie blog entry, view and edit your previous blog entries and approve any comments made by other users.

To start a brand new blog you will need to go to Blog Settings.  This page allows you to give your blog a main title (a bit like the title of a book), a sub-text (giving an idea of what the blog's about), a main picture and choose whether to allow comments: the parameters around which you'll add posts.

Write a new post

When you click on this, boxes will come up for you to complete. 

Post title: this is the title of your blog entry which should describe or at least hint at the contents.

Tags: these are words which will help anyone looking for blogs on a similar topic to yours to find it.

Post date: you can choose on which date it will appear on the site.

Body: in here you can put the main body of text.  I suggest you type it in a word document and then copy and paste it over into this box.  If you do so, any formatting of your text should be carried over.  If not, you can format the text using the tools under the text box (what these do are described in How to use the Forums).

Once you are happy with the text you can either save as a draft copy to be published later or you can click on Publish to put it directly up on the site.

View/Edit Posts

This allows you to see your blog posts and edit any of them as you may require.

Approve Comments

This facility allows you to approve any comments made about your blog by other users before they appear on the site if this is what you wish.

Blog Settings

This allows you to give your blog an overall title, a brief description of it and to select an image that depicts it.  This facility also allows you to set how many entries per page are visible.  It gives you the opportunity to say whether you wish to approve all comments about the blog before they are published on the site or allow them to go up immediately they are written.

Tips on Blogging

Here are a few tips on blogging:

Add a link to your blog in your community signature space, so that it appears on every post you make in discussion boards. Add it to any other signature space for any other online forums you use too, if that's part of your Internet diet. Then participate in these forums!

Controversial / in-your-face titles. Write a title that's the opposite of what people would expect (dull and predictable). Or write a title that takes a controversial or bizarre stance. Either way, write a title that's "in your face" and to the point.

Keep entries short. Don't lose your audience by having them nod off halfway through reading your latest exploits or views. Some entries might need more text to put across your thoughts, but in general try and keep your entries as short as possible. The longer an entry goes on for, the more people end up skim-reading; the less they read the less likely they are to comment. And you need to leave them a bit of room to express their own views; don't say it all!

Take a stand. Pick a side and stick with it. Argue as persuasively as you can, and then let the "yays" and "nays" fight it out in the comments. See above.

End entries with questions. It might seem obvious, but it does work. A specific question works best, as"What do you think?" isn't very inspiring.

Meat top, bottom, and in the middle. You've delivered a punch at the start of your entry to draw people in. You've added another killer question at the end to push them to comment. Don't forget the middle, as that's where you'll lose most of your lazy readers. Make a strong point somewhere in-between and your readers will have more choices over what to comment on.

Use your tags. Remember to set 5 to 10 tags for your entry. These allow readers to search for relevant content within your blog.

Reply to comments. In the early days you won't be getting hundreds of comments a day (if you do, you probably don't need to read on!) Even if all you're doing is saying "thanks for your comment!" you are building that all-important relationship with your active readers

Reply with relevant links. Don't be afraid to push readers to other entries in your blog. If someone has taken the time to comment, they might also be interested in an older relevant entry

Don't forget: the more you publish entries, the more readers you will have. If you want a successful blog you need to write a new entry every two or three days minimum. 

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