The DU Journals are Finally Here!

[Skinner]

WHAT ARE DU JOURNALS?

Have you ever wanted to blog, but can't find the time? Are you intimidated by the idea of setting up and maintaining a blog? Are you looking for a way to attract visitors to your blog? Now you can maintain a blog while you post on the DU discussion forums! Introducing DU Journals -- a totally new and original idea that blends the best features of a discussion forum and a blog.

Use your DU Journal to highlight your best posts from the Democratic Underground discussion forums. Many DUers already have an impressive body of work published here on our website -- now you can easily publish all of it to your own individual Journal. Instead of just letting your hard work get lost forever in the flood of posts on the message board, you can now build an audience of people who come to your journal specifically to read your posts.


HOW TO ACTIVATE AND MAINTAIN YOUR JOURNAL

1. ACTIVATE YOUR JOURNAL

Every DU member can have a DU Journal. But you cannot use your journal until you activate it. Here's how:

1. Make sure you are logged in to Democratic Underground.

2. Click this link to activate your journal: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=activate

For most members, that activation link should be all you need to set up your DU Journal. After your journal is created, you will get a direct link to go to your journal and start configuring it. If there are any problems, the activation routine should prompt you with the necessary information to fix the problem. If you are unable to fix the problem, please feel free to ask questions in this thread.

2. CONFIGURE YOUR JOURNAL

Go to your Journal, and click the little link in the top-right corner of the page which says "Edit Journal." This will take you to the Journal Control Panel. You can also access the Journal Control Panel by clicking the "Options" icon at the top of most DU pages. In your Journal Control Panel, you can change the title of your journal, change the format, select from a few different skins (more coming soon), and select special "modules" for the right-hand column of your Journal.

3. ADD POSTS TO YOUR JOURNAL

To add one of your posts to your Journal, first find that post on the Democratic Underground discussion forum. There will be a little black link in the bottom-left corner of the post that says "Add to my Journal." You can add any of your own posts to your Journal. Even if you posted it months or years ago, you can add it to your Journal.

4. FINDING YOUR JOURNAL OR SOMEONE ELSE'S JOURNAL

After a Journal has been created, you can easily visit it at any time. There are a few ways to do so:

1. To visit your own Journal, just click the "Journals" icon at the top of any page, and then click the link in the center of the page that says "Go To My Journal."

2. Visit any member's Journal by clicking the small "Journal" icon next to their username on any post.

3. You can tell if a member's Journal has been updated in the last 24 hours by looking for the button on any of their posts. If you mouse over the button and wait a second, the time of the last update will appear. Click the button to go directly to that member's Journal.

4. You can visit any journal by simply typing the URL of the Journal into your web browser. The URL of any member's Journal is easy to remember. Just use this format:

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/username

That format will work for any username. We also have an optional alternate format for usernames with spaces. Just use a + sign instead of a space, like so:

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/username+with+spaces


LET US KNOW WHAT YOU THINK!

If you have any problems, questions, or comments about the new Journals feature, please post them in this thread. Our Journals FAQ is not available yet, but it will be coming soon.

Skinner, EarlG, Elad
Democratic Underground Administrators

[myrna minx]

1. You folks just spoil us more and more every day.

:toast: I love DU! Thank you for all that you do.

[Ivote]

3. What A Way To Go

You guys are fantastic
THANKS!
:kick:

[splat]

2. Is there any way to import earlier posts?

Hi, Earl,

Nice work.

-- Is there any way to import earlier posts to the Journal? (automatically, I mean.)
-- can one of the sidebar modules find and display links to earlier posts?

thanks...

[Skinner]

4. Yes!

Just find the post, and click the link in the bottom left corner that says "Add to My Journal."

[alcibiades_mystery]

6. I looked at earlier posts that are archived, and it doesn't have the link

To wit:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=613711

Bug?

[Skinner]

9. Thanks for letting us know.

It's fixed. Try it now.

[alcibiades_mystery]

11. Money

Release early and often. ;-)

Open source for better technology.

[Zorra]

41. I tried to search for some of my old posts, but

go absolutely nothing.

I am searching the archives, keying my name as the "Author's Name" and keying in keywords such as "Kucinich" or "Kerry" - subjects that I posted a lot about.

What am I doing wrong?

[Skinner]

42. You might try searching the GD Archives before 2005

They're here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=search_advanced&select_forum=104&search_archive=yes

[UpInArms]

5. I just have to say

you guys rock!

:yourock:

[DemoTex]

7. Cool beans!

Thanks, Admins! Another reason DU is the best political website by far.

[Mithras61]

8. Thanks for this!

It's really appreciated!

[tabasco]

10. Farm out !

Really cool ! :yourock:

[silverweb]

12. Very, very cool!

Thanks, guys!!

:yourock:

[izzybeans]

13. Done and Done. This is cool. I can remember what I've typed now.

and some of it is complete shite. But so what I added some oldies. Nobody reads them anyway. Masterbatory postings galor in my personal archives.

[izzybeans]

14. Can you comment on archived posting, as if it were a blog posting?

If so, then it'd be a whole lot cooler if you could my man.

[Skinner]

16. I'm not sure I understand the question.

You can add archived posts to your Journal.

[izzybeans]

21. Sorry, when I click discuss it takes me to the original thread and

if it is archived then I can not comment on it. Correct?

Some folks have posted some good info. that sunk or had some insights that are worthy of kudos.

[Skinner]

23. You are unable to comment to archived posts.

So, if a post is archived, you can't add any comments to it.

[OKNancy]

15. Kick!!

:hi:

[sakabatou]

17. Wow...

I'm enjoying this more and more!

[alarcojon]

18. When I first go to my journal, I go to a generic page

with a link to "alarcojon's archives" - all the editing I did only shows up when you go to my "archives." Shouldn't it appear when you first click on the journal?

[Skinner]

19. Read section 3 in my post above

Which says "ADD POSTS TO YOUR JOURNAL"

That explains how to add posts to your journal.

[alarcojon]

32. never mind

I posted a question, but it seems to have resolved itself.

[Canuckistanian]

20. Great stuff, thanks!

I'm gonna have fun with this.

[RazzleDazzle]

22. And how do you access it if you've turned it off?

Since I had nothing IN mine, I turned it off. Now that I want to put smoething in it, I can't get there. Not with the link to it, not with several other access options.

But, unfortunately, it still shows up on my posts that I've updated it (when all I'd done, really, was initiate it, which is precisely what I wanted to avoid).

I was also able to add a post to the blog, but STILL couldn't go there myself.

[Skinner]

24. From my post above

"You can also access the Journal Control Panel by clicking the "Options" icon at the top of most DU pages."

[RazzleDazzle]

34. That's interesting.

Well, SUDDENLY, there's now a nice line below the error message noting that the
journal is turned off which provides the option of turning it back ON, right there. Wasn't there before.

Much better.

[file83]

25. Sweet, my journal is up and running! Thanks for the help!

[Barrett808]

26. Very cool

I've already linked to a lot of my previous posts.

[muriel_volestrangler]

27. Excellent - an opportunity for us all to say

"I said this important thing, and no-one listened! I'm a genius, I tell you!" :evilgrin:

I love it - it's like being able to recommend your own threads (even if no-one actually checks your journal, we can dream everyone's looking at it, can't we?)

[file83]

28. I like the idea that if I'm a "fan" of someone else's posts, I don't have

to go searching for it under "advanced" search evertime. Now I just bookmark their journal...E fuckin' Z.

[Sullivan4Congress]

29. Thanks!

Thanks!

[muriel_volestrangler]

30. A suggestion - posts that are replies could include the OP's title

Something like, for this post:

The DU Journals are Finally Here! : A suggestion - posts that are replies could include the OP's title

Because the titles people use for their replies often only tell you something if you know what the whole thread is about. Maybe it would need a line break to look good.

The whole thing looks damn cool, though. B-)

[Skinner]

31. That's not a bad idea.

I'll discuss it with the other admins.

You can do this yourself if like. Go to your journal and click the link that says "Add/Edit Intro". Click that and you can add a short 250 character intro to any of your journal entries.

[muriel_volestrangler]

33. That 'Add/Edit Intro' feature does the job nicely, I think

I should have known you had already anticipated this ...

[immoderate]

35. Thank you. This is great. Can I...

arrange journal entries by topic? Forgive the naive question, but I haven't explored it yet.

--IMM

[Skinner]

36. There is currently no feature that would do this.

But you could try creating your own module which organizes your posts by topic.

[kentuck]

37. That's cooler than shit, Skinner!

:)

You all are "pioneers" in Internet programming!

[skids]

38. Phew. Just in time!

The URL for my 1000th post was JUST ABOUT to rotate out of my weblogs.

[DeepModem Mom]

39. THANK YOU!

This is so great -- I think tears are welling in my eyes. Just sent the link to my nearest and dearest.

[Strong Atheist]

40. Never mind. Self delete. nt.

[Octafish]

43. Thanks, Skinner, EarlG and Elad!

How much do I owe you?

[cantstandbush]

44. This has to be the coolest site on the Net!

Thanks for all your hard work everyone!!!