To blog or not to blog, that is one of the questions...
[Refreshed and republished due to increased interest in becoming an OA blogger]
Blogging is easy. Using OA Blogs is voluntary. The blog entries are publicly visible (on the Internet and web-crawled by Google et al). Blogging is mostly about sharing news and views, on any subject you wish to cover. So if you want to easily and voluntarily share your opinions with all and sundry, you're at the right place...
A few questions have been asked about blogging by those teetering on the edge of enlightening the wider world with their thoughts. What follows is set of a questions and answers. If you have a question that is not covered below, post it as a comment and an answer will be provided in due course!
Q. How do I blog on OA Blogs?
A. A few answers to that one. Practically you need an account on the blog server; then select "Login" from the top right corner and login. Once you are in, the main menu lets you create a blog (you can have more than one; see later for why you might). Once the blog is created you can add entries. If you want to use more advanced layout in your entries and don't know HTML, you may find it easier to set your preferences (upper left tab) to set "Weblog editor page to be used" to "editor-rte". That's it. Go...
Q. How do I get an "account on the blog server"?
A. Through requesting one from IT support. At some point we may move the accounts management to the central system at which point it would be the same username and password as for everything else. In the meantime you get have to pick a different one; this username appears on the blog entries you post.
Q. What are categories?
A. Categories are used to define subject areas for your blog. This can be done on a macro level e.g. "Archaeology", "Cooking", "Politics". Alternatively the macro separation can be dealt with by having multiple blogs and the categories used for finer divisions e.g. a blog for a particular project and the categories set as "Finds", "Environmental", "Geomatics", "Synthesis", etc..
Q. How do I create/delete categories?
A. When creating or editing entries there is a Categories option in the menu bar. This allows you to delete, edit or add categories.
Q. What subjects am I allowed to blog on?
A. Basically more or less nothing is off limits. Staff should refer to the staff handbook for general guidance and the computers acceptable usage policy. Others that have been granted blog space should ask for guidance if they have any concerns about blogging on any particular subject. To get an idea of the topic ranges that other company blog servers cover, go see blogs.sun.com.
Q. Can I share a blog?
A. Yes, absolutely. Once you have created a blog, you can add members using the preferences section. This might be particularly useful/relevant for a blog on a specialist area or on a particular project. This idea is getting a lot of interest, if little actual blogging!
Q. Is humour, controversy or innovative content necessary in a blog entry?
A. Yes. No, not really! People do blog on all manner of things, to the extent of it being more of a diary than a pulpit or attempt to educate and inform. Many bloggers do use the opportunity to sound off and as a result entries tend to be controversial; others just like to share their humourous views/experiences of the world. But it is not required by any means.
Posted at 08:34AM May 23, 2008 by Chris Puttick in General | Comments[2]
Q. Why should I blog if people don't read it? Isn't that a bit like Catch22, or chickens and eggs?
A. That argument doesn't make much sense to me, simply because the analogy doesn't fit. This isn't a chicken-and-egg "what came first the bloggers or the readers?" because, obviously, the bloggers have to come first; you can't read something that hasn't been written.
People have told me that they won't write anything because it's not read. But nothing's read until it's written, so the argument doesn't really hold water.
"Blog it and they will come"
Posted by Joseph Reeves on October 29, 2007 at 07:11 PM GMT #
Just as long as you don't write anything to offend Mr Morrison or the half naked indian.
Posted by Braveheart on May 23, 2008 at 04:25 PM GMT #