Page Intro: If the term “blog” is new to you, you may find this page useful. First of all a blog is publishing platform used as a communication tool — one that encourages visitor/reader participation by allowing them to comment — and even post stuff like links, automatic functions, and more goodies — in response to the various articles or “posts.” Visitors can also subscribe to the Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feed, trackback or pings, and bookmark the specific post to one of the social bookmarking services. Confused yet? Don’t be. To comment you need to actually know none of this. It’s here if you want it.
Responding to Entries (Commenting)
The posts on the front page of our Bug Blog will normally be open to comments. We will close comments after the posts migrate from page one to page two and into the deeper paged archives. This might change over time.
Because of this ability to post, you can now share your thoughts, present your ideas, even offer a correction or expansion to the author. Just try to stay on topic and be considerate of others. Following these rules, your comments will be approved and published, but will not be edited, even if you disagree with something in the article. We welcome your comments and opinions (and will also consider articles submitted by others).
- To comment — the first time, anyway — you are required to enter a name. This will appear on the posts. You may use a pseudonym if you don’t want to divulge your identity. Using your real name, however, is preferred.
- You will also be required to enter your email address. This will not be displayed and your privacy will be respected. Nobody will email you. (Never post an email address in your comment. If you do it will be removed.)
- Lastly, you may also enter a web site address if you have one. If you do, your “name” will be a link to that address. Please note that the link will contain a line of code telling search engine spiders not to follow your link. Posting a comment is not the way to better your site’s page rank.
It should be noted, if you’re a first-time commenter, your response will be moderated. And, at any time, if your response includes a link (not including your name, if applicable), it will require moderator approval. This is done as a first line of defense against spam. We have a zero-tolerance spam policy here. We know how to recognize spam, and we know how to enforce this policy. If you’re a spammer, stop wasting your time, and keep your ‘bot on a leash else we’ll run it over with a our pick-up truck. [Intro]
Allowable Mark-up
If you decide to comment, you can use certain HyperText Markup Language or HTML. This is used primarily to provide additional meaning to your text. You may use the following mark-up:
- Link or Anchor Element:
<a href=""></a> - If you enter a plain web address it will be turned into a link. Otherwise you may use the code above to create a link. Example:
<a href="http://website.com/">Website Name</a> - Blockquote Element:
<blockquote></blockquote> - Use this element to quote the author or someone else. Example:
<blockquote>
This is the text you're quoting.
</blockquote> - Strong Element:
<strong></strong> - Use this if you want to add importance to a word. This makes the word bold. Example:
<strong>Your important text</strong> - Emphasis Element:
<em></em> - Use this if you want to emphasize a word — add inflection. This makes the word italic. Example:
<em>Your emphasized text</em>
There are a couple of other elements like <code></code>, <abbr title=""></abbr>, and <acronym title=""></acronym> (and others, even) that you can use, but we didn’t figure you’d really want to deal with them too.
Automatic Functions
It should be noted that site performs some functions for you so you don’t have to code at all — in addition to making URLs (and email addresses, which you shouldn’t post) live links. For instance, if you hit Enter once, it’ll create a line break. If you hit it twice — creating a space between lines — you’ll have created a new paragraph. Tah-dah!
It will also turn some plain characters or combinations thereof into character entities. Three consecutive periods (...) will create an ellipses (…). Also three consecutive hyphens (---) will create a proper m-dash (—). There are a few other conversions for quotes and what not, but just write normally and you’ll be fine. Plain text rules!
Additional smilies or emoticons are available as well as a slew of other character entities. Both of which are posted in a table on the next page. [Intro]
Really Simple Syndication
One of the benefits to this type of blog is its Really Simple Syndication or RSS feed. See the orange link on or menu, that’s so you can subscribe to it. How this is done varies by your browser. On the Firefox* browser, for example, you subscribe by adding the feed address to your bookmarks. By doing this it becomes a live bookmark. If you’re a subscriber, and we post, the title and link to it will show up on your bookmarks list. It’s a great way to stay current.
Want to learn more? This resource, “Understanding this RSS Thing” might help. Ready to get started? Subscribe right now. [Intro]
*(Internet Explorer 7 and later are also RSS-supporting.)
Trackbacks or Pings
This is a site-to-blog, blog-to-site, and blog-to-blog function. If you don’t have a blog you’ve probably never heard of it and don’t care. That’s cool. No need to deal with it at all. If you know what it is then you know what to do. If you are really just the curious type, this Wikipedia entry should help clue you in. [Intro]
Social bookmarking links
Below the full blog posts and at the bottom of most pages you’ll see some icons and links in a box leading to places like Del.icio.us, Digg, Stumble Upon, and Technorati. These are what are known as social bookmarking sites. If you are part of one of these, these links will let you “bookmark” specific articles or pages of content you deem worthy of sharing with others.
To learn more about this, the maker of that particular bookmarking plugin offers an official help page. [Intro]
Authors/Contributors
Although we offer no guarantees of publication, we welcome blog contributions and will look at submissions. Our submission guidelines are as follows:
- The work should be original and published nowhere else on the web or any other media including print.
- Works must be submitted in digital form. Email, text file, etc. We will not transcribe printed submissions.
- Works must be free of rights management. Know that it will be posted indefinitely in our archives. You will not be directly compensated for your work.
- Be sure to use our writing conventions: punctuation inside quotes; spaces before and after m-dashes; no spaces before ellipses, etc.
- Be sure your work is in English (the Queen’s or ours) and is spell-checked and written well.
- Articles must fit into one of our current categories.
We have no limits on lengths, but try to be reasonable. We hope you’ll Contact Us to get submission details. We look forward to reviewing your works. [Intro]
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