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.ph...

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 "Journal Control Panel." 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...

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

Thanks for setting this up!

thanks!

For now, we want to let it float a little so people can see it.

Nothing like adjusting the framework, eh?

Neat stuff.

20 minutes - this is fun!

But I expected yours to be red and white -- y'know -- blood is red and gauze is white -- stop the bleeding???

Kiss! Kiss!

Thanks, Skinner and all. I've been holding blogging software FOR A YEAR without time or skill to use it.

I have been looking forward a lot to this, and had taken half-hearted steps to start a blog, but this seems so much better, given DU's built in community audience.

If you can distinguish me from the rest of DU, you may recognize that I have been posting a lot more recently to the 9/11 forum. I'm generally not interested in more unlikely scenarios like pods, holograms, weather control, "no plane at the Pentagon," etc, but focus on connections between intelligence services and flows of capital before and after 9/11.

My question is, given the stringent enforcement of segregating 9/11 postings to that forum, will it be permissible to discuss the 9/11 truth movement in one's journal? I am not interested in creating a journal solely or even mostly about 9/11, but given my interests, it would definitely come up from time to time.

Your thoughts would be appreciated.

to the rules for the message board, because everything in your Journal has to be posted to the message board first. So if it's okay for the board, it's okay for your Journal. You can add posts to your Journal from anywhere on the message board, including the 9/11 forum.

I think in the 9/11 forum, there is a feeling that people who rely on evidence and media reports want to somehow separate out from pure speculation. Having a journal will be an immense tool in creating a coherent body of writing that is separate from the concrete-core, no-plane, pod, hologram posts!

there isn't anything there! When I click your journal link I get like next page, previous page, but no page. Is that a bug?

now. Or is it Drama Queens Anonymous.



Oh, I'll just do a little one . . .


*****
seriously though, another great dimension of DU - Thanks Skinner!

Thanks Skinner.

you're too kind!

waaah!

Next to where the Alert link is. The "Add to your Journal" link will only appear on your own posts.

I have numerous old bookmarked posts that I would like to add. The little red arrow is there, but there's nothing next to it that says "Alert" or "Add to my journal".

It should be fixed.

There's no option in the lower left hand corner to do so. Is there a cut off date? Some of the posts are old.

You should be able to do it now.

But otherwise it's great!

Right now everyone is creating a Journal. When the rush dies down a bit, the icon won't appear quite as frequently

However, I seem to have broken it already. I sent Elad an email. I apologize ... Oh, and on edit: No hurries!

On second edit, that's the error message. My feeling is it's because I turned the 'Show Greatest' to 'No.'

Query failed: SELECT * FROM dcforum WHERE status = 'on' AND () ORDER BY forum_order ASC, name ASC

Hopefully it will be fixed soon.

I am sure people will really enjoy them. I look forward to seeing all the creative uses people put them to!

A to the Admins for the coolest new DU addition in a long time!

Is there some way you can incorporate DU's Friends List into this?

For example, a list similar to the Most Viewed/Last Updated/Newest that shows the people that are on your buddy list, along with the date of their last entry?

In fact, we have dozens of great ideas for the journals. But it might take a while for us to program all of it.

Wasn't this already a bitchen enough environment. Why are ya'll complicating matters? Are you seeking something I don't see? Honest question. Thanks.

You have no journal pages showing, although you must have turned it ON at some point, because the icon shows up.

If you don't want to journal, you don't have to.

This allows us to create a page for ourselves, out of our own posts, and be able to direct others to it. It expands the universe of people who now have a entree to the Democratic Underground, and to the things that we individually want to say.

I've already had my first experience with it and for me, it's great. It will save me faxing paper or sending disks and tapes of my reviews to movie publicists.

I'm delighted. Your mileage may vary -- but again, I'd suggest you go to the control page and turn your journal OFF so it doesn't show the icon next to your name.

In peace,

Radio_Lady in Oregon

That was simple, and fun... amazing how customizable you guys have made it.

Much easier than setting up my blog, that's for sure!

Thank you SO MUCH for this fantastic addition to DU, Admin!!

post something? i can't figure that out. can you help a fool who has never posted a bloggie or journal before?

(what do you do to write something? what do you click? where is it? can you help jen?

You can't write something new to your journal, you can only add posts you've already posted on DU first. At least, that's the way I see it working.

After you write and post something (either an original topic or a reply) to DU that you want to add to your journal, go back to the post, and click on "Add to My Journal" at the bottom of your post. That's all you have to do. You can go back and edit/write an introduction to the post that will only appear in your journal, as well.

The DU Journal is like a collection of your "Greatest Hits." The stuff you wrote for DU that you want to compile in one easy-to-find-and-read spot for everyone.

It's the coolest thing!

If you want to personalize your journal more, there are modules that let you add your profile, links to your favorite blogs, your favorite forums, your favorite DU Journals... you can even choose your own design to make your blog reflect your style. Admin has set up several pre-made skins, or, from the looks of it, you can make your own, if you're good at that kind of thing.

I think it's amazing, and long overdue. Go play around with it and you'll get the hang of it quickly!!

you just posted. So I guess you have a clue. I don't get the journal thing either, but I know how to post here, as you do too.

Thanks so much for this. DU continues to amaze with its features.

With the "short blurb" option, all the formatting (inc. line breaks) is gone from the main journal page. (formatting does appear in the full entry).

Alternatively, consider adding a "Title + Intro Text" option so the intro can explain the title further without having badly formatted first-few-word chunks.

Thanks!

It looked funny when the blurbs were not all uniform.

I don't understand the "Title + Intro Text" option. Could you explain a little more?

for example, go to mine and there is the title, then intro text, then the entry.

that you want an option that is somewhere between "Short Blurb" and "Title Only" which permits you to include an intro, but does not include a blurb. I think I understand.

Thank you for your amazing work on DU, Skinner, you're a gem!

Now if I just had something to say.

Found it.

of your posts, next to the Alert link. Bear in mind that it only appears on your own posts, you won't see it on other people's posts.

If you want to fill up your Journal quickly, just do a search for your own username using the DU search function. You can add any of your posts from the past to your Journal.

I was looking on the Journal page, because I am, in fact, a moron.

Thanks.

On my screen, the "Add to my Journal" link appears on the bottom left of the post, just to the right of "Alert."

This is the coolest new DU toy ever.

Yes... my other bottom right

.....I haven't figured out yet what to do in order to actually start writing. This will be absolutely great though!!

So do I need to post an article in the DU forums FIRST before it will appear in the Journal, or what??

Guess I don't really have much to say that will be very interesting except I'd like to find out if anyone else is going through the same political reevaluation as I am. Guess I'm also a tad afraid of getting flamed during this reevaluation process too.

OK, I wait your answer/s

Then you can add it to your journal.

The threads that link back to the journal are long dead...and should people want to comment, how do they do that??

If the thread is locked or archived, then people can't respond to it.

I say stupid shit.

I'm looking at it as a opportunity to expand my DU thread-starters and looking absolutely brilliant one day Heh.

Yeah, even my Lounge triumphs

but it may be years before I have anything to add to it.

This makes it easier for those of us who have TOO MUCH TO SAY! Goodness, I didn't know I have posted over 4,000 times. No wonder my sex life has suffered.

yours was the first journal I clicked on the journal page to see "what they look like". It was easy from there

PS: I did a 3 month search on myself, and just posted my favorites so far, ya'know, the ones that make me look "smart" and a few

I did the same thing. Yours looks awesome btw!

to emulate you.

Learning at age 66 is GREAT fun!

See you around the DU!

Radio_Lady in Oregon

Have never been able to figure out my blogspot account, so this certainly scratches that itch...Thanks Team DU

I already tried activating mine, and it worked great. Good instructions too.

Thanks!

It pays to post in slower-moving forums because a lot of my stuff that I have put in my journal is still open and could theoretically be responded to. Conversely, I've been reading a couple of other people's journals and have been DYING to respond to their thread which is long since locked. I suppose this effect will fall off in time.

Can't believe you can add both your threads you start AND your posts. That is totally freaking cool. This is going to be SO MUCH FUN!

Wish that you could add people's favorite journals to a list of your bookmarks somewhere, so you could get to people's journals you like just by clicking. Yes, you can type, but it IS hard to remember people's usernames sometimes...... HEY. Could this finally be a use for the "Buddy List" ??!!

You can add your favorite journals to the blogroll module on your Journal. Then all you have to do is visit your journal, and you can click on the links on your blogroll.

Another option is to add your favorite members to your DU buddy list. At your suggestion, I asked Elad to add the journal links there.

I plan to send the journal link to some friends and relatives who don't spend as much time online as I do. Maybe they will get hooked on DU, too.

Although it may be a little while before I get started on one, I'm looking forward to having a journal. But I'm MORE excited that I'll be able to read other DU'er's journals - we've got some ultra-talented members, and when everyone gets their bits posted together in one place, it's gonna be HUGH!!!

Thanks Skinner! Thanks EarlG! Thanks Elad! You guys ROCK!

Don't get me wrong, I love Kos. But now, for the first time they have a competitor.

Comprehensive thread system + Educated Liberal membership

Match made in heaven.

Great job guys. Congratulations.

I've heard Daily Kos mentioned a couple times on NPR and they pronounced it "Koz". I always figured it was pronounced "Chaos". Made sense to me...

started out pronouncing it like Caw-zh as in Kos-sack so still think of it that way.

JOURNALS ARE A GREAT IDEA!!!



Fun!!! Whoopee!!

I get this error:

An error was encountered:

That journal is turned off.

Go to your journal now. There should be a link that you can click to turn it back on.

My first journal post:

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/brainshrub/1

Good work guys!

that I haven't bookmarked? There's a lot of things I wish I could read again. This looks cool. Thank you.

Click the icon at the top of the page. Search on your username (make sure to search the archives).

This is so totally cool! Thank you DU!

Peace and Love and Light To All!

Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

I'm willing to admit that I often fall in love with my own writing and my own message posts, but I still get a certain amount of non-self-masturbatory enjoyment out of the posts of others here on DU.

I think it might be a good idea if we could directly reference other people's posts in our own journals.

Of course, I could always just clutter-up the message threads by replying to someone and saying, "Hey, that's great. I'm replying to your message so I can link to this in my journal. Meanwhile, here are some pictures of kittens."

Now that these are finally done and out there, we can start working on enhancements. So your idea about referencing other people's posts could certainly happen.

AvantGo has been kind enough to roll-out a free RSS Reader for the PalmPilot / PocketPC crowd.

Some RSS feeds are more PalmPilot-Friendly than others.

For example, it is nearly impossible to read the DU RSS Feed through AvantGo.

Some feeds that work fairly well on AvantGo:

http://www.buyblue.org/rss.xml
http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/index.rdf
http://massresistancewatch.blogspot.com/atom.xml
http://feeds.dailykos.com/dailykos/index.xml

If the RSS feed didn't truncate the messages, then there would be no need to click on the "Full Article" link.

That would be enough to make the DU RSS feeds "good enough." Just stop truncating the messages.

Right now, AvantGo gives me an error when I do that. "Bad Request. Your browser sent a request that this server could not understand. The number of request header fields exceeds this servers limit. Apache/1.3.34 server at journals.democraticunderground.com Port 80"

Even when it's not broken, clicking on "Full Article" gives me pretty much unreadable stuff on most blogs, including DU.

As more and more people start relying more upon portable data devices like The Blackberry and web-enabled cellular phones, this issue will become more important.

The journals are awesome! Keep up the good work, Skinner!

Thanks

This is the neatest thing since-Sliced Bread!!!!!!

I just wish I could post directly to my journal without posting it in another forum first..

But I changed my mind. My thinking now is that if we all write posts in the Discussion area we feel are worthy of being highlighted on our Journals, then the level of discussion and the quality of the writing on DU overall will become something truly to be proud of. I don't know if this is what the admin have in mind, for sure, but I sort of remember something about this being an aim this year. I think it's a good way to go about it.

This will be good.

Just an idle suggestion - since we can't (yet) add non-post entries, could you look at adding a "journal entries" forum? It would be off everyone's radar as far as the normal groups are concerned, but would allow posts (and discussions thereof) for people's thoughts for the journals...

Of course, we could all use the lounge instead - no-one would notice...

We're considering it.

unless it is eventually changed so that we can post directly to journals, i would like that group

This journal idea is THE STUFF!! Thank you so much for all you do. What a fantastic online community we have and this journal feature will only bring us closer.

I'll make sure to put the video links in this journal

for one reason or another...I like the way they argue (even if I don't agree), I like their idiosyncratic quirkiness, their breadth of knowledge, grasp of a subject, writing style, sense of irony, passion of idea, etc, etc.

Sometimes I apprehend a style, thought, conviction of a particular poster and want to read more by them.

As more of a reader than a poster, I really like this feature. Hopefully, more of my favorites will be opening their journal here so I won't have to check all the time to see if they're in the discussion.

Thanks!

This is a great feature. I'm sure it will be a great channel that lies between the forum posts and the DU headliners. I look forward to finding a few journals to follow. In the meantime, the forums look like this:











I believe this is called The Turnpike Effect -- The availability and unforeseen utility of a resource leads to greater use than was predicted. Availability shapes demand.

Hmmm... maybe I should create a journal about this.

I'll try it out.

Just out of curiosity. Does that place have any features like this? Does it still look like the same shade of cow vomit it did before?

I'm so happy I don't have to search through the 5 million threads I've bookmarked to refer people back to earlier posts I'm building on.

Here's a -- one each for Skinner, EarlG, and Elad!

On edit:

I have a couple questions.

First, I have a post back from the days when I was jinuu, before the name change amnesty. It give me an error when I try to post that thread to my journal. Is there any hope for posting my old thread?

Also, can I post a thread from one of the groups? Right now only members can access those posts, but there are a few I'd like to add to my journal for the public to view, if possible.

Also, the text on my photo posts runs right off the side of my screen, as if there were no auto text wrap code.

Thanks again!!

It's at the end of the post.

lol... thanks!

But this sure does!

Naval-gazing was never so fun!

re-order the entries???
I can't find one.

in reverse chronological order. It can't be changed.

Did that make sense in the short version?

This is an inspired idea. Congratulations and thank you all.

Forgive me if it's too obvious but....... what would be the best way to go back and add posts so they are in consecutive order? Just do it or are there any tricks?

Thanks again

When you add it to your journal does not affect the order.

Wishing continuing success to DU............. oh yeah-- and Dems, too!

DU, Skinner, EarlG, Elad

It's cliche and been said many times before, but bears repeating...

MKJ

It shows that you guys who run DU are really commited to the (frequently-misused) concept of "building a community" online.

I salute you for this and all of your efforts in making DU the wonderful place that it is.

Redstone

ya done real good here.

History will thank you.

I wonder, is this an original? It will be when our bunch gets their spaces going.

To pull everything into one spot. What a blast.

I'm afraid to start messing with it, I may never emerge again.

create the most incredible website in the world? Absolutely an amazing addition to the site, and hats off to all of your hard work. This is going to be SO much fun to play with and take DU to another level. It was fantastic before. Now....well,...

It's funny....year after year, freerepublic looks the same, and DU just keeps getting better and better. Not that that's any surprise.

What an excellent idea!!

Thanks, Skinner!!

n/t

Very good sw again, folks!

Yet another reason DU is my favorite website!

And are they available for hire?