What is Raising Kaine?
A blog (short for "web log") is a website in which journal entries are posted on a regular and chronological basis. Raising Kaine is a community blog about Virginia and national politics, written by and for the "grassroots" - in other words, normal people! The homepage of Raising Kaine (called the "Front Page") includes content written by people like you who are interested in politics.So, you're invited to join the community and to post your thoughts about your politics for the world to read!
While our community is made up of different political views and opinions, we generally consider ourselves to be Progressive. However, we welcome guests of all political views who engage in respectful dialogue.
How do I join the community?
To blog on Raising Kaine, you need a user account. If you do not already have an account, you can create one by filling in a desired username and a valid email address at the Registration Page. Follow the instructions on that page and in the subsequent email you will receive after submitting your desired username and working email address. (If you are using spam filtering technology, keep an eye out for the email in your spam folder).
The email will provide you with a temporary password that allows you to log-in to Raising Kaine as a user. Once you have that password, return to www.raisingkaine.com, and enter your username and password to log in.
If you forget your username or password, you can retrieve them by following the instructions on the Email Password page.
The password you receive by email will be randomly generated. After logging in, you may want to change your password to something easier to remember. In the Menu on the top right of the page, click on the link for your page. If your username is HarryP, the link would appear as HarryP's page. Next, click on the "Profile" link:
Then, click on the "Email/Password" link:
Finally, fill out the form to change your password.
How can I contribute to the community?
Now that you've joined the community, you have to be "logged in" to write on Raising Kaine. Whenever you are logged in, you can create your own "diary" entry or post a "comment" to anybody's diaries.
A diary is your own original write-up that will appear on the website. Think of a diary as a "mini-article" - click here for an example). To post a diary, click on the "New Diary" link in the RK Menu on the top left of this page and any other page on Raising Kaine. Fill in the Title, Main Test, and Extended Text, and pick a "Category" for your diary. If your diary is more than 3 or 4 paragraphs long, place the rest of the text in the "Extended Entry." For more tips on formatting your diary to look nice and read well, click here.
Once a diary is posted, it will appear in the "Recent Diaries" box in the right hand column of the front page and in the "Diaries" page (the "Diaries" link can be found in the "RK Menu" in the upper left of every page).
Any visitor to the site can read any diary by clicking on its title. Diaries can be "recommended" by "logged-in" users by clicking on the "Recommend Diary" button within a particular diary.
If enough users recommend a diary, it will be promoted to the "Recommended Diaries" box on the front page, which sits above the "Recent Diaries" box. Any of the bloggers who control the front page content may also elevate a diary so that they are displayed on the front page (called "promoting" a diary).
Comments are your reactions and responses to a diary. Just like with posting a diary, you must be a registered users to post a comment. To respond to a diary that is on the front page or the Diaries page, first click on the "Discuss" or "There's More" button at the end of a diary. Once within a particular diary, you can respond to it by clicking the "Post a Comment" link at the end of the diary. (If you access a diary by clicking on its title in the front page diary boxes on the left hand side, the page opens directly to the full diary and its comments).
Fill in the "Subject" (i.e., title) and "Comment" fields of your comment. Click on "Preview" to make sure it's formatted correctly. If your comment looks acceptable, click "Post." If not, revise your comment and click "Preview" again. Just like with diaries, you can use HTML formatting (see here for HTML tips).
How do we police our community?
While the vast majority of comments and diaries will be useful and civil contributions, some will inevitably be abusive in some way.
If you see an abusive diary, just contact us.
For comments, any registered (and logged-in) user can rate a comment - except their own. Some users can provide a rating between 1 and 4, while "Trusted Users" can also assign a 0 rating to a comment (more on this later):
Ratings are intended to help elevate those posters that consistently make clear, good arguments and points, regardless of content, and to prevent abusive users (or "trolls") from invading the message board.
In Internet terminology, a troll is a person who enters an established community such as an online discussion forum and intentionally tries to cause disruption, often in the form of posting messages that are inflammatory, insulting, or off-topic, with the intent of provoking a reaction from others.Don't give out negative ratings based on whether you agree or disagree with the arguments in the comments - this leads to a monolithic forum that lacks new ideas and input. Instead, save the lower ratings for true "trolls"! Comments with low ratings will eventually be deleted.
However, registered users who have a history of comments rated above a certain minimum and who have posted a sufficient number of comments become "Trusted Users." These users then gain added capability to rate comments below the normal minimum rating (in other words, their rating scale is 0-4, rather than 1-4.)
Note: This diary was updated by Rob on 12/28/2006.