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By popular demand, here is a brief guide to using OpenLeft.
New here? Sign up for an account!
You can read all you want here at OpenLeft without a free account, but if you really want to get the most out of the experience, and to do things like posting comments or writing your own diaries, you’ll need to register.
Registration is easy, and even better, it’s completely free. And we mean free. Not only does it cost nothing, but it’s also hassle free and spam free.
To register, click on the register link in the Menu at your right. Create a username and password for yourself to complete the process. Your account will be activated immediately.
With your new account you can post comments on stories, write quick hits, and write your own diaries, all covered in detail below.
Join the discussion! Leave a comment.
The easiest way to get involved with OpenLeft is to start leaving comments. Comments are online discussions with the other members of the Open Left community. Before you dive right in, we’ve just got one ground rule:
Be excellent to each other!
To leave a comment, click on the title of a diary on the front page or the “There’s more…” or “Discuss” hyperlink at the end of the post. This will lead you to that diary’s individual page.
The comment section begins where the diary ends. Browse through what’s already been said to see where the discussion has already been. To add your own thoughts, you can either:
a) Reply to a comment
To reply to someone else’s comment, simply click the “Reply” link at the end of their comment. Your comment will appear indented underneath the comment you replied to.
b) Write a new comment
To write a new comment, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the “Post a Comment” link. Your comment will appear at the end of the list of comments.
Either way you choose, the process of writing a comment is the same. Fill in a subject for your comment in the “Subject” box, and fill in your comment in the “Comment” box. You can use basic HTML in the comments, and you can use the “Bold,” “Italic,” and “Quote” links to format your comment automatically.
When you are done, click “Preview” to preview your comment how it will look on Open Left, or click “Post” to post your comment.
Rating Comments
If you find a comment that is particularly inciteful, or you find a comment that is breaking the rules of OpenLeft, you can alternately “Recommend” the comment to others as something worth reading, or “Troll” a comment that breaks the rules.
To do so, simply use the drop down menu at the end of every comment that is originally labeled “none.” Click the drop down menu, choose either the “Recommend” or “Troll” rating, and let go of your mouse button.
Writing Diaries
OpenLeft is an open community that allows users to create their own posts for everyone to read. These posts – and all posts on OpenLeft – are called diaries.
To create a new diary, simply click the “Write A Diary” link in the Menu in the left sidebar. Choose a title for your diary, and tag it with relevant keywords separated by commas.
Write your thoughts in the “Main Text” and “Extended Text” windows. Anything you write in the “Main Text” window will appear on the diary list page, and anything you write in the “Extended Text” window will only appear if a user click over to that diary’s unique page.
You can use basic HTML to format your diaries, as well as the “Bold,” “Italic,” and “Quote” buttons below the entry windows.
You can also add a poll question to your diary if you like by filling out the poll boxes.
When you are done, click the “Preview” button to see how your post will look on OpenLeft. If you are satisfied, press the “Save” button to publish your post.
You can edit your dairy after it has been published by clicking the “edit diary” link on the diary page. You can delete a diary by checking the “delete” box at the bottom of the page when you are editing the diary.
Quick Hits
Quick hits are little tidbits of information – mini diaries if you will – that OpenLeft members want to share with the community. Often quick hits are little more than a link and a sentence of text as a description.
Quick hits are listed chronologically as they are created in the right sidebar. You can view a list of all quick hits by clicking the “View all recent Quick Hits” link at the bottom of the sidebar list.
On the resulting page, you can view all quick hits and add your own. To add a quick hit, click the “add quick hit” link at the top of the page. Enter your title and the text of the quick hit, then click “Preview.” If you’re satisfied with how your quick hit looks, click “Save” to post it for all to see.
Users who can post Quick Hits can also delete them. We ask you not to delete Quick Hits, however. If you see a Quick Hit that you feel should be deleted (spam, not relevant, defamatory, etc…), please notify site administrators.
Tracking Users and Comments
You can find out more information about a specific OpenLeft user by clicking on the link containing their username. The resulting page will let you view that user’s diaries, comments, and public profile.
If you particularly like a post a user has written, you can add that post to your Hot List by clicking the “+” link next to the post’s title. View your Hot List by clicking the “Hot List” link in the Menu in the left sidebar. Use your Hot List to keep track of good posts to remember for later, ongoing discussions, and the like.
If you like what a user has to say, you can subscribe to their diary feed. To subscribe to a user, click on one of their diaries and click the “subscribe” link underneath the diary title. To view new diaries by users you have subscribed to, click on the “Hot List” link in the left menu and click the “Subscriptions” link at the top of the resulting page. This will show you a list of new diaries by users you have subscribed to. You can edit your subscription status or clear the list from this page as well.
Advanced Navigation
There are many ways to find what you’re looking for on OpenLeft. The easiest is the search function. To perform a search, simply enter the terms you are looking for in the search box in the right sidebar. Choose whether you want to search for terms in the Dairies or in the Comments, and click “Search.”
You can click on the “Advanced Search” link for more options.
You can also find what you’re looking for through the OpenLeft tagging system. At the end of each diary is a list of tags that identify what that post is about. Clicking on the tag will bring up other posts with the same tag. You can browse a list of the most commonly used tags in the right sidebar, under the label “Hot Tags.”
You can also browse a lists of featured or new diaries right sidebar. Featured diaries are those posts identified by the authors at OpenLeft to be particularly worth reading. The “New Diaries” section is a list of posts by OpenLeft’s users in chronological order, with the newest ones at the top.
To view a list of new user diaries, click the “User Diaries” link in the Menu in the left sidebar.
Subscribe to OpenLeft in your inbox
OpenLeft will email you a digest with all new front page posts for that day if you subscribe to our email newsletter. To do so, fill in your email address in the box underneath the words “OpenLeft in your inbox!” in the left sidebar. Complete the resulting form to sign up. You can unsubscribe at any time.
This is a work in progress. What major sections have I left out? Leave a comment and help make OpenLeft a better place for new users! |
