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Sportscolumn Blog is the stripped down version of Sportscolumn.com. No lengthy opinion pieces. No lengthy voting process. Just daily hot topics that stir discussion and debate. The blog is editorially driven so while you can submit an entry of your own, your best bet is to send us a tip. If you have an account, we'll give you credit if you're the first one.
So what is a good Sportscolumn Blog story? Well, for example: Ron Mexico gives someone gonnorhea? Yes. Another athlete gets arrested? Yes. Jennie Finch accidentally gets naked on the red carpet? You bet. Your predictions for the upcoming NFL season? No. Got it? Cool
5 Second FAQ
If you want more extensive help, read one of the topics further below.
· Immediate help can usually be found by IMing "sportscolumnhelp" on Yahoo Instant Messenger or AOL Instant Messenger. Use "help@sportscolumn.com" for MSN Messenger.
· No account is necessary to read stories, polls, and comments.
· If you want to post a blog entry, sign up for an account. If you already have an account over at www.sportscolumn.com, your account will work here as well
· After you submit an entry, one of the editors will decide whether it gets published. Unlike Sportscolumn.com, there is no voting process for these stories.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
· SPORTSCOLUMN BLOG MISSION
· ACCOUNT QUESTIONS
+Do I need an account?
+How do I sign up?
+How do I log in?
+Should I ever log out?
+How do I modify my account?
+What happens if I lose my password?
+Will my account on forums.Sportscolumn.com work here?
· ARTICLE SUBMISSION QUESTIONS
+What kind of articles should I submit here?
+How do I submit an article?
+What goes into writing an article?
+What should I really pay attention to?
+How are articles sorted?
+What section/topic should I use?
+How do I know when my story gets posted/dumped?
+What do I do if my story gets posted/dumped?
+If I want to resubmit, how can I see what I did wrong?
· COMMENTS
+What are comments?
+How do I submit a comment?
+What are trolls?
+What is comment rating?
+What are mojo, karma, and trusted users?
+What are the comment viewing options?
· MISCELLANEOUS
+How can I easily navigate the site?
+How do I get to the Front and Sections?
+What are hotlists?
+How do I search blog.Sportscolumn.com?
ACCOUNT QUESTIONS
Do I need an account? (Top)
Basically, No.
But, without an account, all you can do is read the stories on the site. An account is necessary if you want to actually take part in the site. It is your way of identifying yourself to the community. It also adds a measure of accountability that is generally not found in a system which allows for true anonymous postings. We are trying to build a community, and as such, we would like to know who you are. If you have something that you are afraid might come back to haunt you (such as exposing an illegal practice of a company or person), you can easily create a "throwaway" account using one of the many free webmail services out there. We would prefer that everyone only have one account though. Be aware that accounts can and will be deleted for abuse of Sportscolumn.com. We do not allow anonymous submissions and commenting.
How do I sign up? (Top)
Creating an account is straightforward. Follow these directions:
***If you already have an account with Sportscolumn, there is no need to create a new one. You can just sign in.***
1) Click here.
2) Enter a username and a valid email address.
These are very important; review both for errors before you click the CREATE ACCOUNT! button.
3) You will receive an email that contains an initial password and the URL that you need to activate your account.
4) Follow the URL and that is it.
Please note that you should probably change your password immediately to something that is easier for you to remember (see How do I modify my account?). Also, if you enter a bad email address, not only will you never receive an initial password, but you will also lock that username out of the system. This email address you give us will NEVER be revealed to anyone in any way, nor will this email address be shown on any articles or comments.
How do I log in? (Top)
Once you have set up your account, you can log in on the right side of the Sportscolumn.com home page by entering your username and the password that was provided to you. Please note (and this is VERY IMPORTANT): you must have cookies enabled in order to use your account.
Once you are logged in, you can modify your settings and change your password
Should I ever log out? (Top)
This is up to each user. If you are the only one using your computer/terminal, then feel free to stay logged in. It will make your life much easier and faster. However, if you share your computer/terminal, we would recommend that you log out. This will stop someone else from "fiddling" with your account, and in the end, save many headaches and problems from occuring.
How do I modify my account? (Top)
You can edit your user preferences and display preferences easily once you are logged in. Click on the appropriate link and follow the onscreen instructions.
You can modify the following user options:
Real email (keep this legit; all account related emails will be sent here)
Fake email (this is the address that will be displayed publicly)
Homepage (displayed in user info and comments)
Bio (displayed in user info)
Signature (attached to the bottom of your comments)
Public Mail Key (If you use a PGP/GPG public key for encrypting email, it goes here)
Account Password (your uh, account password)
You can also modify an assort of display preferences that will determine how Sportscolumn.com is presented to you.
What happens if I lose my password? (Top)
If you do lose your password, you can get a new one emailed to the "real" email address you originally gave us. Unlike other sites, we do not keep a plaintext copy of the password list. All our password information is kept encrypted. You can get a new password assigned to you by entering your username on the login on the account information area and then clicking the MAIL PASSWORD button.
Do not share your password with anyone else. Once you lose control of your account, there is very little we can do.
Will my account on forums.Sportscolumn.com work here? (Top)
Sorry, no. We are working to integrate the two systems but for now, you have to create a new account for the main site.
ARTICLE SUBMISSION QUESTIONS (Top)
What kind of articles should I submit here? (Top)
You should only submit timely and relevant short articles for the site. If the story is a lengthy opinion piece or waxing philosophic about the beauty of sports, it's best to post that on www.sportscolumn.com.
Do not be intimidated by these guidelines, either. Read the site for a bit. If the articles that appear here interest you and you come across a article elsewhere that also interests you, chances are it will interest us too. We would rather have too many submissions than not enough.
How do I submit an article? (Top)
Create an account (see How do I sign up?), or have an account already and log into it, and click on the SUBMIT STORY link.
Take the time to read the reminders on the story posting page. You must preview your article before submitting it.
Your article will automatically be placed in the "voting queue". Make sure you are happy with your article before you do so as you will no longer be able to edit it yourself once it is in the voting queue. Depending on when you post your article, a friendly editor will come along and decide whether it should be posted to the site.
As a matter of practicality, it is much easier (and much better) to write your story in a good word processor where you can spell check (and hopefully grammar check) your article before posting it. If you do not have access to a word processor, try using an online dictionary
or spell checker.
While decent spelling and grammar is not all-important, you will come under heavy fire for making mistakes in these departments. So make life easier on everyone and check your story thoroughly before posting it. Not everyone knows how to write. If you are one of those people, save us all some time and just read. Or get a good editor.
What goes into writing an article? (Top)
Each article has eight parts:
Title
- Come up with a good title for your story. Something informative and catching that summarizes your article in a nice way while drawing the reader's attention.
Introduction - A one- or two-paragraph entry. Remember, Sportscolumn Blog is for quick hits. Your entire article should fit into this box. As a matter of fact, it has to because there is no other box.
Body - This box is not available on the blog site.
Topic - see How are articles sorted?
Section - see How are articles sorted?
The Poll - This is an optional section where you can include a reader poll. Pick a question and put up to eight answers in the lines below. Not every story needs a poll, but they are interesting or amusing sometimes.
Preview the article a few times and make as many changes as needed. We would recommend you check all links manually and read your article aloud a few times. Keep re-previewing it until you are 100% happy with it. Then preview it again.
SUBMIT! Scroll down to make sure that you get a success message, "TThank you for your submission. Sportscolumn Blog is an edited site so an editor will come along shortly and make a decision. Good Luck!"
What should I really pay attention to? (Top)
Take note of the following important items to remember when writing your story:
-Check your facts! We cannot stress how important this is.
-Check all of your URLs.
-Spam is NOT tolerated and will be deleted.
-Pay attention to what HTML tags are allowed in the story. To date, the following are supported: <A HREF="[url]"> <B> <P>
<I> <DL><DT> <DD> <EM> <BR> <STRONG>
<BLOCKQUOTE> <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE="cite"> <CITE>
<TT><CODE> (of course, all the relevant closing tags are
allowed too). No other tags will work.
-Sometimes you will be resubmitting a story. Please refrain from pointing out that "I am resubmitting this for X reasons". Rather, just make the changes and corrections and post it as if the original had never existed. A good way to point out that this article is a resubmission is just before you are finally ready to actually submit the story, create in another document a editorial comment which you will cut and paste into your article as (hopefully) the very first comment in the story (see What are comments? and How do I submit a comment?).
-You are forced to preview each story at least once. We recommend doing it MANY times until you are sure your story is correct. We cannot stress
how important this is. Too many people make this mistake and leave broken links and really poor language in their articles. This is the guaranteed, fastest way to make sure that your article never gets past the moderation queue.
How are articles sorted? (Top)
Articles are sorted in two ways. Each article has a TOPIC and a SECTION. Topics are "narrow focuses", while sections are "broad categories". When submitting a story, pick carefully what topic and section it applies to. Almost all sections have a "General" Topic in case your story doesn't fit into a particular topic. And, there's always the All Other Sports Section. Here's a chart of all sections and topics.
How do I know when my story gets posted/dumped? (Top)
There are three easy ways to tell if your story has been posted or dumped:
1) Check the Front Page or Section page.
2) Check your email. Whenever a story posts or dumps, you get an email from the server saying so.
3) Click the VIEW MY STORIES link (if you are logged in) in your account information area.
What do I do if my story gets posted/dumped? (Top)
Well if
your story gets posted - celebrate on a job well done. If your story
gets dumped, you have a few options. You can forget it and get on with
your life, you can rewrite it (and pay attention to any comments that
might have been posted on your story) and then resubmit it, or you can
find a new topic and write something else. No matter what, do not get
upset that it did not get posted. Many great articles do not always
make it first time.
How do I respond to a poll? (Top)
If an article has a poll, it will appear on the right hand side. Click on which option you want, and then press the vote button. To see the results of the poll, you can click just below on the view results button.
What are all the links on the right side of the article? (Top)
When a story is submitted, all the links in the story are collected and listed on the right side. This is just an easy way to quickly follow the links of a story to get more information on it.
What are comments? (Top)
An important aspect of Sportscolumn.com is the ability to post comments about the stories that you see here. Comments provide insights, feedback, questions, new discussion issues, and sometimes humor. Commenting is a very good thing, and really helps articles develop into the discussions we like to see here.
Note: You must have an account and be logged in to post a comment. Please see "Account Questions."
How do I submit a comment? (Top)
Comments are submitted using an interface similar to that of story submission. Here are the details:
First, you need to get a user account and log in. See "Account Questions" for more on that.
Either click on a REPLY link on a comment, or by clicking the POST A COMMENT link that you see at the bottom of an article. Choose a nifty title for the comment. See the guidelines for what goes into writing an article? for help on this.
Choose whether the comment is topical or editorial. Topical comments are about contents of the article, while editorial comments are suggestions and remarks about how the article is written (or why it is written poorly). Use your judgement as to which type of comment you're posting. Note that when replying to a comment, if the comment is a topical one, your reply is automatically topical; if it is editorial, your reply is automatically editorial as well. Once a story is posted to the front page or a section page, you can only post topical comments (unless it is a reply to an editorial comment). If you have something to say, and it contains both topical and editorial comments, post 2 comments (1 editorial and 1 topical). It is fairly common amongst Sportscolumn.com readers that once a story posts, editorial comments are ignored (see What are the comment viewing options?).
In the body, enter the text of your comment (spamming is not tolerated). You may enter your comment in HTML or plain text (look for the pulldown option below the entry box). If you enter it as HTML, the same tags which are valid for articles apply; <A HREF="[url]"> <B> <P> <I> <OL> <OL TYPE="[type]"> <UL> <LI> <DL><DT> <DD> <EM> <BR> <STRONG> <BLOCKQUOTE> <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE="cite"> <CITE> <TT><CODE> (of course, all the relevant closing tags are allowed too). Plain text comments are converted into HTML; line breaks become paragraph breaks, etc.
Preview the comment, make as many corrections as required, and then preview it again. Sometimes several iterations are required before all problems are fixed, so be patient :)
SUBMIT!
What are trolls? (Top)
Trolls are an interesting aspect of life. As defined by a Usenet posting on alt.folklore.urban:
troll v.,n. 1. [From the Usenet group alt.folklore.urban] To utter a posting on the Internet designed to attract predictable responses or flames; or, the post itself. Derives from the phrase "trolling for newbies" which in turn comes from mainstream "trolling", a style of fishing in which one trails bait through a likely spot hoping for a bite. The well-constructed troll is a post that induces lots of newbies and flamers to make themselves look even more clueless than they already do, while subtly conveying to the more savvy and experienced that it is in fact a deliberate troll. If you do not fall for the joke, you get to be in on it. 2. An individual who chronically trolls in sense 1; regularly posts specious arguments, flames or personal attacks to a newsgroup, discussion list, or in email for no other purpose than to annoy someone or disrupt a discussion. Trolls are recognizable by the fact that the have no real interest in learning about the topic at hand - they merely want to utter flame bait. Like the ugly creatures they are named after, they exhibit no redeeming characteristics, and as such, they are recognized as a lower form of life on the net, as in, "Oh, ignore him, he is just a troll."
Trolling is not all bad, and not all good. A good troll can inject humour into a situation, point out (in a rather obvious way) the idiocy of someone else's statement, or cause people to recognize their own bad behaviours. Bad trolls make themselves look like total idiots. While trolling is frowned upon, it is a fairly common practice. It is worthwhile noting that a troll is more often a reference to a comment, rather than to the actual author. Authors that post a lot of troll comments tend to get headbutted off of bridges.
What is comment rating? (Top)
A good guideline to determine whether you should rate a comment at all is to ask yourself whether you could explain your rating if asked to do so. If you could not, it would probably be wisest to not rate the comment at all. Rating purely on the basis of emotional agreement without actual knowledge on the subject or rational/logical disagreement is considered bad style by many users. For authors, however, the opposite holds true: Don't take ratings too seriously. Here, a good guideline for determining whether you should ask about a rating or complain about it may be: If you would write the user who gave you the rating an e-mail inquiring about it, then it is important enough to write a reply on K5 as well. Otherwise, why not just ignore the rating?
When more than six people rate a comment, the overall rating is the simple average of all the ratings. This is nicely displayed next to the comment name in the form of X/Y. X is the average, and Y is the number of people who have rated it. If a comment has not been rated, it will say "none/0". If the comment has been rated by between 1 and 5 people, it will say "none/Y".
Steering Rating is where a person rates a comment beyond what they would normally rate it to counteract what they consider to be a "bad" rating by someone else. Steering is fairly common; over time, the law of averages defeats this anyway.
Readers can also change their ratings after the fact, so do not be surprised if it happens (maybe not -- few people do this). Remember, two wrong ratings do not make a right one. In the end, ratings do not really count for much; do not get too upset by them.
What are mojo, karma, and trusted users? (Top)
Karma is the system used by slashdot to give additional weight to the comments of respected users. Mojo is the system that was used on this site to allow trusted users - those whose comments had repeatedly been rated above average - to hide content-free or otherwise annoying comments from other users. That system has been replaced.
What are the comment viewing options? (Top)
At the bottom of each story, you can set how you view the comments about the story. You have several options that allow you to make it easier to read and follow a discussion.
View: All comments, Mixed (which is the default), Topical Only, Editorial Only. How you choose to view is your preference. This option helps you if you are looking for certain aspects of a story.
Display: Minimal, Flat, Threaded, Nested and Dynamic. Of the 4, minimal just shows the comment names in a nested format. The other three show more information. Flat and Nested show ALL the body of the comments, in either a flat format, or a nested format. Threaded shows the comments in a nested format, with any comments that are replies to other comments in a minimal format. In addition, dynamic mode allows you to expand and collapse comment and threads without refreshing the entire page. Try them and see what works best for you.
Sort: You can sort the comments by their ratings, their lack of ratings, and by their posting date.
Rate: This is whether you want to be able to rate comments. We recommend that you leave this on and rate comments. Feedback is always a good thing.
Show Hidden Comments: You can choose either to always see comments which are rated at below 1, or to never see them.
Once you have made your changes, click the set button and watch them come into effect. We recommend you try several different settings. Fiddle around and see what works best for you.
MISCELLANEOUS
How can I easily navigate the site? (Top)
You can navigate around the site by clicking on the main SC logo (which takes you to the front page), by clicking on the section headings in the center top of the screen,and by clicking on just about anything else on the screen. You can always come "home" by clicking on the SC.com logo.
How do I get to the front page and sections? (Top)
To get to the Front Page, click on the SC logo. Listed on that page will be all the front page articles. Section pages may be reached by clicking on the links at the top of the screen.
What are hotlists? (Top)
Once a story is posted, you will see an option to  (add to hotlist) or  (remove from hotlist) it. This means that if you click the link, the story will be added as a hotlist link in your navigation bar on the right hand side of your screen. This means you will be able to jump to this article whenever you want, no matter where you are in the site. If you do not have any hotlisted articles, you will not see this section.
If you say, "so what?". Consider: the real advantage of this is to watch stories and to easily keep track of any new comments on a article. In the hotlist listing on the right side, it also shows how many comments have been posted to a article. So once you have read the comments on an article, and you know there are X comments. If someone else posts a new comment, you will be able to see that on your menu bar without having to actually go and check the articles you are interested in all the time.
Once you are over an article in your hotlist, go to that article, and click the button to remove it from your hotlist.
How do I search Sportscolumn.com? (Top)
You can search Sportscolumn.com for just about anything. Click on the search link in the navbar at the top of the screen. Enter the text you want to search for, how many hits you want returned per page, and what section of Sportscolumn.com you want it to look in. Experiment with the interface to become a true gopher!
You can also scroll down to the bottom of any page, enter the text into the box at the bottom, and then click search or press enter.
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