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/discu...

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/...

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/...

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