okay im confused... im new at this.

When you earn points it shows up in read at the top with your total and how much you just earned (after I post this comment it'll say that I've just earned 10 points! YAY!). On the right there is a section for hot topics so you can look there to find something to read about. And I think it is supposed to be important social issues. So not necessarily politics, but not really what you ate for breakfast this morning.

You can find out how many points you have after you do something that earns you points (such as posting a comment or blog). The points earned, as well as your total number of points will show up in red at the top of the screen.

We do all the adding, though, as the points you see are only a portion of the points in the contest. You also get points for reads on your blog, which won't be added in until we add up those numbers at the very end of the contest (you can't figure it out by adding up the x reads at the bottom of your blogs... it doesn't work like that). You get points for doing bonus point activities, such as the scavenger hunt currently going on.

We will post the leaders (in no particular order) at various points in the contest, so you can have some vague idea of where you are. In theory, though, you have to keep working at it until the end to have a chance. Last semester, we had someone who was way above the competition for half the contest, and then just stopped... and ended up losing the chance at a scholarship.

You can find things to read about in a variety of ways. As the use above mentioned, if you click on 'hot topics' on the side, you'll get a page with some of the most popular tags, and you can browse through those blogs. We also have a search function (the link is located at the top) that you can use to find more specific blogs. Additionally, if you find a blog you like, you can check out similar blogs by looking at the 'similar posts' block, located on the upper right corner of the blog.

You are not required, by any means, to talk about politics. Politics are popular now because we have an upcoming election, and people are discussing the issues of the candidates, but it's not usually this bad. Also, a lot of things feed into politics. For example, I like to write about healthcare, and one of the things that I have to address in some form in my blogs is the current laws governing healthcare, as well as proposals.

We do ask that you talk about something that matters, preferably things that matter to more people than just yourself. For example, we don't really want you to talk about how much you love your SO, even though I'm sure that matters a lot to you, but rather discuss something along the lines of male-female (or male-male, female-female) relationships, and how young people view relationships. Or, you could talk about how you saw one of your friends cheating on a test, and focus instead on what cheating does to the person, if it pays off and such.

We also strive to be very different from standard blogging sites like livejournal in that we expect quality writing. We expect proper capitalization, spelling, and punctuation, and we expect you to state your argument, and back it up with details or facts or whatever. We expect you to put a source when it's obvious you used one, and we expect your blog to attempt to generate a discussion (obviously, some are more prone to doing this than others).

Hope that helps, and if you have any questions, feel free to contact me, or anyone else with a badge similar to mine (at the top of my comment).

~C
Check out the latest entry in the Between The Lines column!
Want the highest rated list to change? RATE those blogs, then!

i think i will deffinately start doing that. thankyou.
im not sure what it means when it says online users and noline guests. what is the difference?