Frequently Asked Questions

Most people begin blogging for personal reasons, either to keep a diary, remember thoughts and experiences, or even to win a scholarship. However, blogging offers several other benefits as well:

• Build a Name for Yourself
  Blogging is an incredible way to build a readership of devoted fans who wish to share in your thoughts and experiences. You may never have the fans or the recognition of a celebrity or a rock star, but you will find that your readership comes from people of diverse geographic, cultural, and professional backgrounds. Very few outlets offer this kind of networking capability.

• Share Knowledge
  Besides sharing stories and reading the stories of others, blogging offers you an outlet to share your knowledge, perception, and experiences about various things. In return, you'll meet people from all over the world who share your views, and some who will offer new points of view. In addition, you'll receive more information and knowledge from your readers and from other blogs you subscribe to.

• Create a Personal Voice
  Whether writing a blog for a professional reason or a personal reason, blogging will help to "humanize" the font behind the monitor. Blogging helps create a deeper understand of the writer and the readers and allows people to connect on a more personal level than most static web pages can offer.

There is plenty that makes ProgressiveU different from social networking sites like Facebook, Myspace, and MyYahoo. Here are just a few reasons:

• On ProU you're more than a face (in a book). We're not a social networking site, we're a blogging community.

• We value our members for their writing, knowledge, and contributions to the ProU community, not how hot they are, how many "friends" they have, or what extras they add to their profiles.

• Think, Speak Up, Reach Out. Our motto says "Think" first because we want our bloggers to have thoughtful, intelligent discussions and debates. We also want you to "Speak Up" about the issues that are important to you, and to "Reach Out" to your community and the world.

• People from all over the world will read what you write, and you may even have articles indexed on Google News (you won't get that out of a page on Myspace!).

• We value learning. The Progressive U community seeks to support those in college and planning to go to college, by providing scholarships to our most active bloggers, and encouraging discussion on issues related to higher education.

• Want to socialize? Check us out on Facebook, Myspace, and Bebo, or email your favorite social networking site to network[at]progressiveu.org.

There's plenty that differentiates ProgressiveU from other blogging sites such as Wordpress, Blogspot, or Live Journal.

Level of Readership.
It's true--the Internet offers several blogging sites and hosts where you can share your thoughts with all of cyberspace. But rarely can you build as large a readership with as a high a level of interaction quickly as you can here at Progressive U.

No Advertising.
Additionally, although other Blogging sites claim to be free as well, several of them clog your blogs up with advertising, hiding your thoughts behind their dollars. At Progressive U, you will never have to worry about your blog being hidden beneath advertisements or unrelated links.

Chance for Advancement.
Progressive U also offers you a chance to enhance your resume. After some time on the site, you can volunteer and help run the site as a member of the ProgressiveU Faculty. This membership is on a voluntary basis, but can be written as volunteer hours onto your resume. We also offer some internships to interested individuals. None of the other blogging sites, like Blogger or Wordpress, offer such an opportunity to their users.

Blogging For Progress Scholarship.
And, let's not forget that chance at a scholarship! Currently, we are the only blogging web site offering scholarship monies for your blogs and comments on other blogs.

There are just three simple steps:

• If you don't already have a ProgressiveU account, create one here.

• On the account creation form, check the box indicating that you will participate in the Blogging for Scholarship competition.

• Start blogging!

Having problems? Email us at info[at]progressiveu.org for assistance!

Progressive U's Faculty, made up exclusively of volunteers, does most of the work running the site. There are several jobs done by the faculty members, both on the main site and behind the scenes.

The faculty are distinct from other members on the site in that they are required to be active, and are not permitted to participate in the scholarship contest.

The faculty is divided into several teams, each of which has different responsibilities.

The teams have the following responsibilities:

Editorial Team: Reviews and promotes posts, explains good blogging and journalism practices, provides guidelines for rating posts and making the most out of your writing, etc.

Members Services Team: Provides support and encouragement to users, answers question, enforces terms of use, etc. Additionally, oversees the various incentives in the Progressive U Incentives Program.

Public Relations and Communications Team: Promotes ProgressiveU to the "rest of the world," writes press releases, seeks out partnerships with other sites, etc.

Technical Support and Product Management Team: Deals with the more technical aspects of the site, including working out bugs that appear in the site. Additionally, helps to develop new features or improve on existing features.

News Team: Manages news feeds and highlight news sources that may be of interest to users.

Featured Bloggers Team: Reviews Featured Blogger nominees, selects those to be featured, writes up pages on each new featured blogger, etc.

The following users currently make up Progressive U's Faculty (click names to visit their profile):

Progressive U Team, manager
Art, manager
shayla2004, Progressive U Spokesperson

Note: Please do not contact the preceding three people. Contact the team leads instead. Thank you.

Fallon, Director of Public Relations, Editorial Team Committee
Fanaile Essence, Technical Support team leader, Volunteer Services Coordinator, Editorial Team Committee
mvenus929, Director of Member Services, Member Services Team Leader, Editorial Team Committee
AdamLabo, Assistant Director, Fundraising Committee
Reboloke, Assistant Director, Editorial Team Committee

• BurningExample
• Ediblewoman
• sawaboof
• Whispers Awnesty
• DragonWolf
• Bamers
• _Meke
• Jsaj
• Child of Light and Dark

The editors of Progressive U constantly strive to do their best to maintain a standard of quality for the content of the site. To better serve our base of readers and bloggers, the editors have detailed their policy, which can be viewed here.

The ProgressiveU Terms of Service states:

We welcome active debate but in order to ensure a safe and civil online environment, ProgressiveU reserves the right to remove any content you post on the Site or terminate your participation. To maintain that safe and civil environment, you agree not to upload, post, display, distribute, transmit or otherwise publish on the Site any material that:

(1) is libelous, obscene, pornographic, harassing, invective, or abusive;

(2) is violent, hateful, or threatening to anyone or any group.

But what exactly does all of that mean? What is a personal attack and how do we enforce it? Read this guide for specific information on what the policy entails.

Personal attacks, including name-calling, harassment, or violent, hateful and/or threatening statements made about or to any individual or group, are expressly forbidden at ProgressiveU.

When engaging in discussion, you should comment on the content of the blog itself and not on the blogger. Personal attacks will not help make a point. Instead, they degrade not only the discussion, but your personal integrity, that of the website and the mission of ProgressiveU.

Debate and discussion are a vital part of the ProgressiveU mission. Users should be civil and adhere to good netiquette when engaged in discussion, debate or general blogging. Comments should not be personalized and should be directed at content and actions rather than individual(s). When in disagreement about content, remember that it is not a personal attack to say "Your statement about this is wrong because ______." Nor is it a personal attack to debate with the individual who made the statement.

When in debate or discussion, the following types of comments and actions are never acceptable:

There are several features that allow you to connect with other bloggers. Of course, the blogs themselves allow you to discuss any topic with other people on the site. However, there are other features we have available as well.

Profiles

Each user has the opportunity to build his or her own profile on the site. A few questions are asked during registration, but the rest is up to you. The profile has fields for name, location, school, school status, degree and major, interests, personal website, etc. You can add as much or as little as you want to the profile, giving you complete control over your privacy. You can also add an avatar that will be associated with any post you make on the site.

Profiles can also be used to find people with similar interests. All the things you list in the favorite music and favorite books sections become links. When you visit a profile, you can click on these links to find people with similar interests! The results page will also bring you a list of other interests that those people have.

You can update your profile by visiting 'my account' in your user navigation menu, then selecting the 'edit' tab at the top of the page.

Buddy Lists

Our buddy list feature allows you to track all the forum topics and blogs that your 'buddies' make. There is a section on the sidebar devoted specifically to updating the most recent blogs from your buddies (conveniently titled 'My buddies' recent posts'). Other people can also add you to their buddy list to track your progress on the site.

To add a person to your buddy list, visit their profile page, and click the link 'Add (user) to my buddy list'. To remove, just visit their profile again, and click the 'remove (user) from my buddy list' link. It's as easy as that! You can also see your buddy list at any time by clicking on 'my buddylist' in your user navigation menu.

Of course, meeting people doesn't stop at the site, so we've compiled an outreach page for you to visit for ideas of things to do in your community. Remember, progress can only be made when you Reach Out.

If you would like to change your username, please follow the steps below:

• Go to "My Account"

• Click the "Edit" tab

• Change your username in the "Username" field to the desired name.

• Submit the changes.

Please be advised that the new username will not take affect if that username has already been taken by another user.

• To ensure that the username has been changed, click on the "Edit" tab again.

• Check to ensure that your new username is listed in the "Username" field.

• If the new username is not listed in the "Username" field, that username is already taken and you must either keep your old username or choose a different one.

Remember to repeat the double check any time you choose a new username, and please note that users wishing to access your profile via typing in the address must use your original username.

Yes, you can delete your account.

You need an administrator to do for you:

• Email info[at]progressiveu.org with your ProgressiveU.org username. Please also include the email address with which the account was registered.

• An administrator will contact you via email to ensure that you wish the account to be deleted.

• Once the deletion has been confirmed, an administrator will delete the account and send along a final confirmation.

Please note:

The Progressive U Alumni Association, formerly known as the "A-Team", is a group of long-time members of Progressive U who have attained credibility and respect for their work with Progressive U.

Many members of the Progressive U Alumni Association may choose to volunteer to be Faculty members; however the Association was set up primarily to offer a spot where survivors of the Progressive U Blogging for Progress Scholarship contest could relax and recuperate.

Members of the Progressive U Alumni Association can be spotted by the badge viewable on their profile page. Regardless if these members have volunteered to join the faculty or not, they have earned the respect of Progressive U and its members; any advice from an Alumni Association member is generally warranted and can help you, as a newer member of Progressive U, to learn the ropes of our site.

By all means - everyone is welcome. But you are still expected to follow the same rules and guidelines as those members who are participating in the contest. This includes adhering to word count minimums, ensuring that your blog topics are progressive, and following anti-spam-posting guidelines. In a nutshell, even if you are not participating in the contest, you are being held to the same standard as our contest participants. Why? Because we cannot justify unpublishing a post made by a contestent and not unpublishing a similar post made by a non-contestent.

The excuse "But I'm not in the contest" or "I don't even want to win the contest" has been overused when we try to moderate a post made by someone who is not in the contest and does not want their post to be moderated... therefore we are forced to make an official ruling on this.

If you are posting to this site - regardless if you're doing so in an attempt to win the scholarship money or if you just like to write - you absolutely must follow the Terms of Service you agreed to upon joining this site, the posting rules and regulations specified within the contest rules, and the guidelines contained within the Frequently Asked Questions section of this site. These three areas, along with our editorial policy and privacy policy, are reigning documents over our posting guidelines and all should be considered official rules when it comes to posting.

The Fall 2008 Blogging for Progress Scholarship competition will start on October 1, 2008. You can register and enter now.

This semester the winner of the competition will be awarded a $1,500 scholarship. Previous winners are putting their scholarships to good use at a wide range of schools; you could be next!

The Official Rules are very similar to previous semesters, but we will continue to add fun new ways to earn bonus points. There will also be some new moderation restrictions designed to reduce spam, prevent copyright violations, and protect members from verbal abuse. Previous winners are not eligible to enter this semester. However, if you entered in previous semesters and have not yet won a scholarship from Progressive U, you are encouraged to put your blogging skills to good use and enter again!

To be eligible for this semester's scholarships you must register by November 15, 2008. However, the contest continues until December 15, 2008, so you still have time to catch up if you are starting late!

Note that if you register after November 15th, you are still eligible for future scholarship contests, so start blogging and practicing for next time. You may find that you enjoy it so much you want to blog regardless of whether or not you think you'll win (over half of our members say they feel that way).

Official Blogging for Progress Scholarship Contest rules can be found here.

Anyone may set up an account with ProgressiveU.org and post blogs on the site.

ProgressiveU only offers Blogging For Progress scholarships to students who are attending or plan to attend a qualifying college, university, or vocational school in the U.S. within the next year. For more details, please see the Official Rules.

Here are the basics of how you earn points. For complete details, please see the official rules.

During the contest period, you earn points for the following:

• 50 points for each blog post accepted for posting on the site,
• 1 point for each "read" of your posts,
• 10 points for each comment that you make on the site (while logged in).
• Points for inviting and having the people you invite register on the site.
• Bonus Point Opportunities: Point possibilities are dependent upon the opportunity and successful completion.

For clarification, you can visit this page; Moderators and site administrators do go through and checks blogs and comments subtracting points for blogs, comments, and reads that:

• Violate ProgressiveU's Terms of Service, Official Rules, Editorial Policy or other official policy
• Appear to be spam
• Violate U.S. and International Copyright laws
• Do not meet the minimum word count
• Appear to be "refreshed" pages all from the same ISP (i.e., if a user appears to gain a few hundred reads within an hour by continuously hitting "refresh" or "reload".

So while it might seem as though people can win the contest simply by posting several illegitimate blogs in a row, the points are not awarded until the end of the contest and all ineligible blogs have been taken out of the tally.

We may also announce bonus points for various actions from time to time, either via email or on the site, so keep an eye out for those opportunities to gain ground on the leaders!

This is a very common question, and we know that it would be very motivating to know exactly how many points you have at any given time.

We have just implemented a system that will tell you how many points you have earned for most actions that you have taken, such as publishing a blog post, writing a comment, or inviting a friend. However, this should only be used as a general guideline, as points for reads on your blog and any bonus point opportunities you have won will not be included. You will see a red notice at the top of each page after you have done something to earn points, telling you how many points you have earned (10 points for a comment, etc), and the total points you have earned for these basic actions.

You can get an idea of how many read points you have by reviewing your old posts and looking at the 'reads' numbers below each post. By the end of the semester many people find that tens of thousands of people have read their posts. Read points can really add up!

However, there are some caveats. ProgressiveU.org reserves the right to remove posts at any time, particularly if complaints are received about the post for violations of the Terms of Use or other official policy. Also, posts may be disqualified if our logs show that the read counts were manipulated by automated systems or by repeated access from the same computer. Please see the Official Rules for more details.

The ProgressiveU Terms of Service states:

We welcome active debate but in order to ensure a safe and civil online environment, ProgressiveU reserves the right to remove any content you post on the Site or terminate your participation. To maintain that safe and civil environment, you agree not to upload, post, display, distribute, transmit or otherwise publish on the Site any material that:

(1) is libelous, obscene, pornographic, harassing, invective, or abusive;

(2) is violent, hateful, or threatening to anyone or any group.

But what exactly does all of that mean? What is a personal attack and how do we enforce it? Read this guide for specific information on what the policy entails.

Personal attacks, including name-calling, harassment, or violent, hateful and/or threatening statements made about or to any individual or group, are expressly forbidden at ProgressiveU.

When engaging in discussion, you should comment on the content of the blog itself and not on the blogger. Personal attacks will not help make a point. Instead, they degrade not only the discussion, but your personal integrity, that of the website and the mission of ProgressiveU.

Debate and discussion are a vital part of the ProgressiveU mission. Users should be civil and adhere to good netiquette when engaged in discussion, debate or general blogging. Comments should not be personalized and should be directed at content and actions rather than individual(s). When in disagreement about content, remember that it is not a personal attack to say "Your statement about this is wrong because ______." Nor is it a personal attack to debate with the individual who made the statement.

When in debate or discussion, the following types of comments and actions are never acceptable:

In a word, yes... provided that each blog entry is a separate issue and can be justified to be published separately.

This means that each blog entry regarding your main topic should be a complete and individual subtopic with new information not yet presented in any other entry of the series.

That is not to say that information you've presented in earlier entries into the series should not be referenced or linked to... but subsequent blog entries must be distinguishable as deserving their own, separate posting. If the only difference between blog entries is one or two paragraphs, and the rest of the information is copied from another blog entry, we may ask you to consolidate your series into a single posting or unpublish entries into your series pending further edits or information.

If you are passionate enough about an issue to blog about it, chances are there are other people out there who will be interested. So the key point is just to post about things that are important to you. That said, here are a few tips:

• Tell people about your personal experiences in your posts -- why are these issues important to you? It's great to have facts and figures, but a blog posting doesn't have to be as formal and impersonal as a term paper. In fact, people often appreciate personal stories even more than dry facts.

• When you can, tie your post in with current news, books, movies, or quotes from celebrities or public figures. People are searching for things that are hot topics of the day, and if your post mentions something that is hot, people may find it through search engines.

• Do informal interviews and quote people in your posts, or grab quotes from events that you attended, or stories you heard or saw on the radio, TV, internet, or other media.

• Use the image post function to upload photographs. Photos grab people's attention, and help tell more of the story.

• Look at other posts for ideas -- you'll see that there are all kinds of styles and topics, and you don't need to conform to a particular format to post to a blog.

• You don't need to say everything that you have on your mind in one post. Break things down into easy chunks, and then use links in your posts to refer to other posts or photos that you have previously written.

Absolutely not! You will find a number of our users that avoid talking about politics and news like the plague. The news is certainly a good starting place (you can find news articles off the beaten path on our News page), but you are certainly not limited to blogging about it.

In fact, we encourage you to blog about things that matter to you. We have users that blog about personal experiences with religion, diseases, and even financial aid problems they face with their school. None of these necessarily come from the news, and none necessarily have to do with politics. Blog about what matters to you. If that's politics, great! If it's avoiding politics like a plague, that's great too!

You have fairly broad leeway on what to post about as part of this contest, but posts about Britney Spears will probably be considered off-topic (unless Britney Spears suddenly developed a social conscience and did something truly newsworthy).

The general idea is to blog about current issues and events, and to generate discussion. You'll find people blogging about music, entertainment, sports, news -- all kinds of issues, but we reserve the right to remove any post for any reason.

• When you create a new post you'll have the opportunity to categorize it as being related to one of progressive principles that we have listed on the site: broad prosperity, shared responsibility, effective government, and better future.

• Select one of these principles and one or more category, if appropriate for your post.

• We do not want truly random postings for the purposes of this contest. Many students are writing well-thought-out posts about current events, social, and cultural issues, and it is not fair to those contestants if we allow points for random musings -- especially multiple postings of random musings.

• We also don't like it when you cut and paste multiple posting from your MySpace or LiveJournal blog and submit them for the contest.

• It is OK to post things that you have written for classes or posted before on other blogs -- if you think what you've written is good and would be appreciated by the Progressive U audience.

• Browse through other posts (especially those that have been promoted to the front page) to see what types of posts are appropriate.

• Finally, we will disqualify and/or remove any posts that violate copyright law, are libelous, obscene, or that harass or abuse other members and users of this site. For more details on these policies please review our Terms of Use and Fair Use Notice.

This practice is acceptable within reason. The Alumni Association Faculty discussed how to tackle the problem of copy/paste blogs without any substance, and have came up with the following guidelines.

• Make sure you have a position. There's no point in posting an article if you don't have anything to say about it. The majority of your post (at minimum 200 words) should consist of your opinions.

• Do not post the entire article without written permission. It is illegal. To figure out what you should include, keep in mind that most news sources use AP style, which recommends the "inverted pyramid" method of writing. This means that the most important information is contained within the first few (3-4) paragraphs of an article, so editors can cut off the article when there is limited space.

• Cite your source (author, title, location) and/or post a link (when possible). This prevents plagiarizing, gives your credibility, and allows users to read the article in full (since you did not include the entire article).

• Check copyrighting rules and regulations of the news article you are trying to cite. Some news sources require that you gain written permission before posting ANY part of their article. To not gain copyright permission means that you are infringing on copyright laws, which is against the Terms of Service.

Please keep in mind that if these guidelines are not followed, your blog may be removed by a Faculty member. If it is removed, you will be warned.

You can re-post content that you have previously written, provided you have not transferred copyright to another party. When you re-post something that you have already posted elsewhere, please note in your post where it was previously posted.

Please ensure that you are not violating any copyrighting laws when you do this. Some sites (such as MySpace) sometimes gain propriety over submitted work, including yours. Read through the site's Terms Of Service before copying over a blog or article that you have previously written.

However, anything you post on Progressive U remains your property. This means that you can feel free to repost anything you've written for Progressive U onto any other networking site you might belong to. But we would caution doing this. Many of our users do check for copyright infringement and flag posts they find duplicates of across the web. Of course, if we are able to see that it's you, the flags are removed; however, if we can't tell that you've posted both copies, we will unpublish and notify you.

In most instances, we say no, do not repost chain letters because they're of little progressive value. However, there are instances in which posting a chain letter is acceptable:

• If you have an impassioned reaction to the chain letter and wish to post it to highlight your commentary on the letter.

• If the chain letter is part of a larger project (debunking myths, discussing hoaxes, etc)

Aside from these few instances, we greatly prefer that posting chain letters be avoided and that you instead focus on your own thoughts and opinions! They're of much more value than a chain letter of dubious origin and accuracy!

Sure, as long as it fits our guidelines for posts. This FAQ is filled with ideas about how to blog, when to blog, and what to blog about. Keep these issues in mind when posting something you've written for a class:

• Instructors and faculty often check the Internet for possible plagiarism. Alleviate this possibility by posting your paper only after you have received your grade.

• Depending on the nature of the paper, you might wish to add a small paragraph beforehand to explain why you wrote the paper, and why you felt it should be published on ProgressiveU

Here are some ideas to get you going. Before you know it you'll be addicted to blogging, and you won't need anyone to give you ideas.

• Blog about issues you are discussing in your classes.
• Blog about hot topics on your campus -- events or rallies put on by campus groups, guest speakers, something you read in the campus paper, heard about on the radio, or saw on TV.
• Review a book, movie, or album.
• Scan online news sources like Google News.
• Find out what's the latest buzz on the internet through sites like Yahoo! Buzz Index or MSN Search Insider.
• Scan other progressive blogs, like the ones on our blogroll, for ideas.
• Scan conservative blogs and websites, like these, to see what they are making a fuss about.
• Check out the ProU editors' News Feeds.
• Try writing a blog relating to one of the topics of the week.

Sometimes we find it necessary to use the work of another in our writing. ProgressiveU allows that, however, we have strict policies regarding plagiarism and we follow all copyright infringement laws. Violations of those policies will result in the post being removed and/or your account being blocked.

To avoid violating the Terms of Service there are a few things you should remember about each.

Plagiarism means using another person's ideas or work without giving proper credit to that person.

• If you are directly quoting or paraphrasing the work of another, always cite your source.

• Citing your sources is as simple as including:

• The name of the author or publisher if no author information is available

• The date of publication

• A link to the original source (if available online) or the title of the document (if not available online).

• This information should be included at the bottom of your post like a bibliography.

• You should also insert the last name and the date (if known) of the work directly following the quoted or paraphrased material. Example: "Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely" (Acton, 1887).

Copyright infringement means violating the rights reserved by the copyright owner through the unauthorized use of his or her work, and is illegal. Although Copyright Infringement also includes using another person's work, the details in what is or is not "copyright infringement" differ slightly. Copyright infringement also entails distributing another person's work via a means that owner had not originally intended.

• To avoid copyright infringement never repost, in entirety, the work of another without express permission by the author or publisher.

• Stick to the four paragraph rule (never copy more than four paragraphs into your work)

• And remember to cite your source and provide links to the original!

For more information on Plagiarism, Copyright Infringement and Fair Use please see Copyright Infringement, Plagiarism and Fair Use.

Blogs are frequently promoted to the front page by the Faculty members. These blogs are chosen to demonstrate to bloggers and guests the exemplary style of blogging is on this site. They are listed in chronological order, with the most recent blog at the top of the page. While each moderator has a different set of criteria for promoting blogs to the front page, the following are general requirements to be promoted:

• The blog must contain correct grammar and spelling. If there are minor errors, the moderator reserves the right to edit the blog before promoting it. The blog must also not be copied and pasted from another source, or plagiarized.

• The blog must promote some progressive principle (Broad Prosperity, Shared Responsibility, Effective Government, Personal Freedom, Better Future).

• The blog should be unique in some way. If the blog is one of many written on the same topic, it should look at the topic from a different view than the others.

• The blog should encourage discussion and/or be very informative.

Generally blogs should be of a decent length; that is, they are long enough to explain your point of view, but short enough to keep our interest (250 words is a good limit to hold to).
The Faculty members try to keep the front page as fresh as possible, but that does not always happen. The quality and 'freshness' of the front page depends on the blogs that people are writing. If there are no good blogs, the front page will remain static.

Please note that if you edit your blog entry after it has been placed on the front page, it will automatically be removed from the Front Page. We have no idea why this is, but if you happen to notice this, just send a Faculty member a private message explaining the situation and we will try to re-promote your blog entry again.

Your blog should be long enough to cover the topic you want to cover. However, we do have some requirements and guidelines for the actual length of blog posts.

• Blog posts must contain a minimum of 200 words. If you do not post the minimum 200 words, the system will not permit the blog entry to be posted. If your blog entry contains borrowed material, such as a news article, that pushes the word count over the limit, but does not contain 200 words of your own content, the post will be removed and you will be contacted and asked to revise the blog entry.

• If you do have a post or question but do not need the 200 words or want to make it shorter, post it in the forums.

• Good blog posts are usually anywhere from a couple of paragraphs, up to about a page or two (sometimes three). Careful not to make your post too long (consider breaking the topic into parts), as you'll often lose people if your post is too long. Anywhere from 250-600 words is usually a good and effective length.

• If you have a 5 or 10 page paper that you wrote that you want to publish online, write a short summary in the body of your post, and then attach the whole paper using the "Attach new file" field. People who want to read more will download your file, but they will appreciate the summary you have posted.

• When considering the length of your post, be sure that it is broken down to be easily read. Paragraphs can become hard to read if there is no space between them to help separate your thoughts. The more paragraphs in your blog post, the more breaks in-between thoughts there should be.

There are several features that allow you to connect with other bloggers. Of course, the blogs themselves allow you to discuss any topic with other people on the site. However, there are other features we have available as well.

Profiles

Each user has the opportunity to build his or her own profile on the site. A few questions are asked during registration, but the rest is up to you. The profile has fields for name, location, school, school status, degree and major, interests, personal website, etc. You can add as much or as little as you want to the profile, giving you complete control over your privacy. You can also add an avatar that will be associated with any post you make on the site.

Profiles can also be used to find people with similar interests. All the things you list in the favorite music and favorite books sections become links. When you visit a profile, you can click on these links to find people with similar interests! The results page will also bring you a list of other interests that those people have.

You can update your profile by visiting 'my account' in your user navigation menu, then selecting the 'edit' tab at the top of the page.

Buddy Lists

Our buddy list feature allows you to track all the forum topics and blogs that your 'buddies' make. There is a section on the sidebar devoted specifically to updating the most recent blogs from your buddies (conveniently titled 'My buddies' recent posts'). Other people can also add you to their buddy list to track your progress on the site.

To add a person to your buddy list, visit their profile page, and click the link 'Add (user) to my buddy list'. To remove, just visit their profile again, and click the 'remove (user) from my buddy list' link. It's as easy as that! You can also see your buddy list at any time by clicking on 'my buddylist' in your user navigation menu.

Of course, meeting people doesn't stop at the site, so we've compiled an outreach page for you to visit for ideas of things to do in your community. Remember, progress can only be made when you Reach Out.

There are many ways to promote your posts. Here are some suggestions:

• Put a link to your blog in your signature

• Invite your friends to sign up

• Add a link or feed to your Facebook, Myspace, MyYahoo!, etc.

• Send a link to your blog post to reporters or well known bloggers

It is relatively easy to embed videos from video sharing services like YouTube; you just need to make sure you are using the correct editor when you paste in the code that references the video.

Usually it's best to write the text of your post first, and then insert the video where you want it to appear. Note that for blog posts you still need to write at least 100 words of text. For forum posts you can post the video and nothing else, if that's what you want. If you have more than a paragraph of text you may want to use the rich-text editor to enter your text (that's the editor with all the word processing icons at the top).

Once you have your text entered, following these steps:

• Save what you've done so far. Click Preview to temporarily save your text.
• Click "disable rich-text" below the editor window to go to HTML view.
• Copy the "embed" code from YouTube, or other video source, and paste it into the window either before or after your text.
• If there are HTML tags that say "pre" and "/pre" in the window, remove them before continuing (remove the angle brackets that precede and follow the tags too).
• Preview your post, and Submit when you are satisfied. You should now see the video window in your post.

Do not insert copyrighted video into your posts unless: a) you own the copyright, or b) use of the image would fall under fair use guidelines. If you do use a video segment under fair use, be sure to give proper credit to the copyright owner. We reserve the right to remove video that are deemed inappropriate or are clear violations of copyrights, fair use guidelines or the ProgressiveU Terms of Service.

Posting photos can be tricky at times, but it can be done if you keep a few things in mind during the process.
It is usually best to write the text of your post prior to inserting the photos where you want them. Once you have your text entered, follow these steps:

• Save what you've done so far. You might want to use this time to copy your text into a wordprocessor such as Microsoft Word, so that you can easily return should things go wrong. Click preview at the bottom of the post to temporarily save your post on the website (note that, except in rare instances, your blog will not be saved if you exit out of your browser with this.)

• If your photo is already available somewhere on the internet, skip to step 5. If not, click the 'file attachments' link near the submit button, and attach your photo to your post by uploading it from your computer.

• Near the bottom of the input form you will see a ProgressiveU.org URL listed for your attached photo. Highlight and copy this URL.

• Place your cursor in the Body edit box in the place where you want to insert the photo. Click on the Insert/Edit image icon (it looks like a tree) if using the rich-text editor (clicking the link that reads 'enable rich-text'). Skip the next five steps if you do not want to use the rich-text editor.

• Paste the URL for the photo into the Image URL field.

• Choose the alignment that you prefer. Left or Right usually work best (text will wrap around photos this way), but you can experiment with other alignments.

• Vertical Space and Horizontal Space are for padding around your photo. We've found that a value of 5 for both of these usually works well.

• Click Insert.

• You many need to resize your photo in the Body editor box. We recommend a maximum size of 450 x 450 pixels, to avoid throwing off the formating of the right sidebar.

• Here's the most important step, which many people fail to do at first: Under the editor window in the input methods section, select the Full HTML radio button.

• If you are not using the rich-text editor, write <img src="YOUR URL HERE">. You will also uee this method to post photos into your comments.

• Preview your post, and Submit when you are satisfied.

Once you feel comfortable with the image insert functions you can skip some of the extra 'save your work' steps above.
Do not insert copyrighted images into your posts unless a) you own the copyright, or b) use of the image would fall under fair use guidelines. If you do use a photo or image under fair use, be sure to give proper credit to the photographer or copyright owner. We reserve the right to remove images that are deemed inappropriate or are clear violations of copyright or fair use guidelines.

You'll notice every time you decide to "post a new blog entry" that there is a field below the main text area that reads "Input format". The default is set to "Full HTML". This selection allows you to use several of the most common HTML tags within your blog for emphasis, hyperlinks, or even to separate quoted text from your own text. To use these tags in your blogs, make sure that you do not click on "enable rich-text" - as the rich-text editor will not recognize your tags because it has features that work to automatically add the tags just as in a word processor. To use them in your comments, just follow the simple directions for each one. Here is a list of some of the allowed HTML tags, what each one does, and how they can be used in your blogs.

• <a> and </a> This tag allows you to create a hyperlink in your blog without having that ugly URL address taking up space. To use this tag, follow this example:

  <a href="http://www.progressiveu.org">The text you want to link</a> Will turn out to look like this:

  The text you want to link.

  Notice, the code is opened with the <a> tag, and then closed with the </a> tag; this is important as if you forget either of the tags, your code will not work the way you want it to.

  You can also make your links open into a new window - keeping people from leaving your blog entirely when they go to read an article that you may be citing within your blog. To do this, add the line Target="_blank" into your tag like this:

  <a href=http://www.progressiveu.org target="_blank">The text you want to link into a new window</a>. will work like this:

  The text you want to link to a new window.

• <b> and </b> This tag will allow you to make some your blog bold to emphasize certain points. This is not recommended as a means to publish your entire blog in bold text, but sometimes certain areas or ideas should be emphasized to make a point. To use this tag, place the opening tag before the point in question, and the closing tag directly after the point in question, like this example:

  <b>Here is an example</b> will give you this result:

  Here is an example

• <i> and </i> This tag allows you to take some of your blog's text and italicize it for emphasis. As with the <b> and </b> tags for bold, it's not recommened to publish your entire blog in italics. But occasionally, italicizing a word or two can bring just the right amount of emphasis to a point you'd like to make. Simply place the opening and closing tags around the words or phrase you would like to emphasize like this:

  <i>Progressive U is a great website!</i> will look like this:

  Progressive U is a great website!

• <blockquote> and </blockquote> This tag will allow you to separate parts of your blog into a blocked of section: perfect for use when directly quoting an article or other source:

  <blockquote>ProgressiveU.org is a nonpartisan social welfare organization that encourages an open discussion of current events, progressive values, and public policy priorities.</blockquote> Will look like this:

  ProgressiveU.org is a nonpartisan social welfare organization that encourages an open discussion of current events, progressive values, and public policy priorities.

The ProgressiveU Terms of Service states:

We welcome active debate but in order to ensure a safe and civil online environment, ProgressiveU reserves the right to remove any content you post on the Site or terminate your participation. To maintain that safe and civil environment, you agree not to upload, post, display, distribute, transmit or otherwise publish on the Site any material that:

(1) is libelous, obscene, pornographic, harassing, invective, or abusive;

(2) is violent, hateful, or threatening to anyone or any group.

But what exactly does all of that mean? What is a personal attack and how do we enforce it? Read this guide for specific information on what the policy entails.

Personal attacks, including name-calling, harassment, or violent, hateful and/or threatening statements made about or to any individual or group, are expressly forbidden at ProgressiveU.

When engaging in discussion, you should comment on the content of the blog itself and not on the blogger. Personal attacks will not help make a point. Instead, they degrade not only the discussion, but your personal integrity, that of the website and the mission of ProgressiveU.

Debate and discussion are a vital part of the ProgressiveU mission. Users should be civil and adhere to good netiquette when engaged in discussion, debate or general blogging. Comments should not be personalized and should be directed at content and actions rather than individual(s). When in disagreement about content, remember that it is not a personal attack to say "Your statement about this is wrong because ______." Nor is it a personal attack to debate with the individual who made the statement.

When in debate or discussion, the following types of comments and actions are never acceptable:

The rating feature allows users that are signed in to rate blogs on a scale from 1 to 5 (with 5 being the best). The five blogs with the highest rating on the site at a given time are featured in the 'Highest Rated posts' block on the right side of the screen (a blog must have a minimum of 3 ratings to be placed on this list). You can only rate each blog once, and you cannot rate your own blogs.

Users are in control of the ratings each blog gets. If only one or two people rate each blog, the 'Highest Rated posts' block will remain static. The more users that rate each posts, the more the rating will reflect the quality of the blog.

The rating system is meant to be a valuable tool in assessing the quality of blogs, not a weapon to be used as reprisal against bloggers or blogs you don't like. ProgressiveU cannot control how each user rates the blogs that they read, but there have been a number of recommendations of how to rate the blogs, in order to have the ratings be fair:

• Do not rate the blog based on the topic, i.e. if the blog is a pro-choice argument, do not give it a rating of 1, simply because you are pro-life, or visa versa.
• Do not rate the blog based on the author, that is, if you have argued with the author in the past, do not rate their blog poorly for this reason alone. Read each blog separately and judge it based on its content, rather than the author. Similarly, do not rate a blog well simply because the author is your friend.
• Blogs that are written well should get higher ratings, i.e. blogs that have correct spelling and grammar and where the bloggers put some time into writing the blog.
• Blogs that provoke thought while providing some insight into an issue should be given higher marks.
• Blogs that are written for the purpose of accusing another user of some infraction, or for the simple purpose of complaining should be given lower marks.

Remember, these are just guidelines to help you rate blogs. We hope that in time you develop your own system for rating blogs fairly. If you have any questions regarding ratings, feel free to post a topic in the forums (see link at the top of the page), and the moderators will be happy to assist you.

At the bottom of your post, before the comments fields, you should see text that says something like "15 reads." In this case, that means that your post has been read 15 times. Every time someone loads the page for your post in their browser, either by clicking on the title of the post, or by clicking on "read more," or by coming from another website, the counter will go up by one.

Of course, you could increase the number of reads just by clicking on your own post yourself, but its more fun to see how many other people you can get to read your post. For ways to get others to see your post, see the FAQ answer on promoting your blog posts.

NOTE: Repeated reads from the same computer, use of auto-refresh tools, or use of other automated methods to increase read counts is prohibited under the rules of the contest. See official rules for more details.

Here are a few ways to navigate the site:

• Go to the "front page" of the website (www.progressiveu.org) and scan the teasers of articles shown in the center column of the page. If you see something interesting, click on the title or on "read more" to see the whole article. Articles here have been "promoted" to the front page for more exposure. If you write something interesting, your post might end up here!
• Look at posts from our Featured Bloggers.
• Scan the "Recent Blog Posts" section in the right column.
• Go to the sitemap and browse by topic. You can search for specific content with our search feature. Or, you can check out our "Active Threads" and "Active Topics" to see what others have commented on recently.
• On each post, there are a couple links you may want to try: <username>'s blog (all posts by that user), and Similar Posts (links to similar posts appear on the right sidebar under the "similar posts" heading).
• Check out the Choice Picks for posts handpicked by site editors.
• When you find another blogger whose posts you like to read add him or her to your buddy list (you can do this from the blogger's profile page). Once you've done this, you will have a new left sidebar block that shows recent posts for all of your buddies.
• You can also find content by clicking on a username and utilizing the "Track" feature (this is a tab at the top of their profile page).

Sometimes there's nothing recent that interest's you. That's OK -- be a pioneer -- write about something that does interest you. You'll be surprised -- people will find what you write, and if you're lucky you'll end up with an interesting dialog.

At the very bottom of each blog entry, there is a comment form for the blog. Typing into this form will post your comment as a reply to the blog itself.

Before posting a comment, read the entire blog to make sure that your comment is relevant to the blog. A one or two word post does nothing to add to the discussion on the blog and is not adequate to state an opinion. Writing a few sentences stating your views on the blog will help other bloggers understand where you stand on certain issues without being vague in your response.

If a comment is longer than a few paragraphs, however, it should probably be posted as a blog instead of a comment. Comments should address an argument, challenge the argument with a differing viewpoint, and offer some insight into your opinion. You should support you opinion with facts, quotes, logic, or an expert's opinion.

There are a few ways of determining this.

Subscriptions: ProgressiveU will send e-mails to your account to any blog or forum topic you have subscribed to.

• Your blog: before you submit, check the box in the 'subscription' menu under the body of your blog/forum topic.
• For other blogs: Go to 'My account', and click the 'edit' tab at the top. Scroll down to the 'E-mail notifications' box. Clicking 'Always send e-mail notifications will subscribe you to every post you reply to.
• You can remove your subscriptions in the 'My subscriptions' tab on your My account page.

Tracking: Tracking pages can be used to view new comments on the site, rather than using the subscriptions feature.

• Track all posts by clicking on the 'Active Threads' link in the sidebar.
• Visit 'My Account' and click on the 'track' tab at the top to track blogs you've responded to. From the 'Active Threads' page, you can also click on the 'my recent posts' tab to view this page.
• Track others' posts by going to their profile, and clicking the 'track' tab at the top of the page.

Blog pages:

• On pages where teasers of blogs are shown (including 'my blog' from the sidebar, blog lists from user profiles, the recent blog list, and the front page), the number of total comments and new comments will be highlighted beneath the teaser of the blog.

Note that all new comments to any post will show up beneath the teaser of the blog, or in the tracker, as a link with the number of new comments ("1 new comments" under blogs, and "1 new" in the tracker).

At the present time, users cannot delete comments. You can only edit your own comments as long as someone has not responded to them.

However, depending on the reason you want the comment deleted, it can be deleted by a moderator. Simply flag the comment, using the 'flag this' link at the bottom of the comment. If the comment violates the Terms of Service, we will delete the comment (and all replies to that comment) for you.

We do value the freedom to say what you want, though, so we only censor comments when they are a clear violation of the Terms of Service. If you want the comment deleted simply because you did not like what it said, we probably won't be able to help you.

There are several features that allow you to connect with other bloggers. Of course, the blogs themselves allow you to discuss any topic with other people on the site. However, there are other features we have available as well.

Profiles

Each user has the opportunity to build his or her own profile on the site. A few questions are asked during registration, but the rest is up to you. The profile has fields for name, location, school, school status, degree and major, interests, personal website, etc. You can add as much or as little as you want to the profile, giving you complete control over your privacy. You can also add an avatar that will be associated with any post you make on the site.

Profiles can also be used to find people with similar interests. All the things you list in the favorite music and favorite books sections become links. When you visit a profile, you can click on these links to find people with similar interests! The results page will also bring you a list of other interests that those people have.

You can update your profile by visiting 'my account' in your user navigation menu, then selecting the 'edit' tab at the top of the page.

Buddy Lists

Our buddy list feature allows you to track all the forum topics and blogs that your 'buddies' make. There is a section on the sidebar devoted specifically to updating the most recent blogs from your buddies (conveniently titled 'My buddies' recent posts'). Other people can also add you to their buddy list to track your progress on the site.

To add a person to your buddy list, visit their profile page, and click the link 'Add (user) to my buddy list'. To remove, just visit their profile again, and click the 'remove (user) from my buddy list' link. It's as easy as that! You can also see your buddy list at any time by clicking on 'my buddylist' in your user navigation menu.

Of course, meeting people doesn't stop at the site, so we've compiled an outreach page for you to visit for ideas of things to do in your community. Remember, progress can only be made when you Reach Out.

If you would like to reply to a comment instead of a blog, click the link at the bottom of the comment reading 'reply'. This will open a new window with just the comment you wish to reply to in the window. Type your reply into the text box provided, and submit.

This process will indent the comment under the comment you are replying to. This is very useful for blogs in which there are many comments and many different conversations going on. Simply replying using the text box at the end of the page will add your comment to the bottom of the list of comments, and it is difficult to keep track of a conversation if replies are all mixed up together.

Please note that the comment reply boxes will thin with each new reply. It may be best to put a "Skinny Box Alert'' (or other such notice) alerting users that the discussion is being moved to a fresh comment field to prevent the reply box from thinning to the point where the comments are no longer legible.

While most people will never want to change or delete their blogs, in certain cases, a user may see it as valuable or necessary to do. Duplicate blogs should be deleted as soon as possible, in order to prevent having to later delete one with comments. The moderators would love your help in this endeavor, so here is how you delete a blog:

1) Click to open the blog you wish to delete.

2) At the top of the page, there should be two tabs, 'view' and 'edit'. Click on the 'edit' tab.

3) Scroll down to the bottom of the content. There should be two buttons: 'preview' and 'delete'. Use the 'preview' button if you have made changes to your blog and wish to save those changes (You must click submit on the next page to continue with your save). Click the 'delete' button if you wish to delete the blog. There will be a confirmation page. Click the 'delete' button again to delete.

If you have any problems, please feel free to post a topic in the forums, and one of our moderators will get with you as soon as possible.

We rely on the ProgressiveU community to help us identify and remove posts that do not belong on ProgressiveU. If you come across a posting in the forums, in a blog or even in a comment that you feel violates the Terms of Service of ProgressiveU, we ask that you flag it for review by a member of the A-Team.

To flag a blog post, forum topic, or comment:

1) Look at the bottom of the blog or forum topic that you find objectionable for the "Flag This" link.

2) Click on the link.

3.) You will be brought to a confirmation page. If you clicked the link on accident, you may cancel the flag; if you truly want to flag the post, click on the confirm button.

4.) All information, including your username and the URL of the post you are flagging, will be sent directly to the administrators of the site. They will then review the post and decide what actions, if any, should be taken.

5.) If you return to the blog or content after you have flagged it, you will see an option to "unflag" the content. Should new information come to light (i.e., a joke you didn't catch until after you've already flagged it, or you find that the author has re-written the post), please use the "unflag" link to let the administrators know that you no longer find the content objectionable.

A few notes about flagging a post:

1) You have to be signed in to flag a post. Likewise, you have to have an account on ProgressiveU to flag a page. This is so we can contact you if we have questions about our flag.

2) Hate speech, name calling, plagiarism, copyright infringement, spam, libel and otherwise illegal content are all violations that should be flagged for review and removal.

3) Posts should not be flagged merely because you disagree with what is being said.

4.) You may also flag images and users, should you suddenly receive an offensive Private Message or should someone post an image that is truly offensive. However, please remember when you're trying to decide whether or not to flag a user or an image that a user has posted that this site is not meant to censor people. We will not delete images simply off of one flag

While we firmly believe in freedom of speech, we want everyone to feel comfortable at ProgressiveU. Please help us achieve that goal!

Linking to other posts is fairly simple if you follow the steps below.

• When you entering the body text for a new post, you will see a link icon that looks like a chain in the toolbar above the text entry area.
• Highlight the text in your post that you want to link from, then click on the link icon.
• A new window will pop up that allows you to enter the address that you want to link to.
• Enter the entire URL address if you are linking to a site outside of ProgressiveU.org (for example, http://www.campusactivism.org/displaygroup-1118.htm).
• Click OK, and your link is inserted.
• After you have submitted an image or blog post, you will see a URL in the address bar of your browser in a format like this: http://www.progressiveu.org/17302-why-i-blog. This is the address you should use if you are sending the link to friends by email, or if you want them to link to it from another site.
• You can also use this URL address if you are creating a link to your post or image from within ProgressiveU.org (say you're writing a new blog post and you want to refer people to something you posted earlier).

Every ProgressiveU user has their own in site inbox. This feature allows for users to privately communicate with other users, moderators and ProgressiveU administrators when the occasion arises. Private Messaging another user can be useful in many situations.

If you and another user find yourselves conversing about off-topic things via commenting back and forth, you might consider moving the conversation to Private Message. Private messaging also comes in handy when you find yourself wanted to say something privately to another user, ask a question of another user or moderator, or request help from another user/moderator.

• You can access your Private Message capabilities by clicking on "My Inbox" under your account features on the right sidebar.
• Once you have accessed your inbox, you will see a list of private messages that other users have sent to you.
• To read any messages, click on the Subject of the message and it will open the message for you to view.
• If you want to respond to the message, use the "Reply to this message" link at the bottom of that page.
• You can also delete the message or return to the message list by clicking the other links at the bottom of that page.
• When you have a new unread message, you will receive a notification upon logging in to ProgressiveU.
• That notification will contain a link that takes you to your inbox. From there, you follow the steps listed above.

You can Private Message another user one of two ways.

• The first way to do this is to send private messages via your Inbox, by clicking the "Write a new message" link at the bottom of the Inbox page.
• The second way to send a private message to a user is to click on his or her user name from any page on ProgressiveU.
• When the profile page loads, scroll down.
• If Private Message capabilities are turned on for that user, you will have the option to "send private message".
• Click that link and it will open a "Write a new Message" page. Write your message, and hit the "send private message" button.
• You can retrieve a list of all sent messages by accessing your Inbox and clicking the "Sent messages" link located above the messages list.

Please remember that your account can be removed should you abuse the private message feature. ProgressiveU will not tolerate the harassment of another user or moderator via Private Message, nor will we tolerate spamming users via private messages. ProgressiveU team members do not read your private messages unless they are forwarded to us by a user wishing to lodge a complaint, at which point your account will be placed under review while we investigate the complaint.

So, now you've got your account set up, you've started posting a few blogs, and you would like to reply to some of the comments on your blogs - or maybe leave a comment on someone else's blog - and you'd like to know how to get that cool little signature set up, right?

That's easy! Just follow these steps, and you'll have a signature to include famous quotes, a favorite quote, or even a link to your favorite blog title.

First, go to your account page by clicking on "My account" in the navigation menu on the right side of the screen.

At your account page, click on the tab towards the top of the screen labeled "Edit". This will bring up several options; but for this item we're only worried about that front page under the label "account settings".

Scroll down the page until you see the section entitled "Comment settings". There, you'll see a text area with the word "Signature" in bold just above the area where you can type in your signature.

Type in your message. You can use basic HTML to provide links, italicize, or bold your message.

Once you've typed in your signature the way you like it, scroll down and click the "Submit" button. You should see the page turn back to your profile view with a message above in red font reading "The changes have been saved."

Be mindful, though, before typing in a novel :) A signature is made for a brief message; as such, there is a limit on how many characters you can type into the text area. This includes the codes for links - the longer your code, the more space it takes. You may want to view one of your blogs to make sure your entire comment appears as you would like it to. If it looks skewed, or the entire message doesn't fit, go back through and edit your signature again.

It is relatively easy to embed videos from video sharing services like YouTube; you just need to make sure you are using the correct editor when you paste in the code that references the video.

Usually it's best to write the text of your post first, and then insert the video where you want it to appear. Note that for blog posts you still need to write at least 100 words of text. For forum posts you can post the video and nothing else, if that's what you want. If you have more than a paragraph of text you may want to use the rich-text editor to enter your text (that's the editor with all the word processing icons at the top).

Once you have your text entered, following these steps:

• Save what you've done so far. Click Preview to temporarily save your text.
• Click "disable rich-text" below the editor window to go to HTML view.
• Copy the "embed" code from YouTube, or other video source, and paste it into the window either before or after your text.
• If there are HTML tags that say "pre" and "/pre" in the window, remove them before continuing (remove the angle brackets that precede and follow the tags too).
• Preview your post, and Submit when you are satisfied. You should now see the video window in your post.

Do not insert copyrighted video into your posts unless: a) you own the copyright, or b) use of the image would fall under fair use guidelines. If you do use a video segment under fair use, be sure to give proper credit to the copyright owner. We reserve the right to remove video that are deemed inappropriate or are clear violations of copyrights, fair use guidelines or the ProgressiveU Terms of Service.

Posting photos can be tricky at times, but it can be done if you keep a few things in mind during the process.
It is usually best to write the text of your post prior to inserting the photos where you want them. Once you have your text entered, follow these steps:

• Save what you've done so far. You might want to use this time to copy your text into a wordprocessor such as Microsoft Word, so that you can easily return should things go wrong. Click preview at the bottom of the post to temporarily save your post on the website (note that, except in rare instances, your blog will not be saved if you exit out of your browser with this.)

• If your photo is already available somewhere on the internet, skip to step 5. If not, click the 'file attachments' link near the submit button, and attach your photo to your post by uploading it from your computer.

• Near the bottom of the input form you will see a ProgressiveU.org URL listed for your attached photo. Highlight and copy this URL.

• Place your cursor in the Body edit box in the place where you want to insert the photo. Click on the Insert/Edit image icon (it looks like a tree) if using the rich-text editor (clicking the link that reads 'enable rich-text'). Skip the next five steps if you do not want to use the rich-text editor.

• Paste the URL for the photo into the Image URL field.

• Choose the alignment that you prefer. Left or Right usually work best (text will wrap around photos this way), but you can experiment with other alignments.

• Vertical Space and Horizontal Space are for padding around your photo. We've found that a value of 5 for both of these usually works well.

• Click Insert.

• You many need to resize your photo in the Body editor box. We recommend a maximum size of 450 x 450 pixels, to avoid throwing off the formating of the right sidebar.

• Here's the most important step, which many people fail to do at first: Under the editor window in the input methods section, select the Full HTML radio button.

• If you are not using the rich-text editor, write <img src="YOUR URL HERE">. You will also uee this method to post photos into your comments.

• Preview your post, and Submit when you are satisfied.

Once you feel comfortable with the image insert functions you can skip some of the extra 'save your work' steps above.
Do not insert copyrighted images into your posts unless a) you own the copyright, or b) use of the image would fall under fair use guidelines. If you do use a photo or image under fair use, be sure to give proper credit to the photographer or copyright owner. We reserve the right to remove images that are deemed inappropriate or are clear violations of copyright or fair use guidelines.