A.
To encourage everyone, whether they can be in San Francisco
for the event or not, to discuss the issues as they arise. Anyone
attending the conference can read, and post to, the blog.
We want to make the blog as open and easy to use as possible - but, if
it appears to be suffering from attacks by spammers and other lowlifes,
we may need to impose restrictions on posting.
Q.
Do I need
to register to be able to post?
A.
Not necessarily. You can contribute to the blog in one of two ways: 1. you can add
comments to any existing
message without registering. Simply click on the 'Comments' (or 'No
comments yet') link at
the end of any existing item and then fill in the for. You will need to
add your name, or a nickname, and an email address, which will not be
published, but is a method for tracking spammers. 2. you can
register as a blogger. This gives you more flexibility to
add new items, add new categories, and other functions (see below under
'Registering and using the blog').
However - note that comments may be held for moderation by the
administrators if there is evidence of attacks by spammers or others,
and may not appear immediately.
Q.
What about social comments?
A. The social side of
the conference is often as interesting,
and sometimes more fun, than the event itself – therefore we have an
area
for discussion of social activities.
Q.
Can I talk
about a commercial product or service?
A. The
exhibition is a key part of this event and there are
a wide range of products and services on display or described. You are
therefore welcome to talk about them – but blatant and prolific
advertising is not the purpose
of this blog.
Q. Any banned
areas?
A.
Obviously anything that is
illegal, pornographic or
defamatory is not appropriate. We are not intending to do any heavy
moderation, but we will be monitoring the blog before, during and after
the event, and spams and anything we deem inappropriate will be
removed.
Registering and
using the blog
To
register:
Send an
email requesting a user account to Dr Peter Murray -
drpeter.murray[at]googlemail.com You will receive further details
by email once an account has been set up.
To
post once you are registered:
Click on the
Login button (under
'Meta' in the right hand column) and on the new page, enter your Login
name and Password and then click on 'Login'.
You will (assuming you made no mistakes) now see a new screen, titled
Dashboard. This has several options with links to things that you can
do (and also tabs at the top of the page that also link to these
options).
The first thing you might want to do is change your password. Click on
the 'Profile' tab or on the link to 'Update your profile or change your
password' and fill in the appropriate boxes on the screen. Remember
your new password as we will not be informed of it!
To post a new
item, click on the 'Write' tab or the 'Write a post' link.
Fill in a title for the post and
then your text in the 'Post' box. If you are writing a long post, we
recommend that you click 'Save and continue editing' at intervals to
avoid losing your work.
Towards the bottom of the screen, 'Post preview' shows you what your
post will look like (ignore the 'e' on the end of the post title, this
is simply an artefact showing your are in edit mode and will not appear
in the final version everyone else can see).
If you click 'Save', then your post is saved as a draft.
Your post will not be published until you click 'Publish'. We recommend
also that you select a 'Category' for your post from the list of
options on the right of the 'Write' screen.
Using Technorati tags
We would
like to encourage people to 'tag' their posts with Technorati tags (
see www.technorati.com).
To do this:
1. At the end of your post, put [tags] xxxx [/tags] where xxxx is
the tag words you wish to use - see other posts for examples.
2. Once you 'publish' your post, the technorati tags should be
automatically added.
***Make
sure you logout if you are
using a public terminal accessing the web - otherwise someone else can
post under your ID!***
Contact for any
queries - Peter
Murray - drpeter.murray[at]googlemail.com