- <big><big>HOW TO CONTACT A GROUP if you’re interesting in joining</big></big> in order to be able to post diaries under their banner or reblog diaries (your own and other relevant ones) at that group:
[1] Find the group via one of the indexes listed in the yellow box above. OR:
- click on the group name where you see it in the PUBLISHED TO section of a diary’s left margin.
- That gets you to the group’s blogview page (example below) where you now click on the white list button — the right-hand one of these two <big><big>►</big></big>
—it’s not labeled, tho’— where you see it at the blogview near the right margin.
[2] And that gets you to the group’s posting history/diary list, looking more or less like this:
[3] Click on the Members link in the center of the top row of links on this page (that link is almost directly below the 💖 Follow button, which is below Labor which is below the tip of flagman’s flag).
[4] Now you’re at a page looking kinda like the example blow, and in the left-hand column below the group’s name in big black letters (and Community Blog in blue) on grey background, you’ll see a little clump of orange names of ADMINS (administrators) of the group...
[5] Click on the admin listed first or 2nd — admins seem to be listed now by order of who has posted a diary anywhere in DK most recently, since that’s who’s most likely to be currently active on-site, replying to comments at the diary, and therefore likely to be among the soonest of the admins at that group to see a new-message alert at his/her new-message-alert icon and in the MESSAGES line at her/his WELCOME BACK.
[6] Clicking on that admin’’s name (or any) gets you to that person’s profile page, looking something like this, where —before you click Send Message— you can check at the Diaries published and Comments posted lines for the dates there, to make sure s/he looks likely to be online currently,
[7] Click his/her Send message link to get her/his kosmail fill-in form, which will look something like the one below. On the Subject line in it, type something like “Requesting to join Arkansas Kos.” In the body of the message, you might want to mention whether you’re interested in reblogging diaries (yours or other peoples) that are appropriate to the group, and whether you know how to do that or not (so the admin will know whether to give you links to tutorials and/or coach you when you ask) and other groupish things you might know how to do — a lot of admins will immediate promote a new Contributor up to Editor if that new group member haz teh skillz to be useful for the group. You can mention whether you want to write for the group, and if so whether you need coaching to put drafts into the group queue for that purpose, or whether you already know how.
Or maybe you’d just like to join the group, because you live there, or you’re interested in the area, or whatever, and that’s fine too.
Occasionally you’ll get an error message or other problem after you hit SEND at the foot of the kosmail form. Kosmail-Sending & Glitch Work-Arounds Rev’d.Ed’n may help with that. See also the DK Knowledge Base and other diaries tagged tutorials for various kinds of teaching/learning how to use the site. Many of them involve dk pages redesigned in August 2020 that neither look nor work remotely as they used to. SEE the 26Aug2020 staff diaries, A-Tour-of-New-Groups-for-Group-Admins and New-Group-Profile-Pages. For more help, trying asking at any of the FRIENDLY DK OPEN THREADS groups (below).
<big><big>NOTE: if you use the Send message link at the top of a group’s diary list page to try to contact the whole group instead of an individual admin, that will NOT put a new-message alert at anyone’s message/envelope icon nor at the MESSAGES line in anyone’s WELCOME BACK box.</big></big> Therefore, group admins & editors will only know you kosmailed if they stumble across your message while happening to check their inbox. <big><big>Same is true if you’re sending a request to an editor or admin for your diary be reblogged to a group where you’re not a member </big></big> — if you want your message seen timely, send it to an individual, not to the group as a whole. If you don’t receive a reply to your request to join within 2 or 3 days, try kosmailing to another admin in the group who looks likely to be currently active on-site.
Friendly Open Thread
Groups & Series
DK’s friendly, regularly scheduled open-thread groups are good places to see how groups do things by participating in their comment threads. Most of these groups are tagged “community” — that tag means they are for friendly interaction, information-sharing, and so on, not for argument/debate the way most topical diaries and groups are. Community groups are welcoming to newcomers, and usually have several longtimers around who can answer questions about DK how-to. See the yellow Key to Symbols box, above for more community groups along heritage and health-issue lines, etc.
■ MOT - Morning Open Thread 💚 appx 3a.m. leftkost, 6a.m. east every morning
■ New Day Cafe 💚 appx 7:30 a.m leftkost, 10:30a.m. east daily.
■ Street Prophets Coffee Hour 💚 appx 1pm leftkost, 4 pm east daily; brunch All Day Sundays & Saturdays (?) starting 7:30a.m.leftkost/10:30East
■ Cheers and Jeers 💚 series, posted by Bill in Portland Monday-most-Fridays approx 4:30pm leftkost, 7:30pm east.
■ Kitchen Table Kibitzing 💚 5:30 pm leftkost, 8:30 pm east, every evening
■ Top Comments 💚 7pm leftkost, 10 pm east daily.
■ Overnight News Digest 💚 politics, art, science, culture. 9pm leftkost, 12midnight east daily.
If your open-thread friendly group or series isn’t listed, please kosmail to diarist to be added. New members join DK all the time, and most could really use a home-base instead of running around loose eating junkfood, swearing, and hanging out at street corners waiting for the trolley to the race track. ;-) |