Welcome to new and old users alike from this month's host Angie in WA State. Our group is here to help you orient yourself to the site and answer your questions about how to use it.
When you join us below the orange gnocchi-doodle you'll find today's subject: How do I do THAT?. Below that you'll find links to a whole Welcome New Users trove of teaching diaries.
After that you can ask us any questions about the site you want. [If I don't know the answers someone smarter is bound to be along who does, or I'll find someone who does!]
AND-- if you're new and wondering what is and isn't OK around here, read Kos' Community Guidelines. That'll keep you out of trouble!
Wanna follow us around or send us a kosmail?
Click the ♥ to follow us in your Stream, or click Send Message to send us a private kosmail.
How do I do THAT?
Over the years, I've found that there a lot things which I'd like to incorporate into my diaries, but I couldn't figure out how to do it. The Welcome New Users diaries have shown me how to do most of them!
So, do you need help on Formatting, like how to insert links or images?
This lovely Welcome New Users diary shows you how to embed Soundcloud audio files
Ever wonder "Hey, where should I start reading?", start right there, with Susan Grigsby's diary on Community Spotlight and the Daily Kos Rescue Rangers!
Like a lot of places, Daily Kos has it's own terminology for things, when you see something and don't know what in the world it means, you might find what it is in one of my old Welcome New Users diaries "Learning the Lingo".
Another one of my teaching diaries is "How to embed YouTube Videos" using the latest workaround for the issue causing so many embedded YouTube videos to fail to post.
See Belinda Ridgewood's great diary on Using Groups
One of the most overlooked and easiest to use functions here at Daily Kos is the HOTLISTING function. It's the built-in Favorites for kossacks.
You can Hotlist any diary, I suggest you open those linked diaries I've listed and Hotlist each one!
Here's how:
Open any diary on Daily Kos. Note the Diary Title section, see the Orange Circle? Click that "Hotlist" link to put the diary in your personal Hotlist:
Once you click that HOTLIST link this Note box will pop up. Put a short note about WHY you wanted to hotlist the diary here. Trust me, you will be glad you did!
Ok. Now that you've saved the diary,
How do you find it again?
Go to your Welcome Back Box, located top right of any page on Daily Kos when you are logged in. Click your User Name (found in the circled area)
Which takes you to your Personal User Page, where you'll click the FOLLOWING link (see circled area)
Which takes you to the HOTLISTED link shown here (see circled area):
Which takes you to Your Hotlisted diaries page. The cool thing is, once you are here all you have to do is mouseover the column labeled NOTE to see that note you wrote yourself. HINT: the dark boxes (see bottom of image) are the one WITH notes
Now, that might SEEM like a lot of Time & Trouble
Just to find something, but it's really only
CLICK (your user name),
CLICK (FOLLOWING),
CLICK (HOTLISTED DIARIES).
3 clicks and about 5 seconds total including page load time for most users.
To be able to use your very own, personalized treasure trove of Goodies, which you can refer back to anytime you want to.
Which I strongly suggest you do!
Thanks for dropping by for this month's edition of Welcome New Users.
Hope it was helpful!
and a Tip of the Hat to Some Recent New Users:
Brand new diarist comes out of the gate with a Rec Listed diary everyone should read:
AndrewAmericanus with the wonderful diary Why I'm a DEM - Rant from Southern White Male, Mid 40's, Business Owner h/t Angie in WA State
RogueHistorian wrote a thoughtful piece on the near future realignment of political parties in Thoughts on deBlasio's Progressive Agenda. h/t smileycreek
PeanutFarmer got stuck for hours listening to right wing talk radio and wishes he could tell them about Global Warming vs. Climate Change. h/t smileycreek
This first diary by shadowcatdancing went to the Rec list, and to many people's hearts in http://www.dailykos.com/...
h/t BeninSC
What new users have you met or helped in the past month?
Share them with us in the comments!
Please also check out the buddy system over at the New Diarists group. While WNU and New Diarists do quite a bit of cross-pollinating, there is one essential difference between us: Over at New Diarists you can request a volunteer mentor who will help with revising and publishing one diary (usually your first) so that you won't get publicly consigned to Worst Diary Hell at the GOS (Great Orange Satan, as we are affectionately known among wingnuts). Just send them a kosmail asking for an invite! Also check out their Resource Diaries. Note: The New Diarists groups also welcomes experienced diarists who would like to be mentors.
Got questions? Comments? Ideas? We're all ears-- just join us in the comments. And remember: Since this diary is for New Users no question is too basic, no matter how long you've been here!
For More Helpful Diaries, Check Out Our Archives:
Everyone is encouraged to review some of the previously written goodness that survives here in the DKos archives, going back to WNU founder ek hornbeck and including the list of teaching diaries republished to our Group page.