DK4 beta will be opened to all today, and then, go live here in the near future.
If you post diaries, one of your questions might be: How do you inform our community that you have posted a diary so that everyone can hop over for a nice discussion? There is a link on the FP to a recent diary list, but it will be overloaded with our new right to post unlimited diaries each day. The FP will also have a live diary rescue by our rangers called Community Spotlight, a Features Box of diaries promoted by FP'ers, a community Recommended List, a list of Most Viewed Diaries, and a List of Most Commented Diaries. The last two lists are generated automatically by the system, so should be contemporaneous with posting times. The first three lists need a little time for people to select diaries.
Another way for our community to learn about recently posted diaries is the DK4 networking features. This diary presents tips from a techie dummy on how to use those features.
Stream: Groups, Tags & Diarists
DK4 provides a number of networking tools that can be used by diarists to inform other kossacks that they have posted a diary.
On your user blog page, you will see this:
"MY STREAM" is essentially a "recent diary list" for each of us. IT is a list with 4 columns identifying: title of diary, author, date, and comments (total comments/new comments). It is an intelligent recent list: If you place your cursor over the diary title a little box pops up with a few words from the intro of the diary.
You might notice that this "recent diary list" has diaries written by kossacks other than me (and if my picture was bigger, you would see diaries written by me too). Where did these diaries come from on my "recent diary list?"
This "recent diary list" is a list of my diaries and diaries that have been written by people whom I am following similar to how people have followers on twitter. Each stream is comprised of the diaries written via the authors, tags and groups that you follow.
FOLLOWING ON DK4
On DK4, you decide which diarists, tags and groups to follow.
Diarists
On my user page or profile page, you will see this:
Underneath the flagman is a "√ FOLLOW" and clicking onto this is one way you can start to follow a diarist.
Another way to follow a diarist is to click onto the heart next to the diarist's name when they post a diary, like the heart next to Meteor Blades's name on this FP post now at DK4 beta:
Tags
You can follow tags, and then your stream or "recent diary list" will include all diaries posted that used that tag. Finding tags are easy, and, as with diarists, you simply click onto the heart next to the tag.
These are how tags look for diaries that are posted. Click onto the heart next to any or all of these tags and then you are following these tags:
At the bottom of the DK4 homepage, you will see what I call the primary tag categories for DK. You might notice that these primary tag cats don't have hearts.
I think that is because each primary tag cat is comprised of many "related tags." Here is a picture of the related tags so far for the primary tag of ENVIRONMENT. Each of the related tags have a heart so that you can pick which of the related tags you want to follow, keeping in mind that then all diaries with this related tag will then show up on your recent diary list when diarists post:
Groups
With DK4 you can create groups that can be used for a variety of reasons. This is the groups page from the beta site.
You must be a Trusted User (TU) to create a group. This tool is designed to make it easier for people to organize, work together, or use with subcommunities. For example, a number of us have created diary series that have several authors. Existing series that I am a member with other kossacks include DK GreenRoots, EcoAdvocates, DK Poli, EcoJustice and Climate Change News Roundup. When the group diary is published, it will be posted under the name of the diarist but also identifies the name of the group:
Here are some of the benefits of groups:
- The Group or series is a DK user, and so the group will have its own blog page, just as each DK individual user has a blog page.
- Unlike individual users, the Group can republish any diary it sees on DK that it likes so that it will be posted on the group blog page. This republish function is essentially a group form of "diary rescue" because by republishing a diary on your group page you will be exposing that diary to more readers.
- Groups can collaborate on a diary at the drafting stage. (And group and individual users can leave a diary in the queue for a scheduled posting time in the future.)
- You can follow groups by clicking onto the heart next to the group name.
Going back to your individual user blog page, your stream or "individual recent diary list" will have a list of each diary that is posted at the time the diary is posted for each diarist, tag or group that you follow.
If you want to spread word about your own diaries, then it may be advantageous to use a variety of tags. For example, right now I use very few tags. But if you want to spread word about the posting of your diary beyond the immediate subject area of your diary so that you can reach the general DK community, then you might want to use more tags while remaining relevant to your diary topic. For example, if I write a diary on a comprehensive climate change bill, I might now use the tags environment, climate change and ekos. With DK4, I should probably include the tags of Congress, politics or similar noneco tags to widen the networking of my diary.
Promos
In DK4, there is no limit on how many diaries that you post each day. Thus, you can post a diary that is a few lines that will function as a promo for a diary that you will post in the near future; or after you post your diary, you might want to round up some more readers. This promo will then be picked up in the stream of the kossacks who are your followers.
So, your "individual recent list" or stream is posted on your blog user page. This stream consists of diaries posted by you, and diaries posted by diarists, groups and tags you follow. As the picture shows, my stream has a few tributaries of my followers.
You can check this stream to find out who has recently posted a diary that you are following. Conversely, your diaries will show up on the stream of the kossacks that follow you and be viewed by their followers. Now, if your follower has different interests from you, then you are expanding your circle of cascading followers with overlapping interests in a series of connections and the connections of those connections. The tributaries of the stream and the tributaries of the tributaries branch out to spread word of your diary.
E-mail List
Many of us don't use e-mail lists now on a regular basis. But, they might be quite beneficial for DK4.
rfall and I are creating an e-mail list that will be used to provide notice to other kossacks that a diary has been posted by a member of the mailing list. This list is for providing notice when you post a diary on any subject whatsoever. It will be a cooperative team effort. We don't have a name for this mailing list yet, but if you were a member of ekossacks, it will be operated the same. The e-mail list is from a web server, not a google group. The e-email list cannot be copied because no names or e-mail addresses are provided in the e-mail. Thus, we don't have to worry about whether the e-mail is sent by cc or bcc in order to maintain privacy of e-mail addresses. Given that DK4 allows the posting of unlimited number of diaries each day, we might want to limit the use of the list each day to one email per member to avoid e-mail inbox gridlock. And, people can unsubscribe at any time.
If you want to join this new list, please email me at patriotdaily@gmail.com
Final tip: you can use twitter and Facebook to spread the word when you post a diary.
If you are a techie dummy, it might take a little time to learn about all the new features. My guess is that we will learn the basics, and over time, we will learn even more uses of the many features, and might even expand the features for uses not originally intended. For example, the gift subscription page was not intended to be a clue as to whether a user had been warned, suspended or banned, but the community "created" that function over time.
For those who have tinkered with DK4 beta, what tips do you have to reach people when you post your diaries?