Okay - we've all been talking about composing some kind of FAQs for diary usage so I've taken it upon myself to start the ball rolling. What I've composed is only a starting point. I'll monitor this over the next couple of days and incorporate suggestions. This could be a prime time to use the rating system - in other words, those posts/suggestions which receive the highest ratings are much more likely to be incorporated into the guidelines.
DailyKOS Diary Etiquette
The host of this site has been kind enough to add a diary feature so that regular users can maintain their own "mini-blogs" within his "maxi-blog". In other words, he's invited us all into his "home" and given us remarkable leeway in how we use the diary feature. The following is a list of "do's" and "don'ts" for using dKOS diaries, composed by regular posters.
1 - When you compose your New Diary Entry, use the upper large text box to post a "Story Summary" and the lower large text box to post the main body of your diary entry. This summary should be two or three paragraphs maximum and serve as a "teaser" to encourage others to read your enter diary entry. This way, when someone reviews the various diary entries with "View story summaries" selected, they will use the summaries to find entries they are most interested in, without having to scroll through enter diary entries they are not interested in at all.
2 - Learn how to use html language properly so that links appear like this instead of like this: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=ap/20031127. These over long URL postings will distort how the page appears and can make the page very difficult to read. Html guidelines are listed on each "New Diary Entry" page.
3 - Do not post articles in their entirety - this is what HTML links are for. Also, posting copyrighted material is a no-no. Better to pick out the parts of the piece which you feel are worth discussing and then discuss them.
4 - Diary entries can be used to post breaking news but ideally should be used to post your thoughts/perspective on a certain news item or issue.
5 - If the point of your diary entry is simply to tick other people off for no good reason - just don't post it.
6 - Unless you just have a topic BURNING to be posted ASAP, please limit your diary entries to one or two per day. This can limit the rapid scrolling of interesting entries off the main page.
7 - Remember KOS has graciously invited us to post our thoughts on his site so it is only common courtesy to be respectful. From time to time, any of us may disagree with him but at least try to keep our disagreements civil.