Step by step guide on running a live blog. This diary is aimed at kossacks who might have been contemplating or thinking of how to do it or even just perhaps just wanting to mess around to learn. Ocasionally some event takes places for which live blogs might be a better option than either updates through multiple short diaries or heaps of comments in one diary.
This is a rough step by step on how to setup and run the live blogs for kossacks who are not staff. (Most of the staff already know because they have run live blogs before. Most of the people at the Daily Kos group Community Live Bloggers, I assume already know this too becasue they do quite a few live blog events.)
Solo or Group?
Is it a solo or a group activity? A solo activity is where only the original diarist will add updates to the content of the live blog. A group activity is where more than one person is involved in adding updates. A group run live blog makes it easier for passing responsibility around a group to spread workload and time commitments. Group run blog also provides for handling unexpected unavailability.
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Let us look at group run live blogs first because it has better resiliency. For Solo, go straight to Step 4
Step 1: Getting Group Ready
Plan the group: Is the group setup? By this, I mean is there a daily Kos community group already in place? Is it something one of your existing group is going to do? Do you need to setup a new group? Answer to this will depend on who else is going to be involved in live blogging. Once you have floated the idea of live-blogging an event among your contacts and accumulated volunteers you will need to ensure the following.
- Plan ahead of time, who is going to be involved, when the event will start, what the handover mechanism is between different bloggers, decide if concurrent updates from multiple bloggers is okay.
- All the live-bloggers will need to be in the same group. If needed make a new group. Send invites to join. Although it is probably easier to blog it through an existing group.
- All of them will need to have minimum editor level access.
- Let the group know when the event will start.
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Now that all the bloggers are in the same group and with the right level of access,
Step 2: Getting Draft Ready
Prepare Live Blog Diary: Next step is to prepare the live blog diary. Do not leave this to last moment. Prepare this as much ahead of time as possible.
- Start a new draft of a diary.
- Give it an appropriate title.
- Fill out the leading image.
- Write introduction paragraphs.
- Add suitable tags.
- While still in draft mode queue diary to group by using “Add a publish group”. This will be the group from step 1. Add queue notes so that some other editor will not accidentally publish it too early. Example of note: “Do Not Publish Yet”
- Save Draft. — Do Not Use The Publish Button.
- Notify your live-blogging team that the diary is in queue. Ask them to check if they can see it in the group queue and open it. This will ensure that your team has membership and right level of access. You can also take this opportunity to get the leading image and introductory paragraphs checked out.
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Now we wait until the right time to kick off your event. You might want to start at least 15 minutes before the actual start time of the event you are live-blogging.
Step 3: Go To Group Queue And Kick Off
- We want to get to group queue. (not personal drafts list). There are many ways.
- Simplest will be to goto your new profile-button-welcome screen. (that is the one next to where you check your latest replies / kosmail).
- On the drop down list that shows up, Click my groups
- This will load new page which lists of all groups you belong to.
- Click on live-blog group name there in the list of your groups. That is the group name from Step 1 Getting Group Ready.
- This will bring up the group in group-blog-view mode.
- At the top of the page there will be a button that says “Queue”.
- Click “Queue” button.
- You should see all the diaries in the queue.
- Find the row with your prepared draft in the list.
- Click the “Publish Now” link on that row.
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Now you are up and running.
Step 4: Live Update
- Go to the newly published diary. (Again many ways to get there.)
- On the left hand side of the diary you will see many links / options listed. (Add to blog, RSS, Update, Edit)
- As and when you want to add an update, click the link that says “Update”
- This brings up a text entry box.
- Type your update text.
- Click “Update this Story”
- Updates will get added to the end of the story.
- Multiple people can do updates simultaneously (well the ones with editor access only)
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If i have missed out something or have not included sufficient details, then please leave a note so that I can make the necessary changes.
If there are some kossacks who would like to test it out for practice or to learn or for fun leave a note in the comments or contact me by kosmail. I will sort out a group practice run if needed.
Meanwhile Enjoy Live Blogging
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