Your Guide to the Community Blog

It’s been over a month since we launched the community blog, and already you’ve written 400 entries! Because the blog is still kind of in experimental mode, we’ve got some bugs to fix and things to get it right. One thing we thought might be helpful was a more detailed guide to becoming a Feministing community blogger. If you’ve wanted to try it but been hesitant, or if you’re already blogging but a little confused about how the whole thing works, below the jump there’s a more detailed guide to using the community blog.


Getting Started

  • Click on “Register” in the very upper right corner of the site.
  • Fill out the requested fields, and you should get a confirmation email. Click the confirmation link. You should be registered! (Click “Edit your profile” in the upper righthand corner of the site to add more information about you to your user profile page.)

Writing a Post

  • You should be able to write your post and edit it just like writing an email. You can format the text by highlighting it and clicking on the various buttons — bold, italic, etc. We’re still working on creating a “Preview” function, so hopefully you’ll be able to preview your posts soon. Also, we’re aware that the text-formatting buttons are not showing up for people who use Internet Explorer and perhaps other browsers. For a basic guide to formatting your text using HTML tags, click here. We’re working on this problem, too!
  • Inserting a picture: Click the button with a little green tree on it. (Next to the anchor.) Cut and paste the URL of the picture you want to insert where it says “Image URL.” (This could be an image from a free image-hosting site like Photobucket, from which you’d copy the field that says “Direct Link.” Or you can right-click on any image on the web, select “View Image” from the menu that pops up, and then cut and paste that URL.) Click “Insert.”
  • Inserting a YouTube video: From the video’s YouTube page, copy the “Embed” code (which typically appears in the box to the right of the video) and paste into the body of the post.
  • Choose your category from the drop-down list.
  • Click “Submit” to save your post.

Community Blog Moderation

  • After you’ve submitted your post, it goes into a queue for moderation. This means one of the Feministing editors will read it and publish it. Depending on how frequently we’re able to check the queue of posts that day (we all have full-time day jobs other than Feministing!), your post could go up immediately or up to 24 hours later. We apologize in advance for the delay. If your post has been in the queue for longer than a day, please email us and alert us. That could mean there was a technical error.
  • We reserve the right to not publish posts that contain hate speech or blatantly anti-feminist language, or that we know to be repeating false information. We also will hold posts that do not make a relevant contribution to the feminist discourse on this site. (That doesn’t mean everything has to be formal and academic or anything — it just means that rants that are completely off-topic, say, a video game review that lacks any gender/feminist angle, will be held.) In general, though, we will not hold a post just because we disagree with its opinion, as long as it’s respectful, on-topic, and not deliberately spreading misinformation.
  • If you have a concern about a commenter or blogger, please send a detailed email to contact@feministing.com.

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