Blogging is now availabe to members

[Scott Tichenor]

I've gone ahead and activated the blogging capability each user has the option to engage in and you should see a link in the main navigation bar where you can see a list of blogs, a randomly daily featured blog and other tools. I don't anticipate a lot of people using this so we'll ease into it and see what happens. I see a few of you had discovered this was already open and had started, and that's OK. Please do look carefully at your Blog control panel before getting too far into this. A major consideration is allowing others to comment or not on your blog. You control that feature.

That said:

Use guidelines:

While this blog is for your personal use, the guidelines that govern the operation of this site will continue within the blog hosted here. That means, its use is for music/mandolin use, and not a platform to espouse political, religious, sexual or other hot-button topics. If in doubt, please contact me first. I will be personally monitoring blog use. I do think we can expect some of you to take some liberties by posting pictures of your family, other hobbies and activities as long as if falls generally within the posting guidelines for the forum.

Think of a blog as your own personal thread where you can post images, text, MP3s and then categorize these. Also, for those of you a tad more tech savvy, there's a unique RSS/news feed for your blog so you're welcome to use that as you see fit.

[JEStanek]

Question, will you allow comments to be posted to blog entries? I saw Ted comment on your F4 one but couldn't figure it out myself? Is this a Blog Option or a site setting or not gonna happen? Pretty cool feature.

Jamie

[Scott Tichenor]

You should be able to turn off comments from others. I think in general that's probably a good idea. It's handled through each user's Blog Control Panel.

[Ted Eschliman]

When setting up the blog, you have your choice of 1.) No comments, 2.) Comments to be moderated, and 3.) comment freely. It's part of the menu underneath you entry.

[Daniel Nestlerode]

Coupla things (OK 3 things):
1) I can't find the Blog Title after setting it in the CP. Where does it appear? I see the Blog Description, but not the Title.
2) Would it be possible to have the comments section disappear entirely if you disable the ability of readers to submit comments? Having it there without a submission window is a bit confusing.
3) Will Blogs be a link item in the title bar of the web site the way that Classifieds and Message Board are?
Daniel

[Scott Tichenor]

Coupla things (OK 3 things):
1) I can't find the Blog Title after setting it in the CP. Where does it appear? I see the Blog Description, but not the Title.
2) Would it be possible to have the comments section disappear entirely if you disable the ability of readers to submit comments? Having it there without a submission window is a bit confusing.
3) Will Blogs be a link item in the title bar of the web site the way that Classifieds and Message Board are?
Daniel

The blog title is only showing up in the bread crumb (navigation) only on individual blog post pages, and not each user's main page. That's odd. I don't think the implementation of the title is very effective and plan to look into that.

I don't think we're at a point where a decision to turn off commenting is appropriate. Some people will want this feature, and I think this can be an important part of the overall experience, and turning it off would seem to run counter-productive. If there's a lot of discussion around a topic, this would be one way for that to be visible.

At this time I don't foresee linking to the blogs from the larger site navigation at this time. I tend to use that main navigation at the top to point to areas providing the most service and receiving the most traffic. I do suggest putting the blog link for your personal blog into your signature. That will make it easier for people to find, and also note there's an individual RSS for each blog user so those can be added to individual portals like Yahoo, Hotmail, Google and news readers.

Don't mean to say 'no' alot here, it's just that right now there's not enough activity and experience for #2 & 3 to merit that in my opinion.

[Scott Tichenor]

Scratch that.

Weeeee. That's some hairball source code. I'm trying to extend the blogs main title to each subsequent article but it doesn't like me . So, have submitted a help request to the software forum that handles this.

[violmando]

Scott, I guess I couldn't make any comments on your blog, or at least I couldn't find out HOW to...I wanted to ask a question about the Nutcracker. It sounds so neat, an Americana or Kansasian version. Besides the 2 mandos, dola and cello, what are the other 8 instruments in the 12piece orchestra? I was guessing fiddle (or 2 or 3) guitar, bass, banjo? I'm DYING to know! I have some of Jeff's arrangements for mando orch so I know how well he does things...
Yvonne

[Scott Tichenor]

Scott, I guess I couldn't make any comments on your blog, or at least I couldn't find out HOW to...I wanted to ask a question about the Nutcracker. It sounds so neat, an Americana or Kansasian version. Besides the 2 mandos, dola and cello, what are the other 8 instruments in the 12piece orchestra? I was guessing fiddle (or 2 or 3) guitar, bass, banjo? I'm DYING to know! I have some of Jeff's arrangements for mando orch so I know how well he does things...
Yvonne

Yvonne, the entire orchestra is:
1st & 2nd Violin
Viola
Full Concert Harp
Percussion
Double bass
Bassoon
Clarinet
Flute/Piccolo
1st and 2nd mandolin, mandola/mandocello

The mandola player plays mandocello only on Mother Ginger.

It's pretty much the full Tchaikovsky score wrapped around the traditional Nutcracker but with a mid 1800s Kansas theme (hence the mandolins providing the folky theme <sigh>), and in particular, the history of the town of Lawrence, Kansas. At this point in history (mind you, I'm no history expert), the town of Lawrence was sort of the epicenter of the pro and anti-slavery geographical line. There were "border wars" (where today's KU vs. MU football game gets its name) between the town people and the Missouri ruffians that most famously burned down the town in Quantrill's Raid.

The music is certainly not dumbed down. It's fairly challenging not only in a technical sense, but from the sheer length of time we play. This will be the 3rd time I've performed in this production, the first being 2002 and 2003. We sit so close to the stage that we have to pin the music down, else it'll blow off from the motion of the dancers and actors. You could say they're right on top of us, and in fact, I've had more than one dancer nearly end up in my lap.

Jeff Dearinger is conducting, and of course arranged this all specifically for this orchestra.

P.S. I have commenting turned off on my blog. That's an individual choice each blog owner gets to make.

[violmando]

Oh, I understand; I've played the double bass in the original Nutcracker, but NOT in that close of pit! If I lived somewhere other than Dayton, OH, I would LOVE to do that all the time...playing for shows, whether classical or musical theater, is a BLAST for me. But they DO require endurance! Thanks for the info--I was just dying to know! Yvonne

[mandopete]

Not to throw a bunch of cold water on this idea, but how is this really different than the message board? As you can plainly see it's already morphing here in this thread alone. I think it's going to be to confusing to find stuff now that individual blogs will start popping up.

[MikeEdgerton]

Not to throw a bunch of cold water on this idea, but how is this really different than the message board? As you can plainly see it's already morphing here in this thread alone. I think it's going to be to confusing to find stuff now that individual blogs will start popping up.

A Blog is your personal ramblings about anything you feel compelled to ramble about. See Jim Richter's blog. I don't think his first post would have stayed on the board.

[Rob Powell]

Can a thread be moved to a blog? A blog suits a thread I started more so I was curious....

[Scott Tichenor]

Not to throw a bunch of cold water on this idea, but how is this really different than the message board? As you can plainly see it's already morphing here in this thread alone. I think it's going to be to confusing to find stuff now that individual blogs will start popping up.

See an explanation I made in this thread.

Blogs are unique locations for an individual's collection of information. The message board is more like the Borg Collective.

The two are somewhat mutually exclusive and share little in common other than the technology that drives them. Blogs will not show up in new posts or today's posts.

[Scott Tichenor]

Can a thread be moved to a blog? A blog suits a thread I started more so I was curious....

No, not possible unless you do it manually, ie., copy and paste.

[Rob Powell]

No, not possible unless you do it manually, ie., copy and paste.

Well, I might do it anyway...then ask you guys to lock the thread. This is very cool Scott...many thanks!

I'd certainly rather have a blog here than elsewhere

[mandopete]

So how do we find these blogs? Will there be a search function as we have with the threads?

Here's my sort of conundrum. I love photo's of mandolins and mandolin people. To wit, I have started threads in the "Post A Picture" section (and in my profile). I don't think it would serve much more purpose to start a blog of mando photo's.

I also like bluegrass mandolin, but that's handled pretty well by the bluegrass section.

Now a blog by Jim Richter - that's interesting!

Anyway Scott, I'm not trying to complain and as usual you do a yeoman's job keeping the Cafe running and adding these nice features.

Five Stars!

[mandopete]

So how do we find these blogs?

Oops, nevermind (just noticed the link on the top).

[JEStanek]

There is also a blog only search as well within the search functions (basic and advanced).

Jamie

[Larry S Sherman]

I love the blog feature...thank you!

I was wondering if there's anywhere to view my blog metrics, such as views? It would be interesting over time to see which blog entries were more popular than others.

I looked around but didn't see where I could find this information.

Thanks, Larry

[Scott Tichenor]

Larry, there are no tools that I'm aware of for individual users to measure their blog traffic. I have Google Analytics planted on every page so it would be possible to measure traffic to your individual blog home page but I'd have to run that report.

[Larry S Sherman]

Larry, there are no tools that I'm aware of for individual users to measure their blog traffic. I have Google Analytics planted on every page so it would be possible to measure traffic to your individual blog home page but I'd have to run that report.

Thanks Scott. Not necessary for a report to be run, just wondered if there was something available that I wasn't aware of.

Thanks, Larry

[jasona]

I'm having some fun with this new feature!

One quick question: why when I click on an entry do I lose the blog title and get it replaced with my (or dnestel or whomever's) name?

[mandocrucian]

While this blog is for your personal use, the guidelines that govern the operation of this site will continue within the blog hosted here.

What is the situation regarding being able to delete your own blog entries? or not.

NH

[JEStanek]

You can edit them at any time. At least I edited mine from mid November Yesterday.

Jamie