SFN Blogs Opened

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

The SFN staff are proud to announce the opening of ScienceForums.net Blogs, a blogging system that will allow members of SFN to run a (free) science-related blog hosted by SFN.

 

The blog system is fully integrated with SFN, so all current members with more than 50 posts and one month of membership on SFN can sign up for a blog. Simply head over to the signup page and decide what you'd like to call your blog.

 

Please note that blogs hosted on SFN are to be science-related; that means that a majority of your posts must be on some science-related subject. That could be anything from what you did in the lab today to what you think about some new science development. Don't worry, we'll be pretty loose with this rule.

 

Please note that the system has not yet been extensively tested and there may be a few bugs. Post any problems you have here and we'll sort them out.

 

To see what an SFN blog might look like, head over to swansont's blog and take a look. There are dozens of themes available for you to choose from, so not every blog will be alike, but swansont's blog is a great example of what we hope our blogs will contain.

 

For those RSS-oriented people, there's an RSS feed available (updated hourly) of the latest blog posts. It only contains posts made since yesterday though.

[ydoaPs]

Cap'n, you gonna blag?

[ecoli]

at last

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Cap'n, you gonna blag?

 

http://blogs.scienceforums.net/capn/

 

Definitely. I'm not quite sure what I'll talk about yet, but I may have a few things up my sleeve...

 

 

Hrm. Perhaps we need a blog listing page showing all the blogs on SFN...

[ydoaPs]

Hrm. Perhaps we need a blog listing page showing all the blogs on SFN...

 

I was actually wondering about that.

[ChemSiddiqui]

Good news this. I am making my one straight away!

[swansont]

Is there an RSS option for individual blogs?

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Yes, I think so. Yours is available at http://blogs.scienceforums.net/swansont/index.php/feed/rss2/ (I think your permalink options screwed up the link on your blog) -- most blogs have a feed at /blogname/feed/rss2/.

 

There's usually a link somewhere, and if you use Firefox you can click the orange RSS icon in the URL bar to get to the feed.

[Daecon]

I've chosen a theme but how do I customise it?

 

If I'm going to be stuck with a huge banner at the top of the page that says "Your logo here" then I'll have to choose another theme... <grumble>

[blike]

That theme is no good If you have any you'd like me to upload, or can find any on http://themes.wordpress.net/, let me know. Sorry, still working the kinks out of everything.

[swansont]

Yes, I think so. Yours is available at http://blogs.scienceforums.net/swansont/index.php/feed/rss2/ (I think your permalink options screwed up the link on your blog) -- most blogs have a feed at /blogname/feed/rss2/.

 

There's usually a link somewhere, and if you use Firefox you can click the orange RSS icon in the URL bar to get to the feed.

 

OK, that works, but the link on my page gives a 404-file not found error, and I can't find where I can fix that.

 

 

 

edit: If you want to "advertise" your blog, Pharyngula is having a "Blogroll Amnesty"

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Fixed that for you. Your choice of permalink structure included "index.php/", which the theme didn't include in its link. It thus confused WordPress by linking to something without the index.php.

 

I removed the index.php from your permalink structure. Everything should work okay now.

[CDarwin]

Aw, my blog disappeared. the address just directs to SFN now. Did I anger the blog gods?

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Apparently it was a trick theme. Blike fixed it.

[CDarwin]

Aha! Thank you.

[swansont]

Apparently it was a trick theme.

 

Heh, Heh. The disappearing blog. That never gets old.

 

I was poking around and discovered that you can already find my latest post if you Google using the blogs tabs. It's been one freaking hour.

 

Also, if other places link to you, it improves your standing in certain search engines; I've added an "SFN blogs" category to mine and inked to those blogs on the RSS feed that looked like they had progressed past the "yes I can blog" stage. You might consider doing the same when you have the time.

[blike]

I was poking around and discovered that you can already find my latest post if you Google using the blogs tabs. It's been one freaking hour.

Haha' date=' how about "Pondering Other Places" - [i']16 minutes ago.[/i]

 

Also, if other places link to you, it improves your standing in certain search engines; I've added an "SFN blogs" category to mine and inked to those blogs on the RSS feed that looked like they had progressed past the "yes I can blog" stage. You might consider doing the same when you have the time.

Indeed. Get the word out to other like-minded blogs and try and get them to add you to their blogroll. The more incoming links, the better. Also throw your RSS feed around wherever you can -- they get picked up on and linked to from other sites. This increases your web-presence for those particularly keywords.

 

Pretty soon the most recent blog posts will be linked to from the front page.

[Genecks]

at last

 

I'm typically not interested in reading blogs by males, but I tend to like what ecoli has to say from time to time.

[ecoli]

I'm typically not interested in reading blogs by males, but I tend to like what ecoli has to say from time to time.

 

I think I'm flattered... Will you be asking me out on a date next?

 

btw: http://blogs.scienceforums.net/ecoli/

[swansont]

You don't read blogs by mail. You read them on the internet.

 

Oh, wait ...

[ecoli]

my blog isn't not letting me save or publish new entries, or assign categories to entries. What's the deal?

 

edit: it randomly started letting me publish again. But it's still telling my I don't have permission to add a category.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Uh-oh.

 

I just tested and I can add categories, but I think some of the permissions are screwed up as it's not considering me a WordPress admin anymore.

 

I don't know what changed either. Time for investigation...

[ecoli]

I may not be able to make comments either. It doesn't seem to be working... unless swansont's comments require approval or something.

[swansont]

I may not be able to make comments either. It doesn't seem to be working... unless swansont's comments require approval or something.

 

I think the default is that the first comment requires approval and after that you're good to go (unless you link to more than two URLs). But I would have expected an "awaiting moderation" notice to appear; I've seen those in other blogs.

 

FYI for ecoli and anybody doing science, but especially biology/medicine in their blogs:

 

Science web carnival, Tangled bank

http://tangledbank.net/

"The subject should be on biology, medicine, or natural history. We will define those categories very broadly, and it's sufficient that you show some passion for the science of the natural world."

 

You just submit a blog entry by email, and they link to it at somebody's blog. You could even host the Tangled bank, and get lots of traffic going to your own blog.

 

I submitted No Sweat and it was added for Tangled Bank #98

 

There is also the skeptic's circle blog carnival for skepticism blogs. http://blogcarnival.com/bc/cprof_19.html

[blike]

ecoli: You might try logging out of sfn and back in. The two systems share the same cookie, so maybe that has something to do with it. It looks like you posted today, is everything sorted out now?

 

Has anyone else been having trouble?

 

Swanson, any idea how to go about hosting a tangled bank?

 

I think we may soon be adding a statistics module that lets you track your blog's stats (visitors, etc.) I need to check out how much it's going to tax the server first.