Frequently Asked Questions

Welcome to the DebateScoop.org “Frequently Asked Questions” Page. Here you should find the answers to common questions about DebateScoop.org

Why the name and what is the purpose of this site?

Debate is the topic area and scoop is the most powerful community blogging software. This site is a one-stop shop for expert and citizen commentary on political debates, emphasizing candidate debates.

How can I post here?

How can I post here?

Parts of Debatescoop

The front page

Diaries

Most of the action takes place inside of diaries. These are written by regstered users, and then read and commented on by other users. Diaries can be found in two places. Most diaries appear in the Recent Diary list on the right-hand side of the screen. By default, this shows the last 20 diaries that have been posted. To reset the number you can see, go to "My Preferences" and then click on "Interface." .

People reading diaries can recommend them (see below). If a diary receives enough recommendations, it will automatically be promoted to the Recommended Diary list, which sits above the Recent Diary list. Recommended diaries tend to attract a wider audience and more comments than most diaries. The length of time that a diary spends on the Recommended list depends on how many users recommend it; it can vary from a few minutes to more than one full day. Diaries moving to the Recommended list is a democratic process; the diaries on the list are the ones that received the most "votes" to be there.

Comments

Inside diaries, users can post comments. Generally, these comments are in response to something in the diary, or are responding to other comments. Next to the title of each comment are two numbers inside a set of parentheses. These numbers give the rating of the comment. The first number shows how many users have rated the comment and the second shows the average rating. Ratings vary from 0 to 4, and are covered in more detail below.

User Pages

Every user has a User Page. There is a link to your page in the menu sidebar. The User Page contains a collection of links gathering all of the diaries and all of the comments written by that user. Clicking on any user's name will take you to the public part of that user's page which allows you to see what else the user has written.

Hotlist

The hotlist, accessed in your user sidebar, is a place with stored links to diaries that you want to refer back to. Next to the title of every diary is a plus sign in a circle; clicking this icon will add that diary to your hotlist for future reference.

Subscribe Bubble

Tags and Tag Cloud

All diaries posted to Debatescoop are tagged. Tags are keywords that the diary author and/or editors add to identify the subject(s) of the diary. This allows people to easily find all of the diaries that deal with a specific subject. The complete list of tags is called the Tag Cloud. Click on Tags in the top right menu to see all of the tags that have been used. Clicking on the name of a tag there will create a page with all of the posts that have used that tag.

Contributing to Debatescoop

Registration and posting privileges. To do anything beyond simply reading diaries and comments, it is necessary to become a registered user, as described above. Sufficiently obnoxious behavior can result in banning.

Writing comments

To post a comment to the diary itself, click on the 'Post a Comment' link immediately beneath the diary text or at the very bottom of the page. To post a comment that replies to a comment, click the 'Reply To This' link underneath the comment text. Either way, you will be taken to the New Comment screen. Choose a Subject (a title for your comment), and write what you want. If you use any sort of formatting commands or embedded links (see below), you should hit the Preview button to make sure everything is correct. Then hit Submit.

The first thing to remember when writing a comment is that it is going to be read by other people. Personal attacks are strongly discouraged. If you disagree with what someone is saying, by all means do so, but don't go directly after the other person. Because tone of voice and facial expressions are lost in online discussions, it's easy for something to be taken the wrong way. Flame wars do nobody any good.

Writing diaries

Writing a diary is, in principle, quite simple. Click the 'Create New Diary Entry' link in the your sidebar, pick a title, write some text, choose a tag or two, and hit 'Submit'. Well, OK, maybe there's a bit more to it than that.

Diary guidlines

"Intro" box for new diaries has a three paragraph limit. If you exceed that limit, use the "Extended Body" box for the remainder of your diary.

Copyright Copying and pasting complete copyrighted articles without permission from the copyright holder is absolutely prohibited by both this site's policies and copyright laws. Copyright infringement can expose both you and the site's owners to financial liability. Just don't do it. And if you see someone else doing it, please politely ask them to edit their diary accordingly. This is a bannable offense.

Limited copying within the bounds of the doctrine of "fair use" is permitted. A reasonable rule-of-thumb is that copying three paragraphs from a normal-length news article or editorial is acceptable. (This, however, is not a safe-harbor. If even three paragraphs seems like "too much," then copy less or nothing at all.)

Use Links and Blockquoting When you quote material that is not your own, please provide a link (see below for how) whenever possible. Also, use the blockquote tags to set off the copied material so that your writing is distinct from the material you are copying. There is a handy button above the box you are typing in -- just highlight the text you want to turn into a blockquote and click the button.

Hotlinking images without permission is prohibited. Hotlinking means using the [img src] tag to display an image on a diary which is hosted on someone else's server. Hotlinking can cost people real money in bandwidth costs. It's essentially stealing. If we get complaints from sites about images being hotlisted, we will consider that as possible grounds for banning.

A diary can include a poll. To create a poll, fill in the fields at the bottom of the New Diary screen. You need to specify a question, and at least 2 answers.

Editing your diariesAfter posting a diary, its author can alter the contents by clicking on the Edit Diary link. This can be useful for adding new information to the content of the diary; diarists often include useful or insightful comments into the text of the diary. If you do this, be sure to give credit to the commenter. Polls cannot be edited (though you can add a poll to a diary that didn't already have one). Once you have made the changes/additions that you want, click the Update button to save the changes.

Diary deletion

There are some times when you will want to delete a diary. Sometimes diary authors just have second thoughts about posting a particular diary. Diaries can be deleted via the Edit Diary screen; you need to select the 'Confirm Deletion' checkbox, and then click the 'Delete' button. If you do not have permission to delete your diary you can ask the editors. We do not want content to disappear and reserve the right to refuse to delete.

Formatting

Auto Format

Both comments and diaries are written using HTML, the basic language of the web. HTML can be used to create text as well as all sorts of effects. To make life easier, authors can use the Auto Format mode when writing comments and diaries. Autoformat is easy: just highlight the text you want to format and click the appropriate button (Bold, italic, link, blockquote) located at the top of the box you are typing in.

To insert a named link to another webpage: 1. type whatever name you want to call the link 2. Use the cursor to highlight the text that is the name of the link, 3. then click on the 'link' button and you will be prompted to enter the URL in a dialog box. Do so and click OK.

Lists

Auto formating of lists is not supported right now but we'll let you know when that changes.

Browser and extensions

Firefox is the best web browser for PC's, IMO. Users of the Firefox browser can download an extension called BBcode which provides access to many of the formating shortcuts in a convenient right-button menu. More on that later.

Pictures and images

Another common thing to do is put an image into a diary or comment. Before you do this, please stop and think for a moment. Pictures require much more in the way of network resources than text. Big pictures make life difficult for people without fast net connections. Keep your pictures small, and only use them when it really adds something to the point you want to make. For now, if you are not html savy, you will have to learn on your own. We may update this instruction later.

Recommending diaries

Almost all diaries can be recommended; the exceptions are those that are posted directly to the front page. To recommend a diary, click on it, and then click on the 'Recommend' button on the top right side of the window. When should you recommend a diary? Very simply, recommend a diary if you think other Debatescoop users should definitely read it. Note that diaries can have much more content in the comments than in the main text; it is perfectly legitimate to recommend a diary because of an interesting discussion in the comments. Don't recommend a diary simply because of who the author is.

Rating comments

Any registered user can rate comments in a diary. For regular users, comments can be rated from 1 to 4; trusted users (see below) can rate comments from 0 to 4. Higher ratings are better. The number of ratings that your comments gather, and their average value, determines your comment mojo. Mojo is used primarily for determining whether a user has trusted user status. So, when is each rating appropriate? Much virtual ink has been wasted in arguments, but the following is generally accepted:

1. Unproductive posts. Abusive garbage. Giving somebody a 1 simply because you disagree is an abuse of the rating system.
2. Marginal comment. Very rarely bestowed.
3. Good comment. Usually a shorthand for 'I agree'
4. Excellent comment. Also usually a shorthand for 'I agree', or also 'good job'. Most ratings given out tend to be 4s.
5. Wow! Beyond Excellent.

Note that there isn't a rating for 'I disagree'. If you disagree with something in a comment, post a reply saying so (and why). Because diaries can't be rated, many diary authors post a comment with the Subject of 'Tip Jar' or similar. This is intended as a place to give mojo for the diary; if you feel that the diary was worthwhile, it's a nice gesture to leave a 4 or 5 in the tip jar.

Tagging

All diaries written on Debatescoop must have tags. Tags are keywords that identify subject(s) discussed in the diary. The diary author must choose at least one tag for the diary to be posted. The complete list of tags can be found in the tag cloud. By clicking on a tag, you get a list of all diaries that contain that tag; this makes it easy to find diaries on a particular subject.

Some guidelines for choosing tags:

1. In addition to candidate names, use the following standards for reference to political races. Senate e.g.: NC-Sen. House e.g.: NC-12. Gubenotorial, NC-Gov.
1. Use combinations of simple tags rather than inventing complex ones. For instance, use tags "CT-Sen, Lieberman, Lamont, negotiation," instead of "Senate debate negotiations between Lamont and Lieberman."
2. Try to think of what tags people might use to search for something and use those. For example, PLAME, KARL ROVE, PATRICK FITZGERALD, BOB NOVAK, TREASON, OUTING, OPERATIVE might all be good tags for an entry on the Valerie Plame outing.
3. Try to re-use existing tags.
4. Keep it simple. Don't use tags that are redundant.
5. Stop with the "cutesy" tags. This is a tool to help organize content, not show how clever you are with keywords like "HUNTERRIFIC" to express how great Hunter's diary was.
6. '/' characters are not allowed in tags, and will be converted to '-'.
7. When using a person's name as a tag, use both their first and last name. If there is an ambiguity, include middle initials. For example, don't use the Bush tag; use either the George W. Bush tag or the George H. W. Bush tag depending on whether the diary refers to the current President or his father.

Trusted Users

If a user gathers enough comment mojo, they become a Trusted User. The exact amount of mojo required, and any other requirements, are not publicly known to prevent people from gaming the system. Trusted Users have a few additional privileges compared to regular users. A regular user can rate comments from 1 to 5; a TU can also give out 0, or Troll, ratings. If a comment gets enough troll ratings, it becomes hidden to regular users (also see the trolls section below). Try to rate a comment; if the menu includes '0' as a choice, you are trusted.

Common terms and acronyms

n/t no text. Used by commenters when the entirety of the comment is the title