Zcom_simple

Hello,

Blogs are a familiar feature on the internet - where users post content in an accumulating manner, with comments, and search options, etc. They facilitate expression and exploration, and via attached comments, also debate and synthesis.


Reading and
Navigating Blogs

Our blogs are quite powerful. Each writer can post, as is typically the case. Sustainers who have the option can also post, however. All Blogs appear in the blog system, and sometimes also in content boxes the top page of ZNet - and always via the left menu of the top page - and can be found via searches, etc.

Commenting on blogs follows the blogs, attached at the bottom, and blog comments, like all others, are also visible in many places that show comments including in the forum system. In addition, the entire blog system gathers content for everyone - but one can look at the accumulating content in many ways.

  • For example one can look at one writer's efforts - so one is seeing what is effectively a blog system for that one writer, or Sustainer.
  • One can also look at the content by topic, seeing blogs that are tagged as being about a certain topic - or place, as well. Thus, when doing that, it is a blog system about a topic, or a place, with many contributors.
  • One can look at only writer blogs, or only sustainer blogs, as well.
  • One can look at blogs for particular Groups, too.

All this is easily done using the left menu. Searches allow even more variables and refinements.


Creating Blog Posts

If you are a Sustainer with permission, and are logged in, you will see a link in the left menu for you to post a blog - and you can use that to post one, and then tag it various ways (such as with a topic or place, or a group tag), and once you do, it is in the system with you as the author.

You can also use the console button to the left to post a blog - anytime and from anywhere in the site, as long as you are logged in.

Meanwhile, enjoy the blogs - and, by the way, if you are a Free Member or a Sustainer with a ZSpace page, of course you can put one or more content boxes on it, pulling blog links of any sort you may want to filter for, for example, by you or by your friends or by others - and by topic, about places, for groups, etc.

Blogs

583109

Paul Burrows's Blog

Web Address: http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/paulburrows
Bio: I am an activist and writer based in Winnipeg, Canada. In 1995, I helped found Winnipeg's Old Market Autonomous Zone (As She Shall Deem Just: Treaty 1 & the Ethnic Cleansing of the St. Peter's... (More)

All Burrows Blogs

Evolution of ZNet

By Paul Burrows at Dec 23, 2007


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The 20th anniversary of Z Magazine is coming up, which means I've been reading Z for almost 19 years. I've also been involved with ZNet (albeit only as a supporter and occasional contributor) since its prototype days as LBBS. It's great to see how the website has improved over time, both technically and politically, and that a central goal has been to build in a more participatory structure. This is part of what has made ZNet feel like a meaningful "community," not just another website for alternative information.

I like the ZSpace pages for writers, sustainers, and members -- though it is taking some experimentation (and many mistakes) to see how to add content. (This is my second attempt at making a blog post appear!) Formatting articles seems difficult, as so far, it seems like one has to manually input HTML code for paragraph breaks, links, italics, and so on -- rather than having the software translate them automatically when one cuts and pastes text from a word processor, or from another web page. Am I missing something?

Also, it seems like the content boxes for entering one's articles and blogs should be slightly bigger, and have scroll bars, to aid in manipulating longer pieces. Finally, is there a way to delete articles or posts from one's ZSpace? For example, for some reason, there are three entries in my Articles section under the heading of "Netanyahu." One is the article in question, formatted properly but without footnotes. One contains the missing footnotes. And the third iteration is the same article without formatting or paragraph breaks. Weird. Can I delete the ones that are clearly glitches, and add the footnotes to the real article?

Anyway, I don't remember all the points I raised in my initial blog attempt. So let's see if I can post this, before investing further time.....All in all, I like the changes being made.

Gotta run. More later.

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