[Only contributors will be able to create blogs, but this may be useful to everyone, to show how the site works.]

First new feature: posts can be "sticky," i.e. always appear at the top of the main page (as well as your blog). See here for the feature list of Drupal (the software that runs this site) vs. blogger, and here for the How Tos.

Second new feature: Click "Read more" below to... read more about the 5 steps to posting.

Simple: Five steps to post
If you aren't logged in, enter your name and password in the login boxes at lower right, then click the login button. Now that you are logged in:

1. Look for your name in the right sidebar. Right below it is an orange link reading "Post to my blog." Click it.
2. In the new page that appears, go down to the "Options" box. If you want the first part of your post to appear on the front page (and the rest in your blog) check the box that says "Promoted to front page." If you want your post to be sticky (like this blue ruled box at the top of the main page), check "Sticky at top of lists."
3. Go down to the "Title" box and enter a title.
4. Go down to the "Body" box and enter the main part of your post, making sure it's at least 10 characters long. For now, just use text with two returns between each para.
5. Scroll past everything else and press Submit.

Your new post will appear on a new page. There will be tabs at the top of the page. If you wish to edit your post, or experiment with new features, click the "Edit" tab.

Only you (and other contributors and administrators) will be able to edit your post. Everyone will be able to read it. Everyone except for unregistered users will be enabled to comment upon it.

Other forms of content have their own text entry boxes but work like this one.

Detailed: All the options and what they mean
The editing/creating box is more powerful than blogger but necessarily more complex. However, the defaults are reasonable so you can leave most of the controls alone.

There are three tabs: View/Edit/Outline. I'll talk about Edit for now, and start at the top of the boxes and work downward. (View should be self-explanatory, and Outline lets you contribute to a book.)

You should be able to click on Edit and see this post text in the edit box, and scroll around the Edit page.

1. There are red "*"s next to the items you have to fill in (like any online form).

2. In the "Authoring information" box, you probably don't need to change anything. (In fact, I don't know what happens if you do.)

3. In the "Options" box, you see the options to promote to the front page (the default is that the post stays on your blog page), make sticky (like this post), etc. Since we don't moderate posts, there's no need to check that box. (In fact, I don't know what happens if you do.)

4. "User comments" are enabled by default. (We have set them up so that they do not go right right right until they fall off the page, like Kos.)

5. "Title" As in Blogger, this will become the URL.

6. "View Permissions" means who can read the posts. The defaults enable us (conntributors) and all readers (registered or not) to see everything. (I will explain the various "roles" elsewhere).

7. "View Permissions" means who can write the posts. The default is you, but any contributor or admin can edit anything, regardless of these settings. This is as it should be.

8. "Path alias" is the URL of the post, which is automatically generated from the title. However, unlike blogger, you can give the page a URL of your own (one_word_just_like_this). This is useful if you change the title of the post, but want the title to retain its URL in case others have linked to it.

9. "Departments" is a category ("taxonomy") term. It allows you to put a post in, for example, "The Department of How Stupid...." All posts in a given category can be seen at once on the page devoted to that taxonomy term. (The term appears in blue on the post and you can click on it.)

10. "Thread", "Recipes", "How To" are also categories. A post can be classified into more than one category.

11. "Body" is where you enter the text of the post.

12. "Input format" says what kind of content you can enter in the post. If you want to do what you've been doing in Blogger, use "Filtered HTML" and use only the HTML tags listed there. (NOTE: If there are HTML tags you don't see listed that you want to use, they can be added.) Full HTML means what it says. If you don't know what PHP means, don't use that input format.

13. "Add images" (green plus sign) lets you add HTML code that pulls in an image, stored on our side, into the post. (I'll write up a separate post on this.)

14. "Sidebar" Allows you to add a small box at the top (for an epigraph or a picture or useful links. See here for demo.

15. You have Preview, Submit, Delete buttons. You may submit without previewing, but if you are previewing, do not forget to submit; you may lose your post if you don't submit!