Help:Blogs

Beta

Wikia blog articles are articles written and attributed to one person that can be voted, commented on, and organized into a listing like a typical Blog. They are different than a typical wiki article in that it they are not intended to be a collaboratively written piece of content, but instead one person's piece of work.

Some examples why a user would choose a blog article instead of a traditional wiki article.
 * Fan fiction and original work
 * Op-eds and personal stories
 * Articles that pose questions or solicit responses
 * Reviews, suggestions or recommendations

It's entirely up to each wiki's community as to how it gets used!

How the blogging system works
There are three main sections to the blogging system: the blog post itself, the user's blog page, and the Blog listing page.

Blog Posts
A blog post page is created via Special:CreateBlogPage. Votes and comments are defaulted to on, but can be switched off at users preference.

Each post is created under the title " ".

Only the original poster and administrators can edit blog posts, as it is a "personal" area on the wiki.

Comments
Blog posts are enabled with commenting functionality which takes the place of Discussion pages. Each comment shows up on the recent changes list, and clicking on it will take you to the blog post.

Admins: Comments can be removed by adding  to the comment URL. Note: this area is planned for improvement.

User Blog Page
This page is automatically generated from user's recent blog posts, a resides under the address " ", and can be accessed from any persons user page.

Blog Listing Pages
Blog Listing Pages allow you to create a list of blog posts by category. You can access this via Special:CreateBlogListingPage, or the link on the edit toolbar on the top of any existing Blog Listing page.

The listing page is a page dedicated to listing pages.

Embedded Blog Listing
This feature allows you to embed aBlog listing within a normal wiki article. It's like a blog listing page to go. This uses the   extension.

There are a number of parameters you can define to format the embedded list to fit within different content pages. (i.e Main Page, Community Portal, Contest Page, etc).

Categories   ("or" selector) Authors      ("or" selector) Sort         (default=newest) Count        (default=5) Timestamp    (boolean, default=false) Comments     (boolean, default=false) Summary      (first 200 characters, boolean, default=false) Summarylength (length of the text quoted) Type         (default=box, other option is "plain") - plain is just the content, without box styling. Title        (box header) Style        (for example, style="float:right;clear:left;"_

For example:

Cat1 Cat2 Wikian1 Wikian2

Summary of the new additions

 * Functionality
 * Blog posts
 * Blog post listings
 * Masthead and avatar


 * Namespaces
 * "User blog:" - for user blog posts.
 * "Blog:" - for blog listing pages.


 * Special pages
 * Special:CreateBlogPage
 * Special:CreateBlogListingPage
 * Special:Preferences - to choose your avatar