IGBO Member Blog

IGBO Blog and Committee Chairs

IGBO Online Communications committee and Board are now launching our NEW IGBO MEMBER BLOG to the general membership. The board has been testing driving this Blog for a month now with great success. To view our blog, go to http://igbo.typepad.com/members/. You should also see a link to our new blog on the IGBO.org website.

Within our New IGBO Member Blog, committee chairs (as well as Board members) will be allowed to post articles for discussion to the general membership. For example, Tournament Forum committee might ask members for their thoughts on Tournament Fundraisers. What works and what does not?

Each IGBO Committee chair (or co-chair) will be sent an email invitation shortly to become an author of the IGBO Member Blog. Please accept this invitation and follow the prompts to set up your Blog author access. Then you can post articles of information related to your committee and see members comment on them.

If you need help using the IGBO Member Blog (or don't even know what a blog is), refer to the Blog Help category for a list of helpful topics and FAQs. If you have any further questions, please feel free to ask me, Mike Tamburrino at webmaster@igbo.org or anyone on the IGBO Board.

Yours in Unity, Fellowship and Communication,

Mike Tamburrino
IGBO Online Communications Chair

Welcome to New IGBO Member Blog!

This is a introductory blog message.

This is known as a post. One also might call this a an initiating article under the respctive topic. In this case, the article (entry) is submitted under the General Discussions category as well as others. (Notice that we have set up some sample categories. To view these, look at the categories list on the side.)

Initiating articles are submitted by IGBO board members, committee chairs, and invited IGBO members. All IGBO members can view these articles (posts) and submit or review comments about the topic at hand (use Comments link).

To view existing comments, click the PermaLink link at the bottom of this entry. You can also subscribe to entry to the left and get notified automatically when new content is submitted to this blog.

To bookmark this Blog, use the following URL: http://igbo.typepad.com/members/ 

More help about using this tool will be described later. We want to show this to you slowly.

Whats the difference between the IGBO Blog and IGBOeInfo Yahoo Sports Group?

First, a Weblog is a website that usually contains posts organized by date or category, with reflections, comments, and hyperlinks provided by the author(s). More information on what a Weblog is and how it is used by others can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weblog.

The IGBO Blogs are solely configured and designed for IGBO member online communications. We control its setup. We can customize it at any time to fit our organizations growing needs. Blogs allows us to post articles and topics about IGBO online at a special web site and then open these topics up for member discussion. For example, Regional and Presidential reports might be submitted to the blog. Now you can post comments about that report for all to view. In Blogs you can also post pictures, event photo albums, videos, online forms, surveys/polls, etc.

The IGBO Blog also has latest RSS/XML feed technology to notify subscribers instantly of important IGBO issues. You can subscribe via email or through various online news services. For example, if you have My Yahoo! page or a My AOL page set up, you subscribe to the IGBO member blog RSS feed. Then new content from our blog will instantly appear on your My Yahoo or My AOL page. You can even set up to have the IGBO member blog RSS feed directly into your cell phone or PDA.

The IGBO eInfo Yahoo Group is simply an announcement service for our membership. Tournaments can announce their registration is open, or 300 bowlers  are announced for incredible bowling. With Yahoo IGBOeInfo posts, you really cannot reply without broadcasting your reply to all 360+ subscribers. In the IGBO Blog, your comments are present for all to see, but only broadcasted (email notified) to the author of the topic. And Blog comments can be anonymous, if desired.

The IGBO eInfo Yahoo Group has a purpose and works well. It will NOT be going away. However, the IGBO Blogs will start growing into a very important medium for online collaboration within our organization.

About Privacy on IGBO Blogs

All IGBO Blogs including the IGBO Member Blog are set up be NOT PUBLICIZED. This means our blog site has special code to block search engines such as Google, Yahoo! and MSN from indexing content within our blog. IGBO does this to respect the privacy of its current and potential members.

IGBO Blog Listings with other Online Services
Because the IGBO blogs are not publicized, you will not see IGBO Blogs listed in major Blog update/index tools such as Techonrati or Blog.com. IGBO Blogs will not be listed as available blogs to browse on the Typepad.com's "Recently Updated List" when authors publish new posts. Nor will we be eligible to be featured on their site as Blog of interest.

IGBO Blog Internal Search
Also, because IGBO blogs are not publicized, we cannot add a "Search this Blog" tool (at this time). This requires Google to access our site, which we have blocked. Typepad may add an internal search tool in near future for private Blog sites. We will let you know this feature is enabled. For the time being you should rely on looking up posts via Category listings. (Author Tip: When you log into TypePad to manage your posts, you can search the entire blog for topics already discussed. Then, you can include that content in your new post, if desired.)

Password-Protected Blogs
Some IGBO blogs such the IGBO Board Blog and IGBO Bid Standards Blog are password-protected. This adds even more privacy to sensitive subject matter and follows IGBO's Policies and Procedures. In the future, additional IGBO committee blogs may require privacy from general membership and thus beccome password-protected. In general once a private committee topic is finalized, it "should" be posted in the IGBO Member Blog for all to review and comment. For example, items orginally tabled and finally approved eventually come to the floor for official discssuion.

Author Responsibilities
Authors are initially screened by the IGBO webmaster and Executive Board before they can start publishing content on any IGBO blog. Board members and Committee Chairs are typically given direct publishing rights immediately (requiring no screening of content.) Other IGBO members can also request to author content. However, these authors (known as "Junior Authors" according to Typepad terminology will require that their content be screened and approved before it can be published.

Because we are a private blog, authors are free to include member names in their posts. But, please refrain from including mailing addresses and pictures or other visual media that reflect their appearance or character without their prior consent. Never include member phone numbers in your blog.

IGBO board and webmaster have the right to alter author profiles to require posts be screened (approved) before publishing. IGBO Board and webmaster have the right to remove Authors who post questionable content from our blog service immediately following an official review of the subject matter at hand.

Blog Feeds
IGBO blogs do publish feeds of content to syndication services such as FeedBurner. This facilitates our email subscription service as well as RSS feeds members may choose to push to their own personal news readers (such as My Yahoo page, My AOL, or Cell Phone/PDAs). It is expected that members use this notification service in good faith and not abuse it or forward such content to unauthorized or questionable online or public services. If a member is suspected of such abuse, he or she will be reviewed by the IGBO Board for possible yet definable sanctions. 

Further questions about privacy concerning IGBO Blog, IGBO Web site(s), and other IGBO-authored online content should be directed to board@igbo.org immediately.

Sending Link of Your Post to IGBO Members to Read

For example, say you want to send IGBO reps in Region 5 a link to your blog article.

Once you have created a post on any IGBO Blog, click the PermaLink option at bottom of entry. This displays the permanent URL for that entry (away from a main page or even a category index page).

Then in your browsers page field, copy the URL and paste it into your email message. Now your group or friends can click that link to send them right to your article within the IGBO blog.This can be helpful to get the word out about your article without depending on subscribers.

Accepting Invitation to Become IGBO Blog Author and Submitting Your First Post

Being an author you can post articles on any IGBO Blog, where members can post comments about your topic. If you want to become an author, send an email to webmasterigbo.org and indicate you role with IGBO. IGBO Board members and IGBO committee chairs are typically asked automatically to be guest authors. (If this applies to you, you may have been sent an invitation to become author already. If not just ask!)

You will then be sent an email invitation. Simply reply to the invitation and follow the steps to set up your FREE TypePad account. If you already have a TypePad account, you can use it too (for eample, you have your own blog or are an author of another TypePad blog). The whole process takes five minutes and you  have instant access to compose your first post.

Below screenshots of the process for those that like pictures. Simply click the GIF links below.

1. Sample Inviation Email: Download Invitation.gif
2. Invitation Acceptance - Log in or Set up TpePad Account: Download Invitation2.gif
3. Set Up TypePad Account Form (if necessary):  Download Invitation3.gif
4. Thanks for registering- Accept Inviation: Download Invitation4.gif
5. TypePad Post Admin Area (Click "Begin a new Post" to start your first entry): Download Post.gif
6. Enter your post and publish: Download Post2.gif

IGBO Blog Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Below is a ongoing list of frequenlty asked questions about the IGBO Blog. There is a lot of information listed here. And, this post will be updated as needed. Feel free to comment on topics raised here.

• General Questions
• Subscriptions and Feeds
• Postings
• Authors

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General Questions

What is a Weblog?

A Weblog is a website that usually contains posts organized by date or category, with reflections, comments, and hyperlinks provided by the author(s). More information on what a Weblog is and how it is used by others can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weblog.

What is TypePad?

TypePad is a service which IGBO uses to host and facilitate its Weblogs. TypePad is the premier blogging service for professionals, hosting many of the world’s most popular blogs and small business websites. TypePad’s ease of use enables anyone to create a blog in minutes. For more information and how you can set up your own prfe3ssional Weblog go to http:///www.typepad.com. Note: Six Apart, TypePad's parent company alos offers VOX, a FREE Weblog service for personal Blogs that you can set up in minutes! For more information, go to http://www.vox.com/.

What is a post?

A Post is an entry to our weblog. It is also considered an article in which authors present to the group for discussion by comments.

How do I comment on an particular post?

Locate the article you want to comment on the Blog and click the Comments link in the article footer. This displays all comments posted thus far and presents a comment form for you to complete. Note: Some article authors monitor post comments. In those cases your comment may not display on the public blog until approved by the author. Also, you cannot subscribe the individual article's comment feed. Currently only authors of the respective post are instantly notified of comments submitted.

What is Permalink?

The Permalink is the permanent location for a weblog post. When you click the Permalink, it takes you to the archived page for that post. The URL for this page is used to link directly to that specific post. When a post is no longer displayed on the Main Index page, it is still always accessible at the Permalink location.

What Are Categories?

Categories are used to organize posts under a particular topic. For example, if you are only interested in IGBO tournaments, you might select that category to view a list of respective posts. Categories can be helpful in displaying archived posts as well as filtering in TypePad. Each IGBO Blog contains a number of categories. Some posts may fall under multiple categories.

How Do I use the Calendar?

The sidebar calendar is a quick way to indicate posts made on certain days of the current month. Days that are highlighted indicate posts made that day. Click the day link within the calendar to display all posts made that day in archive format.

What are Archives?

Archives are where posts are displayed once they no longer reside on the main page (home or category). Your weblog can have archives grouped by date (specifically by day, week and month), category and by individual post. Note: Some posts may be deleted over time (by authors or administrators) when necessary due to irrelevance.

What is a TrackBack?

A TrackBack is a notification that lets another weblog owner know that you are discussing the same topic on your own blog.

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Subscriptions and Feeds

How Do I Subscribe to the IGBO Blog?

There are two ways to subscribe: by daily email notification, or RSS Feed. Most IGBO members should subscribe by daily email notification. When a new post/article is submitted on the blog, you are sent an email of that post, with that post content included in the message. If multiple posts are submitted in a single day, you will only recieve one email with all posts. These daily notifications (Digests) are generally sent out in the mornings between 9 AM and 12 Noon Eastern time. You can comment on posts from these email notifications too. Note: You cannot subscribe to comments posted by a single post at this time.

The other syndication method is by RSS Feed. The IGBO blog uses Feedburner to make its content accessible to outside sources. Important Note: IGBO has several blogs. You subscribe to each one individually. You cannot subscribe to all IGBO blogs collectively.

What does a sample email notification look like?

Click image to view larger version.

What is a Feed?

A Feed is a type of file that contains content from a weblogs or other websites. This is used by aggregators to monitor new posts and updates to the weblog. This type of file is available in RSS and Atom formats. Feeds can be pushed to subscribers via email subscription or various, personalized News Readers such as My Yahoo, My AOL, or Google.

What is FeedBurner?

FeedBurner is a service that can provide information on a user's RSS or Atom feed usage. It can also be used to provide users with email notifications of updates to a feed. You can choose to publish your FeedBurner feed in place of TypePad's default feeds. IGBO uses the FeedBurner service to push its new content to subscribers.

What is RSS?

RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication" and is a type of file format used by aggregators to monitor syndicated web content. RSS is a way to syndicate (feed) article content other Web services and news readers such as My AOL, Google, My Yahoo and even cell phone internet services. More information on this can be found at Wikipedia.

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Postings

To post an article you must be an approved IGBO Blog author. See the Authors FAQ section below for more information. To become an author, please send an email webmaster@igbo.org or secretary@igbo.org.

How Do I Post an Article to the IGBO Web Blog

http://support.typepad.com/cgi-bin/typepad.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=73

How Do I Use the WYSIWYG Editor when created a Post?

http://support.typepad.com/cgi-bin/typepad.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=12

http://support.typepad.com/cgi-bin/typepad.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=883

How Do I add and format an image to a Post?

http://support.typepad.com/cgi-bin/typepad.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=588

http://support.typepad.com/cgi-bin/typepad.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=637

Inserting a File into your Post (for example a PDF you want members to review)

http://support.typepad.com/cgi-bin/typepad.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=65

Posting Video Clips to your Web Blog (for example a PDF you want members to review)

http://support.typepad.com/cgi-bin/typepad.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=65

How Do I Change the Date or Time of a Post?

http://support.typepad.com/cgi-bin/typepad.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=48

How Do I Schedule a Post for Display?

http://support.typepad.com/cgi-bin/typepad.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=75

Can I copy and paste my posts from outside applications?

http://support.typepad.com/cgi-bin/typepad.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=297

How Do I Edit or Delete a Post?

http://support.typepad.com/cgi-bin/typepad.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=60

Enabling and Managing Comments on Your Posts

http://support.typepad.com/cgi-bin/typepad.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=61

http://support.typepad.com/cgi-bin/typepad.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=51

http://support.typepad.com/cgi-bin/typepad.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=67

How Do I Manage My Existing Posts?

http://support.typepad.com/cgi-bin/typepad.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=69

How Do I get Notified once a Comment is Posted to my Article?

TypePad autmatically sends a notice to your email address notifying you that someone has posted a comment to your article. Note: NO other subscribers will get this notice (at this time).

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Authors

To post an article you must be an approved IGBO Blog author. Blog authors are generally IGBO board members and committee chairs. However, general members are also permitted to post articles; and they must go through an post review process before their information is published. To become an author, IGBO must send you an invitation to set up your access. Once access setup is complete, authors can log into TypePad and begin drafting and submitting their posts. To become an author, please send an email webmaster@igbo.org or secretary@igbo.org. You will be sent an invitation within 5 to 10 business days.

How Do I Accept an Author Invitation?

Note:Once an invitation is sent to you to become an author you must sign up for a FREE guest account access to TypePad, our Blog administration tool.

http://support.typepad.com/cgi-bin/typepad.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=42

How Do I Edit My Author Profile?

http://support.typepad.com/cgi-bin/typepad.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=102

How Do I Change My TypePad password?

http://support.typepad.com/cgi-bin/typepad.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=96

What are the types of authors?

There are two types of authors: Guest Authors and Junior authors.

Guest Author (Board Members and Committee Chairs)

• Guest Authors can post drafts for review OR posts that will be published to the weblog without the site owner’s review.
• Guest Authors can post drafts of new Pages for review OR new Pages that will be published to the weblog without the site owner’s review.
• Guest Authors can only edit their own posts.
• Guest Authors can moderate comments associated with entries that they have posted.
• Guest Authors have permission to upload photos and files to the weblog via the Post page.
• Guest Authors can moblog - their settings are inherited from the weblog's owner. More information on this can be found under Configuring Your Mobile Settings
• Guest Authors are not able to schedule future posts. To schedule a post, you must arrange this with the Blog administrator - webmaster@igbo.org.

Junior Author (Invited IGBO Member or Rep)

• Junior Authors can post drafts that the site owner needs to review and publish.
• Junior Authors can edit their own posts.
• Junior Authors can post drafts of new Pages in the weblog.
• Junior Authors are not allowed to upload images and files.

If you have any additional questions, please feel free to contact our Blog administrator at webmaster@igbo.org