4Real Forums: All Bloggers Please Respond!

Oh, Dearest Mother, Sweetest Virgin of Altagracia, our Patroness. You are our Advocate and to you we recommend our needs. You are our Teacher and like disciples we come to learn from the example of your holy life. You are our Mother, and like children, we come to offer you all of the love of our hearts. Receive, dearest Mother, our offerings and listen attentively to our supplications. Amen.

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Topic: All Bloggers Please Respond!

Poll Question: If you are a 4Real board blogger, which would you prefer:
Poll Choice	Votes	Poll Statistics
a blog list here (to keep track of what 4Real blogs)	5	[8.77%]
a webring (for easy blog-surfing)	11	[19.30%]
an OPML file (for adding to blogrolls/sidebars)	2	[3.51%]
a shareable feed (for reading 4Real blog entries)	39	[68.42%]
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cathhomeschool
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Texas Bluebonnets

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Posted: May 02 2007 at 9:46pm \| IP Logged

**CLARIFICATION** (since the spaces allotted for question and choices were too small)

Blog question: If you are an active member of this board, maintain a blog, and would like your blog included in the most current blogroll/webring, which of the following options would you prefer:

1. a regularly updated thread here on the board that includes a list of all bloggers (please be aware that you would need to contact the person doing thread maintenance if you have a change in your url, etc.)

2. a webring (please be aware that with the webring option, you need to apply to the webring and place the webring's code in your blog's template -- we cannot do this for you, though most people find it fairly simple to do.)

3. an OPML file that someone will maintain in order to facilitate addition into blogrolls/sidebars

4. a shareable feed or a group blog feed that would facilitate reading 4Real blog entries.

You can only vote for one choice, but you can comment below. Please comment if I should redo the poll to allow multiple choices.

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Janette (4 boys - 22, 21, 15, 14)

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Jane Ramsey
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Posted: May 02 2007 at 9:58pm \| IP Logged

Janette,
Could you explain numbers 3 and 4 a little more?

Martha
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Posted: May 02 2007 at 10:24pm \| IP Logged

I would like 3 and 4 explained more too, but voted #4 because it sounds like the one I would have to "fuss" with the least. Thus the one I would most likely be able to use and actually remember to use.

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Martha
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Paula in MN
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Posted: May 03 2007 at 5:45am \| IP Logged

I'll jump in here -

#3 would be what Susan has already done for us. It would be a list of all the blogs, and you would have that list on the sidebar of your blog.

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Paula
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Maryan
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Posted: May 03 2007 at 6:51am \| IP Logged

And four? Is that like bloglines -- set up as a group share kind of thing???? (Can you tell I'm well-versed in blog world stuff?)

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Maryan
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Carole N.
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Posted: May 03 2007 at 7:56am \| IP Logged

Okay, let me show my ignorance. Does everyone take the poll even those of us who just love to read but do not have a blog?

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Taffy
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Posted: May 03 2007 at 8:47am \| IP Logged

I'm going to ask a "dumb question". Does option #4 mean something like the Catholic Mothers Online list?

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Susan
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cathhomeschool
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Posted: May 03 2007 at 8:57am \| IP Logged

Ladies, I wish that I could answer your questions! I am not a blogger, so I just pulled the question and options from Need Some Input Regarding 4Real Blog List. Perhaps someone else could explain option 4? Stef?

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Janette (4 boys - 22, 21, 15, 14)

lapazfarm
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Posted: May 03 2007 at 9:44am \| IP Logged

I voted for the webring because it is so simple to add to a sidebar and would not have to update it myself every time a blog is added or deleted. But I wouldn't mind the OPML if I was certain I could add it to my WordpressMU based blog. It works a bit differently than typepad, so I would have to fiddle around with the file and see if it works. Also, would that have to be updated by ME on my blog when new blogs come up?

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Maryan
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Posted: May 03 2007 at 10:20am \| IP Logged

Like Theresa, I have trouble adding things with wordpress too - not sure what an OPML file is!!

Haven't voted yet... still not sure what the feed is... anyone? Is that a separate site? And if so, who updates that?

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Maryan
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Matilda
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Posted: May 03 2007 at 11:06am \| IP Logged

What is the difference between a blogroll like Catholic Mothers Online and a webring?

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Paula in MN
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Posted: May 03 2007 at 12:04pm \| IP Logged

Okay -- I will try to anser these questions to the best of my ability.

1. A BLOG RING -- like the 4Real ring --- is html code that goes in the sidebar of your blog. All you see on the blog is Join/List/Next/Previous, etc. When you click on NEXT or PREVIOUS, you will automatically go to the next or previous website that is enrolled in the ring. Think of it as a big Liturgical Calendar wheel, and you are on Palm Sunday. You can go forwards to Easter, backwards all the way to Ash Wednesday if you want, etc. The size of the "box" on your blog never changes, and only the Webring administrator has to worry about adding new blogs, keeping it updated, etc.

2. A BLOGROLL is just a list of blog names. You click on whatever blog you want to get to it. Susan just created a new one for all of us (and did a great job). Again, you would add the blogroll to your sidebar. The size of the "box" for a blog roll can get quite large. I THINK that with an OPML file, once you have placed it on your blog, if someone changes their blog name, etc. YOU have to be the one to change it on your website. There would not be an administrator for that option.

3. CATHOLIC MOTHERS ONLINE is a "new" kind of blogroll. Again, it is a list of all the members of the blogroll. It is placed in your sidebar. Like the Webring, the size of the "box" never changes, and there is an administrator to worry about updates.

I hope this clears up the confusion. Again, I'm not 100% positive about the OPML file, but I'm pretty sure Lissa or Stef could answer that!

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Paula
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Paula in MN
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Posted: May 03 2007 at 12:18pm \| IP Logged

Sorry, Maryan, I forgot to answer your question about a shareable feed!

Yes, I think that a shareable feed would be like bloglines, only it would just be 4Real members. Again, I'm not sure how that actually works.

When I think about bloglines or google reader, I'm still the one that has to add or delete websites. I don't know if we created our own feed if we would then need an admistrator for that.

I also want to make sure that none of you think I'm complaining about working on the webring! I do enjoy doing it. I just think that we should have a group consensus about if we all want our blogs "enrolled" in something and what we want it to look like and how we want it to work.

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Paula
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Lorri
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Posted: May 03 2007 at 12:28pm \| IP Logged

Oh no, the blogroll is losing by a landslide! Another advantage to a blogroll is that visitors to your site can see at a glance, without having to click away, who is on the blogroll. I think the OPML is scaring people away since we'd be responsible for adding new blogs ourselves. I'd like to see a blogroll with one or two administrators who would update it, which would automatically update itself on all our blogs.

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stefoodie
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Posted: May 03 2007 at 12:46pm \| IP Logged

#4 is also OPML-based. Basically an OPML file is a file that's a compilation of feed sources.

More info here in case you want to read up on it

A blogroll, option #3 is something YOU maintain (your list, if you want, and depending on which blogging software you use, could be exported as an OPML file -- KC has one that may work with Typepad, though you'll still have to re-update it every now and then with a new file from KC).

Ideally, an OPML file can be imported into sidebars, readers, etc. so we can have a link to an OPML file here and people can do with it what they want -- put it into their sidebar, their reader, into a page, etc. Sometimes they don't play nice, though, for instance, I can't get my WP blog to import KC's file.

#4 simply takes #3 a step further. Instead of you having to worry about whether the OPML file is updated or how to incorporate it into your sidebar, one person maintains it (I'll volunteer if this is what we end up with) and puts the feed itself up on a page so that everyone can just link to/visit the page. The OPML file could still be sent to people who want to incorporate it into their own blog.

More info here on shareable feeds

I hope that clarifies things. If not, I'll be back later tonight.

ETA: Sorry, I typed "#2" earlier instead of "#3".

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stef

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Paula in MN
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Posted: May 03 2007 at 2:50pm \| IP Logged

Thanks Stef for clarifying about OPML files and actual feeds.

One thing I know about the webring is that I do have the ability to email EVERYONE in the ring with an important announcement/message.

Can we have something like that with an option like #4 - where there is an administrator involved? It seems like a nice feature. I know there are days when I may not check the forum but I do check my emails.

I agree with Lorri's comment that it is nice for visitors to see other blogs at a glance, but then I would opt for doing it like Catholic Mothers Online -- it just keeps the blog page less cluttered.

...just more of my .02...

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Paula
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Erin
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Posted: May 03 2007 at 4:01pm \| IP Logged

Paula in MN wrote:

One thing I know about the webring is that I do have the ability to email EVERYONE in the ring with an important announcement/message.

You do? Does that mean all webring members have the same ability?

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Paula in MN
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Posted: May 03 2007 at 5:08pm \| IP Logged

Sorry, Erin, that would be wonderful, wouldn't it? But no, only the administrator has that ability. Currently all you'd have to do would be to email me and then I can send it the other 65 members.

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Paula
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Paula in MN
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Posted: May 04 2007 at 6:04am \| IP Logged

Bump -- only 28 votes so far!!!!

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Paula
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MamaJen
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Posted: May 04 2007 at 9:16am \| IP Logged

I mostly lurk, both here and on all your blogs so my opinion shouldn't hold much weight, IMO! :-) But, fwiw, the blogroll has been super-simple to implement for me. I also like that with the blogroll, I can click on the "random" button and go to someone's blog I don't "know" - there are so many great blogs here and not enough hours in the day, so I sometimes hit that "random" button and find treasure!

I'm also a bit worried that if it's something too complicated, I'll just throw up my hands and not do it at all. That said, option #4 sounds pretty nifty. I think I'd vote for #4 if it is simple to put into our blogs, but #2 if #4 is more complicated to do.

Is that clear as mud? :-)

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