Accounts

Why do you need all my personal information when I register?
How can I see profiles of other users?
How can I delete my account and all my posts?
What about my profile?

Navigation

How can I find what I'm looking for?

Content

What's the difference between the News link and the Catch Up link in the main navigation bar?
What are all those little icons at the upper right side of every story?
What's with the submission text box with all the buttons on top?
Do you still put all the stories from the paper online?
How do I get RSS feeds?
What is an RSS Reader?
Where can I subscribe to the print edition?

Other users

Who should I tell about bad behavior on this site?

Submitting stories, announcements and press releases

Where can I submit a birth announcement?
Where can I submit a engagement announcement?
Where can I submit a wedding announcement?
Where can I submit a classified ad?
Where can I buy photo reprints?
Where can I buy copies of old stories?
What's the difference between your "Browse archives" box on the front page, and your print archives where I have to pay to buy a story?
How do I post a blog entry?
How do I post an event?
How do I post a question to the forum?

Accounts

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When I go to the My Account link, I can see all the private information I submitted in your registration form. Can everyone see that?
No, only you can see everything in your profile. Others can only see the fields that were designated as public in the registration form. back to top

Why do you need all my personal information when I register? We don't. You're only required to enter some particulars--name, address, phone and a couple others--and the rest is up to you. We encourage you, though, to fill in the fields that tell the community more about your interests.
How can I see profiles of other users? Log in, click the User Profiles link in the navigation menu under the top photo, and scroll through. Click on a user name to learn more about the user and contact them through their contact page. As the site grows, more users will be listed and more information will be displayed on this first screen. back to top

How can I delete my account and all my posts? Users cannot delete their posts or their accounts. Please use care and prudence when posting. When you put it on the web, it's out there forever. back to top


What about my profile? After you fill out the initial form, you can add information to your account.back to top

Navigation

How can I find what I'm looking for?
Many ways:

--Use the pull down navigation bar.

--Click on the search box at the top of the page. Type in your search word, or use the Advanced options for a more detailed search.

--Click on the Catch Up link in the navigation bar. Catch Up section to read all the news, reader submissions and recently posted events that happened while you were gone. All content is sorted from the top of the page from newest to oldest. Just read until you're caught up. back to top

Content

What's the difference between the "News Stories from ... Minnesota" box and the "Reader Contributions" box?
Our new web site is based on input from the people that live here. The News stories are written by our staff, but the Reader Contributions are calendar items, comments and blog posts written by people who live in our city. back to top

What's the difference between the News link and the Catch Up link in the main navigation bar?
While both links like site content from newest to oldest, the News link lists only tories written by our staff while the Catch Up link lists all stories by both our staff and by local bloggers, as well as events that have been recently posted to the calendar. back to top

What are all those little icons at the upper right side of every story? Those icons allow you to alert other web sites about the content in that story. By clicking those icons you can post a reference or personal bookmark to that story on a variety of social media sites. back to top

What's with the submission text box with all the buttons on top? That interface gives the user some Microsoft Word-like control over the text in their posts. Users can turn the interface on or off by clicking the enable/disable rich text button below the text field, or by setting a default in their user account page. back to top

Do you still put all the stories from the paper online? Yes and no. The entire edition of the newspaper is online under the "Print Edition" link at page top. You can download each page individually, or you can download the entire paper in PDF format. You can preview a reduced version of the page in JPG format first. All the stories you read on the pages of the web site itself are written specifically for the site, but may be printed in the paper at a later date. back to top

How do I get RSS feeds? A full RSS feed for the site is available by clicking the orange button the right hand side of your browser window in the "Stay connected" box. back to top

What is an RSS Reader? RSS (see the wikipedia entry at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS) readers like NetNewswire, RSS Owl, Vienna and others are available for free or at low cost at various sites. back to top

Where can I subscribe to the print edition? Click on the Subscribe button in the menu bar.

Other users

Who should I tell about bad behavior on this site? Use the "Report Abuse" link at the top of the page (it only appears there once you have logged in). Copy the address of the page on which it happened, and the screen name of the user that you're reporting. Be as detailed as you can about the offense, and try to cut and paste it into your report if you can.

Submitting stories, announcements and press releases

Where can I submit a birth announcement? Pull down on the Contact Us link in the top menu bar on every page. back to top

Where can I submit a engagement announcement? Pull down on the Contact Us link in the top menu bar on the front page. back to top

Where can I submit a wedding announcement? Pull down on the Contact Us link in the top menu bar on the front page. back to top

Where can I submit a classified ad? Our classifieds submission link is on the footer of every page. back to top

Where can I buy photo reprints? Pull down on the Archives menu bar item in the top menu bar on every page. back to top

Where can I buy copies of old stories? Click on the Archives menu bar item in the top menu bar on every page. Also, keep in mind that this web site has only been in operation since August 2000. For articles published prior to that you'll have to consult bound volumes of the newspaper, found at our newspaper office. back to top

What's the difference between your "Browse archives" box, and your print archives where I have to pay to buy a story? The "Browse Archives" box on the home page is a calendar-based tool to find all the articles that have been published on the web site--no content from the newspaper is posted in this archive. To Archives from the print edition, use the Print Archives link in the Archives box. back to top

Adding Your Own Content

How do I post a blog entry? Sign in with the "Sign in" linnk in the upper right hand corner of the page.
Once in, click on the "Account Preferences" link in the upper right hand corner of your page.
Click on the "My Blogs" link in the menu on the "Account Preferences" page.
Click on the "Create a Brand New Blog" link. back to top

How do I post an event? Sign in with the "Sign in" linnk in the upper right hand corner of the page.
Once in, click on the Calendar link in the top menubar.
Below the calendar graphic, you'll see a link that says, "Post One Now". Click this link and fill in the calendar and event data as appropriate. back to top

How do I post a question to the forum? Sign in with the "Sign in" linnk in the upper right hand corner of the page.
Click on Community/Forums in the menu bar.
To start a new discussion, follow these steps:
1. Give your post a title
2. Enter the content of your post in the tagline field
3. Choose a category from the dropdown list of forums
4. Click save back to top

How do I add photos to my post? Photos cannot be added by readers. back to top