In the open source world blogs are one of the main vehicles for general discussions about technical and project issues. One of the main reasons for this is that open source projects are interconnected, and developers working on one project want to follow what is happening in other projects. Users also like to know what is happening behind the scenes with their favourite software. Blogging is a great way to reach new people who share similar interests to you. Sites like http://digg.com, http://slashdot.org, and others facilitate this.

The volume of blog postings created within a community can be overwhelming. To help deal with this, RSS or Atom feeds enable the receipt of content in a machine-readable format so that it can be used in a variety of different ways.

Many open-source community maintain a Planet site which aggregates the feeds from community members into a single page (and the Planet, in turn, provides an aggregated feed). Here are some examples:

You are required to blog twice per week on things related to the course, your project, your readings, etc. If you haven't blogged before, spend some time reading other people's blogs.

You are also encouraged to comment on other people's blog posts when you have something to say in reply, either directly (by leaving a comment on their blog) or by creating a blog entry of your own that links to the other's blog (most blog software will automatically link the postings using a “Trackback” mechanism). The makes the blog a two way communication medium, and help blog authors understand how their views are being received.

Your blog is an integral part of your work in your open source course(s). Blog postings will be made available to other students, faculty, and the general public via the web and your RSS/Atom feeds, and your postings will appear on Telescope.

Because your blog postings will be incorporated into other content, it is important that you represent your thoughts professionally, using these guidelines:

• Provide context so that someone happening across your blog post will understand what you are talking about.
• Write professionally. Blog postings are less formal than other types of writing, but they are still a reflection of your communications skills.
• Remember that the internet has a long memory. The Telescope page is generated periodically, and even if you delete or change your posting, it may be indexed, cached, or reposted in the previous form. Avoid saying something that might come back to haunt you later – and remember that future employers may read your old postings (as well as future in-laws, office mates, and so forth).
• Write in English. English is the language of instruction at Seneca and the main language of communication in many open source communities.
• Define appreviations and acronyms the first time each one is used.
• Do not use profane, obscene, or rude content, or content that belittles other people.
• Do not link to profane, obscene, rude, or illegal material or to sites that knowingly violate intellectual property rights (warez).
• Ensure that each posting makes sense when taken out of the context of your blog and viewed on its own. If you are referring to one of your previous posts, link to it rather than refer to it as being “below” or “above”.
• Link extensively. If you're referring to a blog post, article, video, event, command, software package, person, project – link to all of them so that your readers can find out more information.
• Use text instead of screenshots whenever possible so that your pages are searchable, resizable, and accessible.
• Ensure that each posting conforms to the appropriate Seneca Policies
• Keep the postings relevant to your open source work.

Failure to follow these guidelines may result in removal of your feed from Telescope, and in a severe case (such as a breach of the AUP) may result in disciplinary action from the college.

Please note that if you want to create blog entries that may not conform to these guidelines, you are free to do so in one of two ways:

It's important that your professor be able to easily access your blog posts for a particular date range. Some blog software and blog themes provide easy access to your posts and some make it very difficult. Please don't frustrate your prof – and risk having them miss some of yours posts! – by using a configuration that makes it hard to find your posts.