Connect Your Tools to Ours

Are you ready to connect the blog plus the Twitter and Hypothes.is accounts you will be using for Networked Narratives?

By the time you have followed the path here in the Labyrinthus, you should already have a blog set up (it need not be fancy) and at least one thing posted to it, and set up your twitter and hypothesis accounts, if you choose to use them.

We ask for the information about your blogs location, so that all your alchemical notes, discoveries that you publish in your own site can be shared, mixed, and viewed with those of other participants. The twitter and hypothesis usernames are for a new personal dashboard tool still being brewed in the lab.

Before going any further, you should have the following information:

The public web address for your blog, the link that shows it front page. If you have not reviewed options, return to Chrysopoeia
The RSS Feed URL for your blog (if this perplexed you do not worry, we have an option to request one of our web gophers to figure it out)
Your twitter username. If you have not reviewed options, return to Circulus
Your hypothesis username. If you have not reviewed options, return to Rosarium

With these in hand, let’s feed the laboratory machine.

Your Name*
We will not publish your name online and feel free to enter a nickname or a mysterious pseudonym. It's only if we have to contact you, we like to greet you by name.
First Last
Your Email Address*
No we will not publish it or sell to evil spammers, we just ask in case we need to confirm or clarify any information provided here.
Enter Email Confirm Email
Twitter Username
Just your twitter handle, please do not include the "@"
Hypothes.is Username
Your username for your web annotation account
Affiliation*
This grants no special powers; it just helps us group blog posts by different participating courses and alchemist guilds. For 2021 Kean students blog together on the main course site (but their posts are aggregated here), so you have but one option!
- Open Participant
Your Networked Narratives Blog
Great! Now we need some information about the blog you will use to publish your Networked Narratives work. You can use any platform as long as it publishes an RSS feed. Your blog must also be publicly viewable- We cannot read from private blogs, so make sure it can be seen when you are not logged in.

We suggest Wordpress, Blogger, or tumblr. Make sure you have published at least one post on your blog. You can either (a) create a blog devoted entirely to this work (this is the Easy Path), (b) Use a category or tag within an existing blog or (c) Let us figure it out for you.

We will ask you for two different web addresses. One is the main place to see ALL of your Networked Narrative blog posts; this is either the URL for your entire blog or the one that shows all the posts within a specific tag or category on an existing blog.

The second address is the RSS Feed for your blog- this is how we can subscribe to your site and bring your content into the blog hub. It will be a different address. Please, if you are not sure of this, use the option (c).
Previous NetNarr Participant?
Check this box if you were part of a previous course AND if you are using the same blog. We still request the information below but will manually update your subscription data so it works for the current year.
- Yes! I'm using the same blog as in previous courses
Is your blog completely devoted to your Networked Narratives work?*
It's not that your posts about collecting antique thimbles is not utterly fascinating! But if you plan to just use this blog for Networked Narratives, say "yes" (it's easier for both you and us)
- Yes, everything published there is related to Networked Narratives (the easiest to find a blog feed)
- No, I am using a blog where I write about other topics too (this will take a bit of detective work to find your blog feed)
- I'm not quite sure, please figure this out for me!
Using a Blog Devoted Entirely to Networked Narratives*
This should be the main web address that shows all of your posts, like http://digitalalchemy4life.tumblr.com or http://alchemytothemax.wordpress.com/ Please make sure this URL works and links to the place to view the main entrance to your blog. A common mistake people make is sending the address for the dashboard where they write their posts. Only you can see it. To be sure, try the web address on another device where you are not logged into your blog.
RSS URL for a Networked Narratives Devoted Blog*
Hopefully you did this step earlier, but if not, enter the public web address for your blog into the Feed Finder Magic Box (this link will open in a new window so you will not lose this form). Copy the RSS Feed URL that comes out of Magic Box and enter it below. It should be different from the URL you entered above. Please make sure opening this URL in a browser produces something-- it may look like code gibberish... If the Magic Box has no magic for you, please go back and do Option (c), it will do you no good to continue with this form.
Using a Blog Where You Write About Other Topics Too*
You are more then welcome to use a blog where you write about other topics, you just need to decided on a category/tag/label there that you will use to indicate your Networked Narratives posts. Make sure you have that category/tag/label there AND that you have published at least one post using that category/tag/label. Enter the address that lists ALL posts with the category/tag/label. This should be the web address that displays all your tagged/categorized content, such as http://magic-soup.tumblr.com/tagged/netnarr or http://flyingsquirrel.wordpress.com/category/digital-alchemy

Please make sure this URL works and links to the place to the place that shows your tagged/categorized blog posts. If you have not written any posts, do not proceed. The wheels may fall off your bus (just kidding)-- there needs to be at least ONE post visible at this address when when you enter it in a web browser.
RSS Feed Address for a Tag/Category/Label Within a Blog*
Sadly our Magic Box is not magical enough to find the address for these kinds of RSS feeds, you will have to do some detective work. Just make triple sure that the URL you enter works and that it generates something that represents the content of your posts (it might look a bunch of code, but you should see the title and content of your posts in it) This should be a DIFFERENT URL than the one above that displays it nicely on your site.

Wordpress Blogs (self hosted or Wordpress.com)
Most Wordpress blog feeds are found just by attaching /feed to the url above, e.g. http://iamsocool.wordpress.com/category/digital-alchemy/feed or http://iamsocool.wordpress.com/tag/netnarr/feed Some self hosted Wordpress blogs have addresses such as http://myselfhostedcoolblog.org/?cat=23 or http://myselfhostedcoolblog.org/?tag=122 in which case you should just add &feed=rss2 to the end of the URL to get the TSS feed.

Blogger
If you are using a label "netnarr" on a Blogger site, the RSS Feed address will look like http://hippytrippynewt.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default/-/netnarr
tumblr
If you use a "netnarr" tag in your tumblr site to indicated which posts are related to this course, your RSS Feed will look like http://moretolifethangifs.tumblr.com/tagged/netnarr/rss
Help! Figure out this RSS Stuff for Me!*
That's a lot of mumbo jumbo with the other options. If you just enter the web address for your blog, we will set our magic seeing in the dark gophers loose to find the information we need to add it to Networked Narratives. It may take us a day (or less), and we will contact you be email when the gophers emerge from the deep burrows and report success.
Anything Else? Comments? Concerns? Feedback?
Hey! One last time to make sure you entered the correct URLs in the previous section AND that you have at least published ONE thing to your blog!!!

Whew, you made it to the bottom of this long form. Do you have any questions or things we should know?

Featured Image: “Ring a Day 8/365” flickr photo by MetalRiot https://flickr.com/photos/metalriot/4257409019 shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license

Your Networked Narratives Blog