The following is the general JAPUNDIT policy for handling multiple postings of the same news item.

1. A news item that is double posted soon after having been posted originally will be deleted without notice.

2. A news item that is double posted after some time has passed after having been posted originally will be allowed to stand without deletion.

We really don’t want to get into the business of closely monitoring posts, so the above general policy will be applied solely at the discretion of JAPUNDIT Admin.

The JAPUNDIT News Pages are very lively, with new members joining almost daily. Thanks to all of the members who are doing so much to make the site a success.

A high level of activity also increases the possibility that some overlap will occur in the stories being posted.

The following are some ways contributors can help avoid multiple posting of the same story.

1. Before starting to post a new story, use the search box in the right side bar to search for a key word in your story. If your story is about polar bears, for example, searching for “polar bear” is a good way to find out if your intended topic already has been covered.

2. As you enter a URL, title, and description on the “submit story” tab, a list of related stories will appear at the bottom of the tab. Check these stories to see if someone already has posted something similar.

SiteMeter provides us with visitor data grouped by, among other things, country, referral, and continent.

I was surprised to note on the continent graph for JAPUNDIT visitors recently that we are even getting visitors from unknown continents. And to think that I have been going through life thinking that the world had been completely charted centuries ago. . . !?!

In order to avoid confusion that would be caused if we require separate logins here on the Japundit Blog and on the Japundit News Page, we have decided to open up commenting to the general public on the blog.

You no longer will be required to log in to comment, but our commenting rules still apply.

Of course, we reserve the right to remove any comment we feel is in appropriate.

We are happy to announce the availability of a new Japundit Bookmarklet, which makes posting to Japundit quicker and easier than ever.

To use the Japundit Bookmarklet, simply go to the bottom of the Japundit News Story page and click Japundit Bookmarklet link under JAPUNDIT TOOLS.

On the scsreen that appears perform either of the following operations.

To add the bookmarklet to your browser’s Bookmarks/Favorites menu

Right-click Submit to Japundit and select Bookmark This Link on the shortcut menu that appears. This will put Submit to Japundit on your browser’s Bookmarks/Favorites menu.

To add the bookmarklet to the bookmarks toolbar along the top of your browser

Drag Submit to Japundit to the bookmarks toolbar. This should cause Submit to Japundit to appear in the toolbar.

To submit a story to Japundit using the bookmarklet

When you want to submit the page you are currently viewing with your browser to Japundit, simply click Submit to Japundit on your browser’s Bookmarks/Favorites menu or bookmarks toolbar.

This will open a new browser window displaying the standard Japundit Submit Story page with the URL and title of the page you were viewing already filled in automatically.

Make any change you want to the title, select a category, fill in some tags, etc. Finally, click Submit, and you are done.

The following are the currently supported HTML tags you can use when posting a story on the JAPUNDIT News Pages.

Please let us know if there are others you would like to see implemented.

Here is the new site

I’ve been getting reports from people about the buggy login/logout handling over at the JAPUNDIT News Site.

We are fully aware of the problem, but the guy who takes care of fixing things like that for us is off on holiday for a few days. We will get it fixed as soon as he gets back.

In the meantime, please keep clicking around and refreshing the page, which eventually solves the problem.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

There have been a number of times while getting used to our new system at JAPUNDIT where I thought a story was not being posted or that a changed setting was not taking effect. That’s when I realized that the new system makes heavy use of buffered images to increase speed. Normally, a simple browser page refresh is enough to solve the problem.

So any time you feel that your story got lost in the ether or if anything else does not look right, dry a browser page refresh and see if that does not do the trick.

The big difference between the old JAPUNDIT and the new JAPUNDIT is that the new version is a community based site. This means that the site depends on all of its members to keep it interesting and vibrant.

The most basic thing we need users to do is to vote for stories that others submit. This is the bare minimum you can do to help support JAPUNDIT. If a story does not receive a minimum number of votes, it is never promoted to the top page.

Please help make JAPUNDIT a success by taking the time to click the VOTE buttons to the left of the stories.

Up until now, we have been using numerous contact addresses for JAPUNDIT, to keep track of submissions, contacts, podcast-related items, etc.

Effective immediately, we will be consolidating everything to one single address: contact(at)japundit(dot)com.

We will try to update all of the mail addresses mentioned on the site, but we may miss some.

Use the following procedure to post a video on JAPUNDIT.

In the “Story’s URL” box on the screen that appears after you click the “Submit Story” tab, paste the URL where the video is located.

Right now there is only one way to post an image on JAPUNDIT.

In the “Story’s URL” box on the screen that appears after you click the “Submit Story” tab, paste the URL where the photo is located.

We will be trying to work out a way to make it possible to include both an image and a link to the story that includes the image, and we will let you know as soon as we figure it out.

As visitors over at the main JAPUNDIT page already know, we are still dealing with issues one-by-one as they arise.

No doubt there still will be more issues cropping up every now and again, so please bear with us. The day will soon arrive when all problem issues are solved and everything will be humming along smoothly (I hope!)

In the meantime, I will be posting occasionally here on the JAPUNDIT BLOG on problems, as well as new features and functions, so please be sure to check us out occasionally to keep up to date.