Greetings fellow Moose (and lurkers!). There have been several new additions to the herd in the past few weeks so I thought some ‘insider moose tips’ might be useful.
While most of what one needs to know of the Moose can be found in our Posting Guidelines, FAQ, and About pages, there are lots of ‘quirks’ of the Moose that are unwritten.
Follow me below the fold for an Insider’s Guide to the Moose.
Here at the Moose, there really is no such thing as ‘threadjacking’. Just about any thread on the Moose is a potential ‘Open Thread’ and no one is going to get fired up over a left field comment.
There is no such thing as ‘Jumping the Tip Jar’ because we don’t use Tip Jars. Our diarists may not even leave the top comment (though, if a diary has JUST been posted, it is courteous to wait a few minutes before commenting in case one is being written).
Ratings on the Moose are more for fun and support than anything else. We do not tend to take them as seriously as other sites might. In the most general of terms, our ratings can be defined as:
Fierce = Anything from “Ayup” to “Oh, hell yeah!!”
Meh = “Meh”
Fail = “Oh, hell no!!” (obvious Trolls/beyond the pale language)
We really are pretty laid back as a rule. As such, ‘Fail’ ratings are rare rare rare. If someone has ‘Failed’ a comment of yours, odds are it was in error (easy to do on a laptop when rating multiple comments).
The Moose moves at a slower pace than most other sites. Rather than lasting a few hours, a conversation may last for days (and/or be carried over into multiple diaries).
The Moose is an Anti-Flame Zone. Our interactions are more like dinner table discussion with family and friends, and best intentions and good faith should always be assumed. That having been said, everyone has a bad day now and again, we just tend to cut each other some slack when it happens.
Avoid this! 
Try not to drag drama and/or altercations from other sites over to the Moose.
Odds are that the Moose it would interest are already aware of it…and those that aren’t probably don’t want to be aware of it in the first place.
We try to avoid bashing other sites (the obvious exceptions to this rule would be Rightwing and/or Hate sites). We see no need to build a divide amongst those fighting for the same causes. In fact, most Moose are active across the blogosphere. For example, many Moose diary and comment regularly on dKos.
To follow what we are up to on dKos, join and follow the Group Moose Tracks: Moose on the Loose. By looking at the profile for the Moose Group you can click on individual Moose and follow them as well.
Moose have pretty thick hides and many (if not most) comments have a healthy dose of snark in them. From a recent comment:
We are a pretty snarky and irreverent bunch…for the most part we adhere to the “we only tease ya cuz we love ya” mindset…some of us have been pokin’ fun at each other for years now…just laugh and roll with it 😉
This is YOUR blog. Write about whatever you want to. While we are focused primarily on politics, we also love food diaries, horse diaries, poetry diaries, photo diaries, and funny clips. Music, books, travel, personal stories, and the occasional unicorn porn. Whatever you feel led to blog about is fair game on the Moose (so long as it abides by our Posting Guidelines!). Not only do we want you to join in on the conversation, we want you to start new ones!
While the Moose is indeed now YOUR blog, we understand that many keep personal blogs as well. ‘Moose with Blogs’ is a blog roll found in the right column that links to…you guessed it…blogs that belong to other Moose. If you have a personal blog that you would like added to the Moose Blog Roll, you can ask in any active thread (or use the ‘Contact the Moose’ link at the bottom of each page).
If you are plugged into ‘social media’, Motley Moose has Twitter, Facebook, and Networked Blogs accounts. You can find links to all three in the far right column beneath the Moose with Blogs roll. Add us, Friend us, and Follow us!
It is highly recommended that you download the browser add-on Lazarus. It is available for both Firefox and Chrome and it can be an absolute sanity saver. It prevents the loss of a diary draft or comment (on any site) in the case of an errant click, power outage, or balky computer (it also prevents the loss of forms and emails). Do yourself a favor and take the very brief time needed to add it.
Lazarus for Firefox
Lazarus for Chrome
Put quite simply: Our ‘Search’ sucks. Try using the advanced options, then hit teh Googles.
You will occasionally see a diary labeled ‘The Lounge’. The Lounge was an early forum for all things silly during the building of the Moose. Our resident snarkmeisters reigned supreme and kept us all from getting too serious. We carried The Lounge over to Motley Moose in the form of snarky and/or free form diaries. A couple of examples:
The Lounge: Flashback-Gate and part deux
Feel free to use the ‘The Lounge’ as a subject header when you want to get your snark on.
Heh. I like the above t-shirt. It reminded me of these:
I am sure there are many quirks of the Moose that I am missing.
I hope you all stick around to figure them out.
59 comments