Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is this site?

   Hare or Tortoise (HOT) is a so-called "digg clone", named after the technology oriented site digg.com. Unlike digg, HOT has a single minded focus: running (Well, at least for now. We are open to suggestions!). In short, HOT is meant to be a community driven news feed where anyone can submit a story and popular stories will "bubble up" to become published (see below). In addition, by allowing anyone to comment on stories submitted to HOT, we are hoping to create a truely open forum for the exchange of expertise and opinions.

2. How can I submit a story?

   Submitting stories is easy. Once you have registered and signed in, simply click on 'submit story' and enter the URL of the story you would like to submit. Then fill out a title, description, and category for the story. First up, however, make sure that your story has not already been submitted. If that is the case, simply jogg (i.e. vote on) the original submission instead.

3. How do stories become published?

   Once a story is submitted by a user it is instantly posted in the queued stories section. This is a temporary holding place where stories wait to be promoted to the front page. To help promote stories to the homepage, simply visit the Upcoming stories section and jogg stories you think are good or valuable contributions. Once a story has received enough joggs, it is instantly published. Should the story not receive enough joggs during a set amount of time, or is reported, it eventually falls out of the queued stories section. HOT can only work if a large enough group of people actively jogg (promote) good stories and report (remove bad stories, a feature yet to come!). Since HOT's content is user-driven, it is up to YOU to contribute.

4. How can I find stories that I jogged, submitted, and/or commented on?

   Every time you jogg, submit, or comment on a story it is bookmarked and stored within your user profile. To visit your user profile, click the profile link on top of the page. To find stories jogged, submitted or commented on by another user, follow the links to that user's profile by clicking on the user's login name underneath a story's title for example.

5. How can I add another user to my "friends" section?

   The friends section of your profile allows you to keep track of users who you consider to have common interests and opionions or whose contributions you simply like to follow for one reason or the other. To add a user to your friends section, simply follow the link in that user's profile. In your own profile, you have a link to all your friends (where you can remove someone from that list if you want to) as well as a link that shows all users who have added you as their friend.

6. How can I email a story?

   If you have a story that you'd like to share with someone, there is an 'tell a friend' link by every story. Once the link is clicked, fill out the form and send it to whomever you like.

7. What is the sneak/spy feature?

   This feature is a real-time snapshot of HOT activity (joggs, submissions, reports, and comments). It allows users to ÒpyÓon each other's activity to find interesting content (joggs/submissions) and popular discussions (comments).

8. I submitted a story and now it's gone, where is it?

   Newly submitted stories live in the queued stories section for quite some time, depending on the popularity of the topic submitted to. After this time has elapsed, if the story has not been publisehd on the front page (become popular), the story falls out of the queue. All stories can still be found in user profiles that have jogged the story, as well as our story search feature.

9. Are blog posts okay to submit as stories on HOT?

   Blog stories are fine as long as the story is not plagiarized. However, if any URL within HOT is consistently flagged as SPAM by the HOT administrators, that URL will be blocked from submission. See a definition of plagiarism.

10. How does RSS work on HOT?

    There are many of options to get HOT syndicated (RSS) content. You can use RSS for specific users, friends, topics, and the published/queued sections of HOT. You will find the links all over the different sections of HOT. A list of convenient buttons on the right allows you to add the published stories feed to your favorite RSS reader directly.

11. How to report a bug/problem/abuse

    To contact us, please send us a note.