Frequently Asked Questions - About the Blogging For Progress Scholarship

By all means - everyone is welcome. But you are still expected to follow the same rules and guidelines as those members who are participating in the contest. This includes adhering to word count minimums, ensuring that your blog topics are progressive, and following anti-spam-posting guidelines. In a nutshell, even if you are not participating in the contest, you are being held to the same standard as our contest participants. Why? Because we cannot justify unpublishing a post made by a contestent and not unpublishing a similar post made by a non-contestent.

The excuse "But I'm not in the contest" or "I don't even want to win the contest" has been overused when we try to moderate a post made by someone who is not in the contest and does not want their post to be moderated... therefore we are forced to make an official ruling on this.

If you are posting to this site - regardless if you're doing so in an attempt to win the scholarship money or if you just like to write - you absolutely must follow the Terms of Service you agreed to upon joining this site, the posting rules and regulations specified within the contest rules, and the guidelines contained within the Frequently Asked Questions section of this site. These three areas, along with our editorial policy and privacy policy, are reigning documents over our posting guidelines and all should be considered official rules when it comes to posting.

The Fall 2008 Blogging for Progress Scholarship competition will start on October 1, 2008. You can register and enter now.

This semester the winner of the competition will be awarded a $1,500 scholarship. Previous winners are putting their scholarships to good use at a wide range of schools; you could be next!

The Official Rules are very similar to previous semesters, but we will continue to add fun new ways to earn bonus points. There will also be some new moderation restrictions designed to reduce spam, prevent copyright violations, and protect members from verbal abuse. Previous winners are not eligible to enter this semester. However, if you entered in previous semesters and have not yet won a scholarship from Progressive U, you are encouraged to put your blogging skills to good use and enter again!

To be eligible for this semester's scholarships you must register by November 15, 2008. However, the contest continues until December 15, 2008, so you still have time to catch up if you are starting late!

Note that if you register after November 15th, you are still eligible for future scholarship contests, so start blogging and practicing for next time. You may find that you enjoy it so much you want to blog regardless of whether or not you think you'll win (over half of our members say they feel that way).

Official Blogging for Progress Scholarship Contest rules can be found here.

Anyone may set up an account with ProgressiveU.org and post blogs on the site.

ProgressiveU only offers Blogging For Progress scholarships to students who are attending or plan to attend a qualifying college, university, or vocational school in the U.S. within the next year. For more details, please see the Official Rules.

Here are the basics of how you earn points. For complete details, please see the official rules.

During the contest period, you earn points for the following:

• 50 points for each blog post accepted for posting on the site,
• 1 point for each "read" of your posts,
• 10 points for each comment that you make on the site (while logged in).
• Points for inviting and having the people you invite register on the site.
• Bonus Point Opportunities: Point possibilities are dependent upon the opportunity and successful completion.

For clarification, you can visit this page; Moderators and site administrators do go through and checks blogs and comments subtracting points for blogs, comments, and reads that:

• Violate ProgressiveU's Terms of Service, Official Rules, Editorial Policy or other official policy
• Appear to be spam
• Violate U.S. and International Copyright laws
• Do not meet the minimum word count
• Appear to be "refreshed" pages all from the same ISP (i.e., if a user appears to gain a few hundred reads within an hour by continuously hitting "refresh" or "reload".

So while it might seem as though people can win the contest simply by posting several illegitimate blogs in a row, the points are not awarded until the end of the contest and all ineligible blogs have been taken out of the tally.

We may also announce bonus points for various actions from time to time, either via email or on the site, so keep an eye out for those opportunities to gain ground on the leaders!

This is a very common question, and we know that it would be very motivating to know exactly how many points you have at any given time.

We have just implemented a system that will tell you how many points you have earned for most actions that you have taken, such as publishing a blog post, writing a comment, or inviting a friend. However, this should only be used as a general guideline, as points for reads on your blog and any bonus point opportunities you have won will not be included. You will see a red notice at the top of each page after you have done something to earn points, telling you how many points you have earned (10 points for a comment, etc), and the total points you have earned for these basic actions.

You can get an idea of how many read points you have by reviewing your old posts and looking at the 'reads' numbers below each post. By the end of the semester many people find that tens of thousands of people have read their posts. Read points can really add up!

However, there are some caveats. ProgressiveU.org reserves the right to remove posts at any time, particularly if complaints are received about the post for violations of the Terms of Use or other official policy. Also, posts may be disqualified if our logs show that the read counts were manipulated by automated systems or by repeated access from the same computer. Please see the Official Rules for more details.

The ProgressiveU Terms of Service states:

We welcome active debate but in order to ensure a safe and civil online environment, ProgressiveU reserves the right to remove any content you post on the Site or terminate your participation. To maintain that safe and civil environment, you agree not to upload, post, display, distribute, transmit or otherwise publish on the Site any material that:

(1) is libelous, obscene, pornographic, harassing, invective, or abusive;

(2) is violent, hateful, or threatening to anyone or any group.

But what exactly does all of that mean? What is a personal attack and how do we enforce it? Read this guide for specific information on what the policy entails.

Personal attacks, including name-calling, harassment, or violent, hateful and/or threatening statements made about or to any individual or group, are expressly forbidden at ProgressiveU.

When engaging in discussion, you should comment on the content of the blog itself and not on the blogger. Personal attacks will not help make a point. Instead, they degrade not only the discussion, but your personal integrity, that of the website and the mission of ProgressiveU.

Debate and discussion are a vital part of the ProgressiveU mission. Users should be civil and adhere to good netiquette when engaged in discussion, debate or general blogging. Comments should not be personalized and should be directed at content and actions rather than individual(s). When in disagreement about content, remember that it is not a personal attack to say "Your statement about this is wrong because ______." Nor is it a personal attack to debate with the individual who made the statement.

When in debate or discussion, the following types of comments and actions are never acceptable: