Like any community offline or online, we must also treat each other with respect. People can make mistakes with copyright and that is very easy to edit and change so that the content is not copyrighted in the article. What's not easy to fix is damaged feelings and emotions. This is were we all must assume that members don't intent to outright copy and we also need to assume that sometimes we even forget to remember how to give authors proper credit, that is OK, as it's so easy to change and fix and still share. More often that not, most authors love the spreading of their message, they just don't like anyone claiming it as their own. Easy fix!!! Emotions aren't!!! So lets go easy with one another and lets all worked together in helping each other in keeping with, creating a magical site and happy experience. We are moms/mums and dads and we deserve the 'soft touch' ...we all lead such emotional lives already and Minti is the place for the helping hand not heavy hand, especially if members don't mean to!!! Protecting each other and help each other with mistakes is what the Minti friendship and community is about...lets continue to help and inspire and support each other...through ups and downs of the Minti journey and sticking together all the WAY

Giving the authors proper credit...

I have just found this info on to help clarify that you can make references and quote sources in your articles...this extract was from the University of Berkeley...

Source...

Why cite sources?
Whenever you quote or base your ideas on another person's work, you must document the source you used. Even when you do not quote directly from another work, if reading that source contributed to the ideas presented in your paper, you must give the authors proper credit.

Citations allow readers to locate and further explore the sources you consulted, show the depth and scope of your research, and give credit to authors for their ideas. Citations provide evidence for your arguments and add credibility to your work by demonstrating that you have sought out and considered a variety of resources. In written academic work, citing sources is standard practice and shows that you are responding to this person, agreeing with that person, and adding something of your own. Think of documenting your sources as providing a trail for your reader to follow to see the research you performed and discover what led you to your original contribution.

More on Fair Use - go here...

I feel that it is any advice directly providing benefit for other parents in bringing up their children, however that means everything related around the family unit and all the topics that fall under the family and parenting. However, the advice has to show why it helps being a better parent as a result (via experience sharing, quoting, explaining etc)

Maybe the stress test is..."will it improve the quality of life for other/my children", if yes, then explain why?

When researching this idea, I felt that the market was already saturated with general advice, and real parenting advice based solely on sharing to improve the quality of life for children globally did not exist like Minti does and I see this as a unique feature of Minti and holds a higher purpose.

I think it's awesome groups is for anything... We have areas like groups to handle other things like household tips and general tips, for general advice at the moment is great on blogs, groups and forums...we are thinking of what we can do for general advice...if you have any ideas please feel free to share (currently anything that is non- parenting advice in Minti is getting rating down).

If you are trying to do a search in Google, it's isn't that easy as I have analysis software that tells us what search term was used to reach a Minti article. If you want me to do a check, let me know by commenting, as it will take you forever in trying to think up search terms parents may use to find your articles...

I will keep playing Spotlight on Minti members

Spotlight on TheMentorMom- I just did a search in Google for the term "crawling vs cruising" and her article came FOURTH place, well done your article will help parents all over the world (with over 300 visits).

Spotlight on Wendily - I just did a search in Google for the term "baby banging head into crib" and her article came THIRD place, after Babycenter, well done your article will help parents all over the world (with over 1000 visits), with this issue and have personally touched other parents with your advice.

We went and saw the Opthamolagist today (Codi's eye specialist) and one of the outcomes was that I start diarising what we are doing with our observation that Codi's eyes get better and he learns to adjust them properly by himself whilst in the swing. I think I blogged about it before that our specialist was curious and excited. Lately, we haven't been so diligent with the swing treatment, and his eyes have gotten worse than when we were swinging three times a day his lazy eye was hardly noticable. So now we are going to track this observation of using the swing as a another tool in helping to correct the lazy eye condition and see if there is any substance to what we observed by chance when we started to put Codi in the swing. Apparently, it seems that there is substance to the middle ear playing a part with the muscles of the eye and movement, which the swing movement (our specialist mentions) maybe have some link...fingers crossed.

So I will be reporting over the next 4-6months on the results of the Swing Chart I am making up today...

TRACKING
*How often his is in the swing each day
*How long each swing goes for
*% improvement of eyes during the day

Hoping to highlight any relation between the swing and his improvement of his eyes over 4-6 months

This post is from from my other blog here

Help Minti raise US$20,000 for the Starlight Foundation for Christmas, just by signing up for free on Minti…and we will donate US$1 on the new member’s behalf!!!

Help seriously ill children this Christmas!

(It costs you nothing - sign-up now and Minti will donate US$1 on your behalf)

How can you help?

It’s really, really simple. Minti is aiming to raise $20,000 for The Starlight Starbright Children’s Foundation this Christmas. For every confirmed member who signs up we (not you) will be donating US$1 to help seriously ill children. All you have to do is:

• Sign up to Minti through this page (it’s a free community and advice site for parents) and we’ll donate US$1 more towards our $20,000 goal

OR IF YOU’RE ALREADY A MEMBER THEN

• Refer some of your parent friends to Minti and we’ll also donate US$1 when they sign-up.

Do your bit and we’ll do ours after all that’s what being a community is all about.

What is Minti?

Minti is about advice, friendship and community for parents. Parents can join for free, get their own family page, keep a blog and make friends with other parents. Advance through the Minti ranks by contributing advice, rating articles and writing comments.

Who are the Starlight Starbright Foundation?

Starlight Starbright softens the hard edges of what a family experiences when a child has a serious illness. They create a sense of community between families who are having similar experiences by providing opportunities for them to escape the hospital, doctors, nurses, needles and treatments and doing something fun where they get to join others and just feel “normal” again–perhaps even forgetting that anyone is sick for a short while.

Starlight Starbright softens the hard edges of what a family experiences when a child has a serious illness.

I just got these the other day and I must say I am pretty excited about the new look of ineedhits, front entrance. ineedhits is my other business that specialises in Search Engine Marketing for website owners (co-own with hubby + business partner Clay,).
I am no longer involved with day-to-day, (we have a CEO in place keep the 'ol company tip top). Have a look pretty cool signage...

I am thinking I am going to get it printed on a couple of t-shirts...here's my own tag cloud of words I have tagged (attached a keyword to) of my articles or those of other Minti friends...

Cool hey!



(how did I find this) on the right on the "orange navigation bar", you must be logged into your account (click on "tag cloud") and for viewing other Minti members tag cloud it will be a "blue navigation bar" (to view another members tag cloud .

WHOO HOO!!! Well done pfallerj!!! You deserve it!!! Our very first Minti Member to reach the Gold Medal...great work and contribution...

We have just launched a new program where we (ie: Minti) will be donating USD$1 for every new member that we receive before Christmas to the Starlight foundation.

We are hoping to reach 20k new confirmed members before Christmas to hit our USD$20k donation target. Here is more info about it.

Can you please help us?

How? Easy...

1. Go to here and type in as many of your parenting friends as possible.
   
2. Let other Minti members know and ask them to refer their parenting friends also.

I have been asked a lot lately on referring a babysitter...do you ask for referrals from friends or do you conduct your own screening process...I must say for babysitters or nannies I have had moms/mums offer their advice...

Here are some some general guidelines on "reporting" versus "voting down" an article, as I too confused myself into a knot and I should know when to do it , so I am saying we all need help here...

Reporting can be very distressing for the member whose article disappears.

From our opinion "Advice" should only really be reported if it breaches the Terms of Service or the Code of Honor guidelines on the site. Examples include abusive language, negative suggestions against children, spam, non parenting related advice etc.

As a contrast, value judgements regarding the format and content of an article should be reflected in the voting of the article.

• For example if you find the article is too short, not of sufficient quality or not particularly about parenting then we would suggest members just vote it down by giving it very few stars in your rating;
  
  
• to improve on this it would be really great to mention the concerns as a "comment" to the member's article and suggest they move the article to "Q&A" or to a "blog" as it will probably not get great scores as a full article.
  

Having said all of this we accept that it can be confusing and that the site lacks a certain "order" to it where poor quality articles may continue to exist and detract from the excellent articles written by many members. It is a user controlled web-space however, and members may wish to report items for format or structure or short content, we can't stop this without substantial site changes.

Minti is less than a year old and we are learning all the time how to improve it, we will change the reporting and review system to make the above views clearer in the near future and I hope this helps members consider articles the use of the reporting button carefully.

We are unable to allow copyright breaches on Minti.

ie: Please dont copy another website's content and paste the entire content into Minti as an article. UNless you have the consent of the author off course.

You are allowed to copy and paste sentences and paragraphs into the article as long as you reference what webpage address it came from (and also as long as the quote makes up a small portion of your article). Also you need to have your own thoughts/opinions/advice within your article, preferably around the referenced text.

Here are some links that may help...

What is plagarism?
http://plagiarism.umf.maine.edu/what_is.html

Defintie don'ts
http://plagiarism.umf.maine.edu/definite.html

More academically defined with examples
http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/pamphlets/plagiarism.shtml

Also I suggest you read any comments below.
If you have questions... add them into your comment below...

Since Minti is relatively young I am getting used to how I vote and trying to clarify things myself (so let me know if I missed something )...I love reading mainly advice articles that are close to the format in this Minti article I wrote...Golden Parenting Advice how to...I usually give 5 stars for...

Also:

I will rate based on the "Advice" as well as how the "Article" looks. I usually look at the advice first and if it makes an impact on me, then I will look at the formatting after. I generally, love good ol juicy advice and if there aren't too many spelling mistakes I usually disregard them (the spelling mistakes that is). If the advice is a little light and its the first time a member has tried to write an article I also try to go easy.

Below average:

I do rate an article below average if the content is void of any personal experience or advice, as well as if the text is all capitalized, only quotes advice with no personal experience as I like to know if it worked for them. As a parent I need to know from other parents experiences and why they offer that particular advice, which is first and foremost for me. I will make a pledge that if I vote anything a 1 or 2 stars I will note why. I look for key elements - personal advice, quoted advice to back up personal advice, personal experience, I don't like the whole article bolded and capped, italic is sort of okay, but then I can't tell the difference when writing an article from the Q+A section what was the question and the article written, see an example of what I prefer here.

Good luck and I will also blog about "how to reference, quoted material from other authors"

Here are your Co-founders, all shining and scrubbing up well...it was a nice change to get dolled up, as all three of us live in jeans and t-shirts, even to board meetings...

Am eager to get out in the surf this Friday!!! The weather is cooking up some swell...

What am I thankful for this thursday - the sea!!! All you can think about is the waves and being out in the ocean...

Can't wait.

Have a lovely day...

Folksonomy.org has an interview with Clay about Minti...

Check it out here...

It's so much fun to see Codi taking an interest in shows like Bob the Builder, The Wiggles..we also got the movie Cars out on video and he loved it!!!

It does make Christmas shopping easier and no he hasn't relented from carrying his favourite toys with him everywhere, including sleep time - lol.

It does mean saying Yellow Sam instead of Yellow Greg.

Aside from toy shopping, I also have plenty of Minti articles to write...I haven't done so in a while, allowing for members to publish their own advice considering the competition was running. Mind you I don't qualify to win of course

Oh and Perth got it's first taste of daylight saving - yay!!! WE LOVE IT...Codi still sleeps fine...

Today has been a happy day all round.

Australian Netguide web awards has placed Minti in the top five sites in their parenting category. When you place your vote the form only allows you to vote for one site...so just vote for Minti and click on submit.

Vote here..Web Awards

With all the happenings in my life (loss of baby). It only really hit me the other day with my counsellor that I hadn't really cried other than the day it happened. Oh boy did I cry and run out to my bewildered hubby in the hospital carpark, balling on his shoulder. You know I felt better and all the tension gone.

I remember high school and how I never really felt safe or like I fit in...classic feelings of most of us back then. When I met my hubby, it became an awakening and I finally started my life in love. So how is one able to cope with the loss of your loved one and to die so young. It was so sad to hear Belinda Emmett passing on November 11th with cancer. Everyone loved her on Neighbours...

Come to think of it, our baby girl died November 13th, 16 weeks in utero. Loss is hard to live through and explaining it to anyone let alone your child is tough. But if I lost my other half, it would be too much to comprehend, yet people are dealing with this type of loss everyday.

Breast cancer is also affecting moms of all ages and there is always someone that knows another or has a loved one going through the same battle. They are so strong, they stand up and face life head on, no questions, yes they have their days, but they still fight on...what an example for me. They live life in the face of death with a fight, and not once giving up... and all this knowing it may return somewhere else years down the road.

I get it now, (after watching a lot of Oprah) that the here and now is special and cherishing life in the moment a miracle. Death is a part of life, I guess I've learned through this experience that life throws us challenges and to hold onto love around us is the most important thing in continuing to live life and not push people away who are still alive...

The human spirit is a powerful one and the power of the people around them for support is even more moving.

I went to school with a popular bloke, had the lead roles in all our school plays (of course), but I didn't really know him, other than one day I chose to say 'follow your dream to Melbourne'...my deepest condolances to you Rove.

I was reading the paper in Perth the other day and came across an article of interest to parents. I think the success of  "Jamie's School dinners" has played on the minds of our own state government I am sure, in considering banning bad food in school canteens. The West Australian newspaper article by Bethany Hiatt, reports the following...

"The state government is expected to announce strict new regulations tomorrow banning soft drinks, chips, lollies from school canteens"...what a win for Jamie Oliver and parents.

The article goes on to quote.."33% of girls and 33% of boys in just Western Australia are overweight or obsese"...!!!!

and of the "620 schools canteens reviewed 20 were still selling junk food everyday."

Children will eat healthy by 2008...there is light

Celebrate everyone! Minti gets past 10,000 members milestone...woo hoo everyone!

As the site grows, more and more Minti friends in the community will buddy up and help new members navigate around the site. Ultimately, it is awesome to see parents helping parents with parenting advice, as well as support, friendship and sharing.

It is thanks to YOU, you have helped grow Minti into a special community!!!