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| Organizing Your Content |
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| Written by Cory | |
| Wednesday, 13 September 2006 | |
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Although it can do so much more than manage content, Joomla! is, at its core, a Content Management System (CMS). It is important for aspring Joomla! site developers to have at least a basic understanding of how Joomla! is set up to organize content. Proper content organization can greatly improve the flow and usability of your website. This article is meant to provide that basic understanding, and give steps to successfully organizing your content. Joomla! Content StructureJoomla! was designed to organized content in a Section-Category-Content Item structure. A basic structure might look like this:
Hopefully you get the idea. It is important to understand this structure before proceeding to actually developing the structure for your site. Step 1: What is your site about?I know this usually goes without saying, but please know what your site is about before you create your first section or category. Many people get so wrapped up in the idea that they can just enter content as easily as they create documents in a word processor that they lose site of the fact that the site should have a purpose. Your content structure should stem from the overall purpose of your site. It is not the other way around. Step 2: Design your structure on paper (or in a word processor)Resist the temptation to start creating Sections and Categories as soon as you have successfully installed Joomla!. You will be glad you did months from now when you realize that you created a category out of a topic that should really be a section. This is relatively easy to fix, but why not just do it right the first time? Create a hierarchy of major topics and sub-topics. Soon, you will start to see the organization of your site take shape. Once you are satisfied that you have your structure designed, then you can start crating Sections and Categories. Step 3: Create all of your SectionsThe top level in the Joomla! content structure is called a "Section". Sections are used to differentiate between groups of content Categories. Now that you have all of your Sections and Categories defined on paper, it is time to start creating Sections in your Joomla! administrator control panel. Section Creation StepsFollow these steps for each Section you want to create.
Step 4: Create all of your CategoriesThe second level in the Joomla! content structure is called a "Category". Categories are used to differentiate between groups of content items. Now that all of your Sections are in place, you can start adding Categories. Category Creation StepsFollow these steps for each Category you want to create.
Step 5: Start adding contentNow you're ready to start adding content. Just remember to put each content item in the correct Section/Category. What about static content items?Static content items are basically just uncategoriezed content items. You should have relatively few static content items in your site. Any content item that you have that does not fit into one of your pre-defined categories should be a static (uncategorized) content item. Other Content Management OptionsSimple sites without dynamic contentYour website might be a simple, 5-10 page site that will never have dynamically updated content. In that case, you should just make each page a static content item and bypass the "Section-Category" structure altogether. Tags/FolksonomyTagging is a new way to organize content. Simply put, you organize it as you go. There is little to no need to create sections and categories, because you categorize content items as you create them. The way it works is, you apply key words to your content items, and those key words act as categories. Your user then has the ability to look through those key words in something called a "Tag Cloud" or a key word list, and select content items based on his or her interest in a particular key word. Social tagging, also called "Folksonomy", takes the concept of tagging one step further by allowing your users to add their own key words, or tags, to your content items. That way, your user base organizes your content for you based on what they think your content is about. Tagging is now available for Joomla! with Phil Taylor's "Tags" component. If you are interested in this type of content organization, I recommend you check out this component. Let's sum this upJoomla! is an advanced content management system, but unless you understand how to properly organize and manage your content, you render many of Joomla!'s advanced features useless. Take the time to develop your content structure first, and you will save yourself a lot of headaches later.
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Comments (50)
Cory: ... http://www.howtojoomla.net
Here's a great article by Barrie North over at Compass Desgin about content organization:
Content is King::A Beginner's Guide to organizing content in Joomla 1 report abuse
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September 22, 2006
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BTOS: ...
Confusing at best. The heirachy of one's plan cannot be deployed without understanding how it relates to the convoluted plan of Joomla...for instance, what is the difference between a section and a menu? How to link a menu to a section. The more I read here, the more confused I get. Where's the screen shots?
2 report abuse
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September 30, 2006
Votes: +1
Cory: ... http://www.howtojoomla.net
If you were confused by my tutorial, you might find the one I linked to in the first comment more helpful. It contains diagrams which you might find more useful. That's why I linked to it
 .3 report abuse
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September 30, 2006
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Ricardo: ...
Hi,
I´m trying to develop a website in Joomla! Is it possible to insert a news item inside a static page content? 4 report abuse
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October 17, 2006
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Cory: ... http://www.howtojoomla.net
@Ricardo... Sure, it's possible to do that. But, if you are planning on creating news items regularly, it is a good idea to use the section/category/content item setup along with something like the latest news module to make it more dynamic.
5 report abuse
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October 17, 2006
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John-Joseph: ... http://PowerProWeb.com
I am a professional Developer and This is an Excellent Tutorial !!!!!!!
Just one reading and I was off and running. Excellent Job !  6 report abuse
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January 13, 2007
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jomlaturk: ...
The way it works is, you apply key words to your content items, and those key words act as categories. Your user then has the ability to look through those key words in something called a "Tag Cloud"
I have a question. how do you create a content item without choosing a section or category in joomla ??? 7 report abuse
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January 18, 2007
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jomlaturk: ...
something like this ha !! http://www.joomla-components.co.uk/tag/cloud/
I give you open source meta tag cloud URL first register to site and go here and download http://phlooid.com/joomla_downloads/Download/JoomlaModules/mod_metatagcloud1.0-Beta2.zip/ 9 report abuse
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January 19, 2007
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Mark: ... http://portal.vandening.com
There is also a module called tags who can do this. You can find it at the joomla extention search on joomla.org
10 report abuse
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March 01, 2007
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joomlajunkie: ...
hi do you know if its possible to have an article published under latest news but not have it published on the front page. I mean having(ONLY) the title of an article under latest news on the front the contents of it should not show on the frontpage though.
11 report abuse
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April 11, 2007
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serverwala: ...
Very useful tutorial for beginners with Joomla.
moderated to remove spam 13 report abuse
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May 22, 2007
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Eriks: ... http://www.izrunas.com
How can I have the "latest article" from a given section appear in "user1" area of the page? I am trying to get the main section's article be the "front page article", then the newest stories from two other sections appear in user1 and user2.
Thanks! 14 report abuse
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June 25, 2007
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Khalid: ...
This is a question similar to Ricardo's .. is it possible to add a contact category (table) to a static page? if yes, how? any help would be much appreciated
15 report abuse
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July 20, 2007
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pd: ... http://www.cherubinidesigns.com
Great info. I have a question on this topic. I am still new w/ joomla but when surfing I come upon many different joomla sites that are pulling in content from joomla and their front page looks like joomla's front page (article wise)
How is this done? I have figured out how to add an rss to a position but not to a category or section. Thanks for the help/ 16 report abuse
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August 09, 2007
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Brian Ashe: ...
what about a user manual??? tried to open de the actual link but its blank. they need to fix up their website.
17 report abuse
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August 13, 2007
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Joomla Newbie: ... http://wifi-solutions.biz
Thanks Cory,
I was puzzling how to build my site but you summed it up perfectly. Static Content Items! - The way to bypass Joomla's hierarchical structure. I am interested as to why you mentioned you should have relatively few static items. Surely this is a good way to simplify sections of a site where categories are not needed? Anyway thanks for your post. Keep up the good work! 18 report abuse
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August 22, 2007
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yoshita: ...
hi
i want to use this joomla cms in my new project. kindly let me know how to use it in my .net project.i am a dot net programmer and unable to know php. 20 report abuse
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September 07, 2007
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yoshi: ...
hi
i want to use this joomla cms in my new project. kindly let me know how to use it in my .net project.i am a dot net programmer and unable to know php. 20 21 report abuse
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September 07, 2007
Votes: -1
DJS: ... http://www.xxdev.com
Great tutorial. Simple and clear. Maybe you'll open to a suggestion? After adding my section, and then my category, what I wanted to do next it get these appearing on the page. It would be lovely to see that appended to your article.
Darren 23 report abuse
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September 16, 2007
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Leigh: ...
Nice tutorial. However, I am interested to know whether it is possible to have sections and content but not categories. Thanks
24 report abuse
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September 25, 2007
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Leigh: ...
Thanks for quick reply Cory.
It is ok now, I have it sorted. I never properly looking into the menu configurations and now realise that it is possible to link to virtually everything through the menu manager e.g. component-frontpage, blog-content section etc.. Thanks anyway. Leigh 26 report abuse
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September 25, 2007
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Chunga: ...
Thanks for the tutorial and the great site Cory. I'm a photographer, new to Joomla, and wanting to create a website for my business which means I'll primarily be having picture galleries.
I figure my site would have this kind of structure: Welcome (Section) Galleries (Section) - Fashion (Category) -- fashion photos (Content items) - Portraits (Category) -- portrait photos (Content items) Contact (Section) Does that seem correct? For my photo galleries, do you have recommendations for those? I've heard Expose4 mentioned. And would that be a single "Content item"? Thanks! 27 report abuse
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October 16, 2007
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joe: ...
hey cory,
Just want to say thanks for having such a clear and helpful site. I finally got the picture of what a static content item is thanks to your explanation. Just a heads up on a typo, you spelled creating wrong in the paragraph: "Create a hierarchy of major topics and sub-topics. Soon, you will start to see the organization of your site take shape. Once you are satisfied that you have your structure designed, then you can start CRATING Sections and Categories." Hope that helps, joe 29 report abuse
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October 25, 2007
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Adodis: ... http://www.joomla-web-designer.com
This is a very good piece of information, for someone who really wants to begin....
very good beginner guide.. 30 report abuse
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October 26, 2007
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Nathan: ... http://www.review4you.co.uk
Hi Cory!
My site is a consumer reivew site, where browsers can submit their own product reivews. It's not quite ready yet. I get the whole static content part, and I have managed to create the basic constructs of the site (eg home page, about section, terms and conditions etc), but ironically I currently am in the position where I have a review site, without the reviewing part!!! :- I must admit, I had never heard of joomla until I came up with the idea of randomly creating a website to satisfy my quest to cure boredom - so I feel I have completely jumped in at the deep end here with the whole 'review' thing! I have chosen a site template, and it looks great, and I have just installed the most daunting looking script ever - jreviews. As far as I understand, it uses the basic core management of joomla and builds up from this. If you have any advice on how to set the whole category/section bit up, I would really appreciate it. Its a site that reviews numerous categories, not just one. For example, users could expect to see dvd reviews, stereo reviews, ipods, mobile phones - pretty much anything! Would I have this kind of structure: Review (section) DVD (category) Troy (content item) iPod(category) nano (content item) 60gb iPod video (content item) ? Sorry to waffle on, Im just keen to learn as much as I can, and this seemed the place to come! Kind Regards, Nath 31 report abuse
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November 01, 2007
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Nathan: ... http://www.review4you.co.uk
Thanks cory, have you ever used jreviews before? If so is there any advice you could give?
33 report abuse
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November 02, 2007
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Slimjim: ...
Hi
I think your tutorial is very good as it helps people to understand how joomla structures content not intructions just how to build sections etc. I'm trying to build a website that is to be a sort of online encylopedia of outdoor sculptures (for those interested in the subject). It will list upward of a thousand locations around the world where people can see good examples, with maps, directions, photographs, rating and related into. But here's my problem area. I want users to navigate to examples of sculptures in a variety of ways using this great teg cloud that you have shown us , but also through a directory system, e.g a directory of locations, or a directory of historical periods or a directory of scultpure typres, e.g. figurative , abstract, bronze, etc. My problem is that in order to do this i need each content item to be ordered in several different ways so committing to one singe category/section thread isn't possible. My question is: would creating a thousand or so static content items with tags and then installing directory/tree components, and tag clouds etc. be the way to go? Any ideas? 35 report abuse
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November 07, 2007
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Terion: ... http://www.happycowgirl.com
Thanks for a nice site with easy to find information...now I know why my menus were all messed up , I did category, section, content..oops...you didn't mention if this can be fixed , I'm tempted to delete all of the menus I've made but dont know if it will cause issues...I am not all that web savy..I just wanted a little website and Joomla looked fun ....so far (2 days now) it hasn't been fun at all.....LOL...
so how does a person fix their menus if they really mess them up. 36 report abuse
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December 02, 2007
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Ajit Abraham: ...
I am trying to create a church website with the following concept.
The church has different sub divisions within for eg Youth Wing, Ladies Wing etc. I will create Sections for each of these divisions and there will be specific people (authors) appointed to submit contents to their respective Sections. I want to restrict an author of Youth Wing, to submit content only to the YouthWingContent. The author of LadiesWing should be able to submit content only to LadiesWingContent. Is this possible in Joomla? Regards Ajit 37 report abuse
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December 10, 2007
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Ajit Abraham: ...
Thanks for the super fast reply, Cory.
I will dig into that link that you gave. Thanks once again 39 report abuse
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December 10, 2007
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Sharon: ...
This seems basic, but I can't find a way to do it - I have created my heirarchy. Now, I want something like a menu item that displays a page listing my sections, with descriptions. Section Names would each link to a page that lists the Categories for that Section. Categorie Names would link to a blog list of Content Items assigned to that Category. Alternately one page with all these links in an outline format would be great. But all I can figure out how to get is the blog list of content for a category or for a section. There must be a way...?
40 report abuse
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February 13, 2008
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Rodrigo: ... http://www.revistaautor.com
First of all, thanks for helping us!
I have a site (www.revistaautor.com) and I want to separate the content on the front page based on categories. I would like to do something like that: CATEGORY 1 Article A Article B CATEGORY 2 Article C Article D and so on. The point is that I want to put the words CATEGORY 1 and 2 and... Is there any component to do that? Thanks a lot 41 report abuse
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February 16, 2008
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Paul Davies: ...
Thanks for this article. I wish I had read it earlier!
I am new to Joomla (about 6 weeks ago) and I did realise that the decisions I made at the outset regarding sections & categories could critically affect the ease of developing the site, however I did get into a fundamental stalemate with myself as to which of two basic approaches was best. I think I made the right choice but would welcome guidance as to pros/cons of either. The best way may be obvious to more experienced people. Basically I run 3 junior footbal clubs and the basic types of information reported for each is the same so I felt I could have structured sections & categories in either of the following two ways: FIRST WAY: Team1 (section) T1 Results & Fixtures (category) T1 Photos (category) T1 News (category) Team2 (section) T2 Results & Fixtures (category) T2 Photos (category) T2 News (category) SECOND WAY Results & Fixtures (section) T1 results & fixtures (category) T2 results & fixtures (category) T3 results & fixtures (category) Photos (section) T1 photos T2.photos T3 photos News (category) T1......etc I struggled to understand whether it would make any real difference to the ease of developing the site. In the end I decided to follow the first approach and created a section for each team largely because it just felt a bit more logical but I would welcome your view on whether Joomla Sections/Categories is best suited to one approach or the other. I have not gone live yet so am prepared to change my approach if significant benefits. Thanks Paul. 44 report abuse
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May 13, 2008
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Chetan Chopkar: ...
Hi
I am reading your tutorial and working on them. I create section and category. But problem that that section and category is shown into menu item i will fail to do that. And you also tell about create the section and category but do not going ahead of that tutorial. So please tell in next tutorial that, how to create menu item after creating section and category Thanks and Regards Chetan Chopkar 45 report abuse
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May 19, 2008
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Christian Sweningsen: ... http://newsci.org (in process)
Hi Cory,
Many thanks for an excellent overview. I see you have recently written an article on how to get a particular template/page relationship - very valuable! And so I wonder if you might be the person to take on what I have not seen any one else do - explain "pages" in Joomla, and how to construct a site with varying templates. Almost every writer on Joomla at an early point declares, "A key to understanding Joomla is that it has *no* pages!" - and then goes on to use the word "page" over and over again! I understand what they are getting at with the "no pages" declaration - but, in the real world - as evidenced by the continued use of the word - all websites are *experienced* as made up of pages - even if they have been dynamically created before being assembled on the screen! So, once I have my *content* organized; and I've determined what *functions* I want on the site, e.g. VirtueMart, CommunityBuilder, a gallery) how to place them on various pages? I may want several functions on a given page. What I am doing to date, is hand-writing "planning pages" and identifying the functions for each; then blocking out screen space for each. Several templates fall into place, that can be used with various extensions to yield the pages. What's next? (I think a very, very badly needed article could result!!) Many thanks in advance, Christian Sweningsen [By the way, to subscribe (I hope this is to this thread, I'm referring to options underneath the comment entry box) I must be registered - I am - but I assume this also means logged in, and I don't find a log-in form on this page (the Organizing Your Content page).] 46 report abuse
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May 19, 2008
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JMac: ... http://bestsalesreps.com
I have been looking at Joomla for some time and have read many of your posts. Very helpful, thank you.
The link you put into the first comment spot is broken as CompassDesigns has upgraded from 1.0 to 1.5 here's the new link http://www.compassdesigns.net/...omla.html. Thanks Again! 48 report abuse
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May 29, 2008
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Zee: ...
I have a gripe with this section/category setup. Lets say you are on the site and you are viewing the contents of a section (a list of items). You click on one of those items, and Joomla takes you to the root of that category. Lets say the section was "About our church." And within it you see things like "faith statement," "vision statement," etc. Okay, then you click on vision statement (from that list of items). And Joomla doesn't take you to the content, but to a page that is right before the content. Why must people click a link just to get to where they need to go? Hope I'm making sense.
> Section > Category 1 > Category 2 > Category 3 You click on Category 1 and you end up on a page that just says "Category 1" again. Then you have to click a link to get to that categories content. Why? Or am I setting something up wrong? Thanks in advance. 49 report abuse
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June 10, 2008
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Kay Aubrey-Chimene: ... http://www.grandadventuresranch.com
I am fairly new to joomla and recently converted my site over to 3.0. I have a lot of pages which people will want to print or email and I can't figure out how to add a disclaimer and copyright to what they send to pdf or the printer. Any suggestions?
Thanks - your site has been a lifesaver Kay 50 report abuse
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June 21, 2008
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