The State Department is redesigning its official blog and wants help in choosing a successor for the oft-maligned name DipNote.

The department put out an appeal on Friday for the web-trolling public to vote online between four possibilities, including keeping DipNote. The other choices, which were winnowed down from more than 370 internal suggestions are: "Unclassified: The State Department Blog," "Statecraft" and "Matters of State."

It said the winner will be announced when the revamped blog is unveiled early next year.

DipNote was launched in 2007 to great fanfare, although its name has been criticized from the start by some who say it too closely resembles an insult that ends with a common barnyard epithet.

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Online: http://blogs.state.gov/