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To change your avatar:
To create your personal signature:
You can tell other community members as much or as little about yourself as you want. You can enter a short biography, your location, your interests, or anything else (within community guidelines, of course).
To tell other community members about yourself:
By default, all community users can see this information.
To display your info only to people on your Friends List:
Your profile card displays information about yourself and your community achievements. You can include your avatar, kudos count, community rank, post count, and latest post. You can also create badges for Blogger and Wordpress.
To create a profile card:
To create a Blogger card:
To create a Wordpress or web site card:
Your Friends List is a way to create your own community within a community.
Depending on your privacy settings, the people on your Friends List can see your biography, other personal information, or online status. If you send private messages, you can choose friends from a list instead of typing their user names.
Note: Your Friends List is available only if your community supports private messages.
To add people to your Friends List:
Note: You can remove a person from your Friend's List by clicking "Remove from Friends". Additionally, you can click "Ignore" to prevent specific users from contacting you.
To set your viewing preferences:
Guests (unregistered visitors) can browse or search the community for information. Members (registered users) can post messages or comments, track discussions, and get email notifications on posting activity and other community actions.
We encourage you to visit often and participate. Ask your toughest questions. Chances are someone has a solution or can point you in the right direction. If you find a solution that works, let others know and pass on your own tips and insights. You might just have the answer someone else needs.
Remember to thank community members who have helped you. Show your appreciation by giving kudos to helpful posts, accepting a solution that answers your question, or posting thank-you replies.
We want the community to be appropriate, friendly, informative, and fun for everyone.
Be sure to read the Community Terms of Service and the community's Rules and Guidelines so that you know what to expect and what is expected of you when you're here.
To search the Community, enter your search in the search field and click Search. A page of search results is displayed. Browse the search results in the same manner you would a message board.
To perform a more in-depth search, click the Advanced link next to the Search button. Here, you can limit your query to a specific board, specific parts of the message (subject vs. body), and other advanced parameters.
Auto-suggest accelerates your search by displaying results as you type search terms. When you see the post or user you're looking for, just click it.
To turn auto-suggest off, click Turn off suggestions in the auto-suggest list.
To turn auto-suggest on, click Turn on suggestions below the search entry area.
Want to limit your search results to accepted solutions? Click the Solved check box under the Metadata filter. Want only the most recent results? Use one for the date filters to see results for a day or a week ago. You can also filter your results by individual authors or members who have the same rank.
Most search filters work together to narrow the possible results. For example, you can search for accepted solutions in the last month. However, the filters for the type of post work a little differently. If you choose Forums and Blogs, you see results from either forums or blogs (not results that are both forum and blog posts).
Active filters appear at the top of the results list. To turn off a filter, click the X to the right of the filter.
You can search for posts and knowledge base articles at any level of the community. When you type a search term, the system automatically searches at the current level. For example, if you're on the community front page, the system searches the entire community. If you're looking at a forum or blog page, the system searches that forum (and the associated knowledge base, if any) or blog.
Tip: Searches for posts always include relevant knowledge bases. However, you can also search just in knowledge bases.
To search for posts:
When you get your search results, use the filters on the left side of the page to refine your results.
You can search for community members by name or by rank. The name you search for must be at least three characters long.
To search for users:
To post a message:
Click Reply to respond to a particular post.
The Reply Message screen is similar to the Post Message screen, with these differences:
Your reply is added to the existing thread. It won't create a new thread.
Yes. You can use macros to create boilerplate text that you can paste into any message. You can create up to 9 macros.
To set up a macro for boilerplate text:
Tip: To add text at the bottom of your posts, you can include that text as part of your signature instead of using a macro.
To add your boilerplate text to a post:
Facebook Integration enables you to sign in to the community using your Facebook user name and password.
You start by connecting your Facebook account and your community profile. Then, the next time you sign in to Facebook, you can automatically sign in to the community, too. When your accounts are connected, you see a Connect with Facebook link next to the regular Sign in link. Clicking this link signs you into both the community and your Facebook account. Likewise, signing out of the community logs you out from Facebook, too.
And if you change your mind, you can disconnect your profile from your Facebook account and go back to signing into the community with your old login name and password.
To connect your Facebook account and community profile:
You can now log in to both Facebook and the community from the Facebook Login page. You can also choose your Facebook profile picture as your community avatar.
To unlink your Facebook account and community profile:
Your Facebook and community accounts are now disconnected. Use your community user name and password next time you sign in. If you were using your Facebook profile picture as your avatar, you must choose a different avatar.
After you've connected your Facebook account and community, you can choose your Facebook profile photo as your community avatar.
To choose your Facebook profile photo as your avatar:
Note: If you disconnect your Facebook and community accounts, you'll need to choose a new avatar in the community.
Bookmarks enable you to list community content (boards, articles, ideas, topics, or individual posts) on a special page so you can easily find it again.
To bookmark a piece of content:
To view and manage your bookmarks:
Subscriptions let you get email updates whenever new content appears in an area of the community that you're interested in. You can subscribe to a board, a blog article, an idea exchange, or any other location in the community. You can also subscribe to a specific post.
To subscribe a piece of content:
To view and manage your subscriptions:
RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication." It is a way for you to get the latest content from this community, along with many other sites that you visit, all in one place. With an RSS feed reader, you subscribe to web sites, and those sites feed you new content so you can stay up to date.
To use RSS, you need a feed reader, such as Google Reader, MyYahoo, or the Live Bookmarks feature of Firefox. There are many free options. After you have your feed reader set up, you can find RSS feeds in the community by going to a board, blog, thread, or message and selecting Subscribe to RSS Feed from the options menu. There you will see a preview of the feed. Most RSS readers give you a button to click at this point. After you click it, the RSS feed appears in your reader as well as new content from that section of the community whenever it becomes available
A knowledge base (also called a tribal knowledge base) is a collection of articles that captures and organizes helpful community information. Knowledge bases are great community resources for several reasons:
Contributors could be community members whose posts or comments are used in the article, authors who put the article together, or editors who reviewed or refined it. Related links take you to posts that were used in the article or other posts that the authors thought you might find helpful or interesting, including forum messages, blog articles, and ideas
You can view a knowledge base article in a number of ways.
To go to the knowledge base for a board or forum, click the book icon next to the forum name on the community page. Then, you can browse the list of articles and choose one to read.
To search for a knowledge base article, enter a search keyword and choose Knowledge Base in the list to the left of the Search button. Then, you can use search results filters to zero in on the article you want.
To go to an article related to a post, click the Knowledge Base links at the top of the article. You might find links to articles based on the post, links to articles related to the post, or both
If you find great community material (helpful questions and answers or just plain useful information), you can nominate it as a knowledge base article. The people responsible for your community's knowledge base evaluate your nomination, and if it's accepted, knowledge base authors can use it as the basis for a knowledge base article.
To nominate content:
You can contribute to knowledge bases by:
To edit a knowledge base article:
Yes, however, you must provide your name (which we'll show) and your email address (which we won't). You might also be able to enter a web site URL to display with your comment. Then, simply type your comment and click Post Your Comment.
Some blogs display new comments almost immediately. Other blogs don't display new comments until the blog author or a moderator approves them.
If your comment doesn't appear immediately, check back in a few minutes. If it still doesn't appear, your comment is most likely in the approval queue.
To share blog articles with friend, you can use any shared bookmarking, social network, or other tracking service, such as Del.icio.us, Digg, Reddit, Facebook, MySpace, Google, StumbleUpon, Technorati, or Twitter. However, you must have a valid account with the service.
To share a blog article:
| To | Do this |
|---|---|
| Subscribe to a blog | Go to the blog page and click Blog Options > Subscribe. |
| Subscribe to an article | Go to the article and click Article Options > Subscribe. |
| Subscribe to an RSS feed | Go to the blog or article and click Blog Options > Subscribe to RSS Feed.
Then, save the live bookmark or whatever you usually do to add an RSS feed. |
A permalink, short for permanent link, is the URL for a specific blog article. In an active blog with lots of entries, a particular article stays on the blog's front page for a short period of time. It becomes hard to bookmark a specific blog article or to email a link when the article you want is replaced with something new.
This is where permalinks come in handy. They take you directly to an article, rather than to the blog's front page, which typically shows only the last few articles.
To use a permalink:
An idea exchange is a collection of ideas posted by community members. Ideas can include anything from new product requests to suggestions about how to improve a product or service. Everyone in the community can see and vote on the ideas. Idea exchanges offer 3 types of ideas:
Adding an idea is just like posting a message on a board, and voting for ideas is like giving kudos. You can post comments on ideas the same way you do on blog articles. Your community might use labels to help organize related or similar ideas, and assign a status to each idea so you know which ideas might be considered or implemented
To post your idea:
You vote for an idea by giving it kudos. Just click the Kudos! button next to the idea. If you change your mind, you can revoke your kudos later.
To post your comment:
To share ideas with friend, you can use any shared bookmarking, social network, or other tracking service, such as Del.icio.us, Digg, Reddit, Facebook, MySpace, Google, StumbleUpon, Technorati, or Twitter. However, you must have a valid account with the service.
To share an idea:
| To | Do this |
| Subscribe to an idea exchange | Go to the idea exchange page and click Idea Exchange Options > Subscribe to this Idea Exchange. |
| Subscribe to an idea | Go to the idea and click Idea Options > Subscribe to this Idea. |
| Subscribe to an RSS feed | Go to the idea exchange or idea and click Idea Exchange Options > Subscribe to this Idea Exchange's RSS Feed or Idea Options > Subscribe to this Idea's RSS Feed.
Then, save the live bookmark or whatever you usually do to add an RSS feed. |
A permalink, short for permanent link, is the URL for a specific idea in an idea exchange. In an active idea exchange with lots of entries, a particular idea will only stay on the New Ideas tab for a short period of time. It becomes hard to bookmark a specific idea or to email a link when the idea you want is replaced with something new.
This is where permalinks come in handy. They take you directly to a specific idea, rather than to the idea exchange's front page.
To use a permalink:
An image gallery is a collection of images that you or other community members have uploaded. Each community member who has permission to upload images has an image gallery. You can view your own image gallery as well as the image galleries of other community members. When you look at another user's gallery, you see the approved images that the user has chosen to share
To view your image gallery:
To view another user's image gallery:
Starting from your image gallery, you choose the image and name it. There are size limitations, of course, and a community moderator must approve your image before it appears in your gallery or you can insert it in a post
To upload an image to your image gallery:
You can use any approved image you've uploaded as your personal avatar.
To use an uploaded image as your personal avatar:
You can insert images from your computer (this uploads the image to your gallery), from your image gallery (if the image has been approved), or from another location on the web.
To insert an image in a post:
For your protection, your community requires a moderator to approve all uploaded images before they can be displayed. Although you can see your uploaded images that are awaiting approval or flagged for review, other community members who view your images can only see the ones that have been approved.
A private image is one that only you can see. Each time you upload an image, you can decide whether you want that image to appear in your image gallery. If you choose no, the image is private. Remember, a moderator must approve all uploaded images before your can use them in a post or display them in your gallery.
To change the privacy setting for an image:
There are now two versions of the image upload feature that communities can use. The choice is made by the community manager and applies to the entire community.
In communities that use Images (Version 2) you can organize uploaded images into albums and images become more like posts: you can give kudos to images you like and comment on images in your own albums and those of other community members.
Here's what's new in Images (Version 2):
You can view all photos and graphic files you upload to the community on your Albums and Images page. This page displays images in two ways:
To view your images:
To view another user's public images:
To comment on an image:
Depending on your starting point, you choose one or more images, choose the album where they'll be located, and upload. There are size limitations, of course, and a community moderator must approve your images before others can see them. You can upload images from:
You can change the name, add a description, and apply tags to an image, but you can't edit the actual image in the community. If you want to edit the image, you need to do that outside the community and upload the edited image.
To edit information about an image:
To insert an image in a post:
A private image is one that only you (and community moderators with permission) can see. When you upload an image, you can place it in a private album or public album. Moderators must approve all uploaded images before you can use them in a post or display them in your My Images list.
To change the privacy setting for an image:
You use image albums to organize the photos and other graphics that you've uploaded to the community. By default, you start with two albums: Private and Public. Your community manager determines the number of albums you can create.
To edit an image album:
For your protection, your community requires a moderator to approve all uploaded images before they can be displayed. Although you can see your uploaded images that are awaiting approval or flagged for review, other community members who view your images can only see the ones that have been approved.
You can use any approved image you've uploaded as your personal avatar.
To use an uploaded image as your personal avatar:
Challenges are a fun way to share content with your community. Anyone in the community can see and vote on your challenge entries. Entries are organized into three groups:
Adding an entry is just like posting a message on a board, and voting for entries is just like giving kudos.
To post your entry:
Posting a comment on an entry is a lot like replying to a message on a board. If the entry is open for comments, you'll see a post a comment link or a comment count link at the bottom of the entry.
To post your comment:
To tell your friends about a challenge entry, you can use any of dozens of shared bookmarking, social network, or other tracking services, such as Del.icio.us, Digg, Reddit, Facebook, MySpace, Google, StumbleUpon, Technorati, or X.
To share a challenge entry:
| To | Do this |
| Subscribe to a challenge | Go to the challenge page and click Challenge Options > Subscribe. |
| Subscribe to an entry | Go to the entry and click Entry Options > Subscribe. |
This is where permalinks come in handy. They take you directly to a specific entry, rather than to the challenge's front page.
To use a permalink:
An Accepted Solutions is a way for you to choose the reply that best answers a question that you've posted. When you accept a solution, both the question and the solution get special icons and links that take you directly from the question to the answer.
An Accepted Solutions icon also appears on boards and in search results so you can see which messages have solutions.
You can mark a solution as accepted only for questions that you've posted (you started the thread). Community moderators can also mark one of the replies to a message as an accepted solution
To mark a message as a solution, click Accept as Solution on the reply.
If you change your mind or if another reply provides an even better answer, you can revoke the first selection and accept the second reply.
To revoke an accepted solution, click Options > Not the Solution.
You can choose another solution or leave the question unsolved.
Kudos is a content rating system that lets you vote for the messages you think are the most useful or important.
When you give kudos to a message, you are giving a thumbs-up for good content and a pat on the back to its author. Your kudos help to boost the value of certain messages and enhance the reputation of their authors.
Giving kudos is as easy as a single click, but the impact of kudos ripples across the community.
You can give Kudos to any posts in the community except your own.
To give kudos to a message and its author, click Kudos on the message.
If you change your mind about the quality of the message, you can revoke your kudos.
To revoke kudos you've given, click the Kudos button again.
Want to know who thinks a message is good? It's easy to find out which regular community members and community experts have given kudos to a message. Kudos from community experts can carry more weight than those from brand new members. (Community administrators can choose to have kudos granted by experts carry more weight than kudos granted by regular members.)
To see who's given you kudos:
There are usually two kudos leaderboards on the community's front page -- one for authors and another for messages. The author's leaderboard shows who has received the most kudos. The message leaderboard showcases the most kudoed messages. Links from the front-page leaderboards take you to the full leaderboard pages.
To view the Top Kudoed Messages leaderboard, click view all from the front page module.
To view the Top Kudoed Authors leaderboard, click view all from the front page module.
To see who's given you kudos:
Your kudos weight is the number of kudos you give each time you click Kudos!.
If you're new to the community, your kudos weight is probably 1 (each kudo counts as 1). More experienced community members might have a higher kudos weight, so they could give two kudos, ten kudos, or more each time they click.
There are a few reasons why you might not be able to give Kudos to a post.
Sometimes a message gets so many kudos that we run out of space to show the number. When that happens, you'll see a Hot Kudos symbol or icon instead of the kudos count on the kudos badge.
Labels are used within a community to help categorize articles in a variety of discussion styles; forums, blogs, Q&A, ideas, TKBs. Labels enable you to categorize the content you write based on the themes or content in the article. For example, in a support Q&A for troubleshooting connectivity issues with your smart phone, you might apply labels like "iPhone", "Galaxy", "AT&T", or "Verizon".
Unlike tags, labels are created by the Community Admin and typically controlled for consistency and need. Authors must choose/apply labels from a pre-defined list for the node in which the article appears. Tags are more freeform and can be created by authors.
To add a label:
Typically, only administrators or permissioned members can create new labels or edit the label list. When the use of labels is enforced, members must apply a label when submitting posts. Labels can be optionally predefined, giving administrators complete control over exactly which labels are used in their community.
Labels are applied at node (board) level, so different settings can be applied at different boards. One board might be mandatory with a predefined pool of labels, while another can be completely optional and enable users to create their own labels.
When you subscribe to a label, you will be notified by email when a new post is created with the label.
To subscribe to a label:
Note:Your community users can configure their own subscription settings under My Settings > Subscriptions and Notifications > My Subscriptions and My Settings > Subscriptions and Notifications > Notification Settings.
One thing to note about labels is that they are applied at node level. Thus, predefined labels and subscriptions to labels exist only at the node at which they are applied. For example, if you subscribe to a label named 'contest' at board 1, it will not automatically subscribe you to an identically named label at board 2. You will have to subscribe twice, once at each board. This also applies if you add a labels component to your page to display the most popular labels, these are also designed to work at node level.
Private Messenger enables you to send private notes to other community members. Private Messenger has two big advantages over email:
To use the Private Messenger, you must be registered and signed in. You'll see a Private Message icon at the top of your page. If you have any new messages, you'll see the number of unread messages next to the envelope icon.
Click the message count or envelope icon to go to your Private Messages Inbox.
To send a private message:
To read a private message:
To reply to a private message:
You can delete messages one at a time as you read them, or in bulk from your Inbox.
To delete a private message:
To see the private messages you've sent:
Your Friends List is a way to create your own community within a community.
Depending on your privacy settings, the people on your Friends List can see your biography, other personal information, or online status. If you send private messages, you can choose friends from a list instead of typing their user names.
Note: Your Friends List is available only if your community supports private messages.
To add people to your Friends List:
Note: You can remove a person from your Friend's List by clicking "Remove from Friends". Additionally, you can click "Ignore" to prevent specific users from contacting you.
Most users in an online community get along very well. Sometimes, however, you might encounter someone you consider a nuisance. If you are receiving messages that you'd prefer not to receive, you can add the sender to your Ignored Users list. The system blocks all messages from users on your Ignored Users list.
To add someone to your Ignored Users list:
To remove someone from your Ignored Users list:
You can also search for community members and add them to your Ignored Users list.
To search for a user.
Posting a comment on a blog is a lot like replying to a message on a board. If the blog is open for comments, you'll see a post a comment link or a comment count link at the bottom of the article.
To post your comment:
You can post a comment to an article or to someone else's comment.
You can use simple HTML and quote the article you're commenting on.
Tip: Unless you have special permissions, you can't edit or delete a comment after it's posted, so be sure to preview your comment and spell check first.
Some blogs display new comments almost immediately. Other blogs don't display new comments until the blog author or a moderator approves them.