Site Help

This is the site help index. See the pages below for specific help topics.

If a topic isn't addressed here, or you just want to test out some comment features, feel free to post a comment in the testing thread.

On this page, I will try to give a basic description of some of the features of the new blog platform. From a developer side, the biggest feature is that we are using a very modular platform -- this means it is relatively easy for us to add new features. You probably won't see this directly, but it will show up when it takes hours or days to add a feature instead of weeks or "we won't even bother"!

Organizing posts and comments
One of the new features is the ability to "bookmark" posts, comments, and users. You can also "ignore" certain users if you find their posts to be offensive or just a waste of time. For more details on both these features, see the help page on bookmarks.

Another feature is the ability to bring up a list of all comments made by a specific user. This goes along with the bookmarking concept. To see all the comments made by Bill Cara, for example, you'd click on his name somewhere to bring you to his user page and then click on "Comments" at the top, which would bring you to this page listing all comments in reverse-chronological order.

This site has more RSS feed features than the previous site. In addition to having both summary and complete article versions, we have a feed of all comments site-wide available on the main page. We also have a feed of comments for each individual post at the very bottom of each post (below the Post New Comment box).

Finally, we are working on implementing a search engine which should make it much easier to find what you are looking for.

User features
The new platform gives us a number of user features. The first one is because we are handling our own user database now, we should no longer have people who mysteriously can't log in. We do support OpenID, which means that users of many services acting as OpenID providers (which includes our old TypeKey service), can log in without remembering a new username/password combination.

We also provide extensive user profiles, which can be reached from your user page (also reachable via Site Index -> My Account). To edit your profile, click on the "Edit" link at the top. This will bring you to the "Account" page where you can change your username, email, password, and a few settings. One setting is that you can upload a picture so that the community can see who you are (or you can upload a picture that represents you in some way -- it doesn't have to be an actual picture of you). Another important setting is that you can enable or disable your "Personal Contact Form" -- this allows other users to email you without knowing your email address.

This area also allows you to set your location, which will then make you show up on the user map, which allows us to see how global this community really is. It is suggested that you not enter your exact address, but instead indicate your city or something similar to protect your privacy.

Aside from the "Account" page, there is also a "Personal Information" page that you can get to with a link just below the "Edit" button. This allows you to enter your occupation, personal/professional websites, and some brief information about yourself. None of this is required, but some people find it useful to be able to share more about themselves with the community.