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Help: newcomer_s_faq
Subsections
Newcomer's FAQ
What does a newcomer to ned.com need to know? Here are some questions to get us started. Please feel free to add more questions or answers or both, or to start breaking this list into categories if you see some questions that should be grouped together!
| Q: | What is it all about, what is the point?
| A: | <ned> is an evolving global better world building community that a number of really dynamic social entrepreneurs have been working together to develop for several years now. This year, ned is emerging with physical community locations in Thailand, Lesotho, Portland, and in Uganda with 2 local community run branches (in Kampala and war-affected Gulu). All of these are connected through a larger global grassroots community of people at ned.com, who are working together to develop new kinds of grassroots-to-grassroots relationships that can enhance and support local community development. |
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| Q: | What does <Ned> stand for?
| A: | networked enterprise development or maybe nice educated doers or ???? |
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| Q: | Why does this user interface look familiar?
| A: | This is the same software that was used on omidyar.net and was developed by Pierre Omidyar, founder of EBay |
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| Q: | Where do I start finding my way around?
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| Q: | What do I do if I have a suggestion to make?
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| Q: | How do I find a particular topic?
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| Q: | How do I decide which groups or discussions fit me?
| A1: | Look at the tag cloud on the main page and click on terms that interest you. |
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| A2: | Start by finding one person you know on the system (in the "People" tab) and seeing what they are reading. If it interests you, join it. If it really interests you, make a comment to a recent posting, or start a new item. |
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| Q: | I'm lost! What do I do?
| A: | When I need some technical help navigating this site, I try to poke around in the group called Help. You can get to that group by clicking on the green tab at the top of the page that says "groups" and then click on the link for the group titled "Help." There's also a reference page for punctuation help. |
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| Q: | What are those numbers after names and topics?
| A: | The numbers you see after names and topics, for example, Jane Doe (234) represent feedback score. Feedback score is the rating other members of ned.com have given a member or item of content on ned.com. Another number you might see is the bank number, seen only next to your own name on the top right corner of every page or on other users profiles. This number represents the amount of feedback points a user has available to give. To learn more about these numbers, visit the feedback details page in the help section. |
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| Q: | Tell me more about the Feedback system and how it works. Why do I just have 10 points to give? How do people use their points? What happens when yours are depleted? etc.
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| Q: | How do I give points?
| A: | Giving points is a simple one-click process. Throughout ned.com you will see +|- symbols. To give the person or item of content preceding the symbols points, simply click the + symbol to give positive feedback or the - symbol to give negative feedback. Please note that to order to leave feedback, you must have points in your feedback bank. To learn more about giving points, visit the feedback details page in the help section. |
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| Q: | I admit to being intimidated by the +|- feedback meter. What motivated its development?
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| Q: | I am confused by the points system. If I get some points, I see others doing good and cannot resist depositing the points I get. So, I get two points and give them away. How is it that some people have a back log? How is it I've given away more points than I have been given?
| A: | Remember that there are different types of points and collections of points. Click on a person's name (or your own) For example: Jane Doe (46) +|- Feedback positive/negative/bank: +48/-2/1 See the 3 numbers there? The (46) is the sum of Jane's +48 and her -2. These are points that other users have given her in recognition of her contributions (positive and/or negative) to the network. Jane's third number (1 in the example) is her bank. These are the points that she can give to people, threads, individual postings or workspace pages. It's not public information why the bank grows (except we know that when anyone that gives you a person point, you also get half a bank point) but the consensus seems to be that they are given for participation (posting, editing workspace pages, starting groups, starting threads, giving feedback, etc). The levels of bank points earned from these various activities might (though we don't know) depend on the feedback given to those various participation areas or maybe has something to do with the people contributing to discussions that you started or in groups that you started. We (the users) simply don't know. |
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| Q: | Is there a list of people somewhere?
| A: | Not yet thought it might be a god idea...since you asked, why don't you start the list! |
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| Q: | How do I find out if a friend is a member of ned.com?
| A: | Use the search box at the top of each page--this will find your friend if (s)he has posted and if the name used is exactly the same. |
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| Q: | Why do people's names have numbers in parens behind them?
| A: | The numbers in parens are the person's feedback score. See /help/feedback for more information. |
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| Q: | I see others online at the ned.com site that I'd like to chat with. Can I send them an instant message?
| A: | Not directly within the site. You can click on their name, however, and then click on Send a Message to this User and give them your chat program contact info (AIM, Yahoo Messenger, PalTalk, etc) and then have your chat or IM session that way. |
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| Q: | how do I send a message?
| A: | To send a message via the ned.com private messaging system, simply click the "send a message to this user" tab in the profile of any member. On the message page you can enter a subject and your message. You can then preview the message to see what it will look like or just send it. You can use any of the same punctuation you use elsewhere on ned.com in a message. |
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Q: How do I send a copy of a page to someone?
| A: | At the top right of content pages you will see a little email this page. If you click on that link it opens a page where you can enter the address of the person you want to send it to, add a personal note and they receive this email from ned.com. |
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| Q: | What does it mean to have friends and how do you get them ?
| A: | We'll assume you're talking about the "friends" terminology used here on ned.com, and in that case, "friends" indicate people who have given you positive feedback. There's no set formula for how to get new friends here on ned.com, but chances are, if you treat others the way they want to be treated, your friends list will grow. If you're talking more existentially, may I suggest you submit your query to Google :-) |
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| Q: | How come sometimes I see my own name in bold, especially when looking at something I've posted in my recent news?
| A: | Your name appears in bold when you are a group owner, or in your Personal News, where you're the de facto "group" owner. |
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| Q: | How do I join a group?
| A: | This help page is about the mechanics of finding a group to join using the Group Browser and this one is about the Group Home Page (that's where you join) |
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| Q: | I have a general lack of knowledge about "good etiquette" practices in this forum. What are the tacit rules here? I assume they exist and that I'll develop a sense for them in time but if they could be articulated somewhere that might help newbies.
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| Q: | How do I invite someone to join in on a group here?
| A1: | The quick and dirty way is to copy the URL (web address) of a group or workspace or conversation and paste it into a regular-old email written to the person you'd like to invite. |
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| A2: | Another way is to click on the link at the top right of the home tab of a group. You then put in their email address and they receive this email from ned.com |
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| Q: | What is a "Member Group"?
| A: | A Member group is a group that an owner has chosen to associate with. Here's how it works: For group M to become a member group of group P, an owner of M must join P. Then, she goes into group M's settings, and chooses P as one of the groups to associate with. |
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| Q: | What does it mean to be the owner of a group?
| A: | There are certain responsibilities that the owners have such |
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as defining the settings for the group, etc, etc. Some groups let
anyone be an owner while others are owned just by one person.
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| Q: | Are my posts searchable by Google or other web tools?
| A: | The setting that determines if your posts are viewable by anonymous users (including search engines) is determined by the group owner.
Search engine spiders can only index content on ned.com that is available for anonymous users to read. To find out if you are posting in a space open to anonymous users, follow these steps:
- Go to the group home page
- Click the "about" link
- Find the section of the about page labeled "Access policy:"
- If the access policy indicates that 'anonymous users can read' then you know you are posting to a space that will be indexed by a search engine.
A note here, all groups owned by the user "Admin User" are by definition viewable by anonymous users (including search spiders.)
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| Q: | Is all communication here public?
| A: | Not all messages are public. There are three ways to send a private message.
* One is when you send feedback.
* Another is to click "reply" in the brown bar when someone else has sent a private message to you and you're reading it.
* And the third is to go to that person's page (by click on their name when it's a link) and again look at that brown bar. On the right is says "send a message to this user". Click that and away you go! |
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| Q: | How do I start a new discussion?
| A: | Starting a discussion is as simple as:
- Find the group where you want to start the discussion
- Click "Discussions"
- On the new screen, click on "New Topic"
- Start editing your discussion title and text
The great thing is that you can go try this and see how it works without ever posting to the network what you created. For example, I first learned how to create a new discussion and use italics, bold, bulleted items, etc, just by experimenting and using the punctuation help link.
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| Q: | What should I do if I feel intimidated by a discussion I would like to join?
| A: | Find the person you want to make a contribution to and send them a private note of any kind (even just a "hey how are you"). That should break the ice. |
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| Q: | What if a discussion feels out of my league?
| A: | Use the search tool above to search for discussions which are similar - chances are there are a few similarly themed discussions on each topic. Browse around some more for things that are more your pace, and if you don't find any, start a new one that's in your league. Or just ask. |
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| Q: | How can someone move a discussion or personal item into a group ? This might be like grafting.
| A: | Repost it and delete the original |
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| Q: | What's a workspace page?
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| Q: | Is it okay to link sites or software that is for profit, if it's relevant to the discussion ?
| A: | Certainly, as long as it's relevant to the discussion. If the community feels the link is not appropriate, they'll generally be quick to indicate as such with negative feedback points. |
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| Q: | Where can I find that legal agreement I acknowledged to come in here if I want to read it again?
| A: | There are links to the agreements at the bottom of every page. |
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| Q: | The formatting of this FAQ is great. How can I steal it for another page I'm making?
| A: | At the top of the page, in the brown nav bar, click on "page" and then select "plain text" to see what the formatting looks like (we call it "Punctuation"). Cut and paste it, then replace the content with your own! |
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| Q: | I also think some sort of query about how individuals found the network and what they see as its potential might help in your understanding of who is using it and why. In my case, a friend suggested I investigate it.
| A: | Perhaps that would be a good exercise for a newcomer to take on. Either start such a page here on the <Ned> Front Porch or in another group where you feel it belongs. Nothing makes a newcomer feel more welcome than by figuring out how to work stuff. If you can't figure it out, post a comment to this page and we can add that question to this FAQ. |
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| Q: | Given the serious nature of the legal agreement one has to acknowledge to participate, every word of which I carefully read, and which gave me some pause, I also wonder about the longterm support for the site. Is the site intended to be self-sustaining, and if so, will the organizations, individuals and action groups who benefit financially as a result of their participation pay a royalty to the network in order to underwrite its longterm costs? What would be the threshold for that payment? Who would "own" the intellectual property generated as a result of that participation? Is the network a business, a charity or some hybrid organization and how will it be structured?
| A: | All good questions....I think I need to work on a definative answer here. |
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| Q: | How do I get technical help?
| A: | Ned.com is in active development, if you have any trouble, please send a PM to the site's maintainer: Jim Carroll |
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| Q: | Is there a spell-check?
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| Q: | I also think it would be helpful to newcomers such as myself to understand what specifics, beyond the "values," guided and motivated the network's development. |
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Other Newbie Questions
Page name: newcomer_s_faq
Last editor: Linda Nowakowski (186)
Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2007 02:14:26 PDT
Feedback score: 0
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