Welcome to this board – please read this first

[Site Admin]

Welcome and thank you for joining SC UK Alumni. Please spend a little time familiarising yourself with the various forums and how to post. This ,and the next two posts, should save you time finding your way around.

In terms of policy, you are more than welcome to argue about specific policies or anything else you wish to, but not our core values. No surprises then that any inappropriate posts will be removed as soon as the Site Administrator is made aware. The Site Administrator is the ‘housekeeper’ of the site and one of their roles is to ensure compliance with the polices we’ve all agreed to. They are an alumni – the role will rotate from person to person over time. You can always contact the current Site Admin directly via their account Site Admin. Unusually for the internet, this will be a bully free, sexist free, racist free zone.

This particular forum is open to anything you want it to be – casual chat and welcomes. Introduce yourself when you arrive and join the discussion. There are other forums for specific topics such as Centenary Ideas, serious Research and Development discussion and of course Fundraising, so please try to keep those topics out of this General Discussion forum.

On each forum or board, you can reply to existing topics or start new topics. If you are used to internet chat, these ‘topics’ are sometimes called ‘threads’ on other sites. There is a search function to help you find existing discussions.

You can edit and delete posts you’ve written until someone has replied to them. If for some reason you wish to change it after that, contact Site Admin.

You can ‘private message’ any other alumni (including Site Admin) and only the two of you will see that discussion..

That said, this is the internet. Although it’s supposed to be a secure, private site, please remember:

• Even if everyone is who they are claiming to be, it’s perfectly possible a friend or family member can pick up a device logged on and read posts here.

• It’s sadly possible someone here isn’t who they claim to be; that might just be someone being silly, or it could be a journalist or someone with ulterior motives.

• We could, of course, be hacked, as could our host (a company called one.com. This company has strong standard commercial defences against hacking, but it is unrealistic to assume that ordinary commercial security would always be effective, especially against state sponsored hacking.)

Broadly speaking, assume anything you post here (or anywhere else on the internet) is being posted on the noticeboard at your local newsagents. We will do our best to support your expectation of reasonable privacy, but it is always safest to assume the worst.

Finally, different people use the internet in different ways. Some people find receiving an email almost the same as receiving a letter, almost an intrusive experience. Others are used to receiving hundreds of emails a day. You have choices on this board if you wish to receive email alerts when new topics are posted, or comments are made on an existing topic (perhaps one you’ve started). The default assumption is that you don’t. However, a good example is the ‘Major Announcement’ forum. You might wish to ‘subscribe’ to that forum to be alerted of major news immediately we hear about it. It’s unlikely there would be more than one item a month posted there. Why not try it? To subscribe to a forum or a topic, simply click the icon labelled ‘subscribe’, which on some smartphones will be shown as a heart. If you change your mind, just go back and ‘unsubscribe’ by taking the same action again. You can subscribe and unsubscribe as many times as you like – try and get a balance that works for you.

[Site Admin]

Basic navigation advice

Here is some information to help you get about:

it is intended that this forum, the General Discussion, will have the highest volume of posts. There is no need to be shy about posting here! Let everyone know who you are. One of the best ways to do that is to add your picture The easiest way to do that is to click the top left of the screen where it says you are logged in. Click on the avatar showing and it will bring up your profile. If you click the pic you should be able to replace it with one of your choice.

The following advice applies to all users. If you will primarily be accessing the site by Smartphone, you will need to additionally read the third post here on Smartphone usage.

Note that spell checking on your posts is provided by links behind the scenes to your browser options. If you have spell-check turned on in your browser eg Chrome, Safari, IE etc regardless of device, it will we believe work here. We recommend this approach. If you have no browser spell-check, you won’t have it here either.

If you are an experienced internet forum user:

• You won’t need much guidance because this forum works broadly as most others
• We have removed all social media links on purpose; this is a private site
• Add new topics and reply to posts as standard
• There is an upload facility (attachments), a quote function and a good search function where you’d expect. You can also print topics and posts, you can add attachments to posts, and you can edit/delete your own posts. You can thank other alumni for writing good posts.
• There is a strong membership function; you can view the list of all members, whenever you see a member name you can click on their profile. Whenever you see the envelope icon you can start a PM. You can PM one or more people at a time.

Alternatively, if you are new to internet forums

• There isn’t a rule book and it takes a little time to get the hang of this. Once you do, it’s easy.
• There is no problem about making mistakes. If you post something in error, you can delete it straight away. There are several icons on the top right of any post you make. If you hover over them, one enables you to delete your post, and one enables you to edit it.
• You are advised to start on a Windows or Mac desktop/laptop rather than a smartphone. The reason for this is that there are quite a few options involved. On the desktop/laptop version you can ‘hover’ your mouse over any icon and it will tell you what it does eg ‘Preview’, so you can learn easily. Whilst we are pleased to say that the smartphone version is, we believe, fully functional on ANY device (we have tested Samsung Androids and all the major Apple i-devices), it can be a little fiddly. There is a separate post below on this that you should read.
• When making a post, the first thing you need to decide is whether what you want to say is a new topic, or is a reply to an existing one. Use your common sense. If someone else has just started a ‘Did you just see the idiot on Question Time?’ thread, just add your comment to it by replying directly to the thread.
• After you have typed your post, you have a number of options which are set out underneath. On the left you can see you can add smileys if you want to. That works fine READING your post, but it will make your post look a little odd to you when you WRITE it. Don’t worry about that. If you want to check your post before you submit, one of the buttons on the right is a PREVIEW button; this shows how your post will appear to anyone reading the thread.
• Another important option is to add attachments (that’s on the bottom left). It’s a two-step operation; you select your file, then you upload it.
• There is also a great feature called Quote. If you Quote someone else’s post, it brings it into your post with the original author name. As you get used to this, you will find you can edit the Quote if you only want one sentence out of a full post. Try and have a go at this.
• If someone has written a good post, you can thank them (the closest action we are allowing compared to a Facebook ‘like’!)
• You can always see who someone is by clicking their icon; it pulls up their profile.
• If you want to see who everyone is, click Members towards the top of the forum.
• You can send a message to any other member by the Private Message (PM) function. Look for the ‘envelope’ icon beside their name. No one else sees the content of your message, hence ‘private’ – it’s always called a PM. When you send a PM, the person (or people) will receive an email to say they have a PM from you. They can just click through to read it when they want. It’s NOT posted on a forum for all to see.

That’s enough to get you going but the most important points for new forum users are the first two. Try it and see. For instance, there are 3 ‘A’ signs at the top right of your forum page. Try them out! And if you hate this colour scheme, go down to the bottom where it says ‘Theme’ and try others. This changes it for you only. You will get the hang of the site with a bit of practice.

[Site Admin]

Using a Smartphone? If not, you can skip this.

The first and most important point is that the Alumni application DOES we believe work on all mobile platforms. Some of them are a bit fiddly though, hence the advice to start your usage on a desktop/laptop if you can. Once you know where things are, it’s easier to find them!

In terms of providing detailed instructions, the Apple and Android platforms behave a little differently. They both use the same icon though for menus like the one attached underneath.

Broadly, the Android platform uses icons similar to the desktop/laptop version, but without the useful ‘hover’ feature that helps you work out what they are.
The Apple platforms use a combination of icons (usually above a post) and labelled buttons (usually below a post).

If you are working on a smartphone, when you are in a topic, you can reply to any post in that topic. The forum will show you five things you are allowed to do to any given post:
1) You can thank the author for their post (the tick icon or the word ‘thank’)
2) You can PM the author of the post (the envelope icon or the word ‘private’)
3) You can quote the message in your reply (the quote mark icon or the word ‘quote’)
4) You can flag the post as inappropriate (the flag icon or the word ‘flag’). Site Admin will then decide whether to delete/amend the post.
5) You can simply reply (the plus sign icon or the word ‘reply’)

Once you are writing your post (ie you took either options 2 or 4 above) there are five further options you have, shown as options below the reply box.
a) You can add smileys (the smiley icon on the left or the word smiley)
b) You can add attachments (the paperclip icon on the left or the word attachment)
c) You can review your post (the first icon on the right or the word preview). This is useful if you are ether quoting or have used a smiley so you can see your post looks ok
d) You can delete your post (the X icon middle on the right or the word delete) if you’ve changed your mind
e) You can send your post (the disk icon on the far right or the word ‘reply’. This is confusingly the standard icon for saving,)

You can definitely use this site effectively on smartphones, though most people find the desktop/laptop version easier, certainly at the beginning. The behaviour of the forum on each type of device is a little different, so it is hard to write definitive clear instructions. If you are having problems that you can’t work out, please contact Site Admin for assistance.

[Author]

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