The following is an introduction to the features of the WCH Community Network. It’s not supposed to be comprehensive and you may explore further features on your own. We have tried our best, however, to keep the network as simple and accessible as possible, even for users without previous experiences with social media, and still provide all features that an experienced user expects from a social network. We recommend that after you have worked through this guide you join the Information & Help group in case that things have remained unclear or don’t work as expected.
- When you have registered (as described on the page How to Register) and logged in (via the WCH Community Login at the bottom of the sidebar on the left) you will notice two changes on the page: There appears a new menu between Community Guidelines and WCH Community Login. It consists of the three menu items Activities, Members and Groups. These are your most important tools to handle our Community Network. This menu is only visible as long as you are logged in.
- Also note the welcome message in the upper right corner of the page. When you point the mouse pointer on it a drop-down menu with several submenus opens. It is an alternative way to access all functions of the Community Network, including some that you will only need occasionally. When you have logged out the welcome message and the menu will also disappear.
- The WCH Community Login will also change when you are logged in. It will display your name and the Log Out link. Click on it to log out of the Network and the two login fields for Username and Password will show up again.
- Please note: We recommend that you always move to the World Culture Hub homepage before you log off. Otherwise some irritating error messages may appear. Look at the horizontal main menu at the top of the screen (which also offers About, Mission Statement etc.) and click on Home there.
- So what you can do with and in the WCH Community Network? The most important feature of any social network is to connect people. To make use of that you need a list of the community members. Click on Members in the new menu and a new page titled Community – Members will open. It has two tabs at the top. If you click on the left one you will be given a list of all members recently active. Click on a name to see a detailed profile of that person. You can also send public (can be read by others) and private messages (can be only read by sender and receiver) to him or her, similar to e-mails but within the community network.
- When the network grows it would be impractical to always search the complete list of active members to find someone. Here the concept of friends comes in, an elementary feature of any social network (the term has been ridiculed sometimes – you might as well call them contacts). To befriend someone open the profile of that person and click on Add Friend. If the person approves the contact, return to the page Community – Members. If you click on the right tab – My Friends – you will see a list of all persons you are in contact with. You will likely receive friend requests yourself. Have a look at Friends the top right menu to check for any pending requests.
- To give other members an idea of who you are and if you could be a rewarding contact for them, it’s recommended that you fill out your own profile. Look for Profile in the upper right corner menu and chose Edit. Here you can disclose various information about yourself: your profession, your web presence, you areas of interest etc. You can also add a profile photo and a cover image via the menu.
- Please note: Gathering information of this kind is what the business model of large commercial social networks is based on. They make huge profits by selling data about your personal preferences and tastes to online advertisers. We guarentee that the WCH Community Network does nothing of that sort. User information are stored in our database only for personal use within the network and in line with the purpose of the network. If there are hints that any member exploits your user information for commercial purposes, let us know and we will take measures.
- Another important feature of social networks are groups. Users can join groups to discuss specific topics or areas of interest. To see all groups in the network click on Groups in the sidebar menu and then on the tab All Groups at the top. You will see that the network administrators have created a lot of groups during setup. There’s the name and some lines from the description of each group listed. To join a group it is in most cases sufficient to click the Join Group button. After you have joined one or several groups another tab named My Groups appears at the top, meant to list only the groups you are a member of. When you have joined a group, you can post there or comment the postings of others. At the top there is also a tab to create a new group.
- Please note: There are closed groups – for example the collaborator groups of the magazines Nova and InterNova – that require an administrator to approve your membership request. There are also announcement groups used by the system administrators to post information for the community. You can join and read them, but you can’t post there.
- One more useful features is the Activities page where you see a list of all that has been going on in the network recently, new postings, new groups created, new members joined etc. There are four tabs at the top where you can select what you want to see: activities of all members and administrators, activities of your friends, activities within your groups. The last tab shows postings in which your name has been mentioned.