The Word Cloud

Okay, so perhaps the title is a little presumptuous, but I've spent around 10 hours on Word Cloud since joining on 24th March and I haven't found a comprehensive set of instructions.

Therefore I intend to detail all that I have learnt thus far, in the hope that wordclouders will correct me and add additional comments, which I will then update into this topic so that the instructions are as complete and accurate as possible.

ACCOUNT PANEL
By saying 'account panel', we are referring to the narrow panel on the left hand side of screen, which shows your profile picture, and such heading as 'Manage Account', 'Invite Contacts', 'Your Status', 'Inbox' etc. This is simply a handy summary of links to various user-related settings. The particularly useful features include:
- Search Tool: if you're really stuck, use the search tool in the tope left hand corner to return all instances of the search keyword/s. Works well if you're specific, but gives too much information otherwise
- Manage Account: takes you back to the same page where you filled in all your details during sign-up so that you can update details as needed
- Your Status: tends to be used to give a short indication of what you are up to, e.g. 'thinks that wordcloud is great'
- Inbox: provides handy links to messages (these are private message between 2 wordclouders, like emails), requests (from wordclouders who want to add you as a Word Cloud friend), and notifications (optional alerts to new activity on items you are tracking. Note that the 'all notifications' subtab is a handy way to track back on your activities)
- People online: lists people who are online at the same time as you. This also appears as a bar across the bottom of your screen. From the bar, you can initiate Chat sessions, aka instant messaging, by clicking one a wordclouder's name once you have maximised the Who's Online bar

HOME TAB
Inside the 'home' tab are contained useful summaries of recent activities from all over Word Cloud. In particular:
- Latest Activity panel: this is the Word Cloud's Wall. It draws out links to latest activities on blogs, forums, user statuses, user walls, groups etc. It can also be posted to directly, using the post section at the top of the panel. Latest Activity is just that - latest. Older items will fall out of the summary, although they can still be found via their source (e.g. forum)
- Latest everything else panels the right hand side of the home tab contains a bunch of windows, each listing the recent activities e.g. Latest Groups, New Members, Latest Articles (aka latest blog items), Latest Posts (aka latest forum / group items). The point to these summaries is so that users can quickly find out about the newest information etc on the Word Cloud. Saves you having to trawl about.

Note at this point that Wall postings (your own as well as other's wall posts that you have Commented on) constitute what are referred to as items in your 'activity stream'. You will receive a Notification when someone adds to your activity stream by commenting on a wall post that you have made, or by commenting on someone else's wall post that you have also commented upon. Synergism, get it?

MY PROFILE TAB:
Apart from the 'account panel', the 'my profile' tab contains all the information that other users will see when they click into your profile. Specifically:
- Profile panel: exhibits the information you have entered under Manage Account (unless you have you have restricted what users can see via Manage Account > Edit Privacy and Settings).
- Latest Activity panel: This is the user's Wall. Similar to Latest Activity inside the 'Home' tab, this summarises activities from all around the Word Cloud, by you and in relation to you by others. It is therefore not as comprehensive as the 'Home' tab Latest Activity.
- About panel: useful spot for telling wordclouders about yourself. It is controlled by Manage Account > Edit Profile > Description Optional
- Latest Blog Posts panel: summarises your most recent blog entries, similar to how the 'Home' tab Latest Articles panel summaries recent blog entries from all wordclouders
- Photos panel: is much like a photo album summarising any photos you have posted, be they your profile picture or simply photos-for-the-sake-of-photos
- Friends panel: contains the profile picture and links of Word CLoud friends you have made/accepted via 'Account panel' > Inbox > Requests
- The Wall panel: contains a handy link so that you can post an entry on the Word Cloud's Wall. This is the Equivalent of using making a Wall entry via 'Home' tab > Latest Activity > Post

MEMBERS TAB
Summarises the profiles of all wordclouders and is one place from which to request that someone be your Word Cloud Friend. The sub-tabs within the 'Members' tab seem self-explanatory, but consider:
- Advanced Search subtab: if you can't locate a wordclouder via the 'Browse' subtab, consider using 'Advanced Search'

Note that the easiest way to access another wordclouder's profile is to click on their name (wherever it appears). Once on that person's profile page, you can Add to Friends.

For those wondering what Send Wave is all about, click on this to simply say hi to a wordclouder without actually initiating a chat.

FORUMS TAB
This is the formal way in which to read, comment and create Forum topics. A Forum is like a big Group where all manner of things can be discussed in detail. Note that a 'forum' is just a name; a 'thread' aka 'topic' aka 'post' is what actually gets posted and read. In terms of navigation:
- Forum Home subtab: lists all the names of the individual forums. It appears that the forum names can't be created by standard users (I haven't figured out how, anyway) so the website administrators must control these
- E.g. 'Critiques - general' forum: 'Critique - general' is a popular forum for posting items for feedback. Once you click into a forum name, you will see a list of all the posts/threads/topics (these terms are interchangeable) in that forum. Click on the name of a topic to be taken to its text and comments.
- Watch Topic button: once inside a topic, click Watch Topic to add this to your 'My Watched Topics' subtab. You have the option to receive Notifications and emails when someone responds to the topic, so that you don't need to wait on tenterhooks for new activity.
- Create Topic button: if you want to create a new topic, click the Create Topic onscreen button. You can always go back into your blog and Edit Topic or Delete Topic if you feel the need.
- New Posts subtab: this simply summarises the latest activity in terms of forum topics. Note that 'Groups' operate in a similar way to forums, so forum topics derived from 'Groups' will also be included in this summary
- My Groups subtab: if you have joined a Group, this will be listed in the 'Forums' tab > 'My Groups' subtab because both forums and groups use topics/threads/posts so the two are related
- My Watched Topics subtab: when viewing or creating a topic in a forum, you have the option to 'Watch Topic', simply so that the topic will be summarised under the 'My Watched Topics' subtab for ease of reference, with option email and notification alerts
- My Topics subtab: this summarises all the forum topics you have created, therefore you really don't need to add your own topics to the 'My Watched Topics' subtab via Watch Topic

Note that when someone makes a comment on a topic you have created, or a topic you are watching, you will receive notification of this in your 'Account Panel' > Inbox > Notifications. The activity will also appear in Latest Activity in the 'Home' and 'My Profile' tabs, for a short while.

BLOG TAB
Blogs are less formal than forums, in that they are generally intended for novelty / amusement more so than actual literary critique (which tends to be the role of forums and groups). Blogging is also cooler *tongue ramming cheek*. Specifically:
- Latest Articles subtab: lists all blogs (scroll to the bottom and you'll see there are thousands of pages worth), sorted by most recent on top
- Most Commented subtab: lists all blogs sorted by most commented ranked on top
- Create Blog subtab: allows users to write their own blog. Note that inside 'create blog' you need to select the Submit to Public Magazine? option if you want your article to appear all over Word Cloud, instead of just on your profile page. Remember that you can always go back into your blog and Edit Blog or Delete Blog if you feel the need.
- Archives panel: once a blog has falled off the 'Latest Articles' subtab, it will be stored in the 'Archives' subtab so you can always go back to read older blogs.

Note that commenting on a blog functions in the same way as commenting on other types of activities: type comment in Your Comment panel and press Post.

GROUPS TAB
As already hinted at, Groups are like specialised Forums. Ideally, wordclouders should be able to post genre-specific queries / poems / chapters / thoughts in a sutiable group, and get a plethora of responses from like-minded group members. It seems currently that Groups are not used as much as Blogs and Forums. However, if we each make greater use of the groups, the Word Cloud experience will be enriched for everyone. In terms of layout:
- Top Groups subtab: seems to list all the groups in order of membership, and is the easiest place from which to find and joing (or leave) a Group
- New Groups subtab: lists the most recently created groups for ease of reference
- My Groups subtab: summarises groups you have joined, and may well be the same as 'Forums' tab>'My Groups' subtab
- Create New subtab: allows users to create a new Group and set the permissions relating to that Group.

Note that once you click on a Group, you enter into the Group profile page, which is much like a Member page. Therefore it's not worth repeating information about the Latest Activity, Photos, Member, The Wall as they operate in the same way.

Something notable, however, is the Forum panel, which lists recent topics created inside the Group. In this panel you have access to Create Topic inside the Group, which operates the same as Create Topic inside a Forum. When posting something for the Group to critique, it is better to Create Topic than to Post a Your Comment on The Wall.

OPINION TAB
Lists links to interesting blog sites. I'm not sure if it's just me, but the links don't seem to be working, and the formatting looks just plain weird.

EVENTS TAB
Lists writing-related events coming up in and around Europe/Dublin, although I suppose users from Australia (like myself) could just as easily Create New notification of events closer to home! The 'Events' tab is one place to find out about upcoming competitions. Other competitions seem to be detailed in the 'Forums' tab.

PICS TAB
Summarises all photos uploaded by wordclouders, including links to the source page. Handy tool for the little voyeur in all of us. Again, users can post comments on photos like they can with blogs, forums, status updates, wall comments etc.

- End instructions -

Hopefully others find this useful. Please do comment with any corrections and suggestions, as I will update these into the text of the topic.

Wow Danielle, you've picked up a lot in a few hours and seem to have covered most points clearly - very well done!

A few things that occur to me:
- The easiest way of adding someone as a friend, is to go onto their wall and click 'Add to friends'.
- You can also send a wave to someone, if you want to say hi but not initiate a conversation, in the same way.
- To find someone's wall quickly, click on their name wherever it appears.
- The members search can be a little flaky - but if you go into 'Advanced Search', you can get them if they haven't posted anything recently.
- The 'search' button in the topmost left corner will bring up all instances of the search item - be it a member, a keyword to a thread, a topic of conversation. Useful if you're really specific with your criteria, but returns too much info otherwise.
- If you click on 'watch topic', you will be sent an email when someone comments on that topic if you ask for it. Handy so that you don't have to haunt the Cloud to see if anyone's responded to your - or anyone's - thread.
- The 'blog' tab at the very top, lists all blogs that ever were, unless they've been specifically deleted.
- Similarly with 'most commented' - lists the whole jolly lot ranked by number of comments.

Think that's it for now?

I'm sure new joiners will find this useful, so well done for taking the initiative.
Whisks

I echo Whisks' congratulations for such a comprehensive guide to all things Cloudy, Danielle. It should be a terrific help to everyone to have this all in one place - and not just the newbies. You seem to have covered most things. The only thing I can think to add is that when you get a notifiction that someone has added to 'your activity stream', it is referring to any Wall Entry upon which you have commented. So mostly it won't actually be your activity stream, unless it was your original Wall Entry.
Well done, again for a sterling effort (or should that be a dollar effort?)

Thank you for those additions; I have incorporated them into the main text!

A couple of us are working on a detailed guide for new members so this will come in very useful - great stuff, Danielle!

Impressive Danielle!

Yes, as another newbie who joined about a week ago, I am also impressed by this effort. This is my first post, as I disappeared to my writing hideaway shortly after joining, and I have only just emerged.
One thing I haven't found on this site, and which I haven't seen mentioned either, is a newbie forum, or just a place where newbies can post an introduction.

Hi Alanboy - welcome to the Cloud.

Thanks Barb,

Ok, I can see that a newbie forum would probably also be a place of endless repetition.

Ha, my hideaway isn't so grand. I live in the Philippines, and have a place in the hills where I get peace and quiet. My problem is I'm easily distracted - mainly by noise - and find it very difficult to write creatively when I know my attention span is only going to be a few minutes.

Unwanted noise is a difficult thing to get away from. Am I alone in having this problem? How do others cope?