Note: There's currently an issue whereby gmail (and potentially other) email addresses cannot receive emails from the server Elsewhere is hosted on. This means if you sign up with a gmail address, you can't get 'forgot password' emails and can't get notifications via email. This is being worked on, and I hope it's resolved soon, but in the meantime if you need to change your password, you can contact me directly for a new one, and then you will be able to change it again when you are logged into your account. Or, you can use an email address from a different provider. I hear protonmail is good, and have confirmed the site is able to send emails to it.
Welcome to Elsewhere
This forum is intended to be a social media space where I, my friends, and friends of my friends can hang out and talk without everything needing to be a performance suitable for public consumption.
In this post, I am going to outline some basics about using the site.
Code of Conduct
We have two rules:
You must be an adult to be a member of this forum
Don't be an asshole
Conflicts and transgressions will be handled on a case-by-case basis.
Best Practices
The forum is divided into two main areas, the Personal and the Communal.
The Personal is your space to do what you want with, so long as you don't use it to harass other users (see rule 2: Don't be an asshole). If you are particular about how others will engage with your space, it's recommended that you start the thread with your own code of conduct. Consider this a journaling space to put your thoughts.
The Personal is divided up into Neighbourhoods, feel free to make your home in any of them. Unused Neighbourhoods will rotate out and new ones will be added, periodically; feel free to ask to have your threads moved into a different Neighbourhood if you decide a different one would suit you better.
The Communal is shared space, for interacting with the userbase at large.
The surprise third area, The Brass Tacks, is just for forum maintenance related things, don't worry about it.
Registration
Registration will be open on the last day of the month and closed through the rest of the month. New users have limited privileges, but will be added to the "members" group and given their personal groups as soon as I have time and ability to do so.
You can use the same email address to make multiple accounts, and there is the option to link accounts and toggle between them from the user menu dropdown. No one can see what accounts are linked to which.
Can I invite my friends Elsewhere?
Yeah, go for it.
I'd prefer if you don't make any kind of broad-reaching announcements inviting people to the site, but asking your friends if they want to join is a-okay!
Privacy
When you were made a member of the forum, you were also given two user-groups named something like "(1) mek" and "(2) mek". You have the ability to add and remove people from these groups, which allows you to use them like a privacy filter. If you need more groups, feel free to ask.
To add or remove users from these groups, go to your user control panel (accessible by clicking your name in the site header), then navigate to the 'usergroups' tab. In 'manage groups' you'll be able to 'manage users'. You can rename the group to something more memorable and/or informative for yourself, but please leave the number unchanged and at the beginning of the group name.
You also have the ability to adjust the group settings and to make your group the default group for other users. Please do not do these things.
If you use the code [ghide=1][/ghide], you can hide the contents of your post from anyone who is not a member of group 1. The number in your group-name is the ID number you would use in the code to make it visible to that group. You can include multiple groups by separating the numbers with a comma and no space, like [ghide=1,2][/ghide].
You can also hide content from unregistered users with the [hide][/hide] code. If you want to hide things from everyone except for full members, you can use group 16 ([ghide=16]) to do that.
The group number "10" has been reserved for making private posts. If you want to make a post visible only to yourself, you can do so with [ghide=10][/ghide].
Note that the hidden content doesn't say what group it's visible to, so if you want people to be able to hide responses to the same group, you should mention what tag to use.
Code: Select all
[hide]For example, this text is hidden to guests and bots[/hide]
[ghide=5]And this text is hidden to everyone but administrators[/ghide]
[ghide=16]And this text is hidden to everyone but members[/ghide]
I have not been able to find a way to bypass these filters, but would not consider it truly private and would recommend not saying anything under a filter that you wouldn't say in "private" on the internet at large. Additionally, as an admin, I have the ability to see what's said under the filter. I promise that I will not, but you have to take my word for it.
***
This page will be updated as needed or as I feel like.
Go forth, and be cool to each other.