A Blurty community is a meeting place. For example, users who are interested in a single subject, or users who are residents of a town or city, can find or create a community based around their mutual interests. Members of a community can be informed quickly by the community about events that directly pertain to them. With respect to a user journal, a community's "friends" are its members, and its "recent events" are like journal entries. What makes a community different is the ability to have many people be able to post in it. Last Updated:
miaow, 2002-10-04 Yes, community journals are as free a product as personal journals. Anyone with an existing Blurty account can create an additional journal for use as a community.
To create a community, you begin by creating a new journal account in the usual manner:
http://www.blurty.com/create.bml
The new account is separate from your existing personal account, which will continue to represent you as an individual and as the person who maintains (controls) the new community. The username you choose for the new account will become the username of the community, and must not already be in use by any other user or community.
Once you've created the new account, you can proceed to the Create Community page:
http://www.blurty.com/community/create.bml
where you can convert the new account into a community. Enter the username and password for your personal account (as the Maintainer) and for the account you want to convert (the Community). Designating your personal account as the community's Maintainer Account will allow you to change nearly any of the community's settings while you're still logged in as yourself.
While you're turning your new account into a community, you can also set options which will affect how other users are admitted into your community. Last Updated:
miaow, 2002-10-04 You need to be a member of Blurty.com first before you join any community. Some communities will allow you to comment on posts without being a member, others will not, but in order to post on any community you must have your own Blurty account. Check out the following FAQ to learn how to sign up for a Blurty account. Once you have a Blurty account, joining a community costs nothing, and you can join as many communities as you want.
Next, visit the Community Info page of the community you wish to join. This can be found from the front page of most communities, or by visiting http://www.blurty.com/userinfo.bml?user=community_name (where "community_name" is the username of the community you wish to join). If in doubt, type the community name into the search window at the top right of any page that carries the Blurty banner, and you will be taken to the profile page for that community.
An open community will have the option "To join, click here" on the Community Info page, where "click here" is the link to join. A closed community will state "To become a member you must contact its maintainer", where "its maintainer" is a link to the profile page for the owner of the community. Eligibility for membership in a community is determined by the owner. There is no other way to join a community, and there are no Blurty rules to define what an owner may or may not set as their requirements for membership.
Joining a community will usually give you both membership and posting access. Membership is the ability to see members-only posts, if there are any, and also means that your journal entries appear on the community's Friends page.
ADDING A COMMUNITY TO YOUR FRIENDS PAGE
When you join an open community, you are asked whether you also want to add it to your Friends list. Participating fully in the community is a single-step process when you accept this option.
To read the journal of a closed community, or of one you don't want to join, you can add it to your Friends page as a separate step. Provided that you're logged in, all you have to do is click the "Monitor Community" button, located on the toolbar on the Community Info page. Alternately, you can edit your list of Friends.
Adding a community to your Friends list does NOT allow its members to see your Friends-only posts. Last Updated:
miaow, 2002-10-04 Before you can add an entry to a community's journal, you must first join the community to gain posting access. See http://www.blurty.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=57 for information on joining a community.
There are a few ways to post the entry; one option is to download the latest client for your platform that supports the community posting feature. If you have not yet downloaded a client, you may do so at http://www.blurty.com/download/ .
Inside the client you should see a menu named [Blurty], and under this should be the option of [Select Active Journal...] If you're allowed to post to a community, you should see the name of that community in the scroll box provided. You may need to quit your client and open it again, in order for it to list a community that you have just joined.
If you don't have access to a Blurty client, you can visit the Full Update page ( http://www.blurty.com/update.bml?mode=full ) while you're logged in. In the drop-down list titled: "Journal to Post in", you can select the community to which you want to post.
Note that communities cannot post entries, e.g. If you receive a "Can't post as non-user" error, then you are likely trying to post with a community or shared journal account. You will need to login to a personal account, such as the maintainer account, in order to post entries to your community. Last Updated:
bertho, 2003-07-20 If you posted it yourself, yes. If you're the community's maintainer, and someone else posted the entry, you can delete the entry but you can't edit it in other ways.
USING THE WEB INTERFACE:
Edit the entry by using the toolbar on the "Post Comments" or "Read Comments" page, as explained at http://www.blurty.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=20 .
To reach the Comments page when the "Backdate Entry" box ( http://www.blurty.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=18 ) is checked, use the subject listing in the Calendar view, as you would when message boards are disabled.
If an entry does not appear in the subject listing, its privacy level is probably preventing you from seeing it. Make sure you are logged in, are a member of the community, etc. If the entry is private, you'll need to know its item ID.
If you are the maintainer of the community but are getting errors when trying to delete the entry, make sure you are logged in as yourself (the maintainer), not as the community.
Once at the edit entry page, simply edit (See: http://www.blurty.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=20 ) or delete (See: http://www.blurty.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=21 ) as you would a standard journal entry.
USING THE WINDOWS CLIENT:
See http://www.blurty.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=20 for editing instructions. See http://www.blurty.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=21 for deletion instructions. Last Updated:
miaow, 2002-10-04 There are a few ways to go about this. When you do a regular interest search on Blurty, all communities that list the interest you're searching for will be at the top of the search results page.
There is also a specific community search page that is part of the Blurty directory at
http://www.blurty.com/community/search.bml Last Updated:
miaow, 2002-10-04 Any member may leave any community by simply going to the userinfo page of the community they want to leave and clicking on the "leave the community" link at the top of the page.
However, if the community you would like to leave has been deleted or suspended, and you can't view the userinfo page, you can go to the admin console: ( http://www.blurty.com/admin/console/ ) and type in the following command:
community <community> remove <user>
Where <community> is the community you want to leave and <user> is your username.
Note that leaving a community will not remove it from your Friends list. To remove a community from your Friends list, go to
http://www.blurty.com/friends/edit.bml Last Updated:
miaow, 2002-10-04 Yes, by selecting "friends" as the security level when posting. If an entry is "friends only" when posted in a community, only the members of that community that are logged in may see it. Last Updated:
miaow, 2002-10-04 No. If you add a community to your friends list, the only people able to see your "friends only" or "custom security" posts are any members of the community which you had already listed as your friend, or any members of the community who are in the custom security group for that post. Last Updated:
miaow, 2002-10-04 When you create a community (http://www.blurty.com/community/create.bml), you are asked to specify the following options:
Membership
A community's membership may be either open or closed. In an open community, any user can go to the Community Info page (userinfo.bml) and join by using a link near the top of the page. In a closed community, prospective members must email the maintainer a request to join the community; if approved, they are added to the community's Friends list, the same way you do when adding friends to your own Blurty.
Posting Access
When Posting Access is granted to "All Members", any user who becomes a member is automatically permitted to add entries to the community journal. When Posting Access is granted only to "Select Members", no one can add an entry to the community journal until the maintainer has given them permission individually.
A community's maintainer can change these options at any time by simply going back to http://www.blurty.com/community/create.bml and re-creating the community.
A community's maintainer can grant membership and/or posting access to individual users through the command console (http://www.blurty.com/admin/console). Last Updated:
miaow, 2002-10-04 First of all, as the community's maintainer, you don't have to do anything if you created the community using the "Open Membership" option with posting access given to "All Members". Those options allow any Blurty user to obtain membership and posting access in your community, by joining it without seeking your approval.
To elaborate on that: when you create a community, you decide whether membership will be open or closed, and whether all members will have posting access. If later you change your mind about how those options should be set, you need to go back to http://www.blurty.com/community/create.bml and re-create the community using new settings. Enter the relevant maintainer and community usernames and passwords, choose the new level of access, and then click "Create Community". (The community's journal, Friends list, etc., will not be destroyed; only the settings you enter differently will be changed.)
On the other hand, if you've deliberately made your community a closed community, or you don't allow all of your members to post, then you can grant individual users access to your community by going to the Administration Console, located at:
http://www.blurty.com/admin/console/
There are two commands regarding communities and membership; "community" and "shared". The "community" command, when used properly, can easily upgrade people to being a member of a community. The "shared" command allows certain users posting access to a community, if the posting access rule is selective.
Before visiting the console, make sure that you are logged in. Remember that only the maintainer of a community can use the commands in the console area.
Commands are entered as single words on a line, with no brackets. Brackets you see here are for reference purposes only. Words in angle brackets represent required arguments to ensure the command works.
Adding A User To A Closed Community:
The command for adding a user to a closed community would be:
community <community> <action> <user>
where:
community = the initial command
<community> = the username of the community
<action> = either add or remove
<user> = username of member to be added or removed
So, for example, to add the user 'test' to my community named 'communitytest', the command would be as follows:
community communitytest add test
Allowing A User Posting Access To A Community:
In the same manner, if you wanted to allow someone to post in your community, the command would be:
shared <community> <action> <user>
where:
shared = the initial command
<community> = the username of the community
<action> = either add or remove
<user> = username of member to be added or removed
And the example command to allow the user 'test' to post in the community 'communitytest' would be:
shared communitytest add test Last Updated:
miaow, 2002-10-04 Yes, providing you are the community maintainer.
A maintainer can remove a member by simply removing that member from the community account's friends list. If need be, the maintainer can log in and then remove or ban a user through the admin console (http://www.blurty.com/admin/console).
To remove membership and posting access to a community, log in as the maintainer and use the following command:
community <communityname> remove <user>
To remove posting access to a restricted access community, log in as the maintainer and use the following command:
shared <communityname> remove <user>
To ban a user from your community, log in as the maintainer and use the following command:
ban_set <user> "from" <communityname>
To unban a user from your community, log in as the maintainer and use the following command:
ban_unset <user> "from" <communityname>
Note: When entering these commands, do not use < >. These are simply for reference purposes. So, to remove user goofball from the suggestions community, the command would be:
community suggestions remove goofball Last Updated:
miaow, 2002-10-16 If you no longer want to maintain a community, and you have worked out an agreement with another user to transer the community to them, then the only thing you have to do is visit ( http://www.blurty.com/admin/console/ ) while logged in as the community maintainer, and enter the following command:
change_community_admin <community> <new_owner>
where <community> is the username of the community you currently maintain, and where <new_owner> is the username of the person you wish to transfer the community to. (Note: You do not need to type the < or > characters when using this command; they exist solely as a reference.)
The community will be changed to reflect its new maintainer, and its password will be changed to whatever password its new maintainer has at the time of the transfer. Last Updated:
miaow, 2002-10-04 To transfer maintainership of the community:
http://www.blurty.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=67
To revert your community back to a personal journal:
You will need to log in as the community and visit the Admin Console (http://www.blurty.com/admin/console) and enter the following command:
change_journal_type <community> person
Where: <community> = the username of the community
(Note: When entering the command, do not use < >. These are simply for reference purposes.)
To delete your community:
You delete a community in the same manner that you would delete a regular journal. Of course, you must have the password to the account, and the journal should not be one that's used for official Blurty business. See the FAQ on deleting entire journals:
http://www.blurty.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=13 Last Updated:
miaow, 2002-10-04
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