Welcome back!

I hope everyone has managed to get their profiles squared away and uploaded a mugshot. If none of that makes sense, you may want to read the first article in this series, I Always Wanted to Be Somebody! It should be just below this one, see you in a few. 

Interaction is an important part of what this website is all about: creating a more open and cooperative environment from which Forum 35 can do its work. In order for that to work, we realize we need to avoid annoying the membership as much as possible. Personally, getting a ton of emails from the same organization generally annoys me. In order to reduce the number of emails you may receive, we're going to cover email notification settings. To do that, you first need to log in to the website.

Once you've logged in to the website as a member, the first thing you'll want to do is update your profile. On the right hand side of the login landing page, you’ll see a list of items under the My Profile label. Click on the link that says Manage Profile.

Last week we dealt with the Edit Bio option, but today we're going to be covering Preferences, so go ahead and click on that link.

The Preferences settings lets you determine what emails you'll receive from the website as well as providing a little more control over your privacy settings. You'll see a list of preferences with check boxes next to them. If a box is checked, that means the notification is turned On.

Most of the notifications are self-explanatory. If it says "Email me...", the website will send you an automatically generated email whenever that event occurs. Beyond the "Email me..." type notifications, there are four other options in this list. I'll address those individually.

Option 1: Allow other members to view my connections. Connections are basically our website's version of Facebook Friends or LinkedIn Contacts. If you check the box, other logged-in members can see the members with whom you've connected.

Option 2: Share my favorites with other people who can see my profile. As you surf around the website and click through events, news articles, profiles, and other site features, you can choose to mark certain items as Favorites. If the option is turned On, other people who see your profile can see the areas of interest you have identified. This is helpful for building interest in Forum activities you're a part of or if you found a particularly interesting or helpful item on the website (like this Blog... hint, hint).

Option 3: Display my 'Online Now' status and allow others to start a chat with me. When this preference is turned On, an Online Now notification appears on your profile and other members can request to start a Chat with you. If you access and log in to the site from work regularly, you may want to turn this one off. Just sayin'...

Option 4: Turn on my wall. Your wall is just like the facebook wall. It will post information about your contacts that you can see, giving you updates about what they are doing. You can turn this off and the only thing you'll see is your Bio page. It's up to you, I don't use the Wall too much and prefer to see the Bio Page when I look up someone's profile. Personal Preference.

Well, that pretty much covers most of the options that aren't self-explanatory. Just for reference, here are the options I have turned On and it works pretty well for me:

• Allow other members to view my connections
• Email me when an event is added to a group of which I am a member
• Email me when I have unread messages older than 30 days in my inbox
• Display my 'Online Now' status and allow others to start a chat with me
• Turn on my wall