Welcome!

This article is intended to familiarize you with the basic operation of the Rancho Carrillo website.   Take a moment to look over the material contained here and your experience with the site will be made more pleasurable!

Security

The security of information on this site has been our first concern in its design.  Some of the information contained in the site is accessable only to logged-in users.  Those who have had their identities authenticated by a site manager have access to the entire site and may make contributions to the site.

Obtaining an Authenticated User-ID

1. From the homepage, click on the link to "join" the site.  Provide the requested information, including a valid e-mail address.
2. Go to your e-mail box and wait for an automated message from "RC Webmaster" containing a coded link back to the site.  Click on the link and you will be taken to a page on the site where you can supply a secret password of your choosing.  When this step is complete, you may login to the site and view everything except the private directory information.  To see that, you must complete the next step...

3. To have your new user-ID authenticated, send an e-mail to webmaster@ranchocarrillo.com (or call the site manager by telephone, if you're in a hurry).  Once your bonafides are established, your user-ID will be enabled for full site access.  This step should normally take less than 24-hours (or much less, in the case of a phone call).

It is recommended that each member of a household obtain their own user-ID.  The advantages of this will become apparent later.

Access by the Public

Before you login, take a moment to become familiar with what is accessable to the public (no User-ID required).  Knowledge of what can be viewed by the world will help you later when you might wish to post some information of your own on the site.

As a general rule, nothing of personal or confidential nature should ever be published in areas accessible to the public.  In addition, certain types of information of a business nature that may arise in the community will also be treated as sensitive and not published in these areas.

Tour

Now that you've got a user-ID, it is time to get online and checkout all the neat features of the site!

After login, you'll notice that your screen has a few more tabs across the top.  You can hover your (mouse) curser over these tabs and an explanation of the contents available at each location is will appear.  Click on a tab and that area of the site will open.

Here's a clue about what's to come... While the tabs behave as if they were folders, they actually perform searches of areas deeper in the site where the material is maintained by one of your neighbors.  For example, when you click on the "events" tab, the site immediately collects all "event" type notices from throughout the site and presents them to you in a logical way.

Now that you have a "smart folder" open, you can examine the individual items that it contains.   Take a look around.  There is a lot of content available already, and hopefully you will see a vast canvas just ready to take your own contributions!

Contact

At the top right of every site page, you will find a link "contact".  If you click on this link, you can send e-mail directly to the webmaster without leaving the site.

Accessability

Also at the top right, find the link "accessability".  If you click on this link, you can adjust text sizes and learn about keyboard shortcuts and other features for people who need the site to look or feel just a bit different to be usable.

My Folder

In the bar menu, just below the tabs, find the link "my folder".  If you click on this link, you will be taken to a private folder where you can create site content of your own.  This folder was created for you the first time you logged-in.  The contents of your folder may be selectively shared with other users of the site.  Contents may also be hidden.  This is entirely within your control, subject only to override by site managers.

Be aware that the default site setting is to share the contents of your personal folder with other authenticated site users.  If you want to prevent your neighbors from accessing your materials, consider whether the material belongs on the site in the first place!

When you open an area of the site that you can modify, a green menu bar will appear containing additional links.  Within this menu are tabs to help you "view", "edit", change the "properties" of, and "share" site contents.  You may also perform certain "actions", "add" items, and set the visability "state" of items.

Creating Content of Your Own

The following step-by-step explanation is of content creation is intended just to get you started.  Much more advanced operations are possible.  As you go through these steps, some of the more advanced capabilities of the site will become apparent (but no explanation will be offered here).

Creating of your own content is easy!  You must have a user-ID.  The procedure is the same, regardless of what you are creating.  Go to your own folder (i.e., "my folder"), and click on "add to folder".  A list of possible things you may add will appear:

• Event - a public notice of an event (e.g., a meeting)
  

• File - any file that may be copied from your computer
  
• Folder - a folder within the current folder (hopefully, your folder!)
  
• Image - a picture, such as a JPEG or GIF
  
• News Item - a public news article (e.g., this article)
  
• Page - a web page, possibly including images (created using an editor within the site itself)
  
• Smart Folder - a folder that displays content from elsewhere on the site according to criteria you define

The mechanisms for creation of all of these are similar.  You simply "add" an item of the chosen type (to your folder) and that item will be created and opened ready for you to fill-in the content!

Once the item is complete to your satisfaction, you may scroll to the bottom of the page and "save" or "cancel".  If you "cancel", the work you've done is lost.

Otherwise, you will find that there is a new item in your older.  If you click on the item, it will open for viewing.  Once open, you will see the green menu allows you to edit, etc.

Sharing vs. Publishing

When you "share" an item (typically, from within your own folder), you are making that item accessible to a specific set of users on this site.  You pick the people who can gain access (assuming you've explicitly hidden the item).  These other people access the item by navigating the site until they actually find the item inside your folder.

When you "publish" an item, you are making item accessable to all users of the site (sometimes dependent on authentication as discussed above).  In this case, your item will appear logically in a top-level "smart folder" based on certain properties that you have assigned to the item.  For example, you have created an interesting recipe for using Spam in your folder, you could dazzle your neighbors and confirm your clever nature by adding the keyword (a "property") "recipe" to the item (probably a "page") containing your brilliant idea.  Elsewhere on the site, your equally clever site managers have created a "smart folder" for recipes and the keyword will associate your item with that folder.

How to Get Published

If the site allowed anyone to publish just anything, well, you know... That might not always work out as intended!

So there is a last step to get your new item published.  Open the item you've created and at the far right side of the green menu bar, select the "submit" option on the "state" menu.  By doing so, you are submitting your work to a group of august content reviewers (actual people in your neighborhood, believe it or not) who will either "accept" or "reject" it.  By accepting the item, it is "published" for all to see.  Even so, you retain control of it and may "retract" it at any time (via the same menu).

Since everything you might "submit" will have your actual name on it, there seems very little likelihood of rejection!

Acceptable Use

Right about here (at the end), a few words about acceptable use of this site...

Befitting the atmosphere of the community, it was decided to make an early effort to keep the site content and discussions convivial.  There is also strong desire to keep the site appropriate for viewing by our kids.  Therefore, most items that find their way on to the site will be reviewed at least once before publication by someone other than the author (aka "owner").  Still, it is possible to post material deemed offensive by someone in the un-reviewed areas of the site (e.g, in "discussions" or in your own folder).  Therefore, the following policy will be observed by the site managers:

Upon receipt of a complaint of any type, delivered by any means to one of the site managers, from any offended person, business or organization (whether or not a member of the site itself), the material which is the subject of the complaint will be removed.  The source of the complaint need not be the subject of or have an interest in the offending item.  The threshhold test for removal is the receipt of complaint itself.

Repeated offenses (i.e., complaints) may result in an offending individual being prevented from posting items to the site (at the discretion of the site managers).

Jim Reardon

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