Peripheral Neuropathy Support Group
 of the
DC Metro Area
No Cure
No "Race for a Cure"
But Hope, Advice, Info
      Mutual Support &
      Being Heard?
Yeah, We got that.

DC Peripheral Neuropathy Support Group

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Membership How-To               Back (to Op Stuff)     To Member Security Page
Last update: 1/23/2017
1. Privacy:
2. How to: register
3. How to: register from an email invitation
4. How to: sign-In (once you are registered)
5. How to: sign-out
6. How to: change your password if you have forgotten it
7. How to: change your password if you are already signed in
8. How to: complete/modify your profile
9. How to: invite someone to be a member
10. How to: see a list of other members or the profile of another member
11. How to: Private Email Messaging: General idea
12. How to: Private Email Messaging: send to another member (Including the admin)
13. How to: Private Email Messaging: reply to a private message
14. How to: post a comment on a blog post
15. How to: use a private page (like the Member Stuff page)
  1. Privacy:
    1. The privacy policy link for WEBS takes you to a general Google privacy statement page. One should probably assume that anything in a private email message or the member profile is about as private as Gmail or Google Plus.  I don’t know if there is any way to delete profile or message data from whatever has been passed to Google.
  2. How to: register
    1. Go to Home page (or any page that has a Sign In or Register link)
    2. Clink Register -> A Sign Up page will display with 9 data entry places used to create a preliminary profile. Some are required and some are optional. Optional entries can be entered later, if you wish.
      1. (Required) Email address
      2. (Required) Password
      3. (Required) Retype Password
      4. (Required) Display Name
        1. this is the only name other members will see, unless you later put your name in some other profile question whose answers are not hidden.
        2. This name must be unique in our site. We cannot have two “Bob”s, but we can have a “Bob” and a “Bob2” and a “Bobby
      5. (Required, sort of) Birthday - does not have to be accurate. Comes with a default date in 1995, but you might want to put something that suggests what generation you consider yourself to be in.
      6. (Optional) checkbox to suppress display of your age, which is calculated from your birth date [if people leave the default date, we may have a lot of 23 year-old members 😊]
      7. (Optional) Location, such as city
      8. (Optional) Gender
      9. (Required) two word “Captcha” code to protect from robot entries. If you cannot read the prompts, click on the little link that looks like two circling arrows to get another set of prompts.
      10. Press Create My Account and a confirmation page is displayed telling you that an email has been sent to you to verify that it is your email account.
      11. Find the email in your email program and click on the link – a browser page will open telling you: “Your membership is currently pending approval”.  Meanwhile you can continue to use the site as before.
    3. Approval Dance
      1. We have chosen to use a conservative approach to allowing members to join, requiring someone to approve each membership request.  For now, that “someone” is me, Mike the Admin.  We will find someone else, eventually.
      2. Until your membership request has been approved, whenever you attempt to sign in, you will be told that your membership is pending
      3. Once the request is approved the administrator will (manually at this point) send you an email invitation to fill out a full profile.
    4. Open the profile invitation and click on (or paste) the link. [There are two links; both work; No, I don’t know why there’s two] –> a browser Sign In page will open.
    5. Enter your email address and password –> the Manage Profile page will display in the Edit Profile sub-page.
    6. There are 4 sub-pages in Manage Profile
      1. Enter or change profile questions, a photo, notification preferences, your account (email address, gender, etc.) and even change your password.
      2. Each sub-page has its own SUBMIT button.
      3. Note: There is (or will be) a section below on the profile questions.
      4. Note: A photo is quite useful. Many other members that may want to contact you using this site may recognize you ONLY from seeing you in our group meetings. A photo may be more useful for that than a name.
      5. The link used to upload a photo uses “Flash” software; if “Flash” is not activated on your browser (it often is not) a message will display asking if it can be activated for this site. You must say yes to upload a photo, but, by default, it will not be activated for other sites.
    7. Press SUBMIT -> your profile page will display. From there you can
      1. Go to any normal page, such as Home and including the MemberStuff page.
      2. Go to your Inbox
      3. Edit your profile and any of its sub-pages
      4. Enter What’s On Your Mind (a one line status update about yourself)
      5. Post, edit or delete comments about yourself. These comments are visible to any other members of the site.
      6. See recent activity
      7. See the profile info that is visible by other members.
      8. See a list of your members from the site who you have marked as “friends”
      9. Browse a list of all the other members of the site. 
      10. From that list you can display another member’s profile. 
      11. From that member’s profile page, you can leave a public comment, send them a private email message, send them a “friend request” or flag the profile data as inappropriate.  An administrator can remove the member.
  3. How to: register from an email invitation
    1. If you receive an email invitation to join, click on the link and you will be taken to the same Sign Up page to register as described above
  4. How to: sign-In (once you are registered)
    1. Go to Home page (or any page that has a Sign In or Register link)
    2. Click on Sign In link –> sign in page will display
    3. Enter email and password –> your original page will display and, the “Sign In or Register” links will be replaced with 4 new links
      1. Your Display Name link (along with another link to Sign Out) – takes you to your profile page. For instance, the user Bob will see “Bob (Sign Out)”
      2. Inbox link – takes you to your private email page. If a number is displayed that shows how many unread messages are in your inbox.
      3. Edit Profile Link – allows you to change your profile data
      4. Invite link – allows you to invite others to join the site
      5. Administrators will also see a Manage Website link
  5. How to: sign-out
    1. Click on any Sign Out link
    2. Or, close your browser (though this does not always work, depending on your browser settings)
  6. How to: change your password if you have forgotten it
    1. Go our site and click on Sign In –> the Sign In page will open
    2. On the Sign In page, enter your email address and click on the “Forgot your password” link -> An email will be sent to you take you
    3. Use the link (by clicking or pasting) -> a browser page to set a new password will open
    4. Enter a new password -> a confirmation will be shown and you can go to the Home page.
  7. How to: change your password if you are already signed in
    1. Go to the Home page and click on the Edit Profile link –> the profile edit page will open
    2. Click the Change Password link –> the Change Password page will open
    3. Enter your old and new password –> a confirmation will be shown
  8. How to: complete/modify your profile
    1. Go to Home page
    2. Sign in -> you will return to Home or the previous page
    3. Click Edit Profile –> your Manage Profile page will open
  9. How to: invite someone to be a member
    1. Go to Home page
    2. Sign in -> you will return to Home or the previous page
    3. Click Invite -> the invite page will open so you can send invitations to people’s email addresses.
      1. It has two sections. The top section will allow you to import data from a contacts list (such as a Gmail or Outlook list), by giving the email address and password of that list.
      2. The bottom section allows you to add construct a list of email addresses to use and compose an invitation message. The list of addresses can be typed in or selected from an imported contact list
    4. Click Invite Contacts to send the invitation(s).
  10. How to: see a list of other members or the profile of another member
    1. Go to Home page
    2. Sign in -> you will return to Home or the previous page
    3. Click Edit Profile –> your Manage Profile page will open
    4. Click Browse all members
    5. Click on a member to see that person’s profile
  11. How to: Private Email Messaging: General idea
    1. This feature of our site is designed to allow members to privately communicate with each other without needing to share personal email addresses.
    2. The examples below use pretend members with display names “Bobby” and “Jane”
    3. Messages are sent from one member to another via normal email channels. That is, when Bobby sends a message to Jane, a normal email is sent to the email address stored in Jane’s member profile.
    4. Bobby does not see the email address of Jane. 
    5. The email message
      1. Says it is from [email protected]
      2. Subject line says that “Bobby sent you a private message”
      3. Body of the message
        1. Says “Bobby sent you a message on Peripheral Neuropathy Support Group of the DC Metro Area” so Jane knows that it came from the “Bobby” in our group (display names are unique to our group’s web site)
        2. Gives the “subject” and “message” that Bobby compose
        3. Has a link to go to our site to send a reply
    6. Since the message does not have Bobby’s real email address, Jane cannot just use regular email to send a reply. The message’s reply link will send Jane directly back to our site so Jane can send a reply to Bobby. If Jane is already signed in, the link will open a browser page, so Jane can type a reply. If not already signed in, it will first take Jane to a sign in page. 
      1. Note: Jane can reply without using link. Instead, Jane can just open our site in her browser, sign in, click on “Inbox” (which shows that she has a message), find the message and send a reply from there.
      2. Note: If Jane already has Bobby’s regular email address, or if he gives it to her in the body of the message, Jane can just write a message to Bobby using normal email. That may be faster and more convenient than using this private email system
    7. Messages and replies
      1. can be seen by either Bobby or Jane in their respective “inbox”.
      2. are private; they are not visible to any other member, including the site administrator (“Mike the Admin”)
      3. are stored in the WEBS servers and, presumably will persist there until the site is destroyed, or both Bobby and Jane delete them from their own inboxes. Note: there is a portion of the inbox that holds deleted messages. I can’t see a way to restore them to the regular inbox or permanently delete them from the WEBS server. I will ask WEBS to clarify that.  
    8. The privacy policy link for WEBS takes you to a general Google privacy statement page. One should probably assume that anything in a private email message is about as private as Gmail.  I do not know if there is anyway to delete message data from whatever has been passed to Google.
  12. How to: Private Email Messaging: send to another member (Including the admin)
    1. Sign in (see above)
    2. See other members (see above)
    3. See the profile of another member
    4. Click on “Send a message”
    5. A pop-up page will open where you can compose a subject line and message body to that member.
    6. You must also enter a “captcha” at the bottom. NOTE: If the “captcha” says “UNSUPPORTED” at the bottom, that indicates that the site had some kind of problem, but, in my experience, the message will still get sent. You could press the CANCEL button to close the popup, return to the other member’s profile page and try again.
    7. Click “SEND”.
      1. The popup will close
      2. The banner area near the top of the other member’s profile page will show “Successfully sent message”.
      3. An email message will be sent to the other members private email address.
      4. The other member will get an ordinary email message from “[email protected]” The subject line will say “xxx sent you a private message”, where xxx is your profile’s display name. The body of message will say that it comes from the display name of the member who sent it (you) AND the name of our site (Peripheral Neuropathy Support Group of the DC Metro Area).  The body of the message will also have the subject line and body text that you composed.
    8. Note1: display names are unique to the members in our site. That’s why it’s a good idea to upload a photo to your profile, so other members can tell the difference between, say, Bob Jones (Display name “Bobby”) and Bob Smith (display name “Bob”)
    9. Note 2: Privacy
      1. The other member’s email address will not be revealed to you and your own private email address will not be revealed to the other member.
      2. The text of the message is not stored in our PN support site.
      3. The text is likely stored temporarily in a WEBS server (just as it is in your ISP, like Verizon or Comcast), but its privacy policy cites Google, so presumably the data is ultimately stored in a Google server.
    10. Note 3: This system, while private, is a bit too awkward for extensive correspondence – for that just get each other’s email address or phone number and do it the ordinary way!
  13. How to: Private Email Messaging: reply to a private message
    1. Suppose you receive a message in your usual email program
      1. You receive an ordinary email message from “[email protected]” The message will say that it comes from the display name of the member who sent it AND the name of our site (Peripheral Neuropathy Support Group of the DC Metro Area). 
      2. Click (or copy and paste) the message’s reply link -> our site’s browser Sign In page will open
      3. Sign in -> a page will open showing the original message and let you send a reply
    2. Suppose you are already signed in to our site.
      1. Click Inbox -> inbox page will open
      2. Find the message and click on its subject link -> a page will open showing the original message and let you send a reply.
  14. How to: post a comment on a blog post
    1. Sign In
    2. Go to the Blog page
    3. Find the blog entry you want to comment on. At the top above the post text is a link that says “Comments”
    4. Clink on the Comments link -> a new version of the blog page will open that just has that single post and any comments it has and, at the bottom, will be a place for you to enter a comment.
    5. Click Post Comment
  15. How to: use a private page (like the Member Stuff page)
    1. Click on the Member Stuff link
    2. If you are already signed in, the Member Stuff page will open
    3. If you are not Signed In, the Sign In page will open, you can sign in and the Member Stuff page will open
    4. Currently, the Member Stuff page is essentially empty, so… We’ll see what we can use this for in the future.