Watch List

Look to the left side of your screen and find the box labeled "my watch list". Click on "add". This workspace, "A Brief Tour of omidyar.net" is now in the list along with "Start Here". These will appear no matter where you are so each time you finish a task, or if you get lost, you can click on one to find your way back.

Tool Bars

Note that there are two tool bars on this page. The green tool bar at the top references places to go in the larger network. The brown tool bar references places to go within the Small Pond group (or whatever group you happen to be visiting.)

People and Profiles

Click on the "People" tab in the green tool bar. You have a list of the most active and the newest members. Review the lists on the other tabs in the tool bar. Click on one of the most active member's names. You are now in that member's profile. If you wanted to send a private message to that member, you would click on the "send a message to this user" in the brown tool bar of the profile. If you wanted to give this user "feedback points" you would click on the green "give feedback" in the first line of their profile. Scroll down and you will see a list of comments that user has made in discussions and the workspaces that user has edited.

Home, Groups, and Discussions

Next, click on the "Group" tab in the green tool bar. Select a group that interests you and scroll down to the list of "most recent" and "highest rated" discussions. (You can add a comment to most discussions without joining the related group.) Click on a discussion and read as much as you want.

If you want to add a comment, go to the last page, scroll to the end, and find the "add a comment" box, type in your comment and click on the "Preview" box. If you like your comment, click on the "Save" box. Now click on the time and date next to your name on the comment. You can now edit your comment by clicking on the "edit" function in the brown tool bar.

A great place for your first post can be found by clicking on Introduce yourself.

Workspaces

You can add to workspaces by clicking on the "edit" function in the brown tool bar. Try listing your name in the People workspace in the Community General Group. (Most groups require you to join by clicking the "Join this Group" box before you can edit a workspace. However, since everyone is automatically a member of the Community General group you can go ahead and edit.) Click on the green "People" in the preceding sentence. Read the instructions for adding your name. Click on "edit" in the brown bar. Scroll down to your country or state. Put the cursor in the space where your name fits alphabetically. Use the "Enter" key to make two additional lines and put the cursor on the middle line. Enter your name in the following format `David Braden`_ (the back tick is on the key with the ~ on the far left of the number line. The back ticks surround your name and that is followed by an underscore - see "Punctuation Help" below for more information) and the city where you live. Scroll to the bottom and click on the "Save" box.

What's New and Popular

On the green tool bar, click on the "what's new" tab and then the "popular" tab. The "what's new" tab gives you a list of contributions to omidyar.net, starting with the most recent. You use the brown bar to specify the type of new items shown - only "personal news" for example. The "popular" tab gives you a list of those topics that have received the most positive feedback - or have been read or added to the watch list of most members. Again, the brown bar let's you specify what type of items to see. Select a topic and click on it.

More about the column on the left

When you are in any workspace or discussion, you can click on the word "Add" under "my watch list" and that location will be added. It will appear in bold every time someone else updates it.

Now click on "A brief tour . . ." in your watch list which will bring you back here. Now, on the left hand side of the screen, find the box labeled "footprints". The discussion you just visited will be listed there and clicking on the name of the discussion there will take you back to the discussion. At the bottom of the column on the left is a list of all the members who are currently logged in.

Search

At the top right corner of each page on omidyar.net is a search box. Use the pull down to limit your search in a variety of ways - including within a particular group you've joined. Try entering a couple of key words for a topic of interest to you.

Happy Navigation!