This document is to help you learn your way around the PC World community. We realize that this platform is probably different than most communities you have participated in. This guide has been created to give you an overview of the basic functions of the community.

The PC World community is based on Jive Software's ClearspaceX platform, and this document references version 1.4 of the platform.

Differences from the previous PC World community

Besides being an entirely new platform, there are some major differences in the layout of the forums. First, the PC World site navigation on the left side of the page is gone, replaced by a community-specific navigation. There is also additional community-specific navigation across the top of the page, under the PC World header and horizontal ad. The vertical ad on the right side of the page is also gone, allowing the community full width of the page.

Content Types

There are now three content types within the community - discussions (forums), blogs, and wikis (documents). The content type is indicated throughout the community by the icons and color scheme - silver speech bubbles (and silver blue) for discussions, green circle (and green) for blogs, and a yellow page (and yellow) for documents.

Communities

What we used to call a "forum" is called "community" in Clearspace. These are individual topic areas. The communities are listed along the left side, and are mostly the same as they were in the previous PC World forum. Each community contains its own discussion forum, blog, and array of wiki documents. Content can be linked across communities by tags.

Top Members

Underneath the list of communities, is a list of "top members". Members are ranked according to their point totals, and members with the highest rank are listed here with their avatar and rank icon. Top members in the entire community are listed on the home page, while top members in individual topic communities are listed on those community pages.

Popular Tags

Underneath the list of top members is a tag cloud. This lists the popular tags from around the entire PC World community (and in specific topic communities on those pages). The larger the font, the more popular the tag. You may click on any tag to see a list of all content tagged with that word or phrase.

"What's New" Page -- The Community Home Page

The "what's new" page lists everything that has been posted to the community in reverse chronological order, meaning that the newest items are on the top. Each item has an icon next to it, so you can quickly identify it by its content type. It is also date stamped with how long ago it was posted, and well as where it was posted (and a link to it). The username of the person who posted it is listed (and the username is linked to their profile), along with that person's avatar. You can filter this list by content type, or create a custom view that lists content from certain forums that are of interest to you.

There are similar pages within each of the communities, listing the content that is new within that particular community.

Top Navigation

On the top of every page is a horizontal navigation designed to help you get around quickly and efficiently. From this list, you may create New content, see Your Stuff (including your profile, your preferences, your open questions, and content you have created), see your History (items you have recently viewed, or Browse (blogs, documents, discussions, tags, people or communities).

Inside a Community

When you click into a community, you will see a tabbed interface that will give you an overview of all content in the community, a "what's new" list for the community, or you may go straight to the discussions, blog or documents for that community.

To create content, select the appropriate link from the "Actions" menu on the right side -- create a discussion, create a document, create a blog post.

For more detailed information on specific content types, search for items tagged with that content type. For all documents relating to the platform, search for the tag "clearspace".