Helpful Hints for using the Mythsinger Consortium

WELCOME MYTHSINGERS!
Our Consortium continues to grow and add more content. Thank you all for helping create this burgeoning resource and community. Below you’ll find some basic descriptions of some of the features available. Membership is free; if you can make a donation of any size it will help keep the site online and growing. Your support is vital (there is a donation window on the right side of the page with an online donation system for credit card and the address for sending by post).
If you have any trouble please contact me through the consortium or email info@mythsinger.org

As you look at videos, photos & art please take a moment to give a rating (1-5 stars) this will help keep the main page more fluid and reflective of what members like.

In the groups and the blogs we welcome wild thinking, visions, and ideas, as one member aptly put it “mad men and mad women working at the edge of our thinking.”
What we most desire is the generous and generative interplay of the ensouling mythic imagination. Whether we speak of delights, passions and ecstasies, or the dreadful, sorrowful, and grief laden events of life and death, let us attempt to bring an imagination and intelligence that is conducive to forming relationships and collaborations.
With the helpful hints below it will should become a bit easier to navigate without losing the sense of wandering in some strange, mysterious, and unknown territory.
With Blessings from the Edge in gratitude
Daniel Deardorff


USING THE FEATURES OF THE MYTHSINGER CONSORTIUM
The following will not answer all your questions but it will give you an overview and some helpful information on what is what and how to use it.

FOCUS GROUPS
Joining a group is a great way to get involved right away. The focus groups are where most of the action on the Consortium takes place. To join an existing group, go to the Focus Groups tab. You can browse existing groups by most active, or sort them by latest activity, most members, or latest created. Just choose your option from the "Sort by" menu. Once you find an interesting group, click on its title. If the group is public, there will be a link in the top right of the page to join the group. If the group is private, you can apply to join the group from the group's page and the group moderator will most likely approve your request.

To create a group, go to the Focus Groups tab and click the link at the top right of the page to "Add a group." Next, fill in information about your group. Give your group a name and be sure to upload a group image that's roughly square in size. Fill out a description for your group, which members will see when looking for groups to join. If your group has another website, or a location, you can add it here!

In the right side of the page, choose which features your group will have. You can add a comment wall, discussion forum, text box, and RSS reader to your group.

Don't forget to choose the privacy settings for your group! You can allow anyone to join, or you can moderate membership. If you choose to moderate membership, new members will have to apply to join and you'll be able to review their request before they can join. You can allow members to invite other people to join and allow people to request membership if you'd like. If you turn off both of these options, the group will be invite-only - and you'll be the only one who can send invites to join the group. Invite-only is a great option if yu are teaching a class and want to have the group consist of enrolled students only.

Finally, choose whether or not members of your group can send broadcast messages to the whole group.

Click "Add Group" and your focus group will be submitted for approval by the site administrators. In most cases if the group is in line with the intention of the Consortium your Focus Group will be approved.


COMMENTS
Comments are a quick and easy way to interact with other members on the Consortium. Comments are short notes, including text, hyperlinks and images, that you can leave on any photo, video or blog post on the Consortium, or on any member's profile page. Comments are NOT PRIVATE, they are great for content that you don't mind other members of the Consortium seeing — like a note on someone's profile page thanking them for joining your group, or a comment on a video letting the person who uploaded it know you appreciated it.

SEND A MESSAGE
The “Send A Message” feature to allows you to send and receive messages with other members of the Consortium without giving out your email address. You can access your inbox and send messages by logging in to the Consortium. For private information — like notes you might NOT want the whole Consortium to see — private messages are a great way to go. You can send private messages to anyone you are friends with on the network. You can also exchange private messages with the Consortium creator and administrator, even if you are not friends.

TO SEND A PRIVATE MESSAGE, click the "Inbox" link in the right column of the Mythsinger Consortium. Click the "Compose" link. You can enter people by email address in the "To" field, or click the "Choose from friends" link to select someone from your friends list. To send a message to the Consortium creator/administrator, even if you are not friends, go to their profile page and click the "Send a Message" link.

FRIENDS
If you find someone on the Consortium you'd like to be able to send private messages to or invite to your groups or events, you can add them as your friend. You can even add a note on your friend request to them. Once you add them as a friend, they'll receive a notification that you'd like to be friends. They can then choose to accept the friend requests, or ignore the it.
To send a friend request to someone on the Consortium, go to their profile page. Click the "Add as friend" link under their profile photo. A confirmation window will pop up. If you'd like to add a note to your friend request, click the "Add a personal message" link. Some people don't feel comfortable accepting friend requests from people they don't know, so this is a great way to let them know how you might know each other or why you'd like to be friends.

HOW DO I WITHDRAW A FRIEND REQUEST? It happens! Sometimes you need to withdraw a friend request. Here's how to do it:
1. Click on "My Friends" in the in the right column of the Mythsinger Consortium:
3. You will see a list of people you've sent friend requests to.
4. Click the "Withdraw" button next to the person you no longer want to invite to be your friend.
The friend request will no longer be active.

BLOGS
Your profile page on the Consortium comes equipped with your own blog (web log) on the Consortium. Your blog is something like your own personal news column, and you can write about anything you want. The blog posts can are chock-full of embedded videos and rich text, and the Consortium's members continue the conversation in their comments. Blog posts are a great way to share stories and express yourself right on your profile page. While threads in the Consortium forum are about community discussion, your blog is about you and your work. To get started, go to your profile page and locate the "Blog Posts" module in the middle column. Click the "Add a Blog Post" link. You can add text, links, images, and files to your blog post using the blog editor toolbar. You can also select the privacy of your blog post to allow anyone on the Consortium to view it, just your friends on the Consortium, or just you.

MY PAGE
When you join a The Mythsinger Consortium, you create your own profile page on the network. One of the easiest ways to get started is to make your profile page your own - add a profile photo, change the appearance of your page, and add some content. Let people know what you're about! Check out the guides below for a few things you can do to customize your profile page.

CHANGE YOUR PAGE'S THEME
Your “My Page” automatically takes the Consortium theme and appearance settings. But you can change the theme and appearance. There are a number of appearance themes available to you, ranging from simple color schemes to advanced themes. You can apply any of these standard default themes to your profile page.
To change your profile page's theme, go to your profile page and click the "Change Theme" link underneath your profile photo. This is a setting that Network Creators can turn off, so if you don't see the "Change Theme" link under your profile photo on your page, it's likely the Network Creator has turned off this ability.
In the top portion of the page, you can browse through the themes currently available and test them out on your profile page.
You can further customize your page's appearance by changing the font and colors of the theme you've chosen. Select the theme you'd like to customize and scroll to the "Theme Settings" section of the page.
You can change the font style, color, and size, change the colors of your theme, and upload your own header background. The header background image you upload here will appear in the top section of your page, above the tabs, and will stretch to fit the area. It will replace the Consortium's header background, but not the Consortium name (or logo, if one has been uploaded).

CHANGE THE LAYOUT OF YOUR PROFILE PAGE
You can rearrange the layout of your profile page and place the features however you'd like. Using this option, you can highlight your favorite feature on your profile page - maybe you've uploaded a few awesome new photos or wrote a blog post you want people to see when they first land on your page. Just drag that feature to the top of the middle column and visitors will see it right away! To move content around on your profile page, head to your “My Page” and locate the feature you'd like to move. Put your mouse in the title bar of that box. If it can be moved, a small crosshair icon will appear to the left of it. Click and drag the box to its new location. Drop the box where you'd like it to be, and keep going until you have the perfect layout! Some elements on your My Page - like your profile photo, basic information, and the My Friends box - can't be moved, but other than that have fun!

USE YOUR TEXT BOX
One of the easiest things you can do to make your profile page your own is add content to your text box. Text boxes are one of the most flexible features on the Consortium, and you can add anything you'd like to the text box on your My Page - including text, images, widgets, and links. You can combine text, video, links, and images all in one text box in the center column of your My Page. It's just another way to make your My Page unique. Your text box will stretch to fit the content you place in it, so get creative! Click “add text” or the “edit” button, notice that a row of tool icons appear at the top of the text area. These tools can be used to style the text, add graphics, or turn text into an active link. To make a link select the text, e.g., your name or organization and then click the “chain link” tool icon—then a window will pop open and you can type or paste the URL, e.g., http://www.mydomain.com/