Welcome! Getting Started

Hello!

This is a general group to help out first timers. If you haven't already, go back and click the "Join Now" button to get started, then come on back here!

Very importantly, please go over our Community Policy. If this type of social web stuff is new to you, check out the GETTING STARTED VIDEOS!

Next, if you haven't already, please fill out your user profile and say a little something about yourself - and don't forget to add a profile photo / image - don't be the gray blob! Color adds vibrancy to our community!

Within Soul Cafe, most content is created within the context of a "Group". Start exploring how to use our online community by:

• Viewing a list of all the groups on this site. (Note: Only this demonstration group exists by default.)
• Creating a new group of your own. Before you do, you might want to find an image / graphic for identification use on the group's home page - You can download images for both your avatar (you'll probably need to size this) and for the main group image / graphic. Perhaps a logo, or ..?

Once you've created your group, start building your community by creating various kinds of content.  Drupal Commons lets members of a group create:

• Discussions.  A discussion is just that: Somebody starts a relevant dialogue within a group. It can be a thought, idea, or question. Others can then comment on the initial post. Comments are "threaded" so you can comment on a comment.
• Documents. If you want to store attached documents that are useful for a group, create a Document in the "Actions Box" at the top right of every group, describe the attachment in the body of the page, and then attach the files you want.
• Events. If you have a special thing happening on a given day/time, create an "Event" describing it. These events will show up on the Calendar tab of a group home page.
• Group RSS feed. If there is interesting content coming from outside this site that you want your group to track, pull that content in as an RSS feed to the site.

There's more to building an online community than the technology; it's the people & participation that make a community work. This set of content types should give you all the choices you need to start sharing at Soul Cafe.

Read more about what Soul Cafe is, how it works, and why it benefits the Church!