Newpie Introduction Guide

**Chris** · January 18, 2015

As a new member to the Pride of Nottingham community, you will no doubt be greeted with a message welcoming you to the site - upon our friendly members noticing you may see a personal welcome topic posted.

When visiting the site there is a lot going on with the site, and PON is a thriving hub for fans to catch up with the latest news. We regularly post articles, blogs, have fan galleries and a video system - there is also plenty of information and a friendly community so it's easy to get lost or distracted.

You may find yourself feeling unsure about how best to use the site.

It's always great to see Newpies join our community and we would actively encourage you to get involved.

If you feel comfortable, why not start your own topic in the introduction section - unless a member has welcomed you then you could simply say hello and share some information about yourself as a fan.

Beneath our News Ticker, you will see your user information and a row of icons.

Immediately, you will see your chosen username with an arrow pointing down.

You can access your account information with this area, such as your profile, file attachments, managed followed content, account settings, the ability to ignore users and signing out.

To the right of that you will see the + icon with the 'Create' options.

You can start a new discussion by clicking that, then choosing '+ topic'. Please ensure you look thoroughly at the options so that your discussion will be noticed by members looking within the right section.

PON also has a notification system which you can fine tune to your liking, these updates will alert you to various things from a mention to if someone has quoted your comments. There are a wide range of notifications covering all sorts of things, so please do check out what you have setup by default here.

We also have an inbuilt personal message system, which we welcome all members using.

You can then set your mood and background, choose from the two remaining icons on the userbar. To the far right, you will see the search function. You can use this to find content across the site, just define your search term by using the title or key words and the system should find what you seek.

Following forums and topics will alert of any updated content, so please do ensure you click that 'follow' icon to receive these notifications.

Subscribe to following a forum:

Subscribe to following a topic:

Also, you can quickly find all the latest content by visiting our 'All Activity' page, this is a great way to discover the latest content across the whole of the PON site.

Useful Pages:

PON's homepage - this is where all the latest articles and featured content will be found.

The Pride of Nottingham Dashboard - view all the site at a glance, from all the content and various information any member would need to know.

Unread Content - Find unread content quickly by using this page to see what's new or unseen.

Content I Started - Keep up-to-date with the content that you have started by using this page.

The Forum Index - See the overview of the hub of the Pride of Nottingham community here.

Please note that all five pages are well worth bookmarking folks! You could even create a folder to put all the useful PON links in to keep your browser tidy!

It's always recommend to explore the site, even if you are an experienced member you could find something new or useful just by searching! The site is full of information and more gets added daily.

You may wish to update your profile at some stage, you can add a display picture and cover image here too.

Along with adding all the useful information by simply clicking the 'Edit Profile' tab.

Point 1: Edit Profile.

Point 2: Upload a Cover Photo.

Point 3: Change or upload your Display Picture.

I have also written two blogs which I would encourage new members to read, however you might like to dive straight into sharing your views and thoughts. We would also like to see you sharing your opinion, so please bookmark this page and read when you feel is best.

Getting used to "PoN 101 #basics" and Getting used to PoN 101 #community

At some stage, I aim to write a new blog about useful hidden features! Stay tuned for that.

Hopefully this explains a little and is useful for your experience to using the Pride of Nottingham community.

Congratulations, you have now graduated from PON University!

Northants Pie · January 18, 2015

Very good mate, maybe you should (I have no idea how you would do this) have this page as the automatic next destination once people have signed up for the first time, also maybe consider sticking this into someones profile so that they / all of us have this as a reference guide?

Feral Fox · January 18, 2015

Reads well. When I saw ...getting used to the PoN community blog, I thought it was a health warning about some of the characters on here (mentioning no names @PTID1862!)