Using the network -- finding topics of interest
Finding things in the online network
Hi all, a few people have asked me lately 'how can I find information on xxxx'. So here's another quick 'using the network' tip.
The online network is mostly set up to help you find people. But you can also find topic-based information and conversations when that's what you want. There are two easy ways to do this (okay, three if we count the website pages 
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- the site search
- user-generated tags
- the site map (static pages only)
Site search
Site search is easy because you can type in the exact words or phrases you're interested in, for example: 'chemotherapy' or 'chemotherapy hair loss'. The search will try to find pages that include any of the words you put in, and list them in order of most likely match (at the top) to least likely (at the bottom).
The search bar is located above the main navigation strip, where it says 'start your search here'.
Have a try!
Try typing chemotherapy into the search bar, then click 'go' (or hit 'enter' on your keyboard). You'll see there are more than nine pages of results.
Now add more words (try: chemotherapy hair loss), you'll get less results because the search engine is only showing pages that contain all of your words.
Now try putting inverted commas around your words: "chemotherapy hair loss" and you'll only get four results. That's because the search is now trying to match that exact phrase.
User-generated tags
Whenever you make a blog post, you have the option to add a 'tag'. Tags are an alternate form of navigation to the built in site navigation and reflect what different users think about when they create their content (such as a blog post). People don't always use a tag that reflects the topic of the post, they sometimes use a tag that expresses their emotion, such as 'ranting' or 'happy' or 'exhausted'. Sometimes they do both.
The back end of the site changes your typed tag into a link and associates it with every other post that also uses that tag. So, if you click on a tag, you can see a list of all of the posts that use that tag. To see all of the tags people have used in the entire network, go to the tag list: http://www.bcna.org.au/node/all/blog/network/tag.
To add more than one tag to a post, just put a comma in between words. One thing to watch out for when you add a tag - if you misspell or mistype your tag, it won't come up with others (eg. Tamoxifen). If that happens, you can edit your post and fix the misspelling.
Have a try!
Click on the 'tips' tag at the bottom of this post and you will see all of the other posts that have been made and have used the tag 'tips'.
The site map
The site map automatically updates every time a new page is added to the website. You can find it here: http://www.bcna.org.au/sitemap.
There's also a link right up the top of every page.
That's it from me - if you have any questions feel free to ask in the comments, and if you have a tip of your own definitely feel free to write a new blog post in this group -- the more the better! But only if you don't forget to add the 'tips' tag!
Comments
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Why, when I click on http://www.bcna.org.au/user/register it says access denied? Have I already joined the network already? I'm used to online forums and blogs and e-learning sites, yet this one seems to need me to learn even more new skills... just when I have been hit with the Big C...
I have started a thread and made replies, but where do I see the full list of threads? Or do I have to navigate through the tags? BTW, your description of tags (above) does not actually say how to make a tag - do you click somewhere, or prefix with a hash, or what?
So no major dramas but hope others will be helped if I speak up on these little niggles, :-)
Hugs,
Anne
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Why, when I click on http://www.bcna.org.au/user/register it says access denied? Have I already joined the network already? I'm used to online forums and blogs and e-learning sites, yet this one seems to need me to learn even more new skills... just when I have been hit with the Big C...
I have started a thread and made replies, but where do I see the full list of threads? Or do I have to navigate through the tags? BTW, your description of tags (above) does not actually say how to make a tag - do you click somewhere, or prefix with a hash, or what?
So no major dramas but hope others will be helped if I speak up on these little niggles, :-)
Hugs,
Anne
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Hi Anne -- happy to help, don't ever hesitate if you have questions, as you say the answers will probably help others, too!
The page you're trying to click on is the 'register' page, but you'll get that 'access denied' message if you're already registered. To get into the network from the website homepage, just click on the green button at the top right of the page that is labelled 'network home'. Then you should see your own pink profile box a little bit down the page on the right-hand side (if you're not logged in, it will give you some login fields). I agree the 'access denied' message isn't very helpful as a message, we have it in our queue of things for the developers to fix.
For information about how the site works, the best place to start is the site's Help page and Q&A page (there's a link to these up the top of every network page, just under the main navigation on the right of the page). The Help page will also give you the link to the All Posts page as well, if you lose it (there's another link on the network homepage, in the main panel) .
This site is a little bit closer to Facebook, than to topic-based forums, because our aim was primarily to help people connect with each other first, rather than have a topic-based forum. So if you go to your own 'home' page, you'll see a list of recent posts of people you've connected to there (a bit like your facebook newsfeed, if you're familiar with that).
To add a tag -- when you make a new blog post, you'll see a field right up the top labelled 'tags' right under the Title field. It has a little bit of help text under it just letting you know to use commas to separate each one, then they'll all be clickable. We're thinking of having a 'tags' week soon, to get everyone going with tagging posts, because it's a really useful way to find topics of interest.
To find all the tags other people have used, go to the All Posts page, and you'll see a panel on the right side under your pink profile box labelled 'Filter by tag'. If you click on the little 'more' link, it will take you to this page, where you can see all of the tags.
Hope that helps, Anne -- just ask again if anything doesn't make sense.
~Di
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Thanks Di!
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