Hi everyone.

A few of our newer members have suggested to us that it might be an idea to start a running FAQ on how to use this site. We have made every effort to make the site easy to use but understand that sometimes there are aspects for which a little explanation helps. Firstly, here's a quick resume of how the site works.

Forums

This site is split into static bits (i.e. the front page and so on) and an interactive bit (the forums and articles). A forum is a place where you can ask questions on a specific subset of topics. For instance, we have a forum for General, into which you can post anything which you can't easily categorise, but if possible you should post to the most appropriate forum - for instance, if you have a question which you think has relevance to the entire membership of CallCentreVoice, then post it into the 'Call Centre Answers' forum and so on. In the main forums page you'll see that we have a short description of what sorts of topics each forum is intended to cover.

Topics

Topics live within a single forum. Each topic will then appear under that forum's view - for instance, this one appears under the 'General' forum. Topics can only be created by registered members but can be read by anyone.
You can create a topic by clicking on the 'New Topic' button at the top right hand corner of the forum view. This will take you to a page with 'Subject', 'Category' and 'Comment' fields.

The Subject field

This is where you would type a general description for your topic - it's what will be displayed in the forum view and the various latest/most popular/unified posts' views. It'll only allow so many characters and might be truncated in certain views.

The Category field

This is a drop-down list which allows you to categorise a new post more specifically - for instance, in the 'General' forum, we currently can categorise by things like 'Information', 'Bug or problem', 'Question', 'Useful Tip' and so on. When you're posting a new topic, you should select the most appropriate category for the topic. Our software stores topics and posts in a sophisticated relational database, and using these categories allows us to fine tune how they are stored and also allows the contents of this site to be more fully catalogued by search engines such as Google and Yahoo.

The Comment field

This is a textbox which allows you to type in your question. It's fairly unrestricted, although it's fairly good community ettiquette to keep the posts fairly short - i.e. under a couple of pages in the 'comment' field. You can put in html code in here - instructions will follow - and you can also put in spaces and newline characters.

At the bottom of the comment field, you'll also see a checkbox for email notifications. This allows you to specify whether a 'notification' is sent to your private email inbox when someone replies to your question. You can manage your email notifications from a page off of the profile editor.

It's easy to reply to a topic if you are a registered member of CallCentreVoice, although if you haven't registered, or if you have but aren't logged on, you won't be able to reply until you are logged in.

Replying is simple - you select the topic you are interested in (within any of the various views on the website) and click on its hyperlink. This will take you to its page, and you can then press the 'Post Reply' button.

This will take you to a similar page to the new topic view, but of course you will be adding a reply to the end of the topic rather than creating a new one. There is no limit to the number of replies a topic may have. The reply to topic view also contains a preview of the existing topic (plus any replies) which is displayed below the input fields (as 'Existing Topic Text' - a quick link allows you to jumpt straight to this section). None of the normal links are enabled in the 'existing topic text' preview.

Once you'd typed in your reply (bearing in mind that the subject line will be used as your reply's subject, not the topic's subject), you can either add it straight away or preview it before confirming. We recommend using the preview button to anyone who intends on using any html within their post.

When you add a topic, you will be directed to a confirmation page, and from there you can either navigate back to the forums view or view the reply you just entered.

As you might have guessed, it's currently possible to put what we call 'inline' html code within either a new topic or a reply to an existing topic.

Please use this facility with caution, and always double check with the Preview option where possible. Be especially careful to close tags. If any posts are added with badly formed HTML, they will be removed.

How to add a Hyperlink

Use the following format:
<a href="http://www.callcentrevoice.com" target=_new>link name</a>

It is recommended that you copy and paste this example directly into your reply and change the url and the link name.

How to emphasise something with Bold or Italic text

Use the following format and DON'T forget to close the tags!

<b>BOLD TEXT</b> (which looks like this)
<b>ITALIC TEXT</b> (which looks like this)

...any more advanced html is used at your own risk - if you muck it up we may be forced to remove your post, so use inline html with caution and where possible always use the preview facility which we have supplied.

John

As the site approaches 2500 members and continues to grow, we thought we would reiterate what is and isn't allowed on the site in terms of advertising.

Background
The site originally provided unrestricted advertising, and acceptable use was left to the judgement of the CallCentreVoice members. However, as the site grew we found that too many people were using the site solely to add adverts. So, earlier in 2002 we proposed that the advertising be restricted to a single advert per member per month.

What is allowed
No advertising is permitted in any forum unless we are convinced thati t is directly relevant to the issue at hand. This is rare!

We reserve the right to delete or quarantine any advert that we find to be irrelevant or of little value to the CallCentreVoice membership. If you have posted an advert and you find that it has vanished - it may have been quarantined or removed. Other reasons that a post may be removed might be due to age (old adverts are occasionally culled to reduce the server storage costs, though this isn't a regular thing) or duplication. We also may remove any adverts by any member who hasn't contributed constructively to our core forums (though this is taken on a case-by-case basis) and we also will remove any adverts which purport to any activities which we deem to promote 'dubious practice' within the industry. This may include list sales, bulk non opt-in lead sales and so on, plus any 'get rich quick' campaigns or products/services which we deem to be controversial and/or making dubious claims without providing verified facts.

We want everyone to remember that this is a discussion community with the primary goal of intelligent discussion on call centre, contact centre and customer service matters without the 'noise' which plagues our fellow communities. Remember that the ability to post ads is a priviledge, not a right.


Spam from members
Unsolicited email or contact of members by advertisers is disallowed. If this happens to you, let us know and we'll deal with it. We introduced 'VoiceMail so that members can communicate without having to disclose their real email addresses. However, some of you append your email addresses at the end of your posts, and as we're visible to web-bots, search engines and (sadly) email-address harvesters, this is one way to flag yourself for unsolicited email. We cannot be held responsible under these circumstances.

Legal disclaimer
To all those who are replying to any other members' posts or 'VoiceMails. Please note that we can not be held responsible for the legitimacy of any adverts or claims which appear on this forum. Please ensure that you do a full search on the company before you agree to any transactions.

Okay, them's the rules. Play by them and you'll be fine. Break them and we will have words!

[Edited by John Clark, 10/1/2005]

Just to bump to the top.

DaveA