The Circle/A Ted Dekker Community
The official online community of New York Times best-selling author Ted Dekker.
FYIs: Things You'll Want To Know!
Because this site and the old are vastly different from each other (which you've obviously noticed), here are a couple basic things you should know to get you started.
1.) You can't send someone a message unless you've made them a friend. You can comment on their page (if it is not private), or you can try to get ahold of them in the chat room.
2.) Because there is a chat room/application, there is no chat thread/discussion. Any and all chat threads will be deleted.
3.) Sometimes the chat cuts off the last line of your message. If there's only one word on the 2nd line, it will cut it off. After the 2nd line, it may cut off a few words. Ning is aware of the issue and (hopefully) working on it.
4.) You only have 15 minutes to edit your posts. After that, it's locked in.
5.) You can use most standard HTML tags in your posts. If you know HTML, this will make you happy. If you don't, the basics are pretty easy, and the toolbar at the top of the text box to add a post will help you out, giving you options for bold, italics, underlining, adding links, and adding pictures. The old board used [] tags (like [i] for italics). HTML uses <> instead of [].
6.) If you reply to a specific post, it will include quoted text with HTML tags.
< cite >indicates the person you're quoting.
< blockquote >includes the actual text and will indent it.
< div >marks the actual text for further formatting (like adding color). So changing it to < div style="color:red" > would make the quoted text red.
If you're confused about it, don't touch it, or delete it all. You can always try and edit it (for 15 minutes) if it doesn't work.
7.) This page uses some new terms for forums and threads and such. Here's the breakdown:
8.) The "Ban" feature is unforgiving. It will automatically delete all your posts and your customizations. Essentially, it wipes you from existence. So, don't do ban-able things. You won't like it. But on the plus side, it will give you a chance to start over with a completely clean slate.
9.) Questions Beyond Belief and Anything And Everything have been retired. They were old and have served their time. The following 3 categories have been created to take over:
Open For Discussion - Anything that is discussion worthy, from spiritual topics to relationships to news and politics.
The Playroom - Anything that is light-hearted, chit-chat, more about ourselves, or more "short answer" in nature. So, things about our pets or pet peeves or things that make us happy. Game discussions also go here. There is currently not a limit for game discussions, but don't get crazy about it.
Further clarification on differentiation between OFD and TP:
"Are you homeschooled?" would go in TP. "What do you think about homeschooling versus public or private education" would go in OFD.
The Upper Room - For something more like spiritual sharing. Prayers and requests, testimonies, praises, Bible verses or other things God is speaking to us.
So, there are a few things to get you started and caught up with what things look like and how things are different on the new site. The mods are here and available as tour guides, as well as a few others who've helped us test and get things started for you. Have fun. :)
1.) You can't send someone a message unless you've made them a friend. You can comment on their page (if it is not private), or you can try to get ahold of them in the chat room.
2.) Because there is a chat room/application, there is no chat thread/discussion. Any and all chat threads will be deleted.
3.) Sometimes the chat cuts off the last line of your message. If there's only one word on the 2nd line, it will cut it off. After the 2nd line, it may cut off a few words. Ning is aware of the issue and (hopefully) working on it.
4.) You only have 15 minutes to edit your posts. After that, it's locked in.
5.) You can use most standard HTML tags in your posts. If you know HTML, this will make you happy. If you don't, the basics are pretty easy, and the toolbar at the top of the text box to add a post will help you out, giving you options for bold, italics, underlining, adding links, and adding pictures. The old board used [] tags (like [i] for italics). HTML uses <> instead of [].
6.) If you reply to a specific post, it will include quoted text with HTML tags.
< cite >indicates the person you're quoting.
< blockquote >includes the actual text and will indent it.
< div >marks the actual text for further formatting (like adding color). So changing it to < div style="color:red" > would make the quoted text red.
If you're confused about it, don't touch it, or delete it all. You can always try and edit it (for 15 minutes) if it doesn't work.
7.) This page uses some new terms for forums and threads and such. Here's the breakdown:
| Old Name | New Name |
| Board | Forum |
| Forum | Category |
| Thread | Discussion |
| Post | Post |
8.) The "Ban" feature is unforgiving. It will automatically delete all your posts and your customizations. Essentially, it wipes you from existence. So, don't do ban-able things. You won't like it. But on the plus side, it will give you a chance to start over with a completely clean slate.
9.) Questions Beyond Belief and Anything And Everything have been retired. They were old and have served their time. The following 3 categories have been created to take over:
Open For Discussion - Anything that is discussion worthy, from spiritual topics to relationships to news and politics.
The Playroom - Anything that is light-hearted, chit-chat, more about ourselves, or more "short answer" in nature. So, things about our pets or pet peeves or things that make us happy. Game discussions also go here. There is currently not a limit for game discussions, but don't get crazy about it.
Further clarification on differentiation between OFD and TP:
"Are you homeschooled?" would go in TP. "What do you think about homeschooling versus public or private education" would go in OFD.
The Upper Room - For something more like spiritual sharing. Prayers and requests, testimonies, praises, Bible verses or other things God is speaking to us.
So, there are a few things to get you started and caught up with what things look like and how things are different on the new site. The mods are here and available as tour guides, as well as a few others who've helped us test and get things started for you. Have fun. :)
Tags: fyi
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Beloved Mod on -
Oh, about the chat, you'll also want to know that if you go back and edit text in the middle of your message, if you send the message with the cursor still in the middle, it'll cut that word out. Move the cursor to the end of your text, then send the message, and all will be happy.
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Permalink Reply by Modservant on -
Bump.
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Permalink Reply by Beloved Mod on
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I have a couple more things for you.
If you're wanting to know what colors you can use in the font tag, this website has a color pallet (about halfway down), and when you mouseover the color, it will show you the name. That way you don't have to learn color codes (like #ff0000 for red) but have more colors to choose from.
And my personal favorite, which I encourage everyone to use when you're linking to a site that is not teddekker.com, is to make your links open up in a new window/tab. Here's how you do it:
<a href="http://some.url.here" target="_blank">Linked Text to Click On</a>
This is what I did in my link above, to the color pallet. Isn't it wonderful? You have the window with the colors open, and are still in td.com and can put them to use.
If you do this, there will be joy and happiness. At least for me. I generally don't want to click on a link and end up in a different website. I want to stay at teddekker.com and have other window open up when I click on a link.
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Permalink Reply by C_A_DeeJay on -
Beloved Mod said:I have a couple more things for you.
If you're wanting to know what colors you can use in the font tag, this website has a color pallet (about halfway down), and when you mouseover the color, it will show you the name. That way you don't have to learn color codes (like #ff0000 for red) but have more colors to choose from.
And my personal favorite, which I encourage everyone to use when you're linking to a site that is not teddekker.com, is to make your links open up in a new window/tab. Here's how you do it:
<a href="http://some.url.here" target="_blank">Linked Text to Click On</a>
This is what I did in my link above, to the color pallet. Isn't it wonderful? You have the window with the colors open, and are still in td.com and can put them to use.
If you do this, there will be joy and happiness. At least for me. I generally don't want to click on a link and end up in a different website. I want to stay at teddekker.com and have other window open up when I click on a link.
of course, you could just right click and press 'open in new window' or 'open in new tab as well....
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Permalink Reply by Gregg (Admin) on -
You can go to the Meet The Staff thread, or you can click on the "Members" page and the Mods are all the featured members (as well as Ted Dekker)
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Permalink Reply by KC on -
Yeah, and don't forget to press "View All". For some reason I, (Modservant) don't show up on the first page with the rest of them.
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Permalink Reply by RETS on -
I thought I'd seen a thread for people to post up their new handles if they'd changed them... Because I'm trying to find the original writers of "Words of Our Testimonies," this would be a great help!!
Otherwise, could I have one of the mods or Gregg send me a PM? Thanks!!
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Permalink Reply by KC on
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Here you go, RETS.
http://thecircle.teddekker.com/forum/topics/the-official-new-userna...
It's in the Playroom for some reason.
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I don't think so. However, we need to have choice to truly do good. Why else would there have been a forbidden tree in the garden of Eden. So, we don't need to see evil, we just have to have the option of choosing it.
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