You can contribute to this site through the social networking core SDK. See Development Process for details.

Sign-Up

Why do I need to give my birthday date to sign-up?

If you forget your password you will be asked your birthday date to reset it. Hence you should supply the correct birthday date. This also leaves room for 18+ features.

How can I get the beta password to sign-up?

The beta system limits the number of new users in the system to a controlled flow. If you really want to join this site and do not know the beta password, contact the administrator by following a link in the Help section.

Security

How is my password stored in the system?

Your password is not stored in the system. Instead, the system stores an MD5 hash of the password - a one-way checksum. At login, your clear-text password is used to calculate the MD5 and match it to the value in the database. The property of the hash is such that one cannot guess your password from the hash.

What happens when I choose to remember my login?

The system will store a so-called ticket in a cookie. This cookie will expire in a year and will be renewed regularly as you are active in the system. This ticket is an encrypted value that uniquely identifies your account. Please do not use the remember me feature on public computers.

Me Me

How big of a picture can I upload?

You can upload a picture of any size. Pictures larger than 640x480 will be automatically resized and compressed with a 40% JPEG compression.

Posting Content

Is HTML allowed in posts?

Yes, a limited well-formed subset of HTML is allowed in posts. This includes complex tables and styles, images and links and some embedded objects. Script or any other potentially harmful content is removed. If some content doesn't render, check the HTML source: illegal tags are replaced with <stripped /> and illegal properties are removed.

How do I insert a link into discussions, stories and other kinds of posts?

You do not need any markup to insert a link into a discussion post. Simply use a link as is. Anything starting with http:// or https:// and looking like a legitimate link will be automatically highlighted.

How do I embed a picture in a discussion post?

You an use plain HTML or the [img] bbtag. To embed a picture in the discussion post with a bbtag you must locate the address of the picture and put it in between [img] and [/img] tags. You can find an address of a picture by right clicking on it and choosing Properties. For example:

[img]http://www.mywebsite.com/images/picture.jpg[/img]

What other tags are supported in discussion posts?

The following tags are supported by the system.

[b]...[/b]	Makes text bold. [b]this will be bold[/b]
[i]...[/i] or [em]...[/em]	Makes text italic. [i]this will be italic[/i] [em]this will be italic[/em]
[big]...[/big] [h1]...[/h1]	Makes text very big. [h1]this will be very big[/h1]
[h2]...[/h2]	Makes text reasonably big. [h2]this will be reasonably big[/h2]
[h3]...[/h3]	Makes text a little bigger. [h3]this will be a little biger[/h3]
[small]...[/small]	Makes text small. [small]this will be small[/small]
[red]...[/red]	Makes text red. Other colors supported are green and blue. [red]this will be red[/red] [green]this will be green[/green] [blue]this will be blue[/blue]

What other places support tags or HTML?

All discussion posts, stories, blogs, personal information on your profile and basically everything that allows multiple lines of content support above-mentionned tags, limited HTML and automatically highlighted links.

People

How do I reference a person (place, blog, etc.) in a post or story by their id?

To reference a person you need to find out the person's ID (top right corner of the profile page) and write something like [user:id]. For example:

[user:201]

Once you place this tag, it becomes clickable and the ID is replaced with the user's current name. Other available tags are place, blog, event, feed and discussion.

Stories

I have updated my story, why doesn't it show up on top?

Your story creation date is used to sort stories. You may of course delete your story and create a new one. It is recommended you do not alter stories after posting them unless it's to add pictures or to correct bad spelling.

Syndication

What is RSS, Feed and Syndication?

Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is a lightweight XML format designed for sharing headlines and other Web content. In particular, it allows this site to syndicate content from, for example, your blog. This means that when you post a new blog entry on your blog it will appear on this site as well, automatically, within a short period of time. The content transported from your site to this site is called a feed. The feed is in the RSS format.

How do I syndicate my blog?

You can syndicate your site in the Syndication section of Me Me. Use the Wizard or click Syndicate New and fill in the form.

name	Free-formed name for your feed, for example My Blog.
description	Free-formed description for your feed, for example the daily ramblings about my life.
type	Several known types have extended support, notably FlickR and Dodgeball. Choose the appropriate type or Generic RSS for any other feed.
feed url	The address of your RSS feed. This depends on your blog or service provider. Look for links that say syndicate this content, rss or xml. When you find this link, right click on it and copy the shortcut. Paste it into this field. For example, LiveJournal feeds are in the http://username.livejournal.com/data/rss format.
feed link	Simply the address of your website. People clicking on the name of your feed will be redirected to this address.
username	Optional username to access the feed, when necessary.
password	Optional password to access the feed, when necessary.
update frequency	Choose the updating frequency that best matches the content update frequency.
publish	Disable publishing to the automatic feed roll by unchecking this option if your content is off topic. Your content will still appear on your personal profile page and in search results.

Test the feed. Click Update next to your feed on the Syndication section. Then choose View. You should see the actual content or an error.

Events

How do I post a new event?

An event occurs at a given place at a given time. It may occur once or recur over a period of up to six months. Event instances appear in the events calendar. Every time you save an event, it will generate all its instances, six months ahead.

To post an event follow these simple steps.

You must be a member to post events. If you delete your account all your events will be deleted.
Before posting events make sure to double-check your timezone in account preferences. All specified times are set in your local timezone and users in other timezones will see time adjusted to their location. Note that since events are attached to places they are geographically restricted and a user in Seattle typically doesn't see events in New York unless he explicitly chooses to do so.
Follow the suggest an event link.
Enter the event name, choose an event type and enter a short description. The description may contain links or limited HTML content.
By default you will schedule a one-time event. That is, an event that occurs once. You must choose the start and end time and dates. You may choose to have an all day event.
To schedule a recurrent event choose schedule a recurrent event. Recurrent events mimic exactly Microsoft Outlook's scheduler with daily, weekly, monthly and yearly events that may or may not have an end date or a limited number of occurences.
Once you're satisfied with the event schedule choose Confirm. This does not save the event but translates the occurence or the recurrence into English. Verify that the event schedule is correct or choose edit schedule to make changes.
All events are attached to locations. You must choose or create a new location before an event can be posted. By default you may use an existing location. Enter a location name and choose Lookup. You will be shown options that match the name closest. Click choose to confirm a selection.
You may add a new location. Locations don't get saved until you effectively save the event. You must fill the location type, name, country, optional state and city. Choose Save to confirm the location.
Enter additional information about the event, such as phone, email or cost to attend. Note that the email address will not be rendered as is and hence cannot be collected by robots.
Save the event. You may verify that an event is properly posted by navigating to the event date in today's events or by finding your event in all events. You may edit your event under Events in Me Me.

Places

How do I reference a place in a post or story?

To reference a place you need to write something like [nyc:some new place]. For example:

[nyc:The Statue of Liberty]

Once you place this tag, it becomes clickable. If the place doesn't exist, you are given the option to submit it with all the details.

The prefix is defined by the system, and the name is free-formed. Known prefixes are nyc for New York, sf for San Francisco, dc for Washington DC and sea for Seattle. Contact the administrator to add cities.

I am a business owner - can I publish content about my business?

As a business owner you can claim ownership of a place. This service is provided absolutely free. Use the Claim Ownership link on the place page. That generates a request to the system administrator and to all existing owners that have write access to the place. You can request a non-author ownership, useful to identify people who work at the place but do not wish to contribute content. When the request is approved by the system or by one of the existing owners, several things happen.

You are listed as a contact with the place.
The place is listed when people see your page.
You can manage this place within your places from the me me page, including editing all content and pictures.

Search and Tags

How do I tag my content?

You don't need to tag your content. This is done automatically by the system, which periodically indexes all stories and surveys. The administrator then promotes context-specific tags to the the cloud. You can see most frequently used and promoted tags on the front page.