The Convergence Community is designed to be intuitive, but we also know we have a lot going on. Here’s a guide on how to find your way around.
Main Navigation
The top menu bar on the regular site pages provides access to:
- Home – Return to the main website.
- About – Our mission and approach, about the community, production company, podcast, and channel.
- Articles – Browse our published content.
- Join – Membership information, ways to give, submissions, and job information.
- Contact – Get in touch with our team.
- Profile – Only visible while logged in. While logged out, this becomes ‘Log In.’ View your profile, notifications, settings, groups, friends, membership, or logout.
Community Sections
The member header, which displays automatically when on member pages, has quick links to the major community pages.
The ‘Timeline’ is where you will find the community-wide feed of posts. You can post from here as well. Your posts can contain images, videos, audio, links, polls, etc. You can also search for posts on the Timeline page, or filter the feed to only include certain types of posts.
The ‘Groups’ page is where you can find the directory for every public and private group within the community. Public groups – you can view all of the posts and forum topics for without joining, private groups – you must join in order to see anything except the name and description. Hidden groups are entirely invisible without an invitation, but they do show up in the directory or search. Paid members are able to create groups, and each group may have its own forums and group chat.
‘Forums’ is where you can view all of our forums. Each forum has instructions within explaining what that forum is for and how to participate. Please abide by all forum rules or you will lose the ability to post in them.
‘Write’ is where you will find the Community Column submission form. This is where you write and submit your articles. The Community Column is the section in which all member blog posts appear on The Convergence Lens. Your articles also are automatically shared to your profile so your friends and followers can click to read them directly from there.
The ‘Members’ page is the directory of all Convergence Community members. You can search for members here. You can follow members and/or send a friend request. Friends are a mutual, two-way connection requiring approval, where you see their activities and they see yours, including friends-only posts. Following is a one-way link where you see someone’s public updates, but they don’t see yours unless they also follow you back.
‘Messages’ is where you will find all of your direct messages, including group messages. You can set your message settings to only allow messages from friends, or turn them off entirely. You can also disable notification sounds. Pop-up notifications are only sent when you are on member pages of our site, not on the main pages.
‘Profile’ and ‘View Profile’ will take you to update your profile feed. The following are in the dropdown beneath:
- ‘Notifications’ takes you to your notifications, of course.
- ‘My Groups’ takes you to the list of groups you’ve joined.
- ‘My Friends’ takes you to your friends list.
- ‘Settings’ takes you to your account settings.
- ‘My Membership’ takes you to manage your billing, membership tier, etc.
- ‘Log Out’ logs you out and takes you back to the homepage.
Your Profile
Access the following from your profile info bar:
- Friend Requests
- Messages
- Notifications
- Settings
Finding Content
Use the search function to find:
- Specific forum topics
- Member profiles
- Group discussions
- Blog posts
Mobile Navigation
On mobile devices, tap the menu icon (three lines) in the top corner to access all navigation options.
