First things, first, in order to participate in this Online Community you need to Register! So go ahead, come back here when you are ready to participate!
When starting to use this site one must keep in mind the process that goes along with this community. There are three stages for the ideas:
Incubation
Validation
Refinement
When an idea is first posted to the community it is in the Incubation Stage. In order for the idea to graduate to the next stage there are criteria that must be met for each graduation. These criteria include different forms of participation/acceptance from the online community (voting, conversation levels etc). Once the idea has had enough support to reach the Refinement Stage the idea is considered for implementation. Below, you will see a visual of this process.
The items marked with an asterisk are required areas to be filled in.
Select your Initiative that you would like to post an idea to
Give your Idea a title (remember this is what everyone will see for your idea on the “View All Ideas” tab)
Provide your idea in the text box
Note: the “Subscribe” box is automatically checked. This will send you email notifications for any activity associated with your idea. You can uncheck it if you do not want this option, it is completely up to you.
Select “Publish Idea” and your idea will be posted to the Online Community for others to vote on and give feedback.
Comment on Ideas!
On an idea’s homepage, you can post comments on the idea.
There will be a “Post comment” field at the bottom of the page in which you can write your comment.
You can also post a reply to a previous comment by clicking the “Reply” link, which is located at the bottom of the comment you want to reply to.
Edit Your Comment!
You can also edit your existing comments by clicking the “Edit” link.
The Edit button can only be used when you are signed in and will only appear under your own comments.
Vote!
Users are given the option to vote on whether or not they like an idea. Users can vote using the buttons thumbs up (Brighten) or thumbs down (Darken).
View All Ideas!
In order to view all of the ideas posted in the Online Community simply select the “View All Ideas” tab.
You can sort them by using the “Filter ideas by” box
What are you waiting for, start participating!
If you should have any other questions you can utilize the "User Guide" link located in the top right corner of the page. Thank you!
