Using StorySpot Communities

Communities are a very important part of StorySpot.com. A community can be created by anyone with a StorySpot.com user account (and a verified e-mail address).

Communities offer a context for an individual who shares a story by forming a connection to others who share similar interests or experiences. A person reading one story may find other stories from that community interesting. An objective for StorySpot is that each user will be a member of one or more communities.

To join a community, a person must login to StorySpot, navigate to the desired community, and click "join community" from the community's front page. Leaving community can be done from the list of community memberships on the "My Story" page.

A user is not listed as a member of a community until he or she has begun composing at least one story; the user's name and picture will be displayed in the "other members" section. All stories that have been published by a member of a community can be accessed through that community's web pages.

Currently, any StorySpot user can join or leave a community at-will; it is not possible to restrict community membership. A StorySpot administrator can add and remove a person to a community when a situation requires such action.

Each StorySpot community has a custom web address. When the community is created, a "web name" is selected for that community. It's suggested that this be an abbreviation or other single-word identifier for the community. This shortened name is used as a sub-domain for storyspot.com

For example, the University of Central Florida uses "ucf" as their web name on StorySpot. This means the custom web address for this community would be ucf.storyspot.com

Communities are encouraged to promote their customized web address to invite people to read their collective stories.

Each community has an RSS feed that contains the title, summary, author, publication date, and web link for all stories published in that community. (RSS is a special web format that can be viewed using many different tools or applications.)

A great way to use this RSS feed is by incorporating it directly into another web site. There are many web scripting tools that make this possible. However, the StorySpot team cannot support this use beyond providing a valid and reliable RSS feed.