How to navigate around Talk - a tutorial.

by Capella05 moderator

Welcome to SpaceWarps!

This is a short tutorial that I have adapted from the one I created for Galaxy Zoo.
Posted March 15, 2015 1:44 PM
by Capella05 moderator

The Landing Page

The landing Page is made up of several sections, namely:
1. The featured discussions. This section is dynamic and the content will change depending on which discussion board you are visiting.
2. The most recent images that have been commented on. These can be refreshed by selecting the Talk logo or hitting the refresh key on your browser.
3. The Top Nav bar
4. Trending Hashtags
5. The users that are currently logged on.
6. The most recent responses on the discussion boards / collections etc…
Posted March 15, 2015 1:46 PM
by Capella05 moderator

The Top Navigation Bar

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This is the main navigation tool whereby you can navigate around Talk, this is a screenshot from my Navbar – the Moderator option will not be available to you, but you are not missing out on much 😃

I will go into greater detail on the individual functionality later, this is just a quick guide to get you started:
1. SpacewarpsTalk logo, irrespective of where you are on talk,clicking the logo will take you back to the Landing page.
2. Following Tab: Image comments and Discussions that you have chosen to follow can be easily accessed here.
3. Recents Tab: Similar to the main content block on the landing / home page.
4. Discussion Tab: To navigate to the discussion boards, click here.
5. Search Tab: Allows you to search the site.
6. Profile: To access your PM’s and view the most recent comments and posts you have made on the site. At the bottom you will find the Collections you have made.
7. PM notification – BTW, If you have a PM notification, but no unread PM’s in your inbox, don’t worry! Your PM has not gone missing - Talk just didn’t register that you had read a previous PM 😃
Posted March 15, 2015 1:47 PM
by Capella05 moderator

Image comments

Select an object from the recent tab by clicking on it, you should be presented with the following the image / object page.

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All comments and discussions linked to this image will be displayed here. On the left we have the image comments, and on the right we have the discussions associated with the object. Any time the image ID (e.g. ASW0004dv8) is referenced on Talk a link will be created on the right hand side.

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The image comments are displayed in chronological order (i.e. the most recent comment is displayed first). Try to get into the habit of checking to see if other users have entered any comments, you can do this by scrolling down. If you have a question about the object you classified, you may find that another user has had a similar query that has already been answered by one of the Moderators / Scientists 😃

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We love answering questions, so when in doubt, please do enter one! To help us find your question, I would suggest putting a ? at the beginning of your comment.

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It is important to note that only 140 characters can be entered, so in many respects it is similar to Twitter. Another similarity is the use of hash tagging - once you have classified a particularly interesting object, you may want to tag it. This can be done by entering a # followed by the tag (no spaces or the hashtag will break!)

Posted March 15, 2015 2:05 PM
by Capella05 moderator

Creating a collection

This is a useful feature on Talk where you can collect objects of a particular type and group them together. Depending on what project you are working on, there will be a few generic collections that are set-up for all users and are linked to your individual profile.

There are 2 ways of going about this: the first is from your profile page, the second (and the one you are most likely to use) is from the object page. I am only going to describe the 2nd method, as I will briefly cover the first when we look at the profile page in greater detail.

Navigate to object page of the image you would like to add to a collection.

Look in the top left hand corner of the image – A button with ‘Collect’ should be visible. Select it.

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You will now be given the option to add to an existing collection, or to start a new one.

Select "Start a new collection".

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Give your collection a name (eg. “lensed quasars - doubles”, “Arcs -clusters” etc…) and a description and save it.

Viola! You have created your first collection!

You collection will now be displayed along with all the individual images contained within the collection - at the moment there is only one! As you can see it is possible to add comments, hash tags ect... Any comments entered here will be saved within the collection, not on the object page.

It is important to point out that your collection will be visible to everyone, along with any comments you have added to individual images.

Posted March 25, 2015 6:15 PM
by Capella05 moderator

Adding an image to an existing collection

Whenever you want to add an item to the collection just click the 'Collect' button in the top left of the image, and select the collection you wish to add the object to and save. If you so wish, you can add an item to multiple collections, just repeat the previous action.

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Managing your collection

There comes a point when you might want to review your collection and remove objects and update comments. If you are not already within your collection, the easiest way to navigate to it, it from the Profile page. On the Top Nav bar, click on Profile. Look on the right hand side, close to the bottom of the page, you will see a section marked as 'My Collections'.

Select the collection, you wish to manage.
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Now select the 'Edit' hyperlink, found next to your avatar.

Your collection name and description can be updated on the left. Images can be removed from the collection by clicking the corresponding 'x' in the top right corner. Remember to save your changes 😃

Posted March 25, 2015 7:00 PM
by Capella05 moderator

Starting a Discussion

Limiting your comments / questions to just a 140 character can be so frustrating! So, this is where the discussion boards come in 😃

There are two different types of Discussions you can create. One that is related or linked to a particular image, the other is a discussion that is independent of any image.

It is important to make the distinction between the two, as we want to try to prevent irrelevant discussions being linked to a particular image 😃

Discussion Type 1: Creating a linked discussion from the Object / Image page:

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This is the same image that I used earlier in the tutorial to explain the 'Recents' tab. Let us now concentrate our attention to the right hand side of the image. We can see a sampling of the various "Collections" that this image has been added to, along with all the "Hash tags" that volunteers have added in the comment section.

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Below that, we have the 3 main boards - Namely:
- Help
- Science
- Chat
It can be a bit confusing trying to decide what "Board" to post in, but if you have a question about a particular object that you have classified, I would suggest selecting the "Help" section.

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I will now select the "Create a New Post" button.

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Enter a title for the discussion, along with the content and save.

Excellent! We have just created a discussion 😃

Discussion Type 2: Creating a independent discussion from the Top Nav:

As the title suggest, navigate to the "Discussion Boards" via the top navigation.

Once again we will be presented with the 3 main boards, along with all the sub boards. Even for us seasoned users, it can be a bit difficult trying to decide where to create a thread, so this is my personal description of all the boards :
- Help
  - Help ( Bugs, Interface issues, browser incompatibility etc... )
  - The Objects (Help / questions classifying the images)
- Science
  - Latest News (An area for the Science Team to communicate the latest news, finding etc... All other posts will be moved)
  - Modelling (An area for our modellers to discuss / collaborate on their various models)
  - The Objects (Science discussions regarding the objects / Cosmology / Astronomy)
- Chat
  - Welcome to Space Warps (Any non-science chit-chat)
  - The Objects (Non-science posts related to the images)
Posted March 30, 2015 5:22 PM
by Capella05 moderator

Sending / Reading PM's

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A very important aspect of any online board - the ability to communicate with other Volunteers privately!

In Talk v2 - the functionality of PM'ing is limited to sending and receiving messages. Additional functionality will be introduced in future releases.

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This is the notification area - I will warn you, it can occasionally be a bit buggy!

To read your PM's click on the envelope or the 'Profile' hyperlink.

Your inbox will be displayed on the left hand side, To read a message all you have to do is click on it! It will be displayed on the right.

Sending a PM is fairly self-explanatory - select the person you are sending a message to and type 😃

Important notes:
- If you receive offensive or unsolicited PM please notify a Moderator or Admin.
- It is now possible to delete PM's, but please remember that if you select 'delete' it will remove the entire 'string' of PM's within that particular conversation.
- No, we are unable to send a PM to multiple users 😦
All of these shortcoming will hopefully be dealt with in the next version of talk 😃

Posted April 15, 2015 8:09 PM