Greetings, Persephoneers old and new! The joint was pretty hopping this weekend with lots of new commenters and some familiar faces coming back to visit! We know getting used to the workings of a site can be a little overwhelming, so we’ve put together a little welcome packet to help you get the lay of the land. 

Quick Links:

• What’s this place all about?
• Who’s who?
• When do you post?
• Points, Ranks, and Badges
• The activity stream/status messages
• Groups/forums
• Friends
• Public/private messages
• I want to comment. What should I know?
• Why Don’t You Have On-Site Comment Reply Notifications?
• I still have questions.

What’s This Place All About?

Persephone Magazine is a daily blog focused on topics of interest for modern, intelligent, clever women. We strive to give a voice to more women from a variety of backgrounds and with diverse interests. We feature articles not only from our talented staff of writers but from our incredible readership, as well; readers who give voice to their opinions and viewpoints out of a desire to educate, entertain, or engage with our community. We encourage thoughtful discussion and respectful debate. We are an environment that welcomes all perspectives that come from a place of respect and consideration for fellow community members.

Who’s Who?

Your editorial team is here for whatever you might need. You can PM any of us or use an @mention to get our attention.

Editor in Chief: Ophelia Payne

Chief Unicorn: Selena MacIntosh

New Writer Mentors/Weekend Editor:  Slay Belle

Community Manager: SaraB

Moderators: QoB, Kym G., Freckle

Chief Marketing Unicorn: Sally J. Freedman

Community Outreach: Coco Papy

Chief Copyediting Unicorn: pileofmonkeys

Copyeditors:  Sally Lawton, queSarahSarah

When Do You Post?

Posts are published from 12 noon until 10 p.m., EST, on the hour and many of the half hours.

Points, Ranks & Badges

You earn points for the following activities, which are all explained in their own sections.

• Joining
• Logging in
• Leaving a comment on the main blog posts
• Leaving a status update
• Commenting on someone else’s status update
• Creating a group
• Adding a group avatar
• Joining a group
• Creating a forum topic
• Commenting in the forums
• Completing a friend request
• Sending a private message
• Random acts of point kindness from the admins
• Writing a blog post
• Having someone comment on a post you’ve written

Selena has the magic power to create special point explosion times, where each activity is worth x(normal point value), such as this weekend’s 4x points extravaganza.

You can also donate points to your fellow members! One important detail: during super point multiplier times, your donation will also be multiplied. So if you donate 100♥ during a 5x points spree, it will deduct and give 500♥. Plan accordingly. To donate points you can go to the giftee’s profile page, or use the widget in the sidebar. You’ll need to know the username; see the section on public messages below to learn how to find it.

Points lead to our completely ridiculous ranks:

• N00B1 (0)
• Nugget (20)
• Tribble (50)
• Regular (100)
• Pomegranate (200)
• Cerberus (500)
• Glittery Superstar (1000)
• Unicorn (2500)
• Persephoneer General (5000)
• CJ Cregg (7500)
• Queen of the Underworld (10,000)
• River Song (15,000)
• Donna Noble (22,500)
• Idris (the TARDIS, not Elba) (30,000)
• Zombie Vonnegut (50,000)
• The Wrath of Julia Sugarbaker (75,000)
• Cheesemonger (100,000)
• Timelord (150,000)
• Roller-skating, Rainbow-farting, High Holy Empress of Xanadu (250,000)

Additionally, you can unlock badges for doing most of the things you can earn points for. Selena’s in the process of making new badges that have some sort of consistency, but the awards categories will stay the same, at least until she figures out how to add more. (Which she will, b/c she loves getting her fingers into other people’s code.) To check out what badges you can earn and what you’ve already unlocked, use your BuddyBar (it’s hovering at the top of the page) to go to My Account → Points → Awards. We’re also trying to figure out how to get your badges on the front page of your profile, where everyone can see them for oooohing and ahhhhhing. For now, they’re tucked deep in your profile.

The Activity Stream/Status Messages

The activity stream has its own tab on all the blog pages. The stream shows everything that’s happening everywhere, including new blog posts, new comments, new friendships and public group/forum activities. You can sort what it shows with a handy drop-down.

At the top of the activity stream, there’s a field where you can enter a status message.

Groups/Forums

Groups and forums are inextricably linked. You can’t participate in a forum topic unless you belong to the group that started the topic, and new topics must be affiliated with a particular group. Fortunately, joining a group is easy, and most of our groups are open to everyone. To join some groups, go to the groups tab and hit “join” on any of the groups that interest you. Group admins (the people who create the groups) can also invite people from their friends list to join. Starting a new group is also pretty easy, but you do have to have a certain number of points to do so. (It’s not that many, but we were having a big spam problem when the threshold was lower.) Groups all have avatars, if you start or admin a group, you can upload a picture for the group. The avatar will show up next to the related forum topics, and in all the related bits in the activity stream.

Once you’ve joined a group, you can participate in all of its forum topics, and start new topics. From there, it works like any other web forum you’ve belonged to.

Friends

You can send a friendship request to any of your fellow members. If they accept, you get points. You can cancel a friendship after it’s been accepted, but you can’t cancel a request once you’ve sent it. You can invite people in your friends list to join your groups, and you can set up the activity stream to only follow your friends’ activities.

Public/Private Messages

To send someone a public message, use “@[username]” in a status message. The username is not always the same as the display name you see by your comments. On everyone’s profile page (click their name to see) it lists what their @mention name is. For example, Selena’s display name is “Selena MacIntosh” but her @mention is @Selena.

To send a private message, go to the user’s profile page, and click the “send private message” button. Clicking the “send public message” is a shortcut to the steps I mentioned above.

I Want to Comment. What Should I Know?

We at Persephone magazine are big fans of keeping it simple. This applies to our commenting policy as well.

1. How to become a commenter: Click the register link in the right sidebar. After you receive a confirmation email, you can log in.

2. How to be an awesome commenter: We will let a lot of things slide in the name of sparking good conversations, but we ask that you keep the following in mind when you post:

Empathy: Are you at least trying to look at an issue from someone else’s perspective?

Levity: We have a warm place in our cold, cold hearts for comments that display a sense of humor. Make us laugh and win us over forever.

Vitality: Are you adding something lively and important to the conversation?

In context: Does your comment fit the post to which you are replying? We love personal stories, but keep ‘em on topic.

Sensitivity: Be aware that not everyone who visits this site has the same experiences. Opinions will differ because you’re all unique and come from a unique set of circumstances. Respect that we all have subjects that are of particular importance to us, and we all may respond passionately about those issues. Listen and think before you post.

In other words, our commenting policy boils down to ELVIS, and ELVIS says to be cool to each other.

Additionally, the standard blanket rules apply: no spam, don’t pimp your own site/blog beyond reason, don’t be a jerk, don’t post porn, don’t post copyrighted material without a source, and keep the swearing to a minimum. A few random cuss bombs are fine, just keep on the sassy rather than the vulgar end of the continuum feel free to swear, as long as it’s not directed at your fellow commenters or site staff.

We reserve the right to delete any comments for any reason at our discretion, and we reserve the right to warn, suspend, and ban commenters who repeatedly thwart our efforts at civility.

Why Don’t You Have On-Site Comment Reply Notifications?

Short answer: because we don’t have a giant media empire providing us with Scrooge McDuck-worthy rooms of gold coins to dive into.

Longer answer: our tech team and code whisperer (who is also our Chief Unicorn Selena) have spent numerous hours, days, and weeks trying to find a way to make this happen without breaking the site. As of right now, it is an unpossible thing, but we’re always looking for solutions. It’s not that we don’t want you guys to have this capability, it’s that it must be built with Narnian unicorn tears and moondust and binary incantations that would make our human minds explode if we ever tried.

I Still Have Questions

We have a handy-dandy Ask Us form that allows you to submit questions great and small, or you’re always welcome to PM or @message an editor, and we’ll do our best to help you out.