What is CollectiveStory.com

CollectiveStory is is site open for any individual or group of persons who would like to describe stories about their lives. In this sense, the site is an attempt to fix in writing and images and share with others our collective memories. Unlike a simple album or book, the internet allows us to share such memories with many friends and with the public at large.

Such memories play an important part in the identity of a family or any other type of community. CollectiveStory offers a way of sharing our experiences, which could be not just interesting but also informative and educating.

The usage of the site is very simple: one person may create a story, then invite and authorize any number of friends to contribute or view it.

Why you need a user ID

You need to create a user ID for yourself in order to access certain features of this site. In particular, you need an ID in order to

• Initiate (create) a new story
• Contribute to other people's stories (with their permission)
• Keep a list of the stories you are often visiting or to which you are a contributor

Creating a user ID is free.

Creating an ID

• Click on "Create ID" from the home page or from any other page where you see a "Create ID" link under the ColectiveStory banner.
• You will see a new page, where you must enter an ID and a password of your choice. Make sure both are particular enough such that the ID would not be very common (otherwise somebody else might have taken it) and the password is hard to guess.
• Press the Save button. If the ID and password are accepted, you are told so and you need to press the Continue button, which will take you to a new page where you may introduce additional useful data about yourself. This page is called My Profile.

Signing in

A number of operations on CollectiveStory can only be performed if you are signed in. You may go to the sign in page either from the home page (look for the Sign in link) or from any page, from the link immediately under the banner. On the sign in page, simply enter your user ID and password in the appropriate fields, then press the Sign in button.

From the Sign in page, should it be necessary,  you can go to two other important pages:

• If you do not have an ID, click on the New user? link.  
• If you have an ID, but lost the password, click on the Lost password? link and follow the instructions to recover it.

Modifying your profile

Once you have a user ID, you may at any time modify your profile by using the My Profile link under the CollectiveStory banner. This is available only after you create an ID or you are signed in.

On the My Profile page, you may fill the following information

• Full name - this is useful when you communicate with other people. For example, when you invite people to contribute to a story or view the story, your name may appear in the message so that your friends know who issued the invitation.
• Email address - this is very important for a number of reasons, including the possibility to be invited by other people to contribute to their stories. CollectiveStory will not give your address to any other party and will do everything to preserve your privacy.
• Question - create a question for which only your would know the answer. (For example: where I was born?) This is used to help you recover your password in case you have lost it.
• Answer - answer the question above.

Once this information was entered or changed, press the Save button.

On this page you may also change your password, using the box on the right side. You will need to confirm your old password before changing it.

Initiating a story

In order to create a story you must have an ID and be signed in.

To initiate the story, you need to go through the following steps:

• From the home page or from the link bellow the CollectiveStory banner, click on the Create a story or Initiate link, which will take you to a new page.
• On the new page, enter the name of the new story. Make sure the name is specific enough so that it will not be confused with the names of other stories.
• Select the proper category for the story (Family, School, etc.)
• Write a small introduction which describes what the story is about. When a visitor will come to see the story, this introduction will be the fist thing the visitor will see.
• Press the Save button.
• You will be provided with a new page, where you can further change these values (name, introduction, category), but also specify some access rules:
• "Only approved users can see." If this option is checked, then your story is kept absolutely private and only the people you authorize may see it. As you usually want to show the story to many of your friends, it is better to leave this option unchecked. 
• "This story is listed." If this option is checked then your story may be found either at random or by something who actually looks for it by using some keywords on a search engine. If not checked, the story cannot be found and the only way to access it is by the story number, which you may provide to your friends.
• After all these fields and options are set, press the Save button

Levels of access

When you create a story, you are automatically the owner of the story. There are however various other levels of access. As an owner, you can grant a particular level of access to another user.

The levels of access, in increasing number of rights, are the following

• Casual visitor. If your story is listed, anybody may see it without any specially granted rights.
• Visitor. If the story is not listed, the only way in which someone may see it is if you grant this person at least visitor rights.  When a person is granted visitor rights to a story, he or she may see this story in his or her private list of stories
• Contributor. A Contributor is a user who may add events, facts and images to the story. He or she may also modify or delete the items that he or she entered, but not the ones introduced by others.
• Editor. The Editor may contribute his or her own items to the story, but may also modify or delete items entered by others.
• Owner. An owner may do everything above, but also grant access rights to others.

It makes sense to grant more rights to the people you trust more and are willing to help you in creating the story. As one of the purposes of CollectiveStory is to help communities remember or register their memories, it is also a good idea to grant these rights to all who are interested, are trustworthy and can help in creating the story.

Granting and revoking access rights

If you are an owner of the story and wish to grant access rights, press the Participants link which you find under the banner at the top of the page.