Welcome to this tour of DisabilityReviews.org. Read the following page carefully and you should be ready to begin using our site. This “tour” will take you on a section-by-section review of the site so you can get acquainted with all of the things it does.

The Logo

Look for our logo in the upper left-hand corner of the screen. It looks like the disabled logo you are used to seeing painted on parking lots or signs. Any time you want to return to the DisabilityRreviews main page, just click on the logo. This is the main thing it does. Whenever you’re lost and want to start over, it will bring you back to the “top” of the site.

The Blog

The main feature of our site is the blog. A blog, also known as a “web log”, is a collection of essays. Our essays are all about confronting disability discrimination. We publish reviews of various establishments, programs, and policies. Those essays are shown in the content area. The most recent review is at the top.

Take a look at the image on the right. The large words, “Sitting Bull”, is the title of one of our reviews. Below it is a picture of a sitting bull and to the right of him is a paragraph.

If you could read the paragraph, you would see that it hardly fills out a complete thought. That’s because in the listing of articles and such, only the first one or two paragraphs will show. To read an entire article, either click on its title or on the “more…” link.

There are such articles in each blog page. Remember, that the most recent ones are at the top. Whatever is written next will appear above this one.

Also, look at the “Next Page >>” link. Click on this would take you to the next ten articles. It’s a little confusing, because it means the next ten articles in the list, but since they are in reverse order by date, you are going farther back in time when you go to the “next page”. Subsequent pages will also have a “<< Previous Page” link which will bring you forward in time to the more recent pages.

The reason it is backwards like this is because when people come to a blog, they want to see the newest things easily, not page down to the bottom to see the newest. For now, ignore the other stuff in this image.

Your Participation

We need your participation to make this site great! If you want to comment on essays, write reviews of your own, or just participate in our forums, you will need to register. You can register through the “Register” link in the Meta section. It will take you through a process of choosing a username and a password.

Once you have gone through that process, you can log in and out in the same section. While you are logged in, it will say “Site Admin” and “Log Out”. When you log out, it will say “Register” and “Log In”.

The Menu

Under the logo and Meta section is the site menu. You can do various things through these menus, including sending us an email if you have any problems using the site. You do this through the Contact Us page. These menus often change, so look here for more ways to use the site in the future.

Recent Activity

Next to the Meta section are the Recent Posts and Recent Comments sections. These will show the most recent five posts and the most recent comments that users have made about those posts.

This is a convenient way to see what is new on the site. Depending on how active the site is, this is not a perfect way to make sure you see everything. Sometimes, the comments may come more often than you can see them. If we get that busy, we will make every effort to work it so that you can see everything you want to see.

The Forums

We also have forums on DisabilityReviews.org. Forums differ from the articles in the blog. Think of blog articles as being staff-written. When we see something in the community that affects people with disabilities, we will write a review.

Forums, on the other hand, are community-written, meaning that you, the user, will have an opportunity to talk about things related to people with disabilities. A forum is somewhat like an on-line support group.

The Forums section shows forums by name and the topics within the forums. Many of our forums are restricted, sort of like a support group might, for confidentiality’s sake, limit who can be part of the conversation. If you see a restricted forum in this section that you would like to join, click on the “Apply” link near the name and you will be taken to a form where you can enter the reason you want to be considered for membership in that forum.

If the forum is not restricted, or you are already a member of it, just click on the forum name to go into the forum. There will be more about forums in another tutorial.

Subscribing

Subscribing is different than registering. Subscribing, using the form like the one here, is a way of saying that you want to be notified every time there is a new blog entry. If you only subscribe, you won’t be a member of DisabilityReviews.org. You won’t have access to forums if you only subscribe. It is a good option for someone who just wants to read the blog.

You can also do both, since registering won’t send you notifications of new blog posts.

Tags

Every time one of our authors writes a review for the site, he or she will attach to it a list of key words that describe the content of the review. As the number of posts grow, the importance of these key words grow.

For example, every time someone writes a post about mobility issues, the key word “Mobility” becomes more important. It’s importance is reflected in its size as shown in what is called the “Tag Cloud”.

When you click on one of these tags, the chronological list of all reviews is replaced, as in the example above, with a chronological list of all reviews about Mobility.

One post may have more than one tag.

Finding Posts by Date

Articles, also known as blog posts, are published on certain dates. There is a posting calendar. Dates are highlighted when there are posts that were published on that date. To see all, usually only one, posts written on a date, click on the date.

All posts are also available by month in the archives. Click on the month and all posts for that month will be listed in the Content section.

 

 

Categories

Categories are similar to tags. We have a list of categories that our authors can assign posts to. For example, if an author writes a review about hidden disabilities, he or she will assign that post to the Hidden Disabilities category.

If the post is also about a transit system that doesn’t take into account that some disabilities are not visually apparent, he or she could also assign it to the Transportation category.

Conclusion

We hope this tour of our site has helped you want to join us. There is a lot more that the site does, but these are the basics. Join us and we will do what we can to make it a great experience for you.