Using the SGSM Google Group
Directions from sign-in to posting
Sign in
You may use your Google identity if you already have one for email or other Google services like Blogger or GDrive.
Google won’t let you have more than one account signed in at a time, so if you want to have a separate account for this group, you’ll need to be signed out of any other Google accounts first.
But wait: you can use a group-specific display name in the group, along with a group-specific image. This lets you cloak your identity without switching out of your usual account. Only the mods can see your email address and we won’t release those in any way. For instructions on how to set this up, see the next slide.
To find the group easily, you can of course bookmark it in your browser. If you use other Google Groups, you can set SGSM as one of your favorites and you’ll have a shortcut from any Groups page. There’s always a link from the Discussion page of our home website as well.
New members: important information
Once approved, your membership is valid for five days.
You must make an introductory post within five days or your account will be assumed to be that of a spammer or voyeur and deleted. This requirement is put in place at the request of existing members to protect member privacy. Once that’s taken care of, your membership lasts as long as you want.
Your first post will be moderated. That means that it won’t show up in the list of posts until it has been reviewed by a moderator, again, just to be sure it’s not spam. This usually takes about a day. Please do not keep posting the same thing to try to make it appear sooner: that just doesn’t work.
Once your first post shows that you’re a legit member, that moderation requirement is lifted and you may post whenever you please.
And yes, we realize that all of this is a bit annoying. But the end result is a private discussion place that isn’t full of spammers and junk posts, where we can talk about our concerns in peace with other women who share them. We think that this is worth a little care in getting started.
Customizing your membership
When you’re on the home page of the group, look in the upper right of your window for this area:
The lower left of these icons allows you to set your preferences for the group.
Customising membership - p2
The “membership and email” setting lets you set your display name. It doesn’t have to be the same as it displays in your email, although that’s the default. Please change it to protect your privacy. Your email won’t be displayed to anyone other than the mods.
Email options
You can sign up to receive emails of all group activity or you can sign up to receive email notice of just specific replies to your posts. Here’s how to do that.
To receive emails of all group activity: Check in the box next to “Automatically subscribe me to email updates when I post to a topic” in the “Membership and email settings” window.
To receive emails of specific post activity: When you make a new post, there is an option to receive emails in the compose screen. Just check the box.
Please note that you cannot reply to posts via email and have them appear in the Group webpage.
Make a new post
First: are you sure you want to? Please use new posts for new topics; I’ll go into how to reply to existing topics next in these instructions.
From the main page of the group, look for the red button that says “new topic” above the group name:
Click on it and it’ll open the new post form. We’ll go through this step by step but the next slide shows you the full new post form and then the instructions continue on the following slides.
New post - p2 - subject
The first thing to fill in when making a new post is the subject.
This is important because it helps readers find topics they want to read. For this reason, be sure to describe what you want to post about clearly.
If you just say “hi” or “newbie” or leave the line blank, your post won’t get many readers. It also won’t help future readers who may have the same problem and who might be helped by what you have to say.
So what’s a good subject line? Things like “Unable to find good hrt after 2 years surgical meno” or “Do I need progesterone?” or “Libido problems” or “Hysterectomy next week”. Remember, this is a private group, so you don’t need to be embarrassed about what you’re typing: we’ve all been there.
For some types of posts, we’ve got a specific format. For example, if we’re talking about a news article we read elsewhere, we’ll start with “NEWS:” or if you want to recommend a doctor or clinic, start with “DOCTOR REC:” and the Doctor’s name.
Just type your subject in the line and then continue on down through the form.
New post - p3 - special instructions
The next couple lines below the subject have a number of special instructions:
Ignore the first three settings (the top of the two lines shown here). They’re just for mods.
If you want to be emailed replies to your post, check the “email updates to me” box.
If there is a file you want to attach, you can do so but please do not violate copyright by sending out text owned by someone else. You may link to them in your post instead.
The reference is just another way to link to something you do a google search to find. It’s just as easy to put a link in your post so don’t worry about trying to find a site that way.
It’s possible to Cc someone else, but you’re breaking the privacy of the group, not just your own, if you do that. Is that really what you want to do?
New post - p4 - post body
I’m not sure there’s a great deal to say here. Type in the box.
Use the formatting controls at the top. If you’re not sure what they’re for, hover over the symbol and you’ll get an explanatory text box.
For the sake of those of us who can’t see as well as we used to, please avoid reformatting your post with a colored background or a custom font. Using settings for large text may prevent your post from being easily read on some devices: please just use the default and allow the user to adjust their display if necessary.
Typing in all caps is read online as shouting: please be sure that this is the effect you’re going for if you choose to do so.
Please feel free to put as much information in your post as may be necessary to understand your concerns. You do not have to warn anyone that it’s a long post: that’s necessary to our topics, here.
New post - p5 - tags
Tagging posts may be new to you, but it’s a really neat way to help users find things.
Tagging is done in the bottom line of the new post form, under the post body.
What are tags? Tags are terms that you’d be looking for if you wanted to find your post.
Look at it as a one-word summary. It can be the topic, but it can also be things you mention along the way.
There are some suggestions under the entry box, and you can click on them to add them to your post. You may also type in your own tags, ending each one with a comma or a space. If you want to make a two-word tag, use an underscore (as in surgical_menopause). Please do not put in tags with more than two words.
Right now you may put a maximum of 10 tags on a post. You are required to put at least one tag on.
New post - 6 - post and edit
Posting
Once you’ve applied your tags, go back to the top and click on the big red “post” button. Remember that if this is your first post to the group, it won’t show up until a mod approves it.
Editing
To the right top of your post there is a curved arrow and a dropdown
triangle. That leads to this menu on the right. See how this gives
you the ability to edit a post (you can only see this on your own posts).
Also, if you want to link to this post to put in another post, that “link”
command will display the link for you to copy and paste in.
Finding stuff
Once something drops down in the list it can get hard to find. But there are several ways to get around this.
There’s a search box up at the top and the dropdown from the right end of it allows you to search just this group.
You can also click on any tag and view a list of all of the posts with that particular tag.