We’re really excited to announce the launch of the Arcade Online Community, a project we’ve been working on for some time!

Arcade Allies and Alumni can check out the Community at www.arcadewayfinding.com/community

If you’re savvy with setting up internet accounts, you shouldn’t have any issues just following the prompts, but if you need a little extra help, we have you covered!

Start by visiting the community link. You should find yourself at a page that looks like this – just click on ‘Join Now’

Next, you’ll find yourself on the page where you decide how you want to log in to the Arcade community. You can create a user account specifically for this site, or if you prefer, you can use your existing Google or Facebook login. If you want to use an existing account, just select that option and then log into that account (Google or Facebook) normally. If you want to create a new account, enter your e-mail address and create a new password that you will be able to remember. Take a peek at the Crowdstack Terms of Service and check the ‘I agree to the terms above’ button. Finally, click ‘Register’ to finish!

After you click Register, you’ll have to do an internet robot check, to convince the system you aren’t a robot – it should look something like this:

Once you are finished negotiating with the robot overlords, you will finish up with a screen like this. This is your cue to go over to your e-mail and check for a verification message!

Next, head over to your e-mail application (you may have to wait a couple of minutes for the message to come through!) If it doesn’t get there within a few minutes, make sure to check your junk folder in case it gets routed over there! NOTE: Sometimes when you are using a company e-mail account, this message gets caught in a spam filter before it gets to you – if you can’t get it to show up, try using a personal account (gmail.com, outlook.com, etc) The message will look something like this:

All you have to do at this point is click on the ‘Verify Your Email Address’ button in this message, and you should find yourself back on the community site.

We’re almost there! All you have to do now is create a username. This username is how other people on the site will see you, so pick something that will let your classmates recognize you! Type your new username and click Join Now!

Welcome to the Arcade Online Community! On the left side of the screen, under ‘Channels’ you will only see one channel for now. It’s called ‘Circle Chat.’ This is the general chat channel that everyone in the community can see, even people who have not been verified by Mary yet. Feel free to post messages here, but be aware that this is the most public section of the site!

As soon as Mary sees that you have joined the site, she will set you up with the Members Only sections of the site and send you a Welcome e-mail.

Now that you are all set up with the Arcade Online Community, there are a couple of settings you might want to check out.

To check your settings, click on the circle with your initials on it at the top right corner of the screen:

When you click on your initials, you will see a few options, click on ‘Your Settings.’

Once you get to the Settings options, the first set of options are related to your profile on the site. If you like, you can create a Name and Bio so that people can learn more about you on the site. In the Bio section, please type “Reach out to me about:” and add some topics that you are comfortable with. Part of the plan is that we can reach out to one another for information or advice about everyone’s specific expertise. For example, mine says: Reach out to me about: Technology, MS Project and Scheduling. Add you trade or expertise so that if someone needs help with something, they could reach out to you!

For the next set of option, click on the ‘Notifications’ tab of the Settings Menu.

You can select to be reminded of what’s going on in the community weekly, daily or not at all with the ‘What’s New’ setting. You can also set some options about when you get a notification, or check the ‘Suspend All Email’ checkbox to prevent the community from sending you any e-mail at all.

Finally, you can set specific channels of the community to send you notifications, once you get access to the members only sections of the site.

Next to the title of any Channel (for example, Circle Chat or Official Announcements) you can see a little gray bell icon. If you click this icon, turning it green, you will receive e-mail notifications any time someone posts a new message in that channel. We recommend that everyone sets this notification as ‘On’ for the Official Announcements channel, as only Mary can post to this channel and we’ll only post there when important information is posted for all Arcade Allies and Alumni!

If you get stuck or have trouble with any of this, don’t hesitate to e-mail Mary at mary@arcadewayfinding.com for help! We can’t wait to see you all there!