The Wild Side of Sidmouth

The ‘Community Hub’ is the focal point of the project learning community, it is where we meet on-line to share news, discover the latest learning programme topics and see other educational resources like videos, articles and web pages.  

It functions in many ways like a social media platform (eg: Facebook) but it is, of course,focused on learning about the natural history of the Sidmouth area. It is not influenced by the underlying algorithm which decides for you what you will see and, of course, it is free of advertisements!

The information FEED

The central body of the page displays the feed of POSTS, the individual news items, articles and resources. This is where you will primarily actively use the ‘Community Hub’, it is the hub that draws contributed elements from the disparate elements of the overall learning community.

The posts come from various sources; the ‘Spotlight Learning’ and ‘Guided Learning’ programmes, some on-line sources that post appropriate articles (the Sid Valley Biodiversity group for example), the latest records for the area submitted to iNaturalist.

Most importantly, the feed contains items contributed by you as a member of the community. This may be something you have written, a question you want to ask, any issues you would like to discuss, something you found elsewhere that you want to share. In other words you share your knowledge and we all learn together.

Themes

As the feed consists of many types of input they are grouped into themes (eg: members posts, spotlight learning, videos, etc.). By using the THEMES tab in the side bar you can display just items within that theme to provide extra focus. 

Search

It is also worth remembering that in the top right corner of this page is the search function, click the magnifying glass icon and then type your search words.  

Contributing Posts

The Wild Side of Sidmouth ‘community hub’ is intended to be a shared learning community. Whether you have spotted an interesting species on a valley footpath, have a question about local geology, or want to alert neighbours to an environmental event, there are simple ways to contribute.

You do not need to be an expert naturalist, and you do not need special apps or accounts to take part. All you need is an email account to create your post and submit it to the ‘Community Hub’ feed.

How to do it

In your email composer start creating your post:

1. Send to:
   sidmouthnature@gmail.com (it would be a good idea to add this to your ‘contacts’)
   
   To make this even simpler you can click on the ‘Submit a Post’ button in the side bar on the main page and it will open your email composer for you!

2. Subject Line:
   Please give your email a short, descriptive title (e.g., “Cirl Bunting sighting near Salcombe Hill” or “Notice: Upcoming Byes Volunteer Morning”) AND ENSURE YOU INCLUDE THE KEYWORD wildpost somewhere in that subject line as this defines to the system which emails get forwarded to the forum feed. Emails without this word will be considered private and intended only for project administrators.
   
   

3. Body: 

Here you enter the full text of what you want to communicate. You can use any formatting options that your email composer provides (bold, italics, etc) as well as links to interesting Facebook posts, articles, or council notices. 

4. Attachments:
   You can attach photographs (JPG, PNG) of flowers, insects, etc,.  You can attach articles in documents that are in PDF form but the posting filter removes them so send these as emails without the wildpost key word in the title and the editors will post it manually for you..
   
   

5. What happens next?
   Most emails containing the key word ‘wildpost’ in the title will appear quite quickly in the ‘Community Hub’ feed. Some may be held back by the system for moderation before posting. They will post very much like a normal email does in your inbox but as soon as possible it will be edited to remove ‘clutter’ and that allocate it to a relevant theme.
   
   

6. Private Inquiries & Website Feedback

If you would like to ask a private question, report a broken link on the textbook pages, or prefer not to post in public, you can reach us privately at any time by sending an email omitting the key word ‘wildpost’

Interacting with Posts
Read more

To keep the main forum page within reasonable bounds it displays items in ‘teaser’ form, just enough information to help you decide whether it is of interest to you where you want to ‘read more’. Obviously, if you decide a post looks interesting click the ‘read more’ link and the full article will open the full view. When you have finished you can tap the arrow (←) nest to the page header to return to forum page.

Links

Any links within a post only work when you are viewing the full article. 

The feed system uses a utility called DLVR.IT and many posts will have only a link to that and will show a limited amount of text. This is a totally secure function and you can safely click DLVR.IT links. Clicking on DLVR.IT will go to the original page, usually on a different website, it is linked to. You will need to use your browser’s ‘page back’ functionto return to the forum stream. 

Comments

You can make a comment on any post in the ‘Community Hub’ feed. It prompts ‘Enter Comment’ at the bottom of the post where you can enter your text. There are some simple points to bear in mind:

• Plain text only, no formatting options

• Nothing can be added as an attachment

• To prevent abuse and spam only people with a Google account can make comments

• You can click ‘notify me’ if anyone has replied to your comment and you want to be notified

Share

The most significant way to interact with posts is to SHARE them:

• You can share them with family, friends and like minded people you know by sharing as an email directly to them

• You can share them with yourself by email as a method of note taking or to file it for reading later

• If you have a Facebook, X or Pinterest account you can share them to anyone following you feed 

Enjoy and Agree

This is a small but important additional feature on posts; they not only reward posters for worthy contributions but also enable us to monitor what topics are popular and help shape the future of the ‘Community Hub’ in the future.

• ‘Enjoy?’: The equivalent of the ‘like’ button on Facebook. If you enjoyed a post or learned something from it take a second to tap ‘Enjoy’

• ‘Agree?’: If someone has made a particular point or claim in, for example, a discussion show your support by tapping the ‘Agree?’ button

The Side Bar

The side bar fulfils two primary functions, links to associated web pages and ways to follow the feed without it being open on your screen all the time;

Links

Links are divided into two categories:

1. To the various learning programmes on offer; ‘guided learning, spotlight learning, the research notebook and ideas for active learning

2. To the other Sidmouth Nature pages for site and species information

Follow

Keeping the feed page open in a browser is obviously not a practical solution for any one so there are a number of different options open to you. Adding the feed page to your browser ‘bookmarks’ or ‘favourites’ is a simple option if you just want to visit occasionally but if you want to be kept informed there are various options open to you:

1. Follow.It
   Enter your email address into the Follow.It subscription box to receive notification directly into your email inbox. You have a choice of being notified for every individual new post (not recommended!) or for consolidation daily, etc
   
   

2. Substack
   For those who wish to engage in the Spotlight and/or guided learning programme there is a subscription service link only to those programmes so if you do not want to know about general posts then that is your preferred choice.
   
   

3. RSS
   If you use an RSS reader (Netvibes, Feedly, Feeder and any more) then you can use the link to get the URL of the RSS feed for the ‘Community Hub’.
   
   

4. Facebook
   All posts to the ‘Community Hub’ are also posted to the project Facebook Page and you can follow new posts through your normal Facebook usage. However, you will be at the mercy of the Facebook algorithm and may not see all the posts on your page.

Summing Up

So there you have it, everything you need to know about the ‘Community Hub’. There is something for everyone, no matter what you know or do not know about the wild side of Sidmouth. Join in, share knowledge you do have and let’s learn together!