Getting the most out of the SIITR Alumni Community

👋 Welcome to the Community

This guide covers everything a member needs to know to use our community platform with confidence — sharing updates, managing your profile, controlling your privacy and notifications, and keeping the space safe for everyone.

📰 The Activity Stream

The Activity Stream is the central place where you’ll see everything happening in the community — it’s made up of three parts: the Postbox (where you create content), Filters (to find what you’re looking for), and the Stream Items themselves.

Your stream respects privacy

Every post you see is filtered by privacy settings. If someone posts something visible only to their friends, you won’t see it unless you’re connected to them.

Filtering what you see

• Community — every post you have permission to see
• Friends — posts from people you’re connected with
• Saved posts — anything you’ve bookmarked for later
• Scheduled posts — posts you’ve queued for a future date
• Ownership filter — show or hide your own posts
• Keyword search — search for an exact phrase or any matching word
• #Hashtags — find posts tagged with a specific hashtag (if enabled)

What’s in a stream item

✍️ Posting & Polls

The Postbox is where you share content with the community. Start typing in the box at the top of the stream, your profile, or inside a group.

While you write a post you can:

• Choose who can see it (privacy)
• Add a mood, which shows next to your name in the stream
• Schedule it to publish at a later date and time
• Pin it to the top of the stream — including “pin until” a set date

Creating a poll

Polls can be added to the main stream, your profile, or inside a group. Choose between:

• Single select — members can pick just one answer
• Multiple select — members can pick more than one answer

Each member can vote once per poll. If you’re logged out, you can see that a poll exists but you’ll be asked to log in before you can vote or see the results.

🔖 Saving Posts for Later

Spotted something you want to come back to? Use the Save option on any post (where enabled) to bookmark it.

Everything you save is collected under the “Saved” filter at the top of the Activity Stream, so you can find it again quickly without scrolling back through your feed.

🔍 Searching the Stream

You can search any stream — the main community feed, a profile, or a group — for keywords or hashtags.

• Show my posts — toggle whether your own posts appear in the results
• Magnifier icon — expand the search bar to look for keywords or an exact phrase
• Hashtag icon — expand the search bar to look for a specific hashtag

🙂 Avatar & Cover Photo

Changing your avatar

1. Hover over your avatar on your profile
2. Click Change avatar (the camera icon)
3. In the pop-up, choose Upload new and select your photo
4. Click Crop if you’d like to adjust the framing, then Confirm
5. Use the rotate icon to straighten the image if needed
6. Click Done to save

To remove your avatar entirely, open the same pop-up and choose Delete.

Changing your cover photo

1. Hover over your profile’s cover banner
2. Click Change cover image in the top-right corner
3. Choose Upload new and select your photo
4. Wait a moment while it uploads and processes

Repositioning or rotating your cover

Hover over your cover photo and click Change cover, then choose:

• Reposition — drag the image up or down, then click Save
• Rotate left / Rotate right — straighten or flip orientation
• Delete — remove the cover photo

🔒 Profile Privacy

By default, every profile is public to other logged-in members. You can change this any time:

1. Go to your Profile page
2. Select About → Preferences
3. Find Who can see my profile and set it to “Site members” (or another available option)

🔔 Notification Preferences

Manage exactly what you’re notified about under Profile → Preferences → Notifications.

Quick shortcuts

Email notification intensity

Choose how often emails are sent:

• Real time — emails go out immediately as things happen (default)
• Digest — a summary of unread notifications, sent on a schedule (hourly through to once a week)
• Never — turn off email notifications completely

👥 Finding Other Members

Visit the Members page and type a first or last name into the search box to find someone. Usernames alone won’t return a result — search by name instead.

Depending on what’s enabled for our community, you may also be able to filter by additional fields such as country, or a VIP/recognition icon, to narrow your search.

🚩 Reporting Content

If you come across a post, comment, or member profile that breaks our community guidelines, you can report it directly.

You’ll be asked to choose a reason and can add an optional description before submitting — our moderation team reviews every report.

🔗 Sharing & Direct Links

Every post and comment has its own direct link, so you can share a single conversation rather than the whole stream.

1. Find the timestamp on a post (e.g. “2 hours ago”) or use the post’s share/options menu
2. Click it to open that single post (and its comments) on its own page
3. Copy the link from your browser’s address bar, or use the built-in Share button, to send it on

❓ Quick FAQ

I can’t see a post my friend mentioned — why?

It was likely set to a more private audience (e.g. “Friends only”) and you may not be connected yet, or it’s been deleted/unpublished by its author.

How do I stop getting so many emails?

Go to Notification Preferences and switch your email intensity to Digest or Never — you’ll still see alerts on-site.

How do I make my profile private?

See Profile Privacy — you can restrict who sees your profile to site members only, and hide yourself from search.

Someone is breaking the rules — what do I do?

Use the Reporting Content tools on the post, comment, or profile. Our moderators are notified and will review it.