4 About Communities

The pages, portlets, layout, community preferences, and subcommunities within a community are determined by the community administrator. Although the community administrators determine which portlets are displayed in a community, a portlet itself might allow community members to change the content within each portlet.

You are automatically subscribed to communities based on your group membership. You can also join communities on your own. Some community subscriptions might be mandatory, but you can unsubscribe from those that are not. The communities you are subscribed to appear in the My Communities menu. Some mandatory communities might also appear as tabs in the menu area.

Community Menus

The community might include the following menus:

The community menu displays all the community pages, and—if enabled by the administrator—the Community Knowledge Directory. The community pages display portlets. The Community Knowledge Directory displays the members of the community, any subcommunities of the community, and any other folders and contents the community administrator added.
Subcommunities displays any subcommunities within the current community.
Related Communities displays any communities that are stored in the same administrative folder as the current community.

This menu only appears if you have access to related communities.

Note:

Your portal administrator might use a navigation scheme with customized menu options.

Subcommunities

Subcommunities are separately-secured subsections in a community, which might have a more restrictive security than the main community. For example, you might have a Marketing Community that includes an Advertising Subcommunity. This Advertising Subcommunity might have distinct owners or might be accessible to only a subset of the Marketing Community.

Community Knowledge Directory

The Community Knowledge Directory, if enabled, displays community resources in an organizational structure that is relevant to the community (as opposed to the broader portal audience). It includes a list of community members, displayed in the Members folder, and a list of subcommunities, displayed in the Subcommunities folder. Community administrators can also create folders that contain links to relevant web pages, community experts, portal documents, or community pages.

Viewing Communities

To view the communities to which you belong, open the My Communities menu.
To display a community, in the My Communities menu, click the community name.
To display a page in the community, in the community title bar, click the name of the page.
To view the Community Knowledge Directory, in the community title bar, click Community Knowledge Directory.

This link is available only if the community administrator has enabled the Community Knowledge Directory. The Community Knowledge Directory displays the members of the community, any subcommunities of the community, and any other folders and contents the community administrator added.
To view the subcommunities to which you belong, open the Subcommunities menu.

This menu appears only if this community contains any subcommunities. Subcommunities are separately secured subsections of a community. For example, you might have a Marketing community that contains the Advertising Subcommunity. The Advertising Subcommunity could have distinct owners; or only a subset of the Marketing community might be entitled to see the Advertising Subcommunity.
To view a subcommunity, in the Subcommunities menu, click the subcommunity name.
To join the community you are viewing, click Join this community.
Note:
- You see this option only if you are not already subscribed to the community.
- You can also join communities by clicking My Communities > Join Communities. For more information on joining communities, see Joining Communities.
To unsubscribe from a community, click Unsubscribe from this community.
Note:
- You see this option only if you are a member of this community and only if your membership is not mandatory.
- You can also unsubscribe from communities by clicking My Communities > Unsubscribe Communities. For more information on unsubscribing from communities, see Leaving Communities.

Joining Communities

You can join a communities that you visit frequently so that they display in the My Communities menu.

In the My Communities menu, click Edit My Communities.

The Flyout My Communities Editor opens.
Under the community name, click Join.

To search for a community, in the Search for Communities text box type the text for which you want to search, then click Search. For searching tips, see Using Text Search Rules.
To close the Flyout My Communities Editor and save your changes, click Close Editor.

Note:

You can also join a community by viewing the communities and clicking Join this community.

Leaving Communities

If you no longer use a community, you can leave it to remove it from your My Communities menu.

In the My Communities menu, click Edit My Communities.

The Flyout My Communities Editor opens.

Note:
Your administrator might have made your membership in some communities mandatory (Mandatory appears to the right of the community name). You cannot leave mandatory communities.
Under the community name, click Leave.
To close the Flyout My Communities Editor and save your changes, click Close Editor.

Note:

You can also leave a community by viewing the community and clicking Unsubscribe from this community.

Recommending Communities

If you find a community you want to recommend to other users, you can send a link to them by e-mail.

In the My Communities menu, click Edit My Communities.
Under the community you want to recommend, click Invite.
In the invitation dialog box, copy the text, and click Close.
In your e-mail application, paste the text into an e-mail message and send it.

When users click the URL in your e-mail, they are taken to the community preview and given the option to join it. Users that do not have permission to see the community receive an error message.