Community Page & Cafe

...used to be called the Community Page. Now it is called the Member Centre. This is the hub of Ciao, and there is a button at the top of the page when you are logged in that takes you to the Member Centre.

Here, you can search for another member by name, by typing their name in the search box at the top of the page and pressing search. This is a handy item when you have read something by a member and want to get back to their page.
...announcements that may be important. Community Announcements will tell you about things going on in the Community and System Announcements is particularly interesting when things are going wrong with the site. There are usually reasons posted there about technical things that are going on.

CIAO CHARTS
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This section is divided into the charts for this week, and then on the right, the charts since ... more

CIAO MEMBER PAGE
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When this category was first put on the site, the member page used to be called the Community Page. Now it is called the Member Centre. This is the hub of Ciao, and there is a button at the top of the page when you are logged in that takes you to the Member Centre.

Here, you can search for another member by name, by typing their name in the search box at the top of the page and pressing search. This is a handy item when you have read something by a member and want to get back to their page.

ANNOUNCEMENTS
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This is a useful section to look at from time to time and where Ciao put announcements that may be important. Community Announcements will tell you about things going on in the Community and System Announcements is particularly interesting when things are going wrong with the site. There are usually reasons posted there about technical things that are going on.

CIAO CHARTS
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This section is divided into the charts for this week, and then on the right, the charts since Ciao started. It shows you the reviews that have been read the most, the authors whose work is read the most, the most read products, and those that have won recognition by being best performers in the Premium Fund. This is a fund that is shared between the best writers each month, and you can go and see all the best reviews here, ones that have been recognised by Diamonds !!

CIAO LISTS
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I find this a fascinating section. You can read the most recent reviews here, and this tells you who is online at the moment. I like that. It makes you feel like you are not alone on the site, and you also get to read all the new and latest reviews.

New Diamonds. People are proud of their diamonds, and its nice to see who has just been presented with a diamond and to read them and see why. It helps you to know what is expected to get a diamond and gives you something to aim for.

New Authors. This is the new breed of Ciaoers, and I love reading new people’s work to see who we have on the site, although as I am writing this review for new people mostly, I would say that a lot of you write without reading first, and that can be an error of judgement because no one can be expected to write, not knowing what is expected of them. Here, a lot of new people fail because its like walking across a room you have never walked across before blindfolded. No one expects you to be perfect, but if you have read someone’s work and understood what makes a good review, then it really does show in your style of writing, and content, and would save a lot of bad ratings if new people took the time to read others before writing.

New products – This one is always of interest to me, because people suggest new products every day of the week, and its nice to see what new things are being reviewed.

Reviews Archive – I did not know this section existed until I read a review by another member and what this is is a calendar that goes back in time to when the site first started and you can read all the old reviews. Sometimes, I delve in there because a lot of the old stuff has been forgotten and it’s still nice to recognise that there are people on here that wrote before we were around, and their work was well worth a read and a rate and a comment, and is probably hidden somewhere on the back pages of their personal page and would otherwise not be read. I love this section of Ciao.

Diamond Archives – Now here we have the pick of the crop, all the diamonds that have been awarded since the start of Ciao.

CIAO TRAINING
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This is a great place for new people on here to go, and sometimes for oldies like me to go to be reminded about what it takes to write a good review. This is divided into sections and is really useful.

Guidelines for reviews
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I believe that everyone on the site should read this. It tells you Ciao’s guidelines for reviews and is instant information, telling you how to write and what is expected of you. Not enough people read this ! I read it one day after I had been here for two months, and was surprised, and found that not only did my reviews get better, my ratings did too !

Guidelines for Ratings
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This is essential reading and gives guidelines about ratings. It is easy to go into a review and rate the same as everyone else, but that is really not what rating is about. Here, the guidelines are really well explained. Read it. It’s good stuff.

Guidelines for comments
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Self explanatory, but if you are new on here and are a little nervous about commenting, read it. It will help you.

Guidelines for the Circle of Trust
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Essential reading. Trust is a serious word, not one to be taken flippantly and changed every day with the mood. Read it and learn.

On the right hand side in the training area, there are questions and answers, and a really helpful area where a new person on here can get help and advice and usually find answers to questions that occur to all of us on here from time to time.

AFFILIATE PROGRAM
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This area tells you how to invite friends and widen the Ciao community, and the incorporate a banner area tells you how to put links to Ciao on your website.

CONTACT
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Abuse on the site. This is an important place. If you find someone copying work, report it. Copying is the worst kind of cheating you can get. If you are receiving any kind of comments that disturb you, report it. Ciao abuse is on the site to protect members from just that, abuse. It isn’t snitching. It is keeping the site free of the kind of people that cheat, the kind of people that are out to upset members, and the kind of people that make Ciao not function as well as it should. In any community – be it online or in real life, there are always trouble makers. This place is your protection against them.

Report a technical problem. Since the site has been updated, I suspect that this button gets pressed rather a lot and the poor technicians must be working overtime to correct technical problems. If you have a technical problem, this is the page to go, although with the site as it is at the moment, I would advise new people to write their reviews in word, and then cut and paste them because I have written many reviews and lost them to the Ciao gremlins by not taking the precaution to do this.

Ciao Café, I have dealt with below as this is too vast a subject to cover in a small paragraph.

CATEGORY ASSISTANTS
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For each category on Ciao, there is an assistant who is willing and open to help you with any queries you may have in their particular category. Press this button and make yourself familiar with who they are and what they are category assistants of. For new people on here, there is an assistant called Wulise, who is super, very approachable and helpful to all the new people on here, and if you have problems with your writing and want it proofread, there is an assistant to help you with this as well.

CIAO CAFÉ GUIDE FOR NEWBIES.
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If you are new on Ciao, then chances are that you have caught a couple of glimpses of Café reviews. I read many before I discovered where to go to find the categories in order to write café reviews.

I thought that the café was a chatroom at first and was surprised to find it was not. After all, a café is the ideal place to have a chatroom, although I have learned since being here on Ciao that the Ciao café is a place for personalities, personal opinions, a help centre for those seeking comfort, a place to go when you feel you need something a little more personal than a product review to read or write.

On the members page, bottom left, there is an entry into this place we call the Café. Press it, take a look around. It really is an interesting place. On the opening page, there are categories that begin with Buyer Beware. This is a good category because it enables Ciao users to warn people of rogue sites, or things that are happening on the net that may affect people, like fraud. This is a useful area to share your experiences in a helpful way. Criticising a site because you don’t like it is not really the idea of Buyer Beware. This is really a place to discuss your bad experiences of buying to warn others of the pitfalls.

Ciao Meeting
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This is a place for Ciao members to recount their experiences of Ciao Meetings. From time to time, Ciao have something called Ciao Meets, the last one being in Birmingham. These are official meetings where members get together and from what I have read, have a thoroughly good time.

CREATIVE WRITING
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Now this is an area that I love and that I would encourage all new members to take a look at. It is a place where stories and essays can be written. There is a poetry section which is getting bigger every day, and are always well read on here, because reading the poetry is enjoyable, as well as writing it. There is also a joke section, so here you get a chance to share jokes with other members and have fun.

One point I would mention here that is important throughout the site is that the creative writing section is for original work, not copied from anywhere. This is a place where you will get instant feedback from your creativity, but believe me, plagarism is not tolerated, i.e. do not copy. If you think that the categories included do not cover what you want to write creatively, look through them, do a search, and if you do not find what you are looking for in the way of a heading, suggest one to Ciao. They are open to suggestions and if they think it is a viable one that will benefit the community, they will add it.

CURRENT DEBATE
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Since the launching of Ciao, different debate subjects have been added to the site, and here you can participate in debates on anything from Cruelty to Animals right through to whether you think the Monarchy should be abolished. Remember a debate covers all the fors and againsts of a subject. It is an argument, but a constructive one, of why you believe what you believe, and in a debate, you are trying to convince people of your point of view, so need to research and back up your advice with fact.

This is a good place for people with strong beliefs that are willing to research and back up what they say. Debate is healthy and whilst people may not agree with your views, they can rate you on your right to have those views and the way in which you put them forward, how constructive your review was, how complete, how accurate.

EVERYTHING FROM A-Z
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Now this really is a magical place. Every writer on Ciao has the right to express views on anything, to create challenges for other members, to enter competitions where there is no other place to put your entry, and each Ciao writer is allocated all the letters of the alphabet in order to do this. If you wanted to write an article on challenges, then the obvious choice would be “Anything beginning with C”, but if you have already used up your “C”, it does not mean you cannot use another letter. Just describe your review differently and use another letter.

I would advise new members to use their quota of letters carefully, because once the alphabet is used up, then you cannot have two reviews in the same category here. You can update and change the content from time to time on your alphabet reviews, although careful use in the first place is much better.

INTERNATIONAL CENTRE
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This is a place where you can write about different cultures and the point of view of those cultures. Why would you want to do that ? Perhaps because you are from another country, perhaps because you know about a different culture. Again, here, if you do not find the category that you want, you can always ask Ciao to add a category. There is a section Questions and Answers About U.K. Culture, and here you can participate by setting out in a question and answer format things about life in the U.K. This is quite an interesting place because there are so many different viewpoints and yours may be that original viewpoint that no one has ever thought of before.

MEMBER ADVICE
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This section of a café is diverse. It is split into different sections :

Members Advice on Health

There are loads of topics and here I made the mistake of telling people about my hysterectomy, and got a barrage of comments telling me I had not given detail on what the operation involved, why it is performed, etc etc. I thought it was for personal viewpoints on an operation, and my experience of it, although I would suggest that if you write on a health issue, make your review as full and informed as possible so that it helps another member to understand about that health issue.

Relationships

Here again, there are loads of categories that you can participate in. Read through them and if you see something that you feel strongly enough to write about, then join in. Your voice is as important as anyone else on the site.

Hobbies

This is a section that is just opening up with new items being added all the time and here you can share your hobbies with other members. Remember when writing about hobbies that the written word is all you have, plus maybe a few photographs, and if you want to share the intricacies of a hobby, good description helps.

MEMBERS PICKS
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This is a section that is huge. There are hundreds of reviews that you can participate in. 10 of the best covers anything from soap operas to Foods, and it is well worth a browse to see what there is in this section that takes your interest.

TAKING PART IN THE CAFÉ
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Many people, me included, have poured their hearts out on Ciao in café reviews. Behind our keyboards, in the security of our own homes, we feel safe to tell secrets that we tell no one else, and to share experiences with total strangers. In most cases, the support that I have received from Ciao members has been outstanding, and I have made many friends on here that I would not otherwise have known.

By reading Café reviews, I have learned about people, and I love getting to know people, and we are all basically curious about what makes a person tick and who it is that hides behind reviews on products. We learn about their personalities. We click with one another, but as in life, we also clash with people occasionally.

I have emptied out the baggage of my past on here, and would warn new people on here to beware that this is a place full of people, some of whom will understand where you are coming from, and some of whom will dismiss you as a “drama queen”, simply because each person on here, as in life, has a limit in their understanding of a situation. Some of the things that have happened in my life and perhaps yours are open to misinterpretation and disbelief, because people like to see the good in the world, and dismiss the bad.

As an example of how diverse people's reactions to a review are, take a look at the ratings on this one. I can guarantee they will vary between really good ratings, and pretty low ones because the audience is just as diverse in its views.

If you lay your life open on Ciao, be aware that the reactions of everyone will be different. I have had a great deal of support on here from friends that know and trust me in that my reviews are really parts of my life, but there are others who see some of my reviews as attention seeking, and I have even received hate mail because of some of the things that I have written.

I would advise members to write only what you are comfortable to share with others, and be aware that writing about yourself is different from writing about a product. If you write about beans and like them, there is always going to be someone who doesn’t like them. That is human nature. If you write about yourself and people accept you as you are, then that is great, but not everyone will accept the person you are, so only write about things that you are comfortable with, and that you can defend.

My rule on here with Ciao Café reviews is ALWAYS TELL THE TRUTH. Do not make up stories to make yourself sound more interesting than you are. This is destructive, and if you write lies, then what you create is a situation where people begin to disbelieve those who come here and write true things about themselves. There are subjects which are fun, there are subjects which make the writer vulnerable and one thing you can be sure of is that people will comment, and that comments can hurt vulnerable people.

CONCLUSION
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I love this section of Ciao because I get to know people, and have made great friends that understand who I am and why I react in the way I do, people who I share my life with, and people that share theirs.

Before writing, I would advise new members to read a few in the category that they are interested in to give them a better sense of the subject matter. Also, I would advise new members to remember this is a family site and to keep their writing even on difficult subjects as open and readable as possible without too much graphic detail that may upset other members, or at least to warn people of possible detail that they may find disagreeable.

Writing café reviews is not a paying part of Ciao, although it gives everyone the chance to shine, the chance to show who they are, and to share their trials and tribulations, their hopes, their dreams, their short stories, their poems, part of who they are.

Enjoy – be part of the community and participate with truth and honesty and belief. Be read, be appreciated, be a human being on this place called the net, and in particular in a café that welcomes members to be themselves.

Rachel
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Thankyou for reading.

 

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