Thursday, 28 March 2024, 10:27 AM
Site: Brotherhood of the Eternal Light Courses
Course: Brotherhood of the Eternal Light Courses (BOEL Courses)
Glossary: FAQ English
T
Question:

Tags / Alphabetical list of keywords and phrases: what is it for?

(Last edited: Sunday, 4 November 2012, 1:01 PM)
Answer:

The alphabetical list of keywords and phrases on our homepage is a so-called
"tag cloud". Tags consist of any single word or any phrases that are added by our forum users either to their "interests" (in their profiles) or to their blogs in the identically named input field. Tags have to be separated by commas in order for the system to realise which words belong to a single tag. (When you use any other punctuation mark this will not work.)

Tag clouds are used to visualise information. If there are any keywords or phrases that were tagged by several forum users they show up in bigger letters. In this way the size of the letters grows or diminishes according to the number of users who tagged it. A tag cloud is therefore a so-called weighted list. By looking at the tag cloud you can see at a glance which tags are most important to our users, and which are less important.

If you click on any of the tags displayed in the tag cloud you will be shown all forum users who tagged this keyword or phrase and you will also be shown all blog posts that contain this keyword or phrase.

Question:

Tags: What are they and how do I use them?

(Last edited: Thursday, 12 April 2012, 3:57 PM)
Answer:
Tags are keywords or phrases generated from the contents of your "interests" in your profile as well as from your blog entries, where you will find an input field called "tags". When you add any tags to your profile or blog please seperate them by commas ",". When you don't do this then several tags will appear as one single tag.

You will probably have noticed that on the entry page of this course there is a so-called "tag cloud", i.e. all the available tags are shown here in alphabetical order for public view. If there are any tags that were chosen by several forum users they show up in bigger letters. The size of the letters varies according to the number of users who "tagged" these keywords and to the number of users in total. A tag cloud is therefore a so-called weighted list.
If you click on one of the tags you will be shown all forum users who tagged this keyword or phrase.

You have the choice to either create a new tag for yourself or to choose an already existing tag by clicking it and then choose "add (keyword) to my interests". In order to maintain a certain amount of clarity in our tag cloud we kindly ask you to choose an already existing tag rather than to create a new one if the existing one reflects that which you would like to express. Example: If there is a tag called "W.E. Butler" please use the "add this tag to your interests" function, rather than creating a new tag called "Ernest Butler".
If, on the other hand, one of your interests is "Greek philosophy" and an already existing tag is called "occult philosophy" then it does make sense, of course, to add your own "Greek philosophy" tag to the tag cloud.
Please also mind that the tags are shown to the public and that our rules and policies also apply to the tags you choose. So please take care that your tags are appropriate, meaningful and significant, that they are spelled correctly, that they do not violate any rules, do not contain any advertising and are not offensive.
If you feel a tag violates any of these rules please bring it to the attention of a moderator by clicking it and choose "flag as inappropriate".
Any tags that violate our rules will be deleted by the moderators.



U
Question:

Upload or change an avatar / profile picture

(Last edited: Thursday, 12 April 2012, 4:44 PM)
Answer:

How to upload or change an avatar / profile picture

1.  Image Properties
An avatar image must have the file format .gif, .jpg or .png, it should also be square, because if it is not it will be made so automatically by the software. The image does not need to be especially large, because the system will minimize it to 100x100 pixels. The maximum file size you can use is 20 MB. (Usually you should get along with a maximum of a few hundred kb)

2. Storage Location
When you have found an image that is appropriate save it to your computer in a directory where you will be able to retrieve it easily.

3. Upload your image
To upload your avatar image have a look at the navigation bar on the left side of the screen. Scroll down until you can see  the word “Settings”. Beneath this you can see „my profile settings“ and when you click this you will see the link “edit profile“. After you have clicked this you will be able to see all your profile settings in detail.

Please find the section "user picture" which is a bit further down. Click the button "Choose file”. This will open a small new window in which you can select your avatar image that you have saved to your harddrive before.

On the left of this small new window there are several options. Please choose “Upload a file" and then select your chosen image on the right side of the window by using the option “browse”. Browse your harddrive and select the image file and then click on "Upload this file".

4. Save and update profile
After you have succeeded in chosing your image file as your new avatar picture, scroll down in your profile, and click the "update profile" button. Only if you do this the changes will take effect.
However please be careful, if you have not yet filled out all fields that have a red asterisk  * then the image will not upload! (Likewise, any other changes will not be accepted either if you have forgotten a "red asterisk field").

5. Change or replace an avatar image
If you have uploaded your avatar and found afterwards that it was the wrong image, or that you want to replace it for any other reason, then do the same steps as above. However, in this case it is quite probable that this second change will need several minutes or maybe even a quarter or half hour in order to take effect after. (But this happens only if you upload an avatar image more than once in succession.)
If you upload an image initially, it is usually displayed immediately. If you delete your picture and upload a new one it will usually also display immediately. if not please do not despair ;-) please be patient and wait a bit for the changes to take effect.

Frequently asked questions:

Question 1: I  updated my profile, but the changes do not show. Why is that?

Answer: Please read  paragraph 4 of this entry.

Question 2: I wanted to change my initial avatar but it is always the old version that is displayed. I can delete it and it shows immediately, but I cannot change it. Why is that?

Answer: Please read paragraph 5 of this entry.

W
Question:

When will the next unit be accessible?

(Last edited: Thursday, 30 August 2012, 8:22 PM)
Answer:

When will the next unit be accessible?
Several members of BOEL are very busy in providing this course, and while the training in German language has started in 2003, and thus many teaching materials have been available and "field-tested" for years, these are still in German language and therefore have to be translated, and in many cases they are at the same time enhanced and extended, too, based on the experience gathered in the last years.
Most new texts however are written by Salomo Baal-Shem in English and therefore need a translation to German. We do all this work by ourselves and  we all have day jobs to attend to as well. So there is always much to do "behind the scenes" and much work is done, often going unnoticed.

What's more, the Qabbalah online course is available in both German and English, and since we never had any online courses before up until the end of 2010, the quizzes need to be written, translated and uploaded, and in general the technical side of online learning needs to be organised and maintained, too.
Furthermore some publications are being prepared as well  - so there are quite a lot of different tasks to be done simultaneously!
Also, with the ongoing personal training in Germany and some other new projects that we are busy with (and which are of great importance and have a legitimation in their own right) we are quite engaged in order to make available our teachings to all those who are interested and willing to learn.

Hopefully these details will help you to understand that there are sometimes delays because there is a great deal of work going on "behind the scenes" - in the same way as writing these lines has caused some effort and has cost some time that could not be put into the course forums at the same time, but now these lines are in the FAQ so that we can refer to it in the future!

Please also compare the resource "A Word to the Pioneers" which provides further information and which is accessible for all those already enroled in the course.

Is there anything I can do to support BOEL and to advance the course?
Yes, you can! For if the participants of our free online course give good quality feedback to each others "on the scene" in the course forums, then this is a great help that enables the senior students to further the course, which in turn is to the benefit of us all.

We would also like to encourage all participants in case of frequently asked questions to help us and answer these, e.g. by referring to the FAQ entries.
Thank you!