Frequently Asked Questions
- Why can't I vote?
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There are three possible reasons:
- You are a new user with less than 15 reputation points. Our software does not trust people with low rep with something as important as voting, so it requires that you obtain at least 15 reputation points before allowing you to give rep to others. You can gain these initial points by asking good questions or providing good answers to other people's questions.
- If you have over 15 rep and still cannot vote on questions or answers, then you may have hit the daily vote limit. The vote limit exists to prevent vote fraud and overvoting. Currently the limit is 30 up or down votes on questions or answers per day (you may up vote up to 30 comments a day as well).
- If you haven't hit the vote limit and have over 15 rep but still cannot vote, then we must have broken something. Contact us by emailing OPIEWeb@GMail.com and we'll get it sorted out.
- What kind of questions can I ask here?
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Organizational Psychology questions, of course!
As long as your question is:
- detailed and specific
- written clearly and simply
- of interest to at least one other person somewhere
Please look around to see if your question has already been asked (and maybe even answered!) before you ask. If you end up asking a question that has been asked before, that is OK and deliberately allowed. Other users will hopefully edit in links to related or similar questions to help future visitors find their way.
It's also perfectly fine to ask and answer your own question, but pretend you're on Jeopardy: phrase it in the form of a question.
Treat others with the same respect you'd want them to treat you. We're all here to learn together. Be tolerant of others who may not know everything you know. Bring your sense of humor.
Above all, be honest. If you see misinformation, vote it down. Insert comments indicating what, specifically, is wrong. Even better — edit and improve the information! Provide stronger, faster, superior answers of your own!
- What are tags and how do they work?
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Tags are a way of classifying what topics you will cover in your question. By tagging questions appropriately you make it easier for others to find your question. It also makes it easier for you to find similar questions. For example, searching for "[SPSS]" will bring up all of the questions tagged with SPSS. They should all have something to do with the statistics program SPSS. Likewise, if you click the SPSS tag, you will be shown all of the questions tagged as [SPSS].
You may use up to 5 tags on a question and we do require that you at least use one tag. Make it a good one please.
Users with over 250 reputation can create new tags so we can be sure that new questions and topics will be properly classified. If you see a post that is tagged improperly and you have over 500 rep, then you can re-tag the question, even if you didn't ask it.
- Do I have to log in or create an account?
- Nope. You can answer and ask questions to your heart's content as an anonymous user, much like Wikipedia. However, there are some things you won't be able to do on the site without registering such as earn reputation points, vote, comment and earn badges. But it's easy to register if you want to. All you need is an OpenID account.
- What is reputation?
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Reputation is completely optional. Normal use of OPIEWeb, that is, asking and answering questions — does not require any reputation whatsoever.
Remember, OPIEWeb is run by you! If you want to help us run the site, you'll need reputation first. Reputation is a (very) rough measurement of how much the OPIEWeb community trusts you. Reputation is never given, it is earned by convincing other users that you know what you're talking about.
Here's how it works: if you post a good question or helpful answer, it will be voted up by your peers: you gain 10 reputation points. If you post something that's off topic or incorrect, it will be voted down: you lose 2 reputation points. You can earn up to 200 reputation per day, but no more. (Note that votes for any posts marked "community wiki" do not generate reputation.)
Amass enough reputation points and OPIEWeb will allow you to go beyond simply asking and answering questions:
15 Vote up 15 Flag offensive 50 Leave comments 100 Vote down (costs 1 rep), edit community wiki posts 200 Reduced advertising 250 Vote to close or reopen your questions, create new tags 500 Retag questions, even those you didn't ask 2000 Edit other people's Questions and Answers 3000 Vote to close or reopen any questions 10000 Delete closed questions, access to moderation tools At the high end of this reputation spectrum there is little difference between users with high reputation and moderators. That is very much intentional. We don't run OPIEWeb. The community does.
- How do I create an account?
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OPIEWeb does not store personal information about you. There is enough of that floating around already. Instead of making you create yet another login with yet another password to remember, OPIEWeb relies on a technology called OpenID.
Chances are, you already have an OpenID account and didn't even know it. Click on "Login" in the grey bar an the top of your screen and you'll see a big text box and some icons.
If you have an account at one of the places below, you can use the same login and password here that you use there by clicking on their logo on the Login page:
- Yahoo!
- Flickr
- AOL
- LiveJournal
- WordPress
- Blogger
- Verisign
- Technorati
If you do not have an account with one of those providers, or wish to make a new account, you may sign up with them, or one of these OpenID providers:
- MyOpenID
- ClaimID
- OpenID
**NOTE** While our site software is still in beta, there is an issue with openID whereby you may need to go through the login process twice. We apologize for the inconvenience.
- I created two accounts, how can I merge them?
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Yes, you can merge two (or more) accounts into one account. Just send an email to OPIEWeb@GMail.com from each of the email addresses you used to make duplicate accounts. This ensures that you are in fact the owner of each of the accounts to be merged. Include in the email which account is the one you want to keep and we will take it from there. Be sure to put the word "Merge" in the subject line so we know to address your issue quickly.
- I asked/answered a question without creating a login and earned reputation points. Can I convert that to a real account?
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In some cases, you can convert your unregistered reputation over to a full-fledged OPIEWeb account. The deciding factor is the contents of the OPIEWeb cookie on your computer's harddrive. The more information it contains, the more we can port over into your account. In order to initiate the conversion, go to our login page on the computer you used the most on OPIEweb (just this one time). Create an account, and whatever rep you had should automatically be added to your new account.
If you encounter any difficulties, just send an email to OPIEWeb@GMail.com from the email addresses you used to create your account. This ensures that you are in fact the owner of the account to be merged. Be sure to put the word "Conversion" in the subject line so we know to address your issue quickly.
- Ok, I have an account now, how do I change my picture to something more "me" than the default icon?
- OPIEWeb uses Gravitar.Com's service for managing profile pictures. You need to go to Gravitar.com and create an account (if you have a Wordpress account, you already have a Gravitar too). Your Gravitar is linked to the email address you use to sign up for their service so make sure the Email in your profile matches the one you gave to Gravitar. Follow their easy steps for creating a Gravitar and OPIEWeb will be automatically updated when ever you change it.It's a lot easier than it sounds and like OpenID, your Gravitar will follow you to other sites too.
- Some questions and answers are marked as "Community Wiki." I also see the checkbox to flag my questions and answers as Community Wiki. What is that and when should I use it?
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"Community Wiki" changes the rules for that Question and its Answers. Any text either in the question or in the answers may be modified by a member of the community with more than 750 reputation points. Up and down votes on community wiki flagged questions and answers will not grant or remove reputation points.
When you are asking a question which will likely start a discussion, rather than lead to a definitive answer, please flag it as community wiki.
- What if I don't get a good answer?
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In order to get good answers, you have to put some effort into the question. Edit your question to provide status and progress updates. Document your own continued efforts to answer your question. This will naturally bump your question and get more people interested in it.
If, after a few days, you still don't have an answer you like, you can offer a bounty. Slice off a bit of your own hard-earned reputation -- anywhere from 50 to 500 -- and attach it to the question as a bounty. We'll even throw in 50 reputation to sweeten the deal. The bountied question will appear with a special icon in all question lists, and it will also be visible on the home page Featured tab.
Once initiated, the bounty period lasts seven days. If you mark an accepted answer, your bounty is awarded to the answerer (do note that accepted bounty answers are permanent and cannot be changed). If you do not accept an answer in seven days, the top voted answer will automatically become the accepted answer, and half your bounty will be awarded to that answer. You will always give up the amount of reputation specified in the bounty, so if you start a bounty, be sure to follow up and accept the best answer!
Of course, bounty awards, like all accepted answers, are immune to the daily reputation cap and community wiki mode.
- Other people can edit my stuff?!
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Like Wikipedia, this site is collaboratively edited. If you are not comfortable with the idea of your questions and answers being edited by other trusted users, this may not be the site for you.
- Some people have diamonds next to their name. What does that mean?
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A Single Diamond means that the user is a designated Moderator. These folks have tools at their disposal to help keep OPIEWeb civil. Once you amass over 10,000 rep, you too will have the power of a moderator (without the fancy diamond).
Double Diamonds indicate that the user is an Administrator. Admins have all of the moderator's tools as well as the ability to change how the site appears, it's name, really high level stuff. There isn't a rep level that will grant these abilites.
- My question isn't here. How do I contact someone to get an answer?
- Simply send an email to OPIEWeb@GMail.com and someone will get back to you, I promise.