Frequently asked questions

Short answers to the things members ask most often. Where an answer belongs to a bigger subject, it links to the chapter that covers it properly.

The first three are about getting in, because that is where most people get stuck; the rest are about writing and posting.

I registered, but I cannot log in. Why?

Almost always one of two gates, in this order:

1. The email address is not confirmed. Unless the hub has switched confirmation off, the account exists but cannot be used until you follow the link in the message the hub sent when you registered. Check the spam folder; the message is generated automatically and filters often catch it. If it is not there, log in anyway: you reach a page headed Email Address Unconfirmed that offers to send a new confirmation message to the address on the account.
2. An administrator has not approved the account yet. Some hubs require this as well, and it happens after you confirm. Logging in reaches a page headed Pending Approval, which carries a link to raise a support ticket if you think it is wrong. Where the hub has the approval notice switched on, it emails you when the account is approved. Nothing you can do speeds it up.

Not every hub uses either gate. On a hub with both switched off, the account works the moment you create it. Registration sets out the possible sequences.

If the login form rejects the password rather than the account, see the next answer.

I have forgotten my password, or lost my username. What now?

Both links sit under the login form.

Forgot password? goes to /members/reset. Type your username or your email address; the hub mails you a verification code, you type the code into the next form, and then you choose a new password. The new password has to satisfy the same rules the registration form applied.

Lost username? goes to /members/remind. Type the email address on the account and the hub mails the username to it.

Two things to know:

• There is a limit on how often you may ask for a reset. Past it the page says Sorry, you have exceeded your reset request limit. Please wait and try again later. Wait rather than retrying.
• If you only ever sign in through an outside service — Google, ORCID, Globus and others are possible — there may be no hub password to reset. Set one from the Account tab of your member area, which is also where you link and unlink those services.

Who can see my profile?

That depends on two settings you control, and the outer one wins: a toggle at the top of the Profile tab makes the whole profile public or private, and, while it is public, each field has its own Privacy menu — public, registered members only, or you alone. While the profile is private, the per-field menus are disabled entirely.

Which state your account started in depends on the hub, not on the software, so check the toggle rather than assuming. Member profile covers the decision in full.

A private profile also means other members cannot find you when they go to invite you to a group or add you to a project.

How do I change my email address?

1. Log in and go to your member area at /members/myaccount.
2. Select the Profile tab.
3. Find the E-mail row and select Edit beside it.
4. Type the new address.
5. Select Save.

Usernames, by contrast, cannot be changed at all. If yours is genuinely a problem, raise a support ticket.

What is CKEditor?

CKEditor is the rich-text editor a hub uses wherever you write content — blog entries, wiki pages, publication abstracts, forum posts, and the administrator's own screens. It gives you the usual word-processor controls: headings, bold and italic, lists, links, tables, and images.

Two of its buttons are specific to a hub:

• Source switches between the formatted view and the underlying HTML.
• Add Macro inserts a hub macro — a short instruction in double square brackets that the page expands when it is displayed. [[Video(…)]], [[Image(…)]], and [[Link(…)]] are macros. Selecting the button lists the ones your hub has, with the arguments each one takes.

It deliberately offers less than a desktop word processor. Font choices and colours are left out so that content stays consistent with the site's design.

How do I embed a video?

For a video hosted elsewhere — YouTube, Vimeo, or Kaltura — you do not need to upload anything. Put the video's URL inside the Video macro:

[[Video(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgfGOEpZEOw)]]

The macro takes an optional size, either named or positional:

[[Video(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgfGOEpZEOw, width=600, height=338)]]
[[Video(MyVideo.mp4, 640, 380)]]

For a video file of your own, upload it first. Wherever the hub gives you an editor next to an Uploaded files area — a blog entry, for instance — you can attach a file and then refer to it by name:

1. Open the page you are writing.
2. Under Uploaded files, select Choose File, pick the .mp4 from your computer, and select Upload. It appears in the list above.
3. Put the cursor where the video should go and select Add Macro, or type the macro yourself: [[Video(MyVideo.mp4)]], using the name exactly as it appears in the file list.
4. Save the page. The macro is replaced by a player when the page is shown; it stays as text while you are editing.

Why was my post rejected as spam?

Hubs run a set of antispam checks over anything you submit. A post can be rejected for having too many links in it, for linking to a domain on a public blocklist, or for matching a filter the hub maintains. Rewording the post, or dropping the links, usually gets it through.

This catches ordinary members more often than you would expect. A first forum post that lists six references, each a bare URL, looks exactly like a spam post to a link-counting filter. Writing the references out and linking only the DOI usually gets the same post through.

If it keeps happening, the hub can put an account in "spam jail", which replaces every page with a notice reading We've detected spam-like behavior from your account. That is not permanent and it is not an accusation — raise a support ticket and ask for it to be lifted.

Something else is wrong

Everything a hub's own staff can fix goes through Support: quota increases, an account stuck in one of the states above, a group you cannot get into. If what you want is a feature the hub does not have, that is the Wishlist instead.