iFollo FAQ's
Using iFollo
1. What is iFollo?
2. Do I have to be a registered user to access parts of iFollo?
Anyone is free to browse the site, but you must be registered if you want to share an encounter, comment, or forum post AND/OR have access to any of the My Home Page customization options.
3. How do I create and customize my home page?
Once you're registered and logged in on iFollo, you'll see your username and messages link top left corner of the page.
You'll also see a "My Home" tab has appeared on the top navigation bar:
Clicking on either of these will take you to your profile page that was automatically created when you signed up.
There you can edit your profile and account information, as well as read the latest updates on the celebrities and groups you're follo-ing.
4. How do I select celebrities and teams to follo, and what does that mean?
To follo a celebrity, group or team, click on the gray "follo celeb" button under the name of the celebrity you want to follo:
This celebrity, group, or team will be automatically added to your home page feeds, and you'll have the option to recieve e-mail notifications whenever new items about the celebrites you follo are posted. (For more on managing your e-mail notifications, see below.)
You can also choose to follo other registered iFollo users and bloggers as well.
4. How do I report inappropriate material?
To report inappropriate material, click on the "Report Abuse" button that appears beside all contributed content.
5. How do I report a bug?
If you discover a bug on the site please use our Contact Us page to report the error, and please also supply a URL to the page you found the bug on so we can find it again.
Account Information
1. How can I change my username?
Unfortunately, the username you choose when you sign up is the only thing that can't be changed, so make sure you're happy with it when you register!
2. How can I change my other account details (password, bio, photo, email address etc)?
3. How can I close my iFollo account?
To close your account, please email us and it will be closed by our site administrators. Please note that stories and comments you have added under this account will not be removed, but your user name will be changed to display "anonymous".
4. What do I do if I forget my Password?
If you've forgotten your password, click the Get password link at the bottom of the sign-in box.
To use this feature you'll need to know the email address that's associated with your account. If you've forgotton both, please contact us for further assistance.
5. Why do you require users to create such secure passwords? This is a celebrity news site, not Fort Knox.
We agree! Despite what the prompts in the password creation fields are telling you--i.e., all the things your password SHOULD contain if you want it to be very secure--it doesn't mean you MUST have a super-secure (or impossible to remember) password in order to register. In other words, those pop-up admonitions (which unfortunately are pretty much baked into our registration software) are just warnings, not sign-up deal-breakers.
The truth is, you can use whatever password you want and still be able to register. So even though our nagging software only has your best interest at heart, it's up to you to decide how secure your iFollo account really needs to be. Just don't say we didn't warn you.
6. Who do I contact if I can't get into my account?
If you've tried the Get password link and still can't log in, please email us with as much information as you can provide (such as your username, email address, approximately when the account was created, etc.) and we'll send you with a link to access your account again.
7. Is my private information protected?
Absolutely. Please review our Privacy Policy .
8. How do I manage my e-mail notifications?
You can elect to get e-mail notifications whenever a an encounter story, sighting, or blog post is published on iFollo about any of the celebrities you're currently follo-ing.
You can also separately elect to be notified whenever any iFollo user that you're following publishes an encounter, sighting, blogpost, or comment.
To enable/disable this feature, go to your My Home page and click on the "edit profile" text link next to the little pencil icon to access your account settings. Click on the EXTRA INFORMATION tab and check/uncheck the boxes according to your preferences.
To manage your notifications for discussion comments and replies, go to the ACCOUNTS tab and scroll down to "Comment follow-up notification settings" .
(See Question #2 under "Comments and Forum Posts" below for more details about automatic comment follow-up notifications.)
Stories
1. How do I add a story to iFollo?
Click on the "Add Your Encounter" link in the user navigation panel page,
or the "Add a Story" button on any celebrity profile page:
This will bring up the story submission window. Only the fields with a red asterisk are required, but we'd love to know how you'd rate the celebrity as well.
If we don't yet have the celebrity you want to write about profiled on our site, you'll be asked to create a new celebrity before you submit your encounter:
(For help on creating a celebrity profile, see Question #2 below).
To add an image, use the browse button to locate the image on your computer. Make sure you press upload afterwards!
To add a movie link, you'll first need to upload your movie to one of the many third- party services out there (YouTube, Vimeo, Myspace etc) and then just copy the URL link (not the embed code!) for the video into the field provided.
2. What can I do if you don't have the celebrity or celebrity group (team, TV Show or Movie cast) I'm looking for listed on your site?
Although we currently have over 8,000 celebrities and groups in our database and are continually adding to and updating it, we also rely on our fellow fans and users (i.e., you) to help pick up the slack.
If you've typed your celeb's or group's name in search and come up empty, click on the dark gray Add A Celebrity or Add A Celebrity Group button to add it yourself.
Unless you're feeling especially generous and/or technically inclined, the only information required to complete a profile is the celebrity's name and their category. (Of coourse, we'd love for you to fill in the rest of the info and upload a photo, but our staff can to that as well.)
3. If anyone can create a celebrity profile on your site, what's to stop people from creating fake or non-celebrity profiles iFollo?
Actually, not much. But we do screen and edit every new profile that's created, so just because it's been created doesn't mean it's can't or won't be deleted if it's if it's not relevent to the site. So create away, but just know that we reserve the right to not only alter or delete any material we judge to be useless or inappropriate, but also to block or ban the users who submit it.
4. What's to stop people from making up encounters and sightings? How can you guarantee that the stories people submit are true?
We can't. Without a photo or video to back it up, the most we can do is verify, to the best of our ability, that a story may be true. After that, it's up to you to whether you believe a particular story or not, or to ask more questions about it. That's what the ratings (thumbs up or down) and the comment section is for!
5. Someone's abusing me or my story in comments, what do I do?
Please click on the "Report Abuse" button that appears beside all contributed content and our administrators will take the appropriate action.
6. How can I report an offensive story?
Click "Report Abuse" to alert us to the story in question. You're can also contact us directly quoting the URL and we'll look into it.
7. Can I change my rating of a story?
Yes you can - simply click the opposite thumb icon to the one you clicked originally.
8. Do I have to include a photo or video when posting a new story?
No. If you don't have any media to accompany your story, our default profile image of the celebrity that you are writing about will be matched with the story.
9. How do I edit a story or photo that I've already posted?
You've published a story! Fantastic! But you've just realized that you need to change it for some reason, or maybe add some additional information or media.
Either way, no problem. In the header box of the story you have written, you'll see a gray button that says "Edit Story".
(You can only see this if you're the person that wrote the story.)
Clicking this button, brings up the editable story submission box. When you're done making your changes, click the green "Publish" button to re-post the edited story.
9. Can I delete a story I submitted?
Although your story can be edited, it can't be completely deleted by you once it's been published. If you've posted a story you would like removed, please email us with a link to the story (and why you want it deleted) so it can be manually removed at the discretion of our site administrators.
Comments and Forum Posts
1. Can I edit or delete a comment/reply/forum post I made?
2. Can I be notified when someone comments on a story I've posted, or responds to one of my comments or forum posts?
Yes! You can activate these notifications in one of two ways: per individual comment, or by default.
Celebrities On iFollo
1. What can I do if you don't have the celebrity or celebrity group (team, TV Show or Movie cast) I'm looking for listed on your site?
Although we currently have over 8,000 celebrities and groups in our database and are continually adding to and updating it, we also rely on our fellow fans and users (i.e., you) to help pick up the slack.
If you've typed your celeb's or group's name in search and come up empty, click on the dark gray Add A Celebrity or Add A Celebrity Group button to add it yourself.
Unless you're feeling especially generous and/or technically inclined, the only information required to complete a profile is the celebrity's name and their category. (Of coourse, we'd love for you to fill in the rest of the info and upload a photo, but our staff can to that as well.)
2. If anyone can create a celebrity profile on your site, what's to stop people from creating fake or non-celebrity profiles iFollo?
Actually, not much. But we do screen and edit every new profile that's created, so just because it's been created doesn't mean can't or won't be deleted if it's if it's not interesting, entertaining, or otherwise relevent to the site. So create away, but just know that we reserve the right to not only alter or delete any material we judge to be useless or offensive, but also to block or ban the user who submitted it.
3. So what's iFollo's definition of a"celebrity"? How famous does someone have to be for you to accept their profile?
Celebrity comes in many forms and levels, and nobody knows better than we do how hard it is to define. iFollo was founded on the idea that celebrity news can be so much more than the usual tabloid gossip about a handful of Hollywood A-Listers . So, while we're obviously not about to let our celebrity database get overrun by spammy self-promoters, delusional crazies, or random unknowns, we're not against letting a few slip through if they're entertaining enough. In other words, when it comes to our celebrity profiles, we're willing to keep an open mind for now.
4. How do I edit a celebrity profile that's already been published?
You may have added a profile for a celebrity that was not already on the site, and want to add some more details. Or, maybe you've noticed a factual error on an existing profile . In either case, you do have the ability to edit a profile.
To edit a profile go to the celebrity profile page detail. Underneath the profile you will see a link next to a little pencil icon that says "Edit Celebrity".
By clicking on this link, you'll bring up the editable information for the profile.
Here you can edit all information in the profile except the name.
If you believe that the name in a profile is incorrect then please email us and our administration team will fix the error.
5. How do I add a celebrity or a celebrity team or group to multiple categories?
To add a celebrity to multiple categories, go to the celebrity you are wanting to edit and click on the 'edit celebrity' link underneath the picture of the celebrity. Using the dropdown underneath the 'Categories' heading, select the category you want to add the celebrity to and click on the 'Add' button next to the dropdown. Once you have added the celebrity to a category, you will see it appear underneath. If you want to remove the celebrity from a category, click on the 'Remove' link next to the Category name.
Once you have finished entering the celebrity details don't forget to press save!
Rating Stories
1. How do the ratings work?
iFollo uses a simple thumbs up/thumbs down rating system for stories. Each user gets one vote per story. Looking at the thumb rating against stories can immediately give a sense for the community's opinion of a rated story. The more thumbs up a story gets, the higher it is promoted according to popularity. You can change your vote at any time.
More iFollo Info
1. Can I use iFollo on my mobile?
Currently iFollo works on all standard browsers, so will display on any phone with a decent web browser, but there's no specific mobile optimized site as yet. We are planning an iPhone release in the near future.
2. What if I have a question you don't list here?
Please Contact Us with any other questions you may have.
