Understanding how Element 14 works

Question

Hey, I registered as a member on Element 14 two years ago because I was looking for a community of Electronics Engineers but I didn't go far because I found the plaform overwhelming and I didn't know where to start. 
 Recently I've been compelling myself to participate more instead of passively reading what other people are doing which has brought me back here. 
 Is there some sort of guide on how this platform works or where I can slowly start participating? 
 Thanks

dougw · Answer

How do I Navigate the element14 Community? - Desktop 
 Start a Discussion 
 /members-area/thisweekoncommunity 
 What Is A RoadTest? 
 How To Write A RoadTest Review 
 Design Challenge: Example Application 
 Project14: Monthly Project Competitions About You! 
 How to Submit a Project Entry 
 Writing Decent Blogs: A Blog Checklist! 
 /e14/about 
 Become a Part of One of the Largest, Active, Online Engineering Communities! 
 Feedback and Support 
 Frequently Asked Questions - FAQ's 
 /members-area/

shabaz · Answer

It's definitely "unusual"! 
 Most of the time, you can simply go to the element14 home page and then just browse the Blogs and Forums tabs, they contain the bulk of recent content at any time. See the red boxes below.

When you're ready to respond to such existing content in those tabs, just scroll down on the page of content you're reading, and you'll see a comment box (or press a Reply button to respond to any existing comment). 
 When you're ready to create your own question (or discussion, it's almost the same thing), that's easiest if you're in a " space " first. You may have noticed that for each entry in the Blogs or Forums tabs, there is text like "Created in Arduino Projects " or "Created in Open Source Hardware " and so on. Those are spaces. An example space name is shown in green above, and it's clickable to jump to that space. 
 You can click on the space name to go to it, or you can see the popular space names by hovering on the topmost blue bar over the Technologies menu item, and move down to Technology Groups and click on that (shown in blue above). Then you'll see the Topic Directory (Topic = Space, just a different word for it). 
 When you wish to create your own question (or discussion), go to a space, and you may see a " Start a Discussion " blue button. Click that and start typing. 
 When you wish to create content better described as a Blog than a question/discussion, then click on the " Create a Blog Post " button in the space. 
 Another way to get to start a discussion/question or a blog post, is to find the New button. All these are shown in red in the screenshot below. 
 
 There are other things to explore and other ways to do the few things shown above, I've only illustrated one method (it's the one I use 90% of the time to navigate and use the site). There are other techniques, and other things possible on the site, as Doug's links show. 
 EDIT: Just noticed colporteur gave you similar information, at: Newbie so I guess @colporteur and myself both use the site in the same way : )

Understanding how Element 14 works

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