Getting Started
Registration:
The first thing you’ll want to do is register an account. You can do that by visiting our webpage at teslamotorsclub.com and clicking on the register button. Then choose a username and a strong password, and fill in the rest of the required fields with any other information you would like to provide. Hit the ‘Register’ button, and you will be taken back to the page you were on previously. In order to fully activate your account, you will need to find an email that was automatically sent to you, which contains a link to verify your account. Hit that link and your account should now be approved.
Navigation:
The main sections of our site are as follows:.
- Community: Where most of the interaction on TMC takes place. Includes Blog, Feeds, Forums, Members, Media
- Clubs: A place to start and join Tesla themed Clubs
- Marketplace: A platform to buy and sell Tesla related products. Includes a Directory listing our Vendors.
Search: Search can be accessed at the top right of the navigation bar.
Conversations / Direct messaging: Direct messaging, known as conversations on our website, can be accessed by selecting the envelope icon on the top right of the navigation bar, or on mobile by tapping on the profile section, and then selecting the tab with the envelope icon. You can view the preview of some of your unread conversations, or you can click “Show all” to see the full list of all conversations. Once in the Conversations section, start a conversation by selecting the red “Start conversation” button. Then enter the recipient(s), write your message, and hit “Start conversation” below when ready to send.
Alerts: Notifications can be accessed in the alerts section, which can be accessed by the bell icon in the top right of the navigation bar, or on mobile by tapping the profile section, and then selecting the bell icon. You can view the preview of new alerts, or you can click “Show all” to see the full list of recent alerts.
Profile Area and Account Settings:
To access your profile and settings, click on your username and/or avatar on the top right of the navigation bar. The most important sections of your setting are the following::
- Your profile: you can see your public profile by clicking on your username.
- Account details: Where you can set some email options, upload an Avatar image that will display by your posts, add a profile banner that shows as an image at the top of your profile, and provide details about yourself, some of which will appear publicly in your profile. For new members, the avatar is not available, but once you have made several posts, you will gain access to it.
- Password and security: Where you can change your password and set up two-step verification.
- Privacy: A place where you can specify various privacy and access related options.
- Preferences: a place to specify a whole bunch of options, including Style, Font size, Time zone, Email options,Content options, Default feed, and a long list of alerts settings options.
- Signature: You can create a signature that will appear under your posts. For new members, the signature is not available, but once you have made several posts, you will gain access to it. This restriction helps to deter spammers and freeloaders.
Forums and Threads
Forums, Threads and Thread Types:
The main type of content on TMC is called a thread. A thread is simply a ‘post’ (posted message/content) followed by replies. Each thread lives in a single forum, and each forum contains threads relating to a given topic. There are various types of threads, including:
- Discussions: Standard discussion thread
- Articles: Thread where the first post’s content is formatted more like a blog post to match the article-like content.
- Questions: Thread where a question is asked, allowing members to respond with answers, vote on the best answer, and the thread creator to select the best answer and mark it as the "Solution".
- Polls: Thread that allows the creator to present a poll for members to vote on.
- Wikis: Thread where the first post is editable by most members on the site.
Forum List:
You can access a full list of the forums by clicking on Forums in the navigation bar. The forums are divided into various categories. Next to each forum is an icon, which when colored red means there is content that you have not read in that forum.
Thread Creation:
Step 1a: On the Blog, Feeds, and Forum List pages, select the red “Create” button, and then choose the type of thread you would like to create. You are also provided with the option to post a social status. If posting a thread (not social status), you will be prompted to choose which forum to post the thread in.Or...
Step: 1b: If, on individual forum pages (e.g., Model 3, Tesla Inc.), you can select the red “Post thread” button. You will be able to specify the thread type on the next page.
Step 2: On the Thread Creation Form, type in a title and your post contents. If appropriate, you can add one or more tags in the box below the text field. Tags are keywords that will help people find your post when someone searches. There may be other types of fields and options available depending on the type of thread you are creating. You can click on one of the ‘thread type’ tabs to specify the thread type. When you are ready then click the red “Post thread” button to publish it.
Replying to a Thread:
There are a few details to how you go about responding to a thread.
- For a general reply to a thread (without quoting a specific post in a thread): Type in the box at the bottom of the page and click on the red “Post reply” button.
- Reply to one particular post and quote it: Click on the “Reply” link at the bottom right of a specific post. This will quote the post you are replying to.
- Quote several posts in a thread (multiquote): click on the “+Quote” link at the bottom right of each post. This adds them to a "pool" of quotes that you can then insert by clicking on "Insert quotes" under your reply box.
- Quoting parts of posts: You can also quote just a part of the post. This is a good idea so that you only quote what is relevant. Highlight some of the text in the post. You will then see the option (+Quote | Reply) by your mouse pointer arrow. If you click “Reply” it will add that quote to the reply box. If you click “+Quote”, it adds this quote to the pool of quotes mentioned above that you can then insert in the same way by using the “Insert quotes” below the reply box.
- Replying to or Editing Quotes: In post editing mode (i.e., what you see in the message field before submitting) you will see the text surrounded by two quote tags: an open quote and a closed quote. Always add your reply after the close quote or else your reply appears inside the quote - confusion! Due to the ability to now just quote part of a post, it should no longer be necessary to edit quotes but if you do please be careful to edit the text between the quote tags and not remove the quote tags themselves.
Drafts:
When you type into the reply box at the bottom of each page of a thread, the text is automatically saved as a draft every 10 seconds. Alternatively you can save manually using the save icon at the top of the text box. If you do not submit your post, you can come back to that thread and your text will be in the box ready to continue. Drafts are deleted when posted or after 72 hours. When you create a thread, a draft of the new thread is similarly saved for the forum in which you composed it. Please note that there may be issues with some browsers so for absolute safety (especially for long posts) you are advised to keep a backup of your own using a word processor or text editor.
Images and Videos in Posts:
Images can be uploaded from your computer or linked from another site and embedded via the image icon above the text editor.
- There are multiple methods to upload from your computer:
- Click on the image icon image above the text field when posting a message, and click on the box that says “Drop image” to browse to the image on your computer (or device), or drag and drop the image into that box;
- Copy and paste an image from your computer into the text editor (CTRL+C CTRL+V on PC CMD+C CMD+V on Mac); or
- Drag and drop an image from your computer to the text editor.
- Maximum file size: We allow images up to 10,240KB (file size) and 2,000px dimensions (height or width). Note that if larger than 2,000px dimensions they will be resized to 2,000px, which means in most cases even if the file size was larger than 10,240KB, it will be allowed because the resizing of px dimensions automatically compresses the file size. However if smaller than the maximum px dimensions, your image will not get compressed so will only upload if it starts off smaller than 10,240KB.
- Link and embed from another site (Please do not do this if the site does not allow due to copyright reasons.): Click on the image icon image above the text field when posting a message, click the link icon (looks like a chain link) and enter the URL of the image (the URL of the actual image, not the web page that the image is on).
To post a video or other kind of media:
- First copy the media URL.
- Go back to the forum text editor, click on the media button, and paste the URL. Or, in most cases you can simply paste the URL and the media will automatically embed.
- We support the following: Apple Music, Dailymotion, Facebook, Flickr, Giphy, Imgur, Liveleak, Metacafe, Pinterest, Reddit, SoundCloud, Spotify, Tumblr, Twitch, Twitter, Vimeo, and YouTube.
Mentioning (tagging) Members in a Post:
To draw a specific member's attention to a post, type the @symbol followed by their username. They will then get an alert that you have mentioned them.
Reactions (likes, etc.):
You can rate posts (e.g. Like, Helpful, Informative Funny, Love, Disagree) via the reactions icon at the bottom right of each post. On desktop computers you can tap to give a like, or hover over the icon to see the full menu of different reactions available. On touchscreen devices likewise you tap to give a like, or hold your finger on the icon for longer to reveal the menu. For new members, the reactions are are at first not available but once you have made several posts, you will gain access to it.
Watching a Thread: To watch a thread, click on the “Watch” button at the top of each thread (Please note, by default you are automatically subscribed to any thread you start or reply to). By watching a thread, you will get notifications of any new posts in that thread. This option can be disabled in your profile area preferences.
Watching a Forum:
To watch a forum, click on the “Watch” button at the top of each forum. You will be provided with some notifications options that you can specify if you want to be alerted when new threads and new messages/replied are posted within that forum.
Feeds
Feed tabs:
On the Community homepage there are various feeds that you can view:
- Blog: A selection of curated article threads from our community.
- Hot: A curated list of some of the best and most recent threads created by TMC members.
- New: A full list of all threads (similar in function to the older “New posts” page).
- Questions: Displays all Question threads. Each of these feeds can be filtered by forum and more. For example, you can display only threads with unread content by clicking here.
- Social: Shows the latest social status updates (AKA profile posts) from across the community.
- Forum list: Not actually a feed, but rather is a shortcut to jump to the traditional list of forums, which can also be accessed by clicking on the “Forums” link in the sub-navigation bar under “Community”. On this page you can select.
You can choose between two different formats for thread feeds:
- List: The classic, more condensed, view of the threads.
- Card: A richer layout which previews the actual content of the thread’s first post, allowing you to take actions such as reacting to the post.
There is also a “Set as default” button. This option allows you to change what feed is shown by default when you come to the TMC Community homepage. This option can also be adjusted within your account settings in the “Preferences” section.
Filtration:
The “Filter” section allows you to drill down to the specific content that you’d like to see. You have many options for filtering, including:
- In forums: If you’d like to limit the feed to content only from specific forums that you select..
- Unread content: If you’d only like to see content you haven’t previously seen/read.
- Watched threads: If you’d only like to see threads you’ve created, interacted with, or manually watched.
- Watched forums: If you’d only like to see threads from forums you’re watching.
- Unanswered content: If you’d like to see content that doesn’t have any replies.
- People you follow: If you’d only like to see content from your members that you have followed.
- Order by: This option gives you a variety of sort orders such as:
- Promotion date - when the threads were promoted to the feed by TMC Staff.
- Last post date - when the latest reply to the threads were posted.
- Creation date - when the threads were first created.
- Vote score - the number of votes the threads received.
- First post reaction score - the reaction score (incl. Likes, Informative, Helpful, etc.) of the first post of the threads.
Once you have specified your filtration options, you can select the “Save” button if you would like them to be saved and selected by default the next time you visit that specific feed.
Additional Features
Collapse sidebar:
Certain pages, such as Feeds (Blog, Hot, New, and Questions) and the Forum List page, have a sidebar with various functions. To hide the sidebar, simply click on the more options button (3 vertical dot icon) in the top right of the navigation bar, and the select "Toggle sidebar".
Styles, and Light & Dark modes: There are multiple style options which allow you to view the site in either and light or dark mode. There is also a "Pro" style which has some UI features often appreciated by power users (such as a sticky secondary navbar on desktop, and Alerts and Conversations accessible directly in the bottom mobile navbar on mobile). You can set your style in your Account Preferences or at the bottom left of the page, below the "About us" section.
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