The FRED Network User Guide
2 Profile
3 Friends
3.1 Subscribing to Friends
3.2 Ignoring Users
3.3 Blocking Users
4 Messages
4.1 Sending Messages
4.2 Receiving Messages
5 Events
6 Topics
6.1 Viewing Topics
6.2 Subscribing to Topics
News Feed
The news feed displayed on your account home page lists recent content and topic updates posted on The FRED Network by all users.
Profile
Profile pages allow users to share information about themselves. You can share work history, education history, areas of interest, links, and other information. The FRED Network even gives each user a personal blog to share their thoughts with other users.
To modify a part of your profile, click the "Edit" button located next to the area you would like to change.
To share a link or add a personal blog post, simply click "New Link" next to Links or "New Post" next to Personal Blog.
Each profile page also lists that person's contacts. If a user has more than 6 contacts, then 6 are chosen randomly to display on the page. Clicking the link will display a list of all contacts for that person.
Friends
The friends page lists all of your friends and provides you with links to view their profiles, subscribe to their content, send them a personal message, and also allows you to remove a user from your friends list.
1. Subscribe/unsubscribe to user's topic postings, blog posts, and other
content added.
2. Send a personal message to user.
3. Remove user from friend's list.
4. Users you have subscribed to will have their recently posted content appear
in the People Box. Content can be expanded or collapsed by clicking on a
user's name.
To add someone to your friends list, click "Find People" from the top menu. Each user page contains a link to submit a friend request. By default, all friend requests received must be confirmed from the Friends page. This can be changed by clicking on Settings in the top-right corner and setting "Allow users to add you as a friend without approval?" to "Yes".
Subscribing to Friends
Subscribing to friends allows you to conveniently view the content that people of interest post. When you subscribe to a friend, all of their recent activity on The FRED Network is displayed on the left sidebar, under "Subscribed People". This includes any recent blog postings, shared links, discussion posts, and event activity by that user, as well as a link to their profile.
To change subscription settings for your subscribed friends, click the settings icon next to "Subscribed People". This allows you to change how far back you wish to view updates.
Ignoring Users
When a user is ignored, any content that user posts becomes invisible to you. Ignoring can be useful if you find that particular users are posting content that you do not wish to view.
To ignore a user, navigate to their profile page and click the "Ignore User" link, located to the left of the profile picture.
To unignore a user, navigate to the "Ignored Users" page under "Settings",
and click the 
by their name.
Blocking Users
When a user is blocked, any content you post becomes invisible to that user. Blocking users can help keep certain people from responding to content you post.
To block a user, navigate to their profile page and click the "Block User" link, located to the left of the profile picture.
To unblock a user, navigate to the "Blocked Users" page under "Settings",
and click the by their name.
Messages
Users can exchange personal messages with other users.
Sending Messages
There are currently three ways to send another user a message:
1. Clicking the "Inbox" link in the top menu and then "New Message".
2. From a user's profile page, you can use the "Message" link located
next to a user's profile image.
3. From your friends page, which can be accessed using the
"Friends" link in the top menu.
Receiving Messages
When you receive a message you will be notified by email. To view a message, log in to The FRED Network and click on "Inbox" in the top menu.
Events
Economic-related events can be viewed and scheduled on The FRED Network. To access the events section, click on the "Events" link on the top menu.
Browse Events - Displays all events open to the public.My Events - Displays events that you have created.
Friend's Events - Displays events that have been created by users on your friends list.
Create Event - Use the "Create Event" link to create an event.
Topics
Viewing Topics
Topics allow information regarding an economic topic to be shared between users on The FRED Network through event scheduling and discussion threads. To access a topic, click on the "Topics" link in the top menu.
Some topics have subtopics. Expand/collapse a topic's subtopics by clicking on the + or - symbol by its name.
Subscribing to Topics
You can subscribe to individual topics by navigating to a topic's page, and clicking the "Subscribe" link in the upper-right hand side.
Subscribing to a topic places it in your Topics box located on the left side of most pages for easy access. Similarly to subscribed friends, your subscribed topics are expandable to show the most recently posted content for that topic, as well as a link to go directly to the topic's page.
