8. COMMUNITIES

Communities are the professional networking areas of Communities -- every area is a community. Each community can "host" various applications (e.g. forums, blogs, areas for files, or wikis) that are specific to that community.

If you are looking for technical information (e.g. TechNotes, FAQs, Technical Bulletins, etc.) or support for Bentley products, browse the Product Communities. If you are looking for something else, check out Community Central. And do not forget about Search!

Communities can be any one of five "types"; Joinless, Public Open, Public Closed, Private Listed, or Private Unlisted. For any community type other than Joinless, you first need to join Communities and then join the community, request to join the community, or be invited to the community to contribute to it and/or access its content.

To request the creation of a community that does not already exist (or should not be part of another community), click on the "Contact Us" link at the bottom of every Communities page. In your request, please include:

• the name of the community
• its description (less than 256 characters)
• whether you will provide a custom avatar (90x90 pixel image)
• its "type" (i.e. Joinless, Public Open, Public Closed, Private Listed, Private Unlisted)
• the applications to include (e.g. wiki, forum, blog, file/media gallery, mail gateway, ideas, calendar, instant message, etc.)
• who the "owner" is (or "owners" are)
• what audience of Bentley users this is intended for
• the justification for it (IOW, justify the need given that there are hundreds of communities already, and why none of those will satisfy the request)

After you submit that information, the site administrators will review the request.

Note that we do not recommend communities of any type where confidential information or trade secrets might be posted.

Each community on Communities can host one or more instances of the following applications: