Frequently Asked Questions

This is a (short) list of frequently asked questions regarding the Association's website, particularly the members' section. The questions are generally only useful to Association members: if you have any questions regarding a particular sculptor or sculpture, or about the Association itself, you should contact us directly.

1. How do I login to the members' section?
2. I want to become a site member, but I can't sign up. What's going on?
3. My browser asked if I wanted it to remember my password; I agreed, and now whenever I try to login I get an error telling me my password is wrong. Help!
4. I want to login to the members' section, but the username and password fields are greyed out. How do I login?
5. I (an Association member) create sculptures in style X, but when I perform a search for sculptors who work in style X I don't turn up. How do I change that?
6. My preferred media are listed as "unknown" in the search engine. How do I tell the search engine what my preferred media are?

1. How do I login to the members' section?

   You must have already signed up (i.e. acquired a username and password) in order to login. If you have any difficulties signing up, see the next question. Once you have a username and password, you can simply enter these into the fields at the right of the login page and click 'login'.

   Note that both your username and password are case-sensitive. One way to ensure that you enter them correctly is to select, say, your password from the sign-up email sent to you by the Association, copy it (CTRL-C), and then paste it into the password field on the login page (click in the field and then press CTRL-V).

2. I want to become a site member, but I can't sign up. What's going on?

   In order to become a site member, you must first be a member of the Association (being a site member offers no benefits except those useful to Association members). You can download a membership application form, if you wish.

   If you are already an Association member, you will need to have given your email address to the Membership Secretary (and if you don't have one, why are you trying to sign up in the first place!?). The Membership Secretary will store your email address in the Association's database, and you are then able to sign up by entering your name and the same email address you supplied to the Membership Secretary, using the sign up form.

3. My browser asked if I wanted it to remember my password; I agreed, and now whenever I try to login I get an error telling me my password is wrong. Help!

   Because your password is encrypted before it is sent to the server, some browsers save the encrypted version, and when it is automatically supplied subsequently, it is re-encrypted before being sent to the server. This doesn't match with the once-encrypted password on the server and so it returns an error message. The only way to solve this problem is to stop your browser from remembering your password for you (which is very unsafe, anyway), and enter it manually.

   To do this in recent versions of Internet Explorer, go to Tools > Internet Options. Click on the Content tab and then on the AutoComplete button. Untick the check box labelled 'User names and passwords on forms' and then optionally click the Clear Passwords button (this will clear all remembered passwords, so make sure you have any important ones stored elsewhere, or better yet, memorised, before you clear them).

4. I want to login to the members' section, but the username and password fields are greyed out. How do I login?

   The input fields have been disabled because Javascript is currently turned off. The Association uses Javascript to encrypt your password, as it is possible to intercept your login details as they are transmitted to the server. This way, your password is secure even if it is intercepted.

   To enable Javascript in Internet Explorer, go to Tools > Internet Options, and then click on the Security tab. Click on the Custom Level button, and then scroll down the window that appears until you see the Scripting section. Make sure that the radio toggle for the Active Scripting subsection is set to 'Enable'. Then click OK, and again, to confirm your changes.

5. I (an Association member) create sculptures in style X, but when I perform a search for sculptors who work in style X I don't turn up. How do I change that?

   You need to update your member details. To do this, login to the members' section and then click on the "Amend member details" link in the sidebar at the left (not extreme left). You can then select the work styles, scales, and environments that you create sculpture in, and also whether you work to commission or run classes/workshops.

   When you submit your changes they are sent via email to the membership secretary, who will commit them to the database if he or she is satisfied with them (this security measure is required because you can also request a change to your membership type using the same form). Until the membership secretary commits your changes - which can take up to a week - your changes will not be reflected in thes search engine, or elsewhere on the site.

6. My preferred media are listed as "unknown" in the search engine. How do I tell the search engine what my preferred media are?

   Simply exhibit more sculpture with the Association! A sculptor's preferred media are calculated by looking at the number of times that sculptor has used each material for the sculptures he or she has listed online, with the restriction that a material must have been used at least twice to appear at all.

   So, for example, if sculptor Mary Brown has only a single work online, then by definition she has no preferred media. Similarly, if she has several works, all made of different materials, she has no preferred media. But as soon as she has two or more works composed (if only partially) of the same material, then she has at least one preferred medium.

   For a prolific sculptor, the number of preferred media can become very large, so we rank each medium by the number of times it has been used by that sculptor and simply select the top five.