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[grumpy]

Hello!

Everyone was new here at one point.  There is nothing wrong with being new, but most people don't like to feel, be thought of, or are afraid that they will be treated as the newbie who doesn't know anything.  So here are a few suggestions for those new to pleo and/or the forums that should help you fit right in!

• The first thing is to familiarize yourself!  Before you even think about posting, why not take so time to look around?  Get acquainted with the site.  Familiarize yourself with the organization, the various boards and features.  These will help you to find information and you'll know where to post when you are ready.  Read some topics.  You can spend hours or even days just reading up on pleo here. You'd be surprised what you learn.
• Once you've looked a round a bit, help us to get to know you.  Introduce yourself! Go to the Welcome -- New Members board and start a new topic and let your first post be an introduction (and don't forget to tell us about you pleo too).  Fill in your profile!  Go to the Profile option in the main menu, selected the Forum Profile option, and fill in some details about yourself and your pleos.
• After you type in your post, DON'T POST IT!!  Well, not just yet. First read what you just typed in.  Does it make sense?  Is it spelled correctly?  Is it all there?  Once you're happy with your post Then you can post it.
• Have a question or a proble?  Before you post it, use the search tool.  See what you can find on the topic.  Read what others have said.  That way, you're a lot less likely to end up with foot-in-mouth disease.

My name is Grumpy.  And there's a good reason I get to be the administrator.  Sometimes I have to be mean, and Bob is just too much of a softie.  But I only get to be mean when you don't follow the rules . . .   We all want this to be a fun place to visit, and we want it to feel like a family, so things are kinda loose and goofy, but we also want to keep this an interesting place for people to learn about pleos.   So we have just a few guideline we want to enforce:

This is a community of pleo fans, both experienced and inexperienced.  There is tremendous diversity in age, race, gender, language, location (worldwide) and more here and there will be a lot of varying opinions on different subjects.  We're all human (or robots ) and we're all drawn to this site because we have a common bond as Pleo owners/fans.   The Bob the Pleo Forums is a place where it's okay to be yourself as long as you always act with respect for your fellow members as well as the forum staff.  Our goal is to treat our members as we would wish to be treated on their forums.  In return, we ask that you act here as you would wish for your own members to act on your site.  You are not expected to leave your personality at the door; there are going to be topics and discussions that will have heated debates,  just please think before you post and re-read what you type before you post it.  Keep your comments limited to the debate at hand and do not make this a personal issue between you and another member.

So welcome!  Enjoy!  But please take a few minutes to read the next couple of posts in this topic!

[grumpy]

Tips for New Members

Be Friendly!
When newcomers arrive, welcome them to our growing community. Many of our community's senior members are a wealth of knowledge and have much to share. Help new members learn about how to find information and resources, save time, and how to get involved in the Community.

Be Appropriate!
Keep posts relates to the board and topic being discussed.  I know it's fun to get side-tracked and run off on rabbit trails, but it's not beneficial for discussion at hand.  If there is a related discussion that needs to be addressed, just start a new topic!  Hijacking one members topic to discuss your own problem isn't any more polite than taking over or monopolizing a conversation.  Please do contribute your own experiences or insights.  But if you need to change the topic, again, you can always start a new one.  And there may be places where explicit or vulgar language or graphics is appropriate however these forums is not one of them.

No Cross-Posting
Do not post the same discussion more than once on a board or on more than one board.  Duplicate discussions are frustrating and counterproductive for other members, especially for those whose time and energy is limited.  You'l find posing the same issue in several places will actually get you less help than one well thought out post.  Duplicate discussions will be deleted.

No Advertising – Spam
Do not place your advertisements through the Discussion Forums.  This will be considered SPAM and could result in the loss of your membership.  Affiliate links are not allowed within the forums.  If you wish to promote a particular product, program, or site then please contact the admins for permission and help doing it properly.

Be Polite!
Don't attack others.  Personal attacks on others will not be tolerated.  Challenge others' points of view and opinions, but do so respectfully and thoughtfully . . . without insult and personal attack.

Be Cautious!
Think before you post.  We encourage you to keep personal information personal.  In the same vein, do not ask for personal information from others.  Discussion forum posts that request members to submit personal information to another party will be removed.  Information that should be considered personal includes but is not limited to your home phone number, name, and age. If you need to give this out for any reason, please do so privately.

No Abuse of PM
Personal messaging is provided to the members of the forums as a service intended to enhance the "community" experience.  The purpose is to allow for conversations to take place directly between members.  This privilege is not to be abused!  Solicitation, spamming, or harassment of any kind is strictly forbidden.  Any member receiving an inappropriate message should forward that message to an Administrator or Moderator right away.  Although personal messages are normally only accessible by those who send and receive them, they are part of the database and as such, an Administrator, if so inclined, could locate the messages in the database and read them.  They are not "private", but are also not shared.  In addition, personal messages are not intended to deprive the community of valuable information or experiences which could benefit the entire group.  Please uses posts instead of messages if the content of the message can be helpful to others.

[grumpy]

Topics:

This forum is dedicated to pleos.  SO we ask that you try and keep thing pleo related.  I know it's fun to talk about all sorts of stuff, and to a certain extent, that is what helps bring us together more like a family.  But we ask that you limit the outside stuff so that people looking for information on pleos don't have to slough through a bunch of other stuff to find the few things related to pleos.  Here are a few things NOT intended to be a part of the forums:

• Fantasy games, role-playing, etc.
• Dragons, pokemon, and other click-my-link type activities from other sites.
• TV, movies, gossip, religion, etc.  (unless it is robotics related)

We have a number of boards designed to organize topics.  This helps people find the information they are looking for and allows members to better discuss the related topics.  And we ask that all specifically non-pleo topics be kept in the Pleo Cafe area.

Posts:

When posting, just think about basic courtesy to those who will read your posts.  These guidelines  are aimed at keeping posts readable and enjoyable by all:

• No profanity, obscenity, flaming, or other obnoxiousness.  Just because I wear a trash can doesn't mean I'll put up with trash talk!
• Do not post two or three times in a row.  If you need to say more after you make a post, you can always go back and edit your last post.  There may be a few rare exceptions where it makes sense to have two posts from the same person, but those are few and far between.
• Likewise two posts in a row saying the same thing, even if they are from two different people, serves no purpose.  Avoid repeating previous posts.
• Do not waste people's times by posting pointless posts like "Me too!", "I agree.", "Same here!", "LOL!", etc.
• It's nice to say "Hi!" to an old friend or a new member, and those posts are appreciated, when they are in the "Welcome" board.   But when you're in the middle of some other topic, it gets distracting.  And we all know how hard it is to keep on topic to begin with!
• CHECK YOUR CAPS LOCK KEY!  NOBODY LIKES TO READ POSTS THAT ARE IN ALL UPPER CASE.  If you want people to read what you write, you need to make it easy-to-read and look inviting.  When people see all uppercase posts, they tend to just skip over them.  And it makes you look stupid or lazy, and therefore less credible.
  
• Please avoid the temptation to chit-chat.  There are dozens of wonderful IM programs you can use to talk with, we have a chat room set up, Personal Messaging, and even a shout box.  Just think about how your idle conversations will sound read by a total stranger several years from now.  And remember everyone else in the world is listening into your conversation.  Chatting in the forums is like using megaphone to shout across a restaurant to a friend.  It makes you look stupid, and it annoys everyone else in the restaurant.
• Avoid posting any personally identifying information!  We have younger members and, it's sad to say, we live in a world where we have to be cautious.

For a complete list and details on proper nettiquette, you can refer to the Wikipedia article on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netiquette

Simple guidelines to avoid spamming:

Just ask yourself these three questions before posting:

• Does this post add value, useful information, or new insight to what has already been said in this topic?
• Am I sure no one else has already said this?   Even five or ten posts earlier or somewhere else in the forums?
• A year from now, when someone is looking back at this topic, is this something they're going to want to read?

If you can answer "Yes!" to all three, then post away.  Otherwise reconsider if you should post.   That's not to say you MUST have three "yes"es in order to post, but that you should think twice beforer you do.

And when responding to topics that have been idle for more than 30 days, there's a reason you are prompted with a warning about this.   Answering a question or giving your comments a month or more later is probably a waste of time.   The issue has most likely been dealt with, and the person you are responding to may no longer be keeping up with the topic.  So, unless you have a really meaningful piece of information for the sake of posterity or need to revive an old issue, don't waste your time!


PMs, Chats, and the Shoutbox:

The forums provides many ways to share information and carry on discussions  each of these different ways are suited to different needs and styles.  Be aware of how each works, and the audience for each.  Using the different tools available to you correctly can greatly improve your experience here.  Likewise, using them in the wrong way can make things harder for everyone!

• The Shoutbox is intended for very short (45 character) messages you want to share with everyone (kind of like twitter).
  
  • This is not meant for carrying on discussions, but for sharing info.
  • Posting 3 or more shouts in a row is considered spamming, and is inappropriate.
  • The shout is seen by everyone, so should not be used for sending messages to specific members.
• The chat room is intended for members who want to carry on real-time discussions directly with one or more other members.
• PMs (or Personal Messages) are like email.  They allow you to send and get messages directly with specific other members
  
  • Even though a PM is not seen by everyone, you should still adhere to the same guidelines as posts.  No profanity, obscenity, flaming, etc.
  • Do not use PMs to contact other members with the intent of soliciting business (with the exception of members contacting store owners to arrange purchases).
  • Do not use PMs for the purpose of spreading gossip, dissent, or to defame other members.

For a more complete discussion of these tools, refer to the Forum Communication Channels topic.

Gallery:

The gallery provides an easy and great way for members to share personal pictures and other files about their pleos.  Since it is hosted locally with the forums, it is easy to integrate into posts and doesn't require members to have accounts with other services.  That doesn't mean you can't feel free to include images from other sites or from accounts you may have with Picassa, Photobucket, youtube, etc.  But there are a few things to consider when using the gallery.

• Like with posts and topics, this is a forum devoted to pleos, so please limit files uploaded to the gallery to pleo related things.
• Do not upload images copied from other sites!  If the image is already on another site, all you need to do is link to it.  You can use the [ img ] tag and/or [ url ] tag to include images from other sites.  Be sure to properly credit other people's stuff.
• Do not upload files that aren't yours or you don't have permission to upload/share.  This not only means not to upload copyrighted materials, but also don't upload other people's images unless they gave you permission.

Profiles:

As we talk and discuss things with each other, we develop associations, relationships, and friendships.  We develop mental pictures of what we think each other is like.  But as stated earlier, we have to be cautious what information we share.  However, there is some basic information that is helpful to share that doesn't put anyone at risk, and does help others to better know you and therefore to understand and relate to you.  We here at Bob the Pleo forums do not use this information for any other purpose other than to get to know you better.

• Please include some basic location information.  The country and/or state gives people some idea of where you are.  But you don't need to list the city or get too specific.
• Please identify your sex.  I know it sounds silly, but there has been some gender confusion before.
• Please list your pleo(s) name(s).  For many of us, your pleo is as much a member of the forum as you are.  And we come to know them as well as you.
• Include an avatar.  And it doesn't need to be a photo of you.  But whatever you use does help to give people an idea about your personality.
• Another good indicator of your personality that doesn't give away any personal info, are the little character icons.  By selecting which Looney Tunes character, Gilligan's Island character, Muppets character, and/or Peanuts character best matches your personality, that gives other members a quick and easy idea of what type of "character" you are.
• Please limit what you put in your signature.  It is meant to be a way to hep express your personality, let people know more about you, and/or share information.   But when the signature takes up more space that the post, there's something wrong.  Not everybody has the fastest internet connection, and loading the signature down with large images slows things down even more.