With this new software, a lot of things have changed and sometimes it’s difficult to figure out how to do things.  So I’m starting this topic so we can try to show how to use the new features.  Try to keep any comments on this page to the point.

Logging on and being anonymous:

There are two ways to log on.  The first is to simply fill in your user name and password in the boxes at the top of the page.  This is the quick method, but it doesn’t give you any options.

The second method is to click the little “Login” button at the very top of the page.  This will take you to a different page altogether.  There you enter in your user name and password, but you also have a couple of extra options.  Beneath where you type in your password, there are two check boxes.  Checking the first one, labeled “Auto-login on future visits?”, will log you in automatically every time you go to any Museum of Hoaxes page until you log off, turn off your computer, or clear certain of your computer’s folders (such as your cache files, cookies, or temporary files folder.  Some computers are set to clear those folders automatically at set intervals of time, while with others the user has to do it manually). 

Checking the second box, “Show my name in the online users list”, displays your user name on the main page of the Forum.  If you leave this box unchecked, then your user name is not shown to anybody and you are only listed as an “anonymous user”.

New Member, Junior Member, Member, Senior Member, and Five Star Member:

The Forum’s software keeps track of the total number of posts you make.  As you reach certain numbers, you get “promoted”.  For example, you start as a New Member, and after 25 posts you become a Junior member.  The number of green boxes under your name matches the level that you’re currently at.  1 box is for New Members, 2 for Junior Members, etc.

The number of posts needed to reach each level (as far as I can remember) are:
26 = Junior Member
51 = Member
201 = Senior Member
1001 = Five Star Member
There’s nothing beyond Five Star Member right now, but Alex the Webmaster can add on more levels if he wants (e.g.:  5001 post = Super Five Star Member, 10000 = Devoted Museum of Hoaxes Follower, 100000 = Person In Need of A Life).

Moderators:

Moderators (such as Smerk, the author of the post below this one) are people chosen by Alex (the webmaster) to try to keep the Forum from descending too far into the depths of anarchy.  They have special abilities, such as being able to edit other people’s comments.  If a comment you posted has suddenly been edited or vanished, that probably means that one of the Moderators decided that it was objectionable and changed it.

The Moderators tend to be rather lenient, as this is a forum for open discussion.  However, if you do such things as excessively flame people, post spam, constantly post total gibberish (we’re used to partial gibberish around here), or do things that are simply weirder than usual, they may edit your posts and/or contact you.

Moderators can also have you banned from the Forum if you misbehave too much, so don’t try to “fight back” by posting lots of nonsense to annoy them!

You can also change the size of your font by typing {size=1}Text{/size} using [] instead of {}.  Size varies from Small at #1 to Largest at #6.

Text colours:

Here is a list of some of the text colours you can use:
aquamarine
beige
black
blue
brown
chartreuse
coral
fuchsia
gold
gray
green
lavender
magenta
maroon
olive
orange
pink
plum
purple
red
sienna
tan
teal
turquoise
violet
white (white)
yellow

Some of these colours can be found in the menu on the “Post Reply” page, but others you have to type in manually by typing {color=red}type text here{/color} and replace the {} with [] and the colour you want to use in place of “red”.
Below, I typed {color=maroon}Hello!{/color}

Hello!

Edit:

You can go back and correct previous comments you’ve made by going to the particular comment and clicking the “Edit” button beneath it.  You can only edit your own comments, unless you’re a Moderator.

Quote:

If you want to reply to a comment that was made a while ago, you can show which comment you’re replying to by going to it and clicking the “Quote” button.  Here is how it looks when I Quote the previous comment I posted:

Accipiter - 16 August 2005 07:31 PM

Edit:

You can go back and correct previous comments you’ve made by going to the particular comment and clicking the “Edit” button beneath it.  You can only edit your own comments, unless you’re a Moderator.

You can quote the entire comment, or edit the amount you quote so it’s just the essential part by deleting the extra words after hitting the “Quote” button:

Accipiter - 16 August 2005 07:31 PM

You can only edit your own comments, unless you’re a Moderator.

You cannot use the “Quote” button in topics that have been closed, but you can manually copy and paste the comment, type {quote} and {/quote} around it (replacing the {} with []), and have a similar effect.  You won’t get the person’s name and date automatically that way, but you can type those in manually as well if you feel the need.  Below, I copied and pasted the main body of the comment I’d quoted earlier, then set it up like this:

{quote}{b}Accipiter - 16 August 2005{/b}

You can go back and correct previous comments you’ve made by going to the particular comment and clicking the “Edit” button beneath it.  You can only edit your own comments, unless you’re a Moderator.{/quote}

Accipiter - 16 August 2005

You can go back and correct previous comments you’ve made by going to the particular comment and clicking the “Edit” button beneath it.  You can only edit your own comments, unless you’re a Moderator.

I had to type out the {quote} parts, the name and the date.

To post an Internet link or an image from the Internet directly onto the page:

To copy an image directly from elsewhere on the Internet to the Forum:  type {img}web address{/img} and replace the {} with [].
Below, I typed {img}http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y131/rabid_junebug/Artwork/Sketches/Beetle1.jpg{/img}

To post a link to a website:  type {a href=web address}name of link{/a} and replace the {} with <>.
Below, I typed {a href=http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y131/rabid_junebug/Artwork/Sketches/Beetle1.jpg}Beetle image{/a}

Beetle image

Creating an avatar, and posting a link to a picture on your hard drive:

Go into Post Reply and use the “Browse” button by where it says “Attachments”.  When you’ve found the image, click “Submit Post”.  Then you’ll get an image like the one shown below.

For some reason, a few people will have trouble doing this.  What these people have to do is to upload the image from their hard drive to the Internet (you can use a website such as http://www.photobucket.com to do this).  Then you save the image from the website back onto your hard drive.  This is also sometimes needed when adding an avatar.

Avatars can apparently only be uploaded from your hard drive.  In order to add an avatar, click on “Your Control Panel” at the top of the screen.  From the list on the left, click on “Edit Avatar”.  You can then browse your hard drive for the image you want, assuming that it is within the given size requirements.

Signatures:

Signatures are comments that automatically appear at the end of each comment a person posts.

You can set what you want your own signature to be by clicking on “Your Control Panel” at the top of the page, then clicking “Edit Signature” on the menu on the left, and then typing in whatever you want your signature to be.

If you get tired of looking at other people’s signatures all the time, you can choose to turn off your ability to see them.  Click on the “Your Control Panel” button, then “Edit Preferences” on the menu at the left.  Uncheck the box marked “Display member signatures in entries”.  To see signatures again, go back and check the box.

Accipiter - 16 August 2005 08:10 PM

Moderators:

Moderators can also have you banned from the Forum, so don’t annoy them!

Not quite true.  Alex is the only one with the Power to ban.  But we can request people to be banned.  Ultimately, though, it’s Alex’s decision.