Board Rules & Answers to Frequently Asked Questions Please take a moment to read the board rules below, before using the board. These rules are very important in order to keep the board running smoothly. Both sides of the debate are welcome here. Thanks in advance for your cooperation. Common Internet Abbreviations LOL laughing out loud ROFL  rolling on floor laughing! NT or NM no text in post HTH hope this helps TY thank you IMHO in my humble opinion JMO just my opinion FYI for your information OT off topic  :) = smiley face  :(  = sad face  ;)  = wink   PLEASE READ & RESPECT THE BOARD RULES: When you post on the board, your IP# is recorded and you can be traced. Abusive posts will be reported to your ISP and could cause you to lose your internet account. Civil discussions only.  No racist remarks. Do not personally attack other posters. No advertising in the posts. No links to adult sites. No spamming the board.  Do not post multiple posts of the same or similar message simply to take up space.   Please stick with one name and do not post under multiple names. No vulgar or profane words or images. No posting with another poster's handle, or a variation of another poster's handle, even as a "joke". No spelling flames - nothing is more juvenile than criticizing another person's spelling! Posts should be made in English only.  Since I don't have the time nor the inclination to translate posts in other languages to make sure they don't violate the posting guidelines, they will instead be deleted. If you see a post that needs to be deleted, please send a Private Message to "admin" or one of the moderators listed on the board, or send me or one of the moderators a private message or email. Please do not post about it on the board. Posts that violate the rules may be deleted without notice. Additionally, posts that are in response to deleted posts may be deleted as well, since they may not make sense without the original post.  If you have a question about why a post was removed, please email me at info@prodeathpenalty.com. Please do not post a question about a deleted post on the board.  Posts that complain about deletions will be deleted. Abbreviations & words commonly used on this board DP death penalty MVS murder victim survivors ANTI or ADP someone who does not support capital punishment PRO or PDP someone who supports capital punishment ADMIN or MOD An administrator or moderator of the board REGULAR Someone who has been posting on this board for a long time and has become "known" NEWBIE Someone who has recently started posting on the board. Registering Registering is the process of creating an account for the message board. You are considered a guest if you are not logged into a board. Where is my password? When you register, you must enter a valid email address and choose a username and password. You will then be emailed an activation code for your account, which will be randomly generated. You can then login to the board and input your activation code. At this time, you can update the details on your profile page. I don't like using my email address on web sites. When you register or update your membership, select "Yes" in the dropdown box that says "Hide Email."  Do I have to become a member to post? You do have to become a member to post on this board, except for the Student Requests section. You can read the main Pro Death Penalty Board as a guest, without ever having to log in.  However, there are several more forums and many features available to members that guests do not see.   What are the benefits of registering? There are many benefits to registering. By registering, you will be able to read and post on all of the forums on this board. You will be able to see which posts are new (there will be a marker next to posts that says ). You can bookmark threads that you are interested in or receive optional email notification of replies to your posts. You can send private messages to other members. Also, no one will be able to post using your name (registration will "secure" the name so that no one else can use it). There are many more reasons to register, but there are just too many to list. We strongly encourage you to register if you plan to be active on this board. Logging In Once you have registered for an account and you want to access it, you will need to login to your account. How do I log in to my account? At the top of your board you will find this graphic . Click on the graphic. On the next page you will be presented with a form where you can enter your username and password to login. Please remember that your username and password are case-sensitive. How long will I stay logged in for? You can choose the amount of time to stay logged in, from 15 minutes to forever. If you choose "Forever", you will not need to log in every time you visit the board. What is the profile? Every registered member has a profile. Click your name or click at the top of the board to view your current profile, then click Modify Profile. In your profile, you can choose how your name is displayed, set your location, change your password, set your email address, change how the time is displayed on the forum, set your own time zone, create a signature, choose an avatar, stay invisible when online and much more. What is a signature? A signature is something that will be displayed at the bottom of every post you make. You can change your signature on the profile page. Signatures should not contain images that are too large since this disrupts the visibility of any page that you post on.  Rapidly flashing images are not allowed as avatars or signature files. What is an avatar? An avatar is a graphic that will display just below your name on your profile and on every post you make on the board, so choose wisely. Some people prefer to use personal photographs of themselves. If you would like to use a photograph or image, it must be hosted at a URL on the internet.  You can send the image to charhall@gmail.com and  I will host the image for free, if you like. Or you can choose an avatar from the drop-down list when you modify your profile. How do I post a message? On the page that lists all of the posts on a forum, you will see an icon in the top right that says . By clicking this icon you can post a new message on the board. How do I read a message? To read a message, you need to click on the subject of the message. If you are having trouble finding the posts for a board, start at the index page, then select the forum you want to view. On that page you should see a list of all the posts on the forum. If there are no posts, none will be displayed. How do I reply to a message? To reply to a message, click at the top of the page the post is on. This will take you to a form that you can use to reply to that post. What's the button? If you would like to quote a person's previous message when replying to them, click this button. This will bring up the screen to post a reply, and it will automatically include a copy of the message you are replying to. You have the ability to edit the copy of the post you are replying to and only include the pertinent portions if you wish. Where can I see the most recent posts to a board? On the index page, scroll down to the very bottom. You will see a link that says View the 100 most recent posts of this forum.  Click on this link and you will be shown the last 100 posts made. You can also use the feature to see a smaller number of recent posts, or search for a specific word or phrase. Can I see a list of all members registered for a board? Yes. If you are registered and logged in, click on at the top of the index page. You will be able to see a full list of all the members there. Or you can click on the Total Members count in the Info Center at the bottom of the index page. Can I tell who is currently online? Yes. At the bottom of the index page you will see an Info Center which contains the number of Guests and which registered users are currently logged into the board. What is a "Guest" ? A guest (sometimes referred to as a "lurker") is someone who is accessing the boards but is not logged into an account. Our board does not require people to register before reading the main pro death penalty board, but they cannot post messages. The Student Requests section is the only area where guests can post messages. What is this personal messages thing? Integrated with the message boards is a private messaging system. If you are a registered member, you can send and receive private messages from other members. What does do? If you would like to email a friend of yours about a discussion that is going on, you can easily do so. Simply click the "send topic to friend" link at the top of the page, enter your friend's email address, and they will be emailed a link to page you were reading. What is the "notify" button? If you would like to be notified by email of new posts to a thread, click the "notify" button at the top of the page and you will receive an email any time a new post is made to that thread. What's the  button I see when reading posts? If you ever want to print a thread out, simply click this button and you will be presented with a printer-friendly page that you can print out. How do I know when a new post has been made? First, you must be a registered user and logged in. On the index page, a folder icon that has a blue dot on it will be displayed if a board has posts you haven't read on it. If you have read all of the posts in a category, the dot will be gray. To help you keep track of individual boards with new posts, you can click on this button at the top of the post list and the entire forum will be considered "read" by you. The next time you visit the board, only posts made after that time will appear  Within the individual boards, a icon will be placed next to threads you have not read yet. What are administrators and moderators? Moderators are people who have control over a message forum. They have the ability to delete or move posts/threads, view the IP addresses of posters, lock topics (make it so no one can reply), unlock topics (if they were locked), and modify any and all postings on the board (no matter who they are posted by). I remember reading a post about a specific subject but I can't find it anymore.  Is there a way to search the posts? Click on the button at the top of the board.  If you think you know a particular word that was used in the post, you can put it into the search box.  The result will be all posts that contain that word.  Using the SEARCH function, you can easily find what you're looking for. When you search you can choose to search for members or posts. You can select which boards to search, how many results to display, and what time frame to search (by default it is the last 7 days).  I hate the banner ads and pop-up advertising.  Isn't there something you can do about them?  You will notice that there is a link at the bottom of each page that says: Click Here To Make This Board Ad-Free. This means that users of the board can donate $7 through PayPal that will be stored as a credit to keep advertising off of this board.  Until applied, credits are stored until we need them. One donation provides for 50,000 page-views without advertising. With our current volume, we need over 200,000 page-views each month.  Once a credit is applied, it is only good for that current calendar month. In other words, towards the end of the month, you might see some advertising because it wouldn't make sense to apply a credit on May 28th that would waste unused page-views by expiring on June 1. Donations cannot be used for any purpose other than applying as credits towards ad-free status. I hope that most of you will feel that it is important to help keep this board advertising free.  As long as we have credits, the board will remain free of advertising. I posted a message recently but it is no longer on the board.  Why was it deleted? There are many reasons why a post gets deleted. First, it may have violated one of the rules at the top of this page, or it may have been a response to another post that needed deletion. Sometimes posts are deleted that don't technically violate the rules, but do push the limits, particularly if the poster frequently does this. Posts that are invitations to chat are deleted when they are no longer timely. Occasionally, all posts by a particular poster are deleted after frequent or egregious violations of the rules. Very rarely, a post might disappear due to a glitch in the server.  I have read a post that I think needs to be deleted; what should I do? Please send a private message to any of the moderators on the board and let us know the subject and the time the post was made, or copy and paste the URL of the post. We will review it and determine if it needs to be deleted. I sent an message about a post but it wasn't deleted.  Why? The easy answer to this question is "because I have a life."  We may not be able to check on the message until much later and rarely, we may not get to it at all. Or we may have reviewed the post but did not feel that it violated the rules sufficiently for deletion.   I saw a post that says "I'm in chat".  How do I get into the chat room?  There is a chat room box at the bottom of the board.  After you click the button, you will see a new page with a list of who is in the chat room and a sign in form.  Click on the REGISTER button to create your chat account, which is separate from your message board account. It is best if you use the same name you use to post on the board so that others in chat will recognize you. Once you are registered to use chat, you can click inside the box that says "Username" and type your chosen handle. Then supply your password and click LOGIN.   I was in the chat room for a long time but no one else was there.  How can I tell when other posters are in chat? The solution to this problem evolved from the early days of our chat room. When you are going into the chat room, just post a message  that you are in chat in the Chat Notices forum in the Off Topic section of the board. This will let other visitors know there is someone available for chat and they can see the time of your post. Can I use HTML in my posts? Yes, kinda....the code here is different from HTML. Play around with the control buttons in a test post. There is a technology and testing forum available for this type of experiment. You can preview your post before publishing it to the board, so feel free to check out all of the options.  I registered as a member, but I never post anything, I just read.  Suddenly, my membership was deleted.  What happened? Members who are inactive for a long period of time may be deleted. Your account would only be deleted if you have not logged in to your account for several weeks. You can sign up again, but if you don't visit, eventually the new membership may be deleted as well. How can I get an answer to a question that is not covered here?  Please send me a private message and I will try to get back to you as soon as possible.   Enjoy the board! ~Charlene Hall   Terms Of Service You agree, through your use of this forum, that you will not post any material which is false, abusive, harassing, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of any person's privacy, or otherwise in violation of ANY law. You also agree not to post any copyrighted material unless the copyright is owned by you or you have consent from the owner of the copyrighted material. Spam, flooding, advertisements, chain letters, pyramid schemes, and solicitations are also not permitted on this forum. Note that it is not possible for the moderators of this forum to confirm the validity of each post. Please remember that we do not actively monitor each posted message and are not responsible for the content thereof. We do not warrant the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any information presented. The messages express the views of the author, not necessarily the views of this forum. Anyone who feels that a posted message is objectionable is encouraged to notify an administrator of this forum immediately. We reserve the right to remove objectionable content, within a reasonable time frame, if we determine that removal is necessary. This is a manual process, however, so please realize that we may not be able to remove or edit particular messages immediately. This policy goes for member profile information as well. You, the user, remain solely responsible for the content of your messages, and you agree to indemnify and hold harmless this forum, and any related websites to this forum. We at this forum also reserve the right to reveal information about you in the event of a complaint or legal action arising from any information posted by you. You have the responsibility to choose an appropriate username. You also agree to never give your password to anyone, for your protection and for validity concerns. You also agree to NEVER use another member's account to post messages or browse this forum. You also have the option to fill out a detailed profile. It is your responsibility to present clean and accurate information. Any information we deem inappropriate will be removed. Please note that with each post your IP address is recorded and may be used to file a formal complaint with your ISP. Posts which violate the rules of this forum may result in your IP address being banned. Posts which violate the terms of service of your ISP may result in the loss of your internet account. You must be at least 18 years old to use this forum, or a minor at least 13 years old who has parental permission. By creating an account on this forum, you agree to all of the terms in this document.