This is the Help and FAQ book. Besides links to pages for specific topics, we have Frequently Asked Questions listed in order to help you use the site. Please also take a moment to read the Terms and Conditions for the site, if you have any questions about the rules we asked you to agree to when registering. If there are any changes to those rules, an update will be automatically shown to you the next time you log in.

FAQ

1. How do I post things in a nice format? How do I post lists/images/votes, etc.?

   Here’s the answer, available from the menu under "posting tips".

2. The site doesn’t display correctly on my monitor. Some columns are shown at the bottom of the page, below the menu.

   Try changing your theme in your account preferences. Some themes require a higher desktop resolution in Windows. Check what your resolution is set to. Perhaps the text size in your browser is set too high. If nothing seems to help, contact an administrator for help, using the contact form in the menu.

3. How do I change the way I can view forums? What is flat and what is threaded?

   Flat forums show the posts in the topic strictly in time order, while threaded forums group replies under the particular post they replied to. The viewing preferences don’t change the actual post, but you can change the way you view the forums in the controls above the replies to each topic.

4. How do I reply to the main topic or to a particular post?

   If you want to reply to the main topic, click the "add new comment" link on the topic post. If you want to reply to a particular post, click "reply" on that post. The "quote" button gives you a reply to the particular post with a quoted section of that post to edit, but remember that you must manually fill in the post title, since [quote] tags don’t look very nice in titles.

5. What’s "certify timestamp"?

   There is an option under publishing options for certain types of content to allow an independent third-party site to verify that a particular submission was made at a certain time. We’re not sure of the legal benefit of this, but the feature was installed as a possible way for authors to defend their copyright in case of net plagiarism. The default setting for the feature is "on", but you may switch it off when posting if you wish.

6. The list of unread topics/content isn’t correct. Why not?

   The list is made simply by checking the last time you had a session open with the site. This can be invalidated by certain things happening with the connection or your browser. Nothing’s foolproof.

7. Can I delete something I’ve posted/ uploaded? What about editing after the fact? Is that possible?

   Yes, yes and yes. You can change or delete any of your work that isn’t published in an e-zine or other publication at the time. Things that are already published in e-zines and other works will be locked. To edit or delete your work, click on the edit tab on that piece.

8. How do I change a finished work into a work in progress, or vice versa? (Changing one node into a different kind of node.)

   There’s no easy way to change nodes, but copying all the contents of one into another node using a separate window shouldn’t be too hard. Then once you’re sure it’s all copied correctly, just delete the old node. This would work for any node, except weblinks, quotes and perhaps events. (A node is any kind of major content, from stories to notes, except comments. Blog entries and works, for example, are virtually identical in structure.)