How-to’s and Helpful Hints
Or
“hi, I joined, now what?"

Welcome. Thank you for joining. By popular demand here is the answer to everyone’s favorite question- hi, I joined, now what?
Firstly- Feel free to introduce yourself in the community area

A few things.
Our moderators are “Silent J”, Ethanpil, TheGrimReaper, and Nechama (thats me!). They, well, moderate, organizes stuff, locks threads and can solve any problem with using duct tape, chocolate, or computer skills. Having big problems on the site? They are the ones to PM. (more on Private Messaging later)
But before you do that, read this … chances are we answered your smaller questions.

Here are some answers to some frequently asked questions
The boards are divided into different sections to keep things organized. So if you have a funny joke to share- that goes under humor. A Halachic question- under halacha (Disclaimer about Halacha section- We are not Rabbis here. We don’t pasken. We can tell you what we do in our homes, or what we learnted (or "learnt") in school, or give you sources. But obviously, when you have a question of Halacha, the best person to ask would be your Rabbi who can tell you what to do for sure.)

When starting a new topic, please give it a title and subtitle that describes it well. Lets say you need a ride from Baltimore to NYC. Don’t give it a title like “Help / how do I get from” You are much better off writing “Ride Needed/ B-more to NYC” See the difference? I have no clue what the first one is about, while the second actually tells me what’s inside- giving the reader incentive to click and read.

Keeping track of New Posts
Under the Hashkafah logo, on the right side is the “View New Posts” button. When you click that you will see (tada!) any new posts all in one page! Rather convenient dontcha think!
Not only that- See the little blue box near the thread titles? Click on those and they will short-cut you to the new posts on that thread.
Now you have no excuses not to be up-to-date!

Replying to others Posts
Hit the “Add Reply” button to respond to someone’s post. Ok, you figured that much out already. Now for the fancy stuff.

<--Smilies are on the left side.

To link, use the button that is labeled "http://" you enter the url of the site/page, then ok, then the name of the site, ok. It does all the hard work for you.

Hit the quote button by another users post (not the add reply button) to quote them. Or copy and past and use the "Quote" button (above the enter text box). Remember to edit the post of the person you are quoting from to only include the relevant snippets.

How write in between a "Quote"
This is a tad more complicated than just hitting the quotes button like everyone does, but its worth it for clarity.

Hit the regular reply button, then use the “Quote” button (above the enter post box on the reply page)- Use the copy/past feature in your computer to put the line from the other poster in (its lower down on the making a reply page) Then hit the quote button again to close the tag. Then type your message. Repeat as Repeat as necessary.
Looks like this: (without the period-that’s so that you can see it and the quotes are not formed)
[.QUOTE] What So&S0 said [./QUOTE]
My reply.
[.QUOTE] What So&S0 said [./QUOTE]
My reply.


Please remember: Grammar is our friend!
Don't post in all caps. It is rude.
Don't put thread titles in all caps.
Don't abbreviate too much- it makes things difficult for others to read!
Please spell correctly (if you need help download the spellchecker for Internet Explorer at www.iespell.com-it is very helpful or run MS Word at the same time and type your long posts there, check your spelling, and then copy the text). Or just type slower and proofread!

Flub up? Use the edit button to add/change/correct your posted post instead of leaving your mistakes there or posting many times in a row. That’s what its there for folks!

Multiple posts in Community (added 8/11/04)
When you post a new thread in the Community section, you get a error message. Dont worry about it- it seems that the messages still get through and are posted, so dont keep re-submitting the new thread over and over. Go back to h.com (the homepage, new posts page etc) to check that it worked rather than going back and trying to resubmit the post.



Other random stuff we did not forget about
The dots under our names show about how many posts you have. There are different levels and titles according to how many posts you have made. Why do we care how many posts we have? Well to put it politely we, (like me, who make up this entire FAQ list out of the goodness of my heart) have too much spare time.

Use the PM (private message) feature to ask personal questions. They pop up as a new screen when you get a message. This way you don’t monopolize the message boards with your personal whatever or share your name, address and social security number where anyone can see.

Uploading avatars is not so hard. In short go to “My controls” (found under the logo) Then “Edit avatar settings (on the left, scroll down a bit- it is under the “personal profile” heading) There you can upload an avatar- make sure it with in proper size guidelines. Hooray, now you have a cute picture by your name!

Have a great time, is you have any other Qs, or need help feel free to PM me or anyone else! Or ask it here. We have too much spare time any ways, we can make ourselves useful and help you!

Happy Hocking!

Nechama, that's great!! I think you should get a special boost in ratings because of this post...

I feel like I am the mother hen here, or the driver of the welcome wagon!

excuse me, how many moderators are there?

For those counting, ethanpil is also a "moderator.” which explains the number of posts he has.

Nechama! Thanks very much! as u can see i am still a "newbie" and i havent really learned my way around...that was very welcoming . one little question though- why are we scaring all the new ppl. into spell checking their posts? now where on earth am i supposed to scratch up a spell check on this site?
cant we all just send u everything b4 posting so u could put a "hechsher" on it?

a few mispels every now and then is understandable
but wen it getz ot off hand, itz a probblemm.

you seem to be fine

u r beggining to sownd ulot lik our friend Mah?

i kuod nevbere bee az bads az thastr

I have a question: where does the word "hock" come from?

i forgot, but my sister is going to "Hocking Hills" this week. Really.

ya whats hock mean anyway? Nechama? 'Ello! English question overe here. where is that girl when u need her...?

Oh, so *she's* your sister???

mosheshmeal
.

what sister...? whats he talking about agent?

i'm not sure...i have a bunch of sisters and he knows none of them, and yeah...

Sorry, been a busy day. I don't know the exact definition of hocking, but you’ll know it when you see it.

Wasnt there a thread about that a while ago?