BADGER POND USER'S GUIDE

Here is a brief explanation of some of the questions you may have about The Forum and a listing of the rules which exist.

Legal Statement - Please Read
What are the forum rules?
How do I use the forum's software?
Why can't I see the message I posted xx days ago?
On the Message Index page, why aren't all of the messages in threads?
Why didn't my post show up?
How do I post my biography?
How do I post a new message? How do I navigate around on the site?
The lines are too short in my messages.
I keep getting two posts for every message that I submit. What's wrong?
How do I go about putting a picture in my message? How can I use a "signature" photo?
Can I include more than one image in a message?
I get a "Server Error" or "Incorrect File Permissions" message.
I don't want to use my e-mail address in my message.

What are the forum rules?

The rules exist for two purposes: to maintain the friendly community atmosphere, and to protect the commercial interests of the forum's owners. These rules are nonnegotiable. The forums on this site have been made available, free of charge, to those who wish to use them. The only caveat is that the house rules be obeyed. If you wish to use these forums, you must obey the rules. The rules can be summarized as follows:

Treat others with respect.
No politics, religion, or profanity.
No unsolicited advertising (covered in detail further down the page).
No concentrated attacks on another company. This includes so-called "venting" messages.
Do not include a link in a message to an Internet site you own or are in any way affiliated with. This also include sending folks to another site which contains images of yours you wish them to see. Use the established methods to post a message containing images.
Identify yourself in the message "Name" field by using a full name, a first name, or a last name. Using only initials, a nickname, or a "handle" is not sufficient. You must use a name. We do not care if you want to be addressed by a nickname, we only ask that the above requirements be met in the message "Name" field. An e-mail address is optional although welcomed by the community. Please be assured that the site has software in place to thwart all currently known e-mail "harvesting" programs. By using your e-mail address on Badger Pond you are not leaving yourself open to "Spam", merely further identifying yourself to the community.
No national chain sale "feeding frenzies" (covered in detail further down the page).
No links or referrals in forum messages to current online auctions.

The forums at Badger Pond are moderated. A moderated forum is one in which the management takes an active interest. It is closely monitored by the management. This means that messages which violate the rules of the forums will be quickly removed and a warning issued. Further rules violations will result in a posting ban until the individual agrees to abide by the rules.

The forums at Badger Pond are not to be used to debate the management of the forums. Any such messages will be promptly removed without fanfare. If you wish a clarification of the rules, send an e-mail to the forum administrator. Please note that not all such emails can be acknowledged, and please be aware that management will not enter into a debate about the rules. As noted above, there is no charge for using the forums but if you wish to use them, you must abide by the rules.

The forums at Badger Pond represent a community. This community is made up of real people and they have, over time, evolved a code of conduct which they wish to maintain. The number one mistake that new posters make is in not understanding that they are dealing with real people. These people expect to be treated with politeness and respect. Above all, remember that you should behave as if you were speaking to someone face-to-face. Treat them with the same respect you demand and you will quickly become part of the community of users.

Disagreements are part and parcel with any trade or craft but disagreements can be handled without personal attacks or name-calling. If you disagree with something someone says, it is a simple matter to say, "I disagree", without resorting to name-calling. Again, it is a matter of politeness and treating people with the same respect you wish to be treated with.

We don't do politics or religion. We don't use profanity. Messages containing politics, religion, or profanity will be removed.

There are libel and fairness issues involved in attacks against other companies. If you have an axe to grind with a company, you need to take it up with that company or through the court system. The forums at Badger Pond are not the venue for that type of thing. This fairness issue also involves constantly calling a particular manufacturer's products trash. Every manufacturer has a devoted following and just because you do not like the products, does not mean that everyone feels the same way. If you are asked, then by all means say what you think, but please don't chime in on every conversation with an, "so-and-so's equipment is trash." Badger Pond is not to be used to "vent" your feelings about companies you deal with. Root messages, the sole purpose of which is to proclaim your dislike for a company or its practices are not proper in this venue and are liable for removal. The way to deal with a company you have a problem with is to deal with that company. Trying to use Badger Pond as a public soap box is not proper use. Again, if someone is asking a question about a company or its service, there is nothing wrong with noting your bad experience if you wish. What is not proper is to post a root (First message starting a thread) message in which your dislike for a company or its services is the sole purpose of the message. This is "venting" and not appropriate on the forums.

Unsolicited advertising will not be tolerated at all.

Unsolicited advertising means any advertising without prior consent of the forum management. This includes, but is not limited to, the posting of URL's to any site by anyone affiliated with said site; answering forum messages with "we've got that product, come visit our site for more details" messages; personal "for sale" messages; commercial "for sale" messages; "wanted to buy" messages, and free to a good home messages.

No links to other sites by anyone affiliated with that site are allowed without prior permission. The "add a link" function in messages is strictly for forum members to make use of in helping others find sites of interest or illustrating a point. They are not to be used to advertise, promote, or send folks to your own site. Due to past abuses, this ban must also include "not for profit" sites. It is a shame it has to be this way, but management just does not have the time to visit every site to determine whether or not it is a commercial site. No links to other sites in a forum message by anyone affiliated with that site are allowed without prior permission. This rule is not that difficult to understand: URL's or links in message are perfectly fine as long as they are not to your site or a site you are affiliated with.

You may use the "optional image" field to "pull" an image from another server as long as the remote server allows this. Most free image hosting services no longer allow this type of thing. You may not post a URL to an HTML page on another site containing your images. If you wish to use your images in a forum message, please read the Upload Directions and upload your images to the Badger Pond Server. Messages containing broken image links will be removed as a matter of housekeeping.

If you wish to have a link to your site from Badger Pond, please visit the Woodworker's Portal where you can submit your site. There is a special section in the Woodworker's Portal for Member's Websites. Submit your site to the Woodworker's Portal and then you can tell folks it can be found there without posting the URL to the site in a message.

Occasionally national chains such as Lowes, Home Depot, or Sears have sales on hardware items. What often happens when such sales occur is that a forum user will post a message about a particular item and a "feeding frenzy" starts and soon takes over far too much bandwidth. For the purpose of this discussion, a "feeding frenzy" is when people start "gloating" about how many of a particular sale item they bought, complaining that their local store doesn't have the item or won't honor a "sale price", start asking that others send them receipts so they can take them to other stores to attempt price matches, complain when stores won't price match, etc., etc. ad nauseam. Such "feeding frenzies are not a pretty sight, take up too much bandwidth, and will be removed without further comment.

On the Internet, just as in face-to-face communications, there are social "niceties". One of the more common mistakes made by new users is the writing of messages using all CAPITAL letters. On Internet forums and Usenet, the use of all capital letters is considered shouting. New users will often use all capital letters in a message and then wonder why other users either don't answer their message or give a curt reply. Save the all capital letters for when you really want to emphasize a point - no one likes to be yelled at.

The management reserves the right to modify these rules at any time without any advance notice. This is a privately owned and operated site. Management reserves the right to refuse service to anyone disrupting the orderly operation of the forum.

Why didn't my post show up?

The first thing to learn is the mantra, Reload, Reload, Reload. The guts of the forum is a CGI script which dynamically writes the html files that contain your messages. Since your browser, my server, your provider's server, and who knows who else's server, caches recently accessed pages, there is an odds on chance that you are not viewing the freshest document. In Netscape just Control-R frequently, in MSIE, right mouse button click, Refresh. Get in the habit of doing this frequently and your navigating will be much easier. Nine times out of 10, problems which are reported to me are simply do to working with a cached document

Your post most likely did not show up, because your browser did not reload the page, it simply pulled it out of cache. Please reload the page in your browser and it should then appear. With Internet Explorer, this can be accomplished by right-clicking on the page and clicking on "refresh". In Netscape, click on "View" on the Tool Bar, then "Reload" (Control-R). Please remember that this also applies to the messages themselves: if you are loading a cached version of a message, any new replies to that message will not show up.

Why can't I see the message I posted xx days ago?

The forum software shows you a list of messages by range of date, The date range it shows you can be configured by clicking on "Set Preferences" at the top of the Message Index Page. The reason you cannot "see" the old message is because your viewing preferences are set so that the message is out of range. Change your preferences for a longer period (7 days, for instance) and the message will become visible.

On the Message Index page, why aren't all of the messages in threads?

On the Message Index page, the forum software shows you a list of messages by date range, This date range is by message, not by thread. If you see a message which you know is part of a thread yet it appears on the Message Index page by itself, it simply means that the thread is out of the range of days set in your Viewing Options. You are always shown new messages when you first come to the forum. The new messages may, or may not be, shown as part of the thread they belong in depending on the date range of the thread and the date range you have set in your Viewing Options. Clicking on the message will show you the message and the complete thread to which it belongs. If you want to see the whole thread on the Message Index page, change your Viewing Preferences so that more days are shown.

At the top of the main message page there are links which will take you to other parts of the site.

"Bios" takes you to the member's biography section.

"Forums" takes you to the forum listing page (the site has four forums).

"Mall" takes you the the Mall area of the site which contains several "stores" whose sales commissions go towards paying for the site's overhead. Please help support the site by making use of the Mall.

"Woodworker's Portal" takes you to that section of the site which contains a database of woodworking-related links.

Etc.

How do I post my Biography?

You may have noticed that the site has a Member's Biography Section. It is a good way to get to know each other and helps you to understand the that you are dealing with real people when you exchange forum messages. To have your biography included, simply post a message with your biography and use the Subject, "Biography". We'll do the rest. After your biography has been formatted and placed in the biography section, the thread containing the biography and any replies to it will be removed from the forum in order to make room for other messages.

The text in my message looks different than the other messages I see. The lines are too short.

You are hitting the Return key when the text reaches the right margin of the text entry box. This is not necessary. Simply type your message and the text will automatically wrap to the next line when the end of a line is reached. If you wish to put a blank line between paragraphs, simply hit the Return key twice, then continue.

I keep getting two posts for every message that I submit. What's wrong?

You're clicking the "Post Message" button twice. That's the only thing which can cause duplicate postings. Only click the button one time and be patient. It may take a few seconds for the process to take place.

Can I include more than one image in my message?

Yes you can, but directly inputting the necessary HTML code in your message. To include three messages with the file names file1.jpg, file2.jpg, file3.jpg, you would enter the following:

Please note that due to the size of the site and the traffic it receives, the site administrator cannot give personal lessons on HTML, how to use a browser, etc. One person manages the site and it just isn't possible to give personalized service, sorry.

I can't post a message. I get a "server error" or "Incorrect File Permission" message.

When maintenance is done on the forum, the software is taken off-line temporarily. This is generally no longer than five minutes, usually much less. Nine times out of ten, that's what the "Server Error" mean. Wait a couple of minutes and try again.

If waiting a couple of minutes doesn't resolve the problem, report the difficulty as soon as possible. If you have a problem posting messages, reading messages, or accessing the forum, please report it ASAP so the issue can be addressed.

I don't want to use my e-mail address in my message.

There are some folks concerned about posting their e-mail addresses on the Web. The e-mail field on the new message posting form is not a required field. You do not have to enter your e-mail address if that is a concern to you. To my mind, being concerned about your e-mail address being on the Web negates some of the purpose of this mode of communication. We do understand, however, the concern about being the target of unwanted e-mail by those who "mine" Web pages for e-mail addresses with automatic programs. We take every precaution to prevent known automatic e-mail harvesters from entering the site. Routines are in place to identify such programs and deny them access.

It is possible for a company or individual to view messages and manually copy the email addresses and then use them for their own purposes. Short of "seeing" someone doing that, there is little Badger Pond can do about such individuals or companies and Badger Pond cannot be held liable for any unwanted email you may receive which has been harvested in such an unauthorized manner by other individuals or companies. The site's Privacy Statement outlines specifically what information Badger Pond itself may gather from this site and what Badger Pond may do and will not do with this information. Please read it.

If you have specific information which identifies a company or individual who has manually harvested email addresses from Badger Pond and is using them for mass mailings, please send that information to the site's administrator. Please note that it is extremely difficult to obtain the necessary information to prove that a company or individual is actually obtaining emails from any site. If proof is not in hand, there is little that can be done by Badger Pond. There are many Anti-Spam sites on the Internet. A visit to any one of them will give you tips on dealing with unwanted email. Just use an Internet search engine using "Spam" as your search term.

Legal Statement:

Badger Pond Woodworking does not necessarily endorse, support, sanction, verify, or agree with the comments, opinions, or statements posted on the Site's forums or otherwise contained on the Badger Pond Site. Any information or material placed online, including advice and opinions, are the views of those who post the statements, and does not necessarily represent the views of Badger Pond Woodworking.

The user is responsible for ensuring that any material they post on a forum -- including but not limited to text, photographs, and sound -- does not violate the copyright or any other personal or proprietary rights of any third party or is posted with the permission of the owner(s) of such rights.

Contents on this site are copyright 1997-2001 by Badger Pond Woodworking or its affiliates. Material on the Site is for your personal use only. You may not in any way make commercial or other unauthorized use, by publication, retransmission, distribution, or otherwise, of material obtained through the Site, except as permitted by the Copyright Act or other law.

USE OF MATERIAL POSTED BY YOU: Postings to the Site are not private. You grant Badger Pond Woodworking the unrestricted right to use, reproduce, modify, translate, and distribute any material you post to the Site in any medium (now in existence or hereafter developed), and for any purpose, including commercial uses, and to authorize others to do so.

INDEMNIFICATION: You agree to indemnify the Site producer and its employees, agents, and representatives, and to hold them harmless, from any and all claims and liabilities (including attorneys fees) which may arise from your submissions, from your unauthorized use of material obtained through the Site, or from your breach of these rules, or from any such acts through your account. You further agree that the Site provider is not responsible, and shall have no liability to you, with respect to any material posted by others.

EDITING AND DELETIONS: The Site provider reserves the right, but undertakes no duty, to review, edit, move, or delete any material provided for display or placed on the Site or its bulletin boards, in its sole discretion.