If you use Flickr or Photobucket and want to display images from those sites, then here is a Guide.

Tweaking Your Profile

Let's have a look at how I have tweaked my profile.

The title you have been assigned may be "newbie" and that can be customised and I have chosen to give myself a rating of my Photography Experience, as a custom title. The cameras that you use was something that you had to complete at registration. The Photography Experience box and self-rating is optional.

The Photography Experience part of your Profile

Try to describe what you can and can't do, within your interpretation of what you want to do. So, for instance if you are not impressed by post processing methods then you could not mention the subject much or say that you do not want to know about post processing.

If you want to rate yourself and you are not taking into account post processing skills, then you could say something like Photography Experience -- see my profile.

There is no one correct way of rating yourself, but if you do your score should be out of ten.

This is not a compulsory thing that you have to do. But there may be some advantages in how you inform others and help them to help you.

Choosing and Installing an Avatar

Clicking on this link will take you to the page where changes can be made.

There are galleries built into the forum that let you choose animal and other pictures, some of them with animations.

You can also google around, and searches for stuff like "tough guy avatar" can you lead you to collections of images, one of which may catch your eye as being the near quintessential "you". The trick here is to craft your search term for something that might take you where "your soul" is!! OK, you may not be a tough guy, but you see what I mean.

If you hit lucky, then you download that image to your computer. And then back on the page for changing your avatar, you upload that image from your computer... it will be resized automatically for you.

And you are ready to roll!

BTW. We have a particualrly nice display of members' avatars on the index page; and sometimes it can be a pity if your presence is announced by the default avatar.

When a new member registers, they are on line, straight away, albeit with limited permissions. The server is set up also to send them a welcome aboard message.

Anyone on line, at the time, will tend to notice this automated welcoming message. The new member is also highly likely to notice it.

If you are on line at the time and nobody has yet looked up the new member's profile (obtainable for the newest member section, at the bottom of the page), then we ask that you look up that camera detail and try to mention it in your response.

Another useful thing to do is to mildly encourage the new member to post up photos. This code, [flickr], produces this paragraph:

If you use Flickr or Photobucket and want to display images from those sites, then here is a Guide.

So I have just about automated that bit!

New members, of course, are more likely settle down on a forum if they receive lots of appropriate welcome aboard messages.

New Members will also hopefully examine the site's Information Page. Certainly, they are invited to look there in their first message.

More recently, we have inserted a menu item entitled Linking Images. In that discussion thread a method of uploading a new member's first images for them is discussed. It is hoped to complete the guide material some time soon.

We try to provide easy to use and relatively sophisticated features. To provide these, extra software will occasionally need to be bought. Open source facilities, although good, will not in every instance be sufficient; for example, the forum software we use, MYBB, is an open source platform; but some features we find useful are not. There is also the domain name which needs to be renewed and is needed, so that search engine links get written down and can direct new members toward our site. In past years, the revenue from advertising has been good. But these days, because of the depression, it is quite poor and contributes little toward our actual running costs.

A Subscription Package is one way to support this site. You would be able to create new posts in the subscription members area and thus have a greater input on the future direction of the site. Although everyone can post responses in that area you could network in extra ways on how you are progressing with your projects.

These are not so much "must have" additional features; but are mostly intended to help foster loyalty for the site. And that extra loyalty is bound also, over time, to get reflected in the quality of the whole site.

Additionally, advertisements that appear between posts are removed, as part of this package.