By registering with the forum, you will be able to edit your member profile and preferences. You will get the most out of your time here if you change your profile and preferences to suit your individual tastes. There are many options in your profile to make your experience here more enjoyable, so please take a few moments to try the various settings. Also, only users that are registered and logged in can take advantage of the "New Posts" feature upon each visit. Once you've registered and logged in, click "Edit Profile" or "Edit Preference" in the Forum Navigation island to edit your settings.

The Email Address field is used for email notifications, Watch Lists and to email your password. The Public Email Address field is what other users see when they view your profile. We realize that you may not want everyone to know your real email address, but we need to know it in case you want to watch certain content or if you want to have replies emailed to you. For this reason you can give us your real email address in the Email Address field and only the Administrators of the board will see it. You can provide a different email address for the general public using the Public Email Address. Some people like to put in something like scream@no.spam.yahoo.com. This way people can still figure out what your real email address is, but spamming agents can't just parse through the page and obtain your email address to spam you.

Yes. Cookies are used to remember your login information as well as what posts you have read during your current session. Without accepting cookies some functions won't work properly.

If you have registered with these forums, you must log in to take advantage of the personalization of settings. To log in, look in the upper right-hand corner of your screen for the "Log In" link. This link will take you to a page where you can enter your Username (email address) and Password. Keep in mind that the password is always case-sensitive. This means that the software considers "S" and "s" to be different characters.

Once you have entered your Username (email address) and Password, you'll be brought to your Starting View. (You can change the page used for your Default Starting View by clicking "Edit Preferences" in the Forum Navigation island.) If you have any Private Messages waiting for you, you'll see a flashing envelope on the My Messages island. (Note that this only applies if the Private Messaging feature has been enabled by the Administrators of the board.)

This checklist may help you successfully log in:

1) Make sure you are entering your password correctly. Passwords are case-sensitive.
2) Ensure that your browser supports cookies; if so, check the security level you are using. High levels of security restriction in certain browsers will automatically reject cookies. In order to use the key features of these forums, you'll need to accept cookies. The maker of your browser can help you with additional problems you may have with your cookie settings.
3) Completely log out by hitting the Log Out link in the upper right-hand corner of the page, and then log back in again.
4) After logging in, you may have to hit the Reload or Refresh button on your browser to expedite the authentication.
5) If these steps don't work you can try purging your cookies for this site using the My Cookies tool.
6) If you continue to have problems, go to the Log In page and click "Have you forgotten your login information?". Enter your real email address into the Email Address field and a temporary password will be emailed to the email address used for the account setup.

It's a system-generated User Title to give ranking to your postcount. You will progress through the various levels according to the cumulative number of posts you have made.

Everyone has a title within the forum. You will notice the title below the Display Name in each post. Some titles are automatically assigned based on the number of posts a user has made, and some titles are assigned by the forum owner to denote official representatives of the company or other VIPs in the forums.

0	Warrant Officer
20	Ensign
40	Lieutenant JG
50	Lieutenant
70	Lieutenant Commander
90	Commander
100	Captain
150	Vice Admiral
500	Admiral

If you have forgotten your password, don't worry! You can very easily have a temporary password emailed to you. Go to the Log In page and click "Have you forgotten your login information?". Enter your real email address into the Email Address field and a temporary password will be emailed to the email address used for the account setup.

This process is safe because the password is only emailed to the original owner of the account. There is no way to steal the password by using this feature.

You may change your password any time. On the Forum Navigation island, click "Edit Profile". Edit the Password and Verify Password fields and then click "Submit" to save the information. (Keep in mind that passwords are case-sensitive.)

In order to add an image to your message or your signature, you must have the image already available on a web server and reachable by a URL. This can be an image on your own personal web page, for example. To place an image within a message, simply use the following Markup Tag:

[image]http://www.url_to_image.com/image_name.gif[/image]

For example, if you have an image called cateye.gif and its available from your own website at http://www.mywebsite.com/pics, then you would use the following image markup:

[image]http://www.mywebsite.com/pics/cateye.gif[/image]

You can do the same for your signature. Click the My Home option found on any page. Then, under the Main Configuration heading, click on "Personal Information, email, password...". Look for the Signature box, and enter your desired information, including any images/markup as above.

Note: To keep the forums loading quickly for everyone, it is recommended that you do not exceed 35k for your image size.

We ask that you keep your images relatively small. As a rule, please do not exceed 125 x 600 pixels and/or 35k for a signature image. This will ensure that the forums load quickly for all users.

If you have a browser that is Mozilla 4+ compatible then yes, you can. When you preview your post you will have the opportunity to attach a file to your post.

A note for AOL, Earthlink array(and perhaps others) users.

These two ISPs treat a lot of e-mail as spam and do not let them get though to the "In Boxes" of their users.

When you register, the board will send you an e-mail that contains your password. You will not be able to log into the board until you receive this password.

If the e-mail address you are going to use when registering is an AOL or Earthlink account, you will FIRST need to tell the service that it is OK to receive e-mails from the BoatingABC.com domain.

To accomplish this, see the help files for the e-mail system of your ISP.

Sorry if you run into this inconvenience, but we have NO control over this.

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Note: By agreeing to these rules, you are certifying that you are at least 13 years of age. If you are NOT at least 13 years old, you MUST first contact the Administrator of this Board. Please contact us at board_admin@boatingabc.com.

The first and foremost rule of this board is to have fun! We are, after all, boaters! It's what we do!

This board's purpose in life is to provide a medium for the friendly exchange of ideas, opinions and information about boating and the boating lifestyle. You are encouraged to participate in all discussions on this board about all things boating.

Please be aware that this board is rated "G", intended to be suitable for all audiences. Therefore, please use language that is suitable for the whole family.

You are welcome to post graphics related to boating. However, it is inappropriate to post anything that is not suitable for viewing by small children. Further, please be considerate of those who do not have high speed Internet connection by not postig graphics that are excessively large in file size. As a rule of thumb, if the file is bigger than 50-Kbyte, it is getting on the large size.

The Administrator and Moderators reserve the right to make final judgement as to the appropriateness or suitability of all postings on this board. They can and will delete, on sight and without notice, any postings found to be inappropriate or unsuitable.

Everyone is asked to be considerate of each other's views and opinions. Please refrain from "Flaming", "Slamming" or otherwise making derogatory remarks about a fellow member or their opinions. You are welcomed and encouraged to voice opinions and engage in polite debate. We all learn through a reasoned discussion.

Language Use:

In keeping with our orientation of being for the whole family and the rule that all postings be readable by young children, please keep in mind that the use of non-alphabet characters to spell out words that are inappropriate in "polite" company is not permitted. Several variants of these "spellings" have been entered into the non-allowed list. However, there is no way to enter in every possible configuration. The moderators of this board do not have the time to manually edit out such instances and thus will simply delete the entire posting that is found to contain any such creative spellings of inappropriate words.

Disclaimer:

BoatingABC.com does not confirm the validity of information posted on this message board. We do not necessarily actively monitor the contents of posted messages and are not responsible for any messages posted. Remember that the posted messages express the views of the author of the message, not necessarily the views of BoatingABC.com.

We array(BoatingABC.com, its employees, and its non-employee volunteer moderators) reserve the right to delete any message for any or no reason whatsoever. You remain solely responsible for the content of your messages, and you agree to indemnify and hold harmless the members of this message board, Infopop Corporation array(the makers of the message board software), and their agents with respect to any claim based upon viewing of this board and/or transmission of your messagearray(s).

By using this service, you have agreed that you will not:

• Post any material that is knowingly false and/or defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or otherwise in violation of any law.


• Post any copyrighted material unless the copyright is owned by you or by this message board.


• Use profanity of any kind on this board; posts that contain profanity will be deleted summarily. Repeat violators of this policy array(or any other board policy) will be banned from participating.


• Post advertisements, chain letters, pyramid schemes, and solicitations. These are inappropriate on this message board, and will be deleted summarily. Violators of this policy are subject to banning.


• Cross-post array(post your message in more than one place on this board). This will actually hinder you from getting a rapid answer, and repeated cross-posting may result in your being banned.

We reserve the right to reveal your identity array(or whatever information we know about you) in the event of a complaint or legal action arising from any message posted by you.

By posting content on this message board, you agree that BoatingABC.com can quote from, or reuse the content in promotional materials, newsletters, or other documents. If we intend to use content posted by you in such a manner, we will generally notify you as a courtesy.

While BoatingABC.com loves to see and read about members of the board organize informal "get togethers", BoatingABC.com is in no way a participant or sponsor of these ad hoc events and shall not be held liable or responsible for any action of any person who may attend, nor shall BoatingABC.com be held liable or responsible for any damages array(whether property or personal) that may arise from said non-sanctioned events. Further you agree to indemnify and hold harmless the members of this message board, BoatingABC.com, its employees, and its non-employee volunteer moderators and their agents with respect to any claim based upon any loss that may result from participation in any boating activity.

It is the longstanding policy of this board to NOT allow purely political debate. There are plenty of web sites out there for that. If you feel compelled to enter into a lively political debate, please find another forum to do it in. Any political topics will be deleted on sight and without notice of any kind.

Rules Pertaining to Images Within Signatures
The following will govern the usage of images within signatures.

• The image MUST be directly related to boating. No exceptions.


• Images MUST NOT be larger than 175 pixels wide by 100 pixels tall. Put another way... The TOTAL space used within a sig for images is not to be greater than 175 pixels wide by 100 pixels tall


• Images SHOULD NOT be larger than 5,000 bytes in file size.


• Images are to be in keeping with the board�s general policy governing all images in that they should be viewable by the whole family.

Vendors:
Vendors are welcome and encouraged to participate in all discussions on this board.

If you are representing a vendor, boat dealer, boat manufacturer or are otherwise involved in a boating related business, you are encouraged to disclose this information within any postings that you make on this board. The best way to do this is to include this information within your "signature". You can edit your profile once logged in to accomplish this.

One of the purposes of this board is to help fellow boaters learn of new products and services. However, for your own good, please be mindful of the fact that many boaters do not react well to vendors who's first posting is an overt sales pitch and then do not join in on discussions. Further, we all enjoy well thought out and meaningful debate about the relative merit of one product over another.

However, please refrain from making disparaging remarks toward another Vendor on this board. Spamming the board with advertisements is a BIG No No. Any such postings will be deleted on sight and may get you banned from the board.

We welcome you all to boatingabc.com and thank-you in advance for adhering to these simple rules.

IMPORTANT notice about how this board handles your E-Mail address.

This board has a feature that allows one member to send another member e-mail. This can only be done if the receiving member has elected to allow the board to display their address or has elected to allow the board to send an e-mail to them on behalf of the sender. If the second option is selected, the board will send the e-mail while keeping the receiving address hidden from the sender.

When you register, you will have the opportunity to set how this board will handle your e-mail address. There are three possible setting as shown below.



Simply click on the appropriate "Radio Button" and you are all set.

This array(and all other settings) within your profile can be changed anytime you like by editing your profile once logged into the board.

It is the policy of this board to keep all member information private. We will not give out or sell this information to anyone for any reason short of a legitimate court order of proper jurisdiction. It is up to you to choose how this board will handle your e-mail address.

Click the "Edit Profile" link on the Forum Navigation island.

Yes, you'll be missing a trick if you fail to take advantage of the versatility offered. There are many aspects of how the Forums are displayed that may be customized. On the Forum Navigation island, click "Edit Preferences".

You can choose the stylesheet in which you wish to view the forums, how many posts are displayed on each page, whether or not you want to view users' pictures alongside their posts, and much more. Once saved, these become your default settings. You may edit these preferences again at anytime.

The first post of a given topic establishes the subject by which all subsequent replies will be known. Once there's been a reply, the topic subject cannot be subsequently changed. It's therefore important to get the subject right from the outset. Make it as descriptive and as specific as possible. For example, "LCD burn-in questions", is much better than something completely generic, such as "Newbie needs help!". Not only is it more likely to elicit a response, but it'll also make it much easier for all posts in the topic to be subsequently located.

One of the key benefits of the discussion board format is that it enables commonly asked questions to be answered once, for the benefit of all. Before posting your question, it is always worth checking to see if it has already been asked - and answered! You can do this via the Search island. Using the Search island, you can perform a quick keyword search, or click on the "Advanced" button to search by more specific criteria. Various options are available, both for how the search term is specified and for controlling how many forums you want to search. This is where the specificity of topic subjects is important, making it much easier to locate precisely what it is you're after from a list of search results.

It means that you have unread Private Messages. When you hover over this image it should display how many unread Private Messages that you have.

On the "New Private Topic" screen, you can type in a new user then press "add" or you can select them from the "My Buddies" dropdown. You can add up to the forum maximum of users (this limit will show on the "New Private Topic" screen) to the Private Topic.

If the tags are showing up in your text or you're getting a link, but it's to "http:///", you're including some unwanted spaces in the syntax. Avoid any intervening spaces, and everything will work fine.

Users can edit their own posts up to 60000 minutes after they are made. Where the change is substantial, it is courteous mark the post as edited so as to alert readers to the changed content. For cosmetic changes, it's better not to do so.

Let the forum Administrator or Moderator know - he/she will be able to move it for you.

There are 2 ways that this can be configured on a per-forum basis. If HTML is On then you will see HTML is On and you can use normal HTML in your posts. If UBBCode is on you will see UBBCode is On.

The following tags are available for your use if UBBCode is enabled:

Text Formatting
[b] text [/b] = Makes the given text bold.
[i] text [/i] = Makes the given text italic.
[u] text [/u] = Underlines the given text.
[s] text [/s] = Will post your text with a line through it (strike through).
[color:red] text [/color] = Makes the given text red.
[color:#00FF00] text [/color] = Makes the given text green. [size:20pt] text [/size] = Will change the size of the text to whatever size value you specify.
[font:Comic Sans MS] text [/font] = Will post your text with the specified font.

Links
[email] joe@email.com [/email] = Makes the given email address clickable.
[email= joe@email.com ] text [/email] = Makes the given email address clickable.
[url] link [/url] = Makes the given url into a link.
[url= link ] title [/url] = Makes the given title into a hyperlink pointing to link.
[img] link [/img] = Embeds an image.

Code Tags & Highlighting
[code] text [/code] = Surrounds the given text with pre format tags.
[php] text [/php] = Passes the text through the PHP Syntax Highlighter
[highlight] text [/highlight] = Will highlight your text.
[spoiler] text [/spoiler] = Will wrap your text in a spoiler container. Users must click a button in order to see this text, thus giving them the ability to specify if they want to read the item.
[spoiler:warning] text [/spoiler] = Will wrap your text in a spoiler container and allow you to specify the warning message displayed. Users must click a button in order to see this text, thus giving them the ability to specify if they want to read the item.

Text and Image Alignment
[align:left|center|right] text [/align] = Will align the text in the direction defined.
[img:left|center|right] Image URL [/img] = Will allow you to allow text to wrap on the specified side of your image.

Misc.
[list]
[*]Item 1
[*]Item 1
[/list] = Makes a bullet list. [list=A] or [list=1] will make order/numbered lists. Other options include: circle, i, I, a, A, 1, disc, square.
[quote] text [/quote] = Surrounds the given text with blockquote and hr's. This UBBCode tag is used for quoting a reply.
[quote=username] text [/quote] = Surrounds the given text with blockquote and hr's. This UBBCode tag is used for quoting a reply. The username specified will be shown as quoted.

Putting a poll in your post is simple.

If polls are enabled, start by creating a new post in a forum. Below the body of your post, you will see a text box that allows you to specify how many polls you want to have in your post and the system will guide you through the rest.

You can change the number of posts displayed on each page by editing your display preferences. You can set this to anything between 1 and 99 posts per page. By default, this is set to 15 posts per page.

Quick Reply is made as a "Quick Response" block, so you can make a response to a post (or thread) before you forget or as you read them. Quick Reply is meant as a "no thrills" response box, as it's just there for a fast/non-formatted response.

Reply however brings you to a "Full Response" page that allows for heavy posting.

You can also click the "Full Reply" button from the Quick Reply box which will forward you (and all of your Quick Reply text) to the Full Reply page.

Quote will quote the users text to the Full Reply page. Quick Quote will quote the users text to the Quick Reply box below the thread.

Click the "My Profile" link from the "My Stuff" dropdown on the Forum Navigation island.

Using Gallery Forums are just like using any other forums... However, you can post images too!

After you create your post (subject and post, both required) you can click on the "Image Manager" link.

Adding images are as easy as:
1. Click "Browse" and a navigation area will appear that shows your computers files, navigate around to locate the image you'd like to upload. Once located, click on the image and select "open"; you can also choose to add a description (note that in v7.2 you do not have the option to change the description once another image is added).
2. If you wish to add another image, repeat step one; otherwise, select "done".

From here, just press submit, and your new "Gallery Posting" should appear for users to comment on your image(s).

When creating a new thread or response, you'll see a "File Manager" link on the "Full Reply" or "New Post" page. When selecting this option you'll receive a popup which will allow you to attach files to your post.

Steps:
1. Click "File Manager" to bring up the "Attachment" window.
2. Click "Browse" to bring up the file browser window; this will allow you to browse your computer for any files or images you wish to upload; please note that you're bound by whatever the "allowed file type" setting is for the board.
3. Click "open" on the file you wish to upload.
4. Enter a description of what the file is (if you want to).
5. Click "add file" to add another file, or "done" to close the window and complete your posting.

Please note that you must enter some text in both the "subject" and "post" fields when responding otherwise you will receive an error; you cannot just respond with an attachment ;).

Subscribing to a Forum
Enter the Forum and Select "Add Forum to Watched Forums" from the "Forum Options" dropdown.

Subscribing to a Topic
Enter the Topic and Select "Add Topic to your Watched Topics" option from the "Topic Options" dropdown.

Managing Watch Lists
Select "My Watch Lists" from the "My Stuff" dropdown, from here you can select the type of List that you wish to edit and by clicking the "Edit Watched Topics" (or "Edit Watched Forums" or "Edit Watched Users") link you can remove them or toggle the "Email Notification" option.

Toggling EMailed Watch Lists
See the above "Managing Watch Lists" directions.

Toggling the Default "EMail Watchedlist" Options
Select "My Preferences" from the "My Stuff" dropdown. From here you can manage the "By default should anything added to your Watch Lists be emailed to you?" option.

EMailing a Post or Thread
To email a post, simply navigate to the post and select "email post" from the bottom set of buttons (near reply, quote, notify, etc).

From this "email post" screen, you can select to mail yourself:
Just this post
This post and all replies
The entire thread

EMailing a Private Topic
When viewing a Private Message, simply click the "EMail Topic" button from the bottom set of buttons (near reply, quote, etc).

RSS Feeds for Forums
For forums which have an RSS Feed configured for them, you can enter the forum and select the feed link from the "Forum Options" dropdown.

My Feeds
If the administration has enabled the "My Feeds" option, you can manage RSS feeds from the "Feeds" link in the "My Stuff" dropdown in the navigation area.

From the My Feeds area you can see all of the RSS Feeds available to you, including all of the forums which have individual feeds. You will also be able to retrieve the feeds for your inbox and the global feeds for recent topics. Please note that these may or may not be available based on admin preferences.

The username colors generally specify a users status. Some select users can can also have special colors signified by the Administration.

The default user status colors are:
Administration
Global Moderator
Moderator
Search Engine Robot

The numbers in parenthesise indicate how many new topics (or posts) have been made since your last visit to the forums.