Hello everyone. :waving: We'd like to provide you with a list of things that are commonly asked, issues we see come up frequently, and some how-tos we know some of you may be looking for. We'll mostly link to content containing the answers or in some cases do so with an accompanying short blurb.
Issues:
New account activation.
Most of the time new accounts are activated within two days of registration (assuming email confirmation has been done), though often activation is then done within a day. This is done by a member of our volunteer moderation team when they are available to process those that have newly registered.
You either cannot view profiles (including yours) or cannot see pictures.
This usually has to do with your post count.
Please try to submit quality posts which just means posting with substance as opposed to simple, "Me, too!", "Yes, I agree", and "Looks good" types of messages without any supporting information. This allows everyone to get to know you. Profile access is not instantaneous at 25 posts, allow a few hours to a day.
User Permissions - Profile & Album picture access.
There are four locations where posts do not count toward your total:
Many pictures are simply missing.
This may be due to many factors. Members are permitted to remove their pictures at any time, a photo may have been removed by the person who posted it. LHC lost all photo albums many years ago in a server crash and all photos from prior to that time have gone missing. Off site hosts may have shut down or restricted embedded sharing (PhotoBucket). Off site hosts may still be using http and not https (s for secure) and browsers will not display the insecure images. C
heck out this Chrome extension solution.
To see where the missing image was hosted, quote the post in question and take a look at the IMG URL. You may be able to view some images by pasting the URL into your browser's address bar.
You are unsure whether or not your account has been activated.
This is an issue some new users may run into or be confused by. After registration you should have been sent a confirmation email to proceed through the activation process. If you have not received such an email, please message us by clicking "Contact Us" at the bottom of the page and we would be happy to resend the message to you.
All newly registered users are manually processed by a member of the moderation team, usually within 1-2 days of their having done email confirmation.
To check if you have been activated (if you are unsure), please try posting somewhere on the
Test Board or try to create a thread on the
NEW? START HERE! board. If you can successfully submit a post then you have an active account. :happydance: Some users may misinterpret their current
user permissions as their having an inactive account, as those awaiting moderator-performed activations, system-wise, are in permissions limbo.
You have an online shop or wish to participate in the Swap Board.
You are constantly being signed out of the forum.
When you sign in there should be a box which says "Remember Me". Make sure that box is checked when you sign in.
It puts a "cookie" in your web browser to serve as an "I'm signed in!" indicator. Every now and then the forum checks for it. If it doesn't see it then it will sign you out, otherwise you stay signed in.
Your web browser must accept cookies for this to work. Most of them do by default.
If your device accepts cookies and you have checked "Remember Me" and still get logged out, you may need to remove your existing cookies and log in fresh to get a new set of functional cookies.
How-Tos:
Putting a picture in a post:
Please follow the
Image Posting Guidelines. In short, if it's not your photo taken by you, use a link instead.
Use the
Test Board to try your picture posting first.
If uploading images to the LHC photo albums, be sure your file type is .jpg as .jpeg will be resized to a thumbnail.
Quoting more than one post before replying. (Multi-quoting)
If a moderator sees multiple single-quote posts in succession by the same person, they may merge them into just one post. Please try to use multi-quoting instead. You can find directions and a place to test it by
clicking here.
Moderators may also merge consecutive posts together if they were not using the quote system and make the subsequent posts an "ETA:" (Edited to add) instead. Users who have the necessary permissions can edit their posts to add additional information as opposed to posting multiple messages one after the other.
See if someone has replied to you by quoting your post or mentioning you.This can be done by using the forum's search feature. Click on the question to be taken to instructions about how to do this.
Searching on LHC:In the menu bar, on the right side below the yellow Donate button is both a search box and an "Advanced Search" link. The search box is powered by Google and only covers the public portions of the board. You will have better results using the "Advanced Search" feature. Within Advanced Search, you can specify which resources you are searching (posts, blogs, etc), specify members posts, define date ranges, and distinguish between searching for terms in posts or in thread titles. Searching for thread titles is very useful for finding common topics.
Wild card searches are also supported. Use the * character to indicate an incomplete word that may be completed by multiple endings. A search for "experiment*" will return experiment, experiments, experimentation, etc. Searching without * will only return the exact words searched.
Editing Thread Titles:Did you create a thread and after posting it discover a typo or want to clarify the topic in the thread title? If you are the thread creator and catch the error within five minutes of creating the thread, you can edit the title yourself. Look at the forum the thread is posted in, double click next to the thread name and an edit box will appear, make your changes and then hit "enter" on your keyboard and the changes will be saved. If you miss the five minute edit window, use the report button inside the thread (a triangle with an exclamation mark under each post) to alert the moderators to the thread and include the exact text of the title you would like and they will change it for you.
Formatting posts
Most formatting can be done using the tool bar at the top of the new post window. Holding your mouse over each icon in the tool bar will cause a small description of the tool indicated to appear after a moment. If you are replying to a post, that tool bar is abbreviated but the full set of tools can be reached by clicking on "Go Advanced" at the bottom of the post window. However, not all the formatting options are available in the tool bar. To learn how to use BBCode, check out the
Vbulletin code list for more options. If you are familiar with HTML, some HTML formatting is available to members who have reached one year of membership and 1,000 posts.
If you do not see something here, you are always welcome to PM a moderator. :thumbsup:
Thanks!
