Welcome to WLF! Rules and Info Thread!

[Korrie]

Welcome Newbies! Tips to Help!

First of all, I would like to welcome you to the WLF Family! You will find a lot of supportive people who will help all they can!

There are lots of moderators that will help with anything you need!

Feel free to start a diary/journal; it helps you to keep track of your eating habits and excersizes, and gives us a place to help support you!!


You CAN and WILL do this, just stick with us and you will have all the support you need!
_____________________

FORUM RULES
While the forum is very liberal in the fact that you are entitled to your own free speech and your own opinions and thoughts, we do have a few ground rules.

1. Be respectful. While we don’t mind the occasional use of profanity, we aren’t interested in porn, discriminatory remarks or content. As hard as it is given the veil of anonymity the Internet provides, try your best to act as you would in any other public setting.

2. Spam is strictly forbidden. Spam is the obvious, leaving links to any website that is selling a product. Spamming is also left up to moderators discretion. For example, if a newcomer joins and every post asks people to check out their blog, they will too be banned for spamming. "Email me for info" and "message me for info" falls into the spam catagory. Spamming also includes leaving links in your signatures. RULES ABOUT SPAMMING IS LISTED IN THE NEXT POST....

3. Posting your email address is prohibited. We have a message system and you can communicate with other members through that.

4. Posts which are deemed as 'research' or data gathering for diet plans, books, or the like will be removed and subject to infractions. The site is for supporting and aiding others, not for market research.

5. User names should not be the name of a product or a service. We consider this to be a form of spam. Postings will be deleted and the user banned to prevent further posting. This forum is not a place to improve brand awareness.

6. Posting copy / pasted articles plus a link is not allowed and the user will be banned.

All members should report an abuse of the above guidelines to the moderation team so things can be handled appropriately.

We hope that this is not too much to ask.

Thanks for respecting our desires. If you have any questions or concerns pertaining to forum policy, please feel free to contact a moderator.

"Infractions" are the forums way of "punishment" if you will, for breaking a rule, such as spamming. Traditionally, you are given a warning first, then an actual infraction is given which bans activity from the forum for a certain number of days, depending on the 'crime'

REPORTING POSTS (this notifies the mods that spam was posted or anything that we need to know about)
At the top of a post, in the blue bar containing the date and time, there is a white triangle w/ a black line in it, this is the button you click on to notify the mods that there is a post we need to look at.

Here are some Frequently Asked Questions:
HOW DO I START A DIARY?
As with starting any new thread, locate the section most appropriate, in this case, the Diary section. Click on the "diary" link. Then at the top of the page you will see an orange box "New Thread" Click on that. A new thread page will pop up. Name your diary and post. Then click on "submit thread".


WHAT ARE CHALLENGES AND HOW DO I JOIN?

Challenges vary from challenge to challenge. You will have to read the challenge to find out EXACTLY what it entails.

BUT for the most part, in challenges we group a bunch of people together into teams. (These groups are formed from the sign up section) and we try to loose as much weight as possible. The team that looses the biggest percentage of weight, wins!

To find challenges and join, you will need to go to the "club challenges" section of the forum. When a challenge is starting there will be a "sign up thread" it will tell the name/purpose of the challenge, the dates the challenge will be running, and any other info (for example, some challenges are more weight loss related, some are excersize realted). You may then choose to sign up by just posting "I'M IN!" or "sign me up" whatever sounds good to you. Then you must wait till the leader of the challenge puts you in a team and the challenge actually starts.

Sometimes team threads are formed and the point of those are to talk to your other team members and help to encourage them. Share your victories and help out anyone who needs the support!!

Once a challenge has started it is difficult to join sometimes. You may need to wait till another challenge starts (which is often).

 

[Korrie]

SIGNATURES
Signatures are for you to post your favorite motto,or whatever motivates you or others...its also for posting a ticker (please read below "how do I get a ticker") Or any kind of small picture allowed by the forum limits that are set (thats too "geeky" for me to remember the exact limit, lol) ANYWHO... they ARE NOT for posting links to any website. Links found in signatures will be removed and member may be banned.

**please take note, only ONE ticker is allowed in a signature**

RULES ABOUT LINKS....

Just an update - after a recent spate of confusion about posting links, we, the Mods, clarified some of the rules with Sean (the board Admin/Owner).

Here is the scoop on the rules about links:

Links to known diet resource sites (fitday, thedailyplate, sparkpeople, and so forth); known healthcare and/or news sites (webmd, pubmed, cnn health, etc.); and legitimate fitness resources (lyle mcdonald, tom venuto, and the like) are permitted IN CONTEXT of an ongoing discussion.

The following links are NOT PERMITTED in posts or signatures:

• Links to commercial sites, including those selling diet plans, nutrients, vitamins, cleanses, shoes, personal training, or any other for profit product or services.
  [Exception: If you are posting in answer to someone who is looking for a resource for an item - for example, someone asks "what is your favorite protein powder" or "what kind of food scale do you use" or something along those lines. Legitimate discussions about particular diets may also have some links posted - for example, discussions about the Cohen's plan, or links to resources for those on Atkins, South Beach, WW, etc.]
• Links to non-profit sites for any reason, including asking for sponsorship, promoting events, or bringing attention to national campaigns.
  [Exception: You may post about events in which YOU personally are participating in your diary only; for example, if you're running in a 5k for breast cancer or something of that nature, you may post a link ONE time only.]
• Links to Google searches on a particular topic. Google searches can be manipulated and used to drive traffic to particular sites. If you want to post a link to articles to support your information, please post links directly to those articles (and please make sure they meet the criteria for legitimate sites - not commercial spam sites).
• Links to personal blogs, websites, twitter pages, facebook pages, and other social media sites, whether they are commercial in nature or not. This is not a place for you to promote your own sites or blogs to gain an audience, a following, or a fan club.
  [Exception: You may list your website URL, your twitter page, or your Facebook link in the appropriate field in your profile, but you may not refer to it in your posts (i.e. -"see the link in my profile for more information").]
• Email addresses of any kind. There is a PM and emailing feature built into the forum software and you can exchange email addresses privately with anyone who PMs you if you so choose.
• Links to any kind of researching, questionares, survey type of things.

Additionally, new members may not post links until they have made 10 other legitimate posts on the board. (This directive is straight from the Owner/Admin.) if you are a new member and have 10 posts or fewer, the moderators will remove links from your posts. If you post 10 garbage posts or one liners just to get to the point to be able to post a link, your posts will be removed and you will be banned.

Finally, do not post things like "PM me for more information" or "see my profile for more information" in order to circumvent the link rules. Anyone who does this, especially after having had other links removed, will have their posts removed and will be suspended for 7 days. Further instances will result in permanent banning.

Note that any link that violates these rules OR any link that the moderators feel is inappropriate will be removed at the discretion of the moderators.

If you feel that a link has been removed in error, or if you have questions as to why a link was removed, please PM a moderator and ask. If you start a thread to complain about the moderators or about the rules of the board, your membership will be suspended.

Thank you for respecting the rules of the board as you participate here.

 

[Jericho]

Subscription Notifications

You can modify the email notifications from threads you subscribe to with some simple steps.

1) Click User CP

2) On the left under Settings & Options, click Edit Options.

3) In the middle under Messaging & Notifications there is a drop down box
under Default Thread Subscription Mode.

4) Select in the drop box, select Do Not Subscribe, No Email Notification, Instant Email Notification, Daily Email Notification, or Weekly Email Notification.

 

[PLB]

I will add that many spammers try to find creative ways to get around the literal meaning of the forum rules. Just know that if you are trying to sell a product or redirect people to another website that is not legit, is full of ads, or is selling something, you will likely be treated as a spammer no matter how creative you get in your attempts. The site is meant for support, hopefully quality information, and discussion. So in some cases, a link or product name is warranted, but in many cases it is just an obvious attempt at trying to redirect people elsewhere. It's really tiring to deal with spam, as we'd rather be spending our time helping members by posting, so there is very little tolerance for it.