Reasons to register as a member

[WS Admin]

Board Features available to Registered Members

If you register a membership you will immediately gain the ability to post your thoughts on any existing thread or vote in any existing poll. As you make posts and spend more time here, additional features will become available, including:

Starting new threads and polls

Private Messages:

The ability to send short messages to other registered members.

Profile Customization:

The ability to add avatars, profile pictures, photo albums and lists of buddies to your profile.

Access to documents and images posted by other users:

Photos, maps, drawings and text documents hosted on the WS server as uploaded by our members.

Access to non-public discussion areas:

Over 75% of the content on WS is available to the general public without registration. However, we do have areas where members post their original work and research and discuss topics in more depth than on the public boards. As a registered member these sections will be available for you to read and participate.

While previously all of these features were available immediately upon registration, abuses - especially of the Private Message system - have caused us to restrict access to new members until they have had a chance to get used to how the Board works.

We're not going to say exactly how many posts you have to make or how long you have to be a member to be able to use these features, to prevent trolls from making a whole string of posts and then spamming members via PM. If you are reading and posting at an average rate you will gain these abilities very quickly. It's a shame the bad behavior of a few requires us to do this, but most bigger boards that deal with controversial subjects have these restrictions for the same reasons.

[WS Admin]

Members who have been here long enough (as described above) will now be able to create their own personal blog, if they want one. It's an optional feature of the vBulletin software which we have set up for you. It's still part of Websleuths so all the usual TOS apply.

This is a place where you can talk about things that don't really fit on the forum. Nothing is really off topic, if you have something on your mind and want to share it feel free. All we ask is that you NOT conduct case discussions on your blog - the format isn't right for it for one thing, but most importantly we want case discussions to be on the main board so everyone can read and participate. It's in the TOS but just a reminder - NO attacks on other members, groups, message boards, etc. Make sense?

Here's a few questions and answers.

Q: What if I don't want a blog?
A: Don't set one up.

Q: What if I don't want to see other people's blogs?
A: Don't look at them.

Q: Who can see my blog?
A: Websleuths members. We're going to start out having them NOT visible to guests.

Q: Can I customize my blog like my profile?
A: It looks like that's possible.

Q: Can I control who sees my blog?
A: Yep, go to your blog control panel.

Q: Are my monthly dues going to go up because of this new feature?
A: Yes, dues will be increased by 15%.

Q: I fear and distrust all change. What should I do?
A: Take a deep breath and relax, all will be fine.

Q: Can moderators still see my blog if I make it double secret private?
A: Yes. But doing that really defeats the purpose of a blog, doesn't it?

Q: I don't like a comment someone left on my blog. What can I do?
A: You can remove it. Blog entries also have the little yellow triangle "Alert" icon to bring it to the staff's attention if you think that's best. We'd rather you all just be nice to one another, though.

Q: Can you post detailed instructions on how to do things?
A: Probably, after we figure it out ourselves. Just poke around, it looks pretty simple.

Q: What the heck is a "blog"?
A: Here's the answer.

We have set up a thread for questions and discussions.