Signing Up and Logging In

How do I sign up?

Just go to the registration page, enter a unique username and password along with a valid e-mail address, then press the "Signup" button to receive a confirmation e-mail with further details. You must activate your account this way before you can become a member. Please make sure that spam filters will let this message through; we recommend 'white-listing' the address newsadmin@freelancetraveller.com.

Why should I sign up?

Anyone may read the forums, but you need to be a member to post messages. You also need to be a member to access the forums using a newsreader or email.

What's this business with the picture of the distorted text?

Unfortunately, spammers will find a way to spoil anything. Instant-response signon systems like ours have been exploited by spammers using automatic forum-abuse software, so a defense has been devised. These pictures are called 'captcha' images, and are designed for a human to be able to read easily, but a spambot generally won't.

How do I log in once I've signed up?

Logging in to the Web Interface is straight forward. Select the "Log in" link on any forum page, enter your username and password and press the "Log in" button. A cookie will be left on your system to automate subsequent logins unless you don't accept it or you delete it from your cache.

Help! I've forgotten my password!

No problem. Select the "Lost password" link and enter your valid e-mail address to receive an e-mail with further details on how to re-activate your account.

Using the Forums - What All Users Need To Know

Setting up your profile

You can access your profile at any time when you are logged in to the web interface - simply select the "Edit Profile" link. Most of the entries are self-explanatory. Note that the entries for "Real Name" and "E-mail address" are NOT displayed on your messages if you have "Display Name" and "Public e-mail address" set. You are always permitted to set your public e-mail address to be {your login name}@freelancetraveller.com, but if you set it to something else, it should either be valid or be obviously invalid. An "obviously invalid" address is one that ends in .invalid, or is at any of the domains example.com, example.net, or example.org.

Display e-mail addresses at the freelancetraveller.com domain

Normally, an e-mail address @freelancetraveller.com, other than the role accounts used by the administrator, will be invalid - if you try to send mail to one, you will be told that there is no such user. However, if you are a registered member of the forum, you may request that the address be made valid, forwarding to your (concealed) real email address. To do this, send email to newsadmin@freelancetraveller.com with a subject line of "ACTIVATE EMAIL ADDRESS", information as to your forum login name in the body, and sent from your real email address as shown in your profile. Note that if you change your profile email address, the forwarding email address @freelancetraveller.com DOES NOT AUTOMATICALLY CHANGE. You must submit a new request to change it.

General Etiquette

The first and most important rule is "NO HITTING". "Hitting" is defined as directly or indirectly attacking another person. If you disagree with something that has been posted, attack the post, not the poster, and provide reasons for your disagreement: "Traveller The Star Wars Edition is an inferior system because..." is OK; "Ewww... You like Traveller Star Wars? What are you smoking?" is hitting, as is "Traveller Star Wars is only for stupid munchkins who can't handle Traveller TOON.". Don't hit.

This is a COMMUNITY. Please act accordingly. If you see someone else breaking or coming close to breaking a rule, you can (and should) POLITELY remind them of the rule. If you feel that the violation is egregious, you may call the Administrator's attention to it by posting a message in freetrav.admin. If you are reminded about a rule, think carefully before responding or denying that you were pushing or exceeding the limits - don't escalate, and play nice. The Administrator doesn't really WANT to get involved, and relies on the community to police itself. If the Administrator feels that he needs to intervene, he's not going to be happy. The decision of the Administrator is final. The Administrator also tends to be laid-back. Don't push.

The preferred posting format in these forums is 'trimmed interspersed', if you are using a newsreader or email; 'trimmed bottom-post' if you are using the web interface and find 'trimmed interspersed' difficult to achieve. Users who access the forums via a newsreader or email may not have immediate access to older posts on a topic the way web users do. So, when composing a reply, please quote what's needed to establish context, and delete what isn't ('trimming'), and try to keep your reply immediately below the point to which you are responding. Placing a response close to a point is not always easy with the web interface, so trimming to establish the points to be responded to, and then putting all replies at the bottom is an easier, acceptable alternative.  Please avoid posting your response at the top of the message, before the material you are responding to.

Where do I discuss {topic}?

The following groups have been created; other groups may be created in the future - see the question, "I think a new section is needed to discuss {topic}. What should I do?" below. Each group has a 'friendly name', used to identify the group on the web interface, and a 'newsreader name', used to identify it if you use a newsreader program like Forté Agent, Mozilla Thunderbird, or Microsoft Outlook Express.  The 'friendly name' is given first, then the 'newsreader name', italicized, then the description.

Administration Center
freetrav.admin

All members should read this group. This is where you will find announcements of temporary outages, procedural changes that affect members, new groups created, and in general anything that affects the forums themselves. Discussion of the forums in general should take place here; we are especially interested in people's opinions of the web interface and possible alternatives. Subscribers may also post forum problem reports and requests for assistance here; DO NOT post personal information such as passwords or email addresses here (or indeed anywhere on the forums); if we need this information, we will contact you via email at the same email address you gave us when you registered.

 

Across The Board
travnet.boardgames

This group is intended for discussion of Traveller board games such as Imperium, Dark Nebula, Brilliant Lances, and Battle Riders, as well as any future Traveller board games or ideas for developing same. Leeway will be granted for discussions of other board games that can be adapted to a Travelleresque setting, and for Traveller-themed miniatures gaming.

Open Forum
freetrav.chatter

This group is for discussions that don't fit anywhere else, and the only thing that could be said to be 'off-topic' here is anything that's 'on-topic' in another group - but there's still a LOT of leeway here. If discussion of a specific type (e.g., political, computer, etc.) starts to overwhelm the group, it may cause a new group to be generated. Note that personal attacks are NOT on-topic here - or anywhere on the Freelance Traveller Forums.

 

The Souk
travnet.marketplace

This group is for 'classified ads' relevant to Traveller - if you're looking for players for a face-to-face or PBM/PBEM campaign, post here. If you're looking for a GM to run a campaign, post here. If you have material you want to sell, post here. If you are looking to purchase material, post here. If you have something up for sale on eBay or another auction site, or you're the author of a product being sold by a licensed publisher, you can post here to let people know. Strong recommendations: (1) If your posting is time-sensitive, put some indication of this in the subject line, e.g., "EXPIRES 31-FEB-05", in addition to the actual topic of the message. (2) If your posting is looking for players or a GM for a face-to-face campaign, also include some indication of where the game is expected to be held - if you're in London, England, a response from Sydney, Australia, is not exactly going to be useful...

The Test Center
freetrav.test

This group should be used for 'test messages' of all sorts, whether you are testing to see if you have your newsreader configured to your liking, to see if you can access the server at all, or whatever, this is the place for them.

 

What's New at Freelance Traveller?
freetrav.website.whatsnew

Anyone can read this group; only the Administrator can post to it. Messages posted here will be describing updates to the Freelance Traveller website and forums (e.g., new groups, software updates, interface changes).

 

Website Issues
freetrav.website.admin

If you see a problem with the main Freelance Traveller website (or the mirror on Downport), you can post a message here to let us know.

Why are some groups "travnet" groups and others "freetrav" groups?

We'd eventually like to be able to work with operators of other Traveller-related forums, like QLI or Comstar, and exchange forum messages with them. Groups which would sensibly span multiple operators would be part of the resulting "Traveller Net", and are named as such.  Groups which would only be of local interest, not propagated to other servers, are named with the local system name. We haven't approached any of the other operators yet; we want to make sure that our forums are stable and functioning well first - but we also like to plan ahead.

How do I start discussion on a new topic?

Just post a new message that's not a reply to an existing message. See the previous question, "Where do I discuss {topic}?", to decide where best to post your new message.

I think a new section is needed to discuss {topic}. What should I do?

Post a request in Administrivia (freetrav.admin) giving what you think a good 'friendly name' would be for the group you think should be created (the Administrator will come up with the 'newsreader name') and why you think it should be created. You will see a reply to your post in Administrivia (freetrav.admin), and if the News Administrator agrees with you on the need to create the group, it will be created - and if not, you'll see an explanation of why not.

Formatting messages posted to the forums

There are some special codes available to add emphasis to parts of postings. News Readers can also use the special display codes but only users of the web forums will see the resulting graphical "Smilies". These are implemented by utilizing the following standard keyboard character sequences:

• Grin: <G> or <g>
• Happy: :-) or :) or =)
• Unhappy: :-( or :(
• Wink: ;-) or ;)

Single words can be highlighted (some News Readers may see these too), by using these methods:

• italics - place a forward slash ("/") at the beginning and at the end of a word: /italics/
• underline - place an underscore ("_") at the beginning and at the end of a word: _underline_
• bold - place an asterisk ("*") at the beginning and at the end of a word: *bold*

Using the Web Interface

Opera and Safari Users

We've become aware that some of the advanced display features don't quite work as advertised on these browsers (or, presumably, on other browsers based on the KHTML, WebKit, or Presto engines). This is due to a server-side component generating active code that is slightly 'off' from what these browsers seem to expect. The author of our forum software has been advised, and is in contact with the author of the component in question.  In the mean time, we recommend not using these browsers for accessing the forums; use a browser based on the Gecko (recent versions of Netscape, SeaMonkey, or Firefox) or Trident (recent versions of Internet Explorer and IE partnership browsers/browser shells [e.g., Yahoo! and AOL] ) engines instead. A fairly extensive list of browsers sorted by engine can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_web_browsers.

Full Text Search

You can easily search all of our groups from the Web Forums with the "Search" links you'll find at the top of each page. If you need more control over what you're searching for, select the "Adv. Search" link at the top of the normal "Search" page.

Deleting posts

You can remove your own messages (and ONLY your own messages) for any reason if your not satisfied with them. You must be logged in to the web interface with a valid username and password before you can do this, though. Group Administrators can remove posts by others but that is only done as a last resort to maintain the integrity of our forums. You should be aware that people who use newsreader programs or email to access the forums may still have copies of deleted messages, if they downloaded them before they were deleted.

Get Notified

Using email notifications. Our news and forums server supports sending you email notifications of any new messages you might be interested in. Follow the instructions below to set up a notification for new messages in a particular group or a particular thread.

Getting notifications for a group or forum. Select the "Alerts" link at the top of any group's base page and enter your valid email address in the text box, then press "OK". You will receive an email with additional information.

Getting notifications for a thread. Follow the same instructions as above from the Topic page for the thread you wish to be notified about. You will receive an email with additional information.

Having problems? If you don't receive your confirmation email shortly after sending your request, make sure you have entered your correct email address (without any spam-protecting alterations) and try again.

Avatars or X-Faces

Avatars are allowed up to 80 pixels in height by 80 pixels in width. You can set your avatar in your profile. The forum also converts these to X-Face images for newsreaders. If you don't know what "X-Face" is, review the text at the Online X-Face Converter. Note that X-Face headers are NOT converted into avatars on the forums. (Objectionable avatars are subject to immediate removal from these forums and newsgroups.)

Although our forums are supposed to support Gravatars (Globally-Recognized Avatars), a change at the Gravatar service has cause this support to break. While you can select the Gravatar support in your profile, all you will get is the default Gravatar System Logo. We do not recommend attempting to use a Gravatar at this time.

(We know what the breakage is; Gravatar claims that the MD5 hash to identify the gravatar is case-insensitive; our experience is that it is case sensitive, and our software generates the hash using the wrong case. The author of our software has been contacted; we are also trying to get in contact with Gravatar. If you don't understand this, don't worry, it's not important for using our forums.)

Using a News Reader

Subscribing

You must register for the forums through the web interface. Once you have done so, you can access the forums using your newsreader.

Configuring your newsreader

For the "News Server" use forums.freelancetraveller.com. Consult your newsreader's Help pages for information about where to enter your username and password if you've already signed up online and received them. You can practice posting in the "freetrav.test" newsgroup included specifically for this purpose, if you like.

Cancelling Posts

If you wish to cancel a post, log in to the web interface and follow the instructions above, "Deleting posts". You cannot cancel a post using your newsreader; cancel messages are not honored.

Using E-Mail

Subscribing and Posting

You must register for the forums through the web interface.  Once you have done so, log in via the web interface, go to each group that you wish to recieve email for, and click on the small icon in the upper right corner that looks like an envelope with a green flash. You will be sent a confirmation notice to the "real email" address in your profile; follow the instructions to confirm your subscription.  The welcome message that you will receive also indicates the address to send messages for posting to the forums; you must send the messages with the From: line set to your real email address (and it will be posted to the forums with your display name and address)

Cancelling Posts

If you wish to cancel a post, log in to the web interface and follow the instructions above, "Deleting posts". There is no way to cancel a post using email.