- Thread Title - Choose your subject line with care. It's what that gets people to look at your question. The subject should be a very concise explanation of your problem. Include as much information as sensibly possible. Using huge amounts of abbreviations or writing subject lines that are so long that the board software cuts them off is deprecated, though.
If your issue is "Blue Screens" then put that in your subject header. If it's something else (like a trojan detected) then put the name of the trojan in the subject header and so on. DO NOT use something like "Help Me" and then post nothing about your issue in the post. This tells nothing of your issue and wastes both our time and yours trying to figure out what infection you have and what issues your having. - Content - Write your question in clear, grammatical and correctly spelled English. If you don't have the time to formulate your question correctly, why would you expect other people to have the time to answer it? Don't worry if English isn't your native language, though - people will cut you some extra slack for grammar mistakes.
Remember to include all the information that is relevant to your problem but do it sensibly. Just dumping the output of a random system analyzer program on the forum will only make people ignore you - besides, it will give the idea that you're not willing to go through the trouble of figuring out what things are relevant to your problem and what aren't.
Post detailed symptoms that you are experiencing e.g. system doesn't work, cannot connect to net etc. Describe the relevant parts of your system in more detail than the irrelevant ones. Describe deviations instead of expectable things. If your issues are hardware related, please specify the brand/model of your equipment. List out the specifications of your machine. The more information you can provide, the easier it will be to ascertain what's causing the problem. Let us know what you've already done to fix it (if anything).
If possible, describe the changes that you've made to your system before it broke. Do this even if it seems that there ought to be no relation between what you did and what happened. Computers are complicated things. Also describe what you've already tried to do to solve the problem. - Responses - When someone replies to your thread, please consider the proposed solution. If it does not work, reply to the thread by explaining in which manner it's not working. When you've resolved the problem, post what you did to solve your problem
- Don't say that your problem is urgent or write your subject in ALLCAPS. It might be urgent to you, but that's irrelevant to the question itself. You aren't paying for the service so you don't get to set the priorities. Be considerate of the fact that the people helping you are not being paid for this, and in fact usually have a job, and have a limited amount of time to help, and can only do so much. so if someone doesnt answer right away, please dont get mad, simply come in once a day and Bump your post.
- Do not post your problems in someone else's thread. Start a new thread by clicking on New Thread. Do not post your problems into other open threads saying "I have the same issue ...." etc. This gets really confusing for everyone involved. Also, please stay with your original topic when posting follow ups.
- Do not start a new thread each time you reply, it is seriously important to see the entire progress of the help cycle, and so all replies should be in the same thread. (not only that, but it makes things more difficult for those who are kind enough to offer their help)
- Post your topic only once. Duplicate posts will be closed, and just create additional work for the staff members trying to help you.
- We understand many of our new members may not have used a vBulletin Board before, and therefore will not understand how they can benefit from the Message Boards Features. This is why this guide is created; to help users find their lost threads.
There are many different methods you can use to re-locate your lost thread. Here are the most practical:- Subscribe - When you are viewing your thread, you will see a Tool Bar directly above your post. The first option is "Track this topic". Clicking it will bring you to your Control Panel's Subscription Information Menu. You will see options for topic notifications. When you registered at LYF, you supplied an Email address. You can make it so that you are notified by email when a reply has been made to your thread. A link will be provided in the email to bring you directly to your log. Each time a reply is made in the thread, you will be notified.
- Search Options - Every forum, every thread and every page has the facility to search. You can search by Thread Title, but it would be easier to search by your registered user name. If you search by user name, the results page will display a list of threads you have created and posted in. Simply choose the thread you are looking for.
- Bookmark - If you don't think you will be staying with LYF as an active member, and are just here for the free help, then you can bookmark your thread with your Internet Browser. In Internet Explorer you simply hit the [CTRL+D] keys.
This will add the webpage to your Favourites, which is located on the Internet Explorer Toolbar.
- Remember some common courtesy to the folks assisting you. This is YOUR issue. "Please" & "Thank You" works really well. Rude comments, personal attacks, flaming, and trolling will not be tolerated. Always remember that people are volunteering their help.
- Please do not post your email address or other personal information. Spammers do lurk here and they also operate email harvester bots to scan for email addresses. If a moderator sees that you have posted an email address, it will be removed.
- Trolling/Flaming. Do not make posts that are inflammatory just to upset people.
- Discussion, distribution or posting links to pirated software, pornography or any kind of copyrighted materials is prohibited
Offending post will be deleted and user will be warned - Political and Religious Topic, discussions are NOT WELCOMED here
- Spamming - posting unconstructively, bumping topics unnecessarily, opening multiple threads are all considered as spamming.
- Commercial-oriented posts, blatant commercial advertising, referral links, links in signatures for commercial purposes are not allowed
- Illegal activities - Activities involving drugs, contraband materials, smuggling, evasion of law or any other activities that are against the law. Offending thread or post will be deleted without prejudice. User will be permanently banned.
- Do NOT ask homework/assignment question without first attempting the question or picking out a part which you are having difficulty with.
This post has been edited by sUBs: Mar 18 2006, 01:37 PM