StarForums Questions and Answers

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In the beginning...

  1. Is this really free?
  2. How do I get a message board from StarForums?
  3. How do I find a proper category for my to-be message board here?
  4. How do I create a new category?
  5. Where can I get the helps I need building a board here?
  6. Okay, I built my board here and how do I promote it?
Connecting homepage...
  1. Can I link to my board from my homepage?
  2. Can I somehow embed my board on my homepage?
  3. How do I join the StarForums Ring?
  4. Can I regisrate more than one sites to the ring?
  5. I want to pull out from the ring, is it possible?
Compatibility...
  1. Does StarForums support brand-X browser?
  2. Does StarForums support frames?
  3. Does StarForums support this and that technique?
  4. Can visitors to my board post HTML tags or JavaScripts?
Designing your own style...
  1. Can I design the style of my board?
  2. Using the Layout Designer is too cumbersome, I just want an instant board, how?
  3. Hello, I'm from Country-X, can I design my board in my language?
  4. I live in this corner of planet Earth and I want to show the time of the messages in my local time...
  5. What is this "inventory" and how do I use it?
  6. Okay, I store something in my inventory, how come I can't use it on my homepage?
  7. Help! The background music from my board won't play!
  8. Does StarForums provide a hit counter for my board?
Moving, changing...
  1. How do I put a short description about my board on the category?
  2. How do I change my name in the category page?
  3. I found a better category for my board, how do I move to there?
  4. Hey! How come my board moves itself to a new place?
  5. I want to change my password, can I do that?
  6. Help! I forgot / lost my password, is there a backdoor?
  7. I want to change my e-mail address, how to do that?
  8. Oh no, I changed to a wrong e-mail address, now what should I do?
  9. I am a member of a password protected board but not a boardkeeper, how can I change my password?
Regarding the guests and the messages from the guests...
  1. The board strangely merges all my messages into one big paragraph...
  2. Help! I posted a message which is buggy and I want to remove it, how?
  3. Why did I receive an e-mail saying that I got a reply, and yet I could not find it on the board?
Bugbusters...
  1. How do I know who is posting that nasty messages?
  2. How do I block unwelcome posters?
  3. Is there a way to remove or edit the posted messages?
  4. I want to keep my board clean and tidy, but I don't want to watch it 24 hours a day...
  5. Help! Someone is using my name and posting nasty messages on other boards, can I prevent that?
  6. I don't have a board here, how do I get a signature?
  7. I will be away for a vacation for a while, but I don't want my board be screwed when I'm not here...
Rights and obligations...
  1. Do I own the copyright of my own design on the board?
  2. Are there member terms to follow?
  3. Can I put commercial banners on my board?
  4. Can I join link exchange or other web ring projects than StarForums Ring?
  5. Can I sell my board to someone else?
System information...
  1. Where is this StarForums system hosted anyway?
  2. Is this written in Perl?
  3. Can I get the source program code?
  4. I like your system, is it rated somewhere so that I can give it a good score?
  5. What is SFGA? Can I become one?
  6. Does StarForums have a banner?
Miscenllaneous...
  1. My board loads slowly, is there a way to make it load faster?
  2. How do you change the initial message in the bottom frame?
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[sf] In the beginning...

  1. Is this really free?
    Yes, sure it is. StarForums http://on.starblvd.net/meet is a free message board system open for everybody to join the membership and become a boardkeeper here. There is no charge for the space and services here. However, StarForums does have its expenses to pay and its profit quotation from the company to meet. For this, StarForums is planning to place commercial banners on the member utility pages and the member boards, to compensate the costs to keep the system working. This will happen when StarForums population grows to an economic scale. There is also a StarForums/Plus service which provides enhancements over the free boards, such as password protection and server side inclusion. For StarForums/Plus boards there will be no commercials.

  2. How do I get a message board from StarForums?
    As a start, you need to find your new board a proper category first. Once found, at the bottom of the category page there is a simple member registration form. You need to type your correct E-mail address, the (optional) first name and last name, and a special "member" name to identify yourself in the system. The member name must start with 2 lower-case letters, contain only the combination of letters, digits, and underscores (_), and at least 3 characters long. Now press the "Submit" button and the system will check to see if it's correct and not taken by someone else already. If everything is OK, an automatically generated password will be sent to your E-mail address instantly, and that's why you must type a correct E-mail address.

    Once you received the mail and memorized your special password, you should go to the StarForums Member Activation page and type your member name and password again in there, and click the "Activate" button. This process is to make sure you did receive the correct password. Once the system confirmed that you activated your membership with the correct password, you will instantly have a personal message board with two URLs available, "http://on.starblvd.net/meet/mname" (the short format) and "http://on.starblvd.net/meet/category/mname" (the long format). Both formats of the URLs are pointing exactly at the same board in the system. The mname is the member name you choosed in the registration form, and the category is the category path where you searched and found the registration form. The former format is good for introducing your board and writing the address to your friends, the latter one shows what characteristics your board has.

    Without the activation, the board will be locked from any other further activities for 3 days. After that, your registration is cancelled automatically and the space is freed for future applicants.

  3. How do I find a proper category for my to-be message board here?
    It should be very easy. Just go to the main entrance of the system: http://on.starblvd.net/meet/, where you can see a section labeled as "Select a Category". In this section you see several links to the categories, clicking on one of them will bring you yet another similar page and possibly with the same "Select a Category" section, but this time the links in this section are changed to a new set of messages, which is the "subcategories" of the upper level category. You can repeat the search in this way until you find a proper category to suit your message board best. We would like to suggest that you look for the most detailed subcategory, that is, as long as there is this "Select a Category" section in the page, you are adviced to go further with it, unless you are really sure your board can only fit in the higher level well. Hosting your board on a broader (higher) category does not necessary mean your board gets more attention, most people would just ignore those not properly categorized boards. Please also read this precaution about poorly categorized boards might get moved without notice.

    Another even faster way to surf through the existing categories is using this Site Map, where you can see all of them in one single page.

  4. How do I create a new category?
    You don't. You should post a message on the Proposal Forum for your ideas about the new category, and don't forget to include the full path of it, for things like "Toys" can be somewhat obscured, clearly stating "/Society_and_Culture/Pets/Toys" or "/Business_and_Finance/Marketing/Toys" does much better.

    Your proposal will be reviewed by our supporting group SFGA and added to the category structure if it's appropriate. If the proposed one got turned down, you will see an explanation posted to the proposal.

  5. Where can I get the helps I need building a board here?
    Whenever you have a possible question or problem, you'd best to check out this Q'n'A page first. If what you are about to ask is exactly related to a certain tool or utility in this StarForums system, there is a extensive On-line Document for them. These two should be covering the 90% question domain.

    If by chances you don't seem to find a proper answer there, you can post your question on the help forums hosted by [ Ardy or Linda or Vera (Deutsch) or Vikki ] [!] who form our SFGA supporting group and can answer your question from users' point of view. And finally, for those really tough questions which need the technical answer or fix, you can post on the Main Help forum as the last resort.

  6. Okay, I built my board here and how do I promote it?
    To promote your own board is no different than promoting your homepage, you need to get involve with the public first. These are the things you can do as a start:
    1. Here we have this Greeting Forum for the new boardkeepers to post their invitations. Hopefully, if you bring up a good subject to discuss with, and some people do concern it, they will come.
    2. Visit others' message boards or guestbooks (not necessarily only on StarForums) and sign your address here. If you reach out first, 90% the chance people will greet you in return.
    3. Write to your friends about your "new home" on the cyberspace. The short format of StarForums member board URL has made it possible that you can choose a very easy to remember URL here so it is an excellent choice for your E-mail signature ("Visit my board at http://on.starblvd.net/meet/john_doe"). You can consider your StarForums board as a bulletin board among your peers, friends, relatives, classmates, and so forth, for whatever occasions when the messages should be open to the public.
    4. Include the link to your board on your homepage, please read this section on the options you have. You can use your board as a kind of "enhanced mode" guestbook, your visitors can actually get your feedback, such as "thanks for your visiting my site".
    5. Register your board on some of the major search engines. It takes little time to be listed because web robots are supposed to be automatic. Sometimes it takes weeks but it's rare, and it worths the effort and waiting. Here are some good ones:
      1. AltaVista (add URL)
      2. Excite (add URL)
      3. Lycos (add URL)
      4. Infoseek (add URL)
      5. HotBot (add URL)
      6. AOL NetFind (add URL)
      7. WebCrawler (add URL)
    6. Register your board on web forum search engines. Here's a good one:
      ForumOne. (add URL)
    7. Register your board on the major directory services, the most famous of all is Yahoo!. It takes painstakingly long for registrating on Yahoo!, at least 8 weeks because Yahoo! staff needs to look it up. However, a successful registration can generally bring quite a traffic to your board, it worths every single day waiting. If you want to be listed in Yahoo! and don't know how, or you want some guidelines to make your board more appealing to Yahoo! staff (who have the right to accept or deny an application), you can ask our Guardian Angels for help.
      Another new directory service NewHoo provides similar facilities, the application to be listed there is expected to take shorter waiting time, you might get luckier there.
      [NewHoo!]
    8. Join StarForums Ring.
    9. Try Michael Fischler's suggestions, Grant Crowell's tips, and Mark Welch's banner guides.
    And there are definitely more to do, it's up to you to make your board a nice place to visit. And if it is, even just the words of mouth can bring you many guests. No matter what you do, DO NOT SPAM people to promote your forum, or you will be back-fired. See Charlie Morris' explanations.

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[sf] Connecting homepage...

  1. Can I link to my board from my homepage?
    Sure your can, please do. Actually, you can do it both ways. You can place a link in your homepage to point to your message board at StarForums, and since it's possible to put HTML tags in the board header and footer sections, you can also put a link like "Come and visit my homepage" here to your homepage.

    The only restriction is that you are not allowed to use the board at StarForums for things explicitly forbidden in the Member Rules and Regulations. For instance, a link or even a click-through banner to a pornographic site is not allowed.

  2. Can I somehow embed my board on my homepage?
    Since StarForums is running on a system outside your homepage server, technically it's not possible for an object embed to your homepage.

    However, you can achieve the effect of seemingly an embeded board from StarForums inside your homepage, by using the frame technique. Here is what might be possible for you to design your forum-embeded homepage:

    <frameset cols="20%,80%">
    <frame name="left_frame" src="main.html">
    <frame name="right_frame" src="http://on.starblvd.net/meet/my_forum">
    </frameset>

    The actual layout is of course up to you to design, you can combine the homepage with the forum as creative as possible. There is one drawback in this simple example, however, is that when the visitor hits the [frameoff] sign in your board, it breaks the frame to a whole screen forum page. Unless this is exactly what you want it to be, you can do the following simple adjustment to make the forum stays in the right frame:

    <frameset cols="20%,80%">
    <frame name="left_frame" src="main.html">
    <frame name="right_frame" src="http://on.starblvd.net/meet/my_forum&tf=right_frame">
    </frameset>

    The frame identifier right_frame is of course up to you, as long as you write it consistently.

    If, however, you don't like the way StarForums uses this [frameon] symbol and you want to do the frames all by yourself, you can add an extra parameter "&nf" to your board URL, which disables the icon for turning on the frames. So, you have another option like this:

    <frameset cols="20%,80%">
    <frame name="left_frame" src="main.html">
    <frame name="right_frame" src="http://on.starblvd.net/meet/my_forum&nf">
    </frameset>

  3. How do I join the StarForums Ring?
    You are welcome to join the StarForums Ring and place your homepage in its visiting rotation table. For more details, please visit this page.

  4. Can I regisrate more than one sites to the ring?
    Yes you can. You can regisrate as many pages into the ring as you want. However, the redirection of clicking on the ring banner is controlled by a random generator, which tries to disperse the traffics to all of the ring members equally. This also means that if a boardkeeper registrated more than one sites into the ring, each of these sites of his/hers shares only the fraction of the porprotional hit rate. In short, the more sites this boardkeeper puts in the list, the less possble each of the sites gets hit, but the overall hits for this boardkeeper are the same as other boardkeepers have.

    There is also this Ring Checking Tool to show all the ring members in a list. If it shows that a certain member is purposely using the ring attempting to attract more traffics to his redundant pages (which will fail anyway, according to the above explanation), those entries will be removed to reduce maintenance cost.

  5. I want to pull out from the ring, is it possible?
    No problem. The Ring Checking Tool is also providing you the way to remove your own record from the ring. This tool is protected by your member password so it's impossible to sabotage others' record in the list.
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[sf] Compatibility...

  1. Does StarForums support brand-X browser?
    The codes generated by the StarForums CGI comply the HTML 3.2 standard, which means the pages of the StarForums utilities and the boards / messages pages *SHOULD* be accepted by most of the modern browsers, even including the text mode Lynx.

    However, due to the fact that it is possible to put HTML tags into the headers / footers sections of the board and messages pages, through the Layout Designer (the 2nd option in Member Utilities), it is possible that you the boardkeeper can put some special codes specific to only a special browser or version. It is your own decision to do things like this.

  2. Does StarForums support frames?
    Yes, it provides a simple toggle icon on top of your board to turn the frame mode on [frameon] and off [frameoff]. For browsers supporting frames, this is a very convenient tool to browse your message board.

    The default mode is always frame-off. If you'd like to start the board with frames on, the URL to the board should have a special keyword "&fr" attached, such as:

    http://on.starblvd.net/meet/john_doe&fr

    Please also read "Can I somehow embed my board on my homepage?" for the information about how to embed StarForums into your homepage smoothly with frames.

    [!]A note for WebTV users: if you are using a WebTV to show StarForums boards, you won't be seeing this icon. This is because it is an ugly design to show frames on WebTVs, it is almost impossible to traverse the message threads when frame mode is ON. Therefore, we have decided not to show frame-on icon on WebTV displays.

  3. Does StarForums support this and that technique?
    Again, StarForums itself uses only HTML 3.2 codes. However, it gives you the ability to add special HTML extensions to the header and footer sections in different places, and you are responsible to check if the syntax is correct, and take the consequence that the newer technique is used, the fewer browsers can support it.

    Also note that besides the current on-line tools provided by StarForums (eg, counter), your board is not possible to use any technique requiring server side enhancement, such as ASP (Active Server Page) or SSI (Server Side Inclusion), or Perl scripts. All the add-ons to your board should only be browser-side effects. For instance, JavaScripts.

  4. Can visitors to my board post HTML tags or JavaScripts?
    They can place these in the message box only. StarForums choosed to accept this because we think accepting things like these can make your board more interesting. Imagine that your guests can post their photos, post a song (in WAVs or RAs), a quiz (through JavaScript)... and of course hyperlinks to somewhere else. Without this flexibility, all they can say is "howdy". :-)

    If your visitor knows nothing about HTML and fears typing something mistakenly treated as HTML tags (eg, <S> for smile, but also for HTML strike-out), he or she can have an option to turn off HTML when posting the message.

    With the flexibility comes the burden of maintenance, it's possible for the visitors to post something unwelcome either (such as nasty pictures). Nothing iS perfect in this world... You can either censor your board often, or you can turn off HTML in messages completely, which is an option when you design your board.
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[sf] Designing your own style...

  1. Can I design the style of my board?
    Sure you can. In fact, that's the whole point why StarForums was designed and why you should join: StarForums is a configurable messageboard system. Instead of some cumbersome command lines to type or configuration text files to edit, which generally must go through countless try-and-error loops to set up something you want, StarForums provides you a fully functioning on-line board designing tool called Layout Designer. This utility puts together all the board designing parameters in a form-driven page, with abundant on-line documentation on every single parameter you can give in the input fields. Whenever you make a change, you can instantly see the result by visiting your own board. To enter this powerful utility, just check the option "Design forum layout and style" in the Member Utilities page.

  2. Using the Layout Designer is too cumbersome, I just want an instant board, how?
    It's true that firt-time users are always overwhelmed by the huge set of available parameters Layout Designer has to offer, and thus feel frustrated. If you are in fact only interested in having a working board and care for nothing about how it looks like, then in fact the time you activated your board it was already there to accept postings. So, we do provide you an instant board. :-) However, if you still want your board looks better than the default, and feel reluctant to do the designing all by yourself, you can copy the designs from the Wizard Boards, a set of well crafted and artistically designed boards, donated by StarForums voluntary works, awaiting for you to copy. To do it is actually very simple, just visit the list, browse through the boards there until you find the one you like, and in the top of the board there will be a link saying "[Press here to copy this wizard board]". Just press it and you will see the following page asking for your member name and password, do it and your board instantly becomes just like that!

  3. Hello, I'm from Country-X, can I design my board in my language?
    You should be able to, StarForums was designed to let all its board / message page prompting messages configurable by the boardkeeper. Which is to say you can actually use your own native language on these prompting messages to make them natural to your folks. However, the designer of this system does not necessarily know your language and thus did not test the system on it, so there might be some potential difficulties for some languages. For instance, it might be impossible for languages written from right to left, such as Arabic. Still, should there be any problem for you to make your own board on StarForums with your native language, please contact the system maintainer and we'll see what can be done.

    Started from December, 1998, StarForums supports Chinese (in BIG5 encoding). To invoke StarForums in Chinese mode, press the button at the lower right corner of all pages, like this one:
    [Chinese]

  4. I live in this corner of planet Earth and I want to show the time of the messages in my local time...
    Besides the language issue, internationalization is also a major concern in StarForums, that's why it also supports time-zone system, which is configurable in the Layout Designer. (the 2nd option in the Member Utilities)

  5. What is this "inventory" and how do I use it?
    As you might have noticed by now, StarForums is not a FWP (Free Web-page Provider), which means it is not a place to build your own homepage and thus you have no way to store your own web pages and/or files here, theoretically.

    However, to make your board appealing to the visitors, it is necessary to put some "gadgets" on your board like graphical bullets, background images, animations on the header area, background music, etc. Surely you can have all these on your own homepage on some other FWPs and place hyperlinks in certain places in your board or message pages (through the help of Layout Designer). This technique is called "pulling", which means on showing your board here, your board is actually "pulling" the resources from somewhere else, and this is considered against netiquette by most people.

    To solve this problem and help keep your board with good netiquette, StarForums provides this "inventory" system which is a set of tools for uploading files to your account here, and to show those files in your board / message pages. These tools also protect the files in the inventory from been "pulled" to any web pages outside StarForums so nobody can steal the resources from here.

    The inventory system makes it easy for you to use these file in the Layout Designer. For all the input fields which require image data, a pull-down menu is there so that you can do it by simply selecting the proper image file name you need. For input fields which take more than just images but still allow HTML tags, you can write "$[filename]" in the arguments like those of IMG tag or EMBED tag, for instance <img src="$[star.gif]">.

  6. Okay, I store something in my inventory, how come I can't use it on my homepage?
    No you can't. As explained in the above answer, the files in inventory are protected against being "pulled" from outside StarForums. This means if you write a hyperlink (for IMG or EMBED) on your homepage to access these files, the "$[filename]" is not going to work.

    And for those who are really brilliant and figured out that this "$[filename]" is actually translated by StarForums into something like "http://on.starblvd.net/cgi-bin/bbs/name/filename", and tried to put that in their homepage, don't waste your time, it won't work either. StarForums has taken necessary method to prevent this.

    The simple idea is: whatever you saved in the inventory is only for your messageboard here.

  7. Help! The background music from my board won't play!
    Unfortunately, the special method mentioned in the above precaution that the inventory files are protected has a problem with the tag EMBED, for some designing flaws some browsers do not pass the correct data to StarForums server, and consequently StarForums cannot tell where is the request coming from.

    To circumvent this, a special cookie "sf_inv=1" is designed. To learn more about how to use it, please read Inventory Help. So far, it works.

  8. Does StarForums provide a hit counter for my board?
    Yes, there is a counter at your disposal, it's "$(count)" (dollar sign, left parenthesis, "count", right parenthesis). Note that the word "count" must be in lowercase letters.

    This is a text-mode counter and thus has the following benefits:
    1. No need to load images on the browser side, therefore you have faster response speed.
    2. No risk for possible broken image.
    3. You can place any font / color tags around the counter to achieve the effects you want.
    4. This counter is built into the StarForums system itself so it runs the maximum speed and is accurate to each access count.
    A possible way to use it is like: "My board has been visited <b>$(count)</b> times."
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[sf] Moving, changing...

  1. How do I put a short description about my board on the category?
    You are welcome to, just go to the Profile Manager (the 3rd option in the Member Utilities), where there is the input field labeled as "Change Your Board Description" to place your message and will be shown in your category list, and hit the "Change" button.

    This message is limited to 80 bytes only, so be concise. Also note that it's not possible to put HTML tags here, they will be ignored.

  2. How do I change my name in the category page?
    Again, you need to go to the Profile Manager (the 3rd option in the Member Utilities), look out for the fields labeld as "First Name" and "Last Name" and type them in, and hit "Change" button. Your name will be shown in the category list in italics.

  3. I found a better category for my board, how do I move to there?
    Also in the Profile Manager you can find the section "Rename or Move Your Board", where you can easily move your board to a new category. This is also the place to rename your board. Just type the correct new full path of your board in to the "Path" field, and hit the "Rename/Move" button. It's that simple.

  4. Hey! How come my board moves itself to a new place?
    Yes, it happens. Acoording to the Member Rules and Regulations,

    "9. StarForums reserves the right to move a message board to an appropriate catagory if it is not properly catagorized."

    This means if one of our SFGAs found that your board can be better categorized in another (generally lower level) category, your board will be moved without notice. The short format of your board URL will not be affected, only the long format URL will change. We believe that:

    1. Only properly categorized forums can attract visitors looking for relevant messages to your board;
    2. The lower level the category, the more detailed / specific to match your board, and more likely to match your topic, and it's more likely your "buddies" will have forums there, too;
    3. People tend to ignore the boards without siginificant topics / category.

  5. I want to change my password, can I do that?
    Sure, you can do that, and we do hope you change your password once in a while to prevent possible hackers. To change your password, you need to go to the Profile Manager (3rd option in the Member Utilities) and put your new password in the "Change Your Password" section. You need to type the new password twice in the two input fields because what you type will not show on the browser screen. Before you make up your mind changing the password, you must always memorize the old one in case the new one won't work - on some very rare occasions this does happen, for the network or server problems. Anyway, if you want to set a new password, make sure that it contains only upper- / lower-case letters, digits, or underscores (_). It should have at least 6 characters and no more than 10 characters (characters more than 10 will be truncated). The password should not be identical to your member name. It should contain at least 1 digit and at least 2 alphabets. All these limitations are in fact trying to discourage the potential hackers, they make the hacker very hard to break into your password through the "brute force" guessing algorithm. However, it's still possible some hacker uses a very powerful machine to try all the combinations in a 24-hour-a-day manner, and this will take about a month to make an exhausting match in general case, that's why we also advice you to change your password at least once every week.

    After you typed the new password twice, hit the "Change" button. The change of your password will send a message to your e-mail address. This is a protection, in case that someone somehow broke into the system and changed your password to grab your forum, you will know when this happened because of the acknowledgement mail.

  6. Help! I forgot / lost my password, is there a backdoor?
    Oh yes, we do have a "backdoor" for you, and that is your e-mail address. Simply go to the Member Utility and you can find a section marked as "Forgot Your Password?", just type your member name (which is also your board name) or your correct e-mail address (the one you gave to the new member registration form, or changed with the Profile Manager) there and press the button. If possible, please use the preferable member name because the system can look it up much faster. Your password will be sent to you right away.

    This is the particular reason why your e-mail address MUST be correct.

  7. I want to change my e-mail address, how to do that?
    In the Profile Manager (3rd option in the Member Utilities) you can find a section labeled as "Change Your E-Mail Address", just type the new address you have in there, and press the "Change" button, you're done.

    Please be warned that your E-mail address is your major "linkage" and "backdoor" to our system, for many facilities here are depending on it, such as the tool to send you the forgotten password. You can change to whatever address you want, but please make sure you can ALWAYS get mails from it.

  8. Oh no, I changed to a wrong e-mail address, now what should I do?
    You can always change it back with Profile Manager, right? :-) What? You forgot your password as well, and there is no way to use the Profile Manager without the password... Human errs, so don't worry. There is a chance to undo this rare error, but only for a very short period and you must do it quickly. Every time you do a change on your Profile Editor, the original profile record will be kept as a backup for one week, and one week only. The most useful feature of this backup is that you can go to the Member Utility and there is this "Changed to a wrong E-mail address?" section, just type your member name and old password, and hit the "Recover" button. Your old profile will be recovered from the backup.

    Remember, only one week...

  9. I am a member of a password protected board but not a boardkeeper, how can I change my password?
    Please go to this page to do that: http://on.starblvd.net/bbs/newpasswd.shtml
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[sf] Regarding the guests and the messages from the guests...

  1. The board strangely merges all my messages into one big paragraph...
    The default mode of the StarForums boards is to accept HTML tags. This means it will pass whatever the guest typed into the message box to the browser, and lets the browser do the actual formating and possibly interpretation of the HTML tags. Most modern browsers will try to format the messages according to the instruction you gave in the tags, not the Returns/Enter keys you typed or the space you lefted on the messages. To insert a line break, you need to type <br>, to start a new paragraph, you type <p>.

    Fortunately StarForums also provides this "verbatim message" mode for people don't know about HTML and want to do simple message formatting with plain-old Returns/Enter and Space tricks. The guest can do that by clicking on the option toggle "Disable HTML and show your message verbatim?". It's just that easy.

    If you are the boardkeeper you can have two options to make it easier for your guests:
    1. Invoke the Layout Designer (the 2nd option in the Member Utilities), and turn on the option "Hide No-HTML toggle?: and always disable HTML in message" in Part #5. The messages in your board will never have a chance to be interpreted as HTML.
    2. Invoke the Layout Designer, and turn on the option "Hide No-HTML toggle?: keep it and disable HTML as default" in Part #5. Most messages will be non-HTML, unless some sophisticated guests want to use HTML tags and turn the "Disable HTML and show your message verbatim?" off.

  2. Help! I posted a message which is buggy and I want to remove it, how?
    Yes, you can do that and it's surprisingly easy. If the message was posted by you, you can just go back to show that message by clicking on the link related to that message in the board. On top of the message there will be a button like this: [X] Just click on it and the message will be removed from the database.

    StarForums is using the cookie trick to do this and makes sure only you, the original poster of the message, can withdraw the message. However, there are some circumstances the system will deny the withdrawal:
    1. The cookie is not matching... this means either you disabled or removed the browser's cookie memory, you changed to another browser or another version, or you changed to another machine.
    2. The message is no longer "new". How long a message is considered new is up to the boardkeeper, the default is 3 days.
    3. The message now has replies attached to it.
    4. It's a secret message to the boardkeeper.
    5. The boardkeeper has edited that message.

  3. Why did I receive an e-mail saying that I got a reply, and yet I could not find it on the board?
    The mail was sent because you turned on the toggle to receive mails for any posted messages, please refer to this section. The posted message was there, it's just that the poster withdrew the message from your board later, with the feature explained in this section. There is no way to withdraw a mail, which was sent away and received / stored on your mail server where StarForums has no control at all, that's why you still got it.
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[sf] Bugbusters...

  1. How do I know who is posting that nasty messages?
    If there are "nasty" messages on your own board, you as the boardkeeper can know where these message came from by inspecting the IP addresses, in the "Board Maintenance Mode" (the 1st option "Edit / Remove posted messages" in the Member Utilities). In this mode you will find that each message title is suffixed with some special links you didn't see in the ordinary board, one of them is the "[A]" link. Just move the cursor above it, the system message box will show the IP address from where the poster sent this message, in the format "Address=domain/IP:IP2". The domain part is the domain name of the IP address. The IP2 is not necessary always there, it is for those posters who came from a system within a network firewall system.

    Now this feature utilizes the JavaScript's "onMouseOver" trick, which may not work for browsers don't support it. In this case you can just click on that "[A]" link and see a pop-up window with the same message.

    On browsers that don't even support JavaScript, or when you turn it off, you need to view the source HTML codes of your own board in this Maintenance Mode. The IP address / domain name information are hidden in the comment after each message title.

    Please keep this in mind: the IP address / domain name is not necessary related to an individual. For those who are connecting to the Internet through the dial-up services or behind the network firewalls, this IP address / domain name is only indicating the address of the "dial-up server" and/or "proxy server", which is always used among numerous users from the same network services or "sub-net". You cannot possibly know what that person really is just by this IP address / domain name. To nail down a case of harassment, you need to provide the IP address / domain name and the specific time of when that happened on your board (you can find this because all the messages posted have a time-stamp attached to them on the board), and you need to know whom to contact to. You need to make a good guess from that domain name to reason out which company is hosting it, and provide all the above information to the webmaster or system maintainer, and show those offensive messages the posters did as the evidence. Hopefully, the webmaster / maintainer can show some wisdom and do the proper reactions on it, such as pulling the posters' accounts there.

    One other thought: if the poster also posted a homepage URL and/or E-mail address on your board, don't count on it.

  2. How do I block unwelcome posters?
    Although SrarForums provides you this IP Blockage system (5th option in the Member Utilities), it might not be what you really want. As explained above, the actual individual can always use a dial-up service or a site behind a network firewall system, and if you put that IP address into the IP Blockage List, you are most likely blocking the visitors from the same network services / sub-net. What makes it worse, the next time that stalker connects to the Internet, he/she will have a new IP address from the dial-up service or firewall. Eventually, you will be blocking the wrong person.

    The IP Blockage List works only for the case that the stalker is using a fixed IP address, such as using a Unix workstation from a company. Unfortunately this is only the minority...

    To get rid of unwelcome posters for good, you will need to join the StarForums/Plus project, which provides the enhancement features regarding password protection and network securities.

  3. Is there a way to remove or edit the posted messages?
    Yes, you can do that in the "Board Maintenance Mode", the 1st option of the Member Utilities. In this mode there are some extra special links attached to each of the message titles, one of them is the "[D]" link for deleting the message, the other one is the "[E]" link for editing the message.

    Please note that if you deleted a message, all the follow-ups to that message will be deleted as well.

  4. I want to keep my board clean and tidy, but I don't want to watch it 24 hours a day...
    This is a common requirement, and we have this solution: you can set your own board to send a mail each time it gets posted. Just go to the Layout Designer (the 2nd option in Member Utilities) and in the Part #7 there is this Send messages: [toggle] ... to your E-mail address option, just turn it on.

    On Unix systems, there is a "biff" utility (Bark IF and only iF) to notify you whenever you have new mails coming in. On PC systems using Netscape or MSIE, the browser has a small e-mail sign to notify the same situation. So, this simple E-mail-acknowledgement system can save you the trouble visiting your own board all the time.

    However, not all of you can take advantage of this feature. For instance, if you are using those web-based free e-mail services like HotMail, you will still have to go to their sites first to check for any new mails, and this is only making things more complicated. The best way to check for all your incoming posted messages on your board, even before they actually show on the board, is to join the StarForums/Plus project, which provides much better board security features.

  5. Help! Someone is using my name and posting nasty messages on other boards, can I prevent that?
    This is really bad, we hope that people can play nice and straight on StarForums and to make your board a pleasant place to visit, but the reality shows that not all of them out there have reached the state of maturity, it takes all kinds. To safeguard your name on the boards in StarForums and keep you from being blamed for something you didn't even do, you need to put your name through a process of certification. Please read this explanation for more details.

  6. I don't have a board here, how do I get a signature?
    You can't. The signature registration will need your member name of StarForums so that it can check to see you are really you. You have two options:
    1. Become a member of StarForums and get youself a board, too. In this way you can make your name secured, and also own a place to share the ideas with your friends / family.
    2. Urge the boardkeeper of the board you regularily visit to upgrade to a StarForums/Plus board. The Plus is a paid service with a very affordable fee ($5 per month), and focuses mainly on security issues.

  7. I will be away for a vacation for a while, but I don't want my board be screwed when I'm not here...
    Yeah, enjoy your time! :-) Now don't worry about your board being offended with nasty messages when you cannot watch over it yourself. You can go to the Layout Designer (2nd option in Member Utilities), and in the 1st Part there is this Vacation mode toggle, and a following message box to say something whe you are absent. Check that toggle button and possibily write something in the messages, update them, and you're done.

    And remember, when in this mode your board actually becomes "read-only", that is, everybody can just watch it and nobody can post anything. So when you are back from the vacation, don't forget to turn it back to normal mode.
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[sf] Rights and obligations...

  1. Do I own the copyright of my own design on the board?
    Sure you do, provided that you created the header / footer messages yourself, you designed the images and/or the background music you put in there, and that you did not copy the design from other boardkeeper(s).

    Now, it is also important to know that the StarForums system is owned by the TISNet Inc., which means the CGIs for supporting it and the on-line documents for StarForums are the company property of TISNet. For these CGI programs and documents, you can't claim to own them, you can't copy them without permission, when you quote from them you must clearly state that where the quote came from.

  2. Are there member terms to follow?
    Here it is: http://on.starblvd.net/bbs/rules.shtml. If you are a StarForums/Plus member, the rules are specially tailored for you here: http://on.starblvd.net/bbs/rules_plus.shtml. Please read them carefully for they concern with your rights here. The rules here are made as generous as possible, but the staff of StarForums will not tolerate deliberate violations. There is also an SFGA helper team to check if members are following the rules. Please understand that we do not wish to interfere with your design of your board or the messages going on them, the rules are only to keep the system running smoothly and to avoid possible troubles from happening to TISNet Inc. If you play nicely and keep up with netiquette, you won't even notice that the rules exist.

  3. Can I put commercial banners on my board?
    Sorry, unless your board is a StarForums/Plus board, you can't. The right to place commercial banners here (either on your board or the message pages) are reserved for the TISNet Inc. for the future advertising project, though this might not happen very soon. We expect to receive some revenues in the future to cover at least part of the expenses for supporting Transload Service and StarForums. The rule applies on some so-called free services which actually require you to put their click-through banners (such as some hit-counter or hit-statictics services). However, this rules about restricting commercial banners is not so strict,
    1. If the banners you are going to put on your board is non-commercial, or it's for public service (U.N., wild-lives, etc), it's OK to have them;
    2. If the banners is for downloading something (such as Netscape), and you don't benefit from it, it's OK;
    3. If the services (such as counter) do not require a logo on your board and no click-thru, it's OK;
    4. If the banner is from a webring, it's OK;
    5. All sorts of Link Exchange banners are OK, but sex-relative link exchange projects are excluded;
    6. All text links are OK, provided that they are not click-throughs (you get monetary or other forms of rewards as the pay-back of the clicks).

    The above examples are giving you the basic idea of this no-commercial-banner policy, the actual restriction does not necessary confine to these only.

    Also note that StarForums/Plus boards will have no commercial banners assigned from StarForums itself, Plus members are allowed to have their own commercial banners in anyway they want, as long as the banners are legal and not sex- / pornography-related.

  4. Can I join link exchange or other web ring projects than StarForums Ring?
    Yes you can and please join them as you wish, as explained in the exceptions of no-commercial-policy. However, cares must be taken by the boardkeeper not to join any sex-related link-exchange or web-ring.

  5. Can I sell my board to someone else?
    Although it's relatively very easy to switch your board to the hands of others, they just need your password. Technically, you can't, since everybody can join the StarForums for free, how are you going to charge for yours? Still, if you managed to do it and made some money, it would be a theft because you are selling something you didn't pay for. This could be a legal case, so please refrain from it.
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[sf] System information...

  1. Where is this StarForums system hosted anyway?
    StarForums is hosted at TISNet, an ISP subsidiary of Tatung Co., a Taiwan computer and electronic home appliance company.

  2. Is this written in Perl?
    Nope, StarForums' CGIs are all written in C++, a computer programming language which supports object-oriented designing and its source program codes need to be compiled into machine language so that the underlying hardwares and operating system can support StarForums at the maximum speed. The design staff of StarForums choosed this language for several reasons with the priority listed below:
    1. performance;
    2. features;
    3. maintenance;
    4. portability;
    5. extensibility.

  3. Can I get the source program code?
    Although the boards in StarForums can be acquired through the member registration process for free, the system itself (the CGIs, the documentations, the source program codes) is not in the public domain. The copyright and all the commercial rights belong to TISNet Inc.

    If you are interested in obtaining the system source codes and/or to install / port the StarForums on your own system, please contact webmaster for the charges on the source code and other services such as porting it to other machines or consulting.

  4. I like your system, is it rated somewhere so that I can give it a good score?
    Gee, thanks for your compliment and we do think StarForums is a good design. It is now listed in the CGI Resource Index, you can rate it at this page. If you like to comment StarForums on CGI Resource Index, you need to become their registered user first.

  5. What is SFGA? Can I become one?
    SFGA stands for StarForums Guandian Angels. It is a group of voluntary helpers who "patrol" StarForums and provide necessary helps whenever needed. Current SFGA members are [ Ardy or Linda or Vera (Deutsch) or Vikki ] [!] You can visit their forums and post your questions there.

    You might ask if there's any SFGA application form to join the team -- sorry, the application is not open for the public. The current members of SFGA have a joint committee with the TGA (Transloader Guardian Angels) and switch comments / ideas regularily, and also occasionally propose possible candidates for new Angels. The candidates must go through a period of time for surveillance for the skills on web-related domains and personalities, and when everything seems to be OK, the case will need to go through a voting, and it will take a full YES from the joint committee for the candidate to become a Guardian Angel.

    We put this strict rule and high sifting standard in the hope to recruit the best hands with integrity so that the StarForums members can always find the best help here. This does not mean people who is not elected as SFGA/TGA not worthy of this title, because the selection can be sometimes very personal. Please, if you do want to provide help, you can still help the rest of the community on your own forum.

  6. Does StarForums have a banner?
    Yes, there are this larger one:
    [starforums]
    http://on.starblvd.net/gif/sf.gif
    (460x60, 4209 bytes)

    and a smaller one:
    and two buttons:

    The HTML codes for making them clickable banners looks like:

    <a href="http://on.starblvd.net/meet/your_board"> <img src="http://on.starblvd.net/gif/sf.gif"></a>
    You will need to replace the "your_board" with your member name, of course. For alternative banner images, just replace "sf.gif" with either sflogo.gif or e-sfbtn.gif or c-sfbtn.gif. (the latest one is for Chinese)

    If you own a board here and you wish to place a banner link on your homepage to your board, and also have a chance to introduce other sites with boards on StarForums, as well as to benefit from the chance that others will introduce your homepage to the world, you might want to try:
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[sf] Miscellaneous...

  • My board loads slowly, is there a way to make it load faster?
    There are several ways, but they are all trade-offs. You can use any of them, or a combination, or even all.
    1. Use smaller images (such as background, header / foolder images, or bullets). The smaller the images are, the faster your board loads.
    2. Avoid the use of animated images. Not only animations are generally larger than still-frame images (and thus slower to load), they also take up much more room when stored in the browser memory and the more space consumed, the slower your browser runs.
    3. Avoid embedding Java applets in your board. It is proven that most Java applets are slow to download, and can achieve little on your board.
    4. Avoid the use of JavaScript. Although JavaScript is generally less memory-demanding in comparison to Java applets, some of the JavaScripts can still be memory-demanding.
    5. Turn off StarForums' own use of JavaScript tricks. As explained here, turning these "cool-effects" off can more or less reduce the page size (in bytes), and also getting rid of the dynamical images to save the memory space.
    6. Keep your board size or page size small. For Plus members, you can set the page size to a small value, so that each page loads faster. For ordinary members, your only option is to limit the total messages.

  • How do you change the initial message in the bottom frame?
    This is a Plus feature. You can upload a special file "frameinfo.txt" to your Inventory. This file can contain whatever you would like to say in the initial bottom frame, and HTML tags are also allowed.
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    Features
    [ Features+ | Utilities+Plus | Wizards | Signature | Document+ | Q'n'A | News | Rules+ | Map+ | Ring+ ]
    StarForums Helps [SFGA]
    [ Main | Hello | Proposal || Ardy | Linda | Vera | Vikki @ ]
    		•