Your Profile and Preferences

The forums are highly customizable. To help you set it up as you want, there are three pages of settings:

Basic Profile
Display Preferences
Email Notifications/Subscriptions

Your basic preferences, as well as the information shown in your profile (your profile is shown when a user clicks on your name from somewhere in the forums). To edit your Basic Profile, go to your Control Panel and choose "Edit Basic Profile."

• Password
  If you do not wish to change your password, you can ignore these fields. If you wish to change your password, type your desired new password in the first box. Type it again in the second box (both must match exactly). Passwords must be from 6 to 8 alphanumeric characters, and are CaSe SeNSitiVE. Passwords are always displayed as a string of asterisks (******************) so that no one can see your password over your shoulder.

• Private Message Signature
  A signature to add to the end of each private message you send (such as your name, etc.). Maximum of 75 characters. If you have Javascript enabled on your browser (you most likely do), then as soon as you click outside of the signature text field, a little alert box will pop up and tell you if your PM signature is too long. It will also tell you how many characters you need to remove. You may use Markup in your PM signature, but markup characters count against your maximum characters (i.e. [b] counts as three characters). To test out your PM sig, you can send a private message to yourself.

• Post Signature
  A signature to add to the end of each post you make (such as your name, a favorite quote, etc.). Maximum of 350 characters. If you have Javascript enabled on your browser (you most likely do), then as soon as you click outside of the signature text field, a little alert box will pop up and tell you if your signature is too long. It will also tell you how many characters you need to remove. You may wish to type your signature in a program such as Microsoft Word so that you can do a character count (in Word, click on 'Word Count' under the 'Tools' menu), but please note that Word counts line breaks differently; the forum will count line breaks as two character. Therefore, what Word tells you is 350 characters, the forum will likely count as more. You may use Markup in your signature, but markup characters count against your maximum characters (i.e. [b] counts as three characters). You will probably wish to view your signature after you've edited it, which you can do by making a post in the Test Forum, or simply by viewing your own profile.

• Your Picture
  A picture (of yourself, a celebrity, or what have you), for display in your profile and with your posts (for people who enable this option in the display preferences). Please see this page for instructions on adding a picture to your profile.

• Picture Info (Caption)
  If you have a profile picture, you can enter a brief description of it (such as the name of the celebrity, etc.). This will appear when anyone hovers their cursor over your pic, and it will appear below your picture in your profile.

• Private Email Address (Administrative)
  This is the email address that is only available to the administrators and moderators. (Your email address will not be shared; please read our Privacy Policy.) This email address is used for forum notifications, email replies, and if you forget your password and need it sent to you. It is required that this email address be valid. This spot in your profile is initially filled in with the email address you registered with, but you should be sure to change it if your email address changes.

• Public Email Address
  This email address will be displayed in your profile. As with any public profile entry, you may choose to leave this blank. Or, if you wish, you can enter a valid email address so that other users may contact you via email. This is spambot safe — if you enter an address here, it will be displayed in your profile in such a way that spambots cannot see it. You can read more about how this works here. (This spambot avoidance technique ONLY applies to this Public Email Address field. If you enter your email address anywhere else (in your Bio, in a post, etc.), it will not be protected.)

  Note: For our spambot avoidance techniques to work their magic, we must require you to enter your email address in its correct, normal format (e.g. 'user@domain.com'). If you normally write it out (e.g. 'user at domain dot com') to avoid spambots, and if you prefer to use your method rather than ours, you can leave this field blank and write it out however you want in your Bio field. (Keep in mind that as spambots evolve, the standard "munging" techniques are becoming less and less effective.) Similarly, if you want to invite people to PM you instead, you could leave this field blank and enter something like "Feel free to PM me!" in your Bio field.

• Real Name
  Your name, for display in your profile.

• Gender
  Your gender, for display in your profile.

• Homepage
  If you have a web page, you may type the URL here for display in your profile.

• Occupation
  Your occupation details, for display in your profile.

• Geographic Location
  Whereabouts in the world you are located, for display in your profile.

• Bio
  (Bio = biography.) Some details about yourself and your past, for display in your profile. Maximum of 1500 characters. If you have Javascript enabled on your browser (you most likely do), then as soon as you click outside of the bio text field, a little alert box will pop up and tell you if your bio is too long. It will also tell you how many characters you need to remove. You may use Markup in your bio, but markup characters count against your maximum characters (i.e. [b] counts as three characters). If you've used any markup, you'll probably wish to view your bio after you've edited it (to make sure there are no errors), which you can do by clicking on the "View Your Profile" link in your Control Panel.

• Favorites and Hobbies
  Various fields for some of your interests and hobbies.

• ICQ Number, AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, and MSN Messenger
  Your instant message numbers/names, for display in your profile.

• Visibility
  Choose whether or not you will show up on the "Who's Online" screen. If you check no (to be invisible) you will not be visible to yourself in the "Who's Online" screen, either.

• Accept PMs
  Choose whether or not you want other users to be able to send you private messages. Please note that administrators and moderators can send you private messages regardless of your setting.

• Off Topic Posts
  When a message is posted, the poster can designate the message as being off topic (not directly related to Buffy or Angel). If you wish, you can choose not to see these off topic posts at all - by selecting 'No', you will only see on topic posts in the post list. Please note that if you have off topic posts hidden, and someone links to an off topic post (or you post one yourself), you won't be able to see it.

Your preferences for how the forums are displayed.

• Font Style Sheet
  Allows you to choose a font for the forums to be displayed in. (Note: For the forums to be viewable in the font you choose, you must have that font installed on your computer. These are fairly standard fonts, but if you don't have them, you can download most of these fonts here.)

• Time Offset
  Choose the correct time offset for your time zone. For example, if server time (GMT) is 1:00 p.m., and it's 10:00 a.m. where you are, then choose "-3" from the drop-down menu.

• Starting Page
  Choose whether you want to go to your Control Panel or the Main Index after you (manually) login.

• Thread Age
  Default aged threads to be displayed on forum post lists. For example, if you choose "Active in last 2 days," then when you view a forum, you will initially be shown a list of threads active in that time frame (you can view more by using the drop-down box at the top of the forum post list. The recommended setting is "Use each forum's default."

• Default Sort Order
  Messages on the post list can be sorted by date, poster, or subject, in descending or ascending order. Descending order will show the most recent posts at the top (or, in the case of subject or poster, will show the end of the alphabet at the top). Ascending order will show the oldest posts at the top (or, in the case of subject or poster, will show the beginning of the alphabet at the top). Messages are sorted by descending date by default.

• Default Display Mode
  You can default to viewing messages in flat or threaded mode.

• Default View
  View message lists as collapsed or expanded threads.

• Total Parent Posts To Show Per Page
  Select how many messages you want to show per page in the post list.

• Total Posts To Show On One Page When Viewing A Thread In Flat Mode
  Select how many messages to display per page in flat mode.

• Preview Post Screen Off Or On
  When you are posting messages or replies, do you want the Preview option selected as default?

• Text Area Columns
  When you are posting a message or a reply, this sets how wide you want the text entry area to be.

• Text Area Rows
  When you are posting a message or a reply, this sets how high you want the text entry area to be.

• Post Header Format
  Top puts message headers above the message, side puts message headers on the left hand side of each message. Headers are the part of the message that shows the username of the poster, their User Title, and the time of the post. If you choose Side format, you can also view users' profile pictures next to each post (see below).

• View Users' Pictures With Their Posts
  This enables you to view users' profile pictures next to each of their posts. This is only available when post headers are on the side (see above).

• View Users' Signatures With Their Posts
  This enables you to view users' signatures at the end of their posts.

• Jump to New in Flat
  When in flat mode, you can have the thread links on forum post lists to jump you straight to the first reply that's new to you (i.e. the first reply posted since your last visit). (This does not affect threaded mode.)

• Email Notifications For Private Messages
  If you want an email to be sent to you each time you receive a private message, set this to yes. This will only tell you that you have a private message; it will not contain the private message itself. The email will also give you a link to the forums.

• Email Replies To Posts
  If someone replies to one of your posts, their response can be emailed to you. This option only sets the default setting and this can be over-ridden each time you post a message. This email will contain the actual reply, as well as a link to the thread here at the forums.