A How/What/What Not To Do Guide : MUST READ

[Dhruv]

As there are now many new members of the forums since we first started off, I thought I would revisit this post, bring it up to date and post it as a global announcement.

Welcome to the forums at Sports-India.com. Please keep the discussions clean. These forums will be moderated and persistent violators may be banned from the forums.

The forums are organised so that there are different forums for tennis, football, hockey, golf and other sports. Some of the forums eg. Tennis are split into player and player results, tournaments and also general discussion. Also, it would be appreciated if any and all bugs/suggestions are noted in the suggestions and bug reporting forum.

RULES
1. Respect the above divisions and post in the forums that suit your post topic the best.
2. If an existing thread exists which pertains to your topic please use that thread instead of starting a new thread.
3. If you find the topic you want to cover is not previously covered you can start a thread for that purpose.
4. DO NOT USE ALL CAPS in your post. That is considered shouting. You can old bold, italics, underlining etc if you want to stress something.
5. Do not under any circumstances post any copyright material or images on the site.

Please abide by the above rules and use common sense, this makes for a much nicer experience for all those using the site.

EMOTICONS
Most of you are familiar with smilies or emoticons(emotion icons). How you add these is just by clicking on them and they will show up in the post. Note they are always after all the text typed so if you want to insert an emoticon later you will need to place it in the appropriate place.

AVATARS
Basically these are the images that you can use for your own profile. I have used the as mine. The way you can do this is if you click on profiles right at the bottom when you scroll down you will see Avatars. There are a lot of pre-loaded graphics that I have included in two directories. The first is Linux penguins and the second are general cartoon characters. If you want more or others let me know in the suggestions forum and I will add them if I agree

ADDING IMAGES
You can add photos in two different ways. You can either add photos inline with the posts How you can do this is by using the following code:

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[img]http://www.placewhereimageis.com/photo.gif[/img] 
As an example I have used the graphic on TennisIndia's front page. 
The code I used was [img]http://www.its.uci.edu/~jaykay/launchd.jpg[/img] and the result is below 

The other way to do so is that there is a gallery where you can add photos. If you need to add photos please do so in the gallery section. The addition of photos there is fairly simple (I think) and you can organise the photos as you see fit in a proper subdirectory.

QUOTING SOMEBODY ELSE IN A REPLY
The easiest way is to click on the quote button that you see on the top right hand corner of every post. If you want to reply to a particular post and want to quote it just click on the quote button and it will do the rest. You might want to delete some of the stuff from the other post as all of it might not be relevant. The other way to do it is by doing the following

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[quote="NAME OF PERSON"]Whatever they said [/quote]

eg.

Follow the rules of the board

I just wrote the following for that

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[quote="Dhruv "]Follow the rules of the board :-)[/quote]

Also note that the code automatically puts wrote after the name.

POSTING LINKS TO OTHER SITES
Now you can do the following

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[url]http://www.tennisindia.org[/url] or
[url]http://www.indianfootball.com[/url] 
but the result of that is ugly esp if it is a long link. 

http://www.tennisindia.org or http://www.indianfootball.com

A nicer way to do it is

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[url=http://www.tennisindia.org]Tennis India[/url]or
[url=http://www.indianfootball.com]IndianFootball[/url] or
[url=http://www.vasco-sc.tk]Vasco Football Club[/url] 

The result of the above is much nicer as you can see.
Tennis India or IndianFootball or Vasco Football Club. I cheated I also bolded them but you get the idea.

SIGNATURES
You can also add signatures to your posts for that "personal touch". Basically this is also accessible from your profile menu. It is underneath the profile information heading. You can use all the smilies/emoticons that you want and also use any/all bold url additions etc.etc. or just have a plain text signature. Whatever you feel like.

OTHER TIPS
You can also bold things or change colors very easily by either using the buttons above the message panel for the purpose or by using

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 [b]and [/b] for bold and [color=red,blue etc] and [/color]

for different colours. And ofcourse if you have some nicely spaced formatted data that you want to post try

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[code]

[/code] as that basically leaves the formatting as it is. (PS Tabs are not supported I think)

I hope all this helps you in making better use of this board. If you run into trouble look at the FAQ and if you really need post in the Comments/Suggestions forums and I will see what I can do to help.

Well That's all folks.
Hope you have fun posting your opinions on the board.

PS: If you have questions and suggestions about how I can improve this "How to guide" please use the suggestions forum for that purpose. I would appreciate any feedback.

[Dhruv]

Additional tips borrowed from BSharma's post

1. Keep the message short and to the point. Besides, people tend to respond without reading the entire message leading to undue antagonism.

2. Write your message clearly: Often we have two or three points that we are trying to make and we run them into each other. It is easy to understand when the different points are written in separate paragraphs.

3. Back your contention with facts: Opinions and facts can be very different, and if I want to state that player X is the best player then I must give facts to back it up. If I disagree with someone that sport A is more popular than sport B then I must give some facts to contradict the previous statement. I do not have to give facts if I state that player X is my favorite player (opinion).

4. Do not keep repeating the same argument: It is frustrating to read the same arguments by two members being made over and over again – player X is best because he is ranked #1; player Y is best because he has made the most money; player X is best because he is ranked #1; player Y is best because he has made the most money.

5. End the argument after a reasonable time or if it is not making any headway: Summarize your points and end the debate. People (including me) with strong opinion about a subject will rarely change their minds and hence try to determine the best time to end the discussion. The debate is between two groups of people, but the viewers can get information from the debate and form or change an opinion.

6. Listen to the moderators and Dhruv: The moderators can keep the debate stay on track or try to end it. When the moderators are not doing their job properly then Dhruv has to step in and put his foot down. Remember that when the Director says “cut” on the movie set, the actors and actresses don’t argue with the Director.

7. Be polite: Please attack the message but don’t kill the messenger. Be nice to each other. I view the forum members as my friends and family, and at times I am upset with the views of some forum members but they can remain my friend and family. I am more lenient about the criticism of players and other people associated with sports, but please respect the sentiments of forum members who have a special bonding with a sports personality whom you are trying to criticize.
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B. Bhushan Sharma