EDIT (09/14/2008): New, cross-referenced FAQ (under construction) available here. -sk





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This is what we have put together so far, all up front so that no one has to search through the forums to find what they need. If you have a question that is not on here, please ask so that we can add it to the list. If any of these can be worded more clearly, please let me know and I will edit them differently according to your suggestions.



How do you pronounce Plime?
It's pronounced Plime as one word because it's a combination of plum and lime, plime.

What is plime? Plime is a "Wiki-like" user editable news aggregator. It relies on the power of online community participation to control it's structure and editorial content. It's also a great place to meet others with similar interests.

What does that mean? This means that Plime is a place to share interesting links, news stories, and videos. Plime is also controlled by everyone and no one. Each individual user can rate any post or comment based on it's value to the community, making you essentially in charge. Remember, with great power comes great responsibility.

What is a Plimate? Plimates are a group of people commonly believed to be very cool, ultra attractive, and extremely intellectual. Plimates are also all members of the website known as Plime.com If you have joined plime, you are a plimate.

What is Karma? Karma is a rating system used here at Plime. Karma is affected by other users giving you votes either up or down. Each user will add/subtract Karma points to yours based on their level.

What username should I choose?
That's really up to you. Your username will be visible on all of your posts, so make sure it's something that you like and are comfortable with. Some people create a name based on their interests or skills, or something related to their personality. Others might choose something relating to their favorite novel, movie, game, or television program. Think of your chosen username as your "Plime name", as other Plime users will probably refer to you by your username.
Here are a few rules to keep in mind when choosing your Plime username:

Usernames are limited to alphanumeric characters (A-Z and 0-9) only, and may contain both capital and lower case letters.

Do not choose a name that others might find offensive. Profanity, racial or ethnic slurs, hateful language, or sexualy explicit names are NOT allowed.

In accordance with Plime's rules against spamming (link to spam regulations, here), your username may not be used as an advertisement for your personal or business website. For example: the usernames wwwPLIMEdotcom or Plimedotcom would NOT be allowed, but the usernames Plime, PlimeRulez, or ilovePlime would be.

What is that little number inside my star? This is your user Level/rating this is the amount of Karma points you will give/take when you vote on a post.

How often does my user rating change? User level will change when you hit the next Karma plateau.
User_level = (Karma/10)^(1/3)
This is broken down like this.
Insert Karma scale here

What can I do at higher user levels? When you reach higher levels you can:
Edit posts (must be a higher level than the persons post you are editing)
Create/edit categories/sub-categories (25)
Edit Category color schemes (5)
Change User access levels (25)
etc...

How do I submit a link? Click on the green rectangle on the main Plime page, it reads "Submit Link". This will pop up a new window where you can copy and paste the url of the link, enter a rief description of the link, select a category that the link falls under, and select an image to accompany the link.

How do I upload a new image?- After entering your keywords and article description, you can choose a thumbnail that matches your descriptive tags from our library or add your own.

To add a new image, click on the "Add new image" tab and enter a URL if it is a web based image, or click the text link "choose an image file from your computer" if you want to upload an image from your computer.

Thumbnail images are limited to 90x90 pixels. You can crop your image once it has been uploaded using the built in Plime thumbnail sizer.

Why are good keywords important in submitting a link? - Keywords determine the results you get when using the Plime site search engine. You should include relevant keywords that directly reflect the content of the news article or item of interest that you are posting. The more effective your keywords (and the search feature) the less likely that others will mistakenly submit duplicate entries of your link (or dupes). Please use as many relevant keywords as you can.

Here are additional tips on tagging posts.

What kinds of things should I post? What you post is entirely at your discretion. However, links to offensive, pornographic and like material is frowned upon and will most likely be down-voted or deleted. Links to personal web pages or blogs are also frowned upon and will most likely be down-voted or deleted. Do not take it personally if your link to your website/blog was down-voted.. What you should post are interesting, funny, or otherwise entertaining links. This will not only help the community but will most likely be up-voted helping your overall standing.

*note: Do not post links that are filled with pop-ups, spyware, malware, viruses, or other such unwanted junk. If you find something really cool, but a hundred pop-ups come up, try finding it somewhere else on the web before posting it. If your link has a high content of pop-ups or the other above listed offenses, expect to be down-voted.

What is a "Dupe?" - A "Dupe" is a duplicate entry of an article or news item that was previously submitted. In order to avoid the same items being posted over and over, it is good "Plime Practice" to research whether an item has already been posted before you submit a link. You can do this by searching for keywords relevant to the link you are considering. It is also a good idea to page back through the last few days of recent posts if the item you are considering is fairly new.

Other Plimates will often let you know if you have mistakenly posted a "Dupe" and vote it down. Don't take it personal... it's just how we prune the tree here at Plime. Posts that are repeatedly voted down with negative scores are eventually moved to the "deleted" page.

If you need to point out that a link is a duplicate, please also include a link to the original posting. This will help to prevent false duplicates, which are often links that share certain similarities, but are not necessarily identical.

How do I search for news links
Enter the keyword in the search box on the top right of the screen and press "Search". Note that only words longer than 4 characters can be searched.

You can also use an enhanced search engine at google

How can I search Forum posts?
There is a custom google search engine that will allow you to search in the Forum.

When should I upvote a link/post/comment/thread/edit? Upvotes can be used when you find one of the above to be informative, interesting, or amusing, or provoke discussion.

When should I downvote a link/post/comment/thread/edit? Negative Votes can be applied when you find a post and/or comment to be rude, insulting, spamming, or trolling, or if you feel it content that you feel it doesn't make the community better. Articles that are not of interest to you should not be down voted. Comments that contradict your opinion should not be downvoted unless the comment is derogatory and/or offensive.

How do I vote on a Post/Comment? To vote on a post you simply need to click either the up or down arrows above or below the post rating on the right side. This will add/subtract (respectively) to the post rating. It will also show you by changing that arrow to another color depending on that sections color scheme. Once you have cast a vote you can change your vote by clicking the same arrow you already clicked (it will be a different color.) Clicking this will return your vote to a neutral state. You can also click the opposite arrow which will change your vote putting your Karma points the opposite direction.

Do I have to up/down vote everything? No. There is no need to up or down vote things that are not of interest to you, or do not have any impact on your enjoyment of the site. You are welcome to vote on your own comments, but understand that this will have no impact on your karma.

What can I vote on? You can vote (positively or negatively) on any links, forum threads, comments on links, comments in forum threads, and edits as you see fit.

Is there a chat?
Yes. plime.com/c/ Please remember to remain courteous to your fellow plimates while in chat.

What is the "Popular" tab for? The "Popular" tab is where you'll find the most popular posts that were submitted to the All links page. "Popularity" is based on the cumulative score from other Plimates who upvote the post. A post must reach a score of at least X greater than the posts "around it" before it will show-up on the "Popular" page.

What is the "Deleted" tab for? When a post is very unpopular and receives multiple down-votes it is moved to the Deleted page. Posts can be "resurrected" from the Deleted page if they receive enough up-votes, but this is very rare. Duplicate posts should be down-voted to the Deleted page.

What are the scores on the Karma Leader Board? The Karma Leader board shows the 25 users with the greatest Karma change for the time periods shown. These Karma increases can be from: submitted links, Comments, or Forum posts. The person with the highest increase can pat themselves on the back for contributing the most to the site for that time period.

I have seen some profile pages with different colors. Can I change my profile colors? Yes you can.

How do I change my colors? Go to your profile page and click on the settings tab. From there a new set of tabs will appear below. Click on the "Colors" tab. From here you can customize your profile page with which ever colors you choose.

Can I change other colors on the site? As you reach a higher level (5) you will be able to modify other colors on the site. It is customary to ask in the forums first. Some people might be attached to those colors. This process is done in much the same manner as above but you must be in the category settings tab.

What is the "User Map?" The User map is a map of all the Plime users that have told the server their location. You can click on any name in the list and it will center on that users location, provided that the users you are looking for has put themselves on the map. Please do not stalk your fellow Plimates.


How can I add my location to this list? Go to your profile page and click on the settings tab. From there a new set of tabs will appear below. Click on the "map" tab. A map and dialog box will appear. You can either find your location manually on the map or type in an address and it will find your location automatically.

How do I know if I have a message? You should receive an E-mail notification when you receive a message. You will also notice the envelope next to your log-in name at the top of the screen will flash yellow signaling "You've got mail".

How do I send a message to another user via the site? On your profile page select the messages tab. Click on "Compose new" from here type in the users name and the message you want to send, and hit send. You can also click on the envelope icon at the top of the page to check your inbox at any time.

What can I comment on? You may comment on anything you like, whether a link or a forum thread. Nothing is restricted.

What kind of things can I say in my comments? The content of your comments is entirely up to you. It is important to note, however, that rude/offensive/derogatory comments will likely result in some serious hits to your karma through negative votes from other plimates, so use common sense. This is not a site to take out your daily aggressions and enter a series of flame wars. By all means, feel free to express yourself and your point(s) of view, but try to do so in an adult manner. Remember that your opinion may and undoubtedly will differ from those of other members, this is not a bad thing, it is what makes the world an interesting place to live.

How do I change the style of the font in my comments?

Plime interprets some common tags, placed in brackets.

b and /b around a word make it bold.

i and /i around a word make it italic.

quote and /quote around words format the words as a How do I insert a link into a comment?

Use the url tag, in brackets.

For example, for plime put, in brackets, url="http://www.plime.com" ahead of the word that should be the link, and /url after that word:

Plime.

How do I add categories to "my interests?" - Each post on Plime is categorized (e.g. business, games, politics, science etc.) to help you quickly find related items. When you read a post and find that category to be of interest, just click on the "Save Interest" button (beside the "submit a link" button). The category of your choice will then show up beneath your user name under the "my interests" column.
You will also start seeing a graph on your profile page showing your interests by your level of participation in each category.

If you wish to remove that category from your interests, just click on the small "x" to the right of it.

How do I "add friends" to my user profile? - As you use Plime, you will probably start to build friendships and develop an interest in what those friends are posting to the site. You can add a friend by visiting that member's profile page (just click on their user name) and clicking the "+ Add Friend" button in the upper right corner. Similar to adding "interests"... you will see your newly added friends names in the left side menu below your user name. If that member is online when you are - you will see a small plime icon to the left of the member's name.

What does NSFW mean? - NSFW means "Not Suitable For Work." When posting links to Plime, consider if the content is workplace friendly (no nudity, audible profanity, vulgarity, or other content that would raise an eyebrow in the workplace). If you think the content may not be suitable, add a "Warning: NSFW" to your link description.

Can my level go back down? Yes, but only if you receive enough downvotes to take you back over the threshold between levels. Inactivity does not affect your level.

Note: In early February 2007, the formula that determines user levels was overhauled in an effort to help with the rapid level inflation many users were experiencing. This change left users with much lower levels than they had before. If you were a member of the site at that time and have noticed that your level is lower than it was before then, this is the most likely reason.

I don't want to see all the posts when I visit plime, only those from a particular interest to me. Is there a way to do this? How do I do this? You can filter plime so that only posts in a particular category will display. While browsing a category of interest to you, click on the 'save interest' button at the top right. This category will then be added to your interests in a separate list above the other categories. By then always visiting the 'my interests' site, you will only see articles under those categories.

Sometimes when I click on the links on top like forum I get different pages. Why is this? The links forum, settings and changes are per category. This means that they will display different content depending on the category that you are in. While in the crime category for example, forum posts for that category will be shown.

Is it possible to embed video content? Yes. If you are interested in embedding a video, use the following html tags: [video]youtube.com/whatever[/video]

Currently we are able to embed videos from the following sites:


CollegeHumor.com
Glumbert.com
Google Video
GoEar.com (music player)
iFilm.com
LiveLeak.com
metacafe.com
myspace.com
revver.com
vimeo.com
youtube.com

NOTE: When posting videos in the News section, you don't have to add the [video] & [/video] tags... it's done automatically.

Does Plime have any special Lingo? Yes here are a few you might see:
Dupe Posting a link that has recently been posted.
Splogger Bloggers who either write very little content on their blog or have it full of extremely controversial topics to try to increase traffic, then add tons of banner ads and other types of advertisements. Then they post links to these blogs on all the aggregate sites like digg, fark, and Plime.
Plimp An active user of Plime.
Plimate A user of Plime.
noob A new user who has not yet learned the inner workings of the site.
Spam 1 Useless news or links posted for site advertisement.
2 A tasty canned meat made from spiced ham.
plurking A user is lurking on the site, upvoting but otherwise not commenting or posting.

Am I allowed to start a new account? Yes, this is allowed. If you are banned from the community, by the community, you are allowed to create a new account. You simply have to start from scratch and prove that you are trustworthy like any new user.
But what about having two accounts running at the same time? What would the pro's and con's of that be? Assuming multiple identities simultaneously and having them interact or refer to each other as if they are separate people. I don't care if you wish to start fresh and create a new account - just abandon your old account and never revisit it. Pretending to be multiple people is seriously creepy and pretty pointless considering how easy it is to spot.

What's a Plime Classic?
A "Plime Classic" a repost of an older Plime post that fills certain criteria (see below). To be valid, a Plime Classic must be older than two months. Posting a “Plime Classic” can be done by anyone who has found an old link that may not have yet been seen by many of the newer users. If you choose to repost a “Plime Classic” please refrain from posting them in abundance.
What qualifies a post as a classic? Any old post that you feel the current Plime community would be interested in revisiting can be a Plime Classic. Please do not use the “Plime Classic” angle to regurgitate ancient news articles that are not relevant to current events.

What makes a good headline?

Here's a quick primer for what makes a good headline and description:

1. No inside jokes. Though a lot of us submitting content are also members of Worth1000, a lot of future members will not be. And probably none of the guests will be. Please write the headline for the guest, as descriptive as possible.
   
2. Subtle sense of humor or witty addition is great. There are some great examples on this page and this page and also here.
   
3. Invite the user to read more. Don't post a full digest of the article's content or a crucial piece of information in your description. An example would be this post, which requires a user to read the article to find out the actual $ amount teased in the post.
   
4. Be DESCRIPTIVE in your headline, not just your description. A user should still be able to understand what the article links to by just reading the headline (as some RSS feeds won't display your description, this is important).
   
5. Be CONCISE in your description. Don't post three paragraphs where one will do
   
6. Good grammar and punctuation is key! Please capitolize the first word in a sentence. Once this system is rolling and lots of users are at higher levels, other people will help edit your mistakes, but until then, please doublecheck before you post.

I quoted a previous comment with an image in it, and now my comment isn't displaying properly. It has a little scroll bar in it and I can't see what I said in my reply. How do I fix this? When replying to a comment with an image in it, always remove the image tags from your reply. The image tags look like this: [ image]www.whateverwhatever.com[/image ]
Failure to remove the image tags from your reply will result in the odd format of your reply message.

Can I link to my blog?
If you feel your blog might be of interest to the community, post it the Forum area. A
thread has been created for blog postings.

Can I search for a users profile?
As of now there is not a search function for user profiles. However, by typing into your address bar
www.plime.com/members/enter user's name here
you can view that users profile.

Can I edit peoples comments?
Once you reach a level at which you can edit comments, you are considered to be responsable enough not to abuse this power. Here are a few rules to comment editing:

Do not change the content of someone else's post without a serious reason. A serious reason would be someone posting pornography. It would not be post content that you don't like.

If you do edit it, you must put a reason in the persons comment and your name.

Example:
[EDITED BY JAXOMLOTUS: No embedded porn, as per this community agreement. LINK]

If you change someone else's post without a serious reason jaxomlotus has mentioned that he will remove power privileges.

Are there any hard rules for up/downvoting?
Yes. Don't vote down someone unless you have a problem with the content of their post. If they always post crap and then one time don't, you should not vote that one good post down. Abusing this will be considered abusing the system.

Sometimes a member will attempt to provide a link in the forums that logs me out when I click it.
You've been had. This is a harmless prank, really; as it takes moments to log back in. It can be a nuisance at times, but if you hover your cursor over the link, your computer should display the destination of the link (learn to do this if you are aggravated by this prank).

What is FAF? FAF stands for "Fancy Avatar Friday". Here at Plime we like to shake things up now and then. On Fridays we hold a theme day (called FAF) in which avatars and posts coincide with the chosen theme, this is not manditory, but certainly encouraged. Themes are brainstormed upon and voted on in the forums. The avatar of the ninja taking a dump which reeks of professionalism is an example of an FAF avatar. (This was posted on a Ninja Theme day)

Did you do all this by yourself, donteatpoop? I'd like to take credit for this, but I can't. The Plime community put this together in the forums through much discussion. All I did was some copy and paste, a little rewording here and there, and post them in a new thread.

A few notes on etiquette

There is no bigger cowardice than passive aggressive behavior, and no bigger bane to a forum community. If something upsets you and you are too afraid to speak out civilly about it or notify jaxumlotus through private messages, kindly take your ball and go home. Don't look back.

Don't try to snowball it to take as many other people with you on your way out.

I'd like a discussion as to the best possible consensus for what would constitute stirring up drama. This is not an official list. It's a way to get the community thinking out loud about what is and isn't acceptable behavior here and anywhere else online.

The following are (in my opinion) examples of trolling or stirring up drama. Don't worry if you're "guilty" of any of these. I think everything is a matter of looking forwards and knowing that your past is easily forgotten.

• Posting a note that you are done with Plime and aren't returning. If you aren't returning you obviously don't need your account (or any others) anymore.
  
• Reposting a thread or news post that was voted into deletion by the community.
  
• Starting a thread or news post which is deliberately inflammatory.
  
• Threatening people or to leave the site over something that upsets you.
  
• Assuming multiple identities simultaneously and having them interact or refer to each other as if they are separate people. I don't care if you wish to start fresh and create a new account - just abandon your old account and never revisit it. Pretending to be multiple people is seriously creepy and pretty pointless considering how easy it is to spot.
  
• Open flirting in the forum. I don't care what you do in your personal life, but I know that open flirting leads to jealousy and jealousy leads to drama. Keep it private. No saccharine pet names for people like "honey" or "babe" in comments.
  
• Posting "just kidding" or a wink emoticon after writing something obnoxious (that is clearly not sarcastic) doesn't make a post any less obnoxious. It's just a passive aggressive way of saying the same insult.
  
• Starting a thread or news post which is deliberately inflammatory is very bad. Please note, however, there is a difference between inflamatory and controversial. For example posting something in the forum talking about some of the illogicalness in religion 'x' will cause some serious debates, it may even get nasty but it should be allowed for those who can discuss things like an adult. Posting that those who follow religon 'x' are an abomination and should be eradicated is just inflamatory.

Here are some rules that unzercharlie stole from the internet that are pretty universal when involved in internet discussions.

Avoid Power Posting. Some Internet message boards and forums offer prizes or awards to the people who contribute the most to discussions. This leads to "power posting", which involves replying to threads with empty messages or with nothing more to say than "LOL" or an emoticon. If you don't have anything useful to say, don't reply.

Avoid Hijacking a Thread. Hijacking involves posting a new idea or topic on someone else's thread. Sometimes, if the topic is related, this is okay, but try to post new threads if you need to start a different discussion. People who are interested in your topic can go to your thread and you won't offend anyone else this way.

Avoid Trolling. A troll is someone who posts topics on message boards with the sole purpose of instigating argument or debate. It is definitely an etiquette no-no and will earn you the disrespect of everyone on the forum. It is usually easy to identify a troll after they've been on the boards a few weeks, and you could easily wind up with a suspended account.

Use Topic-Specific Titles. Many people read threads based on their titles, so try to be as specific as possible. Don't say that your topic is one thing when you plan to talk about several other things. This doesn't mean you can't expand on your topic, but try to keep it as relevant as possible.

Take Personal Issues Off the Forums. Internet forums and message boards are for public discussions which bear relevance to more than a few people. If you have a personal issue with someone else, take it off the forums. The message board offers a private message function, use it.

Any tips for new users looking to increase their karma levels?

There are some things that new people can do to help themselves.

1) introduce yourself (this doesn't have to be a first thing, but it's a good thing to do, (shows interest in the community)

2) don't post blogs to your website and in fact blogs are discouraged. Blogs are opinion pieces and while they aren't all bad or wrong, they aren't necessarily fact based or fact substantiated. We like facts and the more unusual and thought provoking, the better.

3) read and upvote other people. This isn't just "kissing up" this shows a community involvement.

4) comment. We like to know what makes you tick even if we don't agree.

5) don't worry about karma or who has what karma. I've seen people go from 1 to 10 in a matter of days. It took some of us months (even years) to get our karma, we freely distribute our votes to good contributors/participants.

6) don't whine. We're out of cheese.

1. What does the "experimental" tab mean? Why is it numbered?
This was a modified method for determining popularity, using different criteria than what's on the main page. It's up, in theory under review to see if it's liked more.

2. Why doesn't my forum's "interested in" tab on my profile show anything? I've looked at other long time members and theirs list links to all their forum posts. Mine shows nothing at all. Is this a bug or am I missing something?
The interested in tab used to be populated automatically by the system based on your activity. The code that populated the list was removed, but for those members who were here before hand, the list retains the last update. New users don't get anything added in, and realistically it should be removed from the profile display.

3. What determines "Popular" - it doesn't seem to be related to the number of up-votes a submission gets.

It's determined based on the number of votes with the timeline. In other words, something hits the front page when it gets lots of upvotes right away, even if the total karma isn't as high as for other, older threads.

4. What about those "interests by participation" links in the profile. They aren't always categories, like Plimates is one.. so is WTF and Crime.. where do these come from?

Same as item number 2...an old feature that was partially removed. There used to be categories for all of those items, but they were removed a while back. Call it legacy features.

There is no option that I could find. Maybe jaxomlotus can add this? Aren't you two related somehow? (wink-wink)

Definately a good suggestion.

My avatar cache is getting somewhat cluttered, along with everyone else's. Any way I can clear out the ones I don't want?

Also, I've been looking around the site for some sort of designated lieu for the accommodation of real-time conversation, but I can't seem to find anything. Any ideas?

bump to top of page

Also, just an idea...keep this thread as pure FAQ and maybe start questions in a new thread? This way this thread acts as a FAQ, rather than a long thread.

Two things:

1. Can this be made sticky to the top of the page (or a link on the page header)? Perhaps a link to the FAQ, and a link there to submit a question? A lot of good stuff here that I would not have seen except that someone asked a question and it popped to the top. It should be made hard to miss.

2. You talk about Karma and user level. Is there any way to see the Karma score? I see my level suddenly jump, but was curious to see the score behind it.

Same for the "Report Bugs Here" thread

OK, 1 more.

Is there, or can we get, some way to preview a comment like you can a news post? Sometimes I will submit a comment and then see about 5 typos and a missing bracket. If I could preview my post as it will look in the thread, I could catch these up front rather than going back to edit.

Can I link to my blog?
If you feel your blog might be of interest to the community, post it the Forum area. A
thread has been created for blog postings.

bumbity bump bump

Silly question. I have seen a PLIME User mentioned ("Hot seat"). How do I look up that user's profile? I know I can link from something he/she posted, but can I go somewhere and just enter the user name to search?

Can I search for a users profile?
As of now there is not a search function for user profiles. However, by typing into your address bar
www.plime.com/members/enter user's name here
you can view that users profile.

bumpity

Wow, busy day. Bump again

BUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMP


(We really need to make this sticky)