Forum Guide

Now that Lucky-Eleven.com finally has a proper forum, I think that a few people may be confused with setting up their accounts and using the forum, so I've set up a small tutorial to help everyone out.

What is a forum?
A forum is an online message board where you can talk to other Lucky-Eleven visitors. All you need to do to post is set up a unique account, which is free.

Setting up your Account To set up your forum account, first go to the default forum page, which can be reached here. The login and registering page will load up, and click on the link labled "Register Here". You will then be taken to the Privacy Statement page. At the bottom of the page are two buttons, if you accept the Statement hit on accept to set up your account.
Please Note: Your Lucky-Eleven Forum account is completely free, and you will not need to submit ANY personal information to post messages. It is HIGHLY recommended not giving out information such as address, phone number, etc. to other members that you do not know personally.

After accepting our Privacy Statement, you'll be taken to the Registration form. The only information that is required is your email, a unique user name and a password. You must also select whether or not you would like other users to be able to view your email address.
All the other information in the Registration form is not required, but is a nice way to let other users get to know you a little better without being able to stalk you. After you are finished with the form (unless you want to have a signature, see below), click to continue, and your account will be completed.

Signatures You may note that in the Registration form there is a field labled signature. A signature is your name or a short message that will be underneath your messages, which simply tells the other users who you are.

What can be in your Signature
Almost anything can be in your signature, within reason. Some popular things that people put into their signatures are:
-Name or nickname
-A short quote
-Link their homepage/Blog/etc.
-Link to a favorite website
-Email address
-Short message or statement
-Small picture

Signature Rules
When writing your signature, please take into consideration the following:
1)Pictures in your signature must be under 100x150 pixels in size. No flashing or moving pictures allowed. Pictures must be stored on your own server*. If there are complaints about your picture I will ask you to remove it from your signature.

2)No huge signatures please. Keep your message short, as signatures that are large lose their appeal quickly.

3)Keep your font size reasonable.

4)No links to inappropriate websites.

*Not all servers allow pictures to be displayed on the forum. A good website to use would be Photobucket.

"Jazzing" up your Signature
There are many ways to make your signature more unique. Use the below codes to change font sizes, colors, etc., but keep your signature within reason. Please note that HTML is not allowed in signatures.

Bold: Enclose your text with [b] and [/b]
Italic: Enclose your text with [i] and [/i]
Underline: Enclose your text with [u] and [/u]
Aligning Text Left: Enclose your text with [left] and [/left]
Aligning Text Center: Enclose your text with [center] and [/center]
Aligning Text Right: Enclose your text with [right] and [/right]
Striking Text: Enclose your text with [s] and [/s]

Font Colors:
Enclose your text with [fontcolor] and [/fontcolor]
Example: [red]Text[/red]
Example: [blue]Text[/blue]
Example: [pink]Text[/pink]
Example: [brown]Text[/brown]
Example: [black]Text[/black]
Example: [orange]Text[/orange]
Example: [violet]Text[/violet]
Example: [yellow]Text[/yellow]
Example: [green]Text[/green]
Example: [gold]Text[/gold]
Example: [white]Text[/white]
Example: [purple]Text[/purple]

Font Sizes:
Example: [size=1]Text[/size=1] = smallest size
Example: [size=2]Text[/size=2]
Example: [size=3]Text[/size=3]
Example: [size=4]Text[/size=4]
Example: [size=5]Text[/size=5]
Example: [size=6]Text[/size=6] = largest size

Avatars A new feature that comes with the new forum is the option of Avatars, which are small images that go under a username. Our images can only be 80x80 pixels, so make sure you don't try to use anything bigger, or I believe it will be downsized for you.

Getting an Avatar:
To get an avatar, find an image you want (AIM buddy icons work well for this). You need to have a server for your images. A great place for this is Photobucket.com. Simply register a free account and upload your picture. Then in your profile, there is a box to put the images url in. The image url will look something like this:
http://www.photobucket.com/UserName/picture001.gif
Simply copy and paste it into the box and you are set!

To Post images on the Forum:
To post images on the forum, your images must be on a server, and the easiest server I have found is Photobucket.com. To vist the site, create an account, and upload as many pictures as you want. The account is free and easy to use, and they'll give you the URL for the image you want to post in your album. Once you have the URL, use the following codes to post an image in a topic:

[img] and [/img]
[img=right] and [/img=right]
[img=left] and [/img=left]

So for example, if your URL is
http://www.photobucket.com/UserName/picture001.gif
your code would look like this:
[img]http://www.photobucket.com/UserName/picture001.gif[/img]
It's as easy as that!

If you have any more questions concerning creating an account or using the forum, email me.