Frequently Asked Questions

Images in the forum must be linked from the Wild About Britain Gallery, or the Wild About Britain Image Library, and not external websites.

To add an image to your forum post, find the image in the Gallery or Image Library, then select and copy the code in the 'Forum Code' box near the bottom of the page, which should look something like:

[url=http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/pictures/showphoto.php/photo/539][img]http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/pictures/data/5/thumbs/bird2.jpg[/img][/url]

Simply paste the code into your forum post. When the post is saved, the above code will create a thumbnail of the image that will link to the full-size picture in the gallery or image library.

Note: To help find your images more quickly, please use the 'My Gallery' and 'My Image Library' links in the forum post's text editor.

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Only the gallery editors are able to edit or rename images in the gallery and the image library. To let them know which image you would like to have edited, please click on the icon under the image.

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The reference section has a limited range of features to enable you to add basic styles to text. We've deliberately made the options minimal to ensure that the website's pages look uniform and will work well on a range of browsers and monitors.

Please Note: When pasting content into the text areas from Word, or other external programs, please use the Cleanup and RemoveFormat icons above the text edit box.

When adding text, you can use the text editing icons to make some of it bold, italicised, underlined etc, but please use these options sparingly.

You can also use the drop-down menu in the edit box to apply heading styles. Heading 1 should only be used for the page title, and is set automatically. Heading 2 and 3 should be used for sub-headings.

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By using this Site, Users acknowledge and agree to these Terms and Conditions which take effect on the date from which they first use the Site. Last updated: 12th February 2007.

Definitions

In the context of these terms and conditions, the following words shall have the following meanings:

"We" or "Us" means Wild About Britain Ltd.

"Web Site" of "Site" means any web site under the control and/or ownership of Wild About Britain.

"User" means the individual, firm, company, organisation or other entity accessing this Web Site

"Content" or "Material" means any information or data including text, images, graphics and computer code published, contained or available on the Web Site; or other material posted or intended to be posted on the Web Site.

Applicable Terms and Conditions

By using this Site, Users acknowledge and agree to these Terms and Conditions which take effect on the date from which they first use the site. Users may not transfer, assign or otherwise sub-license any of their obligations under these terms.

The Web Site is owned by Wild About Britain and any use of this Site (including registration, contribution and donation made via the Web Site), are subject to these Terms and Conditions.

These terms, together with the Web Site Privacy Policy, General Terms of Access, Notes, Rules and Copyright notices constitute the entire agreement between Wild About Britain and the User with regard to the use of this Site.

If a User is dissatisfied with any material on this Site or with any of the terms and conditions of use of the Site, the User's sole and exclusive remedy is to discontinue using the Site.

Revisions

With the exception of content licence agreements, Wild About Britain may, at its sole discretion, make any modifications or revisions to these Terms and Conditions at any time by updating the text of this page. Users are responsible for regularly reviewing these Terms and Conditions to ensure timely notice of such changes. Users continued use of the Site after changes are posted constitutes Users acceptance of this agreement and all modifications and/or revisions.

No waiver of these Terms and Conditions or any provision of this Agreement shall be binding except as set forth in writing and signed by a duly authorised representative of Wild About Britain.

Copyright and trade marks

The copyright laws of both local and foreign nations protect the content on this Site. Users may not breach the copyright or other intellectual property rights, moral rights or any other rights of Wild About Britain or any third party.

Reproduction, storage, modification or distribution of any Content requires the written consent and all necessary permissions and license by a duly authorised representative of Wild About Britain or, where applicable, the respective copyright owner(s).

Users may not use the names and logos of Wild About Britain and all related trademarks, trade names, product and service names and designs without the prior written consent of a duly authorised representative of Wild About Britain.

In contributing to Wild About Britain you agree to grant us a royalty-free, non-exclusive licence to publish and otherwise use the material for an unlimited period in the Wild About Britain websites. However, you still own the copyright to everything you contribute to Wild About Britain.

All Content and works in the nature of databases attract database rights.

Acceptable Use

In using this Site, Users warrant that they will not post, publish, distribute, disseminate, email or otherwise transmit any content or information that is, or may be, unlawful, offensive, obscene, threatening, abusive, hateful, defamatory, indecent, harmful or otherwise in violation of any laws.

Users acknowledge and agree that Users shall be solely responsible for any Content placed by Users in respect of any legal proceedings of any competent jurisdiction worldwide. In using this Site Users agree and undertake to indemnify Wild About Britain and its affiliates and keep us at all times fully indemnified from and against any and all claims, demands, costs, actions, awards, losses, damages, liabilities and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) whatsoever arising directly or indirectly from content placed by Users on this Site.

Liabilities

Users acknowledge and agree that the Content on this Site is provided "as is" and expresses the views, opinions and statements of various information and/or content providers and that Wild About Britain does not represent or endorse any advice, opinions, findings, interpretations, statements, conclusions or other information provided by any User of this Site.

The opinions expressed by the trustees, staff, members and volunteers of Wild About Britain are entirely their own, and do not necessarily reflect those of the organisation.

Wild About Britain and its employees, content providers, affiliates and respective agents shall not be liable for damages to any User or other entity in respect to the accuracy, performance, timeliness or completeness of any content herein, regardless of cause, and will not be liable for any defect, error, computer virus, interruption or deletion.

Whilst all reasonable attempts will be made to exclude viruses and errors from the Web Site, Wild About Britain does not warrant that the functions contained in the Content in this Site will be uninterrupted or error free, that defects will be corrected, or that this Site or the server that makes it available are free of viruses or bugs or represents the full functionality, accuracy or reliability of the Content. We recommend that Users take all appropriate safeguards before downloading information from the Web Site.

Use of this Site is at the user's own risk and under no circumstances shall Wild About Britain be liable for any direct or indirect, incidental, special or consequential damages

Termination

We reserve the exclusive right in our sole discretion to alter, add, limit, change or discontinue the Site or any materials in any respect or prevent access to this Web Site and exclude any User without notifying or providing any reason thereof and without obligation to consider the needs of any user in connection therewith.

Data Protection

Personal data collected during use of this Site will only be used by Wild About Britain in accordance with current UK data protection legislation and our Privacy Policy.

We reserve the right to disclose any and all computer information and personal details of any User to any law enforcement authority or other competent authority or person for the purpose of legal proceedings or prosecution or investigation of any breach or alleged breach of the law or this Agreement.

Commercial Use

Users are not permitted to use the Site for any commercial purposes without the prior written permission of a duly authorised representative of Wild About Britain. We reserve the exclusive right at our sole discretion to remove any postings, communications or other transmissions that promote any goods, services, Web Sites, publications or other material.

Links to Other Sites

This Site may contain links to third-party web sites that are not under the control of Wild About Britain and are provided as a public service without any implication of endorsement of the linked Site or any responsibility for content therein.

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Wild About Britain works with Google to display adverts and raise much-needed funds that pay some of the core costs to run the website. To advertise on Wild About Britain you will need to register for google adwords account.

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www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk is
a fast-growing web site with a comprehensive online directory, daily newspaper, forums, gallery, events calendars, encyclopaedia and much, much more. The web site is produced by volunteers from across the UK who provide a wide variety of essential services that help to constantly develop our web pages. We're currently working on many exciting projects and could always make use of an extra pair of hands. Here are just some the ways that you can get involved:

Reference Section

With literally tens of thousands of different species in the UK, the Wild About Britain encyclopaedia is an absolutely mammoth project that will keep us busy for many years to come. You can help to speed up the process by adding information to the encyclopaedia whenever you have a spare moment to hand. With easy-to-complete online forms, the whole process of adding information on a single species can take less than 10-15 minutes and will provide an invaluable resource for school
teachers and their students.

Do It Yourself

If you're a keen DIY enthusiast then maybe you could create a simple guide to building a bird box, garden pond or even develop an entire conservation area. We receive many enquiries on all aspects of creating wildlife habitats and so your contribution would certainly be very well received.

Get Creative

If you're a keen artist then maybe you could help us to produce icons and logos, cartoons and animations, illustrations and designs for the web site. For the more ambitious programmers you could even get involved in producing a small online game or interactive puzzle based on British wildlife.

A little, often

By spending just a few minutes each day to add or edit the web pages on wildlife-related facts and figures, quotations, worksheets and resources for schools will be an enormous help in enabling us to deal with the backlog of work that is currently waiting to be undertaken.

There are literally hundreds of different projects that you could help us with, and you don't need to have any knowledge of web design or programming to become a valuable member of our development team.

We're always keen to hear your own suggestions as to how you could help Wild About Britain to please feel free to send us your ideas.

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Please Click Here to make a Donation via Charity Giving

A Great British Wildlife Charity

Wild About Britain is a registered charity that serves to promote wildlife, the natural environment and the great outdoors from every corner of the British Isles. In order to continue providing this free service we desperately need your support.

www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk

The Wild About Britain website is an online community that enables people to work together on wildlife and environment projects across the UK. The website enable members to share ideas, knowledge and resources through the forums, gallery and newspaper on subjects from birds, insects, mammals and trees to wildflowers, marine life, astronomy and the weather. In order to maintain and develop the website and meet the increasing costs of servers, developers and software we need urgent funding and support.

Your contributions will help us to maintain the existing website and further develop new features from online mapping and interactive videos, to puzzles, games and resources for schools.

From Little Acorns...

Wild About Britain continues to grow from strength to strength and we are already developing significant new additions to the website that will add great new features and facilties for the public to learn more about their natural environment.

More than just a website

Wild About Britain is an online community approaching nearly 20,000 members. However, we aim to develop many new projects that will see the chairty promoting British wildlife and the environment through a wide range of media to reach every demographic throughout the UK. With your help we aim to develop awareness through television and radio, newspapers, events and presentations and exhibitions across the British Isles.

Great Value for Money

Wild About Britain was recently short-listed as just one of three finalists for the British Environment and Media Awards 2006 - standing alongside some of the most distinguished international environment groups, newspapers and broadcasters in the UK. With a budget of less than 0.00001% of some of the above organisations, the charity continues to show that it is able to punch well above its weight and is great value
for money.

All funds are currently used to develop this website and cover the cost of dedicated servers, software and techinical support. This enables us to serve approximately 1 million unique visitors and over 100 millions hits a year.

Making a Donation

You can help to develop Wild About Britain by clicking on the link at the top of this page to make a secure online donation using Visa, Mastercard, Switch, Delta or Solo. It only takes a few moments and you can make either a single donation or set up a monthly contribution by standing order.

Alternatively, you could send a cheque to Wild About Britain, 17 Northway, Pickering, North Yorkshire YO18 8NN

Thank you for your support

Stuart Diston-Hunter
Charity Trustee
Wild About Britain
Charity No. 1104184

Gift Aid Donations

Did you know that if you are a tax payer, Wild About Britain can claim an extra 28p from the taxman, for every pound that you donate to the charity?

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Despite having made considerable progress with extremely limited resources, Wild About Britain has only just scratched the surface of our aims and objectives. As such, we are currently looking to source funding that will enable us to implement a number of innovative projects that will strengthen the wildlife, environment and outdoor communities, and help us to promote these topics throughout the British Isles. 

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Early research showed that today's children are more familiar with species of the African national parks, Arctic tundra, Amazonian rainforests and tropical oceans, than the nature that can be found in their own back garden, local parks and woodlands. Moreover, whilst some children and young adults were aware of national wildlife organisations that cater for specific interest groups, few had any knowledge of local environment issues or the facilities that were available to them on a
local level.

In direct response to the above problem, and with the help of family and friends, Stuart Diston-Hunter started the Wild About Britain project and launched the website in the autumn of 2004. Since then, Wild About Britain has helped to promote the invaluable work of the UK's small local wildlife groups, provide information and resources on a wide variety of environmental topics, and helped to raise awareness of the incredible nature than can found throughout the British Isles.

To date, Wild About Britain has published thousands of news stories on every aspect of British wildlife from every corner of the UK. We regularly promote hundreds of events each month and our online gallery now displays thousands of wildlife
photographs, the vast majority of which have been taken by visitors to the web site.

With an invaluable team of volunteers from across the British Isles, wildaboutbritain.co.uk now contains more than 250,000 pages on British wildlife and has become one of the leading online resources to information on the UK's natural environment.

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www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk serves to provide information on every aspect of wildlife, the environment and the great outdoors across the British Isles. We aim to provide a stylish, efficient and interesting website that can actively compete with leading leisure and entertainment sites with stunning visual content and frequently updated pages.

wildaboutbritain.co.uk also aims to act as a central hub of information to the wider world of wildlife websites, with links to relevantcharities, clubs, societies and institutions throughout the UK.

By providing facilities that enable wildlife groups across Britain to more easily communicate with each other, we aim to provide a resource that will develop a more holistic approach to tackling British wildlife and environmental issues. In doing so, we hope to strengthen the wildlife community in Britain, where we can all work together toward a common goal - the study, enjoyment and conservation of our natural environment.

wildaboutbritain.co.uk has established itself as a leading British wildlife magazine, with daily news, forums, galleries, events calendars, encyclopaedias and much, much more.
 

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Wild About Britain is a registered charity - No.1104184 - that aims to raise awareness of wildlife, the environment and the great outdoors, throughout the British Isles.

Wild About Britain covers a wide range of topics from birds, insects, marine life and trees to geology, climate change, astronomy and the weather; as well as lots of related activities from photography to camping.

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Wild About Britain has always got lots of development projects underway at any one time. The following are just some of the things that we're working on at the moment. Under the sub-titles the lists are hopefully in order of priority. Some of the listed items are easy enough with only a few hours work, but some will take  days/weeks/months to complete. To really get the charity/site to grow we need to give priority to raising lots of funds to be able buy resources - hardware,
software, staff etc are just the start of future development.

General

• Upgrade/move server to best value option
• Optimise google ads design and positioning across the site
• Build internal banner ads/notices to promote other areas of the site - inc banner rotation software
• Setup google referal ads system
• Sort all SEO across the site
• Promote donations
• Recruit volunteers for news, wild places, reference
• Develop teams
• Small videos

Forums

• Upgrade to latest version
  • check smilies and email notification issues
• Move FAQs to reference area
• Breakout and develop environment forums
• Post new thread notices on titles
• Post main notices on videos, quick rules, donations, all areas
• Post new member notice - make new registrations only
• Search outgoing links and delete spammers
• Add nest pics info to FAQs
• %1%2 error above forum images

Gallery

• Check upgrade changes
• Editors choice
• Create notices for upload pages - UK for unid'ed, correct sections, format etc
• Move forum images and unidentified off the front page
• Create more unidentified categories
• Upgrade to photopost pro

Directory*

• Complete rebuild on CMS to enable commercial posts, mapping
  and more categories - potentially good way of attracting substantial
  funding
• ID more categories with bespoke listing forms
• Big promotion and marketing to potential listers

Events

• Move to CMS and include mapping etc

Reviews

• Fix templates
• Fix scoring
• Upgrade to latest?

Reference

• Fix validation error bug - workaround by not loading browser pages
• Repair broken links from section frontpages
• Detailed page for each type of habitat
• Create video pages and sort rules/guidelines for uploading
• Setup cron for search
• Build Natures Calendar
• Create species forms for amphibians, fungi, plants, insects, moths, weather, bats etc
• Create quotes system
• Create blogs and/or myspace-type system
• Develop content links system
• Fix quick view error
• More video tutorials

Links

• Rebuild links section
• Promote link exchange UK & abroad

Wild Explorers

• Complete development

Calendar

• Design
• Choose images
• Create online shop
• Find best value/nearest supplier, possible complete package from design to dist?
• Sort distribution - volunteers posted in the forum thread

Badges

• Design from site logo
• Get merchant account
• Create online shop
• Find best value supplier
• Sort distribution - volunteers posted in the forum thread

Offsite*

• Create promotional material - bookmarks, brochures, calendar?
• Write to patrons
• Create DB of potential govt grants, companies and trusts and other funding from 1000s

Other

• Go to work 9-5 Mon to Fri

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Yes.
We respect your privacy and the following information sets out how we will handle any personal information that we receive from you.

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Wild About Britain is keen to help promote wildlife and environment groups around the world, and we know that you'll obviously be keen to help promote us too.

If you have a non-commercial wildlife or environment related website, please click here to submit your link

*****

British Wildlife at Wild About Britain

Information on British butterflies, wildlife, nature and the
environment with forums, news, photography, events calendars,
interactive maps, product reviews and a wildlife directory - covering
everything from British birds, insects, wildflowers, fungi and trees,
to astronomy, geology, marine life and the weather.

*****

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To add a news story, simply click on the 'News' link in the 'Create
Content box on the top-right of this screen and follow these
guidelines:

Title: Please enter a short title that contains keywords about the story.

News Publish Date: Please enter the date the article was first published and not today's date.

News Source: Choose a source from the drop-down list

News Section: Choose the single most relevant section for the story

News Region: Choose the region
News Content:
When

News Image: If you have a suitable image to accompany the story, please upload it here. Please do not include adverts.

News Content: Please enter only original content or press
releases from original sources such as the Forestry Commission, RSPB,
Wildlife Trusts etc. Do not enter stories copied from other news
agencies, papers, websites or magazines such as The Times, the BBC
website etc

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The Wildlife Foreign Nationals category is used to help identify unusual (and sometimes even common) species that are found in the wild, but aren't strictly considered 'British Wildlife'. This could include garden flowers that have seeded in rural areas or animals that have escaped from private collections or farms and now live in parks and
ponds. Essentially, it's the sort of species that many people could easily mistake as wild plants or animals, but they are often referred to as 'escapees'.

Photographs in the Wildlife Foreign Nationals category will be limited to just a few good examples of each species for identification and reference pusposes.

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There are lots of good photo editing packages around, but a simple and free one is Google's - www.picasa.com - which enables you to easily view, edit, crop, sharpen and resize your images. For information on more commercial packages, ask for advice in the forums and you'll no-doubt get plenty of tips from the other members.

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Image uploads must be at least 800x600 pixels. 600x800 are not wide enough. Uploads also  need to be less than 1mb in filesize and ideally a lot smaller so that they load quickly for all visitors to the site. 

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There are two ways. Firstly, you could use the gallery's search and
choose to search by username. Secondly, whenever you're viewing an
image in the gallery it'll show the member's details underneath. Below
their name is an icon that looks like ...click on that to see all of their images

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The original photographers own the copyright to their images, so you
will need to contact them if you would like to use their photos. In our
experience, almost all of the photographers will allow free use of
their images in non-commercial projects in schools and charities, but
please check with them first.

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The gallery is only for good quality images of British wildlife and the countryside. Essentially, this means that we don't usually include photographs of pets, buildings, garden flowers etc. However, you can upload these type of images to the image archive if you need to post them in the forum.

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The Wild About Britain gallery has lots of stunning photographs with some of the best British wildlife images to be found anywhere on the Internet. In order to maintain these high standards, we have produced the following guidelines to help all members display their photographs in the gallery.

Are My Pictures Good Enough?

The Wild About Britain gallery has high standards, but there's no reason why almost everyone shouldn't be able to post pictures, as long as they have a decent camera and basic photography skills. We don't expect members to be professional photographers and if your images meet the following guidelines, then there's a good chance that they will be included in the gallery.

If you would like to upload an image that you don't think it is good enough for the gallery, please upload it to the Image Library.

Quick Guidelines

A good gallery needs good photographs, but it also takes a lot of hard work to keep everything organised, with images properly named and in their correct categories. Thankfully, we've got some superb volunteers who work as Gallery Editors that keep it looking so good. However, to help them on their way, please ensure that your images are submitted exactly as set out below.

• Please use capitals in the correct places and format the title as:
  
  Common Name - Scientific name (gender) <-- if known

For example:

Zebra Spider - Salticus scenicus (male)

• Include the dash between the Common Name and Scientific name
• Do not add any_extra_characters, "quotes", question marks etc???.
• Ensure that there are correct spaces between the words in your title and not titlesthatlooklikethisandarehardtoread.
• Add relevant keywords in the keyword box.
• Only use the 'Photography Comments' box for info about
  camera equipment and the techniques that you used. All other info about
  the weather, where you took the photograph, what you did that day etc.
  should go in the main description area.

Image Quality

Images must be in focus, well-lit (not too light or too dark) and clear; so that the subject is easily identifiable.

No Advertising

You are allowed to include a small, short and discreet copyright or name to your images, but do not add corporate names, website names, email addresses or other contact details

The Main Subject

Ensure that the subject of your photograph adequately fills the frame, unlike the buzzard in the following photograph

Image Sizes

Images should be at least 800x600 (not 600x800), and can be as large as you like, but they'll be automatically resize to a maximum width or height of 1600 pixels. On occasions, we may accept smaller photos if they are of rare subjects or unusual circumstances.

Editing

Images may be enhanced to make them clearer, but not modified to add or take anything away. Please avoid over-editing images with too much sharpen, contrast, brightening etc. If jagged edges or speckles appear in the image (like those in the green area below) then it has probably been sharpened too much.

Similar Images

Please only upload 2 or 3 images of the same subject, and only if they're quite distinctly different, rare or showing unusual behaviour. For example, the following 3 images are virtually identical and so only 1 should be uploaded to the gallery.

Big or Artistic Borders

Please do not add borders or artwork to your images.

No Pets Allowed

This is a picture of my dog 'Honey'. Unfortunately, she's not part of British wildlife so she can't go in the gallery Please don't post photographs of your pets...and remember they're not just for Christmas .

File Compression

Please try to compress your files so that they are relatively small (ideally under 250kb), but not so much that it starts to noticeably affect the quality of the pic. This will help us save space on the server, make it quicker for viewers to see the images load on the screen, and also make it faster for you to upload your pictures.

Compressing jpegs to a level of 7 or 8 (70-80%) should do the trick. In the following images, the 75% compression has an almost indistinguishable level of detail to the
100%, but it has a considerably smaller filesize. However, the 50% is only marginally smaller than the 75% and yet it is heavily pixelated and a lot lower quality.

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Registered members can send each other private messages.

Private messages work a little like email, but are limited to
registered members of this forum. You may be able to include vB Code,
smilies and images in private messages that you send.

You may send a private message to a member of this forum by clicking the 'Send A Private Message' link in the private messaging section of your user control panel, or by clicking the button in a member's posts.

When you send a message, you have the option to save a copy of the message in your Sent Items folder.

All forum
rules apply to the content of Private Messages and members may not
publish the content of forum messages either on the website,
externally, or via the private messaging system. The forum
Administrators are able to read the private messages of all members.

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When members make a post, they can also automaticaly show a small image (called an avatar) next to their username. This helps other members to quickly recognise who's posted in the thread. If you're logged in, you can click here to add/edit your avatar.

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If you forget your password, you can click on the 'Forgotten Your Password' link on any page that requires you to fill in your password.

This will bring up a page where you should enter your registered email address, and an email will be sent to that address instantly, with instructions for resetting your password.

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After you have made a minimum of 25 posts, you can add a signature to your forum posts via your Forum Profile Page

Links within signatures can only be displayed by members who link to Wild About Britain from their own website and have been accepted in the WAB link pages, or where members link to their WAB gallery images or blog page.

Signatures must be no more than two lines of default-sized black text and cannot advertise websites, organisations, products or services, or highlight content with UPPERCASE or ***>>> Look at my website
<<<*** style content.

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Members can only change their profile and add a signature once they have made a minimum of 25 posts. This limit has been put in place to stop the
new members who were joining the site to simply advertise their own website and link from
their profile without contribtuing to the community.

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Unfortunately, members can't change their username as many areas of the
site are linked by username information that would lead to many broken
links if the name is changed.

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The following guidelines should help to make the forum easier for everyone to use.

Thread Titles

Please use short, but meaningful, titles that explain the thread within a few keywords. For example, rather than making a thread title 'Where to go?' when you
want ideas on travelling around Scotland to take photographs, please
add a title like 'Places to Photograph in Scotland'

If you're looking for an identification, rather than 'What's This?', make the title something like
'Unidentified Green Butterfly'. This should help members and search find your threads more easily. 

Do Not Feed the Animals

It doesn't happen too often, but if you get into a heated debate with other members, it's some times easiest to just walk away from the thread. We invite members to post opinions from every side of every argument, and so there will always be disagreements. Occasionally, you may even come across a troll who will make controversial posts simply to wind people up. If necessary, simply report the posts to a moderator to deal with it.

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Wild About Britain has a built-in image library and gallery that enables members to post images and include them in the forums, rather than using third party websites for external links to images. This has been done for several reasons:

Dead Links

Essentially, problems start when members move their images on their external site, or stop using photobucket / flickr etc, and we end up with many threads with red crosses instead of images. After members spend a lot of time answering questions about the ID of species in some of the threads, it's the least we can do to try ensure that the images and thread stay usable.There's nothing worse than seeing a thread with 20/30 replies to an initial post about an image that's now just a red cross. These sort of problems usually take a long time to sort out, tracking down the member, finding the new link or apologising to the new visitor for it disappearing and never coming back.

Easier to Find

If all images are kept in the gallery/image library then they can be easily catalogued, searched and found, forever. Having images all stored in the gallery/image library will also enable us to organise the photos more easily and make searching far simpler than sifting through threads to find images of a specific species.

Faster

There are also problems with the externally hosted images running on a slow server that takes a long time to load the images, making it appear as though WAB is running slow.

Spam

Not surprisingly, we've also found some members linking out to external sites as a form of free advertising to promote their site and increase visitors.

Risk 

Finally, there have been a few examples in the past of images being changed after they were initially posted. This presents a big risk to WAB as members could change their externally linked image to an advert, or even hardcore pornography, and if you multiply that by possibly hundreds of posts we would have massive job on ours hands trying to deleted them all.

We realise that it may be a bit more time-consuming for members to upload images to the gallery, rather than simply link to their external site, but it will save the mods and gallery editors a lot of time and make it easier for all visitors to use the site.

To make life easier for all members uploading into the gallery, there is no moderating of images in the Image Library.

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In common with most sites, Wild About Britain contains links to external websites...and like most sites we don't want to see lots of spam. Essentially, we're keen to help promote wildlife and environment websites around the UK, but we also want to control the type and amount of links posted on the site because:

• Links can sometimes be real community killer. We've seen lots of examples members ask a question to start a conversation in the forum, but they get a reply like "look here for the answer" with a link posted. Occasionally, it promotes further discussion, but it can often stop the conversation dead. 
• The URL of links can often change or the external website goes down. The link becomes useless and the 20/30 replies in the thread that talk about the link become a waste of time.
• It's easy to cut and paste content into the forum or reference pages, so there should be little need to link to an external website unless you don't own the copyright of the content. In which case, you could simply rewrite a paragraph or two about the content of the external site. We don't want to link to unsuitable or illegal webpages and websites, and while the content may be OK today, in 6 months it could be very different.
• Not surprisingly, we've found some members linking out to external sites as a form of free advertising to promote their site and increase visitors. This is unfair for the many members who pay for linking via google ads and we've found that as soon as someone links to their site, they often enjoy lots of hits and so they start posting their link more often.
• Lastly, if WAB links to blacklisted sites then we lose credibility and points with search engines. As a result, we've added rel="nofollow" code to almost all external links so the search engines ignore the links and we protect the site.

  Ways in which you can link from Wild About Britain

• The good news is that you can link to your own non-commercial wildlife and environment website in your forum signature after you have made 25 posts.
• You may also be able to setup a reciprocal link with Wild About Britain via our link pages. These links are active so search engines can see them (i.e. not blocked by rel="nofollow").
• If you are an established wildlife or environment-related organisation, you may be able to be list in the Wild About Britain directory
• You can advertise on the website via the google ads

  Finally, it's worth adding a note that all of the above rules are implemented at the discretion of the moderators and so in some circumstances we may allow external links. The following in no way guarantee the ability to post a link, but it may help to explain why some are present on the site.

• Members who have linked to Wild About Britain from the frontpage of their website and request permission will be treated more favourably than those who simply post a link.
• Links to products or services of low value are unlikely to be treated the same as ones that could enable the poster to make substantial sales and/or profits
• We're often happy to help support members who provide substantial contribution to the development of Wild About Britain

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We do not aim to censor posts as long as they fall inside the rules and guidelines. We welcome debate and views expressed from every angle, and we do not take a stance for or against any wildlife or environment topic. However, we ask that all political discussions be kept relatively light-hearted.

We reserve the right to move, modify or delete posts or threads, without explanation, and may take further action to disable the offender's account at the discretion of the moderators.

Registration

• You are allowed only one account.
• You are responsible for all posts from your account.
• You may not post on behalf of any member who has had their account frozen

General Conduct

• Be polite, respect other members and their opinions.
• We will not tolerate rudeness and any member who is intentionally
  unpleasant or disruptive may have their membership removed without
  warning.
• Do not encourage or promote any illegal activity
• All content must be in English and not abbreviated texting or slang
• You may not post censored words or URLs by substituting, adding or removing characters.
• Please do not post religious or party political statements on the site.
• Use emoticons/smilies to clarify the intended emotion of your posts
• Do not request or give out personal information such as home address, telephone number or any other contact details
• Do not make incomplete posts that enourage visitors to visit external sites to view the remaining content - also see external links
• Do not link or promote to sites or images containing sexually explicit, offensive or illegal content - also see external links

The following activities are not allowed:

• Spam - referencing any product, service, website or organisation
  more than once every 50 posts will likely result in all references
  being removed.
• Signature Spam - making posts to show your signature
• Post Spam - making short replies with the purpose of increasing one's post count
• Bump Threads - posting to deliberately take a thread to the top of the recent forum posts
• Cross-Post - posting duplicate threads or posts, or linking to threads or posts to promote them or keep the subject visible
• Hijacking - taking a thread off topic
• Thread Trashing - posting negative comments about topics, or
  suggesting that threads or posts be closed, just because they do not
  interest you or disagree with the content.
• Flaming - doing anything to personally insult, degrade, belittle, or demean another member.
• Colouring Text - to hide content in the background

Private Messages

• All forum posting rules also apply to private messages
• The administrator has access to read all Private Messages.
• You may not make public the content of any other member's private messages without their prior consent.

Signatures

• You can add a signature after you have made 25 posts
• The signature must be a maximum of two lines of default-sized black text
• The signature can contain only one link to a non-commercial webste that is predominantly about wildlife or the environment
• You may not include images in your signature
• Do not add signatures in the text body of your posts

Commercial Activity

• You may not solicit any external source to post on this forum
  regarding any current or future company, services, or products that you
  are associated with.
• You may not make any posts that are commercial by nature.
• You may not advertise any products, services or suppliers.
• You may not repeatedly recommend or promote any product, service or organisation
• You may not post commission, referral or affiliate links - also see external links

Tips

• If you have problems with another member, please forward your concern to a moderator or administrator.
• Public posts debating these rules, terms and conditions and/or
  moderators' enforcement of such, may be removed without comment.
  However, we encourage feedback and invite you to contact us via PM if
  you have any questions or concerns.

Images

Do not post images or links to images on external websites. Instead,
upload your images to the 'forum images' section of the Wild About
Britain gallery, then cut and paste the 'Forum Images Code' under the
photograph into your posts to show your pictures in forum threads - see External Images

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There are several ways that you can stop receiving notifications emails for threads that you've subscribed to in the forums. One of the easiest ways is to follow the - 'Unsubscription information:' instructions at the bottom of the email.

Alternatively, you can click on the icon in the forums and choose 'Edit Options' to change your account settings. Go to the box marked "Default Thread Subscriptions mode" and select an option from the drop-down menu. Scroll to the bottom of the page and 'Save' your new settings.

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If a member breaks the rules, or appears to have broken the rules, then
their account will be frozen until we are satisfied that any related
issue has been addressed and rectified.

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You may clear all your cookies by clicking here.
If you return to the forum homepage and you are
still logged in, you can have to remove your cookies manually.

In Internet Explorer 6 on Windows XP:

1. Click the "Tools" menu.
2. Select "Internet Options" from the menu that appears.
3. Click "Delete Cookies" on the dialog box that appears. It will be in the center area of the "General" tab.

In Mozilla Firefox:

1. Click the "Tools" menu.
2. Select "Options" from the menu that appears.
3. From the dialog box, select "Privacy" on the left.
4. Find "Cookies" on the main pane, and click the "Clear" button adjacent to it.

Your cookies should now be removed. You may want to restart the computer and revisit the forums to be sure.

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When a member makes a post their post count goes up. At certain milestones their title will change to:

Under 25 posts = New Member

25 posts = Active Member

100 posts = Wild Member

250 posts = Member of the Wild Empire

500 posts = Officer of the Wild Empire

1,000 posts = Commander of the Wild Empire

5,000 posts = Knight of the Wild Empire

10,000 posts = Knight Grand Cross of the Wild Empire

Just a bit of fun

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Members can edit their posts for 30 minutes after the initial posting, but they cannot delete their posts.

To edit your posts, click the button by the post you want to edit. After you have made your modifications, a note will appear, which notifies other users that you have edited your post. Administrators and moderators can also edit your messages.

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In the forum, click on the title of the relevant category i.e. Birds,Fungi then click on the 'New Thread' button.

Please view the video on the following page:

How to Start a New Thread in the Forum.

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Moderators oversee the running of the forums to ensure that they operate smoothly and that members keep to the site rules. Moderators have the ability to edit and delete posts, move threads, and perform other tasks to maintain the forums.

The forum moderators are fourwings, fungijohn, glsammy, matt_xyz, nightshade, oy, stuartdh, tinkerbell and wildone

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