Table Of Contents

Why Register? back to top

On most forums you will find it impossible to post new threads or reply to existing ones, unless the Admin allows this explicitly. So, in order for you to be able to participate in the discussion, you would likely be required to register. By registering you will also obtain access to many other features of the forum such as: Email/ICQ Notification, when someone replies to your messages Customized signature, avatar, personal tag etc... Ability to send private messages to one or more members of the forum You'll be able to choose a time zone so that forum's time is equivalent to that of the region you live in Unless otherwise specified, the registration for the forum is completely free and requires only minimal information such as your email address and a nick name of your choice. If COPPA is enabled and you are under 13 years of age, you will need to have your legal guardian provide consent before your account can be used to post messages. Upon completion of the registration process on COPPA enabled forums, members younger then 13 years of age will be taken to a form, which their legal guardian will need to fill out and send to the appropriate address shown on that page.

How OilFans.com uses cookies? back to top

Normally FUDforum uses cookies to store a small bit of information that allows the forum to see if you are logged in or not. If for some reason your browser does not support cookies, FUDforum will instead use sessions, which do not store any information on your computer. During the login process you can choose to bypass the cookie system and opt for the session system, this is recommended if you are using a public terminal. Doing so will prevent the possible identity theft, which may occur if you do not logout after using the forum. In most cases however, you probably should leave cookies enabled as it is much more convenient in the long run. For example, you will not need to login each time you visit the forum.

How to remove a OilFans.com cookie? back to top
To remove the cookie set by FUDforum, simply click the logout link and it will automatically delete the cookie.

What's a profile? back to top

As a forum member you have a personal profile inside which you can store various information about yourself, such as IM client ids, signature, biography, etc... Your profile also stores various settings, which deal with the forum. Any time you are logged in you may change your profile settings, you should be aware that most data inside your profile can be viewed by other forum members. So, you should try to not store any sensitive information that you do not wish other people to see. Your profile has an option "Show Email Address", which if set to NO will hide your email address from view. You may want to use this option if you do not want other people to see your email address.

What's a signature? back to top

Signature is a string of text that you may automatically append to the end of every message you post. In your profile you have an option, "Use Signature by default" that will enable or disable this feature by default. However, on every post form you can change this option for that particular post. In addition to plain text, this string can contain (if allowed by administrator) various tidbits such as links to favorite URLs, personal photos, etc... If you do not wish to see the signatures of other people, you can turn them off by setting the "Show Signature" to NO in your profile.

What to do if you lost your password back to top

If cannot remember your password for OilFans.com, you should go to the reset password page, on that page enter your email address inside the text box and press the GO button. This will send you an email with a special URL, when you access that URL your password will be reset and you will receive a new email with your password. Note: Your passwords are stored in a one-way encryption format called MD5 HASH. This is military grade 128-bit encryption, there is no way to restore your password. It works by encrypting the data every time you enter it and then comparing against encrypted version. Therefor if you forget your password it can not be restored back, so, upon a restore password request the forum will randomly generate you a new password.

What's a buddy list? back to top
A buddy list is your own little list of forum members with whom you wish to converse more frequently. By putting a person on your buddy list, you will be able to see their birthday (if they entered one) as well as easily choose them as recipients of your Private Messages.

Can I email other forum members? back to top

OilFans.com has a Private Messaging system, you may send private messages to one or more registered members of the forum. To access the PM system, simply click on the Private Messaging link which can be found at the top of the page's right corner. If you have any unread private messages, this link will indicate how many unread messages you have. Sending a private message Private messages are very similar to email, you specify the person(s) who you wish to send the message to, enter the subject & the message and click send. There are 2 links available, that would allow you to easily find members who you wish to send your message to, Select from Buddy List, which will allow to select people from your buddy list, by listing all your buddies and Find User, which will allow to search the forum's entire member list for people to whom you wish to address your message. A copy of every sent message will be stored inside your SENT folder, for future reference, you can always delete those message should your choose to do so. There are 3 other folders that you should be aware of: Inbox folder contains any messages that you have received, each message has an read/unread indicator to allow you to see if you have read this message or not. You will also be able to see who sent this message and if that person is currently online or not, the date when the message was sent is also shown. Drafts Folder contains the messages you have written but did not yet send yet. By clicking on the message you will go to edit mode, which will allow you to further modify the message as well as send it if you choose to. Once the message is sent it will be moved from the DRAFTS folder to your SENT folder. Trash folder stores all the message you have marked for deletion, but did not delete as of yet. If you delete a message which is located inside TRASH this message will become permanently deleted. Message Tracking When you send a message you have the ability to request a read-receipt, when the recipient reads the message you will receive a system message notifying you that your message has been read. However, if you request such a receipt the recipient may choose to decline sending the read-receipt, so if you have requested a receipt and did not receive it this does not necessarily mean your message was not read.

Member List? back to top
The member list is a complete list of all the registered users on a forum. You can sort the list in 3 ways: by login name alphabetically, by number of posts & the date of registration. The member list also has a search capability, allowing you to find a particular member by either login name or email address.

What are announcements & sticky messages? back to top
These are special messages that can be created by administrators & moderators and stay at the top of a forum(s) for a period of time. Generally they are used to inform the users of the forum of a certain event or outline rules etc...

What are referrals? back to top
Referrals allows you to see, which forum members you or other members of the forum have referred. The referrals are tracked automatically, when you give someone a URL to the forum and they register you will be credit with the referral of that person. The list of people you have referred can be viewed from your profile, when you click on the Referrals tab.

How to format text? back to top

Generally, messages on the forum are mostly plain text, however on occasion you may want to add some formatting to your text, such as making certain words bold,italics,etc... Since in most cases the admin does not permit you to use HTML inside your posts, you can use FUDcode, which is a special set of tags that allows you to apply certain formatting to your text. FUDcode is very easy to use and is a lot more secure then HTML. Here is a list of the supported FUDcode tags & short examples on it's usage URL Hyperlinking The forum can automatically pick up on many forms of URLs, for example: http://fud.prohost.org will be automatically picked up as a URL and converted to a valid URL, which will look like this: http://fud.prohost.org You can create a URL yourself by using FUD code also, this can be done in 2 ways, a simple way works like this: [URL]http://www.myhomepage.com[/URL] this will result in a generation fo the following link: http://www.myhomepage.com You can add a description to your URL by using a different syntax inside the [URL=http://www.myhomepage.com]My Homepage[/URL] this code will result in the following: My Homepage Email Hyperlinking To create an email link simply type the email address as it would normally appear, for example: support@prohost.org the forum will automatically understand this create a link. In addition it is also possible to create a real email hyperlink using this format [email=support@prohost.org]Click here to email our tech support[/email] Text Styling There are a number of tags which you can use to style text, they are: [b]bold [/b] produces bold text [u]underline [/u] produces underlined text [i]italic [/i] produces italicized text It is also possible to control color/size and even font face. [color=red]red text [/color] produces red text [size=4]big text [/size] produces text in the specified size [font=courier]text [/font] produces text using the named type face It is also possible to combine various formatting tags: [b][u][i][color=red][size=10][font=courier]Formatted Text[/font][/size][/color][/i][/u][/b] this example produces:    Formatted Text Text Alignment FUDcode supports text alignment via the [align] tag, which allows your to align your text in 3 ways: [align=center]centered text[/align] produces: centered text [align=left]left aligned[/align] produces: left aligned [align=right]right aligned[/align] produces: right aligned Various Lists You can create various kinds of lists using Form Code: Un-ordered bulleted list: [list] [*]first item [*]second item [/list] would produce first item second item It is possible to use various kinds of lists, for example to create an numerical ordered list: [list type=1] [*]first item [*]second item [/list] which produces first item second item to create an A-Z list: [list type=A] [*]first item [*]second item [/list] which produces: first item second item Adding Images It is possible to include in-line images with the message. using the [img][/img] tags. so, for example,  [img]http://www.prohost.org/img/pro_logo.gif[/img], will insert an image in the message as such: in addition you can create links to images by enclosing them inside a [url][/url] tags such as [url=http://www.prohost.org][img]http://www.prohost.org/img/pro_logo.gif[/img][/url] which will create a linked image such as Quoting other messages It is possible to quote something that has already been posted, by just putting [quote][/quote] tags around it. [quote]hello world[/quote] would appear such as: Quote: Hello World Computer Code and Pre-formatted Text The [code][/code] tags allows to post text exactly as it is, maintaining relational formatting such as tabs and multiple spaces. it used like this: [code] $fp = fopen('somefile', 'w'); if ( !$fp ) { exit('no such file!'); } else { fwrite($fp, 'hello world'); fclose($fp); } [/code] which produces the text exactly as it was typed maintaining the formatting. $fp = fopen('somefile', 'w'); if ( !$fp ) { exit('no such file!'); } else { fwrite($fp, 'hello world'); fclose($fp); } You may also find that the administrator has enabled smilies, which allow you to use small icons to convey emotion, and the [img] code, which allows you to add pictures to your message.

What are Smilies/Emoticons? back to top

Smilies are small icons that you can insert into your message to convey various emotions & feelings. A list of smilies supported by the forum will be listed above the message box where you type your message. Clicking on a smiley, will insert that smiley into your message. Common smilies may automatically be replaced with their equivalent images, if you do not wish for that to happen, click on the Disable Smilies checkbox.

How do I use Polls? back to top

In certain forums you may have the ability to include polls inside your messages. Polls allow you to ask a question and provide a number of answers other forum members may choose from. For the sake of accuracy only registered users may cast in their votes. When you click on the CREATE POLL link, located on the post page a pop-up will appear allowing to create a poll with several potential multiple choice answers. When you are done, simply click on the Edit button and you will be taken back to the post page and then poll you've created will be attached to the message. You can edit an existing poll, by clicking on the EDIT link, or you can remove the poll entirely by click on the DELETE. You will only have 1 opportunity to vote in a poll, so make your decision careful, you will not be able to change it at a later point.

Can I edit my message? back to top

If you are a registered member, you may be able to edit messages that you have previously posted. If you edit your post, a small note will be prepended to your message, showing that this message was edited by you and indicate the time & date of editing. If a moderator or an administrator have edited your message you may or may not, depending on the forum settings see a note identifying the fact that this message was edited.

Who are the moderators & administrators? back to top

Moderators are "super users" who generally oversee one or more forums. They have the ability to edit, delete, approve messages as well as make forum announcements. These are the people to contact if you see something inappropriate being done in a forum they are moderating. You may also address moderators if you have any questions in regard on how to use the forum. Administrators are the controllers of the forum. Administrator in addition to being able to do everything a moderator can do, block users and respond to various forum questions. If you encounter any bugs with the forum, Administrator is the person to contact.

What are the rankings? back to top
All registered users have rankings on the OilFans.com Forum based on the number of posts they have written. The following table illustrated the ranking based on the number of posts made. 0 posts - 0 Cups 1000 posts - 1 Cup 2000 posts - 2 Cups 3000 posts - 3 Cups 4000 posts - 4 Cups 5000 posts - 5 Cups 6000+ posts - 6 Cups