Frequently Asked Questions

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Q: How Do I Make A Post?



First steps first...

1. You have to be a registered member of Hot Coupon World to post to the board. If you are not a member please register an account.
2. If you are already a member, make sure you are logged in.

There are 2 types of posting...you can either post a new thread (you are the creator of a topic within a forum) or you can reply to a post (you are adding a comment to an existing topic)



Creating a new thread

• You will need to pick a forum that you wish to post in. In the pictures below I will be using the forum General Board Questions.

Figure 1 - Choose a Forum for the forum homepage


Once you have clicked a forum it will open up the forum and you will then you will see on the left upper right hand side of the forum a button that says "New Thread".

Figure 2 - New Thread Button


Once you have clicked the "New Thread" button an editor will open up for you to start your new thread.

Figure 3 - New thread editor


Once you have typed up your post, hit the "Submit New Thread", and now your thread has been posted.:Wave:

Posting a reply (exising topic/thread)

First step is to pick the thread you wish to reply to

Figure 4 - Pick a thread


Once you have picked a thread, you will read it, and maybe you will want to add a comment, question, or additional information. So once you have read the thread you will find a button at either the top of the thread (in the same spot as the "New thread" button in the instructions above OR at the bottom of the thread. It is called "Post Reply". The picture below is the bottom of the thread, with the post reply button, as well as the "Quick Reply" editor box.

Figure 5 - Post Reply and Quick Reply

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Q: Are There Any Special Codes/Tags I Can Use To Format My Posts?

For the most part, your posts will contain plain text, but on occasions, you may want to emphasize certain words or phrases by making them (for example) bold or italic.

You may use vB Code to add special effect to your post. vB Code is a special set of tags which you can use to produce the most popular text-effects. vB code has the advantage that it is very simple to use, and is immune to malicious javascripts and page layout disruption.

The administrator has also 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.

For more information about vB code, CLICK HERE.

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Q: What Is Email Notification?

If you post a new thread, or reply to an existing thread, you can choose to be notified by email when someone else replies to that thread.

You can also choose to receive email notifications of new posts in a thread without posting in that thread, by clicking the 'Subscribe to this thread' link displayed in the thread page.

If you choose to stop receiving email notifications from a thread, you can turn off the option by either editing your post, or by unsubscribing from the thread HERE.

Only registered users may receive email notification, and they can set whether they want to receive email notification by default by editing their OPTION.

Email notification is also referred to as 'Thread Subscription'.

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Q: What Are Smilies?

Smilies are small graphical icons which you can insert into your messages to convey an emotion or feeling, such as a joke or embarrassment. For example, if you entered a sarcastic comment, rather than type 'that was a joke', you could simply insert the 'wink' smilie.

If you have used email or internet chat systems, you will probably be familiar with the concept of smilies already. Certain combinations of text characters are converted into smilies.

For a list of the smilies currently used by this forum, CLICK HERE.

On occasions, you may want to prevent the text in your message being converted into smilies. You will see a checkbox which you can select when you make a new post, which will allow you to 'Disable Smilies'.

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Q: What Are Code Buttons And Clickable Smilies?

These controls allow you to quickly and easily enter vBcode into your posts and messages. To use them, simply click the appropriate buttons or select items from the lists to enter vBcode.

There are three editor modes available: Basic, Standard and Enhanced mode. When using the Basic editor, there are no vBcode buttons to assist your editing. You must enter any vBcode markup manually in this editor.

When using Standard mode, highlight the text you wish to modify and press the appropriate button. This will place the proper vBcode tags around the selected text. Pressing a button while not having any selected text, will insert vBcode tags at your cursor. You may then enter your text between the tags.

When using the Enhanced mode, pressing a button will modify any highlighted text. This mode is a WYSIWYG mode, What You See Is What You Get, whereas your final post appears the same while being edited.

Clicking a button while having no text selected will not have any effect.
To use the clickable smilies, simply click the smiley that you want to insert into your message, or click the [More] link to access the full list of smilies.

The forum default setting for this site is Enhanced mode.

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Q: How Do I Create And Vote In Polls?

You may notice that some threads on this forum also include a section where you can vote on an issue or question. These threads are called 'polls' and this is how to create them:

Creating a new poll
When you post a new thread, you have the option to also create a poll.

This function allows you to ask a question and specify a number of possible responses. Other members will then be able to vote for the response they wish, and the results of the voting will be displayed in the thread.


An example poll might be:

What is your favorite color?

1. Red
2. Blue
3. Yellow
4. Green
5. Sky-blue pink with yellow spots

To create a poll when you post a new thread, simply click the 'Yes! post a poll' checkbox at the bottom of the page, and set the number of possible responses you want to include.

When you click the submit button, you will be taken to the poll creation page, where you can specify the question and the list of responses you want to include.

You may also want to specify a time limit for the poll, so that (for example) it only stays open for voting for a week.

Voting in and viewing a poll

To vote in a poll, simply select which option you want to vote for, and click the [Vote!] button. You may view the current results for a poll before you vote by clicking the 'View Results' link. Voting in a poll is entirely optional. You may vote for any of the available options, or cast no vote at all.

Generally, once you have voted in a poll, you will not be able to change your vote later, so place your vote carefully!

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Q: What Are Attachments?

The administrator has allowed certain usergroups to use the attachment feature of this forum, which gives you the ability to attach files of certain types to your posts.

Allowed file types and sizes are:

• bmp 19.5 KB (620 x 280)
• doc 488.3 KB
• gif 19.5 KB (620 x 280)
• jpe 19.5 KB (620 x 280)
• jpeg 19.5 KB (620 x 280)
• jpg 97.7 KB
• pdf 488.3 KB
• png 19.5 KB (620 x 208)
• psd 19.5 KB
• txt 19.5 KB
• xls 488.3 KB
• zip 293.0 KB

To attach a file to a new post, simply click the [Manage Attachments] button at the bottom of the post composition page, and locate the file that you want to attach from your local hard drive.

After posting, the image attachments may display a thumbnail, depending on the forum settings. To view the contents of the attachment (if it is not already displayed) simply click the filename link that appears next to the attachment icon.

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Q: What Are Post Icons?

The has adminstrators have enabled post icons for new threads, posts and private messages. Post icons allow you to specify a small icon to accompany your posting, which is used to convey the emotion or content of a post at a glance. If you do not see a list of post icons when you are composing your message or post, the administrator has disabled the option.

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Q: What Are Moderators?

A moderator is someone who is charge here at Hot Coupon World.

We have 3 levels of hierarchy here at Hot Coupon World.

1. Administrators – The highest level at Hot Coupon World.
2. Super Moderators – Have power over the whole board, except forum software.
3. Forum Specific Moderators – Oversee a particular forum, forums, or section of the site such as chat room or blogs for which they have applied to help out with.

Who are the HCW moderators?

You can find a list of all moderators at Hot Coupon World, and the forums they moderate by following this link: VIEW FORUM LEADERS .

Are Moderators Paid?

Moderators are not paid. They are all volunteers that wish to help members and make Hot Coupon World the site that it is. But we do give “perks” to our moderators as a way of saying thank you for their hard work and effort. These perks are:

• A user rank badge with thier moderator status
• Free access to all of Hot Coupon Worlds Entrepreneur forums - A $20 a year value
• Extra signature space for the allowance of a bigger signature.
• RAOK’s (Random Acts of Kindness) and giveaways offered by the administrators and fellow moderators

What are the moderators responsibilities?

Moderator’s responsibilities vary, but include the following duties:

• Watching for spammers on the board and banning them via the infraction system when they appear.
• Keeping their forums organized and clean by merging or moving posts and threads. Consolidating threads as necessary to make it easier to navigate, etc.
• Making sure that the deals are posted in their forum, if they are moderating a store forum.
• Posting relevant information, FAQ’s for their store, tips, discussion about their topic, etc.
• Taking care of reported posts as they are reported by our members.
• Watching the threads and posts for unethical use of coupons or other violations of our Terms of Service. And issuing warnings or infractions as necessary.
• Acting as a liaison between the members and the store or manufacturer. If a question is posed that they do not know the answer to, our moderators will attempt to contact the store or manufacturer to see if they can find out the answer.
• And most importantly… they are here to help our members with questions, providing them the information they need.

How do I apply to be a moderator?

Our Administrator, Lesley (username sbp) is in charge of our Moderator Team. If there is a forum at Hot Coupon World that does not already have a moderator and you meet the requirements set forth for being a moderator please send a PRIVATE MESSAGE TO SBP.

Also from time to time sbp will make forum announcements letting our members know which forums are in need of moderators, click on the announcement and follow the directions within. Sbp also watches the forums and occasionally will PM (Private Message) members that she notices are active posters and would make good moderators and see if they are interested.

Is being a moderator hard?

Moderating a forum takes as much time as you can put into it. We at Hot Coupon World realize that our moderators have real lives, families, and jobs outside of the site and that takes precedence. We try to provide advice, instructions, and the tools necessary to do the job. The most labor intensive part of being a moderator is if you are a Store mod and do the sales ad each week with coupon match ups from the Hot Coupon World Coupon Database.

Being a moderator is not all work and no play, we do have fun too!

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Q: Why Have Some Of The Words In My Post Been Blanked?

Hot Coupon World attempts to keep the content of our forums suitable for viewing by members of all ages. While we can not control the content at all times we do have a word censor in place that censors out the word we feel are the most offensive to us and our members.

If a member types a censored word the text will be replaced by *****'s

The same words are censored for all users, and censoring is done by a computer simply searching and replacing words. It is in no way 'intelligent'.

The names of our competitors are also censored out to avoid members from inadvertently advertising our competition on our website.