Welcome to the Community and Marketplace

INFORMATION FOR ALL MEMBERS

PaddleBoarding.com is a Community and Marketplace for paddle boarders, paddle surfers, stand-up paddlers both amateurs and professionals. Please take time to read this document through to get a feel for what the Community, Marketplace and forums are like, how to start your life among us and how to make the best out of your time here. We are often referred as PaddleBoarding.com.

Foreword

The world's largest Paddle Boarding Community and Marketplace. At PaddleBoarding.com our mission is to provide stand up paddle boarders with information necessary to satisfy every aspect of the paddle boarding sport.

We will be offering comprehensive information on paddle boarding gear, apparel, paddling products and supplies and especially paddle boarding information such as up to the minute and latest News, Reviews, worldwide paddle boarding event information, paddle boarding reports and tips, paddle boarding advice and training techniques and race preparation, paddle boarding people and races.

The Paddle boarding Community and Marketplace provides Paddlers with access to hundreds of informative news articles, reviews, and paddle boarding clubs and groups around the world.

At PaddleBoarding.com we have a message board where discussions will be encouraged. When you have a question about anything in a review or Q&A post it on our message board.

Our Community, Marketplace and forum will include topics from industry insiders, racing paddle boarders and competitors to exchange ideas and share their experiences. Our goal is to encourage topics that interest you. ??Event Promoters and race directors will have the ability to promote their events and reach their audiences worldwide.

Mario St-Cyr
PaddleBoarding.com founder

The Paddleboarding.com Culture

When you start your journey with us you will notice a strange combination of relaxed mood and serious dedication to our sport. You will also notice how people who know a lot ,share their experience and talent without hesitation. This culture has been developed and refined over years, combining witty humor and having fun is what our members value most: the PaddleBoarding.com mood is unique and enjoyable.

PaddleBoarding.com has members from all countries, both professionals and amateurs, male and female and diverse ethnic backgrounds. Please respect this diversity and do not push your views down other people's throats.

Discussions, fun, knowledge, sharing and caring is what we value most.

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Then, let's get on to some practical issues:

Registering to Paddleboarding.com

Registering is free.

When you register you will receive an email which you must read and act upon before your account is fully activated. That mail is from This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it often you will find it in your spam folder. Make sure that the email address you give is active, the mailbox is not full and you can access it.

Note that multiple registrations are not allowed. If you for some reason you registered more than once, inform PM moderators about it. If and when we detect multiple identities all those accounts will be banned.

Think carefully in choosing a user name which describes you best. Do not use email address as username. Use only western alphabet and numbers.

Lost your password?

You can have the forum software send you a new pass if the old one is lost. Make sure you write down what email you used when registering because that is the mail address to which PaddleBoarding forums will send instructions how to create your new password.

Posting

Paddleboarding.com uses the English language. We all can't speak perfect English (even those who are native English speakers), but with each try we all get more fluent with it. It's not a spelling contest. Firefox browser has a good English spell checker if you feel you need one.We write using western alphabet.

Take care where you post

Paddleboarding.com Community and Forums may be divided into several sub-forums.

Take the time to read the forum descriptions on the front page so that you know what is where. Pay close attention to the larger divisions:

• Paddle Boarding Equipment & Gear Talk- means gear talk'
• 'Sharing Knowhow' section - share paddle boarding knowledge, Paddleboarding community and pro discussion
• 'Photo Sharing' section - places you post photos for others to enjoy
• 'Marketplace' section - selling, buying, services, market discussions
• 'Forum Feedback' section - things related to Paddle boarding forum software and server

When you post, you should take time to post in the correct forum as this will give you the widest and most interested audience for that particular subject. Note that share forums are only for sharing photos and discussing those photos, not technique or gear talk.

Think before you post

Think of Paddleboarding.com Community and Forum as public plaza where everyone can hear what you say and everyone can reply to you. A place where you meet regulars every day and all the strangers know you too even if you don't know all of them yet. Remember:

• do not post when you are angry or under the influence (seriously!).
• respect members (especially newbies) by giving full answers, "do a search" or "rtfm" is banned here.
• personal attacks or harassment are not tolerated at all.
• political and religious discussions are not allowed.
• you must own copyright to all photos you post, or have permission from the author
• image posting rules are important for making Paddle boarding forum more readable to all

Search first! When you think of posting a new question, do a search first to see if that has been already discussed.

When you post, the title of the post is what gets right people in and with a good title you increase your chances of getting replies. Title should be specific and describe the content of the post. Just posting "a question", "help!" or "anyone?" will not get as much as attention and helpful replies as "Best Flat water board", or "Need a paddleboarding lesson in Florida".

Rules

We do have rules. One of the most important is image posting rules in http://paddleboarding.com/forum/showthread.php?18-Image-posting-rules. Signature rules are also important, signature size is limited for readability reasons.

Main rules can be read in http://paddleboarding.com/forum/showthread.php?16-Forum-Rules-of-Use. Read it through. If you behave like you would normally behave with friends, strangers, family and elderly you'll be fine. Respect others!

REPORT IT!

You seldom see any spam in Paddleboarding.co Community and Forums. To fight it we rely on our members, you, to always report (by clicking report.gif ¬) any post that is either:

• spam
• rule violation (too many photos, rude, racist, politics, religious, hate, personal attack and so on).
• in a wrong forum
• you want your post removed
• you see in title spelling errors that matter

Marketing ANYTHING using forums' PM or email system will be considered as spam, and that activity will end very fast into permanent ban for the offending member. Please report those as well.

By reporting you help keeping Paddleboarding community and Forums spam free and flowing well. When you report a post, all mods will see it immediately in their own moderator area, and it will be handled ASAP. Moving posts may not happen if mods do not feel it needs to be moved. Reporting a post is also a quick way to bring some urgent matter to moderator attention.

Thank you for reporting posts!

Spam

Posts deemed as being spam (unsolicited advertisements for products or services) will be deleted immediately. Users that post spam will be banned immediately.

Subscribing to threads

Subscribing to threads can be done in User CP. We recommend that you do not use emailed subscriptions because of the vast amount of data Paddleboarding forums gets every day, this saves our resources. Select "no email notification" inhttp://paddleboarding.com/forum/profile.php?do=editprofile and your subscribed posts will then appear in http://paddleboarding.com/forum/subscription.php?folderid=0 . If you wish to subscribe to threads manually do so by setting "do not subscribe" in User CP options and then using Thread tools.

Searching

We have a very fast search tool. Use it as much as you like! Put all keywords exactly as they should be, in whole. The engine does not have wildcards. So if you seek info on paddle board photos, try

1. paddle board photo
2. carbon paddles
3. carbon fiber paddles
4. sup paddle photos

and so on. Try searching titles first and then posts. If you see a recent thread which has just what you wanted to discuss continue that discussion instead of starting a new one.

Also, check out stickies on each forum. Master Sticky list is available on 'Forum Talk' forum. It is a good way to start, a vast array of information gathered by members.

Common problems

Where did my post go?

If moderators finds your post in the wrong area they will move it to correct one. If you misplace your own posts you see a list of them through your post subscription page.

If your post is deleted this was done for a reason. Think back and you'll know the reason why the post was removed. Sometimes mods move controversial thread to storage before the actual decision of removing or locking is done.

I get an error page when I try to post or reply!

Marketplace and some other areas may have restricted access. Read the stickies on those forums and you'll see how it works.

If you get an error page when reading a thread you have already been to, it is most likely that that thread has been removed from public view.

If there are database errors admin is instantly notified.

The Staff

The Moderator is your friend

Please respect and obey our moderators. They are volunteer workers, active members of Paddle boarding Community and forums, who help maintain Paddleboarding.com. If they ask you to do something or else comment on your behavior just learn from the experience and simply comply. Remember: if you start a fight with a mod, you will always lose. If you are polite and respect the voluntary work mods are doing, you will be treated well even if you blunder. Mods are there to help you.

..but when you are bad the moderator is your jury

Most serious offenders will be banned from the forums, forever or for a specific length of time. Moderators discuss ban decisions together, banning is not done on a whim. Complaints are put to the bottom of bottom drawer. Don't let things come to that, read the rules and oh, behave!

Admins

admins. They have absolute power on everything.

Donations

Servers cost money, Paddleboarding.com is free for all

If you feel Paddleboarding.com Community and Forums and great and should go on and on and on and you have some extra dough in your pocket feel free to donate some for server & bandwidth costs. See this thread for more info:

Have fun with Paddleboarding.co Community and Forums!

The Staff