SquidU's Lensmaster Lounge: Help for New Squids

Post your messages in the right sub-forum, and please don't spam by posting the same message in multiple forums! But where should you post?

The forums in SquidU get rearranged now and then, so please READ the descriptions of each forum on the main forum index, to make sure the guide below is current.

But as of January 2011, here's a list of all the sub-forums of SquidU.

SHARE YOUR LENSES HERE

• Critique Me... Post LENSES that you want feedback on and help in improving.
• Lens Spotlight Post LENSES here that you just want to tell people about. You may advertise your own or share a great one you've found!
  
• Unless we have a really good reason, we don't usually post lenses in the other forums; people tend to respond to link drops as spam. But you can feature some of your best lenses in your signature (here's how)!

GET HELP AND LEARN SQUIDOO

• Besides the Critique Me... forum, there is also...
  
• Help, Please ASK FOR HELP here! Other members will do their best to help you.
• Tricks of the Trade is where experienced Squidoo members share tips and techniques that help them succeed!
• Shopkeeper Talk A lot of our members use Squidoo to help promote their shops on eBay, Zazzle, Cafepress, etc. This is where they hang out, troubleshoot and share tips!
• Get Cracking! is a series of challenges designed to help you improve your Squidoo lenses and become more successful. They give tips and feedback.

CHATTING WITH FELLOW MEMBERS

• New? Introduce Yourself Say hi!
  
• The Chatter Box. Chitchat with Squidoo members about Squidoo-related stuff. Tip: Don't advertise lenses here. And use the HELP forum to ask for help!
  
• Squids Gone Wild. Chitchat with Squidoo members about NON Squidoo stuff!

OFFICIAL SQUIDOO FORUMS

• Squidoo's staff is tiny, so they don't spend much time in SquidU: it's for us, not them. However, they've got a few official forums:
  
• Kimberly's Morning Coffee is an almost-daily newsletter by Squidoo outreach officer Kimberly! She tells us what's cooking and gives tips and advice.
  
• Official SquidTeam Announcements Changes and upgrades to Squidoo, new policies, and occasionally official monster quests get announced here.
  
• So You Want to Be a Giant Squid? is the forum for the Giant Squid program, a program with perks for experienced Squidoo members who have proved they know how to make good lenses!
• Your SquidCruise is a tour of different categories of Squidoo lenses by Squidoo employee Kimberly, highlighting best practices and good ideas for Squidoo lenses.
  
  

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First things first: set up your profile.

1. Go to the Lounge. Click the Login tab, if it says at upper left that you're not logged into the forum.
   
   
2. Once you're logged in, you should see four tabs (pictured). Click the Profile tab.
   
   
   1. To add a small graphic that appears next to your posts: Choose "Personality" from the lefthand menu, then "Upload Avatar". Then browse your computer for a graphic to upload. Your avatar (icon) may be up to 60x60 pixels and no larger than 10K.
      
   2. While in the "Personality" menu, you may want to add a signature, text that appears beneath all your posts. Many folks include links to their best lenses. See below for how to do links, including links to your lenses!
      
   3. Browse the other options in your Profile to see if there's anything else you want to set up. You can come back later, of course!
3. Click the "Index" tab near the top of the page to get back to the Forums. READ THE RULES at the top. There's only a few, but breaking them could get you banned!


4. Now, you'll probably want to Introduce Yourself if you haven't already, or go to the Critique Me... sub-forum to get feedback on a lens you've made. (The "Post New Topic" button is at the far right above a sub-forum).

Squidoo member USVIA suggests that specific, original titles like "Comic book collector greets the SuperSquids!" will help your thread get read, since all the "Hi, I'm new!" threads start blurring together.

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BBCode, short for Bulletin Board Code, is a set of codes in brackets [] that let you add links, images, and formatting to your posts on discussion forums. Many online forums use BBCode instead of HTML, because certain mistakes in HTML can screw up the rest of a page.

Here's the most useful BBCodes:

To Make Links

[url]http://www.squidoo.com/mylens[/url]   makes   http://www.squidoo.com/mylens

[url=http://www.squidoo.com/mylens]Click this link[/url]   makes   Click this link

To Make Bold or Italic Text

[b]This text will be bold[/b]     [i]This text will be italic[/i]

To Make Smilies

They're silly, but they help make up for the fact that you can't tell tone of voice from text. For example, ;) makes .

Below the reply box at the bottom of each thread, there's a "Smilies" link to the complete list of smilies.

There's a few other codes available. At the bottom of each thread, below the reply box, there's a "BBCode" link that will give you...

the complete list of BBCodes.

Note: BBCode work in Discussion forums ONLY! Your own lenses use HTML.

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To Show a Picture in SquidU

If you want to show a graphic in SquidU forums, you need to use BBCode, not HTML.

1. Upload the image somewhere like Flickr (where you'll need to set it Creative Commons), Photobucket, or your own website.
2. Make a note of the images's URL.
3. When writing a SquidU post, use this code, replacing the example URL with yours: [img]http://www.someplace.com/urlofimage.jpg[/img]

Here's a tutorial if you want to upload images on a Squidoo lens.

Colored Text

To change the color of text in the forums, do this:

[color=green]This text is green[/color] makes This text is green.

Most simple color words work. You can also use color codes:

[color=#70a]This text is color #70a.[/color] makes This text is color #70a.

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You may notice that some people have titles under their names like "Landlubber" or "Got Yer Sea Legs". These are just for fun! Titles change depending on how many posts you've made. ("Mesonychoteuthis" is Greek for "Colossal Squid" by the way.)

In the past, there were more special titles like Moderators/Mods, in charge of keeping order in the forum; Squid Staff, official employees of Squidoo; and Citizen Squids, a rotating thinktank of experienced lensmasters chosen by the Squidoo Team. At the moment, I don't think we have any moderators or citizen squids, but we DO have Bonnie and Robin, members who were promoted to semi-official status as Giant Squids Organizers. See The Giant Squids (and how to become one) for more information about this Giant Squid thing.

For a who's who of the Squidoo Staff, see Official Squidoo Team Bios.

They don't have special forum titles, but there are also Squidoo Angels, an ever-changing core of volunteer members whose blessings to your lens will give it a small lensrank boost. Be careful! For quality purposes, they can't bless a lens that's sloppy and doesn't meet their standards... they might even ding it!

The Squidoo Angels program changes from time to time in how they recruit new members, so just ask in the Chatter Box or Help Forum if you want to know more.

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