WIP: Comprehensive New Member Page

This is very unfinished. Anyone who wants to chip in, please, don't hesitate. -The captain

Welcome, new member, to the Zombie Preparedness Initiative! At this site you'll find an open forum in which to freely discuss ideas about surviving the possible, or as some would say, inevitable, zombie apocalypse. However, there's a few things you need to know before jumping right into the forums.

First, make sure you're familiar with the site's rules. You can follow the link for the full page, but at the very least, know the following(Click each item to expand for more information):

1. Be Respectful

   Flaming, hazing, etc. is unnecessary and will quickly put you in an unfavorable position with the site.

2. Be Smart.

   If you don't take a second to proofread your posts for proper spelling and grammar, no one will take your posts seriously, and will likely ignore your posts instead of answering them.

   In dealing with "foul language", our site rules have this to say:
   

   Site Rules wrote:

   ANY AND ALL CURSING might just be considered unnecessary. Even words like damn, hell, etc. should be limited as they are words that create emphasis when used properly, but become distasteful if used too freely. Use of leet-speak or AIM-speak or signing of your posts will bring about the wrath of the admins and, when used too freely, makes the poster susceptible to banning. Finally, any activities that the moderators or admins deem to be disruptive or would break any of the aforementioned rules purposefully will earn that person an immediate ban.

   
   In short: Curse words will slip here and there without much notice; this is a forum and we all tend to speak colloquially from time to time. But, constant use causes a user to not only look like a child without a greater vocabulary, but the moderators will be forced to take action in the form of editing your posts and possibly issuing bans if the behavior continues after warnings have been given. If you think you may be going over the top, stay on the safe side and edit your post a little.

   In summary: This is a forum of survivalists. While we all have varying degrees in which we believe in the idea of a zombie apocalypse, we all do take the idea of survival seriously. Therefore, we take the discussions on our forums seriously - aside from the humor and general chit-chat sections, of course. If you expect to post a serious topic, give it serious thought first. More guidelines on posting will be given later on.

3. Don't argue with site staff

   If you have a legitimate concern or issue, you may speak to that staff member, or another staff member, but do so in a kind and calm manner.

4. Avoid Forbidden/Distasteful Topics.

   The following topics are outright not allowed at ZPI:

   • Suggesting killing of humans
   • Instructions on creation of explosive or chemical devices
   • Instructions on creation of weapons designed to injure or kill humans

   In addition, the following topics should be avoided as they will likely be immediately locked anyway:

   • Attacking zombies with fire
   • Eating zombies
   • Sexual relations with zombies
   • Debating the perfect anything...
   • Political/Religious rants

There are a number of other topics we've seen a thousand times. Avoid creating new posts about these topics as there are already existing threads about them. In fact, using our search function before posting anything will help to avoid repeat posts of all kinds. ZPI prefers to keep our information in pre-existing threads if they have been already made. You will not be demonized for digging up old threads; we encourage new ideas on old threads.

• The "best" weapon: Simply put, there is no best weapon. The best for you is what you are most proficient with, which will also depend on the situation you are currently in.
• "Zombies can only...": Do not assume any behaviors, characteristics, or any other traits of zombies to be the only possibility; zombies do not exist yet and we therefore cannot know how they will behave. It is therefore best not to plan around speculation of what a zombie is, but to prepare oneself to the best of their ability. "Hope for the best, plan for the worst".

Above you see just about everything not to do at ZPI. So what should you do?

• Thumb through the Elite Posts and Fail Posts. This will allow you to get a good grip of our very best and our very worst.

Proper Posting

• Pleasing Aesthetics

  A post with quality content should also look good. Along with the standard proper spelling and grammar, posts should also be formatted well. Good formatting includes the following:

  • Use paragraphs: Eyes need "blank space" in order to properly focus while reading. Double spacing between paragraphs(hitting enter twice after a paragraph) does a considerable amount to ease eye strain. Likewise, condense your thoughts into appropriately sized paragraphs. More than 10-15 lines of a paragraph is a bit too much.
  • Appropriately sized pictures: Width of 800 pixels max. Any larger and there's a horizontal scroll.
  • Formatted headings: Headings should be coordinated with size according to importance, but don't oversize the text.
  • Avoid the use of color as it tends to be flashy instead of helpful.

• Quality Content

  The best posts come from the best ideas. That said, ideas must be refined and articulated properly before being tossed into a thread. Time must be taken to organize one's thoughts, and if necessary, conduct research on the topic. Of course, if there's enough to say about a topic, there's also the possibility of submitting an article.

Comments
Comments need no special formatting, but comments should always be constructive. "First" or "lol" are not sufficient comments and will be deleted. Commenting on a post to tell a user that their topic "has already been done" is not helpful in any way. If this is the case, search for said topic and link the original poster to it. Comments about "this is going to get locked" only serve to keep the topic at the top of the recent posts list; just leave the topic alone, and let a moderator or forum manager handle it. As a golden rule: if you don't have anything useful to add, don't comment.

Articles
Articles are the best of the best on ZPI; upon submitting an article, it is left unpublished until going through an editorial process. Articles should be written as though they were school reports; submitted articles of substandard quality are rejected and deleted from the content queue. For more information about how an article should be written, see the Guidelines for Authoring Articles. For more information about the editorial process, see the Guidelines for Editors.