Registration is not required to view current topics on the Forum; however, if you wish to post a new topic or reply to an existing topic registration is required. Registration is free and only takes a few minutes. The only required fields are your Username, which may be your real name or a nickname, and a valid e-mail address.

The information you provide during registration is not outsourced or used for any advertising by PenSoft Community Forums.

If you believe someone is sending you advertisements as a result of the information you provided through your registration, please notify us immediately.

Moderators control individual forums. They may edit, delete, or prune any posts in their forums. If you have a question about a particular forum, you should direct it to your forum moderator.

These Forums use cookies to store the following information: the last time you logged in, your Username and your Encrypted Password. These cookies are stored on your hard drive. Cookies are not used to track your movement or perform any function other than to enhance your use of these forums. If you have not enabled cookies in your browser, many of these time-saving features will not work properly. Also, you need to have cookies enabled if you want to enter a private forum or post a topic/reply.

You may delete all cookies set by these forums in selecting the "logout" button at the top of any page.

Active Topics are tracked by cookies. When you click on the "active topics" link, a page is generated listing all topics that have been posted since your last visit to these forums (or approximately 20 minutes).

You may edit or delete your own posts at any time. Just go to the topic where the post to be edited or deleted is located and you will see an edit or delete icon (Edit Delete) on the line that begins "posted on..." Click on this icon to edit or delete the post. No one else can edit your post, except for the forum Moderator or the forum Administrator. A note is generated at the bottom of each edited post displaying when and by whom the post was edited.

For security reasons, you may not attach files to any posts. However, you may cut and paste text into your post.

You may search for specific posts based on a word or words found in the posts, user name, date, and particular forum(s). Simply click on the "search" link at the top of most pages.

You may easily change any information stored in your registration profile by using the "profile" link located near the top of each page. Simply identify yourself by typing your Username and Password and all of your profile information will appear on screen. You may edit any information (except your Username).

You may attach signatures to the end of your posts when you post either a New Topic or Reply. Your signature is editable by clicking on "profile" at the top of any forum page and entering your Username and Password.

NOTE: HTML can't be used in Signatures.

The Forum does censor certain words that may be posted; however, this censoring is not an exact science, and is being done based on the words that are being screened, so certain words may be censored out of context. By default, words that are censored are replaced with asterisks.

Changing a lost password is simple, assuming that e-mail features are turned on for this forum. All of the pages that require you to identify yourself with your Username and Password carry a "lost Password" link that you can use to have a code e-mailed instantly to your e-mail address of record that will allow you to create a new password. Because of the Encryption that we use for your password, we cannot tell you what your password is.

Yes, the Subscription feature allows you to subscribe to the entire Board, individual Categories, Forums and/or Topics, depending on what the administrator of this site allows. You will receive an e-mail notifying you of a post that has been made to the Category/Forum/Topic that you have subscribed to. There are four levels of subscription:

- Board Wide Subscription: If you can subscribe to an entire Board, you'll get a notification for any posts made within all the forums inside that board.

- Category Wide Subscription: You can subscribe to an entire Category, which will notify you if there was any posts made within any topic, within any forum, within that Category.

- Forum Wide Subscription: If you don't want to subscribe to an entire Category, you can subscribe to a single forum. This will notify you of any posts made within any topic, within that forum.

- Topic Wide Subscription: More conveniently, you can subscribe to just an individual topic. You will be notified of any post made within that topic.

Each level of subscription is optional. The administrator can turn On/Off each level of subscription for each Category/Forum/Topic. To Subscribe or Unsubscribe from any level of subscription, you can use the "My Subscriptions" link, located near the top of each page to manage your subscriptions. Or you can click on the subscribe/unsubscribe icons (Subscribe UnSubscribe) for that Category/Forum/Topic you want to subscribe/unsubscribe to/from.

Moderation: This feature allows the Administrator or the Moderator to "Approve", "Hold" or "Delete" a users post before it is shown to the public.

Approve: Only the administrators or the moderators will be able to approve a post made to a moderated forum. When the post is approved, it will be made viewable to the public.

Hold: When a user posts a message to a moderated forum, the message is automatically put on hold until a moderator or an administrator approves of the post. No one will be able to view the post while it is put on hold.
NOTE: Authors of the post will be able to edit their post during this mode.

Delete: If the administrator or moderator chooses this option, the post will be deleted and an e-mail will be sent to the poster of the message, informing them that their post was not approved. The administrator/moderator will be able to give their reason for not approving the post in the e-mail.

The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act and Rule apply to individually identifiable information about a child that is collected online, such as full name, home address, e-mail address, telephone number or any other information that would allow someone to identify or contact the child. The Act and Rule also cover other types of information -- for example, hobbies, interests and information collected through cookies or other types of tracking mechanisms -- when they are tied to individually identifiable information. More information can be found here.

The most recent version of this Snitz Forum can be downloaded at this Internet web site.