Whoa! What happened to the old website?
It’s still all here. We’ve just re-formatted the old and added some new. For the first time we have a search engine, and we’ve added a page where all our favourite RSS feeds from round the web are compiled into one tasty package. Ooh, and there’s blogging for all.

Really? What’s the point of that?
You know how you used to comment on Hepworth or Harrison’s rants? Well, now you can lead the conversation. Want to ask other Word readers a question? Then you can. Spotted some vintage footage on YouTube you’d like to share? We’d love to see it.

Sounds good. How does it work?
It’s easy. Once you’re registered, you login and click on the ‘Create Content’ link in the first of the two right-hand columns. From here you can start writing your own blog. Anything you write will appear on your own blog page, and on the main community page at www.wordmagazine.co.uk/blog (alongside everyone else’s entries), while the very best will also be promoted to the Word Magazine homepage.

So why do I have to register?
It’s nothing sinister, honest. If you’re registered we can keep all your contributions in one place, making it easier for other readers to find you and for you to let others know what you’re doing. It also means that you don’t need to input your username and e-mail address every time you want to have something to say. And we're going to start a weekly newsletter which we trust you'll appreciate.

I've registered, but my confirmation e-mail hasn't arrived.
It's likely to have been caught up in a junk mail filter somewhere between leaving us and getting to you. This is especially an issue with some of the larger ISPs (Tiscali and AOL, we're talking about you). So check your spam settings, or try a different e-mail address. If you still don't have any luck, get in touch and we'll sort it out.

Do I need to know geeky code stuff?
Not at all. Links are turned into clickable things automatically, and you can embed YouTube videos using the code they give you.

Is this Web 2.0?
We're not really sure what that means either, but we do have various rss feeds you can subscribe to. Also, you'll see there a few little images at the foot of each post, so we should probably tell you what they mean. In most cases you'll need accounts at the websites the icons link to to use these features:

Clicking this will bookmark the page if you have an account with del.icio.us
Clicking this will post this story to the Digg website
Submit the post to the Reddit website
Share this link on Facebook
Add this link to your iGoogle homepage
Add this link to MyYahoo
Search for other websites referencing this post via Technorati

Are there any posting guidelines?
Only a few - we trust you.

People who ignore these guidelines run the risk of having posts removed and, after repeated instances, their accounts blocked.

Can I use my blog to plug my new record/book/podcast/website etc.?
To be honest, we’d rather you didn’t. This isn’t because we don’t like your new record/book/podcast etc., but because we don’t want the site to become cluttered with people using it for self-promotion, and it’s easiest to have a rule that we can apply across the board rather than judging everything on a case-by-case basis. We want you to use your blog to contribute to The Word.

So it’s against the rules to link to your own site, or to a site that you contribute to substantially, or have a financial interest in, or to one owned by a friend or family member. People who do this run the risk of having the posts removed, and in extreme instances, their accounts banned. If you want to advertise on the site, please contact us.

Are there any exceptions to this?
Yes. It’s OK to self-link in response to a post by another Word reader, but only if it's relevant to the original post.

How do I add an image to my post?
You need somewhere to host the images yourself. Lots of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) give you some web space as part of the deal, so that's worth checking out. The other option is to find somebody on the web willing to host your pictures for free. There are a few options out there, including http://photobucket.com/, http://groups.msn.com/ and http://www.imageshack.us/

Once you've uploaded your image to the site you've selected, you need to get the URL (address) of the file. It will look something like http://www.foo.com/image.jpg. Some services will automatically generate the code you need to copy to embed the image on another site, but if not, it's easy to get it yourself:

PC:

Mac:

Now just add the address of the image into the field where you write your post or comment on the Word site. You will need to surround the address of the image with a little bit of HTML code, like this:

<img src="http://www.foo.com/image.jpg">

Use the preview button to make sure your image has appeared and looks OK.

Remember:

You mean that’s it?
Yes. Simple, isn’t it? It’s likely that we’ll be making changes to this page as time passes and we learn more about how things work and what you want, however, so it’s worth checking back from time to time.

Hold on a sec, you haven't answered my question!
You can reach us via the contact page if you have another query or have a bug to report.