Welcome Message to New Members

<p>Welcome to the new and improved Cocklebur at www.thecocklebur.net!<br /><br />We hope you like our new digs. I think you'll agree that our improved technology platform will improve the quality of our community and our talk. If you want to read more about the new features available, you can read about them under FAQs.</p><p>The high fives:&nbsp;</p><p>No. 1 If you had an account at the old Cocklebur, the

easiest way to log in is to use your email address

and your password.&nbsp;Your pen name has been retained, but it may have been slightly modified: In cases where your username had spaces, they have been replaced by dashes. If you had caps in your username, they have been lowercases and if there were weird characters, well, something's happen to it.</p><p>No. 2 Please take the time to

fill out your profiles and add your avatars

. It's one of the more fun things you can do to brighten up this clean, minimalist interface that tries not to draw to much attention to itself.&nbsp;Many of us know each other here, so add a name to a face whydontcha?</p><p>No. 3 Please do your best to

add&nbsp;your topics to the right categories

so that we maintain an orderly environment. You'll find this particularly helpful if you subscribe to a topic-based RSS feed. Also

do your best to add tags to your posts

so that we might be more likely to find it when we're interested in doing some research about a person or place that may have been discussed here!</p><p>No. 4 Please&nbsp;make sure that you aren't afraid to

take advantage of the community moderation feature, thumbs up, thumbs down

,&nbsp;that allows you&nbsp;disappear a&nbsp;post that crosses the line, even for an adult environment like TheCocklebur. Also

use the notifications feature

so you can more easily stay on top of what's said.</p><p>No, 5 If&nbsp;you know someone who really needs to be&nbsp;here, just go ahead and

invite your friends

using the widget at the top left of your screen!</p><p>Finally, thanks to the&nbsp;wonderful people at Lefora, especially&nbsp;Vinnie, aka the chief, and Andrew, who did the spade work&nbsp;writing the scripts to import our&nbsp;old forum to this new&nbsp;platform. They're a San Francisco start-up with smart, visionary&nbsp;people&nbsp;who hope to revolutionize the way the Internet's oldest community spaces work. They love feedback, so drop em a line here:

chief@lefora.com

</p>