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Community
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Frequently Asked Questions

Must I register to use Community?
 Whilst some areas can be accessed without registering, many features of this site are only available to those who are registered with a valid email address. To become a part of our community, click Register and complete the form.

How do I log in?
  • Click Log in.
  • Enter your name and password. (Remember: these are case-sensitive).
  • Tick the box next Automatically log me in, if you want to be logged in next time you visit. (Note: You must have cookies enabled to use this feature.)
What should I do if I forget my password?
  • Click Login.
  • Click I forgot my password, and follow the instructions in the email that will be sent to your registered email address

How do I register?
 To register, go to the registration page, and follow these steps:
  • Enter your contact and personal information. Your contact information includes your name, address, and phone number. Personal information includes your date of birth to verify that you are at least 18 years of age.
  • Enter your email address. You need to enter a working email address that you can check immediately, because weíll send you an email with instructions to complete your registration. Weíll also use this email address to notify you when you've won an item, and to share shipping and payment information with other buyers and sellers.
    Learn more about providing identification for registration.
  • Read and accept our User Agreement and Privacy Policy. You must accept the agreement to continue registering. Learn more about our User Agreement and Privacy Policy.
  • Choose a user ID, password, and secret question. Youíll use your user ID and password every time you sign in to any eBay site. Learn more about choosing a user ID and get tips on creating a secure password. Your secret question helps us identify you in case you forget your password and ask us to help you reset it.
  • Check your email. Youíll receive a registration email from us. Follow the instructions in the email to confirm your registration and complete the registration process.
What is My Content?
My Content is a drop down link located at bottom right nav bar. It is only visible when a member is logged in to the Community. This section organizes all of the user's Community activities from Subscriptions, Messages, Groups, and Preferences.

What are Discussion Boards?
Discussion Boards allow members to share ideas, opinions and information quickly and easily. Your community has standards of behavior and conduct and you should familiarize yourself with them before posting any thread.

Information in Discussion Boards are organized using a folder structure:

  • Discussion Boards: Each board will list the topics available for discussion.
  • Topics: These show the various discussions taking place. It consists of one or more posts displayed either as a list or in a folder structure of posts and their replies.
  • Posts: Individual contributions made by community members.
  • Replies: Responses made to posts.
How do I create a topic or post a reply?
To start a new topic:
  • Select your forum and click New Topic, and complete the details
  • Insert the name of your topic in the subject line and type your comment or query in the message box.
  • Check your text by clicking Spell Check.
  • Click Preview to see how your post will appear when published, or click Post.
To post a reply:
  • Click Reply which can be found on the post you are responding to.
  • Click Quote Original, if you want to respond to specific text from the original post. This will add the original post to your response.
  • Check your text by clicking Spell Check.
  • Click Preview to see how your post will appear when published, or click Post.
How do I include a link within my post?
To include a link within a post:
  • Type a message, and then highlight the text that you would like to link.
  • Once text is selected, click on the link image icon located at the top row, second to the last image.
  • A window will appear, follow the steps required, and click "Insert" button to ensure the link is set.
Follow the same steps to make changes to existing links contained within the text.

How do I include an image within my post?
To include an image to your post, this must be done through an attachment by using one GUI editor short cuts available. Click on the paperclip image icon at the top of the post form, and upload any image from your computer to the post form. Follow the instructions outlined on the pop-up window, and click the "Add" button to submit your request. The image will display in the form of an attachment to your post.

How do I reply with quote?
To quote the post you are replying to, click the quotation mark image icon on the post form. Once selected, the post form will refresh, and display the content you've selected to quote at the top of the input field. Move the cursor to the end of the quoted text and type your message. Once submitted, the quoted content will be visible at the beginning of the reply.

How is content organized?
Content is structured as follows:

  • Categories: A category is a collection of boards or other categories. Categories organize boards into a tree structure so that members can find discussions more easily. An example of a Category is "Community Help Boards."
  • Boards: Boards are the areas where individual discussions take place as a listing of topics. An example of a discussion board is "About Me Pages."
  • Topics: Topics (also known as "threads") are the discussions, consisting of one or more posts displayed as a list, or in a tree structure of posts and their replies.
  • Posts: Posts are the individual discussion contributions made by community members.
  • Replies: Replies are posts made in response to other posts.
    Additionally, here is a legend of icons used on the Community:
      A topic that has been Tacked to the top of the board
      A topic that has been posted to by eBay Staff member
      A topic that is New to you.
    A topic that has been Updated since your last visit.
      A Locked topic/post that is read only
      Info icon, most often seen after you have selected to Subscribe to a content.
    RSS Subscription.

How can I format the text of my post and replies?
The new post form provides different options to style your post.
  • To format text (bold, italics, underline, etc.), use the format buttons in the posting view. Type your message and highlight the word(s) you want to format and click the appropriate button. Small bits of code indicate the formatting, such as in this example: "This is [b]bold[/b] text, and this is [i]italicized[/i] text" text" will appear as "This is bold text, and this is italicized text" in your post.
  • To insert Smiley faces (emoticons), first click the smile icon and then select from the options available.
  • For content alignment of your post, you can select one of four options available : Justified, Right, Left, or Centered.
  • Click on the ABC-check icon button to run a spelling check of your post.
  • If you opt to enter a URL in the body of a post, select and highlight a word in which you want to make linkable, then click on the link icon. A new window will open with instructions to enter appropriate information such as your preference of how the page will be displayed, and a brief description of the link when others hover over the linkable word. Once all the information is entered, click on Insert and the link will show up on your post.
  • To insert an image into a post, click on the paperclip icon on the post form, you can select from the options listed along with the alignment option in which the image will be displayed within your post.


What is a profile?
Profiles allow members to share information about themselves with their community. This can include photo albums, videos and posts in Discussion Boards. To access your profile, go to My Content and click Profile. If you entered your Skype screen name, your online status may also be displayed on your profile.

What is the profiles list?
The profiles list is a central place where members can find the public profiles of other members in the community. If youíd like your profile to be private, click Hide (next to 'List me in the directory').

What are eBay Groups?
eBay Groups allows you to connect with other eBay members who share common interests, and to create your own eBay-related group. Upload and share images with group members or note special events using group calendars. Each member-led group includes other members, friends, family, classmates, hobbyists and business associates, who meet in online boards or face to face to chat and exchange ideas.

What are My Community Messages?
Community members can send and receive private emails between themselves. My Community Messages allow you to easily track it in various folders: Inbox, Sent, Drafts, Trash and any others you create. You can also keep an address book of your friends from the community.

How do I send a message?
  • Go to My Community Messages and click Compose Message.
  • Type the member's nickname in the 'To' box, enter your subject, type your message in the large text box and click Send. Or, go to the member's profile and click Send Message to Member, which takes you to the Compose Message page with the member's nickname already in the 'To' field. Fill out the rest as noted earlier in this paragraph.

How do I know if I have any messages?
When you have a new message, a small envelope with a starburst icon appears next to Community Messages. If you have no new messages, you won't see this icon.

What is the eBay Answer Centre?
You can get quick help from other eBay members by using the eBay Answer Centre. Designed for fast questions and answers rather than discussion, the Answer Centre is a member-to-member forum where eBay members can ask questions, give or receive answers and share information about eBay.

There are a lot of different topic areas within the Answer Centre, so choose the one that best fits the question you have.

Anyone can browse the eBay Answer Centre to read questions and answers; however, to post a new question or reply to an existing one you must be a registered eBay member.

Before posting, please read the eBay Board Usage Policy.

How do I set my profile and view other member profiles?
To create or update your profile, click My Preferences. Your profile, privacy settings, signature line, display preferences, avatars and subscription settings are set from here. To edit settings, fill in your updated information and click Save.

To view the profiles of members who have posted in the community, click their member names wherever you see them as links. You can also use the search feature to locate their member names. You can elect to "ignore" a member's posts by clicking Ignore Member in the member's profile or in the member information area of any post the person has authored.

How do I search the community?

  • Click Search and type your term into the search box
  • Select what you'd like to search from the Content drop-down menu and click Go. You can also search by member name and date ranges.
What does 'subscribe' mean?
 A subscription will notify you via email when content that interests you has been updated. Similarly, you can subscribe to any content that has been added by a specific member.

To add an item to your subscriptions list, click Subscribe at the top of the page. Click Unsubscribe to end the subscription (and cancel the email notifications you have set). After 30 days, inactive subscriptions automatically expire (unless you elect to cancel the expiration in your subscriptions list in your Preferences).

To see your current list of subscriptions, click My Subscriptions. Click My Preferences to change or update how often your receive email notification on each of your subscriptions.

What does 'Email to Friend' do?
This allows you to send a live link to a friend. Click Email to Friend and enter the information requested.

How do I format and check the text of my posts, replies and comments?
To format text (bold, italics, underline, etc.), you can use the format buttons in the posting view. Type your message, highlight the word(s) you want formatted and click the appropriate button. You will see code indicating the formatting, eg. "This is [b]bold[/b] text, and this is [i]italicized[/i] text" text" will appear as "This is bold text, and this is italicized text" in your post. To insert a smiley face, first click the smiley button and then the expression you want to use. Click Spell Check to check your text for spelling errors.

What are Earned points and Awarded points??
Every post receives a set number of points. The author has discretion to award part of all of those assigned points to other members whose responses were helpful in answering the author's question.

What are RSS feeds?
Click the RSS link on any page to copy the code required to update new posts to your RSS reader software.


Answer Centre

  • How do I ask a new question? To ask a new question you simply click on the "Ask a New Question" button and fill out the title and description of your question. You must be logged in to submit new questions.
  • How are questions organized? Questions are organized into different topics. Each topic represents a meaningful grouping of questions for a given subject. Questions are are also organized by its answered status. You can browse answered questions and unanswered questions. You can also sort the list of questions by their answers most useful ranking, most recently asked and oldest questions.
  • How can I answer other questions? If you are able to answer a question you may do so by clicking the "Answer" link above any question.
  • What does the badge below my name mean? If contribution points are enabled, each user may earn new badges for when answering questions within the community. Each badge is award when you earn a set threshold of contribution points.
  • What are contribution points? As you answer questions within the community you earn contribution points. If others find your answer useful, or if the author of the question determines your answer resolves the question you also earn bonus contribution points.
  • How do I become a Top Member? The top member board lists who within the community has earned the most contribution points. To become a top member you need to provide relevant answers to unanswered questions.
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