New member restrictions

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

All new members are restricted as to what they can do on the site.
Initially these restrictions include (but are not restricted to)

• not being able to post hyperlinks,
• not being able to set the home page web address
• not being able to set up a signature.
• not being able to use the Recipe & Video prefix
• and not being able to see certain areas of the forum.

These restrictions are in place because of a number of new members who are here only to try to advertise (anything from their own food blog, to someone else's blog, to their YouTube channel or similar) or to simply fill the board with spam, (no, not the canned pork variety but the electronic variety including but not restricted to fake passports, driving licenses and so on). Needless to say, we are not interested in people who are here only to advertise their blogs or YouTube channel, rather than actually participate in the forum. Those that do participate in the forum will find that we are quite happy to allow you to advertise your YouTube channel or food blog within clearly defined areas of the board.

To deal with these issues, new members are not allowed to post external hyperlinks until they have met specific criteria. One of those is that you have to have been a member for a certain time period and another is that you have to have made a certain number of approved posts.

If you need to post a genuine link to provide a citation for a recipe, please use upload your recipe(s) as normal (guidelines can be found here) and then use the report button to request that the link is put in for.

Initially, you will also not be able to post links to YouTube video recipes either. Upload your written recipe as before, and then simply use the report button to request the hyperlink to the recipe is added for you.