GENERAL SITE ANSWERS

TideFans.com
TideFans.com is a website developed and run by Brett Young (UA C&BA '93) with tremendous and amazing volunteer assistance nad involvement by other Bama fans. 

The site originally existed as BamaNation.com (started in Fall 1997) but has grown to include all types of things 'Bama'.  Articles, newsletters, message boards, recruiting, and anything else you can think of.  To read our Mission & Purpose Statements, click here.  The site currently has over 5,100 registered members, 3,500 newsletter subscribers, and receives up to 80,000 hits per day.

Site Owners & Administrators
TideFans.com is owned by BamaNation Partners, LLC.  BNPLLC is owned by Brett Young (BamaNation).  Brett is a 1993 C&BA graduate of The University of Alabama and was active in the Greater NY Chapter of the National Alumni Association when he lived in NYC.   He has just moved from London, England to Atlanta, GA and maintains close connections with many alumni and administration in Tuscaloosa.

Jess Nicholas (JessN), the site's managing editor and main contributor, is a 1996 Alabama graduate.  He puts together a variety of weekly and special reports based on his observations of the team.  He is currently the Managing Editor of a newspaper in northeast Alabama.

Terry Pellman (a96grad) is an Alabama graduate living in the Carolinas and provides much needed assistance and maintance on all the forums, suggestions, and the like.  He's been a great addition to the team.

Jim Morris (bamajim) is a 1994 Alabama Sports Management graduate who lives in north Alabama.  Jim was once an editor of a newspaper in north Alabama and also edited the TideFans site, but is now doing important government work.

FREE @TideFans.com Email
TideFans.com now offers FREE email address with 6mb of storage space and up to 3 attachments on each email!!!!  For more information, click here FREE e-mail address!

FREE YourSite.TideFans.com Webspace
In additon to the free email address, you can get your own 20mb of free webspace to do whatever you want to do.  Be your own webmaster, show off your kids or grandkids, display your writing talents or show your love for Alabama...And most of the work is done for you already! For More information, click here: http://signup.tidefans.com

Notification
TideFans.com tries to remain as current and correct as possible with all its content.   However, we occasionally may forget to change a schedule, or update an event.   If that occurs, please let us know ASAP:  admin@TideFans.com.

I want to make a contribution to help suppot keeping the site online & free for everyone!

Make a Contribution: Help   Any help is much appreciated!

Advertisements

TideFans.com is a totally FREE website.  We must pay significant monthly fees to our web providers for the space and bandwidth we use.  To cover those costs and to allow us to provide innovative, creative, and fun content and occasional prizes, we use various advertising methods.  We need to maintain a 0.40% click thru rate each month.   This means that for every 400 pages that are viewed on the site, we need to click on at least 1 ad.  If we don't meet this target, advertisers will look elsewhere...in effect, cutting us off. 

We want to keep the site operating as a self-sufficient site without losing money on it.  We believe we provide the best site for the fan anywhere on the net.  Sure, other sites may have a full time staff, but do they provide the sense of civility and community that TideFans.com provides?  We think not...especially for FREE! 

IF YOU HAVE PROBLEMS CLICKING THRU
If you have a problem clicking thru on an ad, please click on a link, then .   For some unknown reason, if you press the BACK or FORWARD button on your browser then click on ad, you'll probably receive an error.

So, in summary, advertisers pay our advertising company (and ultimately us) to show their ads on our site.  We provide a small space at the top of the screen for the ads to do that.   

Current Click Thru Rate

We post the current click thru rate daily here:
DAILY CLICK THRU RATE

How the click-thru rate is calculated

A Unique Click means the number of times, as recorded by the server, a person visiting [TideFans.com], as identified by cookie or IP address, clicks on an ad, provided however, that a click on a specific ad by a particular visitor shall only be counted as a Unique Click once every 24-hour period.

As for the other ads - (Bama Gear Fan Shop, Amazon.com books, TideFans.com Logo Store, etc) - these ads provide much needed supplemental support to TideFans. For example, if you're going to buy a book online, please search for it via the amazon box on the right. This helps by giving us a small percentage of the purchase price.

PLEASE do your part and click on 3 or 4 banner ads each time you visit the site. The few seconds it takes to do this are the only costs to you for getting everything you get on TideFans.com. And I think that's a pretty good & fair price when compared to some of the other sites out there.

THANKS IN ADVANCE FOR YOUR SUPPORT OF TIDEFANS!!!

Writing for TideFans
TideFans.com is a totally free website.  We don't pay anyone to write for the site.  Those who do provide articles do so because they enjoy sharing their ideas and talents with the rest of the BamaNation.  If you would like to write an occasional (or even frequent) article for TideFans.com or Alabama Weekly, please send us a sample to admin@tidefans.com

Privacy Policy

TideFans is deeply committed to protecting the privacy of its users.

All information that you provide to us about yourself will be kept strictly private. You can read the entire Privacy Policy.

If you have any questions about this policy, don't hesitate to email us.  Again, ALL info remains confidential.

MESSAGE BOARD ANSWERS

Registering
Registration may be required if you plan to post new topics or reply to existing topics (depending on the particular forum you are using). Registration is free, and you are not required to post your real name. You are required to post your actual email address, however. To Register, click here.

Message Board Member Status
The ONLY difference between Member and BamaNation Citizen status on the Message Boards is that Citizens have posted more than 13 times.  This is a quick indicator as to how frequent a poster posts.  Anyone with Citizen status is expected to understand and follow all of our guidelines and is usually considered a fairly trustworthy poster.   We do retain the right, as always, to remove and lockout anyone from the site.   It's only happend once, though, because of the way our Citizens regulate themselves.  This is pretty much a TRUE democracy! 

A Moderator or Administrator is a member of our voluntary team at TideFans who monitors the board frequently and has dictator status on the boards.  What they say goes and should be considered as an official TideFans statement unless otherwise indicated by Brett (BamaNation) or Jess (JessN).   If you have a problem with a member, citizen, or moderator, please let us know immediately!!

So, if you're only a Member, keep posting and make the coveted Citizen status today !!!

Smilies
You've probably seen others use smilies before in email messages or other bulletin board posts. Smilies are keyboard characters used to convey an emotion, such as a smile :) or a frown :(. This bulletin board automatically converts certain smilies to a graphical representation. For example, if you type :o in your BB post, it will automatically be converted to - a shameful face. Click here to see which smilies are currently supported: smilies legend.

Using HTML and/or UBB Code
You may be able to use HTML and/or UBB Code in your posts, if your administrators and moderators have those options turned on for each forum. Some forums may have either HTML or UBB Code turned off, or both turned off. Only your bulletin board's leaders can set this. Every time you post a new note, you will be told whether UBB Code and/or HTML is enabled for that particular forum.

If HTML is on, you may use any HTML tags, but please be very careful that you use proper HTML syntax. If you do not, your moderator or administrator may have to edit your post. UBB Code is similar to HTML, but offers just a few basic functions, such as hyperlinking, image display, bolding and italicizing. A complete list of current UBB Codes are listed here.

Moderators
Moderators control individual forums. They can 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.

Changing Your Profile
You may easily change any info stored in your registration profile, 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 change any items, except your username. To change your profile, click here.

Customizing User Preferences
As a registered bulletin board user, you may store your username and password in memory for up to one year at a time. This will prevent you from having to type your user name and password every time you post a note. You also have the option of changing the default number of days back to view topics. Just click on the "prefs" link and you can make either of these settings. To customize your user preference, click here.

Cookies
This bulletin board uses cookies to store the following information: the last time you logged in, your username and password, and your preferred "topic view", if you set it in preferences. These cookies are stored on your browser. Cookies are not used to track your movement or perform any function other than to enhance your use of the bulletin board. If your browser does not support cookies, or you have not enabled cookies on your browser, many of these time-saving features will not work properly. Also, you need to have cookies enabled in your browser if you want to enter a private forum.

You may delete all cookies set in this forum by visiting the "preferences" area of the forum and selecting the "delete cookies" link.

For more information on our privacy policy, click here.

Editing Your Posts
You may edit or delete your own posts at any time. Just go to the topic where the post to be edited is located and you will see an edit icon 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 bulletin board administrator. A note is generated at the bottom of each post that is edited so that every one knows when a post has been edited. Note that if your post was the start of a new topic, deleting your post will result in the removal of the entire topic (all replies after your topic will also be deleted).

Adding Signatures
You may use a signature (commonly used in email messages) on your posts. This is a new feature, so if you registered previously, you may not have been queried about storing a signature. If you click on the profile link at the top of most bulletin board pages, you will be able to edit your profile, including your standard signature. Once you have a signature stored, you can choose to include it any post you make by checking the "include signature" box when you create your post. This bulletin board's administrator may elect to turn the signature feature off at any time, however. If that is the case, the "include signature" option will not appear when you post a note, even if you have stored a signature. You may also change your signature at any time by changing your profile.

Note: You may not use HTML in your signature file, but you may use UBB Code (except for the UBB Code Image tag).

Attaching Files
For security reasons, you may not attach files to any posts. You may cut and paste text into your post, however, or use HTML and/or UBB Code (if enabled) to provide hyperlinks to outside documents.

Searching For Specific Posts
You may search for specific posts based on a word or words found in the posts, user name, date, and particular forum(s). Just click on the "search" link at the top of most pages. Note:  The football forum is purged every 7-21 days.  Also, announcements are not included in the search returns.

Announcements
Announcements are one-way communications from either a forum moderator or a bulletin board administrator. No one may post replies to these announcements. If you want to talk about specific announcements, you will have to create a new topic in the appropriate forum.

Censoring Posts
The bulletin board administrators have the power to censor certain words that may be posted. This censoring is not an exact science, however, so certain words may be censored out of context. Please realize that the censoring, if any censoring is being performed, is being done by a computer based on the words that are being screened. Words that are censored are replaced with asterisks.

Email Notification
If you create a new topic, you have the option of receiving an email notification every time someone posts a reply to your topic. Just check the email notification box on the "New Topic" forum when you create your new topic, if you want to use this feature.

What is the Daily Active Topic List?
When you visit this bulletin board, you will see a link at the top of the list of forums called "Active Topics". Clicking on this will provide you with a list of topics in all open (non private) forums that have been posted to that day.

Can I search private forums?
Currently, only administrators and moderators can search through private forums. We do plan to support seaching of private forums for other authorized users in the future.

What are archives?
Archives are read-only areas that contain topics that were previously posted to one of our forums. You may not add a reply to a topic that is in an archive. Topics in an archive may have been conpletely removed from the original forum where they were started, or they may still exist in their forums.

What are icons?
Depending on the configuration of your forums, you may be able to associate an icon with each post that you make. There are currently 14 icons, each expressing a different emotion or identification. These icons range from a simple note to sadness to warning. These icons appear next to each topic in a forum listing and on each post. 

QUESTION STILL UNANSWERED?
IF the above information still doesn't answer your questions, just send me an email admin@tidefans.com !

ROLL TIDE!

Brett Young (BamaNation)
Publisher, TideFans.com