This entry will be divided into three sections. The first is the Technical part. How to do it and, I hope, how to do it well. The second part is Tips and Advice (T&A). While it is something of a grab bag it is intended to tell some of the dos and donts when it comes to posting. The third part is a parody. This is meant to be light-hearted humor and is in no way meant to be taken as good advice. With that in mind let's plunge in.

A. Technical

Let me start out by pointing at the Feature Photo that starts this entry. This is the place where you post (or, more correctly, this is the place where I post since the picture has my avatar). This can be found on the bottom on any page on any thread (or topic). So, if you look at it, you will note that I am on the last page (108). However, should I go back to any previous page in this thread I would find an identical box. This fact can be useful if you have something old that you want to quote (more about quoting in a minute). Regardless of what page you are on when you submit your post it will automatically go to the end of the thread and have the next number (see last entry for more about the numbering of posts). So, more often than not, you will find that you want to go to the end of a thread to post.

Now, if I click in the box next to my avatar I get this:

Not to be too obvious but it is entirely possible to simply type in that box and hit the "Submit Reply" button on the bottom right hand side. That is all you need to make the most basic of posts. However, there is a lot to be gained by looking across the top of the box at your tools. "Size" is a dropdown box that will allow you to change font size from very small to very large. Fortunately, it also contains a "default" setting so it is easy to return to the "normal" size,

Next is "Font". Again, it is a dropdpwn box with 9 choices and default. This is a way to "spice up" your comments should you desire.

The next four are "B" to make your text bold, "I" to make your text italic, "U" to underline your text and "S" for strikethrough. This last will make a line through your text like this. While it is a common tool for lawyers most people here don't need it.

The following two impact the color of your text (brush) and the background (page with folded corner). This allows you to do something like this. Both of these have identical dropup menus which list present colors and have an "automatic" setting to allow you to get back to "normal". If you choose to use this bear in mind that the menu also includes a "More Colors" link that will open up a wider array of colors including, for example, pink.

Now I'll give you another picture for what happens with the next icon:

I have highlighted the link box which appears when you hit the link icon. The area I placed in red is the actual URL of the site that you are referencing. I don't know how you will do it but I usually just copy it when I am at the site and then paste it into that box. I suppose, should you so desire, you could type the entire thing out. The blue highlight is text that you enter. Since it goes directly into your post it is often "name of mod" or in my case "here", as in you can find that mod here. It will show up in blue when you hit the "Insert into post" button that I marked out in green. When someone else comes along and hits that blue text it will take them to the place that you cited.

Next is quotes. Given what I intend to discuss later I think you will have little use for that button. To describe it, it looks like a spoiler box, which I will go into later also (and is the next button) except for saying Quote.

Having skipped (for the time being) quotes and spoilers the next icon is code. This is not a place for running code but rather for displaying code. Here's a picture:

The white area is for actually entering code. When you complete it simply hit the "Insert into post" button (which I highlighted in blue). To get the full benefit, or to see the full extent of what this can do, hit the dropdown arrow next to where is says "HTML".

Hopefully you can see that there is a list of programming languages available. When you choose the appropriate one (that is, the one your code is written in) the code will be highlighted according to the standards for that particular language. The default (as you just saw) is HTML.

Lastly, in this group is the smiley-face emoji icon. Click here to get a very large group of emojis from which to choose. ? You don't have to choose just one. ?

The next 4 are about lists. The first icon will produce a bullet list. The second one will produce a numbered list. The third icon will increase the indentation of your list while the fourth one will decrease it.

The next 3 are justification (which side of the screen the post lines up on. The first (default) is left. The second is center (good for Titling I think). The last is right justification which can make a nice change. These are followed by subscript and superscript, Undo and redo. The last one is preview which can show you what your post might look like if it is read somewhere other than a PC.

1. Quotes

To quote someone simply click the Quote box on the bottom left corner of their post. This will do two things. First, it will place a copy of that post in your post inside a Quote box. This will occur wherever your cursor is in your post at the time you hit quote. The second thing that this will do is give a notification (I talked about that in the last entry) to the person you quoted. This is very handy if you are trying to have any sort of conversation. The notification means that the other party doesn't have to keep coming back to the thread to see whether or not you've posted something new. The site will notify them. In fact, you can delete everything inside the quote, once you've loaded it, and the other party will still get a notification. You may see some of "the old timers" take advantage of that and their post will have a Quote box from which they've eliminated everything else and into which they've placed "snip" or "-snip-". This is meant to use less space while still notifying the other person that they are addressing them. You can also highlight a portion of what someone has said. When you mouse over it you will see "Quote Selection" and you can just add that portion.

You can also use the Multiquote function. This is the "+" button next to the Quote button. You can then click on several posts and a counter of sorts will appear on the lower right hand corner of your screen. When you are ready to add them to your post simply click on the counter and all of them will be placed in your post. Other than trying this feature out to see how it worked I can't honestly say I've found much use for it. But, how much you use it is up to you.

You can also notify someone that you have posted by typing "@" immediately followed by their screen name. Once you begin typing this the site will give you a dropdown menu from which you can choose. I've found that handy since then I don't have to worry about whether I spelled their name absolutely correctly. So, for example, to have me notified of your post, simply type @Psalam into it and the site will notify me. Do note that when you've done this properly it should appear highlighted as it does in the line above.

2. Spoilers

It is hard for me to emphasize enough the importance of spoilers in posting on LL. You are unlikely to use them at first but, as time passes, you are going to find that spoilers are a great help when you want to post more than a few lines of text.

The mechanics of using spoilers is easy. Click the icon and a box opens with the title "Spoiler" on your post. The person reading it will see "Reveal hidden contents". YES, all these pictures in all the boxes that you have been looking at in my blog entries are spoilers!

What should go into a spoiler? Any wall of text (a load order is a good example of this, so is a papyrus log) should go in a spoiler. Any picture (like the ones here) should go into a spoiler. Any video should go into a spoiler. There are reasons to do this. In the case of text, a spoiler is cleaner and reproduces the order of the original. Let me give my favorite example - a papyrus log.

This is the picture of the beginning of a papyrus log that I opened:

And this is the same log opened in a spoiler:

As you can see, the log is much easier to read and analyze in a spoiler.

The other reason to use spoilers is that it speeds up the loading of a thread. If you routinely post pictures and videos especially in the body of the post outside spoilers it will significantly slow down loading the thread. I have no desire to embarrass anyone but there are many threads on LL that take a minute or more to load for this simple reason. I know the moderators have encouraged people to use spoilers and set the example themselves by doing so. Therefore, for everyone's benefit (including yours) use the spoilers.

Putting a wall of text in a spoiler is simple. It is just copy (or cut) and paste. So let me talk about putting pictures and videos in spoilers. Again, there are always many ways to do things, this one is mine. After getting your picture or video into a place where you can access it while still on LL open a spoiler. Grab the picture/video by clicking on it and drag it (hold the mouse button down the entire time) until you get over the handy paperclip. The text next to it says "Drag filess here to attach, or choose files..." You will see that area highlight (a white dotted line appears around it). Then release the mouse button and the image will upload - it takes mine about 5 seconds. Moving the file should look something like this:

You will then have a miniature of your image below the area in which you type like this (this happens to be this blog entry as I'm working on it):

Each image has two buttons in it. I have highlighted them on my first image. The "+" sign allows you to put the image into your post. It will go in wherever your cursor is (please make it insider a spoiler). It's on the left and I highlighted it in red. This loading into the post will also take about 5 seconds. The "garbage can" icon on the right (highlighted in blue) will delete the image.

While I should save this for the next section a couple of useful tips about all this. As I indicated, it is possible to drag and drop a file as well as a picture. If you do, it will wind up in a tidy appearing white box. While that is doable I want to reiterate that, for the sake of your reader, it is better that you copy the text of that file and paste it into a spoiler. About uploading pictures: LL doesn't like .bmp images (which is what screenshots are and what all of my images started out as). The simplest method of dealing with this that I have found is to load the screenshot into Paint (or similar program) and then save as a .jpg file. While the site will also take .png files they are more dense and can easily become too big to effectively load. If you have something that will require fine definition to see then by all means use .png. However, most of the time, stick with .jpg.

3. Starting a Thread (Topic)

Compared to everything else I discussed this is easy. The most difficult part may be choosing which forum to which you want to add the thread. So, to illustrate, let's say I want to start a thread to discuss what people's favorite sexual position is (this is LoversLab after all). After due consideration I feel that the Off Topic forum and, more specifically, the Adult Stuff (18+) subforum is the place to be:

If you followed me to that page you will see the green "Start new topic" button which I highlighted in red. To begin I need to click on it. This will give me:

There are only two fields that MUST be completed to start this thread and they are both marked as "Required." You must enter a Title and you must enter text to describe what the thread is all about. So, I could put "Favorite Sexual Position" as the title and write something about what I favor and open the question for others. Having done this all I have to do is hit the "Submit Topic" button on the bottom and I'm done. When you start a thread I encourage you to make your title straight to the point. Not only can you explain more in the post you can also use the tags for highlights. Despite the fact that it says "Choose" the tags are strictly words or phrases that you choose to enter. So, in my case I might want to put tags such as male, female, heterosexual and homosexual. This allows my reader to be able to tell at a glance whether I am covering something in which they might have an interest. But don't forget, tags are entirely optional.

You might also note the tab next to "Content" at the top that says "Poll." You can take a poll as part of your thread although you don't see them very often. If you switch to "Poll" you will get this:

There is not much to do with this page. Add another title (or reuse your thread's title) at the top. The check boxes are intuitive (either click and make voters identity public - I've never seen one here on LL where this was true or leave it blank and preserve anonymity; either click on automatically close poll - in which case you will be asked to set a date or leave it blank and the site will close it when it is ready. Then, you hit "Add Question" and get this:

The top part should carry over from the last page. You simply place a question and give choices. You can add more than two choices with the "Add Choice" button. You can tick on the multiple choice question option if that is desired. You can then add another question with the "Add Question" button. From there you just do the same thing until you have it as you like it. When complete hit the "Submit Topic" button and you've started a thread.

Should you choose to change, or amend, anything in the title you can do this. Just go to your first (original) post and hit the "Edit" button. This will allow you to change your post but it will also let you change your title.

B. Tips and Advice (T&A)

1. General Introduction

This part of the blog is meant to help facilitate communication. Except where specifically cited none of this is part of the site's Rules (which can still be found in the bottom left hand corner of any page). Everyone is entitled to their own opinions and style. However, if you choose to do things that make your posts unclear you will have no one to blame other than yourself when the results are not what you really wanted.

I want to remind my readers of what I said in my first post on this blog. LoversLab (LL) is Ashal's site. He owns it just as (I assume) he owns his home. We are invited guests here at his suffrage and should be prepared to follow his rules. As I said before, this is very much like being invited to someone else's home for a party. I want to extend that analogy just a little further here. Not only should you obey "the house rules" politeness should be the norm. Our host wants everyone at his party to have a good time. There is no inherent reason that can't happen. Part of achieving that is having all of us behave in a mature and civilized manner. My hope is that what I have listed below in T&A may help us achieve that.

2. Special Introduction for non-native English speakers

WELCOME to LoversLab! As I did with my first blog entry I am going to make a claim that I can't prove. At any given time, MOST of the people on LL are NOT native English speakers. I understand that coming to an English language site with little or no skill in the language can be intimidating. Don't be. We are a very inclusive group and we want you to feel welcome here. In fact, while many of the tips and advice are especially germane to non-native English speakers there are only two tips I would like to give you distinctly.

The first is that it pays to warn your readers that English is not your native language. While I've been thinking about how this should be phrased I happened to run across this at the beginning of a post by Akiim12:

     (Beforehand I must state that I'm not a native English speaker, so grammar errors are bound to happen.)

I have taken the liberty of placing it here so that, should you so desire, it is available for copy and paste. Even if you don't use this one, making the identification will help. Please note that I like this one because it is a simple, declarative statement. It is not an apology of any type. Akiim12 is just letting you know a fact.

The other point is the use of Google Translate (or similar mods). If you just enter your phrase and then copy the result you will get something that looks like this:

I do not speak Spanish

While the translation was excellent the visual result can be difficult on your reader. This can be corrected using the tools I mentioned in the first section, or, what I have found useful, is to copy my translation into Notepad (or similar) and then copy it back here on LL. In this example I would get:

I do not speak Spanish

In this manner your post will look like everyone else's posts.

3. Tips

• Use simple declarative statements.  Run on sentences are difficult to follow. Incomplete sentences require the reader to do a lot of the work for you.
• The use of punctuation will help improve your communication (For further information see the book "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" or simply the joke of the same name).
• LoversLab comes with an automatic spellchecker. A wavy red line will appear under any word that it doesn't like. Scan your post for these before you submit it. Like all spellcheckers this one isn't perfect - for instance, it flags the word "LoversLab".
• Read your post before you submit it. You may find that what sounded wonderful in your head as you typed does not sound nearly so cogent when it is read. You may even find little things that need to be corrected such as changing "your" to "you're".
• Avoid overemphasizing your text. While I pointed out earlier that LL has a lot of ways to make your post stand out (Size, Font, Colors, etc.) when you use too much it actually detracts from the message. To quote someone I read on LL when I first came "when you highlight everything, you highlight nothing".
• When you have an issue with something that you can take a picture of then do that and post it. A picture truly is "worth a thousand words."
• For English speakers as well as non-native English speakers, avoid idioms. In my neck of the woods I can use the phrase "white on rice" with impunity. Locally everyone understands what I mean by it. However, LL has a worldwide audience and idioms, such as that, do not translate (just like poetry). Make everyone's life easier and simply avoid them (and yes I know, "my neck of the woods" is an idiom and I used it to emphasize my point).
• As I previously mentioned, use quotes. If you are addressing what someone else has said you can quote them with one click (see above for details). This puts whatever your reply is in a context that any reader can understand AND it gives a notification to the person that you've quoted that you've addressed what they said and thereby facilitated communication.
• When you start a thread make certain that the title reflects the content. While "catchy" titles might get more attention they also mislead your audience. Most people who look at threads are either learners or people who have an expertise in a particular area of modding. If the latter don't bother to look at your thread when they are just the person that you need because they can't see from the title that you are asking about something they know about then you have hurt yourself.
• Brevity (is the soul of wit). Keep posts as short as possible consistent with completeness. Avoid posting a "wall of text". Experience proves that most of it doesn't get read. If you have ideas or information that you want to share that isn't necessarily relevant to the topic, put it in a spoiler. Then, it can be ignored by people who have no interest and read by those who do.

4. Advice

• Do not address an individual or a generic reader by any title. While you might feel that calling someone teacher when you are asking a question is appropriate, a lot of terms don't bear up well in someone else's context.
• Don't be intentionally rude (this, in fact, violates a Site rule (#2)). This includes name-calling. It also includes being derogatory about what someone before you may have expressed. If you feel that someone has offered information or advice that is less than wonderful a statement such as, "That's interesting. I've never heard anything like that before. What I would suggest instead is .... " This let's the reader know that you are skeptical of the advice given without intentionally or unintentionally hurting any feelings.
• While I am a great fan of humor (I hope the Parody section below shows this) it is best to avoid this when trying to communicate an idea. So, if you are on a thread such as "Jokes" or "The Rant Thread" humor may be just the ticket for communication. However, most of LL's thread are about communicating ideas (how do I do this, where can I find that, etc.) and humor may just get in the way. (However, if you are looking for some laughs let me recommend Ernest Lemmingway's threads on the Community posts.)
• Use likes (see above for details). Likes cost you nothing and can make a difference for others in the future. Use them not just if you like what someone else says or shows, use them if you strongly agree with their statement (emphasizing to a reader the strength of the statement). Use them as a way of saying "thank you" if someone helps you on a thread or to recognize a mod that you appreciate.
• If you are uncertain of WHERE to start there are several logical choices. Ask a question or make a supportive statement on the Support Thread of a mod that you've enjoyed. Look through "The Big Board of Fun" and "Community" Forums for topics that you have an interest in or even (in the former case) some games in which you can participate. Or, there is the "Say Hi!" thread (https://www.loverslab.com/topic/122331-say-hi/) which is designed just for that purpose. If you go there you can just "say hi" or you can share a bit about yourself and your interests.

C.Parody

When I first spoke with my friends Donttouchmethere and Worik about doing this blog they were very supportive. However, when I asked for specific suggestions of what to post their humorous side won out. What follows here are the suggestions that they gave me (somewhat edited, primarily for clarity). These are NOT meant to be taken seriously. In fact, these are all things that we have seen on this site and made us cringe or laugh out loud. It is in hope that some of you may join in the laughter that I have chosen to add them here.

• be sure to jerk CPU's chain
• click the green button to download and the gray one to mock the mod's author
• mod requirements can be ignored, they are just there to make the mod author look good
• if possible, attack everyone by religion or national origin, that way you can get enough attention to ask a stupid question
• if a mod author is friendly enough to create a modification just for you, please call him names and shit on his topic, they need that
• please don't write a wall of text when you have an issue, a single line will be enough like:
  • "this mod sucks", or the famous
  • "this mod doesn't work". Good examples of useful bug reports can be found on every Nexus mod and topic
• if something doesn't work it's your own fault
• if it's still not working then it's overmodded, see above
• to avoid certain notorious posters never stay in a single topic for too long
• it's always a good idea to completely ignore what people suggest in Tech Support
• NEVER, EVER give feedback in Tech Support if a posted solution worked
• give "likes" only to screenshots of busty elves in bikini armor, NEVER EVER waste them on the mod authors that made those shots possible in the first place
• if you know more than others always start a conversation with, "you are all stupid, I'm the only one who knows his way around." and end it with "hope you guys learned something for the future, you stupid fucks."
• NEVER, EVER read what the mod actually does in game, instead start a Tech Support topic about strange things that happen in your game like your PC being raped or bound
• If you are wrong NEVER, EVER correct yourself. In fact, do the opposite and repeat that shit over and over again until every noob thinks you're right.

• steal everything and upload it on LL again

• never be friendly to a fellow mod author. They can't do shit  and should be happy enough that you asked for modding advice or used their files in your mod.

• use LL to promote your Patreon account

• make mod instructions as confusing as possible so you can get asked the same question over and over again

• give your mod a strange name so that people have to download it to find out what works and what doesn't

• as a mod author always talk badly about your fellow mod authors unless users do the same and then tell them "to be nice"

• do a DDoS attack regularly to help Ashal test the defenses

• make spam accounts and call everyone a pedophile

• hide patches and download links in topics where they will never be found again

• NEVER, EVER read topics before installing a mod, it's always better to ignore the obvious and just ask.

• NEVER, EVER read the last post on a Support Thread, it might be the answer to your question and how lame would that be

• if you ask for help in Tech Support, don't, just don't, give useful information about your setup. It's more fun if those helpful idiots have to guess

• don't mess with Kimy - she bites

• if no one can install your mod after reading your instructions tell them that only real modders can install stuff

• if someone annoys you call them whiny

• if you're testing something and you found out it didn't work NEVER, EVER report it

• NEVER, EVER write something nice about a mod. However, if you find that you must do so then make sure to write something bad shortly thereafter

• following topics about the mods you have installed is for noobs. Real modders ask already answered questions over again.

• if you don't understand something just say, "it doesn't work"

• users that give feedback about bugs just don't know how to mod their game. If you are a mod author just ignore them or tell them another mod is the cause

• get angry about a mod's core function. For example, if it's a bondage mod please tell the mod author that there is too much bondage in it. He or she will understand.

• Remember: if it doesn't work for you, it cannot work for anyone else!

I hope that this blog post has been useful to you and, maybe, given you a little chuckle.

There are two blue rectangles highlighted. On the top is the browse button itself. Underneath it is the dropdown box you get when you hit the browse box. Unlike in the first post, however, I want to look at the third option, "Online Users" (which is highlighted in red). If you click on it you should get something that looks a lot like this:

At the moment the screenshot was taken there were 5,294 people on LoversLab (see the red oval). To choose one at random (Jeroth - highlighted in green), we can see that he has not yet chosen an avatar (the first letter of your name on a colored background is the default assigned by LL). With that in mind we can see that most of the people on this page have not yet chosen an avatar. And, while I'm on this page I want to point out some other things that can be seen doing this. Under his name is the information about what he was viewing at the time (Forum - Downloads - the Sims 4). It also tells us when he got there ("just now"). I only point out these last two because there is often a wealth of information that you CAN get from a page of LL if you know how to sift through it. But back to my original point.

To get this next picture I went up in the screen above and pulled down the menu under "Filter." Specifically I chose "Supporters" because I wanted a page that held my avatar to show the next piece of information:

You can see in the blue rectangle that I was on the site when I took this screenshot (Duh!) You can also see that I was looking at the Online User List (as I've already mentioned). Finally you can see that, by this point I had been in this location for 7 minutes. But, what I want to point out is that if I hover over that information a larger box appears. In that box, under my name and designation as a "Supporter" is my content count (4,775 at that time). All of that is relevant because, if you go back to the previous screen and hover over people at random you will find that the vast majority will say "Content Count 0." I have done this experiment on multiple occasions getting the same results, So, I have come to the conclusion I stated above, at any given time most of the people on LL have not posted a single time. This is called lurking. You look around the site to find what interests you. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this, it's just what it's called. Even those of us who have posted more than once have spent time lurking. So, this post is designed to walk you through some of the things that you can find on LL while lurking in the hopes that it will make you more comfortable with the site and more willing to dip your toes into the water later. I will also mentioned a couple of ways that you can interact with the site without officially getting anything added to your Content Count.

Every page of LL is composed of 3 parts: a header, a footer and the distinctive part of the page (what makes that page different from every other page). I've mentioned things in the header and footer already and will cover them in more detail later in this post but I want to focus on actively lurking and these have little use. EXCEPT, if you get lost on LL there are several ways to get back to LL's home page.

The main page is also the Forums page. As a result, when you are on the main page you should note that the Forums button is highlighted. If you are on any other page and want to get back there (or just feel lost and are looking for a familiar place) you can hit the Forums button (highlighted in red below):

I took this screenshot while working on this post. You can see the highlight in the upper right hand quadrant. As I've mentioned previously there are always several ways to do things. While I don't intend to do this with every topic I do want to point out other ways to achieve the same thing.

Highlighted in blue, on the left side of the screen, near the top is LL's description of where I am (Home>Blogs>etc,). That description is also fully functional. If you click on Home button (the part I highlighted in blue) you will go back to the home page.

And, while this list is not comprehensive. a third way, particularly for computer geeks.

You can also go back to the web address and remove everything after "https://www.loverslab.com". This will also get you back to the main page.

Now that you can "rescue" yourself should you get lost I think I will move on to describing the unique material on the Forums page so that we can start some serious lurking.

The Forums page has its own header. It says "Forums" on the left. The 3 buttons to the right allow you to change the layout if you like. Finally, the last button, allows you to post. Since we are not yet ready to do that and this is, in my opinion, an inefficient method of posting anyway, we're going to skip it.

On the right side of the page (using the default format) are 3 boxes arranged vertically. They are "new topics", "new files" and "blog entries. During a great deal of my period of exclusive lurking I spent a lot of time on the "new files" section. After all, I felt, that's what I came to LL for - mods. This is still a good place to lurk, as far as I'm concerned. So let's look at what you can find when you look there.

This is the panel when I took a screenshot:

I am going to use the first mod listed as an example. If you use your mouse and hover over the title you can see the rest of the title if it has been cut off. In this case, it has not. If you click on the title it will take you to the mod - unfortunately, this is the only sure way of knowing which game the mod is designed for. If you hover over the author's name (MegaMydakXD) you will get information about them just as you saw above when we hovered over my avatar in the "Online Users" section (I will post a picture of this below for reference-please note the orange highlight is mine). If you click on the author's name in the panel, it will take you to the author's profile page. I will be talking about profile pages in a later post. Last is a downward pointing arrow followed by a number. That is the number of downloads the mod has already had at the time I took the screenshot.

That is all I have to say about the panels. Let's get into the meat of the page - the Forums.

There are 9 groups of forums on this page and I will talk about them in 3 sections: the community forums, the forums associated with the seven game sections and the General Discussions section. Where you will want to spend most of your time lurking will depend on your interests. Now I will go into some depth about navigating what you find when you get into a forum. At the risk of being repetitive, what I show you on this forum will be true for any forum although applying it might be a little different between the game oriented forums and the discussion oriented ones. Anyway, for my purpose I have chosen to use the Community Forum, "Off Topic" for my example.

Most of what is listed on this red highlighted section of this page can be interacted with. The blue dot on the left will mark the forum as read (don't ask me why you might find that a food idea). If you click on the words "Off Topic" it will take you to the location of the threads (or topics, the terms will be used here interchangeably). Before I do that, though, I want to mention the rest of the material to be found here. Underneath the title is an arrow which points at "Adult Stuff (18+)." This arrow marks a subforum. When I take you to the Off Topic page I will show you the subforum again and explain its relevance in lurking. Underneath the subforum is a description of the forum. That, and the number of posts are the only things here that can not be clicked on. Next is listed the total number of posts from all threads in a forum. At the time I took this screenshot there were 102,391 posts. On the right is someone's avatar, in this case winny257. If you click on that avatar or on the name winny257 you will go to his (yes, his) profile page. As already mentioned, profiles are for a future post. The blue title is a link to the most recently accessed thread, in this case "Animated Gifs...". If you click on the title you will find yourself at the beginning of that thread. On the other hand, if you click on the time next to winny257's name it will take you to his post, which, as I mentioned, is the most recent post.

Now that you've seen the five separate places to which you can link from here it's time to click on "Off Topic".

If you clicked carefully you should find yourself on a page that looks something like this. Please note, this screenshot was taken much later than the previous one. If I had taken this immediately after the other one "Animated Gifs..." would be listed in the "Adult Stuff" subforum instead of "Post your desktop".

Note that like all other LL pages the header and the footer are present (more about them later). After the title "Off Topic" with its description below it, there is a button/counter off to your right which I highlighted in red. As it says this is the follow button. If you find a forum (or more likely a thread) of particular interest such that you might want to receive a notification whenever there is a new post, you click on the word follow. If you do there will be a self-explanatory dropdown box to basically confirm your selection. Once done with that the counter will go up by one and the word "follow" will be replaced by "following". Repeat the procedure (click on "following") and answer the questions to quit following. If you hover over the counter on a "follow" or "following" box you will get a pop up that will show you everyone who is currently following the forum or thread (including mods). Finally, and back to the header, when you receive a notification a number will appear next to the globe at the top of the page (which I highlighted with a red square). If you click on the globe you will then be given the information that someone (say winny257) has just posted in this forum. It will give you a quick link to go to that new post as well.

Next down on the screen is the title "Subforums." Below that is the "Adult Stuff" Subforum. Everything here behaves in the same manner as it did on the main page. This includes that the "Adult Stuff" subforum has it's own subforum entitled "Erotic Writing/Fiction." The next bar includes the "Mark Forum as Read" button (like the blue dots on the main page) and another button entitled "Start new topic." That one will have to wait until I have time to get around to doing a post on posting.

We're almost to the good stuff, hang in there. The next bar starts with a bunch of numbers. If you look at the end of those numbers you will see that I am on page 1 of 83 pages. Therefore, there are a lot of pages, each with a lot of threads just in this main part of the forum. Looking at this kind of thing on a one-by-one basis would take a LOT of time. Luckily for you I'm going to show you a shortcut prior to ending the post on Lurking. Each of the individual numbers are links to that page (1,2,3,4,5, and 6). "Next" will take you to the next page and ">>" will take you to the last page. Similarly, when you are on a page higher than one you will have a "previous" button to take you to the page before the one that you are on and a "<<" button that will take you back to the first page. Last button here is "Sort by." It will give you a dropdown menu so that you can choose what order you want the threads listed in. The default is first, all the pinned threads and then threads are listed in the order in which something has been posted, most recent to least.

The next line is a thread (finally). Once again let me walk you through what everything is (although much of this will be a repeat.

First listed is an icon that looks like a "talking balloon" from a comic strip. If it is still light (as it is on this thread) clicking on it will take you to the first post on that thread that you have not already read. It will do that if looks like it does for the first thread or for the second one (which I did not highlight). However, if you have read the most recent post for this thread (as I have for the third thread "Jokes") it will be grayed out and can not be used.

Next is the green "pinned" icon. This is a status given by the moderators so that a thread will remain at the beginning of a forum. It means, in their opinion, that the thread is important and this helps draw attention to it. On technical threads on games the pinned threads often serve as FAQs (frequently asked questions) threads.

Following this is the name (which is a link to the actual thread). If you hover over the numbers following the name they will highlight and you can choose a specific page to go to. Usually that will be the last page in my experience. Underneath that is the name of the author of the thread (remember the "Start new topic" button above?) and the date on which the thread was started. Off to the right are the total number of posts on this thread (131 as of this screenshot). Finally, the avatar and name of the person who posted last and the date and time that they posted. As elsewhere, if you click on the avatar or the name of the poster it will take you to their profile. If you click on the date/time it will take you to that last post. I keep saying this because it is easy to go somewhere other than where you want to go by not being careful WHERE you click.

One other note on this before I move on. You may see something that looks like a padlock icon on a thread. This means that the moderators have locked the thread and no new posts are allowed. You can, however, read what posts remain on the thread if you have an interest. Bear in mind that, since a common reason to lock a thread is a rules violation, those posts that broke the rules are likely to be hidden (often mistakenly said to be deleted). If you find an apparent "hole" in a conversation on a thread that may be the reason. A little bit more on that in a moment.

So let's look at an actual thread since that is what you actually do when lurking (or at least I did).

Let's look at the actual post. I'm not going to mention the contents at all. That's what you're here to lurk at. Rather let's look at what else is on the post. The heading of the post gives the name of the author of the post (CPU) and the date and time at which this post was put up (October 23, 2015). Additionally at the very end is the number of the post in this thread. This one, clearly, is number one. Just before that is an icon that allows you to "share this post." That is, it will give you a link to this post if you choose to share it.

The left side is dominated by the author's avatar. That is the picture that they selected for themselves on their profile. The phrase above the avatar ("Addicted modder and helper") is the Member Title that he chose on his profile page. The circles in between are a representation of the number of posts he has (member, senior member, etc.) and is assigned by the site. Beneath his name you will see that he is identified as a moderator with the blue epaulet with the term "Staff" displayed prominently. Most of us will be identified as a junior member, etc. as identified by the site (which also reflects the number of circles you have and all of which is determined by the number of posts you have. You may also see Contributor (someone who's placed a mod on-site) or supporter (financial supporter of the site through Patreon). Last on the left is the total number of posts this author has written (you can expect higher numbers from moderators and contributors generally).

On the bottom of the page is the author's "signature". This too was determined by this author on his profile page. On the right side, just below the line separating the main post from the signature is an "x" with a downward pointing arrow next to it. If you hover over this you will get a dropdown menu. Using this you can suppress this author's signature (not just here but everywhere - that is, YOU will no longer see their signature, everyone else will) or suppress all signatures. This will eliminate the signature section of ALL posts for ALL authors on YOUR computer. Some people feel this looks cleaner. Like many other people I have information in mine which I sometimes refer to (as in, you can find the link to my blogs in my signature). What you choose to do is strictly up to you. 

On the bottom line are the "multi-quote" and "quote" buttons which I will talk about when I do a post on Posting. On the far right hand bottom of the screen is the like icon. It looks like a thumbs-up emoji and is grayed out until you hover over it an click it. Each time someone clicks it the green counter will go up by one. If no one has clicked it there will not be a visible counter. If you click the like button the counter will go up by one and an "x" will appear on part of the icon. That let's you know that you've already liked this post. If you click it again the counter will go down by one and the "x" will disappear. You will have "unliked" the post. The like icon is used in many ways. It may be that you like a post simply because you liked the post - you found it entertaining. You may like a post because you agree with what the author said. This makes it a great tool for lurkers. You have the opportunity to express your opinion about a post without having to type in a single word. It also does not add to your content total so you can like all you want and still have your "Content count" be 0. Also, and close to my heart, mods count as posts. If you like a mod here on LL go back to the modpage and find the bottom right hand corner of that post. It will likely have a counter next to it which should make it easy. Give it a like. Remember that none of these mod authors are paid. The least any of us who enjoy their mods can do is to go back and like them on their modpage.

You move up and down the list of posts by scrolling. Once you scroll down a few lines an upwards pointing arrow will appear on the bottom right of your screen. Clicking on this will take you to the top of the page. As mentioned, there are buttons which will allow you to move from one page to another.

Before I leave the post I want to mention the other thing that you can do on a post that does not count as posting anything. That is, notifying the moderators of a rules violation. 

If you are paying attention you will see that this is the same post as in the last spoiler. This time, however, there is additional material on the blue bar. This only becomes visible if you hover over what appears to be the empty space on the bar. If you click this it will give you a form to complete in which you can notify a moderator of something that you feel is a violation of the site's rules (I covered this in the first post, remember?). Because the moderators can not be everywhere we are something of a self-regulating community. Issues on threads will be handled more quickly and efficiently if we all give the moderators a "heads up". (If you see something, say something). Honestly, I understand as a lurker that you probably don't want to get involved with this - and that certainly is your right. I didn't when I was just lurking. However, let me encourage you especially to report any of these three specific issues:

1. Content that is clearly trolling or spam. Having said that, I also recommend that you only report it if it has been posted in the last 5 minutes (remember that the blue bar has the time of posting on it). These morons are likely to be reported by everyone. If the thousands of people on the site at any given time are all reporting the same thing to the moderators at the same time they will be so overwhelmed by the reports that they won't be able to deal with the issue in a timely manner. So, if you see this and think no one else may yet have noted it - report it.
2. Anything that strikes you as pedophilia. While the site's standards for what constitutes pedophilia may be different from yours the site still has a zero tolerance policy for pedophilia. So, if you see it, report it, because if it's there the moderators will want it down just as quickly as possible.
3. This last one is a particular issue of mine. If you read, on a mod's support thread, someone disrespecting the mod's author, please report it. Not only is it a violation of the site's first rule. it is harmful to the rest of us. We all came here for the mods (some more, some less). Anything which frustrates mod authors should be dealt with promptly and, as I've said, the moderators can't be everywhere.

These are by no means a comprehensive list. Other things like plagiarism, political and/or religious diatribes, etc. have not even been mentioned. This list is the ones I find most egregious. If you see any clear rules violation please report it.

Next, I want to cover the often mentioned, but not yet detailed, header and footer.

Rather than reinventing the wheel let's use the picture in the spoiler above to describe the header. Let's look across the blue bar at the top. Starting from the left you see my avatar. On your screen when you are lurking you'll see your avatar. Click on it to go to your profile. To the right of the avatar is my name in the picture, you screen name when you're lurking. This has a dropdown menu. Most of this is currently irrelevant but you now know about following. Halfway down that list is "Manage followed content." If you choose that option it will take you to a screen that contains all the threads/forums that you are currently following. From here you can choose to alter your choices about them. This is a good place to go if you start collecting a LOT of notifications and want to prioritize what you want to see and what you don't.

Next is the image of the globe, This is where you will receive notifications as already mentioned. The "balloon" next to it is to notify you about PMs (personal messages). Then there is a long empty stretch with the search engine at the end. I intend to come back to the seearch engine later because, in my opinion, mastering the search engine is a lurker's best tool.

Below the blue bar is LL's cover photo and the bar with 6 buttons. Hopefully by now you know about the Forum button. The Downloads button will take you to the downloads page. This can be useful to help scan for mods. You're welcome to use it but I've found scanning the forum for my game far more useful for suggestions. People here will often talk about what a particular mod does and what, if any, issues they've had with it. Since I've already shown you how to find and download a mod once you have the name there is every reason to believe that you won't need to spend much time there. The third button is blogs. There are all sorts of interesting blogs if you're looking for something to read. Most of them tell stories (unlike mine). If you're interested just follow the links. The fourth button is clubs. These are groups of people with unique interests mostly centered around a particular fetish or a particular language. Again, if it sounds interesting - take a look. (If you can't tell I've not spent a lot of time in either of these last two categories.) The fifth button is the Browse button. I have incidentally covered this as I've gone along.

The last button is Activity - and it has a dropdown menu. It has 4 choices. The last (bottom) one is another way to access the search engine. The one above that is "Content I started." Since I haven't gotten to Posting yet this is currently irrelevant but I want to mention that it can be a handy place to come to if you have started one or more threads yourself. Above that is "Unread Content." This will be coming up twice more in the next few paragraphs. It is a list of posts on the site that haven't been read. It is actually a good place to go for lurkers. You can read the first part of the post and, if it catches your interest, you can click the link and read the entire thing. As I say, this is especially handy if you're not sure what it is that you're looking for.

The top choice entitled "My Activity Streams" is another dropdown menu. Once you've started posting I expect that you will find this as useful as I have although it's usefulness is limited for lurkers. First listed is "Unread Content" again. Then, in order, are "Content I started." "Content I follow," "Members I follow" and "Content I posted in." At the end is a button that allows you to make a different stream to follow if you so choose. As of right now these are things that you aren't doing (cause you're not posting) or you have easier access to in another place.

The next bar is worth noting. I alluded to this earlier. Those places listed at the beginning (Home>Community>Off Topic>I love this community) are not just telling you where you are and how you got here. They are links. If you click where it says "Home" you will go back to the main page. If you click on "Community" You will go to another screen (which I show below since it shows the footer well) which lists only the Community forums. If you click "Off Topic" it will take you back to the list of threads found in the "Off Topic" forum (including the subforum). Finally, if you click on "I love this community" ...  nothing happens. You're already there. At the end of the black bar is a third way to access "Unread Content." I did warn you at the beginning that there were often more than one way to attain the same end.

Now for the footer:

The red ellipse shows members who have also been recently browsing. As you can see, at the time I took this screenshot I was the only person on this page. If you go to a "busier" page you may find as many as a dozen names here at any given time.

The red rectangle is the link to the rules. If you've forgotten it go back and read the first post over again.

The red rectangle with curved corners on the right says "Help Support LoversLab." If you click this you will find yourself on Patreon. You can then, if you so choose, make a donation to support the site. Two things you should know about this before I drop it. One, this is the ONLY method to financially support LoversLab. While the issue is often raised in threads I have seen no movement towards making another pathway available. Two, this is the only way to get rid of the ads on LL. You may have wondered why my screenshots are blessedly empty of the ads you see on your screen. It is because I am a supporter. If you want to get rid of them too - sign up now!

The next bar is simply a reflection of the one I discussed earlier that's on the top. It is nice to know that you can access some of this stuff on the bottom (and yes, that makes the fourth way to access "Unread Content").

In the green circle at the bottom are three innocuous things to note. The leftmost one is actually a dropdown menu that gives you three choices for how the pages on LL are displayed. You can play with these at your leisure but I've found the default one to not just be adequate but to be the best choice. The middle selection will take you to the site's Privacy Policy should you like to read it. Finally the "Contact Us" selection will give you a form to complete should you have questions that you feel, for whatever reason, can not be well addressed on a thread. Honestly, I've never used it but mention it for completeness.

Now I intend to go into what I believe is the most important tool in the Lurking toolbox - the Search engine. I am going to give you some examples of how to use it and then try to explain why this can be so useful.

I have taken a screenshot of the Off Topic forum:

Now that I am in a forum I can limit my search to just this area. In this case please note that I have chosen "alcoholic" for my search term. It's probably not one that you would want to choose necessarily but it serves well for this illustration. If, before I search, I tell the engine to limit the search to "this forum" and "content titles" only (as I mentioned before since I am using a single word to search "any" works as well as "all" - this was in the previous post) I will get only one hit:

If you try it you will get the same result. If you choose to just type "alcoholic" into search and leave the default settings you will get almost 1,400 hits - you may as well have used Google search. The beauty of the LL search engine is that it cuts surgically. Rather than spraying out a ton of information which may, or may not, be relevant it limits itself to what YOU think is important. If you click on the title you will find yourself on the thread. If you now do another search choosing "this topic" for "Pabst" you will again get a single hit:

You can then click on this and go right to the post that mentions "Pabst", or, in this case, read it right off the search engine results.

So what, you say. Well, let's say you are having an issue with your game of choice. You could try typing in the problem and hitting search but I expect you would find yourself with information overload. If, on the other hand, you went to the forum that dealt with your game and did the same search limiting yourself to that forum you would get only a limited number of hits which you could then search further with the "this topic" should it be needed. Most of the games have [Search] threads that will allow you to look for particular equipment/clothing/weapons. What you are looking for may very well already be listed - and you didn't have to write a single post. The search engine can also be used to search "blog entries" if you are looking for a blog to read that would have something that you might find interesting. Do recall (from the last post) that not all those options may appear at any one time. You may have to hit the more options choice on the dropdpwn box to get the selection you want. Also remember (from the last post) that if the dropdown box does not appear when you have typed in your search term(s) just click in the empty space next to them and this will make it appear.

If you take advantage of the search engine you can make your lurking much more efficient. Whether you are trying to find out about mods, about issues with your game or just about some topic in general, the search engine, properly used, can be your best friend.

So, what do you do if there is an issue with LLs search engine? Despite the lack of specificity you fall back on using other search engines, such as (but hardly limited to) Google:

Please note the format. First the word or phrase for which you are searching. Then you need a colon(:) followed by "loverslab.com" It is possible to get to forums and even topics by typing enough after loverslab.com such as "loverslab.com/downloads" but the returns diminish quickly.

I hope that this post helps you with your lurking. I hope even more that it helps you navigate LL more easily and gives you the tools you need to find all those things in which you are interested.

A. Finding the Mod

In the top right hand corner of any page on LL is the Search engine. That is the place to start looking:

I have highlighted it in red on this screenshot. Type in the name of the mod that you want to find. One piece of advice here: if you are unsure of the EXACT name of the mod it is better to put in a fraction of the name and have more mods from which to choose than it is to put in a full name that is incorrect and not get anything.

Once you have done this you should get the following:

This dropdown menu will save you a lot of grief so pay attention to it.  If you find that you do not see it try clicking in the space next to your search term(s), it should then appear. If you try to do this from a screen other than "Home" you may find that the choices look different. If so, you may have to click on the more options choice (2 below "Everywhere." That should give you a result that looks like this:

The expanded dropdown box is again highlighted in red. I have taken the liberty in this screenshot to also show which choices you want for this search. When you look for a mod you want "files". If your search contains more than one word you want "all of my search term words". If it only contains a single word then "any of my search word terms" (which is the default) is fine. Finally, when looking for a mod, you want to click "Content titles only" in order to reduce the size of your search. If you fail to do that with this particular mod I expect that you would get hundreds of responses to your query. At this point you are ready to hit the little magnifying glass just to the right of where you've typed in your search words. After a few seconds you should get something that looks like this:

You can see that I got seven results. If I were actually on that page I could scroll down and look at the descriptions of all the mods that the search engine found and decide which one was the one I wanted. In this case, because I had used it before on Nexus, I knew the one I wanted was here:

I think a careful reading of the descriptions would also have allowed me to choose the right one.

As an aside, when you reach this point, even if you quickly find the mod you want, it will likely pay you to read the basic information on all the mods that the search engine provided. This is because mods that have a similar name are often designed to be used by the mod for which you were looking. So, you might find something looking at that list that will be interesting enough to come back to add later.

Now, when you click on the name it should take you to the page where you can download the mod.

B. The Modpage

If you have followed me thus far you should be here:

This page, which I will hereinafter call the modpage, contains the Green "Download" button. But before we move on to downloading I want to talk about some other things (so don't hit the green button yet).

First, a word on terminology. The word modder is used interchangeably in most places to mean mod author and mod user. Since that is likely to breed confusion I have determined that, for the purpose of this blog I will try to avoid using the term at all. However, being only human I might slip. If that happens in all cases where it is used on this blog it will refer to a mod author. I will use the term mod users to refer to us who add the mods to our base game in order to enjoy more options.

Back to the modpage. I want to point out (without using a picture) that there is a LOT of text on this page. All of that text was placed there by the mod author in order to make your use of the mod easier. It will tell you what the mod can and can't do. It will tell you what mods are known to interact with it badly. It will, in short, answer most of the questions that you have about the mod. Please take the time to read it (not just this mod, ANY mod). You might be surprised at the number of questions I've answered regarding a mod by simply copying some text from the modpage and pasting it into a post.

One of the things that is in that text will be what other mods are required in order for this mod to work. This is critical since, if you don't load the other mods, your game will crash. Here it is with this mod:

I have highlighted the information in a pink box (pink wasn't otherwise used by the mod author so I though it would make it stand out).

Another important feature of the modpage can be seen in this next view. Directly below the desired green "Download" button is the important, but understated, gray "Get Support" button:

Again, highlighted in pink to make it stand out. I will be discussing this button in a future post but I want to make you aware of it now.

Next, for my purposes is the box that appears below the two buttons, seen here:

Once again the box is highlighted in pink. I only mention this box since it is often misleading. When a mod is new this information is, generally, highly accurate. However, as a mod goes through updates the mod author (not necessarily this one but in general) may fail to keep it up-to-date. As a result, counting on this information may place your game at risk. I would once again reiterate, read the entire text that comes with the mod to learn what you need to know.

One last thing that I'll point out on the modpage that I will discuss later (highlighted in green below). Before that a pop quiz: what can always be found on the very bottom left corner of any page on LL?

What you see highlighted in green is the like button and counter. I expect to talk more about that in the next post.

The answer to the pop quiz is highlighted in red.

C. Downloading

You've just been waiting to hit that green button. Well, go ahead.

I hope you're not too disappointed. About half the time you download on LL there will be only a single file and it will automatically download when you hit the download button. This mod, instead, gives you the option of multiple files to choose from. As with most computer files, the higher the number the more recent the file. On LL this also translates into the LOWER the file is on your screen (and you may have to scroll down to see the bottom) the more recent the file is. That fact eliminates most of the upper files from consideration. Another possible reason for multiple files is to give the mod user choices about what "things" he wants with this mod. In this case you will want to hit the download button on one of the last two files depending on whether you want all the addons or not (don't ask me what you want go back and read the modpage). A third reason that a mod may have multiple files is that, to use the mod, you need more than one file. A mod like SexLab Sex Slaves comes to mind. A mod author may use several files in order to keep the amount of downloading (in MB) at one time to a reasonable level. Along the same line, a mod author may simply give you a link and a password as your download (look for this if the download seems unreasonably small). This last is true for the popular Zaz Animation Pack. All of these possibilities will be explained on the modpage.

IV. Using the mod

If you are used to Nexus you may not know what to do with a LL download. The mod does not go directly to your mod manager. You will find it in 7-zip (.7z) format in your download folder. Many mod authors would argue that your best approach is to use a utility to unzip the file and place it manually in your Skyrim/Data folder. If you have previously downloaded files manually you will understand this process. Otherwise, all mod managers have a method of adding mods from files. Discussing the use of mod managers is beyond what I intend to do with this blog. However, once you've done it a couple of times you will see that there really isn't much to it.

So, good luck  and ... oh, wait, I almost forgot.

Remember how I pointed out when I was talking about the modpage that the mod will tell you what other mods are required to run it. If you intend to run Paradise Halls you need to go back and do these same steps with the mods that it requires. And, having done that, you may have to go back and do the mods that they, in turn, require. Then and only then will you be ready to enjoy your new mod (technical advice on issues and other recommendations can be found on my other blog).

So, good luck and happy hunting!

This blog is intended to be the information and advice that I wish I had been privy to when I first came to LoversLab (LL). This blog is NOT, in any way, shape or form, an official introduction to the site. Like others I struggled and lurked when I came here. It was months before I actually posted anything. Like a lot of other people what I learned I learned mostly through trial and error. However, the most satisfying things I learned were when helpful people pointed me in the right direction. If I can do that for even a few people I will consider this blog a success.

I need to give you a little context to help explain how most of this blog is intended to be organized. I was a great fan of the Skyrim mod "Paradise Halls" which could be found on Nexus. The development of that mod appeared to simply stop after a while which I found a considerable disappointment. One day I was on Nexus and, for some reason. I checked out the mod and its support thread. It was there that I found that Paradise Halls Enhanced had been reborn here on LL. I came here and was ecstatic to find, not just this mod, but to see that it had been developed and placed within a framework that would allow my character to have sex. Then, like many other people (I would expect most) I spent a great deal of time lurking (looking at mods and threads without posting a word). Finally, I made the plunge. First it was asking questions, then it was playing games, sharing opinions and finally, giving answers. (Now they all wish I would just shut up.) This is important to the blog because it is likely to be Skyrim-centric. Don't let that put you off if that isn't your game. When I get to discussing things that are game-specific I believe that you will find that the things I tell you about how to access information about Skyrim will be completely applicable to whatever game you came here for (Fallout, Sims, etc.).

A. The Rules

With that in mind I would like to talk about the site's Rules first. Here is a copy:

Don't panic, there will not be a quiz. I was on the site for months before I was aware of these Guidelines. That's a shame because while I just listed them for you they can also be easily found. If you go to the bottom left hand corner of any page on LL (including this one) you will see a link that reads, "View Community Rules." Here is an example:

In the spoiler you will see a picture with the link highlighted. If you click it you will find another copy of the rules.

In addition, there is another place you can go to quickly find the Rules. If you go to the top of the page, on the right there is a bar (see below):

If you then hover over the bar where it says "Browse" you get:

The first thing listed in the dropdown menu (highlighted in orange) is "Guidelines." If you click on it you can also review the Rules.

So, you are asking, why are you showing this to me? I have just shown you three different ways to access the site's Rules because there will almost always be more than one way to achieve your goal here on LL. In something as mundane as looking at the Rules you now have been shown three easy options. You will find, as you go through the site, and try to find things, that there are many ways to get to where you are wanting to go. Most of the time on this blog, I am only going to show you one way - the way that I have found easiest and/or best. As I have just pointed out, that does not mean it will be the only one and definitely not the only "right" one. 

B. The Rulers

This site belongs to Ashal. He makes the rules. He chooses the moderators. He determines if you get to stay on the site or get thrown off. (Incidentally he is also the author of SexLab Framework which allow Skyrim characters to have sex). Please keep in mind that, while you are on this site you have effectively entered his home. Unlike many hosts, he has kindly posted the rules by which he expects company to abide (see Section A above). I find that if I keep the idea in the front of my mind, that when I am on this site, I am effectively in his house, it helps me to be a bit more polite and nice. This is not a store or other retail establishment. Neither Ashal, the moderators, the mod authors or your fellows here on LL owe you anything. You are not paying them for the privilege (even if you choose to become a contributor it is more like bringing a bottle of wine to your host's party than it is to paying for a service). For your sake, and everyone else's, please try to keep that in mind.

If you go back to the last spoiler which showed the Guidelines (just above) you will see that there are other choices in that dropdown menu. The second one is staff:

This contains the list of moderators. I have taken the liberty of highlighting Ashal's avatar in green. The people listed here (and only the people listed here) have the authority to speak for the site. If you find any of them addressing you it is in your own best interest (if you want to stay on the site) to pay heed to what they have to say.

Like the other people on this site, the moderators have been known to change their avatar (the small picture you see above their name). This means that you need to pay attention to whether they have the "moderator" tag on their message more than what their avatar looks like.

I think that this is enough for one post. I hope to get a bit more into the meat of the site with the next post.