Frequently Asked Questions
All Things Tribal
- What is Tribal Surf?
Tribal Surf is an online community of California surfers. It is a place where surfers can organize outings, share stories, post videos and photos, and meet other surfers.
Equally important though is what Tribal Surf is not. It is not a dating site. It is not an affiliate site; there is no Tribal Skating or Tribal Macramé. This is a website started by local surfers for local surfers. To learn more about how we got started and what we’re about, check out the "About Us" section.
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- How can I contact the people that run Tribal Surf?
Click here.
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- What does the Tribal Surf slogan mean?
“O ke kai ku’u ha” is a Hawaiian phrase loosely translated as “The ocean is my breath.”
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- Do I have to live in or be from California to join Tribal Surf?
Nah. It’s mostly Cali in here but we respect all surfriders no matter where they’re from.
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- What is the deal with the goat skull in your logo?
First off, no, we are not a devil worshiping group and you won’t find any pentagrams or upside-down crosses here. It’s simply an artistic choice and a rabbit skull just didn’t seem to have the same chutzpah.
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- Does it cost any money to be part of Tribal Surf?
No.
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- How does Tribal Surf make money?
LOL I wish! We do have ads here and there but that’s barely enough to cover the cost of hosting the site never mind the time and effort to come up with these witty remarks. But really, Tribal Surf was never about making money. Although it definitely doesn’t hurt if you go ahead and turn off any ad blocking programs and clicking around a bit now and then.
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- How can my surfing group make use of Tribal Surf?
If you run a surf club or surf team or some form of surfing organization, you are welcome to use Tribal Surf as your staging grounds. Among other things, you can have your own private section of the forums for your group and create similar sections in the gallery and events calendar. Contact us and we can start working together to make it happen.
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- How can I get featured in the Tribal Zine?
The Tribal Zine is our online magazine featuring local surfing icons, gear reviews, and surfing tutorials. We’re always looking out for our next “Local Hero” ... ordinary dudes doing extraordinary things. And don’t get us wrong, we use the term “dudes” in the most gender neutral sense possible. If you think you’ve got a story to tell or know of a story you’d like us to check out, let us know. And if you have a particular surfing gear you want us to review or a surfing tutorial to look into, just holler.
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- Can I advertise on Tribal Surf?
Our mission is to help out the local. If you are a shaper, surf shop owner, or run any sort of business having to do with surfing, we’d be more than happy to help you out. Just let us know. However, this doesn’t mean you’ve got a license to spam the crap out of our forums with your links. If there’s one thing that annoys us almost as much as big egos, it’s spammers for whom we treat with zero tolerance.
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- Can you link to my site?
We’ve tended to avoid the obligatory links page at Tribal Surf. With that said, if you are a local wanting to advertise a surfing site, let us know and we’ll work something out. And we won’t even ask for a link back.
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- What do you do with my personal information?
Nothing. When we say Tribal Surf is free, we mean free. We don’t try to make money elsewhere like by selling your information to third-parties. Periodically, we may send out a “Smoke Signal” (Tribal Surf’s e-newsletter) or other important announcement to your email but you have the option to opt out of these things in your settings which you can get to by clicking on Preferences in the upper left corner of the site. For the full on privacy legalese, check out our privacy policy.
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Forum Posting Issues
- How do I post a topic in a forum?
Do I really need to go into what a humungous button titled, “New Topic” is supposed to do? Really? Although I should mention that certain forums require new topics to be approved. You might also notice a box at the end of certain topics where particularly lazy bums can quickly reply to topics. We made that just for people who can’t be bothered to read titles on buttons and must look in a FAQ to figure out how to post.
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- How do I edit or delete a post?
There are small Edit and Delete buttons on the top right side of your posts. If someone has already replied to your post, a tally of how many times you’ve waffled and edited the post will be shown. You also won’t be able to delete the post.
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- How do I add a signature to my post?
You can create a signature through your Preferences. Once created, you can check the Attach a signature box on the posting form to add your signature. You can also add a signature by default to all your posts by checking the appropriate button in your Preferences. If you do so, you can still prevent a signature being added to individual posts by un-checking the box within the posting form.
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- How do I create a poll?
If you’re feeling a bit political, you can create polls where members can submit their votes. When posting a new topic or editing the first post of a topic, click the Poll Creation tab; if you cannot see this, you do not have permission to create polls. Enter a title and at least two options in the appropriate fields, making sure each option is on a separate line in the text area. You can also set the number of options users may select during voting under Options per user, a time limit in days for the poll (0 for infinite duration) and lastly the option to allow users to amend their votes. Keep in mind that if members have already cast their vote, you can’t go in there changing the options. You feel me, Castro?
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- How can I create an invite list?
Surf outings are a huge part of Tribal Surf and our invite functionality makes it a lot easier to organize things. When posting a new topic in the regional forums (Nor Cal or So Cal), click on the Attendance tab; if you cannot see this, you do not have permission to create polls. Enter a title and at least two options in the appropriate fields. You can also set a time limit in days for the invite (0 for infinite duration) and also allow users to change and confirm their invite.
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- Why can’t I access a forum?
No idea. Let us know and we’ll be sure to look into it. Wouldn’t want you going through prolonged Tribal withdrawal now would we?
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- Why did I receive a warning?
Maybe you did something to piss us off? In fairness, we try to issue warnings including an explanation of why. We realize you might’ve just had an off day maybe a crap session at the beach so we’re pretty tolerant. But make no mistake, warnings which are ignored have resulted (very quickly) in outright i.p. banning.
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- How can I report posts to a Tribal Chief?
We try to keep things as civil as possible on Tribal Surf. However if someone is being a complete jackass or preaching death to infidels, feel free to click on the small exclamation mark on the upper right side of posts which will report the post to us.
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- What is the Save button for in topic posting?
This is for those times when your Attention Deficit Disorder precludes you from finishing the sentence you struggled so hard to come up with because some shiny lights came on the TV. You can reload a saved post by clicking on your Preferences.
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- Why does my post need to be approved?
In certain cases, we monitor posts before they are made viewable by the public. This is always the case in the Tribal Zine which is reserved for articles and features. This may also be the case if you’ve been placed on probation for something stupid you did earlier.
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- How do I bump my topic?
”Bumping” a topic is internet geek speak for moving a topic back up to the top of the topic list. Topics make their way down the topic list when there are no recent responses. To bump a topic, click the Bump link at the bottom of the post. You can also just reply to the topic as well.
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Login and Registration Issues
- Why can’t I login?
You’re probably entering the wrong password. No worries, smoking too much weed will do that to you. First, lay off the brown frown. Second, click on Reset Password and a new one will be sent to you.
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- Why do I need to register at all?
Why do we need to do anything in life? You don’t. But if you want full access to the Tribal Goodness, you may actually have to spend the eight seconds and zero dollars it takes to register. Life can be so cruel, I know.
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- Why do I get logged off automatically?
The Log me in automatically box when you login is not there for my health. Actually, it’s there for yours. It keeps snooping kooks from using your account should you inadvertently leave your computer unattended for an extended period of time.
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- I’ve lost my password!
I warned you to stop smoking the brown frown. No worries. We saw this coming and built in an automatic password recovery mechanism. At the login page click Reset Password. You’ll get a new one which you’ll probably lose tomorrow.
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- What is COPPA?
COPPA is why we dont let gremmies in. It stands for "Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act" and it requires us to get permission from the parents of gremmies under 13 years of age so that we can collect information like e-mail. Through a FAX!! Seriously, like who uses that anymore? It’s an absolute pain. And we’re just not down with pain. So to avoid pain, we just dont let any gremmies in. Sorry bro. Look at it this way, now you’ve got another thing to look forward to.
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- Why can’t I register?
Your information probably triggered our ghetto hack version of homeland security. You or someone with your username or i.p. address was at some point a real pain in our ass. So we tagged you like the terrorist you are. If you want, you can try contacting us and pretend you’re really not that person. Good luck with that.
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- What does the “Delete Cookies” do?
Don’t worry, stoner, we won’t be touching your precious stash of munchies. It’s an internet geek term for tiny text files saved to your computer whenever you visit most any website. In this case, it deletes the files created by Tribal Surf. Before you get all paranoid schizo, all these things do is keep track of site usage like whether you are logged in and what topics you’ve read. It doesn’t track nor does it care about the porn you’ve spent half the day watching.
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User Preferences and Settings
- How do I change my settings?
As a member, you get to do all sorts of neato mosquito stuff by clicking on Preferences in the upper left corner of the site. Here, you can set an “avatar” (a little image showing under each of your posts), set your regional surf report settings, and share info about your internet geek life on places like Facebook. You can also set e-mail preferences and other options here.
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- The times are not correct.
Access your settings by clicking on Preferences in the upper left corner of the site. Check to make sure that your time zone is set appropriately and that daylight savings is activated or deactivated accordingly.
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- How do I show an image below my username?
Internet geeks call this an “avatar.” You can either upload your own avatar or choose from one in the avatar gallery. You can do all of this by clicking on Preferences in the upper left corner of the site. Just don’t kid yourself and use a headshot of Kelly Slater.
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Formatting and Topic Types
- What is BBCode?
When posting, you’ll see buttons across the top of the posting area allowing you to put links and images in your post. These buttons also allow you to change the size, format, and color of the text you are posting. You can learn more about using these formatting and linking tools by clicking on BBCode just to the right of the posting area.
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- Can I use HTML?
Nah. Too many uber geeks out there that could exploit the site if we allowed that.
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- What are "smilies"?
”Smilies” are the epitome of internet geek. It’s a way to convey emotion through what you type. In keeping with generally accepted geekness, we offer our own set of smilies which can be included in posts. These are right next to the post area. Simply click on any of the little heads and they will be included in your post. Note that they will appear as regular text characters as you compose your post but will be replaced with little smiley heads once the post is published or previewed.
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- Can I post images?
Yes. And if they are of scantily clad hot surfer women, it is a requirement and your duty. In fairness to our revered Tribal Diva members, you can go ahead and post some of dudes also. Just keep it minimal, please. Some of us are well past our prime and running short on ego, you know? In the Forum, You will need to use a third-party host like ImageShack and link to the image. In the Gallery, you may upload images directly to Tribal Surf although you must meet certain size limits. Note that images posted in the Forum will automatically resize so no need to worry about how big it is.
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- What are "announcements" and "sticky" topics?
”Announcements” and “sticky” topics will have some important stuff in them. You might want to check these out before meandering off to other topics. Heck, we might even be giving away prizes of unspeakable value.
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- What are “blackballed” topics?
Try as we might, some topics just either end up getting way out of control. These topics are locked from further discussion. As the name suggests, no surfing here.
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Contacting Other Members
- How do I contact another member?
You have a number of options available to contact another member of Tribal Surf. You can send them a private message, email them, or simply post something in the Forum addressing them. We encourage the first two methods and the last method only in the event that others are concerned, would benefit, or find your message interesting. Otherwise, you can access any member’s profile where you are able to send them a private message or email by clicking on their username. Do not post your email, phone number, or other personal contact information in the forums since it can be accessed by the general public including non-members of Tribal Surf.
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- I keep getting unwanted emails or private messages!
If any member of Tribal Surf is abusing the messaging system, please let us know. Again, if there’s one thing we hate more than big egos, it’s spammers. They will be dealt with under a zero tolerance policy.
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