Forum Information for new users

[maddrey]

Hi, welcome and thanks so much for registering with http://www.exracehorse.com! It is a site devoted to the study of Parelli Natural Horse-man-ship. We wanted to give you some background, some helpful tips and a touch of technical advice.

In March of 2002, the http://www.Parelli.com website opened an online learning feature. This was written by the great Dr. Stephanie Burns, known online as DB or Stephanie. She is an expert in PHN learning methods, specifically online and self-paced learning. One of the segments of the online support was a "Student Stories", where DB had envisioned that people would post their stories of how they had overcome motivational or learning difficulties.

Instead, a number of isolated PNHers kind of took over that site and began a pseudo bulletin board. Many fast friendships were formed. When the site was updated in October 2002 that specific feature blocked, Maddrey & Joe Baker created this site to continue our chats.

One of the very hardest things about Parelli is trying to be natural in a normal world; the isolation can be demoralizing and criticism can be confusing. Our group directly combats that with advice, stories, general moral support, and really friendly conversation! We all feel personal victory when anyone overcomes a hurdle, be it videotaping for the first time to submit a test; riding with no reins; figuring out a problem by themselves; and always, feeling our savvy grow!

Don't worry if you've never signed up to something like this before; most of us hadn't either, and we had more than one trembling thought about it when we started! But now we really like it, and so if you get a chance to thank our webmaster Joe Baker, please do so!

There were some written rules you saw when you signed on. Below are some additional guidelines:

1. Contribute the best of yourself, try to think what would boost peoples' knowledge or further a discussion of PNH. In the upper right-hand corner of every post you put on the board, there's an EDIT button. Please use this liberally if you realize that what you said isn't quite right, or if you need to shorten or change in any way.

2. Try not to beat yourself up in your posts, emotional fitness is a very important part of PNH. But it’s OK to have doubts about your horsemanship – it’s part of the journey and your questions will help others make progress alongside you.

3. The more people participate, the more we learn. Something that may seem “too simple” to ask about may elicit an answer that holds a key for someone else. The site is searchable, so you can go back and check for previous answers, but it’s absolutely OK to ask an “old” question.

4. If you're shy, please at least introduce yourself! We love to welcome new users!
To reply privately, use the personal messaging system for more personal responses. (Either reply to a particular message by clicking on PM under the person’s name at the right of their post, or go to one of the main pages with in the upper right-hand corner, one of them says "member list." Click that, scroll down until you see the person you want to PM, click on their name, type your message in the box, and hit "post reply." You can carry on whole conversations that way and it won't go to the board.)

5. To check your own messages, look at the upper left under ‘user control panel.’ That’s also where a note will show you that you have a personal message.

6. To make a post, go to the bottom of any page in the discussion thread you wish to post on; see the "Post Reply" button there? Click on it, and a window opens up. There's a box for giving your post a subject (this helps us go back and find things later, who said what) and then a bigger window for typing what you want. Type it in, double-check that it's what you meant to say, and then hit either "Preview" or "Submit." Preview lets you see how everything looks. Submit puts it on the board. Not too hard, really!

7. We tend to keep posts in the main threads, without creating separate topics for every new post. The exception might be if you’re in a scenario that has a finite timeline: dealing with an injury, a specific project, etc. But it’s OK to keep it all in the main threads, too.

8. PM is the first place you should go if you have a personal issue with another poster. We’re self-moderated. We don’t flame here and we don’t bash PNH. You have the option of blocking a particular user’s posts if there’s someone you just don’t click with (It’s the friend/foe button). If a post pushes your buttons, take a deep breath and think it through. It’s OK to respectfully challenge statements you think could get a person or a horse hurt, but try to suggest a more savvy way without making it personal.

9. The friendly game is the first game in PNH for a reason, and that’s our philosophy here as well. And remember: Pat says don’t assume. Say, h’mm, how interesting, and give the person the benefit of the doubt.

10. We enjoy the emoticons and the font colors. To use the font colors, you can either type what you want, then highlight it, then click on the color you want it to be; or you can click on the color, then type in between the commands.

The Boards are all clearly labeled.

One question you might have: What is appropriate content for the General discussion board? Consider it the board where horse-related discussions happen that are not particularly Levels-related.

Posts that are OT for horsemanship – you know the things that go on in the rest of your life! -- can go in the OT thread in the General Discussion board. Or you can keep them in the General Discussion board; it’s up to you.

One last tip: the way to tell if there are any new posts is by the red page icons. If you've read everything, those pages turn white. You can also keep track of new posts by looking at the number of posts at the bottom of the page.

Please feel free to PM any of us with other questions

Very warmly,

Lisa Bradley
The Savvy Circle