If you have no idea what so ever how to use PowWow, I suggest you go take a look at my graphical guide. If you've done that, or you are confident that you can figure out PowWow without the aid of the guide, then I suggest you join your first community, which should be the newusers community. It's address is simple, newusers@tribal.com. Once in there you can ask a so called PowWow Guide for further help should you need it.
The Newusers community also serves another purpose. It introduces you to the world of PowWow, which is an entirely different thing than the program. In Newusers you can get used to the society that exists without having to fear the blunders you can make. In Newusers people are very understanding and will forgive you almost anything since they know you are a new user. They will let you get used to the concept of chatting and you will make your first online friends. People who just may become lifelong friends.

To give you a headstart on some of the real basics of PowWow here are some pointers.

• Capital letters are considered screaming. Like this: NOW I AM SCREAMING.
• Some communities are G-rated. This means there could be minors present and it is forbidden (and against the law in some countries) to use profanity or talk about sex and drugs in their presence. Newusers is one of these communities. Tribal Voice has more information about etiquette on their site. As a rule of thumb you can use the Bible, common sense, or any other generally accepted means of discerning what is appropriate and what is not.
• If you turn on the hear button PowWow's built in robot voice will say everything that is shown in the community window. It will even read out the abbreviations that are used. I've listed some of the most common ones below.
  • lol = lots of laughter/laughing out loud/hehehe
  • ss = smiles
  • yw = you're welcome
  • ty = thank you
  • ras = running around screaming
  • soi = state of insanity
  • hago = have a good one
  • roflmao = rolling on the floor laughing my [censor]/bootie off
  • focl = fell off chair laughing
• In PowWow the use of "smileys" is fairly common. Besides the three I've noted below there are a lot of others, or variations of those below. Only your imagination sets the limit.
  • :-) = smile
  • :-( = frown
  • ;-) = winking smile
• From the fidonet I've taken two rules about conduct that I think should appy to PowWow as well.
  • Do not annoy.
  • Do not be easily annoyed.

PowWow Regularity.What happens once you've beome a regular? You've gotten to know a lot of people in newusers and you don't feel like leaving, even though there are a lot of other communities out there, just waiting to give you a chance. My suggestion is that you bunch up a group of friends and go out and explore the other communities together. Scrounge around to see if you can find one that fits. Newusers will always be there to return to should you have questions, and think of all the friendly people you could be missing, considering how many you found in newusers (hopefully).

Now maybe you're thinking "... why do I have to leave newusers?". The simple answer is you don't. But time has shown that tribal has had to "empty" newusers every now and then to make room for new new people. This doesn't mean that you have to leave newusers once you've become experienced, it simply means that new people have to be given the chance to ask questions. This may sound silly but sometimes newusers can get real clogged up with regulers chatting away. On the other hand, if no-one is chatting in newusers, how is a new person supposed to get the idea of what PowWow is about? It's a minor dilemma. Use your common sense and everything should work out fine.

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