Welcome to the HabitableZone

The Habitable Zone is an international community of people facilitated by message board software. This community welcomes new members. As a courtesy to the community we ask all who post messages to the boards follow some guidelines outlined in this section of the site.

Community is very important here. Many people have been participating regularly for a couple of years, and we've all gotten to know one another. We've learned to pull together as a community when problems arise, and these guidelines were developed by the community in a long series of discussions in April 2003. If you read the discussions you'll get a good sense of how the community works together.

If I wanted an audience and more control, I suppose I could start a blog. But I would have to have a lot more belief in the importance of my opinion on its own, as opposed to my voice as a thread in the tapestry of conversation. We all add unique color and substance, but the cloth is made of us all.
Mary Anne, September 2004
 
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This Guide is divided into a number of sections. The buttons at the top of the page take you to Guide pages. The buttons on the left take you to the HabitableZone boards.

Site Organization explains the topics discussed on each of the boards. This is a good place to start so that you know which board to use for which topics.

Some Rules to Live By provides guidelines for participating here. These guidelines have grown out of community discussions and represent the customs and norms of the community.

The software that runs the site lets you use HTML in your messages for formatting and to include links and images. Using HTML shows you how to do it.

Copyrights and Other Intellectual Property provides background material that supplements the policy in the Rules section about respecting intellectual property rights. It's a complicated subject, and this background briefing helps make sense of it all.

Contact information tells you how to contact the HabitableZone moderators with questions and problems.