Site Help and FAQ

This page offers answers to common questions and solutions for site-related issues. Visitors and veteran members alike should read over this information to become better acquainted with the site and features.

Request a Topic/Article (or a Fix)

Visitors and members can request new topics and articles to be made for the site. A request must include the subject and a short description of what the page(s) would include. Requests may or may not be accepted due to content.

Since the webmaster is only human, some of the site's content might contain typos or be a tad unorganized. A request to fix content should include a link to the affected page and a description of the issue (i.e. incorrect spelling or grammar, poor organization, etc.).

To requst a new topic/article or a fix for existing content, please send an email to requests@virtualteen.org.

Report Site-Related Problem

An important site-related problem (such as a broken link or server errors) should be reported by sending an email to webmaster@virtualteen.org with a description of the problem.

Frequently Asked Questions

What's up with the new site design and stuff?
The site was redesigned and recoded by Ben (Kiros) and was released before August of 2008. Before the new site was released, the site "content pages" consisted only of the articles now found in the parent topics. Those articles were publicly provided by the AACAP and were meant for an adult/parent audience rather than for teens.
VirtualTeen.org took approximately 2 months to reconstruct. The new site's core code, alone, consists of over 500 lines of code, more than 10,000 typed characters, and countless revisions. The new structure of the site allows viewers to easily browse VirtualTeen.org, while it also ensures that future webmasters may efficiently add and modify the site. Search engines now have more content to browse and can crawl the site like never before.
So why did Ben do this? He said, "I have put well over a month and a half of my personal time into redesigning and recoding the site because I believe it will be more useful to current visitors, as well as future ones. I have always taken joy in helping people, whether it's directly or indirectly. If this new site helps anyone at all, I'm sincerely glad I may have improved someone's life or understanding of a topic."
Who created/founded this site?
In short, someone named Josh created the site. A great man named Sam, who started the GovTeen projects, helped him through everything.
For much more detail about this: Read the Story of VirtualTeen.org
Is this site and service free to use?
Yes!
VirtualTeen.org is completely free to use, view, register with, and participate in.
We only ask that everyone (visitors and members) be aware of the legal notices and rules of the site.
Do staff members respond to emails sent to them?
Yes - if it is important.
Staff members usually check their email on a regular basis. Some staff members may be on a leave of absence and others may be too busy to reply to every email received.
The webmaster and administrators usually check email everyday. Requests, ban appeals, and reports may not be responded to immediately - or at all, depending on the administrators' agendas.
We ask all visitors and members to wait at least 72 hours (3 days) for their emails to be responded to - if the email requires a response.
Also, do not expect any staff member to respond to hate mail, spam, or any suspicious emails.
Can anyone have a VirtualTeen.org email address?
Unfortunately, no.
All staff members are given an email address ending with @virtualteen.org to ensure similar availability and email filters.
At this time, we only offer this service to staff members, as each email address must be manually set up by the webmaster
What's the printer-friendly feature all about?
A link to the printer-friendly version of the site is at the bottom of each page's content. The alternate version simply changes the style to be easier on printers to handle. All content is still presented in the same way. The only exception is that when a page is actually being printed, the navigation links (at the top), alternate style link (below content), and the site ads will not show up as they are not needed and would waste ink/toner.
This feature normally sets a cookie that lasts for 5 mintues, however, visitors can set the time in minutes by adding &printtime=X in the address bar, where X is the number of minutes they want to view the printer-friendly version before it automatically goes back to the normal version. This can be called the print-time.
Print-time 1 minute example: http://www.virtualteen.org/topics/about/help&style=plain&printtime=1
Is there a way to make the text larger/smaller?
Yes!
Some people have a hard time reading text in small font sizes, and other people like to have the text appear smaller. Although it took extra time to develop, the styles were created with variable font sizes. This means that modern web browsers will be able to change the size of the text for convenience-sake.
Internet Explorer and browsers that use its engine (Avant Browser, Maxthon, etc.) will be able to control the text size directly (View >> Text Size).
Other browsers (like Opera) should offer this accessibility option or a similar option called zoom (View >> Zoom).
Can the articles be downloaded to be viewed offline?
At the moment, all of the articles can only be viewed by browsing them, however, in the future, there may be an offline version of the site content available.
Does VirtualTeen.org accept donations?
At the moment, no.
VirtualTeen.org is a non-profit site, but we do not expect visitors or members help us with hosting/licensing expenses. In the future, we may open a donations system if costs of the site become too much for the administrators to handle alone.

Not Helpful Enough?

If there are still unanswered questions about the site, feel free to contact either the webmaster (webmaster@virtualteen.org) or any of the administrators (admin@virtualteen.org) to gather more information.

As noted in the FAQ, the administration will not respond to any emails that resemble hate mail or spam. Please be aware of this before sending emails.

 
 

Disclaimer - Terms of Service - Privacy Policy
Design and Code ©2008-2009 Ben "Kiros" Arnett.
Copyright ©2004-2009 VirtualTeen.org.