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Meet-Outdoors Help Page

Okay, here is the scoop.  Most navigation is done through the button bars located at the top and bottom of every page.  Simply click on the button that corresponds to your desired action.  Some pages, such as the update page, will have sub-section links that you click on.

If you have any specific questions, check out our Frequently Asked Questions page.  Otherwise, keep reading for instructions on the Meet-Outdoors site.

This page will give you a general description of what each button does.  It is ordered like the button toolbar, going from the top row to the bottom and from left to right.   Where available, just click on the specific hyperlinks in this document to get more specific information on each topic.

The Home button takes you back to the main home page.  This page contains global information about the site.  When you are not logged in, the Home page shows information about the features of Meet-Outdoors.   When you are logged in, the Home page gives you tips on how to use the features of Meet-Outdoors to obtain the best results.

The Join/Update button allows you to join if you are a new member, or to update your profile if you are an existing member that has logged in.  The Join page will allow you to input your specific information so an account can be created for you.  Answer all questions as completely and honestly as possible so you have a better chance of finding the person or people you are looking for.  The Update page will allow you to change your profile, personal information, preferences, photo, interests, ads, and account information.  Your profile contains your contact information, which will NOT be shown to members (except for the city, state and zip, which are used in searches.)  The profile section also allows you to turn your profile on and off.  Also, make sure you change your password here.  The personal information section contains items like primary language, hair color, and the like.  Answer these questions as completely and accurately as possible, as these fields can be used in searches.  The preferences section allows you to select if you want to receive information from us, toggle your user level, and toggle if you want to display thumbnail pictures with search results.  Note that displaying thumbnail pictures will take longer to download, and is only recommended for fast internet connections.  Newsletters will tell you about Meet-Outdoors updates and events.  Promotional e-mails from partners will be specifically targeted to the interests on your profile, so you will probably be interested in the information about the deals they send.  Promotional e-mails and newsletters will not be that frequent, so you don't have to worry about being flooded with e-mails.  Thus, we recommend leaving them on, until you decide you don't want to receive either or both anymore.   The photo page allows you to view, update or delete your photo.  The Interest section allows you to pick your interests, and your interest levels.  You can select the level you like to participate, and/or if you like to watch, the activity.  The Ads page allows you to create new, or edit existing, ads.  You can have multiple ads.  An example would be if you were looking for an activity partner, as well as a relationship.  Each would be a separate ad.  The Account Information hopefully won't be used.  See the Refuel page for details.

The Search button allows you to search member ads or profiles, and select certain basic criteria such as relationship type, age range, state/province, country, and interest.  You can select multiple interests, by holding down the control button and then clicking on the interests.  The multiple activities are treated as an 'OR' relation.  That is, if you select both archery and surfing.  Members that match the search criteria, which have an interest in either watching or participating in archery OR surfing will be shown.  That way, you will see all of the people that share your interests.  To narrow down the members based off interest, only select one interest at a time.  You can also search for profiles by using the 'Profiles only' setting in the 'Search for' dialog box.

The Detail Search button allows you to do a detailed member ad search with quite a bit of search criteria.  This includes things like age, height, weight, education, primary language, and the like.  Pretty much all of the fields on the personal information section under the update page.  This search was designed for those who are looking for a relationship, so they could narrow down the members that match the criteria they are looking for.  The more search information you fill out, the more specific the search will be, and less members will be returned.  For the relationship type field, input the relationship you are searching for.  For example, if you are man looking for a woman; you are searching for 'Women Seeking Men' ads.  If you are looking for individuals or groups to do activities with, you should search under 'Group Stuff.'   You might also search for 'Any' relationship type, but make sure you enter other information to narrow down the search, as an 'Any' search could take a long time to complete and could return many rows.   Make sure you notice the 'ad updated date' field, because it defaults to six months ago so you will only see the most recent ads.  We do this because this query could take a long time to run if not enough selection criteria is entered.  For search performance reasons, we recommend you select specific values for at least the first three fields; relationship type, relationship level and ad date.  Ideally, you will fill out location, and the fields that relate to the specific qualities you are looking for. 

The Interest Search button allows you to search for member ads by some member criteria, as well as by interest and interest level.  The more search information you fill out, the more specific the search will be, and less members will be returned.   We recommend filling out as many of the top fields as possible, and then searching on a few main interests.  You will probably not see all of the interests that you can select on your member profile interests page.   That is because this page only displays the interests that have been selected on the profiles of all members combined.  This way, you are not searching for interests that do not exist in the database.  For the relationship type field, input the relationship you are searching for.  For example, if you are man looking for a woman; you are searching for 'Women Seeking Men' ads.  If you are looking for individuals or groups to do activities with, you should search under 'Group Stuff.'  You might also search for 'Any' relationship type, but make sure you enter other information to narrow down the search, as an 'Any' search could take a long time to complete and return many rows.  Make sure you notice the 'ad updated date' field, because it defaults to six months ago so you will only see the most recent ads.  We do this because this query could take a long time to run if not enough selection criteria is entered.  For search performance reasons, we recommend you select specific values for at least the first three fields; relationship type, relationship level and ad date.  Ideally, you will fill out location, and the fields that relate to the specific qualities you are looking for.  

The Drill Down button allows you to drill into the database of member profiles by location, then by interest.  It will allow you to find people in a specific area that enjoy doing a specific activity.  You can then drill right into the member profile to find out about them.  From the profile, you can easily add that user to your Hot List, add them to your Ignore List, view their ad information, or you could e-mail them; all by just clicking on a link.  While you are drilling into the information, a list of links will be built that will show exactly where you are in your drill down.  That is, if have drilled into United States, then Michigan, then Farmington, and are looking at the interests in that city; you will see links that display where you are at in the drill down.  That is, in the above example, you will see United States, then Michigan, then Farmington.  You can click on these links to take you back to a previous level in the drill down.

The E-Mail button allows you to send anonymous e-mail to members of Meet-Outdoors.info.  Start out by filling in the handle of the member that you want to send an e-mail to.  This may have already been filled out for you if you clicked on an 'E-mail This Member' link from screens such as the member profile or your Hot List.  You should then hit the validate button to make sure the user is open to receiving mail from you, and doesn't have you on their ignore list.  Type in a subject for your e-mail, and then select whether or not you want a copy of the e-mail by checking the checkbox.  If you check the 'Send a copy of this message to your e-mail' box, you will receive a copy of the message you send.  It will be e-mailed to the e-mail address you specified on your member profile.  Lastly, type your message in the message section, and click the send button.  It's that easy!  Note that at this time, this is the only way to send e-mails to another member.  You can NOT reply to an e-mail sent from the Meet-Outdoors system.  This is because we want to make sure your contact information and e-mail address remains anonymous.  By having you log into the Meet-Outdoors system with your account and password, we can safeguard against this.  Make sure you are comfortable with a member before you give out any personal information, and NEVER give out your password.  It is impossible for us to screen all, or even most of our members, and it is possible that there could be some people or companies that want your information for advertising, or worse.  We hope not, and will try to do what we can to make sure this site is used for what it was designed for; helping people meet.  If you find an account that you believe is up to no good, please let us know!  For safety though, we recommend meeting people in a public place first, and exchanging contact information in person.

The Chat button allows you to engage in real time chat with other members that are currently logged into the Meet-Outdoors system.

The Hot List button allows you to select people that you would like to, or have already, contacted.  It is designed to allow you to quickly access the information of certain members.  This works similar to the favorites folder in a browser.  To add someone to your Hot List, you can type in the member handle on the Hot List screen, or you could click on the Add Member to Hot List link on any of the search results screens.  This screen will display all of the members you have on your Hot List and will give convenient links to either delete that member from your Hot List, or to quickly e-mail that member.  If you click on the e-mail member link, the handle will automatically be filled in for you!

The Ignore List button allows you to select people that you don’t want to receive messages from.  This could be because a person is bothering you or spamming you with advertisements.  By putting the user on your ignore list, his messages will bounce back and the offending user will be informed that you have him on your ignore list.  You will not be able to receive messages from that user until you delete him from your ignore list.  Much like the Hot List, you add members by either typing in the member handle on the Ignore List screen, or you could click on the Add Member to Ignore List link on any of the search results screens.  This screen will display all of the members you have on your Ignore List and will give a convenient link to remove that member from your Ignore List.

The Just For Fun button is just that.  A collection of things that are just for fun.  Each section will have instructions.

The Ranger button will allow you to set up search criteria, and automatically receive e-mail notification when a user matches your criteria.  The search criteria pages will be able to be enabled/disabled at your convenience.  This feature will be available in the near future!  Keep your eyes on our News page for all site update information.

The Misc button is a group of useful Meet-Outdoors links.

The Refuel button explains itself and hopefully won't be used.

The Success button is our main motivation for creating this website!  We want to help people be successful.  You get to determine what success means to you.  Is it finding a group of people with similar interests, to bike, mountain climb, or whatever else your heart desires?  Is it finding that special someone to share future backpacking trips?  Could it be finding a training partner?  Is it organizing a high altitude mountain summit expedition?  Whatever your desire, if we help you achieve it, please let us know by sending us feedback!  We will select some of the success stories and feature them on this page!  In the future, we hope to help even more by offering trips and prizes for members, and will list that info on our News page.  Thank you for letting us help!

The Referral button allows you to easily refer people to the Meet-Outdoors.info site.  Providing you have filled out your profile completely, all you need to do is type in an e-mail address, and hit send.  We will generate a referral letter and send it out to the address you type in!  We will only send one e-mail to them, and will not collect or track the e-mails you input.   However, we are tracking how many people you refer that become members, and hope to offer promotions based on that information in the future!  Do you want another reason to refer people?  Have you ever heard of the Kevin Bacon game, or the six degrees of freedom theory?  The six degrees of freedom theory is that everyone on the planet knows everyone else through, at most, six people.  A very interesting theory.  What this means to you, is that if you refer a friend, and they refer some friends, and so on; you will have a much better chance of finding the person or people you are looking for!  With the hectic pace of life today, it is hard to keep track of our own life situations, much less the personal lives of our friends.  When it comes to the friends of our friends, I don't know anyone that keeps track of that!  If we get them to join, we don't have to worry about keeping track.  Everything will be handled through the website and the search engine.  Remember, it is free to have a profile and ads on the site, so there is nothing to lose.  So what are you waiting for?    Use the Referral form today!   Please avoid spamming though.  Do this by only sending this e-mail out to people you know, and think would be interested, or would have friends interested, in Meet-Outdoors.info.  By enjoying this site enough to recommend a friend, we feel it is a compliment.  We are glad you are enjoying the site, and Thank You for the compliment!

The Feedback button allows you to communicate with us.  We hope it is a success story, but we still want to hear if you have a complaint, an enhancement request, or if you simply need us to add another interest or country.  Simply input your e-mail address, select the appropriate subject from the drop down list, enter the body of your message, then hit the send button.  If you are logged in, your e-mail address will default to the address you have in your profile.  We will get back to you as soon as possible!

The News button is where we will post information about the latest features and updates to the website.  We recommend you check this page to find out the latest and greatest things about Meet-Outdoors.info!

The Help! I’m Lost! Button is where you are currently at, and gives information about all of the different features and buttons on Meet-Outdoors.info.

We hope this page was informational, and answered any questions you might have had!  If you still have further questions, feel free to ask us!