Noticing Newbies

Hey Jan,

Welcome to Writing.com! I agree, it's pretty overwhelming and confusing at first to find what you are looking for here but that's only because there's SO much stuff here. If you stick around and spend some time just browsing, you'll soon get a feel for where to go for certain things.

To answer your questions though: To find groups, click on 'groups' at the upper right of writing.com. The first 5 groups listed will be shown first on every page because they are sponsored items and as such, get the most exposure. There should be a black bar underneath those 5 sponsored items, and underneath those are the groups that members have posted. When I looked, there were pages and pages of different groups, but you need to scroll below those first 5 groups listed in order to see the rest.

I don't know where the rules for posting are listed, but I'm sure it's the basics for any collaborative community: no cursing, posting multiple times, being abusive, posting on the wrong board, reposting what someone else just asked 5 or 10 or 20 posts ago, no spamming, etc. I think they probably deleted the post because they thought the answers could be found elsewhere and they did not want space taken up on the message board.

I've never been denied viewing of a contest. There ARE groups which require that you pay points to join, and if the contest is through one of those groups, then it makes sense that you would first need to have paid in order to see the contest. Try clicking on 'item jumps' on the left hand side of Writing.com, and then 'contest listings.' Again, there will be TONS of them listed there, but you'll need tom scroll down past the sponsored items once again in order to see the rest of them. As far as I know, all of those are free for viewing and participation.

Stick around, it's less confusing after awhile, I promise. :)

Mandy

~*~

Sometimes when we concentrate on who we want to be, we forget who we already are. Be sure to tell your story as you see it, not as anyone else does.