The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Site FAQ

I stopped receiving e-mail notifications. What gives?

The site was recently upgraded to a new version of the platform it runs on, Drupal. The subscription and notification code that I was running on the old site did not upgrade cleanly to the new site.

I'm still working on finding a good replacement for the subscriptions and notifications we had here. IN the meantime, if you keep that "Notify me when new comments are posted" box checked when you make posts you should get replies to your post or comment, but obviously that doesn't help you follow other folks.

The feedburner email digest I set up is a really nice way of getting new posts in a daily email.  It puts them in an HTML email so you can see the pictures and everything.  It doesn't help with new comments though, and there are questions about Google's long-term commitment to keeping it around.  Google just killed Google Reader, their main RSS product, so I wouldn't be surpised to see Feedburner go away before too long also.  Still, for now it is a good one.  

Click here to sign up for that.

I'll continue looking for something and let folks know if/when I find something that gets the job done.

How do I upload photos?

See the photos FAQ.

What's the point of this site?

The point of this site is to have a good place for amateur bakers of all levels to congregate. Regardless of your experience, whether you are into whole grains, sourdoughs, artisan breads or bread machines, if you can help other bakers in their pursuit of baking nirvana or wish to learn more, you are welcome here. There are no stupid questions, and arrogance or snappishness with new bakers is not welcome here: we all knew nothing about baking at one point in time. Let's help each other out and share our enthusiasm for good bread and doing it yourself.

I'm having trouble registering! Any advice?

If you don't receive the activation email, email me (floydm at thefreshloaf dot com) and I can activate your account manually.

I'm having trouble logging in! Any advice?

Be sure you are accepting cookies. No cookies, no logging in.

Can I post about a book I've published or a product I'm selling?

If you are selling something that is appropriate in a forum about bread baking, by all means, a forum post or blog entry about your product or services is appropriate.  Be forewarned that repeatedly posting the same press release in multiple places on the site is likely to annoy community members and ultimely undermine your objective.  If you respect the community, hopefully they will respect you and take an interest in your offering.

What is the difference between a forum post and a blog post?

Forum posts are higher profile on the front page of the site. Comments to them show up on the front page too, so they tend to get more action. Sometimes that is a good thing, but somtimes you want to post something more private or have a side conversation with just few site members. That is when blog posts are a better fit.

Blogs also have RSS feeds, which can be handy. If your blog lives at /blog/yourusername, then /blog/yourusername/feed is an RSS feed of your posts.

Are you a professional baker?

No, not by any strech of the imagination. I'm a geek who occasionally finds time to experiment with baking at home. I did, however, work in a bakery run by Peter Reinhart in the early 90s. This was prior to artisan baking making a comeback, but I learned a great deal about bread and baking from him.

Can I share my recipes here?

Absolutely. Please register for an account and then post them in the forum. Or, feel free to start posting in a personal baker blog. In either place, do give credit if the recipe is originally by another author.

If you have news, information, recipes, articles, pictures, or anything else to do with baking that you'd like to share, or if you are interested in becoming a site editor or moderator, please contact me.

How do I get my own baker's blog?

Register for the site. Then click "Create Content" and choose "Personal Blog Entry." That's it.

Do you edit or moderate the content of people's posts?

This is a community moderated site.  Content that fundamentally conflicts with the mission of this site (to coach, educate, and encourage amateur bakers) or offends community members will most likely be removed from this site. Example content that has been removed includes spam, blatent commercial solicitations, labor grievances, personal attacks and insults, and other wildly-off-topic or offensive content. There are plenty of unmoderated message boards or free blogging sites that one can go to if one wants to be uncivil, but not here.

I also actively help people with hyperlinking and html formatting. For example, folks often make posts saying "you should read my old post about subject x" but not include the link to that original post. When I can I will edit the post to include the actual link to the mentioned post. Or people will paste in the raw url for an image; I've edited the posts to actually include the img tag so that people don't have to copy and paste the url into another browser window to go see the picture.

I also occasionally edit posts containing book titles so that the titles link to bookstores selling the books (typically Amazon), since those referrals help pay for hosting this site. If you already have linked the book to another location I will not change it.

What else? Oh yes, occasionally I go through the site and delete "stale" content. Stuff that is no longer of value, things like links to sites that don't exist any more or long threads about someone having a problem logging in.

I have a book or product I'd like you to review. Where do I send it?

Please send it t:

Floyd Mann
P.O. Box 32532
Bellingham, WA 98228-4532

I can't promise that everything sent my way will get reviewed, but I make every effort to inform community members and site readers about books and products that may be of interest to them.

What is this site running on?  Did you write it all yourself?

No.  This site is running on Drupal 7.  I've done a bit of custom development, but 98% of the code run here is available on drupal.org

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Site FAQ