Welcome all new users to the XIHA Life family!
Our site is a little different... first of all, we are very much international. This means, among other things, that there are a lot of different languages involved. We're using all of the languages in the same "space", in what we call a "mixed language system". To get the most out of XIHA, please see the following:
1. My info. Go to the "My info" section. It's very important to complete the language selection! The primary language you choose determines the user interface language. The selection of languages grows all the time, but if your native language is not available, just pick the one that is the most familiar to you. You can change this at any time later on. The "also speak" means the languages you can speak or read. Our system will show you content in all of the languages you choose and it also gives an idea to other members which languages they can use to communicate with you. Feel free to choose as many languages as you wish!
Even if you don't choose a certain language in your profile or if you are not logged in, you can still use the flags at the bottom of the page to change the user interface language. This also enables the content written in the language you choose.
2. About me. In addition to writing a description of yourself, you can use the predefined selections in the my info page to create a basic profile of yourself. All of these selections have been translated to a number of different languages so people visiting your space will be able to read information about you in their own language. Fill out as much information about yourself as possible, as this also makes it easier for others to find you if you happend to match the criteria they're searching for... and of course, if you think about it, nobody is really interested in someone who is not revealing anything about themselves. When other people visit your page they will be interested in learning something about you! (it also makes a lot of sense to add a face photo... but more about that a little later)
3. Write something about yourself. The text you write will not be translated automatically, so use any language or languages you feel like. What you write in the text boxes in the my info page will be visible in your own space by default. You can further change the appearance of the text in the space editor, which is located right in your own space (your username.xihalife.com) Remember that all members can see all the text in other people's profiles regardless of their language settings, so this is different from the blogs and forum, where the content is filtered by the language selection. The same applies to to comments left on the user pages - everything is visible to everyone unless the sender has stated it to be private.
4. Upload face photo! It is amazingly important to have a photo of your own, or at least an image you chose rather than the default icon. If you use the default icon, there are thousands of other people who "look" exactly like you. After you upload your photo you will easily get 100's of times more interest to yourself. This is true whether you are looking for friends or even if you just want people read your blog and browse your photos. Think of it yourself... are you checking out the profiles of those people without photos? Not interesting, right?
Members with face photos will also show on the main page after joining. The member search also has option to show only photos and most of the people who search for other members seem to always check this option - they don't even want to see the listing of members without photos.
5. Forum. When posting on the forum, choose the language carefully! The available languages are determined by your language settings. Your writings will only be visible to people who read the language you choose when you write the text.
You can't edit the forum messages after you post them, so please use the "Preview" to check your text before posting. You can keep editing and previewing for as much as you want. Remember that until you click "Post", other people will not be able to see your text.
Use images to decorate your text! Forum topics with images get a lot more views than those with only text. You can upload as many images in a forum post as you want. There is a variety of options to format the images (control the size and positioning), see this link for the image formatting options and this link to see how to use photos directly out of your photo album!
6. Blogs are a great way to open up and share with the world your thoughts. First, choose a name for your blog... this is important as the blog name covers the topic of your writings and often will be the first thing the readers see. Then make sure to pick the language you will be using and start writing! Each blog is limited to a single language so if you want to write in many languages, just create multiple blogs (new blogs can be started at the blog settings page). If you make a mistake, you can later reorganize the blog entries and move them between blogs from the blog edit page. You are also free to edit the blogs at any time even after publishing the text.
Blogs with good writing, interesting topics and regular updates will get marked "hot" and will get a lot more exposure on the site, not to mention generous point awards for each posting.
7. My photos... the photo system lets you upload up to 8 photos at once. The photo system applies a series of filters to your photos to enhance the colors so you may notice your photos appear rather vivid and sharp. Some people have said uploading photos to XIHA Life can make you look like a professional, thanks to the small but important automatic enhancements to the photos.
Once you've uploaded photos, it's a good idea to fill in the title, description and especially the tags. Without tags it will be harder for people to find your photos by searching. And once they find the photos, people tend be interested in what you have there so they will like to see some description on what's going on. Tags are, by the way, sort of keywords that describe the photo. Tags are individual words, separated by space. They don't need to form a sentence. When writing tags, don't say "this is a red rose"... instead, say "red rose", as those two words accurately describe what is going on. You can also add words like "red rose outdoors malaga spain" even if those words are not the main subject of the photo. Later, when someone wants to find a photo of a red rose taken in Malaga they will find yours!
Please note that the photo title, description and the tags are available in multiple languages. You can write the text in any and all of the languages you have enabled in the "my info" section. Typing the text in multiple languages pays off as it gives you a chance to get a much larger audience!
Each photo can be in multiple albums - no need to upload many times. Take a look at the edit options below each photo alongside the description and tags. You can create new albums on the fly and include each photo in any album you want just by checking the appropriate boxes (we'll later make it even easier to organize the photos by a drag and drop system...) There is no limit on how many albums and photos you can have.
Using your photos in the forum and blogs is a great way to promote them! Click this link to see how to use photos directly out of your photo album without uploading them again.
8. Games. We have well over 1000 games on the site and you can download all of them for free. The free downloads will work for a limited time after which you can choose to buy the game or just remove it from your computer. There's no commitment so by all means please try as many games as you want. After trying, please come back and write comments or reviews about the game (there's a comment box on every game page). This can be helpful to other members who are looking for games, and it will also award you some points, helping you get closer to earning your free full version games. If you decide to buy a game, rest assured that the process is entirely secure and backed with our 30 day full refund policy. You will also receive 20.000 points for every game purchase, which means you will earn a free game for every five you buy (or quicker, if you also keep writing stuff like reviews and forum topics!)
If you have any questions just ask! Post a reply here or send a message to webmaster, we're always happy to help! |
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Hello. I'm pretty new here- am liking it alot already though... I think I read somewhere that on Xihalife we can ONLY upload photos we took ourselves? And if we upload a photo we didn't take- that Xihalife will delete it (and not be very happy about it). I don't know where I think I read that... In other social networking sites I've used, sometimes we'll share a funny or topical photo that was found online somewhere and share it with people... Of course it's wrong to steal a photo and say it's yours- but is it OK to use "shared" photos? LOL Cats for example? (Many of which are just so funny I can't hardly handle it!!) I have lots of photos and things I'd love to upload to share here... OK thank you.
it no me or are getting more faces the one used new
