When you join BearBuzz, a profile is created. This is designed to let others know a little about you, and gives you some tools that help you keep in touch with all your BearBuzz buddies.

After you sign up, an e-mail will be sent to the e-mail address you provided. You must respond to this e-mail before your account will be activated. We also review all new accounts, so it may take us some time to review your account, but we usually have that done within 24 hours, if not the first hour of creation. This is done so that you don't have to deal with spammers or other unscrupulous people.

Main Profile

When you sign up, there are a few things we ask about you, but we try to keep the required fields to a minimum. The bare minimum we ask is your name, e-mail address, username and password. Only your username is visible to other members, and we never share our e-mail list with any outside vendors or companies.

To access your profile details, go to the Community menu, and click on the various tabs.

Home

This tab is the public home page of user profiles and community chatter commonly called the activity thread. 

Profile

In the profile tab, you will see your main profile picture as well as your username, current status, activity paws and statistics about your profile like how many people have viewed it and when was the last time you logged in. 

You can also manage a lot of details about your profile including:

• Edit profile
• Change profile picture
• Privacy
• Add Application
• Star a new group
• Invite Friends
• Write Message
• View your inbox
• Unload photos

You can also see how many messages and friend requests you have.

My Status

You can update your personal status with any information you want to share with everyone.  You can do this two ways.  You can click on your status which is right below your profile image on the left hand side.  Or you can go to the Profile tab under the Community menu, and change the text labeled "My Status".

Edit Profile

Here you can choose from a list of languages you speak to help other members connect with you linguistically.  You can enter your birthday if you wish, so people can wish you a happy one.

You must enter something about yourself in the "about me" section.   We wanted to keep things pretty open, so feel free to put as much or as little information as you want.

You also must tell us where you live, at least partially.  This way it's easy for people to find you and you can find local bears.

You can add any places you might be vacationing, and you can link to a personal website.  Be aware, that commercial websites may be removed without notice.

Finally, we want to know if you consider yourself a bear, a cub, etc.  And we want you to be able to let others know what you like sexually and what you are looking for in other members (sex, love, friendship).

Change profile picture

Your profile image is what people will see when they do a search for you, in addition to your username. You do not need to provide a picture, but we strongly encourage you to include one.

Profile images are approved by us and may be removed as we have a few rules about what you can use as your profile image. 1) it must be a photo of you, 2) it must show your face, 3) It cannot contain nudity.

If your photo is rejected, please don't take it personally. Some of it is for legal reasons, and another is we just don't want people to abuse the site. Thanks for understanding.

Additional details

We require you to have a user name and to give your real name, but we are pretty loose on the real name, and it doesn't really matter because it is never shown to anyone on the site.

We also require that your email address be verified, so your account cannot be activated until this is done.  Sometimes Facebook gives a message about requiring an email address when you have already entered it, so ignore this message. 

There are additional settings, dealing with editing articles, help files and timezones, and they are not that important, but you may want to change them.

Privacy

You can set the privacy of your information.  There are three levels of privacy: 1) Public, which means anyone, including guests have access to that information, 2) Site Members, which means members can have access, but not guests, and 3) Friends, which means only those you agree to be friends with can access your information.

These settings can appliy to your profile information, to your friends list and to your photo galleries.

Note, your main profile image and username are always public.

Here you can also set up your email notifications related to System messages, application notifications and Wall Comments.

Friends

Here you can manage and view your friends list.

Applications

Here you can manage your applications.

Image Gallery

Within your profile, you can upload up to ten images. These images are only visible to other registered users, and are less restrictive than your profile image. But there still are legal issues. You cannot upload anything that is owned by someone else. This includes copyrighted images. You cannot upload anything that is illegal. Although that is sometimes a gray area, you are ultimately responsible for the legality of anything you upload. We do reserve the right to delete any images we deem inappropriate.

Inbox

You can send messages to other members, and receive message from them. You have an inbox, and you don't need to be online to receive messages. Messages in your inbox will stay there for 30 days. Messages you send will also be sent to your outbox, and also remain for 30 days. When you delete any message from your inbox or outbox, it is moved to your trascan. Messages in your trashcan will stay there for 4 days. You can undelete any message during that time.

Blocking Users

When you receive a message from a member you don't want to talk to, you can block that member. Once blocked, any messages sent to you by him will be deleted automatically. He is not notified, nor will ever know you have blocked him. You can unblock at any time by clicking the "settings" link, but those messages cannot be retrieved.

Reporting Abuse

If a member is being abusive, you can report that behavior. We will review the case, and if we agree, we will take appropriate action, which may range from a warning for first offenses to a deletion of the account for repeat violators. Abusive behavior may include harassment, spamming, stalking, advertising, or other violations of the terms and conditions of this site.