Our Opentalk forum provides a great place where newcomers to Perl and PHP, Python and MySQL can ask questions that they can't find answer to in the books they have, or where they can discuss which of two ways of tacking a problem would be best. I encourage past course delegates to sign up (it's free) and then ask questions - the questioner gains by getting an answer, and we gain by getting a database of questions answered - a dynamic FAQ.

Like all good ideas and systems, there's a tiny minority who wish to abuse a forum such as ours, so we have a number of basic ground rules that you sign up to when you join. No personal attacks, no "spamming", no advertising (though a single announcement of a product of yours if you declare your interest is very welcome) and no copyright or illegal stuff.

Funny, though, how even with the ground rules in place holes occasionally come to light, and so it came today that I felt I should add another rule - only one account per person. You may ask who on earth would WANT two accounts, and you may ask "what's the harm ..."

Well - I've been around on forums for a while. I've always felt that it's not a good idea for the same person to sign up for a forum under two different names. I've seen maverics arguing with themselves in an attempt to draw others into a flame war on other boards, and I've seen people wishing to have two "persona" - to both have their cake and eat it, or to sign up under a new name when they've managed to build up a healthy disgust for their activities or views under their old one - (again, that's elsewhere and not on Opentalk - on Opentalk we don't mind if you're an adult who dresses up in oversized babies nappies although that's something that would be so off topic it wouldn't be appropriate on any of our boards!)
[82][c2]à
However, even if there is no malicious intent, registering a second name confuses the other members of the board and misleads them so I'm putting this slight tightening of the rules in place.
(written 2006-03-19, updated 2006-06-05)

 G903 - Well House Consultants - Running and moderating forums and social media sites
  [22] Falling out over the silliest things - (2004-08-21)
  [29] Silence is Golden - (2004-08-26)
  [115] Expiration dates or times on web pages - (2004-11-12)
  [130] Spelling and grammar - (2004-11-25)
  [204] The confidence to allow public comments - (2005-02-06)
  [231] Feedback as lifeblood - (2005-02-28)
  [248] Use me, but use me effectively - (2005-03-16)
  [424] How not to run a forum - (2005-08-24)
  [516] Open source questions? Anyone can ask. - (2005-12-03)
  [806] Check your user is human. Have him retype a word in a graphic - (2006-07-17)
  [828] Freedom of speech and freedom to post - (2006-08-10)
  [841] Forum help - a push in the right direction - (2006-08-21)
  [919] Freedom for X is denial of privacy for Y - (2006-11-09)
  [923] Why shouldn't I spam? - (2006-11-13)
  [948] Running an on line campaign - (2006-11-27)
  [1088] Why use BBC code not HTML? - (2007-02-21)
  [1190] Save the Forum - A regular clean sweep - (2007-05-17)
  [1362] No Thank You - (2007-09-23)
  [1472] The Horse goes on and on - (2007-12-15)
  [1485] Copyright and theft of images, bandwidth and members. - (2007-12-26)
  [1523] Ive just received an email from myself. Should I be worried? - (2008-01-29)
  [1532] Comment spam blocked. Please comment via Forums - (2008-02-05)
  [1539] A forum is not always the best vehicle - (2008-02-14)
  [1563] Guidlines for posting on a forum - (2008-03-04)
  [1569] I dont care - goodbye - (2008-03-09)
  [1578] Please don't shout at me! - (2008-03-16)
  [1595] First Great Western Weekend - (2008-03-30)
  [1678] Software - changes and delays. But courses must run on time! - (2008-06-15)
  [1759] While the world sleeps ... - (2008-08-19)
  [1923] Making it all worthwhile - (2008-12-04)
  [1972] Pettifog and forum boards away from public view - (2009-01-03)
  [2103] Ask the Tutor - Open Source forum - (2009-03-25)
  [2116] Why do we delay new forum members through authorisation? - (2009-04-03)
  [2156] Stopping forum spam - control of the signup process - (2009-05-04)
  [2162] Admins thoughts on banning a member from a forum - (2009-05-09)
  [2177] Preventing forum spam - checks at sign up - (2009-05-12)
  [2254] Forum membership - a privilege not a right - (2009-06-22)
  [2386] Computing under the influence of alcohol - (2009-08-29)
  [2526] A reluctance to move from old shoes to new - (2009-12-05)
  [2527] Flying tonight - (2009-12-05)
  [2569] How to run a successful online poll / petition / survey / consultation - (2010-01-10)
  [2781] The 500 pound question to get you started - (2010-05-26)
  [2820] Netiquette for forum newcomers - (2010-06-20)
  [3479] Practical Extraction and Reporting - using Python and Extreme Programming - (2011-10-14)
  [3910] Identifying your real customers and keeping them well informed fast - (2012-11-02)
  [4017] Acceptable User Policy / vexatious interacter - (2013-02-24)
  [4025] Backups, Codebase, Strategy and more - dealing with forum incidents - (2013-03-03)
  [4065] Handling requests to a forum - the background process - (2013-04-17)
  [4234] Change to Libel and Defamation laws from 1st January 2014 - (2013-12-31)
  [4239] Facebook marketing - early experiences - (2014-01-19)
  [4283] Can a legitimate forum post become illegal a year later? - (2014-07-11)
  [4307] Identifying and clearing denial of service attacks on your Apache server - (2014-09-27)
  [4315] Welcoming genuine forum posters quickly - but turning away off topic advertisers - (2014-11-16)
  [4403] The unbalanced relationship between customer and provider - (2015-01-21)
  [4492] Almost so wrong, but perhaps it's right for some? - (2015-05-11)

G305 - Well House Consultants - Post Course support
  [136] Please tell us - (2004-12-01)
  [199] Post course support - part of the service - (2005-02-02)
  [244] Getting your examples, my examples and the data files after your course - (2005-03-13)
  [293] Course follow-ups - (2005-04-27)
  [327] How far should our support go - (2005-05-28)
  [336] Targetted Advertising - (2005-06-05)
  [389] Tough Love - (2005-07-25)
  [509] Snippets from Geekmas - (2005-11-28)
  [569] Instructions for bright people - (2006-01-19)
  [609] Been on a course, but still not got it? - (2006-02-16)
  [1245] Ensuring that our tutor answers YOUR questions - (2007-06-25)
  [1874] Is it worth it? - (2008-11-07)
  [2102] What do people think of our Apache httpd / Tomcat course? - (2009-03-24)
  [2732] Asking about Jesus - (2010-04-20)
  [3045] After Course Resources - do we publish sample answers. Example from Java Exceptions module. - (2010-11-13)
  [3391] For programmers who use Internet Explorer as their browser - (2011-08-13)
  [3419] Data that we use during our training courses, and other training resources - (2011-09-04)
  [3701] Refresh and Revision training class days - Perl / PHP / Python / Lua / Ruby / Tcl / C / C++ - (2012-04-19)
  [3770] Sample answers to training course exercises - available on our web site - (2012-06-21)
  [4588] What teach you in a week stays with you for a decade - (2015-11-29)

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Can some food be TOO different?
Making use of disabled facilities
Easy feed!
Morning Post
Please Register with Opentalk - but just once!
A person of few words
Denial of Service ''attack''
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Checking for MySQL errors
PHP - London course, Melksham Course, Evening course