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Hello and a warm welcome to all of our new members! We're thrilled to have you join our community. This server is geared towards art and music production, but we like to consider it an open content creation community and hangout. Got art? Share that shit! We want to see it!

Please, take some time to introduce yourself to the community — share a bit about yourself, your interests, and what brings you here.

Before you dive in, please take a moment to read through our server rules below. We want everyone to have a great time here, and following the guidelines helps create a positive environment for everyone.

We're excited to have you here, and we can't wait to get to know you better. Enjoy your stay!

/SERVER RULES

1. Treat Others With Respect Don't be a jerk. Treat other members with the same basic respect and courtesy you would expect in return. If you have to ask what this means, this may not be the server for you.
2. Keep Your Profile Appropriate Please keep usernames, profile pictures, bios, statuses, and other profile content appropriate for the community. Racist, Nazi, extremist, or otherwise hateful content is not permitted.
3. No Spamming Please do not spam messages, images, mentions, reactions, or other content. Keep conversations readable and be respectful of everyone's time.
4. No Sexual Harassment or Unwanted Sexual Content Do not sexually harass, pressure, or otherwise make other members uncomfortable. This includes unsolicited requests for nudes, sexual messages, images, or other inappropriate content sent publicly or through DMs. Consent matters. If someone has not invited that kind of interaction, don't send it.
5. Keep Self-Promotion in Designated Channels Please keep self-promotion, works-in-progress (WIPs), demos, commissions, services, projects, and similar content within the designated promotional channels. This helps keep the rest of the server focused and organized.
6. Do Not Share Personal Information Without Consent Never share another person's private or personal information without their explicit permission. This includes real names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, private accounts, photographs, or other identifying information. Violations of this rule will result in an immediate ban. No exceptions.
7. No Hate Speech or Harmful Language Racism, homophobia, transphobia, slurs, discrimination, or other hateful or demeaning language will not be tolerated. Use common sense and treat people with dignity and respect.
8. No Political or Religious Arguments Political and religious discussions are not permitted in this server. These topics have a tendency to create unnecessary conflict, so please keep them elsewhere.
9. Keep NSFW Content and Discussions to a Minimum Please use good judgment when discussing or sharing mature topics. Keep the General channel safe and comfortable for everyone, and avoid posting unnecessary NSFW content. When in doubt, consider whether it actually needs to be posted.
10. Use Common Sense These rules are not intended to cover every possible situation. Please use your best judgment and consider how your behavior may affect the rest of the community. Staff reserve the right to address behavior that is clearly disruptive, inappropriate, or harmful even if it is not explicitly listed above.

Bottom line: Be respectful, use common sense, and help make this a community people actually enjoy being part of.

/NAVIGATION

On a phone, the three bars in the top corner hold your profile, notifications, moderation and sign-out. Tap a chat to open it, and the arrow at the top left takes you back to the list.

/PUBLIC

The channels starting with a slash — /general, /music, /promo, /projects, /images — are open to everyone with an account. You don't join them; they're just there when you sign in, and anything posted stays put for whoever wanders in next.

/PRIVATE

The PRIVATE tab holds your one-to-one and group chats. Only the people in them can read them. Hit + NEW to start one:

• Direct — type someone's username
• Group — name it, then list usernames separated by commas

/SEND

Type at the bottom, press Enter. Messages land on everyone's screen straight away — no refreshing. A chat opens on the most recent messages; LOAD OLDER at the top fetches further back.

Hover a message, or tap it on a phone, for REPORT, REACT and REPLY — plus EDIT and DELETE on your own. Edited messages get a small "edited" marker, so nobody can quietly rewrite what they said after you've read it. Delete asks twice before it does it.

A reply shows the message it answers above it; tap that to jump back to the original. Hover a reaction to see who left it.

Hover a message on desktop, or tap it on a phone, to bring up the reactions — thumbs up, thumbs down, heart and bolt. Tap one again to take it back. Reactions people have already left stay visible. Web addresses turn into links you can tap.

The picture button attaches an image, GIF, video or audio file — you can also paste one straight into the box. Tracks arrive with a player: play, pause and a seek bar. The face button opens emoji, or just use your keyboard's own. Photos get resized on the way up; GIFs are left alone so they keep moving, so those stay under 5MB. Video goes up as-is, under 50MB, and audio under 25MB.

/CHANNELS

Tap the i next to a channel's name to see what it's for. Moderators can edit that description; for a private group, whoever started it can.

/BLOCKING

Open someone's profile and tap BLOCK to stop seeing them. Their messages disappear from channels for you, any one-to-one chat between you closes, and neither of you can message the other. They aren't told. Your list of blocked people is in your own profile under EDIT, with an unblock button for each.

/MODERATION

Moderators are given powers one at a time by an admin — muting, banning, deleting, channels, the word list, and seeing registered email addresses. Nobody gets all of them by default. Looking up an email is written to the log.

/USERS

The list shows who's here now and, below that, everyone else with an account. In your profile you can set yourself ONLINE, AWAY or OFFLINE — choosing offline hides you from the online list while you carry on reading. Your choice shows on your profile.

/REPORTING

Tap the ⋯ on anyone else's message and choose REPORT. A moderator sees it; the person you reported doesn't learn who did it.

There's also a word filter and limits on how fast you can post — if a message is refused, it'll tell you why.

/MENTIONS

Type @ and a few letters to bring up a list of handles, then Enter or Tab to pick one. Being mentioned always notifies you, even in a chat you're already reading. Mentions of you are highlighted so they're easy to spot when scrolling back.

/NOTIFY

Tap NOTIFY in the top bar to let Surfchat alert you. You'll only be interrupted when the window isn't focused, or when it is but you're reading a different chat — never for messages in the chat you're already looking at, and never for your own.

Unread counts show on the chat and on the browser tab. Private messages get a bright ! so they stand out from channel traffic. The speaker button in the top bar mutes the notification sound, and that choice is remembered on this device.

Note that notifications need Surfchat to be running somewhere: a background tab is fine, fully closed is not.

/PROFILE

Tap PROFILE in the top bar to edit yours, or click anyone's name — in the online list or next to their messages — to see theirs.

Add a picture, write whatever you want in BIO, and put your socials under LINKS. Your picture shows next to everything you post.

Add a banner across the top of your profile — an image or a GIF. You can also pick a colour for your username, or two colours if you want it to fade from one to the other. Very dark colours are refused — they'd be invisible against the black.

/HOME

Tap HOME in the top bar to head back to skinsurf.net

/ACCOUNT

Your username is how people find you — 3 to 16 characters, using letters, numbers and underscores. Your email is only for getting you back in if you forget your password. Tap the eye in any password box to check what you typed.

Forgotten it? On the SIGN IN tab, enter your email and hit Forgot your password? for a reset link.

Install it

On a phone, use your browser's Add to Home Screen. It opens fullscreen with its own icon, like any other app.