Please familiarise yourself with these community guidelines. By working with them, then you, I and all other members will enjoy a valuable time here.
Make it a great place to be
Please treat this discussion forum and its members with respect. This is a place to share knowledge and interests, and this can only be engendered in a community that is lively, helpful, respectful, and gently moderated, and where help is thanked.
Philosophy
The purpose of this community is not just to help, but to educate. Especially when addressing a question about researching a soldier, please do not just answer the question. The chances are the questioner will be happy with what you have provided, but the learning and value for other users is limited. In addition, explain where and how you found the details you gave in your answer, and perhaps offer tips of how others could use your experience in their own research. Our collective understanding of available records, how to interpret them, and our wider learning is so much enhanced.
Stay on track
This community is specifically to discuss the British forces of the Great War (First World War). Please stay within that. There is no space for off-topic discussion.
Respect copyright
Do not post images of material you have found at any of the relevant online service providers (eg Ancestry/Fold3, Findmypast, The Genealogist). You may post a link to the relevant item, or even place a saved image at one of the many free hosting spaces and link to that: a good one is https://postimages.org/. Beware though that you may be breaking your terms with those service providers. You do so at your own risk and are encouraged to familiarise yourself with the terms.
You are also encouraged to use a free hosting space for images that you own, and for out-of-copyright and publicly available images. It avoids overloading this app’s database.
Quote your sources
If you are posting a fact or image, please let us know its source. It will help the community understand where it came from, and be able to find it for themselves. Saying something like <c/o Ancestry> does not help too much. Be more specific if you can.
It is also helpful to post links to any war diaries, books, or websites that you mention.
Advertising
I have no objection to you posting an advert for an event, a book, a battlefield tour, or any relevant product as long as (a) you seek my OK before you post it (noting that if this is not done then I may remove your post) and (b) you understand that members may respond and seek further information from you.
Keep things tidy
Make the effort to put things in the right place. So:
* Don’t start a topic in the wrong category; please read the category definitions.
* Don’t cross-post the same thing in multiple topics.
* Don’t post no-content replies.
* Don’t divert a topic by changing it midstream.
* No need to sign your posts — every post has your profile information attached to it.
If you see something you like or find valuable, use the Like button. Rather than taking an existing topic in a radically different direction, use Reply as a Linked Topic.
Powered by you
This site is operated by your *moderator* (that’s me, member Chris_Baker) and you, the community. If you have any further questions or ideas about how things should work here, open a new topic in the Site Feedback category. I am always open to suggestions about how the community can develop.
The site runs using Discourse and is linked to [The Long, Long Trail](https://www.longlongtrail.co.uk). I have no control over Discourse’s availability or performance, or any modifications that Discourse chooses to make to its service.
Check to see you can answer your own question!
Don’t forget that The Long, Long Trail (https://www.longlongtrail.co.uk) includes masses of detail on how to research a soldier, and on the British Army units, formations, battles and battlefields of the Great War.