What kind of questions can I ask here?

Anything about natural living. As long as your question is:

• detailed and specific
• written clearly and simply
• of interest to at least one other person somewhere

No question is too trivial or too "newbie". Oh yes, and it should be about natural living.

Please look around to see if your question has already been asked (and maybe even answered!) before you ask. If you end up asking a question that has been asked before, that is OK and deliberately allowed. Other users will hopefully edit in links to related or similar questions to help future visitors find their way.

It's also perfectly fine to ask and answer your own question, but pretend you're on Jeopardy: phrase it in the form of a question.

What do you define as natural living?

We believe natural living is a lifestyle choice that minimizes the stresses of modern living on both ourselves and our environment. These stresses can be in the form of physical stresses; emotional and mental stresses; environmental influences such as pollutants; etc. We believe that living as close to nature as possible not only enables us to live our lives in peace, health and harmony, but it also connects us to nature thereby giving us an appreciation that looking after the planet is in our self-interest.

Can you give examples of possible topics?

Food choices (organic foods, raw foods, vegetarian, vegan, etc); Food sources ( organics/bio-dynamics, local farms, organic/bio-dynamic gardening); Natural health care (alternative medicines, alternative therapies, meditation, yoga); Green living (such as reuse, recycling, alternative energies, green cleaning).

What kind of questions should I not ask here?

Avoid asking questions that are subjective, argumentative, or require extended discussion. This is not a discussion board, this is a place for questions that can be answered!

Be nice.

Treat others with the same respect you'd want them to treat you. We're all here to learn together. Be tolerant of others who may not know everything you know. Bring your sense of humor.

Be honest.

Above all, be honest. If you see misinformation, vote it down. Insert comments indicating what, specifically, is wrong. Even better — edit and improve the information! Provide stronger, faster, superior answers of your own!

What makes this question and answer exchange different from a forum?

The Q&A nature of this site has similarities to a forum but that is where the similarity ends. Unlike a forum, discussions are discouraged here, thus making the exchange more focused and directed---to answer a specific question. The answer however, can be as encyclopedic as needed thus giving it a wikipedia like authority. Add to this the fact that users (you) can add your own answer, or vote up or vote down an answer, accept an answer or even edit an answer, thus adding to the collaborative nature of the exchange to make the question or even the answer better. The community, by its actions (such as voting up, voting down, accepting answers or even questions) gives more (or less) power and rights to users by way of reputation points.

Do I have to log in or create an account?

Nope. You can answer and ask questions to your heart's content as an anonymous user, much like Wikipedia. However, there are some things you won't be able to do on the site without registering. But it's easy to register if you want to. All you need is an OpenID account.

What is OpenID?

It is a means of logging into this site using an OpenID compliant ID that you may already have (such as, google, yahoo, etc). This way you are not creating yet another user-id and password. Furthermore, when you login using OpenID we know nothing about your password since the provider (google, yahoo, etc) handles authentication.

What is reputation?

Reputation is completely optional. Normal use of NaturalLivingExchange.com — that is, asking and answering questions — does not require any reputation whatsoever.

Remember, NaturalLivingExchange.com is run by you! If you want to help us run the site, you'll need reputation first. Reputation is a (very) rough measurement of how much the NaturalLivingExchange.com community trusts you. Reputation is never given, it is earned by convincing other users that you know what you're talking about.

Here's how it works: if you post a good question or helpful answer, it will be voted up by your peers: you gain 10 reputation points. If you post something that's off topic or incorrect, it will be voted down: you lose 2 reputation points. You can earn up to 200 reputation per day, but no more. (Note that votes for any posts marked "community wiki" do not generate reputation.)

Amass enough reputation points and NaturalLivingExchange.com will allow you to go beyond simply asking and answering questions:

At the high end of this reputation spectrum there is little difference between users with high reputation and moderators. That is very much intentional. We don't run NaturalLivingExchange.com. The community does.

What if I don't get a good answer?

In order to get good answers, you have to put some effort into the question. Edit your question to provide status and progress updates. Document your own continued efforts to answer your question. This will naturally bump your question and get more people interested in it.

If, after two days, you still don't have an answer you like, you can offer a bounty. Slice off a bit of your own hard-earned reputation -- anywhere from 50 to 500 -- and attach it to the question as a bounty. We'll even throw in 50 reputation to sweeten the deal. The bountied question will appear with a special icon in all question lists, and it will also be visible on the home page Featured tab.

Once initiated, the bounty period lasts seven days. If you mark an accepted answer, your bounty is awarded to the answerer (do note that accepted bounty answers are permanent and cannot be changed). If you do not accept an answer in seven days, the top voted answer will automatically become the accepted answer, and half your bounty will be awarded to that answer. You will always give up the amount of reputation specified in the bounty, so if you start a bounty, be sure to follow up and accept the best answer!

Of course, bounty awards, like all accepted answers, are immune to the daily reputation cap and community wiki mode.

Other people can edit my stuff?!

Like Wikipedia, this site is collaboratively edited. If you are not comfortable with the idea of your questions and answers being edited by other trusted users, this may not be the site for you.