The first thing you have to do to get up and started as part of the Gaelic 2012 community, is to register for an account with Fòram na Gàidhlig. This is an online community for Gaelic learners which has been around for four or five years now. The following instructions tell you how to do that. If you have any problems, please email gaelic2012info@gmail.com and let us know what has gone wrong. Registration is straightforward, and should take you just a couple of minutes to complete.
1. To register with Fòram na Gàidhlig, you are going to have to decide on a username to use on the site. This will be the name that you will be identified with in the group. The name can be anything at all. It can be your real name, or an alias. It must consist of at least three characters and not more than twenty.
2. You are also going to have to decide on a password to use when you log in to Fòram na Gàidhlig. This should be known only to you, and should be between six and 100 characters long. For security reasons, it must contain at least one lowercase letter (e.g. 'a', 'b' etc) and one uppercase letter (e.g. 'A', 'B', etc). It must also contain a number.
So, the following passwords are all bad:
But the following passwords are all good:
Once you have chosen a username and a password, you are ready to register with Fòram na Gàidhlig.
3. When you click on this link here, it should open up the Fòram na Gàidhlig registration page in a new window or tab.
4. You should see three paragraphs of "terms and conditions" for participation in Fòram na Gàidhlig. Please read these through, and if you agree with them, then click the button at the bottom which says "I agree to these terms".
5. The next page you see should be the registration form itself. First of all, you need to enter the username you want to be known by in the first box. Then, you will need to enter your email address twice, once in the "e-mail address" box, and once in the "confirm e-mail address" box. It is important that you give a valid email address here, so that Fòram na Gàidhlig can validate your registration. Fòram na Gàidhlig will not pass on your email address to anyone else without your permission. Also, your email address will not be visible to any other member of Fòram na Gàidhlig.
6. Next, you should enter your chosen password twice, in the "password" and "confirm password" boxes.
7. You should probably leave the language set to "British English", and you can change the timezone if you want, but this is not important.
8. However, you do need to enter something in the location box, letting other forum members know where you are in the world. If you want, you can enter your Gaelic ability in the language level box, though this is not essential, and you can leave it blank if you want.
9. Finally, to confirm that you are a human being, and not a robot, you have to enter the confirmation code in the box at the bottom. You should see an image with dark grey letters and numbers on a light grey background. In the box below this image, please enter the letter and numbers you see, in the same order that they are presented. Note that letters must be entered in the same "case" as you see them - it is important to distinguish between capitals and lower case letters.
10. When you are finished, click the submit button at the bottom of the page.
After you have clicked the "submit" button, your registration information will be sent to the Fòram na Gaidhlig administrators for approval. You should see the following message on your screen:
"Your account has been created. However, this board requires account activation by the administrator group. An e-mail has been sent to them and you will be informed when your account has been activated."
If you don't see this message, then you will have some kind of problem to solve first. For example, you may have (unluckily) chosen a username that someone else already is using in Fòram na Gàidhlig. Or you may have chosen a bad password (i.e. one that lacks either an uppercase letter, a lowercase letter, or a number). In either case, the message will tell you what the problem is, and you will need to start the registration again. If you keep having problems, please email gaelic2012info@gmail.com and let us know what has gone wrong.
You now have to wait until you receive an email from the administrators telling you that your registration has been approved. This email will be sent to the email address you used during the registration process, so remember to check your email regularly.
Update 4 Jan 2012 - Actually it appears that you do not need to wait for an authorisation email. After having registered you can start using the forum immediately.
Once your membership of Fòram na Gàidhlig has been approved, you should then go to the Gaelic 2012 forum, which is found at the following web address:
http://www.foramnagaidhlig.net/foram/viewforum.php?f=31
If you ever get lost, then this is the webpage you should return to to find your bearings again. It is probably a good idea to bookmark it in your web browser.
The Gaelic 2012 forum is the place where most of the discussion and collaboration in Gaelic 2012 will take place, at least for the first while. You should come back every couple of days and check what is happening. In the meantime, you should see two "topics" that have already been started. You can read through the "Top tips for new Gaelic learners?" topic to see what existing members of the Fòram think would be a good way to start learning Gaelic in 2012. Or you can select the "Fàilte! Welcome new learners!" topic to introduce yourself to the group. To introduce yourself, just click the "POST REPLY" button in this topic.
Again, if you are having any problems, or are not sure how things work, please email gaelic2012info@gmail.com.