Why should I register with ComReg?
To get the word out in order to attract more citizens/members to your community, but also to make sure your community will be part of AW's history forever (our archive might become a great resource in AW's future). ComReg is pretty much AW's official register meaning that new users will check it to find something they might join, or just to get an idea of the wide spectre of activity in the AW universe. 

Being listed on the ComReg will also signalize that your community belongs to the better organized communities, if you remember to renew your registratin at least every 6 months, that is. The less serious communities will be in the archive or not registered at all.

We are open to registration for both large worlds and cities and the small societies.

Why are even active communities archived?
Because they did forget to renew their registration within 6 months, or our reminder sent to their contacts was not received due to invalid email addresses.

The ComReg site wil auto-archive any community that was not renewed or adjusted for 6 months. The system does not ask whether it is a major and very active community or a small community that never really got started. This means that even AlphaWorld might get archived, but we will du our best to make sure that obvious active communities being moved to the archive by the system, will be reinstated asap. Allthough, the ComReg Agents can not visit all communities or do other investivation in order to find new contacts etc, that would simply be too time consuming. So, basically, it's the registered community's own responsibility (and interest) to make sure they don't get auto-archived.

Why do I need to renew every 6 months?
Well, who wanna post their community on a page listing old and outdated communities? And who would bother to search the register if the majority of the communities are inactive? Remember that the ComReg is meant to offer a list of *alive* communities, where ppl can participate in some way. We do not promote locations, but communities.

Besides, the 6 months check will assure that accuracy of contacts and other info.

Note that if a community has got a free Community Booth in our Booths Area of the world AWCC, they will need to verify/renew every 3 months. See below.

How to avoid to become archived?
On your community's post you will see the date of latest adjustment (or verification). When it's been 5 months a reminder will appear right under the adjustment date, telling you how many days left until expiration. When it's been 6 months (180 days, to be exact) your registration will no longer appear on the lists at all, except if you browse for it in the archive.

On your web registration there will allways be a VERIFY button. At any time you can just click that button to tell us that everything is ok, and the adjustment date will be replaced with today's date. This will reset all countdowns, and you will be listed for at least 6 more months.

NOTE: If the only adjustment is a new email address, it will be easier for you to click the red alert iconappearing next to the contact's nick. This icon will only appear if we already have registered that the listed address is invalid. If such a mail adjustment is sent by one of the community contacts, this will also reset all countdowns. If it's submitted by someone else, it will not be concidered an update.

The VERIFY button doesn't work
If any of your contacts' email address is invalid, the VERIFY button is disabled (crossed out), meaning you can not click it - which makes sense cause everything is *not* ok. Now you must click the ADJUST button instead, in order to submit your corrections via the web form, and everything will be ok.

You can also choose to click the red questionmark iconto adjust the invalid mail address first, then wait until we have updated it, before you return to the post and then click the VERIFY button. But because the site is not updated daily, this might take a week or two, and will cause you more work as a total, than to ADJUST the registration right away via the web form. 

My community is dead, how to remove it?
Simply do not verify it. It will automatically get moved to the archive after 6 months.

Why are 2 contacts needed?
We are requiring at least 2 contacts per community because if the community consists of just you it would not be any community, right? Basically, it's a lot easier for both us and the AW users in general to get in touch with your community if there are two contacts. If you add informative administrative titles for your contacts (i.e. mayor, city planner, owner, caretaker, etc.), it will be even easier for people to contact the correct community contact.

We accept that some worlds have just one contact, but we recommend that also worlds register a 2nd community contact for easier communitcations.

We do receive some registrations from users with a great idea, but with no partners. Such registration will fail, if we should post all the ideas from AW users, we would not have time to update the register. If you have a partner for a new project, it's of course no problem to get registered.

Email is needed because we know that many users change their nick in AW quite often, while their email address will be more permanent. We also prefer that the contacts are registred with different addresses, it will secure our contact if one mail account gets closed (which happens quite often, actually). Besides, without the e-mail addresses, and if you switched AW nick; How should we be able to send you that reminder in case you forgot to verify within 6 months?:) 

Way too often we experience that registered addresses are outdated. That's when a red alert iconwill appear next to the community contact's nick, and anyone knowing this users correct address can click that icon to send us the update.

Can my community have a booth in AWCC?
Any community that is already registred with ComReg's web register can order a free community booth in AWCC, for promotion. But to keep the booth you must renew your web registration within 3 months, and not within 6 months. This is required because we offer the booths only to the top communities. You might say that by visiting the Community Booths Area you will see ComReg's GOLD members.

The Booths Area is linked from heavily trafficed locations such as AWGate and AlphaWorld GZ.

Community Booths expires if it's benn more than 3 months since your web registration was renewed or adjusted.

Will I receive a reminder before booth renewal is needed?
Yes, normally you will. There's one ComReg Agent in charge of each of the 7 themes booths streets, and your Agent will try to send you a reminder. But, we can't guarantee that we manage to remind all booth owners, so you should rather mark your calendar, or check your registration occationally. Some times our reminder might be sent *after* the booth was removed, or not sent at all.

If your booth gets cleared/deleted, you can allways reorder it by clicking the BOOTH button appearing on your web registration.

Will I receive a reminder before web renewal is needed?
Yes, normally the webmaster will send you a reminder. But, due to heavy work load, we can't guarantee that all registrations are contacted before expiration. You should rather mark your calendar, or check your registration occationally. Some times the reminder might be sent when there's just a couple days left of the 6 months periode.

If your community's registration gets auto-archived, simply look it up in the archive and click the VERIFY or ADJUST button to reinstate the registration.

Can my community have a Community Booth, without being listed on the web register?
No, most of the info displayed in your community booth will be based on your web registration. Besides, the ComReg Agents need the web lists to make maintenance possible.

Why bother to have a booth if people will find the information much easier on the web?
It's more fun to browse the Booths Area, because it's in AW's 3D environment, most booths features a JPG, and some booths even include local news and invitations that are not available on the webregister.

Besides, the ComReg Area in AWCC offers a lot more than the Community Booths, you will find news, ComReg Cinema, each Booths Street's recommendation of the month, and you might also meet other AW users there. Why not go exploring some communities together?:)

Also note that AWcom, Inc. is currently advertising the Booths Area from GZ of worlds like AlphaWorld and AWGate. Those ads do not include a link to the ComReg web site, so if you don't have a booth, the Booths Area visitors might miss your information.

I can't find what I'm searching for
Browse & Search page.

The easiest way to find a community's web registration, is to search for it's name. But some times you will not know the exact spelling, or maybe you don't even search for a particular community, but an interest or a contact's nick.

If you don't find what you are looking for, try searching for less text, 4 characters will often be enough. Note that you can also search for a community contact's nick. The search tool is not case intensive.

Hint: To get a list of all communities, search for just one letter or a space. If you will recognise the community name but can't remember it, it might be easier just to scroll the entire list.

If you still don't find your community, you might want to browse the archive. The search ability does not include archived communities, meaning communities that were not verified/adjusted for 6 months.

Because of the work load converting all the registrations to the new system (as of August 11th, 2001) the archive will contain only recently archived communities. Plan is to convert all communities that were archived in 2001 before August 31st, even older communities will be added during Autumn 2001.

If you can't find what you are searching, please contact us:)

Are there any shortcuts for easier navigation?
The easiest way to navigate the ComReg is to return to the Browse & Search page where all themes and categories are linked, after each time you search or browse. But there are some shortcuts as well:

You can click the 7 COMREG balls appearing on top of most of the pages. They represent the 7 themes, and if you are familiar with the color code, this will be useful. Theme helptext will appear when you point cursor at those ball icons, but note that some newer web browsers have disabled this feature. The Category listings (Worlds, Towns, Societies) are available from the index page only.

On any listing you can click each post's Category icon (world, town, society) or colored Theme icon (the tiny squared icon just under the community's name -). Both actions will return new listings depending on what Category or Theme you clicked. 

My web browser does not support JavaScript
Most newer browsers do support JavaScript, but it might be disabled in your browser settings. Check "properties" and download/install an applet if needed. You might even be allowed to search for "Java" in the browser's help file for detailed instructions.

If you don't want to update your browser, you can use the web browser that is built-in with the AW browser. That should work.

If you still have problems seeing the ComReg, please mail us with info on what you are searching for, and we will look it up for you.

Mail buttons are not working for me
It's a common feature on Internet that you can click a mailto-link to send a mail directly from a web page. To do this, your web broser settings must include info on your local mail client.

Look for browsers "Preferences" options in the menu (normally it's an option under "Edit". If you don't find it, you can search your browser's help files for info on mail settings.

Perhaps it's time to upgrade your web browser anyway? If so, download the latest version, and the mail client information might get correctly set when you install the new browser version. 

If you don't want to update your browser, and none of the above tips helped, you can mail us or use the web form to submit your community updates. It's just a little more complicated, but it will work ok.

If you have any problems using the ComReg, please mail us with info on your problem. It would be useful for us to know if problems occour often, and what they are. It's the only way we can implent further improvements:).

A JavaScript error occured
The script has been tested on MS IE, Netscape and Opera, and everything seems to work just fine, but you might be using a web browser not supporting all java codes used in the script. Either you should update your web browser, or you can use the AW browser's built-in web browser which should work.

Some times a Java error will occour if you hit reload or click on a link while the script is still loading, but if you hit reload and take it a little slower, the problem will probably be fixed.

The site is too slow
We do appologize that occationally the script might take long to load, especially if you are on a slow connection or on an old browser version, or even if the register has been updated since your last visit. There's not much we can do about it, because the register will be constantly growing with a lot of information.


Anyhow, we will try to improve the speed by editing the script functions, but right now we need to give daily updates and maintenance a higher priority.