Frequently Asked Questions

8:10 pm in by YOWLink Admin

Yowlink?  Who?  What?  Why?
Jan. 21, 2010

Who? Yowlink is a community of people who come under the umbrella of “people, businesses, or organizations with ties to the Caribbean”.
What? Yowlink is a social and information network with all the features you expect from a social network and more.
Why? Large social networks do not represent us, some lacking the filtering and added security that some of us need.

 

How do I create a blog?

Jan. 21, 2010
A blog is another term for a Yowlink site.  You can create a blog in one of 2 ways (the first being the easiest).

(1) during registration, enter your blogurl (e.g. myblog) and blog name (e.g. My Blog) or

(2) Upon registering, in your profile area, click blog -> create new blog.

NOTE: This feature has been abused by people so we have disabled it.  We allow you to on a case-by-case basis.  Use the contact page if you really want a blog.  Provide the following when you send us the request:

  1. site/blog URL — this is something appropriate to what your site represents (e.g.  DJOne,  Hot107, myschool, JohnDoe, etc.  If approved, the site would be created as DJOne.yowlink.com or Hot107.yowlink.com, …)
  2. site/blog name — this is the actual Name of your site (e.g.  DJ One,  Hot 107 Reggae,  my Pre-school, John Doe, etc.)
  3. focus of your Yowlink site – this is a brief description of what the focus of your site is / will be.
How do I get to the “social network” part of this site?
Dec. 31, 2009 | Updated Apr 17, 2011
First, you need to log in. Yowlink is a social and information network.  You may interact with the  ”information” , comment, chat, etc., so Yowlink is truly 100% “social” network / community.   90% of the features of Yowlink is not available to  people who are not logged in.  Upon logging in you will have access to all features. You may visit your profile area by (1) clicking your name, or clicking “profile” link below your name, or using the top pull-down black menu. That takes you to the page where you may add wire comments, update your profile, send private messages, etc.  Also, you can just navigate the main menus, particularly the one that says “Community”.

 

How do I sign up / register?
Dec. 31, 2009
Please follow the steps below to resolve this issue:
- Visit http://www.yowlink.com
- If you have a Facebook or Twitter account, click [Log in with Facebook] or  [sign in with Twitter] button.  The first time you sign in this way, a Yowlink account is automatically created.
- Otherwise (you don’t have a facebook or twitter account), click on Register (create an account). Fill in the short form and submit. You will receive an e-mail with a link. Click the link and you are activated.
- If you don’t see the e-mail within 5 minutes, check your Spam / Junk Mail folder. Sometimes mail software like hotmail.com or yahoo.com accidentally filters good mail as spam.
- If you know someone who is a member of YowLink.com, ask the friend.
- If you’re still having trouble after the above steps, please click Contact to contact our support staff so they may look into it. Support response may be up to 24 hours.

 

I am already a member of another Blogging site. Why Yowlink.com?
Dec. 22, 2009
We believe we are different. We are an information + social network combined with the focus on you (Caribbean people), the issues we face, and ideas affecting the Caribbean. Also, it’s a way of finding / corresponding with friends/relatives who are beyond a “stone’s throw” away. You may phase out the other sites within a couple years when Yowlink becomes a 200,000+ strong so just sign up, invite all your Caribbean friends from the other networks and let’s have fun, learn from each other, communicate, vent, chat. But try to be be polite about it.

 

I am already a member of another Social Network site. Why Yowlink.com?
Dec. 22, 2009
We believe we are different. We are an information + social network combined with the focus on you (Caribbean people), the issues we face, and ideas affecting the Caribbean. Also, it’s a way of finding / corresponding with friends/relatives who are beyond a “stone’s throw” away. You may phase out the other sites within a couple years when Yowlink becomes a 200,000+ strong so just sign up, invite all your Caribbean friends from the other networks and let’s have fun, learn from each other, communicate, vent, chat. But try to be be polite about it.

 

I am not receiving the email to reset my password
Dec. 31, 2009
(1)If you’re not receiving the email to reset your password, please check your email application’s spam or junk folder or filter. Please note that some emails may be blocked by your ISP (internet service provider). (2)If you know someone who is a member of YowLink.com, ask the friend. (3)If you’re still having trouble after the above steps, please click Contact to contact our support staff so they may look into it. Support response may be up to 24 hours.

 

I forgot my password / my password does not work
Dec. 31, 2009
It’s okay to forget things occasionally.
  1. You can reset your password by clicking the “forgot password” link http://yowlink.com/wp-login.php?action=lostpassword and follow the instructions.
  2. If you know someone who is a member of YowLink.com, ask the friend.
  3. If you’re still having trouble after the above steps, please click Contact to contact our support staff so they may look into it. Support response may be up to 24 hours.

 

I get an error while trying to activate / using link from confirmation e-mail
Dec. 31, 2009
Please follow the steps below to resolve this issue:
  1. First, try logging in with the account you used in signing up.
  2. If you are unable to log in, copy and paste the full link that you received in the confirmation email into your browser.
  3. If you know someone who is a member of YowLink.com, ask the friend. (4)If you’re still having trouble after the above steps, please click Contact to contact our support staff so they may look into it. Support response may be up to 24 hours.

 

I’ve created a blog/site. Now what?
Jan. 21, 2010 by Support
Your site (blog) can be formal or informal so you can post informal Yows (like tweets), give shout outs, advertise your businesses / ventures, write articles, etc. Before that you MUST log into yowlink.com or [yourblog].yowlink.com and it will give you the opportunity to add content and manage your site: create posts, approve comments, add widgets, change themes, etc.

 

My confirmation e-mail does not arrive
Dec. 31, 2009
Please follow the steps below to resolve this issue:
  1. Check your email application’s spam or junk folder or filter.
  2. Check that you’re trying to log in from the correct email address.
  3. Please note that some emails may be blocked by your ISP (internet service provider).
  4. If you are friends with another YowLink member, ask the friend.
  5. If you’re still having trouble after the above steps, please click Contact to contact our support staff so they may look into it. Support response may be up to 24 hours.

 

My name was rejected during signup
Dec. 31, 2009
Please follow the steps below to resolve this issue:
  1. Please check the message (reason) that is displayed. Typically you get a reason your name, username, etc., was rejected and you would just correct and try again.
  2. If everything looks good, it could be that the site thinks your name is a curse word, etc., so you may want to abbreviate the offending name or login to prevent that from happening.
  3. If you know someone who is a member of YowLink, ask the friend.
  4. If you’re still having trouble after the above steps, please click Contact to contact our support staff so they may look into it. Support response may be up to 24 hours.

 

The site is slow / slower… than [insert your social network site here].
Jan. 22, 2010
We are currently investigating these complaints and will try to identify the bottlenecks. After identifying them, our Web analysts / programmers will propose a fix, we will test it out and then move it live. When this happens it should be transparent to you. We are still new and adapting. When many of those sites began, they were also slow (perhaps slower than YowLink.com) but with their advertising revenue, they just threw a lot of hardware at it. We plan to do better than just throw hardware at a performance problem by fixing the areas of concern.
Jan 19, 2011 Update – Issues addressed with site re-design and moving to better servers and a more centralized location.

 

There are some features that I don’t see here.
Dec. 22, 2009
We are still new. Tell us what you would like to see and, if appropriate and feasible, we will prioritize it and add it as a feature in no time. We are small and take your input very seriously because we expect that you will want to make this your blog & social network.
Jan 01, 2011 Update – we have added quite a few features over the past 12 months of operation.  If there is a feature that you think is missing or needs improvement, please let us know by using our Contact page. A response may be up to 24 – 48 hours.

 

What is a blog?
Dec. 22, 2009
The blog is a “web log”, a misnomer actually for the more technical people who know what a real Web log is. However, it’s like your own site where you write articles, issues, and comments, and people get to reply / respond to you. In some cases, it can be a site within a site (typically in the form of a subdomain). According to Wikipedia, “A blog (a contraction of the term “web log”) is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.” On Yowlink, each member can have their own blog. If you create a blog called “Eastern Caribbean”, your blog site would become easterncaribbean.yowlink.com and you are the administrator of that blog. You can control what goes there. The YowLink.com site administrator reserves the right to remove certain items however that violates the terms of the site, e.g. pornography of any kind, nudity of any kind, copyrighted information, promotion of illegal activities, soliciation of minors, etc.).

 

What is YOWLink?
Dec. 22, 2009
YOWLink (or YowLink) is an acronym meaning Yawdie Online World Link. YOWLink is a community of Yawdies (and friends/relatives of Yawdies) that allows the combination of social networking and information (blogging).

 

Who is a Yawdie?
Dec. 22, 2009
If you have to ask that question, this may not be the place for you. Just kidding. Some people may not be used to such “lingo”. A Yawdie (or Yardie) is typically someone from Jamaica or generally the English-speaking Caribbean. However, the term is expanded to include people all over the world whose relatives (parents, etc.) are of West Indian origin, and people who are of French- or Spanish-speaking Caribbean origin who identify with the people from the English-speaking Caribbean. Therefore, you may see Haitians refer to themselves as “Yawdies”.

 

Why is the network so small?
Jan. 30, 2010
We have been waiting on you to join and then invite all your firends/relatives who will invite all their friends and relatives, etc. We are still new. In no time, you will make us a very large focused network.

Also remember that it took other networks 2+ years before they made impact. We plan to do it in less than that with your help.