Frequently Asked Questions

Added by: Cheryl

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Have a question about something on the website. Our FAQ page is the place to look for answers -- or to ask if you don't find one.

Find answers to frequently asked questions, or ask your own.

Below are answers to some frequently asked questions on this website. Open the accordion according to the type of your quesiton. If you don’t see your question answered here, you can use the “Add FAQ” button to add your question. Your questions may benefit others! Your question won’t post immediately as we review them for appropriateness.

If yours is an issue of a more private nature, you may use our contact form to contact us.

Frequently Asked Questions

  • Social Media

    Frequently asked questions about social media.

    • Tell me more about your social media accounts.

      OK, we’ll admit we just added this so we’d have something showing in the section on our FAQ page and other places where this appears.

      To know more about our social accounts, visit this page. Or use the Ask a Question button to ask a question.

  • Shop FAQ

    Frequently Asked Questions about our shop.

    • What are your shipping policies?

      This shipping policy applies to items we sell on our website and not on third-party venues.

      Shipping Speed

      We aim to ship in-stock items within two business days (M-F) of receiving the order. Often, we ship faster than that but we say two days to give ourselves a bit of leeway!

      If we are offering customized items, those items will (of course) take longer. We will try to give an estimate on the product page itself but generally allow us two weeks or so to ship a customize item — if it coincides with us closing shop for a bit to go on vacation, we’ll let you know.

      Shipping Methods

      We’ve started using calculated shipping again. We ship our items via USPS exclusively at this time. You should get a shipping rate quoted in the cart based on your order and location. If the cart is not returning rates please contact us and let us know.

      Packaging

      At the time we’re writing this, all of our current physical items are small jewelry like pins. These, we generally ship in bubble mailers. We are working on using up our stock of plastic bubble mailers and have compostable ones ready to go when those are used up!

      If and when we start offering mugs or larger items again, we’re going to try as much as we can to use less plastic. Some of our pins are packed in cello bags.

    • Accessing your account

      When you are logged in, you’ll find a link to access your user pages in the header of the website (or the mobile menu if you’re using a phone). The URL for your main profile page will be something like https://www.pnwbeyond.com/member/myusername .

      From here you can access shop purchases and downloads, delete your account, update your address. You can also, if you choose, update your social media links to share, and can access any posts you’ve written on the website, start or join groups, etc.

    • Machine Embroidery File Policies

      During the pandemic I got started with machine embroidery and while it’s not my primary focus right now, at the current time I plan to list some of my existing files and create a few more — hopefully more with an outdoorsy or PNWest-y theme (the furbies and things like that were for my daughter).

      Please note the following if you are ordering machine embroidery files:

      • I test MOST of my files on a single-needle machine. A few of my older ones were developed and tested on an older multi-needle machine but I no longer have that.
      • The files that I list have all been tested at their current size. However, I test with a thick cut-away stabilizer (generally Sulky Cutaway Plus) and on Kona Cotton. I do NOT guarantee that the file will work on every type of fabric. You may need to test the design with a different stabilizer for different types of fabric. Additionally, I have a Brother machine and test with PES files. I include other file types but cannot test on every type of machine.
      • PES files were created with whatever the version of PES was at the time.
      • I do NOT give refunds on downloadable/digital products. I will try to help as much as I can if you are experiencing a problem and I am available. I do go away sometimes to take camping trips, bike rides, etc…so I will respond as promptly as I can.
      • I do NOT do free resizing, edits, etc. Doing that takes time. In the future, I may add options for having the file resized. However, sizing up or down dramatically can be problematic and I will not test resized designs as it takes fabric, thread, and lots of time — all of which are expensive.
      • I am not a factory and do not mass-produce t-shirts, etc. Sometimes, I may choose to make items with embroidery and sell them but I can only do so in small quantities.
    • You have a lot of non-PNW or travel-related stuff in your shop!

      Well, yes.

      My intention is to start adding more items related to some of the themes of this website — but when I started on designing things during the pandemic, my daughter was here with me and likes things like furby and so…

      At the moment I am writing this, I’m trying to get together all of my various files, items, etc and relist them here. Why not? It doesn’t hurt and people can filter out items by type and subject.

      My current plan is to start experimenting again with embroidery files and photography related items and to try to make more items in some way related to this website. However — my favorite things to do are writing this blog, fiddling around with wordpress, being outside, doing photography…so we’ll see how many embroidery files I actually end up making! And I reserve the right to make off-topic items as I see fit:)

    • What is your return policy?

      To view our return policy or access our return form, please go to our returns page.

    • Where do you ship your items?

      Currently, if we add downloadable items again, we will sell outside of the US, of course. But, for now, we are only shipping items within the US. We may offer shipping outside the US in the future. Note that we also sell some of the same items in our Etsy shop which will calculate appropriate shipping outside of the United States.

      If you are wondering why, read on…

      At some point, we decided to take down our shop. The way we had set it up was…complex, to say the least. Especially for the stuff we were selling. I won’t go into details. But we decided that we liked having a shop on our website with the option to run our own sales, etc, separate from the other venues where we sell stuff. We didn’t want handmade items and selling things to be our primary focus…but it does bring some proceeds in for the blog and we enjoy creating new things from time to time.

      But most of our sales come from other venues. This time, we wanted to keep it more simple and we’re starting with just offering flat rate shipping on small items within the US. We may start to do calculated shipping again, later, if we find ourselves introducing larger items or decide to start shipping outside the US.

  • Membership FAQ

    Frequently asked questions having to do with login, registrations, profiles, groups, etc.

    • How can I set my own user avatar?

      If you’ve left a comment as a visitor, you might find that you used to have a crazy monster-looking avatar. Then, maybe, your avatar suddently looked like this (though, somehow, we doubt you’ve noticed):

      mystery

      Now, maybe, it looks like this (or something else if we’ve now set another avatar since we’ve written this):

      mystery 1

      Or maybe you’ve even logged in and submitted something and find that your avatar looks like the above only a bit darker.

      We made the decision, recently, to stop using Gravatars on our website.

      Gravatar is a WordPress service that pulls an image that you link with your email. So it’s nice in that it will pull up images set by visitors who leave a comment. But it also means that for each avatar there is, a request is made to secure.gravatar.com — which can impact speed. We have enough going on here that we will speed up things where we can and this was one of those things.

      If you’d like to add your own avatar image on this website, you can easily do so if you log in and then go to your user profile. You can find a link in the menu.

      When you’re there, hover over or click on your image and you’ll get the chance to upload your own, custom, avatar. You can also hover over the top corner of your cover image to find where you can change that. You can also find links to do so in the profile settings menu.

    • How can I export or delete my data?

      If you have an account, you can export your data, manage individual items, or delete your account completely. When you’re logged in, visit your name in the menu, and under that you’ll see a link for “profile and account settings.”

      Go there and under account settings, you’ll see options to request a data export or to delete your account.

      To delete individual items, you can do that yourself. Please understand that we do not allow members to self-delete or edit some old comment items and forum topics as they may have responses that could render any responses to that comment to be viewed in a different light.

      If you have questions about this, please contact us or ask a question using the Ask a Question button on our FAQ page.

      Thank you.

    • Blocking and reporting members or offensive/misleading/spam items in the member system.

      If you’re getting unwanted messages via our membership system, we’re sorry.

      Or if you’re seeing something that is offensive, misleading, or that’s just spam in groups or in member activity or discussion, thank you in advance for reporting it to us.

      We cannot be everywhere and do not necessarily get an email every time somebody adds something.

      So we’ve implemented a moderation system. If a member is bugging you by sending you private messages, you can block them from the member directory or report them with a flag on their member directory card or on their profile header, which you will see when you hover.

      Or if you see a group that should not be there, same thing — there’s a report flag on the group header or the group card. You’ll also find that you can report items in individual activities.

      If a member gets enough reports/complaints about an item, they may be auto-suspended for a time based on the nature of the report or complaint.

      We reserve the right, ultimately, to block someone who is consistently reported or remove content at our discretion.

    • I received an email that I am now a "Community Events Organizer." What does that mean?

      If you received an email saying that you are a community events organizer or a related email saying that you’ve received points or a badge for being such, congrats!

      This means that you’ve published enough events on our website with the right information and that we know who you are and feel confident enough in the events you contribute that we feel comfortable allowing you to publish your own events — which means that they will go “live” when you publish them without waiting for us to review them.

      We still may go in and make edits — in the excerpt, for instance, which we unfortunately cannot seem to get onto our event contribution form.

      You do not need to love the points and badges. We think it’s fun but our system does send out emails when points or achievements get generated. To change your preferences on that, you can do so here.

    • Subscribe or Unsubscribe from Browser Notifications
      Please wait...subscribing push notification is in progress.
      You are subscribed. Change/Update subscriptions according to your choice.

      If you subscribed to browser notifications and want to unsubscribe, you can do so using the button above OR find a bell icon in the lower right corner of your screen. The bell icon may be quite tiny until you hover over it. Thus far, we have not been successful with replacing it with a larger icon or resizing it.

      If you click on the button above, you’ll be presented with a popup with some options. Most of these apply to getting notifications about membership functions and notices. Unfortunately, we don’t have a way to subscribe or unsubscribe members specifically from notifications about articles.

      If you log in and want to customize notifications about which types of member notifications you receive through your browser, you can do so by going to your account settings in your profile, where you’ll find a “push notification” option. There, you can opt in to get notifications about groups, requests, invites, etc.

      You can also subscribe or unsubscribe to notifications for individual groups by clicking a subscribe button either on the group main page or on the group card in the groups directory.

    • How do I report an issue or concern regarding something to do with membership functions?

      If you can log in, please use the tab you’ll find in the “more” dropdown in your user profile where you can access a contact form for concerns or errors. If you are having difficulty with registering or logging in, please visit our contact page and use that form.

      If you have a general question that might benefit all users of this website, please ask a question using the “Ask a Question” button either on the FAQ page or from a FAQ tab in your member profile.

    • I received an email about "achievements" or "badges." What's that about?

      We think it’s fun to award badges for things like trivia quizzes or “karma” points for participation. Along with setting that up comes the option to automatically send emails for things like this.

      Our system doesn’t allow us to have an “opt-in” option for this, but does allow users who receive emails to opt out of them.

      Initially, we had our system sending out emails for points received, but then decided that would result in too many emails going out.

      So, now, we DO have our system send out emails only if someone earns a badge for a trivia quiz (and that person must first enable the badge by clicking on a link after passing a quiz), or we may send them out for other “achievements.” Which, we feel, will not result in many emails being sent.

      If you DO get one of these emails, there’s a link to a page where you can disable them. These emails are managed separately from our email newsletters or from emails you choose to receive based on groups that you’re in.

    • Groups and Forums (General Info)

      Our membership functions provided facilities for hosting user-created groups, and we like that idea — both to allow members to set up some discussion channels, if they would like, as well as for us to create groups to get content in one space for like-minded members. We’ll see what use we put it to in the future!

      For a time, we tried sitewide forums. However, as each group can have its own forum, we felt that hosting sitewide forums as well was confusing.

      Any member can create a group by following a button on the Groups page. We ask that you keep it to topics that are “safe for work” and reserve the right to delete groups and block members that violate this policy or create a bunch of unrelated spam groups.

      Each group can have its own forum. Member can post updates to the activity page but the group forums can provide a discussion format between members.

      Groups may also add media and create albums.

      If you have a more specific question about groups and group setup, or how to join a group and don’t see it in our FAQs, click the Ask a Question button on the FAQ page where you most likely accessed this page.

    • My role on the website recently changed.

      At the end of January 2024, we made a few changes to user roles on the website to make it easier to filter out spam registrations. If this is the reason, except for the name of your user role, there should be no change to the capabilities you have if you are a normal user of this website.

      From time to time, we change specific user’s roles and capabilities — often it’s to get post authors the “author” or “contributor” role. Other times it may be to allow frequent publishers of events to have more capabilities.

      And, unfortunately, sometimes we downgrade a users’ role due to spam or behavior (though this does not happen too often).

    • How can I set up Two-Factor Authentication?

      You’ll find a link to set up two factor authentication in your account settings. You can find that if you go to your user profile and find the dropdown under your avatar. Click “account settings.”

      When you click the two-factor-authentication link, you’ll be provided with a QR code or a text and numerical code to do your signup.

      Our 2FA uses only the Google Authenticator app.

      Follow the instructions to set up 2FA. Make sure to save your emergency codes in case you get locked out as we might not be able to help you with this if you don’t. The email address, here, should be the email address you use for your account on this website.

      After you successfully set up 2fa, when you log in, you’ll encounter the 2FA form where you’ll enter the six-digit code provided by the Google Authenticator app. Once you’ve entered six digits, the form should automatically submit and then log you in.

    • Accessing your account

      When you are logged in, you’ll find a link to access your user pages in the header of the website (or the mobile menu if you’re using a phone). The URL for your main profile page will be something like https://www.pnwbeyond.com/member/myusername .

      From here you can access shop purchases and downloads, delete your account, update your address. You can also, if you choose, update your social media links to share, and can access any posts you’ve written on the website, start or join groups, etc.

    • I registered but I cannot log in/never got the confirmation email.

      We wanted to cut down on spam registrations — but, as we have a shop on our website, we didn’t want to require that we approve each and every registration.

      So we have double opt-in required for registration. Which means that, after you register, the website sends you an email with a link to confirm that you actually want to register. You need to click the link to confirm…then you should be able to log in.

      Unfortunately, sometimes our email goes to spam. If you were expecting an email from us and did not receive it, the first thing to do is to check your spam folder. If you find a confirmation email from us there, could you please mark it as not being spam? Then click the link to complete your registration.

      If you cannot find the email anywhere, you can contact us and tell us the name and email with which you registered and we can resend the confirmation email or enable the registration for you.

      If you confirmed your registration but, then, cannot log in, please try doing a password reset. If that doesn’t work, please let us know what error you are encountering.

  • Emails and Newsletters

    Frequently asked questions about email newsletters and other emails from our website.

    • With which frequency will I receive emails if I subscribe?

      Thanks for your interest in subscribing to keep up with what we’re posting!

      If you subscribed from one of the forms in a page or post, you likely were subscribed to “general newsletters” and a specific content area depending on the page on which you subscribed. We think “keep it simple” is best for most.

      But for those who really want to get specific, we have a LOT of options on our Newsletters page.

      However, the way our form setup works, it’s difficult to get really specific there about which frequency some of these emails will have.

      Here’s the list of what’s here to make it easier for you to find what you want:

      General Newsletters

      “General newsletters.” Our intention, here is to start sending out a larger email newsletter on a quarterly basis again which will include some content you may have missed or even some content that’s not directly a post from our website. It will include multiple different types of content.

      You may also get an occasional newsletter if we need to sent out an important notification about our website to all subscribers.

      But, in general, this selection won’t see you getting too many emails from us.

      One of Everything

      One of everything is for people who REALLY want it all. But you won’t get it ALL by subscribing to this. Our site was initially created as a PNW and travel blog. We have other areas where we might post about…recipes or other things. HOWEVER, subscribe here and you’ll get a daily email whenever we publish a new main post about the PNW, travel, local events, photography, cycling, gear reviews, other outdoor activities…

      But it will NOT contain new recipes, new items from our shop, notifications about any contests, raffles, giveaways, etc, nor will it contain information about new groups or features on our website or “about the blog” type posts.

      Weekly Everything

      Weekly everything is…just that, or at least it will be soon. This newsletter gets sent with any new main content that we’ve published that week, and if we’ve published a new post, we’ll ALSO add extra stuff onto it — notifications about any new recipes, trivia, polls, giveaways, etc. It will, however NOT contain shop content.

      “Hubs”

      If you see a selection that has the word “hub” in it, that is a monthly newsletter on that topic.
      It may be a mix of things related to that topic. For instance, in the cycling hub newsletter, you might find bike posts, bike gear reviews, a book about cycling if we’ve reviewed one, upcoming cycling events. However, a newsletter will only get published that month if we’ve published at least one main post in that area. Recipes and is also like a hub page, and is monthly.

      Raffles and Contents

      At the point I’m writing this, we haven’t done a raffle for some time — but I think they’re fun and we’re thinking of doing little raffles again. As raffles are a time-sensitive thing, new raffles will be sent out whenever one starts to run. You might also get notified of upcoming raffles in a general newsletter.

      New Groups

      This is sort of a “whenever” newsletter as we need to configure it individually when there are new groups. We may try to customize it a bit – for instance, if we see you’ve subscribed to new groups and you subscribe to “Bike Hub” and we see there’s a new bike group, we’ll let you know about it.

      PNWWiki

      This is our glossary section. What we’ll post there is a grab bag of new terms. We may add relevant ones to individual hub newsletters, but if you subscribe to this, you’ll get a weekly list of new additions sent to you.

      Shop

      This one is also sent on a “whenever” basis. At the time I’m writing this, we’re trying to compile all of the existing things we’ve made in our shop. After that, we’ll start sending out notifications on an occasional basis when we have a new product or run a sale. If you’re a customer who has made a purchase, we may send you customized shop emails based on what you’ve purchased from us.

      News about our calendar for event organizers

      This is just a list for updates on the status of our calendar in case we make any important changes.

      Member features and news and Blog News and Announcements

      This will be sent out weekly if we’ve posted anything new that week that’s on the status of our blog, new features on our website, etc. “State of the blog” sort of stuff for one, new features for another.

      New Polls

      These will be sent out on a per-post basis as polls are sometimes time-oriented. The poll may be about anything and may be user-submitted. We may add subject appropriate polls to our hub newsletters.

      Recipes

      We are considering re-adding some recipes to our website. PNW & Beyond is not, first and foremost, a food blog, but it’s fun to share healthy recipes or food that is somehow PNW or travel-related. Recipes will be like a “hub” newsletter and be sent on a monthly basis. We may also add recipes into general newsletters.

      Off-Topic Posts

      This is a grab bag. Occasionally, we might want to write something to add information to, for instance, our machine embroidery if we keep doing that. Or we might be just dying to write something WordPress – related. Or an opinion piece.

      Off topic posts is like a box of chocolates…

      You will end up with…polls, trivia quizzes, both on and off-topic, recipes, craft posts, WordPress posts, opinions, and blog news…whatever goes into the “off topic” section.

      We will send this on a weekly digest basis.

      New Galleries

      We’re finally getting our photo galleries together. If you subscribe to new galleries, you’ll get a weekly digest of any new galleries we’ve added that week. Just a caveat: we are currently adding some old galleries to the gallery pages we’ve just set up, so you may get notified about existing galleries as we re-add them, depending on when you subscribe.

      “New galleries” does not include member or group galleries unless we specifically decide to feature them, but the galleries here MAY be ones that accept content from members.

    • I received an email from Pacific Northwest & Beyond either asking me to confirm my subscription to the newsletter or with some other message, but I never tried to sign up!

      Wait! Don’t hit the spam button!

      If you received an email asking you to confirm your subscription to our email newsletter(s) and didn’t try to subscribe to emails, we’ve very sorry!

      But not to worry! If you don’t click the confirm button or link, you won’t be signed up to our email list.

      Like many to most websites we keep an email list for subscribers who want to be notified about new content.

      However, anyone — bots or humans — can come along and enter an email address into a subscribe form.

      So we have double optin enabled to prevent unsuspecting people from getting automatically signed up for our email list. If there’s an attempt to sign up for our email newsletters with your email address, a confirmation email will go out asking you to confirm that you really want to sign up. Don’t click the button and you will not be signed up.

      We’ve also received questions about it “creating an account.” Receiving a newsletter confirmation email does NOT mean an “account” was created for you on our website. However, our registration process does have a newsletter checkbox. Chances are, if you get this email and did not try to subscribe, it was a bot trying to subscribe through one of our forms. But if you’re concerned, we’ll check and make sure no account was created for you if you contact us. However, there’s very little chance that this happened UNLESS you also received an email asking for account confirmation as we also have two-step subscription for user accounts.

      While we’d love to have you subscribe to our email newsletters and updates, we don’t believe that anyone should be signed up who truly does not want to be.

    • How can I change my preferences to email newsletters?

      Thanks for subscribing!

      In email newsletters that we send, you should find a link which will take you to a page where you can change your preferences. Please note that accessing this page directly will not work because it requires you to go there from your individual link.

      If you want to see a subscribe form on our website and want to ADD that content area to one to which you’re already subscribed, you CAN fill out the form again using the same email address and it should merge that selection to your already subscribed areas.

      Please note that this only applies to email newsletters. Things like website-generated emails, group email subscriptions, etc are managed separately.

    • How can I unsubscribe from email newsletters?

      If you are subscribed to our email newsletters and wish to unsubscribe, you’ll find a link to unsubscribe in the individual newsletter.

      The way our newsletters are managed, if you just visit the site and visit the preferences page, you won’t see anything but if you follow the unsubscribe link, you’ll unsubscribe.

      We also have set up an unsubscribe header in our emails, so you should be able to click “unsubscribe” from your email client and we should get a notification to unsubscribe you if it does not unsubscribe you directly — but this is in the beta stage in our opinion, so we hope that will work.

      Unsubscribing from the unsubscribe link, however, is reliable.

      Please note this only applies to our email list. Other emails from our website, such as group emails, member notifications, etc, are managed separately.’

      Additionally, you’ll also note a link in the emails that will allow you to access a page to update your preferences, in case you wish to stay subscribed but want fewer emails or a different content area.

      If, for some reason, you are having difficulty unsubscribing, please contact us and let us know the email you subscribed with and we can manually unsubscribe you.

    • Already a Subscriber?

      If you’re here, you likely clicked the “Already a Subscriber?” message in a Google popup. These popups do not necessarily know if you have previously subscribed, created a login, etc.

      If you have already subscribed to our newsletters or created an account on this website, there’s nothing more to do. If you want to UNSUBSCRIBE, you can do that from a link in any email we send via our email newsletter list. The newsletters create their own special unsubscribe link that ensures the email you signed up with is unsubscribed.

      If you created an account on this website and wish to edit it, you can log in and do so from your profile page. If you want to delete your account, you can delete it from your profile page.

  • Events Calendar

    Frequently asked questions about our events calendar.

    • Submitting events: known issues and what to do about event or location edits/changes.

      We added a convenient click-to-open popup to some of our event pages to let organizers know of current issues of which we’re aware and working on, and to answer some questions about editing events or making changes if you’ve found your event or event location on our calendar.

      If we enter the same information in too many places, we may forget to edit every instance, so what we’re going to do here is add the popup to this page. If you’d like to read it, click the button below. It can be conveniently closed when you are finished.

      Open the Popup
    • I received an email that I am now a "Community Events Organizer." What does that mean?

      If you received an email saying that you are a community events organizer or a related email saying that you’ve received points or a badge for being such, congrats!

      This means that you’ve published enough events on our website with the right information and that we know who you are and feel confident enough in the events you contribute that we feel comfortable allowing you to publish your own events — which means that they will go “live” when you publish them without waiting for us to review them.

      We still may go in and make edits — in the excerpt, for instance, which we unfortunately cannot seem to get onto our event contribution form.

      You do not need to love the points and badges. We think it’s fun but our system does send out emails when points or achievements get generated. To change your preferences on that, you can do so here.

    • How can I edit an event I submitted?

      If you submitted an event to our calendar, and would like to edit it, you may contact us via email with your event change request OR if you are logged in and repeatedly submit events to our calendar, we may have given you “event contributor” status with the ability to publish and edit your own events. If so, you can find you events in the “my events” tab on your profile, accessible from the “me” link at the top of the website or at a URL like https://www.pnwbeyond.com/user/(your username here).

  • Guest Posting

    Frequently asked questions about guest posting on this website.

    • Writers' Guidelines and Event Submissions

      Thank you for your interest in guest posting on this website. You can view our guest posting form here and also access this FAQ from that page. If you want to submit an event, there’s a different form for that, which you can access here.

      Who can submit content?

      Anyone can submit content to this website, but you must first register and log in before submitting content, with the exception of community event submissions, which may be submitted without logging in.

      However, if you log in before contributing an event, you’ll have access to it for future editing.

      What types of content do you accept?

      Our preferred subjects are about to the Pacific Northwest US — places, people, things to do, places to stay, etc as well as travel. We also love posts about travel photography, outdoor activities and gear. We’ll also allow creation of new polls or trivia quizzes to suppement posts.

      We also have an events calendar and accept PNW events from community contributors.

      We are not scary (at least we don’t think we are) and would welcome even short posts that are written in readable English on topics from opinions about Seattle from those who’ve just visited to fun stuff you did on your last vacation.

      HOWEVER, we will not accept posts that require extensive editing on our. part and..we’re not sure how to put this, language that seems excessively cloying or promotional (i..e. a post which repeatedly said a certain place would “produce smiles.”) or posts about things that seem suspicious to us (i.e. a place that “helps” you get a faster passport).

      We do not accept content that is obviously AI written. We prefer human-generated content. The exeption of this is in our “PNWWiki” glossary section where we often write part of it ourselves (or by you if you’re a guest author) but stick in a section that is AI contributed just to supplement, or where we use AI to supplement some of our meta tags for SEO. Any AI content should be disclosed as such.

      Events submitted by community contributors must either take place or be organized in or about the PNW OR be online and on topics pertaining to travel, photography, the outdoors, etc. As an example, we might publish an online event hosted in London about bird photography, but do not publish an online event hosted in London that’s about digital marketing.

      You MUST have the authority to use your content. If it’s a repost from somewhere else, please provide the link of the original post. If your images are not your own, please use appropriate credit. For instance, you don’t need to credit images from free services like Pexels or Unsplash, but if you use an image from Flickr make sure it’s available under a creative commons license and make the appropriate credit.

      Do you pay for guest posts?

      Currently, we do not pay for guest posts and do not plan to in the forseeable future unless we specifically hire someone to write a guest posts. Currently, we are not hiring though; please do not inquire about it.

      What do I get for guest posting?

      You get to share something you found wonderful with readers. You get a guest post with your name on it out there. Link building? Maybe. We do allow for SOME dofollow links in guest posts, but it really depends on what the link is to. Does it complement your content and belong there? Then we allow for it. Is it a sponsored link or affiliate link, then it will be tagged as such.

      Most social links in your profile will be nofollow. However, there is one link that is dofollow and that is the link in the header of your profile, which readers may visit by following a link from the author box in your post.

      Do I need to pay to post? Is it free?

      Guest posting and event listing on this website is free of charge UNLESS it is a sponsored post promoting product or business. If so, we encourage you to view our sponsored posts FAQ.

      How will I know if my post was accepted?

      You should get an automated email when you’ve successfully submitted your post. If we have any questions, we’ll contact you via email to ask them. Otherwise, you’ll get another automated email when your post is published or declined. Please make sure that you’ve allowed emails from hello@pnwbeyond.com so they don’t go to your spam box.

      If you’re an event contributor, you’ll just get an email when your event is published.

      I want to propose the following topics for your blog…

      We do not respond to emails with a list of proposed topics. If you would like to submit a post to this website, please use the appropriate form to submit your post and we’ll review it. The exception would be with sponsored posts. We do need to arrange that in advance.

      Will there be ads on my post?

      As you can see, we do use contextual advertising on this website. We run a blog because we like to, but it does cost money. We run ads in hope that our blog income will outweigh the expenditures. We show ads on most content on this website. We do try to keep ads off of sponsored posts, but sometimes auto-ads have a way of sneaking back in even when we try to exclude them.

      Will I be given author credit?

      Of course! For events your contact information will be listed under organizer info. If you submit the event as a logged -in user, there will be a box with your profile under it as well.

      For posts, you’ll be given author credit and it will link to a profile page on our website which you can customize as you wish and add links to your own website and social media. There will also be an author box on primary posts with your info and social links.

      Will you promote my post on social media or in your newsletter?

      We likely will, but we do not guarantee it. We auto-post most content to Facebook, X, and Instagram. We are revising Pinterest and will likely add a pin with your post. With events, we are setting up auto posts to Facebook and X but do not publish every event to Instagram.

      We do have some subscribers to a newsletter. It depends on the content area of your post whether it gets posted to a newsletter. Many events will end up in a monthly newsletter which gets generated from upcoming events.

      …and a few other things

      By contributing a post, you’re acknowledging the above guidelines, that you have rights to the content, and that we can choose to remove content if we see fit.

      Generally, posts will remain for the life of this blog…or at least as long as I own it. Who knows, there may be a time I no longer can do this but someone else may take it up and in that case, they may have a different policy for content! Events will be removed after they are finished unless it is an event that happens year after year that we plan to update ourselves. We have the right, however, to refuse to publish any content and the right to remove it at our discretion.

      Thanks for your interest!

      PNW & Beyond/PNW.FUN

    • Will you add a link to my blog in your existing article?

      From time to time, we get asked if “will you add a link to my blog” into an existing article, so we added this FAQ on the subject.

      In most cases, the answer is “no.” While we don’t want to sound mean, about 90% of such requests offer a link that really has nothing to do with the article at hand or in which the page the link goes to is pretty content-free.

      For instance, we received a request to link to a page that had nothing more than an address for a popular tourist location and a photo of it!

      Before you ask us to add a link into our page, please consider whether your link is applicable to the topic of the page, and whether it adds any value to readers of that page.

      Also consider this: will you link back to us?

      One place where we more often will consider adding links is to our PNWWiki pages in which we have a “related resources” section. If your link is to a page that is directly about the topic at hand, we’ll be more likely to consider placing it there than in an existing main post.

      We generally do not consider paid link placements and if we ever did, we’d disclose it, and add rel=”sponsored to it in keeping with best SEO practices.

      If you want to get a link on our site, perhaps you could consider adding a guest post on one of the topics we like to cover.

      Thanks for your understanding!

      Owly Karma Point Type Image will you add a link to my blog faq image also
    • Sponsored Posts

      Yes, we do accept some sponsored posts and content. If you wish to submit a guest post but your post is overtlt promoting a product, business, or service, we considered that sponsored and ask for payment.

      What are sponsored posts?

      A sponsored post is one that is promoting a brand. If you want to submit a recipe, write your thoughts about visiting Seattle, or whatnot, that’s free.

      But if you’re a brand or business and are promoting that, it is a sponsored post.

      It is considered best practice to tag sponsored and paid links with rel=”sponsored,” so this is what we do with promotional links.

      You do get a link in your profile header. We are working to try to get that made into an actual, clickable link that is followed and will change that when we succeed.

      Will my post be labeled as sponsored content?

      In keeping with best practices, we will disclose your post as being sponsored in the early part of the post. We’ll likely add something such as “this was sponsored by” or “this is a sponsored post which means…”

      Will PNW & Beyond write something for me?

      We cannot give you a definitive answer on this as it is situational. From time to time we get invited to various media previews and if it’s something we want to attend and have time for and doesn’t cost us a great deal to get to, we will choose to do that at no charge. It depends on the event.

      Same goes for reviewing a product. If it’s something we’re into, like bike computers, we might want to review it.

      Writing a post, however, actually takes quite a bit of time especially if you consider photography, SEO, etc.

      If you are interested in us writing sponsored content for you, please contact us.

      Will there be ads on my post?

      We do not feel there should be ads on sponsored posts. We do use auto-ads for contextual advertising and have set up sponsored URLS to be blocked from such ads. However, we’ve found that they can sometimes sneak in there. So we can say that we will attempt to limit such ads as much as is possible.

      How much does a sponsored post cost?

      We may vary the price of a sponsored post. Currently, our asking rate is $60.00 but the form below allows for various payment structures depending on the post, so the payment form below reflects a pay-what you will structure. We may change the “recommended” price from time to time depending on our website traffic, but if we publish a post at a certain rate, we won’t ask you for more in the future — but subsequent posts may be at a different rate.

      The “recommended” value here is for sponsored posts that you submit. Anything else, and you shoud inquire in advance.

      Sponsored Post

      Suggested price: $60.00 $60.00

      This is the payment form for a sponsored post on our website. You can enter the agreed-upon amount for the sponsored post and then submit it. We’ll contact you before publication.

      How long will my sponsored post be on your website?

      Once we publish a sponsored post, it generally will be on our website "for the life of this blog." Which means that, in the future, if we need to stop writing this blog or if it changes hands the post will be taken down as then it will be out of our control. But unless there is some extenuating reason (such as excessively negative feedback for a particular post) we'll leave it up for the life of this blog.

      Do you offer refunds for sponsored content?

      If, for some reason, your post is up for less than a year, we'll do a partial refund prorated for the time it was "live" on the website. Otherwise, we do not do refunds for sponsored content and do not guarantee any particular amount of traffic or promotion. We'll generally share our sponsored post on our social media channels.

      Thanks!

      cute yeti image saying thanks for sponsored posts
  • Advertising and Sponsored Posts

    Frequently Asked Questions about advertising and sponsored posts.

    • Sponsored Posts

      Yes, we do accept some sponsored posts and content. If you wish to submit a guest post but your post is overtlt promoting a product, business, or service, we considered that sponsored and ask for payment.

      What are sponsored posts?

      A sponsored post is one that is promoting a brand. If you want to submit a recipe, write your thoughts about visiting Seattle, or whatnot, that’s free.

      But if you’re a brand or business and are promoting that, it is a sponsored post.

      It is considered best practice to tag sponsored and paid links with rel=”sponsored,” so this is what we do with promotional links.

      You do get a link in your profile header. We are working to try to get that made into an actual, clickable link that is followed and will change that when we succeed.

      Will my post be labeled as sponsored content?

      In keeping with best practices, we will disclose your post as being sponsored in the early part of the post. We’ll likely add something such as “this was sponsored by” or “this is a sponsored post which means…”

      Will PNW & Beyond write something for me?

      We cannot give you a definitive answer on this as it is situational. From time to time we get invited to various media previews and if it’s something we want to attend and have time for and doesn’t cost us a great deal to get to, we will choose to do that at no charge. It depends on the event.

      Same goes for reviewing a product. If it’s something we’re into, like bike computers, we might want to review it.

      Writing a post, however, actually takes quite a bit of time especially if you consider photography, SEO, etc.

      If you are interested in us writing sponsored content for you, please contact us.

      Will there be ads on my post?

      We do not feel there should be ads on sponsored posts. We do use auto-ads for contextual advertising and have set up sponsored URLS to be blocked from such ads. However, we’ve found that they can sometimes sneak in there. So we can say that we will attempt to limit such ads as much as is possible.

      How much does a sponsored post cost?

      We may vary the price of a sponsored post. Currently, our asking rate is $60.00 but the form below allows for various payment structures depending on the post, so the payment form below reflects a pay-what you will structure. We may change the “recommended” price from time to time depending on our website traffic, but if we publish a post at a certain rate, we won’t ask you for more in the future — but subsequent posts may be at a different rate.

      The “recommended” value here is for sponsored posts that you submit. Anything else, and you shoud inquire in advance.

      Sponsored Post

      Suggested price: $60.00 $60.00

      This is the payment form for a sponsored post on our website. You can enter the agreed-upon amount for the sponsored post and then submit it. We’ll contact you before publication.

      How long will my sponsored post be on your website?

      Once we publish a sponsored post, it generally will be on our website “for the life of this blog.” Which means that, in the future, if we need to stop writing this blog or if it changes hands the post will be taken down as then it will be out of our control. But unless there is some extenuating reason (such as excessively negative feedback for a particular post) we’ll leave it up for the life of this blog.

      Do you offer refunds for sponsored content?

      If, for some reason, your post is up for less than a year, we’ll do a partial refund prorated for the time it was “live” on the website. Otherwise, we do not do refunds for sponsored content and do not guarantee any particular amount of traffic or promotion. We’ll generally share our sponsored post on our social media channels.

      Thanks!

      cute yeti image saying thanks for sponsored posts
    • Do you sell banner ad spots on your website?

      Unfortunately, we are no longer offering paid ad spots on our website and have made the decision to just utilize an ad network for the time being. Thank you for your interest.

  • General Website Questions

    General questions about this website.

    • Subscribe or Unsubscribe from Browser Notifications
      Please wait...subscribing push notification is in progress.
      You are subscribed. Change/Update subscriptions according to your choice.

      If you subscribed to browser notifications and want to unsubscribe, you can do so using the button above OR find a bell icon in the lower right corner of your screen. The bell icon may be quite tiny until you hover over it. Thus far, we have not been successful with replacing it with a larger icon or resizing it.

      If you click on the button above, you’ll be presented with a popup with some options. Most of these apply to getting notifications about membership functions and notices. Unfortunately, we don’t have a way to subscribe or unsubscribe members specifically from notifications about articles.

      If you log in and want to customize notifications about which types of member notifications you receive through your browser, you can do so by going to your account settings in your profile, where you’ll find a “push notification” option. There, you can opt in to get notifications about groups, requests, invites, etc.

      You can also subscribe or unsubscribe to notifications for individual groups by clicking a subscribe button either on the group main page or on the group card in the groups directory.

    • About Polls

      You might notice some polls on this website, or even wish you could add one — and the way they are set up might be a bit confusing, so this is an explanation.

      There are two types of polls we have here: activity polls and sitewide polls.

      Activity Polls

      Activity polls are just for logged-in members. You can create a poll on your profile’s activity page by viewing the bottom row of buttons at the top where you post an activity.

      You can select the visibility of the poll. However, public polls are only open to other logged-in members. A visitor who visits the poll on your profile will see it as read-only.

      You can share your poll outside of your profile by using any of the social sharing buttons for the poll activity after it is posted — but to respond to the poll, someone will have to register and log in.

      Sitewide Polls

      We also have sitewide polls. These polls may be used in posts.

      Members can create a new poll — you need to register, log in and then access the Create a Sitewide Poll tab which you’ll find under the More tab in your membership profile.

      If you want us to create a new post for your poll, we can do that. You can also create a poll if you’re writing a post for this website and want to create a poll. You’ll find more information on the page with the form.

      You can, of course, share sitewide polls to your profile but they are not posted there by default, though if we create a post for you, that WILL be shared to your profile.

    • All Rights Reserved

      If you’re here, you followed this link from the copyright link in one of our photos or videos.

      For this license it is either ©Cheryl Dimof or © Pacific Northwest and Beyond, LLC.

      You may not use this photo without permission UNLESS you have purchased it in one of our galleries. Then, it is subject to the use policies on this page.

    • How do I report an issue or concern regarding something to do with membership functions?

      If you can log in, please use the tab you’ll find in the “more” dropdown in your user profile where you can access a contact form for concerns or errors. If you are having difficulty with registering or logging in, please visit our contact page and use that form.

      If you have a general question that might benefit all users of this website, please ask a question using the “Ask a Question” button either on the FAQ page or from a FAQ tab in your member profile.

    • Some of your punctuation is messed up in some of your posts.

      You are reading a post and the stream of the sentence is interrupted by an interjecting phrase in double paranthesis (( and )).

      Imagine this is in a footnote under the post.

      That is where it is supposed to be.

      Unfortunately, the default setting of what we use to add footnotes is incompatible with a few features that use (( in their code — meaning that we have a bunch of footnotes in our pages which are now either not displaying and/or breaking the display of a page.

      And, unfortunately, doing a search and replace on double parenthese could also end up wrecking something. So we’re being forced, over time, to replace any footnotes manually. We’ll get there. We’ll either replace them with new footnotes or just find a way to not write with footnotes so we’re not at the mercy of a footnotes plugin.

      Thanks for your understanding.

    • Can I republish your content?

      I’m posting this as I’ve become aware that some posts from this website are ending up in news aggregators.

      While we feel flattered that someone wants to repost our content, and love it when people share on social media or post a snippet on their own site with a link back, please consider the following if you are just taking our content outright and posting it on your website:

      • While we have a feed, it is for the purposes of people being able to read our content or share with our subscribers. We have it set to “post excerpt” not full content.
      • If you wish to repost on your blog using our RSS feeds. please:
        1. Be aware that we have more than one feed. The main one is for our main posts, but we have separate feeds for photography posts, for instance.
        2. DO NOT include the full content of our post.
        3. DO include a clear button with a link back to the original post AFTER THE EXCERPT.
        4. Ensure that the content identifies our original post as the canonical link for the content.
        5. ATTRIBUTE THE AUTHOR of the content. Do NOT assign yourself or “admin” as the author of the content. While many of our posts are by our editor, we DO have guest authors from time to time. Please give credit.
      • Please consider that taking posts outright and republishing them without author attribution or canonical link is plagarism. If you wish to republish our content, either use our RSS feed with the guidelines above or ask our permission.
      • If you’re wondering “well, you’ve used content from another blog…?” We will point out that: we either asked permission, were explicitly ASKED to do it by the publisher or author of the content. In the case of events, we see this vastly differently as we are promoting local events and generally add our own verbiage and always link back to the event in question.
  • PNWWiki

    Frequently asked questions about our “PNWWiki” (glossary) section.

    • About "PNWWiki"

      This website comprises a bunch of different sections. There are event locations, route and map locations, posts, photos, events, routes.

      At some point, the idea occured to me to create a glossary section to, hopefully, be able to collect information about these different items all one one, central page, as well as to create a fun section that I could add to little by little with things I might not necessarily want to add as a post: specific pieces of street art, PNW folklore, individual birds — and allow website users to also add terms or suggest edits. Additionally, I found myself wanting to write a bit about bike gear or non-PNW things.

      I played around with a couple of glossary features, but returned to the original one, finally, as it will auto-link to similar terms on the website as well as catalog where those links are on the glossary page.

      This section will likely always be a work in progress, which we’ll add to as we go. You’re welcome to suggest a term, as long as it fits into one of the existing available catetgories.

  • Suggestion Box

    Make a suggestion or report a problem. Please don’t use this space to advertise your SEO or web design services.

    • What is this ”suggestion box“?

      This is a space to report suggestions for topics, readability, improving website features, etc. You can also use it to report issues you’re having.

      Please do NOT use this space to report any private issues, such as shop orders.

  • Product FAQ

    FAQs about individual products.

    • How do I ask a product-related question?

      Find the “Item FAQ” tab on the individual product page. There will be a button to submit your FAQ. It may already say “Successfully Submitted.” That’s a bug we’re working on. But, have no fear, add your text, press the button, and your FAQ will be submitted to us.

      To avoid spammy FAQs, we approve each one. We’ll look at your question, do our best to answer it. And we THANK YOU in advance for using the FAQ so that others may benefit from the answer to your question.


Submitted Successfully

We will respond soon

Thanks for visiting our FAQ page. Hope you found some answers!

By the way, we’re using the Helpie FAQ plugin here and we’ve found it extremely…helpful.

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