Asking for advice is easy. Just enter your question in the shouldi box at the middle, top of any page. You will see the text that says, "ask a question now -- you know you want to. just click here and start typing."

Press the shouldi button on the right side of the box to submit your question. If you are not logged in or have not signed up with shouldi, you will be asked to do so.

A shouldi is an advice request. shouldis can be any advice request on any topic. You can ask about what to wear, which thing to buy, how much to pay, where to go for fun, what to do in the town you're in, who to date, or anything else.

There are two kinds of shouldi's in the world: multiple choice and open ended. The simplest kind of multiple choice question is a Yes/No. For example shouldi dump brad?. Full multiple choice questions typically contain the word or. For example shouldi go skating or bowling? Or, shouldi have the lasagna, rigatoni, or lamb at Giovanni's?

An open ended shouldi is an advice request where your friends are not choosing among options that you gave to them. For example, where shouldi hang out in the city tonight? Just remember that when you ask open ended questions you might get ten different answers from ten different friends.

It's easy to write a good shouldi if you keep one thing in mind. Your question should make it easy for your friends to offer advice. How do you do that? Well, first of all, be specific. Don't make them guess what you really mean. Second, don't ask essay questions. Your friends ought to be able to answer with a single word or phrase. They can add comments too, but their answers should be very short. Finally, give multiple choice shouldis if you know the options. Multiple choice is always easier.

You don't need to use shouldi in your advice request, but it is more fun if you can. Include images in your shouldis where it helps your friends better understand your options.

shouldi buy the Citizens of Humanity or the Seven jeans?

shouldi wear the blue coat or the fake fur coat tomorrow night?

What shouldi do in Monterey this weekend?

What's the best dish at Giovanni's in Mountain View?

Is Brad a good guy or just a player?

Writing a good shouldi will become second nature quickly and will ensure that your friends can respond easily and that the system does a good job in tallying the results for you.

Remember to tag your shouldis. Tags are keywords about your shouldi, like jeans, restaurants, or Monterey, that make it easier for you or your friends to find the shouldi again if you need to.

When you select "show options" in the shouldi box, you will see a number of options that give you control over to whom you ask this shouldi, how long you wait for the answer, which location this shouldi concerns, and which photos or images are included with the shouldi.

ask: you can ask shouldis to just friends or to the entire shouldi community. The default for each shouldi comes from your user profile. You can override the default by choosing "the world" or "my friends". If you choose "the world", then this shouldi is public and the whole shouldi community will be able to see and respond to this shouldi. If you choose "my friends", then only other users in your shouldi friends network will be able to see and respond to this shouldi.

wait: The default time for shouldi to get a summary of everyone's responses back to you is set in your user profile. You can override that default by setting a new time in minutes, hours, or days for this specific shouldi. If you are out shopping and want an immediate answer on which item to buy, you'll set a wait time in minutes. If you are looking for advice on where to vacation this summer, you'll set a wait time of days. Generally, the longer you wait, the more good advice you can expect to get.

about this location: use this option when you are looking for shopping, dining, dating, or other advice specific to a town or zip code. Lots of shouldi users like to watch for shouldis about their town. When you mark the shouldi with a location, they can easily find and respond to your shouldi. Use this option if you're trying to find a hot spot in your town tonight or if you want advice about a new town that you in or considering traveling to.

including these images: use this option to include images with your shouldi. If you're out shopping and choosing among items, include images of those items in your shouldi. If you just met a guy and want to know if anyone else knows him and his reputation, take a photo of him and include that photo in your shouldi.

Absolutely! Sometimes you want to show your friends pictures of the options you're considering - clothes to wear, places to go, things to buy, or people to date. You can include up to four images. If you're on the shouldi website, just click on show options when creating a shouldi and add images. If you're on your phone, or e-mail, just attach the images to your shouldi when you send it to us.

Because of the way IM works, we don't have a good way to attach images to a shouldi that you send us with IM. We're working on an easy solution for the future.

You can't change a shouldi once you have posted it.

If you really don't want to keep your current shouldi, your best option is to delete it and submit a new shouldi. Login to shouldi and go to your my shouldi page. You can find all of your shouldis by clicking show options under search, setting who: to me and setting what: to shouldis.

Once you have found the shouldi that you want to delete, simply click on the X next to that shouldi to delete it.

Although you can create a shouldi using your phone, the web, instant messaging or email, you can only delete a shouldi using the shouldi website.

Login to shouldi and go to your my shouldi page. You can find all of your shouldis by clicking show options under search, setting who: to me and setting what: to shouldis.

Once you have found the shouldi that you want to delete, simply click on the X next to that shouldi to delete it.

To offer advice, click on the shouldi. You'll see the space for you to enter your advice and comments. You can also send in advice using your mobile phone, instant messaging or e-mail. See the help section under communications for advice on how to use these other communications options.

We can't make you the world's greatest advisor, but we can suggest how best to organize your response to a shouldi. The key to writing a good response is keeping your answer short and consistent with the shouldi. If you've got lots to say on the topic, say it in the comments field. Your actual advice should be a single word or phrase.

Let's say that your friend asks shouldi go to Ruby Lounge or Skye tonight? A good answer would be Ruby Lounge or Skye. A bad answer would be Skye sucks, I would definitely avoid it. Go to Ruby Lounge instead. Last time I went to Skye I had to wait an hour to get in. Why is the last answer bad? Because it combines the answer with commentary. It makes it tougher for your friend, and the system, to quickly see your answer and compare it with others.

Comments are great - don't leave them out. Just put them in the comments box instead of the advice box. The system will limit how much you can type in an advice box as a reminder to separate your comments from your answers.

The important thing is that your advice gets counted and heard. For that to happen your advice should be consistent with the shouldi. For example, don't answer RL when the shouldi asks about Ruby Lounge. The system won't count your advice with all of the others that said Ruby Lounge. Capitalization and punctuation don't matter but you should use the same words as everyone else.

There are a couple ways. First, we can send you an email, text message, or IM message when your friend asks for advice. We've already got your email address (you gave it to us when you signed up), but if you want text messages or IMs you need to enter your mobile phone number and/or IM username. You do that in the Communications settings of your user profile. You can set which communications methods you want to use. For example, you could say that you want notifications on IM and your mobile phone, or just IM, or email and mobile phone - any combination you want. You can also tell us to shut up during certain times of the day or night; like during class or while you're sleeping. It's all in your communications settings and you can change your choices at any time.
Notifications are jut for when friends ask for advice. There are a bunch of different types of notifications you can turn on or off.

For example, if you want to be notified by phone when friends post a shouldi, add your phone number in your communications settings. Also, put check the box next to friend sends a shouldi under notify me when:.

The second way to find shouldis from your friends that are awaiting your response is to go to the shouldi website, choose show options under search, select who: my friends and which: needs me. When you complete this search, only shouldis from your friends that you have not yet answered will be shown.

Not now. You can only respond to a given shouldi one time. There is no way to change your advice once you've submitted it.

Yes. You can include links in either your shouldis or your advice. Don't be suprised when you see something different than what you entered. We make links shorter so people on mobile phones can deal with them more easily. For example, let's say you put in some gigantic link to a Google map that's three lines long. We'll turn it into a really short link that's easy to deal with.

A didyou is your answer to what you actually chose to do for a shouldi. It works like this: you ask for advice, your friends respond, you make a decision, then you tell us what you did. If your shouldi was a question of which pair of jeans to buy, your didyou answers which pair, if any, you actually bought.

One of the fun and useful things that shouldi does for you is learn who you trust and who trusts you. The key to making this possible is the didyou. We'll remind you to come back to the site and fill out the didyou section of your shouldi.

It's very easy - in fact it's just like giving advice. Just type in what you did and then you can type any comments about why you made that choice, how it worked out for you, what you would do in the future, or anything else you want to share.

If you took the advice of one of your advisors, just copy and paste it - it will be displayed right there on the same page. It's really easy. Once you and your friends have built up a track record, shouldi will start to display trust relationships showing whose advice you take most and who takes your advice most. From that point on, when you ask for advice shouldi will not only tell you what your friends think, it will also narrow it down and tell you what your most trusted advisors think.

We think it's pretty cool and that you'll like it; but to make it work, you need to go back and tell shouldi what you did. Fill out the didyou section by copying in what you did and then adding a comment. It's fast and easy.

You can flag a shouldi or a response to any shouldi as inappropriate. You should flag an item if it contains offensive language, promotes violence, contains nudity, or infringes on another's copyrights or intellectual property.

When viewing shouldis or advice, you will see a green flag beside each item. Simply click on this flag to mark the item as inappropriate.