Who are you? Why are you here?

[StupidUser]

Somewhere (it should be fairly easy to find and somewhat prominent), you need a brief description of who you are and, more importantly what this site (and forum) is about. I was sent here looking for an answer to a TI calculator question, so I assume that this site is about TI calculators. Right? Or is it about handheld calculators? Or is it about handheld devices?

Is this site hosted by TI? Or by an independent third party? I would get different answers to my questions at each type of site.

I cannot find any of this information on your site (Mind you, I posted my questions anyway )

[DigiTan]

We had a really good "about" page written up a few years back that seemed to cover the history here (this version seems to be accurate to the UTI history). Basically, the forums started as a set of independent programming groups that merged in 2001 to support web hosting of TI-relted projects and of course collaborate and shoot the breeze. Sort of like a United Nations of programming groups.

Most of our past and current members are 100% unaffiliated with Texas Instruments, however a few members from Detatched Solutions were official consultants/sub-contractors back around 2000-2002 when they were contacted to engineer new downloadable apps. As you probably guessed most of our active members are students or professionals with math, computing, and science-related interests. It's also a good place for anyone needing technical support for anything calc-related, or educators wanting to get the most out of their calcs. We haven't done a poll in a long while but believe the typical age is late teens, while the founding members and myself are in the mid 20's/early 30's area this year.

Your question about calculator branding is kind of interesting. I think the vast majority have a preference for Texas Instruments calculators. They have a strong presence in secondary school and college, which is about when a lot of TI programmers get their start. Even though many HP models are technically superior and cheaper than comparable TI's, the TI's have a lot more classroom presence and 3rd-party development. With TI suddenly discontinuing the ever-popular TI-84+SE, people here are curious what this could mean for HP calculators. This is really going to depend on TI's own marketing in the 2010's and what the education programs/testing boards (SAT/ACT) plan to do.

[Dallen]

You say that its a great place to come to ask technical questions regarding your calculators, but the current restrictions placed on new accounts makes it very difficult for new users to actually ask those questions.

I can't find anything in the help regarding the requirements to be able to start making posts, and searching with terms like "new posts" is not allowed due to restrictions. I also looked through the forums and there doesn't seem to be a sticky of any kind outlining what the expectation is to gain access.

While I'm guessing the restriction is put in place to reduce on spam, it seems counter productive to force new members to post randomly to a topic before being able to actually ask a question (which I'm assuming is the case looking at the OP's post count). Essentially, it seems to force spam in an attempt to reduce spam.

[Xeda112358]

Good point :/ I am not able to change these things, but I am sure it was for spam protection. I don't believe this was the case back when I joined, so I will see if there is an introductions thread lying around.

EDIT: I wonder if this thread works for new users: http://www.unitedti.org/forum/index.php?showforum=2 ?