How do I upload photos?

See the photos FAQ.

What's the point of this site?

The point of this site is to have a good place for amateur bakers of all levels to congregate. Regardless of your experience, whether you are into whole grains, sourdoughs, artisan breads or bread machines, if you can help other bakers in their pursuit of baking nirvana or wish to learn more, you are welcome here. There are no stupid questions, and arrogance or snappishness with new bakers is not welcome here: we all knew nothing about baking at one point in time. Let's help each other out and share our enthusiasm for good bread and doing it yourself.

I'm having trouble registering! Any advice?

If you don't receive the activation email, email me (floydm at thefreshloaf dot com) and I can activate your account manually.

I'm having trouble logging in! Any advice?

Be sure you are accepting cookies. No cookies, no logging in.

What is the difference between a forum post and a blog post?

Forum posts are higher profile on the front page of the site. Comments to them show up on the front page too, so they tend to get more action. Sometimes that is a good thing, but somtimes you want to post something more private or have a side conversation with just few site members. That is when blog posts are a better fit.

Blogs also have RSS feeds, which can be handy. If your blog lives at /blog/yourusername, then /blog/yourusername/feed is an RSS feed of your posts.

Are you a professional baker?

No, not by any strech of the imagination. I'm a geek who occasionally finds time to experiment with baking at home. I did, however, work in a bakery run by Peter Reinhart in the early 90s. This was prior to artisan baking making a comeback, but I learned a great deal about bread and baking from him.

Can I share my recipes here?

Absolutely. Please register for an account and then post them in the forum. Or, feel free to start posting in a personal baker blog. In either place, do give credit if the recipe is originally by another author.

If you have news, information, recipes, articles, pictures, or anything else to do with baking that you'd like to share, or if you are interested in becoming a site editor or moderator, please contact me.

How do I get my own baker's blog?

Register for the site. Then click "Create Content" and choose "Personal Blog Entry." That's it.

Do you edit or moderate the content of people's posts?

Yes, from time-to-time I do.

Now that this site is getting popular it has begun to attract a certain amount of riff-raff. Content that fundamentally conflicts with the mission of this site (to coach, educate, and encourage amateur bakers) will most likely be removed from this site. Example content that I've removed includes spam, blatent commercial solicitations, labor grievances, personal attacks and insults, and other wildly-off-topic or offensive content. There are plenty of unmoderated message boards or free blogging sites that one can go to if one wants to be uncivil, but not here.

I actively help people with hyperlinking and html formatting. For example, folks often make posts saying "you should read my old post about subject x" but not include the link to that original post. When I can I will edit the post to include the actual link to the mentioned post. Or people will paste in the raw url for an image; I've edited the posts to actually include the img tag so that people don't have to copy and paste the url into another browser window to go see the picture.

I also frequently edit posts containing book titles so that the titles link to bookstores selling the books (typically Amazon), since those referrals help pay for hosting this site. If you already have linked the book to another location I will not change it.

What else? Oh yes, occasionally I go through the site and delete "stale" content. Stuff that is no longer of value, things like links to sites that don't exist any more or long threads about someone having a problem logging in.

Over time, I'd like to move to a model where the community can moderate up or down content on its own.

I don't believe this is an inappropriate use of my administrator privileges. Nevertheless, should I ever edit a post in a manner that causes you to take umbrage, please email me (floydm at thefreshloaf dot com) and let me know.

Does this site make money? How can I help support it?

At this point in time hosting and web site promotion fees outweigh any revenue the ads bring in and do not begin to cover the time I spend working on this site, even if I were paid minimum wage. Shrug. I'm having a good time. If you'd like to help support the site, by all means, do. You can do so by clicking through and purchasing on Amazon any of the books or items I've reviewed or featured in the "Recommended Books" block.

I have a book or product I'd like you to review. Where do I send it?

Please send it t:

Floyd M
P.O. Box 254
Fairview, OR 97024

I can't promise that everything sent my way will get reviewed, but I make every effort to inform community members and site readers about books and products that may be of interest to them.