General
• What is the NYC Pagan Resource Guide?
  
• Who runs this place?
  
• Why did you create it?
  
• Why is it free?
  
• How can I help?
  
• What can be listed in the Guide?
  

Membership

• Why do you now require registration?
  
• Is membership confidential?
  
• Why types of members are there?
  
• How do I become a member?
  
• My newly assigned password looks like a word, what does it mean?
  
• Why can't I log in with my newly assigned password?
  
• Why does my session expire?
  
• My session expired, why cant I go back and re-do a submission using my browser's back button after logging in again?
  

Affiliates

• What is an Affilate Member?
  
• How do I become an affiliate memember?
  
• How do I link my events to my listing with the calendar icon?
  

Misc.

• How do I find a teacher/join a coven?
  
• How do I start a coven?
  
• What are Witches? Do they have powers?
  

The NYC Pagan Resource Guide is a free online service dedicated to promoting community by keeping people informed of all the Pagan community has to offer. It serves the NY-NJ-CT area and offers many resources that Pagans from all areas to use.

The Guide does not endorse the resources it lists, but rather simply provides a free service, allowing its members to rate them according to their personal experiences with the various stores, groups and organizations listed in the guide.

Although occasionally blessed with a helping hand, the Guide is primarily a one-man operation created and run by John Coughlin. His girlfriend Syrenichol is now an editor and helps out when her busy schedule permits. His goal is to get the community so involved that it will become a community-run project.

John Coughlin also runs the Pagan Personals and is author of the new book called Out of the Shadows: An Exploration of Dark Paganism and Magick. More about John can be found on his home page.

In 1996 I felt that the NY, NJ and CT Pagan communities have so much to offer and yet no single forum to keep people informed. Community newsletters have a high overhead and often fizzled away due to lack of support. What was needed was an automated way to allow the members of the community to share a single forum and post their events, etc. Early versions of the Guide still required much manual work since I did not have the technical know-how to make a more interactive forum. Four years later that has all changed. Now I can design the Guide in a way that allows for more flexibility and less manual labor and that is what I have done.

It is free for several reasons, but primarily all the sites and services on waningmoon.com are dedicated to providing a safe space for building community. Charging a fee could conflict with this goal by opening the door to commercialism - and there are way too many people trying to make a profit out of the Pagan community as it is. Donations are always welcome but will only be actively sought when I am unable to find the personal funds to maintain the servers, etc.

There are many ways you can help! First you can spread the word. Even after four years there are many who still do not know about the Guide. You can also link us on your webpage and perhaps even use one of our banners.

More importantly, keep us updated! Add comments on listings you are familiar with and let us know when you see something missing or out of date. If you have a store listed in the Guide, let your customers know!

Donations are always welcome too of course since all expenses come out of my own pocket and can get quite expensive.

Please read our Submission Guidelines for an idea of what is and is not appropriate. If in doubt, submit it and let us decide.

Registration allows me to give members more direct access to the Guide by confirming their e-mail address. This helps weed out pranksters who usually (but not always) would not want to give out a valid e-mail address. It also allows me to give additional access to members who wish to take responsibility for their listings (if their coven, store or organization is listed).

Membership also helps me to know that the Guide is being used! This may sound silly but on those long nights I spend working on the Guide and the weeks, if not months, it takes to create new features, I sometimes question "is it worth it??" When I see the membership grow I know it IS worth it and that my work has not been in vain.

In a word, YES!!!

We do not ask for your name and we never give out your email address unless you request that your email be displayed in a listing. Once in a while you may get a newsletter via e-mail keeping you informed of anything new and exciting on waningmoon.com, particularly the NYC Pagan Resource Guide. These mailings also let us locate invalid email addresses so we can remove them.

Currently there are three types of members:

• General Member: Anyone who registers can immediately add announcements to the news and networking section as well as post comments and ratings on the listings. Members can modify and delete their own News, Networking and Comments/Rating entries. However, any listings or events members add still need to be approved by an editor.
• Affiliate Member: Anyone who has requested to take ownership of a listing in the Guide is made (upon confirmation) an affiliate member, where they can edit their listing and post directly to our calendars without editorial approval. Affiliates also get email notification of new comments to their listing(s) and have access to other special services such as domain forwarding.
• Editors: Editors have full access to add/edit/modify all information in the Guide's database and approve listings that are pending approval. Only people I personally know can be entrusted with this access since I must ensure the integrity of the Guide. (Plus it requires some in-person training.)

Simply fill out a registration form and a password will be e-mail to you. Once you log in with that password you can change it.

If you have already registered, please e-mail us your user name and the listing you would like to maintain.

If you are not yet a member, please registration. During the registration process, make sure to indicates the listings you wish to take ownership of by listing them where it says "Listings you would like to maintain as an affiliate". You will be notified when your account has been linked to those listings.

The passwords are actually random but designed with vowels between them to make them look and pronounce more like words and thus easier to remember. If the password just so happens to spell out something rude in another language that is purely coincidental but let me know so I can make sure the system screens out those random occurrences!

If you are using cut-and-paste to enter your password, try typing it manually. Sometimes an extra space may be included when you cut-and-paste and that space will count as part of the password and thus not be valid.

As a security measure your session expires after a hour or so (time varies right now since I am experimenting but usually it is 1.5 hours). This way if you walk away someone without logging out someone cannot abuse your account for too long.

When your session expires, simply re-log in.

If you go back to old pages they will include you old session ID. At this time you cannot continue where you left off. I hope to fix this in later revisions.

This only works for affiliate members so if you have events that you want linked to your listing, make sure to request to become an affiliate if you have not already done so.

To link your events to your listing, while adding or modifying your calendar entry, select your listing name where you see the option "Associate with". Only affiliates will see this option.

I typically recommend taking a few beginner classes that are often listed in the community calendars. They are usually low cost ($5-$15) and quite informative. When you are ready for a weekly class structure that includes ritual, join a grove (a pagan study group) - there are several listed in the guide. Some covens also provide classes for beginners or also include a grove. Groves and covens should be free or ask for very small donations to help pay for material or for renting the workspace. Anyone asking for a lot of money or promising a fast initiation or special powers should be avoided and reported to us.

Check out our library and suggested reading list too as these both have useful information for both beginners and experiences alike.

Remember, you don't have to join a coven to be a happily practicing Pagan... take your time and trust your judgement. Don't let others tell you how you should study or practice. Some people find they need to work with a group and others work best alone - only you can decide which is best for you.

If you have to ask you are probably a beginner and should be concentrating on your own studies. See the question above.

If you are experienced and serious, write a few of the covens listed in the Guide to share their experience and to network.

Browse our library and read some of the books listed in our suggested reading list and you will know all you need to know to answer this question truthfully.