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UNDER CONSTRUCTION (Contributions and comments gladly accepted.)

Help & Support[edit | edit source]

There are two types of support available: unofficial help from the membership and official help from GasBuddy Organization (GBO) staff. Also see the Resources section below.

Due to the workload of the GBO staff, it is recommended that the full-site forum be used first to see if other members can help. The full-site forum has two categories of interest:

  • The Suggest a GasBuddy Improvement category - for suggesting changes to the system (so not for seeking help).
  • The Talk Back to Us category - this is where you can ask questions and get preliminary help. If the help desired is not forthcoming, either from members or staff, then escalate to the staff (see the next section).

Help from Members[edit | edit source]

From any metro-area/state/province site page's banner menu, Click Forum | Tall Back to Us to reach the category where members typically ask for help. Review what other members are saying to see if they need the same help you do. If you find no help there (or in the Resource section below), start a new topic:

  1. Go to your metro-area/state/province home site (although any such site will do for this purpose as the forum is on all of them).
  2. Log in with your GBO nickname and password, else you will not be able to write, just read.
  3. From any page's banner menu, click Forum. The category index appears.
  4. Click the Talk Back to Us category. The topic index appears.
  5. Click Post a New Topic. A dialog box appears for creating the original post (OP).
  6. Type an informative topic title that will tell readers what the topic is about. Avoid vague titles, i.e. "I need help," "A question," "How do I make it work?" and the like. A little thought here will help the community in the future; pretend you will get paid a thousand dollars if you do it right.
  7. When asking for help, you must keep uppermost in mind that readers will not know what you know about how you use the system or exactly what the problem is; you must explicitly spell it out in detail:
  • Are you using the full site, mobile site or a mobile app? If mobile app, which phone type and what is the app version number?
  • What are the steps you are doing when you encounter the problem? If there are six mouse clicks necessary to get to where the problem is, then give all six; don't assume readers will know what you did. It is better to over describe than to under describe.
  • Use the terminology you see in the system to refer to pages and screens. If a screen is labeled Station Details, then use that term rather than something you make up, else readers can't confirm they are doing what you did. For example, if you call a list of the top 30-day points earners the "30-day Leader Board," but the list has a title of "30-day Points Leaders," then use the latter, not the former. (Note: Terminology may not be consistent across the entire system, so use what you see at the problem point.)
  • Is the problem consistently repeatable or is it intermittent? If the latter, how often does it occur?
  • Does the problem survive relaunching the software and rebooting the device? If a mobile app, does deleting and reinstalling help?


Help from GBO Staff[edit | edit source]

As of Sep 2015, all previous methods to contact staff are being discontinued in favor of two new methods:

  • New help site Contact Us page -
    • From [http:help.gasbuddy.com http:help.gasbuddy.com], under the appropriate section, click the desired topic. (A URL for the question will appear in the browser address window. It may be copied and given to others.)


Resources[edit | edit source]

  • Official FAQ List - Visit and bookmark one of these Frequently Asked Questions pages on a full site:
    • New HQ site version (A URL for a question appears in the browser address window when the question clicked. It may be copied and given to others.) -
    • Old HQ site version and current metro-area/state/province site version (A URL for a question appears in the browser address window when a separate link at right is clicked. It may be copied and given to others.) -
  • Offical News - A What's New announcement may contain useful information. (Note: This page has not been diligently maintained in the past, but improvements may be forthcoming.) There are three methods of reaching it.
  • Unofficial Guides - There is a set of tutorials at gb-guides.shoutwiki.com, one of which may provide you with the help you need.
  • Unofficial Bug List - There is a [necessarily partial] list of system bugs at http://tinyurl.com/gbobuglist. See if your problem is recorded there.
  • Official Forum Announcements - From time to time, GBO publishes a topic in the Talk Back to Us category of the forum (outages, policy changes, etc.) which may be of help. These can be seen in the index for that category.
  • Official Forum Replies - From time to time, a GBO moderator will provide information in reply to a member topic that may be useful to others in the future. There is no formal method to record these; it may depend upon community memory to dredge them up when needed.

Please send any corrections/contributions/organizational suggestions to CampKohler via PM, whiteboard or by E-mail to campkohler at hotmail dot com.

Version: 20150905 4:10 PM PDT --CampKohler
Backup: 20150905 --CampKohler

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