Forum Help -
how to use and make the best of them.
Introduction
Viewing forums
Viewing an individual
discussion
Adding to a forum
Starting a new thread
Attachments
Adding to a thread (replying)
Searching the forums
Introduction
Forums are also know as threaded discussion
groups. Forum contributors post new topics for discussion in a given
forum, and other contributors can respond to these topics. The term
"threaded" refers to the fact that when someone responds to a forum
posting, their response is kept with the original posting. So, unlike
when using e-mail to carry on a group discussion, where replies to
e-mails are scattered throughout your "In-Box" in a threaded discussion
group, the postings on a given topic are kept together thus making
it easier to follow the "thread" of a discussion. A "thread" refers
to an original posting on a given topics, along with all the responses
to that posting.
The forums are also searchable, which makes them well suited to getting
up to speed on a given topic of interest.
Viewing Forums
To see the topics being discussed in an individual
forum, click on the forum in the forum listing. The forum is shown
either in a "Collapsed" view (where only the first posting of each
topic is show), or in an "Threaded" view (where the topics and the
replies to the topics are shown). Topics are listed with the most
recently modified topics at the top of the list, and older topics
sorted below. An old topic may appear at the top of the list if a
contributor has recently responded to that posting. In the "Collapsed"
view of the forum, the subject of the first posting of the thread
is given, along with the number of replies in the thread and the date
of the most recent posting in the thread.
In the "Threaded" view of the forum, the replies
to each topic are listed beneath it in a hierarchical relation. In
this view the subjects of the postings are listed along with the author
and date of each posting. For example, if Bill posts a new topic,
and Jean replies to Bill, her posting will appear beneath Bill's message.
We have the beginnings of a thread. Now, Sandra might also respond
to Bill's original posting, and her response would appear beneath
Jean's in the thread. If later Jim adds a posting responding to what
Jean had said, his posting would appear not at the bottom of the list,
but tucked underneath Jean's posting. As the thread develops you can
see visually who is responding to the original posting, and who is
responding to the responses. In this way the "Thread" visually represents
the thread of the discussion. You can switch between "Threaded" view
and "Collapsed" views by clicking on the "View
Threads" or "Collapse Threads"
link at the bottom of page.
There is a limit to the number of threads and topics
that will be listed on a single page, and earlier discussions can
be viewed by clicking the "Older Messages"
link.
The "Go to Top" link
takes you up a level in the hierarchy, from say the "Alaskan Cruise"
forum up the the" Cruises" folder.
The "New Topic" link
is how you start a new discussion thread in this forum (See Adding
to a Forum).
The "Search" link allows
this or all the forums to be searched for keywords (See Searching
Forums).
Table of Contents
Viewing a Discussion
Thread
To view a thread click on the subject for that thread
when viewing the forum. You can view the thread in two ways, either
in a "Flat" view or a "Threaded" view. In the "Flat" view the responses
to the original topic are listed in chronological order. In this view
you can read through all the responses to the original posting in
sequence, but you lose the "Threaded" character of the discussion,
since some of the later responses may not refer to the original posting
but to comments made by others who replied earlier. In our previous
example the "Flat" view would show Bill's post, followed by Jean's,
then Sandra's, and finally Jim's posting. Jim's posting is at the
bottom, because it was posted last, but it actually is referring to
Jean's posting, which is further up in the list.
Bill
-- Jean
-- Sandra
-- Jim
To maintain the relationship between the posts (who
was replying to whom), use the "Threaded" view. In this view, the
order of the posts would be different, with Jim's posting tucked underneath
Jean's posting, since Jim was commenting on what Jean had said.
Bill
-- Jean
---- Jim
-- Sandra
When viewing a thread you can switch between these
two views by clicking on the "Flat View"
or "Threaded View" link.
You reply to a given message by clicking on the
aptly named "Reply to This Message" link
(see the adding to a discussion section).
In threaded view, use the "Next
Message" and "Previous Message"
links to move forward and backward within the thread. The message
you are viewing will be shown in black in the threaded view, the other
messages in the thread will be highlighted as links.
Use the "Newer Topic"
and "Older Topic" links to move to news
and older postings in this forum.
Click the "Go to Top"
link to return to the listing of threads in this forum
Table of Contents
Adding to a Forum
Starting a new discussion
topic.
When viewing a forum, or an individual discussion
thread, you can start a new topic for discussion by clicking on the
"New Topic" link. This will put up a
form for you to fill out. You will need to enter your name, and if
you wish your e-mail address; this will allow people to reply to you
by mail if they wish. You are required to enter a subject for your
message. The subject should be something informative, so that it can
be picked out from a list with many postings. Try to avoid subjects
like "Help" or "A Question", since people will have to look into your
message to see if it is something that they can help with.
There is a text area for you to enter your message.
What you type here becomes what is called the "body" of your message,
and is what people will see when viewing your thread. This text is
also searchable, so you might want to put keywords at the bottom of
your message so that it will show up when searched using those keywords.
Finally, there is a button labeled "Post" for submitting
or posting your message to the forum. When you post your message,
you will be taken back to viewing the forum
with your message at the top of the list.
Table of Contents
Adding to a discussion
topic (Replying).
When viewing a discussion topic (a thread), each
individual message (posting) will have a link after it labeled "Reply
to This Message". This link will take you to a form very similar
to that for adding a new discussion topic (see
above). The principle difference between replying and posting
a new topic is who your message will be displayed. We discussed above
how messages are displayed in a hierarchical fashion. Which message
you reply to will determine where in the hierarchy you new message
will appear. If you would like to add your comments to those of other
respondents, you should probably click on the "Reply to This Message"
link associated with the first posting in the thread (the posting
that started the discussion). In this case your posting will appear
at the bottom of the list in threaded view, indicating that you are
the most recent person posting in response to the main topic. However,
if there is a particular respondent's posting that you'd like to comment
on, then you should click on the "Reply to This
Message" link associated with that response. In this way, you
are creating a sub-thread within the main thread. In this case your
posting will appear in the middle of the threaded view, beneath the
respondent's post that you wished to comment on.
For an explanation of the fields in the form, and
advice about attachments see the section on starting
a new discussion above.
Table of Contents
Searching forum
discussions
The discussions in a forum can be searched in much
the same way as using a search engine. You enter one or more keywords
to search for, and the forum is searched for these keywords; the results
are given in the order of how well they match your keywords.
There are several options that dictate how your
search gets done. You can limit the search to just a single forum,
or to all the forums on the server using the drop-down menu options
"Search This Forum" or "Search
All Forums". You can limit your search to just the most recent
postings, or to all the postings using the drop-down menu options
"Last 30 Days", "Last
60 Days", "Last 90 Days", "All
Dates". You can select whether "All Words",
"Any Words" or just your "Exact
Phrase" need to match using the drop-down menu with those names.
Finally, you can determine which part or parts of a posting will be
searched using the "Author", "Subject"
and" Message Body" checkboxes.
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