Forums: Now I'm in, what do I do?
Anyone can read the discussions (most of them anyway). But to take part you will need to log in.
Finding a discussion
First, find a topic you are interested in:
- From the main forum page, click on the title (or anywhere in the grey box) of the forum you want to look at - here the "Say Hello" forum. The list of discussions in that forum will be displayed. Then...
- Either pick one of the discussion topics and click on it, to see what people have been saying (if it is a busy discussion, it will be split into separate pages, and you can click on any of the page numbers).
- Or start a new discussion of your own.
Reading a discussion
Here is a picture of a discussion in progress...
- You can see the individual postings, or articles, one after the other.
- To the left is information about the author of the post.
- Below each post are buttons to see the author's profile, or send a message (if they choose to allow it).
- To the right is a button to post a reply, quoting part of what they said. Each new reply will be added to the bottom of the discussion.
- At the bottom there is another reply button, and one to start a new topic of discussion.
- There are also links to the other pages in a multi-page discussion topic, and a selector that lets you go to a different part of the forums.
Replying
You get a form to type your reply into. There are buttons for formatting your reply, and there are smileys or emoticons which you can add. Play around with it - you can always use the "Preview" feature to check the results before you finally submit your post. If you type like I do, you probably should!
Don't Worry! Be Happy!
Finally, relax, and have fun. This is not a formal writing course - it's light entertainment, that might also happen to be useful from time to time. Respect other users of the forum, and treat others as you'd like them to treat you. You're among friends...
You're very welcome!
Previous page: getting started.
I'm ready: straight to the forums!