Basic navigation advice
Here is some information to help you get about:
it is intended that this forum, the General Discussion, will have the highest volume of posts. There is no need to be shy about posting here! Let everyone know who you are. One of the best ways to do that is to add your picture The easiest way to do that is to click the top left of the screen where it says you are logged in. Click on the avatar showing and it will bring up your profile. If you click the pic you should be able to replace it with one of your choice.
The following advice applies to all users. If you will primarily be accessing the site by Smartphone, you will need to additionally read the third post here on Smartphone usage.
Note that spell checking on your posts is provided by links behind the scenes to your browser options. If you have spell-check turned on in your browser eg Chrome, Safari, IE etc regardless of device, it will we believe work here. We recommend this approach. If you have no browser spell-check, you won’t have it here either.
If you are an experienced internet forum user:
• You won’t need much guidance because this forum works broadly as most others
• We have removed all social media links on purpose; this is a private site
• Add new topics and reply to posts as standard
• There is an upload facility (attachments), a quote function and a good search function where you’d expect. You can also print topics and posts, you can add attachments to posts, and you can edit/delete your own posts. You can thank other alumni for writing good posts.
• There is a strong membership function; you can view the list of all members, whenever you see a member name you can click on their profile. Whenever you see the envelope icon you can start a PM. You can PM one or more people at a time.
Alternatively, if you are new to internet forums
• There isn’t a rule book and it takes a little time to get the hang of this. Once you do, it’s easy.
• There is no problem about making mistakes. If you post something in error, you can delete it straight away. There are several icons on the top right of any post you make. If you hover over them, one enables you to delete your post, and one enables you to edit it.
• You are advised to start on a Windows or Mac desktop/laptop rather than a smartphone. The reason for this is that there are quite a few options involved. On the desktop/laptop version you can ‘hover’ your mouse over any icon and it will tell you what it does eg ‘Preview’, so you can learn easily. Whilst we are pleased to say that the smartphone version is, we believe, fully functional on ANY device (we have tested Samsung Androids and all the major Apple i-devices), it can be a little fiddly. There is a separate post below on this that you should read.
• When making a post, the first thing you need to decide is whether what you want to say is a new topic, or is a reply to an existing one. Use your common sense. If someone else has just started a ‘Did you just see the idiot on Question Time?’ thread, just add your comment to it by replying directly to the thread.
• After you have typed your post, you have a number of options which are set out underneath. On the left you can see you can add smileys if you want to. That works fine READING your post, but it will make your post look a little odd to you when you WRITE it. Don’t worry about that. If you want to check your post before you submit, one of the buttons on the right is a PREVIEW button; this shows how your post will appear to anyone reading the thread.
• Another important option is to add attachments (that’s on the bottom left). It’s a two-step operation; you select your file, then you upload it.
• There is also a great feature called Quote. If you Quote someone else’s post, it brings it into your post with the original author name. As you get used to this, you will find you can edit the Quote if you only want one sentence out of a full post. Try and have a go at this.
• If someone has written a good post, you can thank them (the closest action we are allowing compared to a Facebook ‘like’!)
• You can always see who someone is by clicking their icon; it pulls up their profile.
• If you want to see who everyone is, click Members towards the top of the forum.
• You can send a message to any other member by the Private Message (PM) function. Look for the ‘envelope’ icon beside their name. No one else sees the content of your message, hence ‘private’ – it’s always called a PM. When you send a PM, the person (or people) will receive an email to say they have a PM from you. They can just click through to read it when they want. It’s NOT posted on a forum for all to see.
That’s enough to get you going but the most important points for new forum users are the first two. Try it and see. For instance, there are 3 ‘A’ signs at the top right of your forum page. Try them out! And if you hate this colour scheme, go down to the bottom where it says ‘Theme’ and try others. This changes it for you only. You will get the hang of the site with a bit of practice.