forumhelp

Writing Posts (return to top)

To Reply to a post: Click on "post reply" at the top of the post. A box will show up where you type your message. Then scroll down and hit "post reply" and it will send your post.

To contribute to a thread without replying to a particular post: Click "Post Message" below the list of messages.

To start a new thread: Click on "Add thread," choose the section you want to write in, type in a thread title and a box will appear where you write your post. Be sure to choose a section or you will receive an error message.

Please start a new thread if there are 25 posts already in a thread, since threads with 30 posts or more take longer to open and read. E.g. If there is a thread called "Rethinking Feminism" and it is getting long, you can start a new thread called "Rethinking Feminism 2" and people in the discussion will follow along and join you there.

After you send a post, you cannot delete it; nor can you delete a post that is sent to you. If you accidentally send a post twice, don't worry; one of the forum managers will delete the extra when they see it.

To preview your post before sending it, click the box that says "preview." If you want to send it, click on "post"; if you want to edit it some more, click on "back" and continue editing.

Typos and Duplicate Posts (return to top)

Some people have been putting in duplicate posts to correct a typo and it doesn't work with the way we have set things up. When we clean up duplicate posts, the second one is the one that is deleted, so it doesn't work to repost a message to correct a typo. Most typos are no problem and we can all understand the post, but if necessary you can always just post a quick note of correction, ("sorry I misspelled your name", etc.), as many have done.

If you see duplicate posts out there before cleanup has occurred, only reply to the first one. When the second post is deleted, any replies to it will disappear, which is why duplicate posts can cause confusion. We want to minimize this confusion by always deleting the second post and asking you not to use reposting a message as a way of handling typos.

It's better to just post anything additional you want to say in a separate post by itself and not include the content of the first post in a second post, otherwise the two posts may seem like duplicates and the second post (the one that has additional info) will be deleted since the second post gets deleted when we take care of duplicates

So, if you have already posted a message and want to correct or add more to it, please just post the corrections or new sentences in a new message, and not the text of your first post plus the changes.

We all make typos, and I think we all tend to be forgiving of them, too --remember, no one has to be perfect!![g]

Copying and pasting text (to quote people back when you reply) (return to top)

* Highlight the text (with your mouse) that you want to quote back from someone's post and press control C.

* Scroll up to the top of the post you are replying to and click on "reply to post."

* When a box opens up in for you to write your post in, click inside the empty box so your cursor will be inside the box.

* Press control V and the text that you wanted quoted back will be there and you're all set!

Do not use <<<< >>>> around quotes or nothing will show up in between the brackets. Use [[[ ]]] around the quotes to ensure that they will show up.

When you copy part of a post into your message it may look all messed up on your typing screen, if you just leave it alone it will magically come out right when you post it, so do not worry if it looks jumbled up.[g]

Mac users substitute the Command key for the Control key. (Command C and Command-V.) Mac users can also use the Edit menu.

Instead of using control C and control V, you can also use the pull down edit menu.

New Messages (return to top)

Many people click on "New Messages" as soon as they enter the forum and we have found this to be the best way to keep track of the many discussions in the Forum. This button will show you the new messages that been sent since the last time you hit the new message button. You can also reset the New Messages date by clicking on the "Reset New Messages Date" button.

Click here for even more hints for easily browsing and finding messages in the J&L Room

Printing and Saving messages and Working Offline (return to top)

Copy and paste messages you want to Save or Print, into a word processor or Notepad/WordPad for the PC, SimpleText for the Mac. You can then easily save them or Print them from this application.

To work offline, you can also compose your replies in this application. When you go back online, just search for the messages by number, join the thread, and copy and paste your reply.

Be careful of "Smart Quotes". These are the curly quotes that some word processors substitute for the straight quotes you see here. The forum software does not accept these curly quotes, so turn off this function in your word processor if you are using this method for composing your messages offline.

Grins and Smiles (return to top)

Use brackets [g] [s] for grins and smiles. Do not use <s> <g> because the computer will interpret these and change your post.

Btw (by the way) for those who may not be familiar with the more frequently used abbreviations, here are some of the basics: [vbg] very big grin; LOL is laughing out loud; ROFLOL is rolling on the floor laughing out loud; IMO is in my opinion.

Begin posts with Dear , e.g "Dear Jach," This makes it easy for others to see who you are writing to. Also, people search for posts to them by searching for "Dear" and then their name, so it is extremely helpful to do this in general.

Also, if there is more than one person by the same name in the forum, use their last name when writing to them so they know it is to them (and so the other people with the same first name know too.[g]) An example of this would look like this: "Dear Barbara (Long)"

Speaking of names, it is important to make an extra effort to spell people's name correctly, since people sometimes search for posts to them by searching for "Dear" and their name. This is worth a mention because so many people have names that are spelled differently than the usual way in here.[g]

WHEN WRITING POSTS PLEASE DO NOT USE ALL CAPS; IT IS CONSIDERED SHOUTING IN CYBERSPACE AND GENERALLY CONSIDERED RUDE[VBG] There are other ways to emphasize words which are listed below.[g]

Bold and Italics (return to top)

Please don't feel you need to use this: most everyone sticks with normal text and it works just fine. If you do want to use bold or italics in your post you just surround the words you want to change with some special characters that turn the text modifiers on and off.

For Bold: <b> Hi There, </b>Bill

In this case the words "Hi There," will appear as bold, the word "Bill" will be normal.

For Italic <i> What's Up? </i> Doc

Here, "What's Up?" will be in italics and "Doc" will be normal.

When you check the Preview box and then Post, you will see how it will appear.

Email Address or other Changes (return to top)

If you change your email address, or other membership information, you'll need to call or email the office and let them know.

You can call the office at 1-800-678-2356 or you can email them at conceptsynergy@att.net, (there is no colon between "Concept" and "Synergy" in the email address), to let them know about any changes.