The Bulletin Board
Basic User Guide
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Introduction
The Bulletin Board allows people to post ideas, opinions, and information in an organized way. Posts are organized in a
way that makes it easy for people to find the information they are interested in, but without having to wade through unrelated
information.
At this time there are two forums established on the bulletin board. The first forum, Practice, can be used as a testing and
practice area for new members. The second Forum, General, can be used by members to make general posting.
Additional forums will be created upon request.
Postings in The Bulletin Board are organized into three subdivisions:
Post - A post is a piece of information submitted by a single user. It may be a new post, which starts a new topic, or a reply
to an existing post. Posts are typically a sentence, paragraph, or a few paragraphs.
Topic - A topic is a collection of posts. The posts are organized in chronological order. The idea of a topic is that there is a
single post that contains the topic of discussion. The rest of the posts in the topic are replies to this first post and to other
replies. Topics are sort of like conversations, allowing many people to state their opinions about an idea, or debate an
issue.
Forum - A forum is a container for topics. Forums often have a general subject that the topics within are about.
Navigating through posts in The Bulletin Board is based on the idea of posts, topics and forums.
Generally, a user will start at the Forum Index.
The Forum Index shows a list of forums.
If you click on one of the forums, you will be shown a listing of the topics in the forum. By default they are sorted in
chronological order by the most recent post in each topic.
If you click on a topic, you will be shown a listing of the posts in that topic. The posts in a topic are organized chronologically,
with the oldest post first.
User Accounts
The Bulletin Board is based on a user system. When a user is logged in, his/her username will be shown with each post
he/she makes. Each user may also have some custom settings which allow them to control the look and feel of the board
as they use it.
Registration
In order to log into the board as a user, you must register a username. To do this, click on the small Register link at the top
of any page.
You will be taken to the Registration Agreement Terms, which you must agree to in order to register. You will then be taken
to the registration information form. Fill out each of the required fields, but skip all of the optional fields at this time. The
settings on the registration form are identical to those in the Profile Settings form, for more details see the Profile Settings.
When you register, you must specify an email address. All email from the board to you will be sent to that address
Logging In
In order to post using your username and use your custom settings on the board, you must log in. To log in, you must use
the small login form at the bottom of the Forum Index page.
Alternatively you may click the small Login link at the top of any page to be taken to the Login Page.
Enter your user name and password, and click Login. You will be taken to the page you were previously using, but will now
be able to post with your username, change your profile, check private messages, etc. To log out of the board, click the
small Logout [<your username> ] link at the top of any page.
If you are not logged in and attempt to do anything that requires a login, you will be taken to the login screen. After you log
in, you will be taken to the page you were attempting to go to before logging in. Things that require login include changing
your profile, checking your private messages, posting to forums (if they require it), etc.
Posting
There are two primary ways to create a post. In the View Forum and View Topic pages, you may click New Topic. This will
take you to the posting form, and, when you have posted, will create a new topic with your post as the first one in the topic.
In the View Topic page, you may also click Reply. This will take you to the posting form, and, when you have posted, it will
add your post to the topic you replied to. To reply to a specific post, you may also click the Quote button in the upper right
corner of that post.
Posting Form
When you post a new topic or post a reply, you are taken to the posting form, where to enter your post.
Subject - The subject of your post. If this is a new post, the subject is required, and it will be the name of the topic. If the post
is replying to another post, the subject is not required, but may be added, and will be shown at the top of the post.
Message Body - The Message body is a large text area where the body of your post is input. Plain text is the only thing
allowed in this text area, but special formatting, links, smilies (emoticons), images, etc. may be added through the use of
Smilies, BBCode and/or HTML.