What is a Web Forum?[Forum Guides For Newbies]

What is A forum

An Internet forum is a web application for holding discussions and posting user-generated content. Internet forums are also commonly referred to as Web forums, newsgroups, message boards, discussion boards, (electronic) discussion groups, discussion forums, bulletin boards, fora (the Latin plural) or simply forums. The terms "forum" and "board" may refer to the entire community or to a specific sub-forum dealing with a distinct topic. Messages within these sub-forums are then displayed either in chronological order or as threaded discussions.

Such forums perform a function similar to that of dial-up bulletin board systems that were common from the late 1970s to the 1990s. Early web-based forums date back as far as 1996. A sense of virtual community often develops around forums that have regular users. Technology, computer games and/or video games, sports, fashion, religion, and politics are popular areas for forum themes, but there are forums for a huge number of topics. Internet slang and image macros popular across the internet are abundant and widely used in internet forums.

Guide in Using a Forum


My Profile

Once you've logged in and got an ID, there's a link at the top of the fforum index marked 'My Profile'. You can also reach this via a link at the bottom of each sub-division (eg Nextian Chat). Your profile is what other people get to see when they click on your name . Profiles always show the person's ID and the number of posts, but any other information requires you to add information.

If you want to change your profile (or edit it for the first time) then click onProfile (found at the navigation bar below our logo) to see your profile, and then click on Edit Profile. Here you can change your password or allow people to see your email address and various accounts for ICQ, Messenger etc. You can also add details of a homepage and your real name. If you want an image to go alongside your details, then place the url in the box provided for it (ie write http://www.awebpage.com/apicture.jpg). Note that the categories that you don't enter details for remain hidden. If you don't add anything to the profile, then all that shows is your number of posts and your ID.

--AVATAR--
The face you want to use in the forum is called AVATAR.It can be seen on the left side of you post.
To use avatar go to PROFILE---->AVATAR. Either upload your own avatar or get some on the Avatar Library.
--SIGNATURE--
The box you're most likely to want to put something in is the signature. This is a small message (the length is limited) that gets added to every post you make by default (although you can choose not to - see below).Signature or siggy or sigs is used as a Web signature, imbes na signature na pinakatay kanang imong gnasulat sa papel, diri dili na. Heres an example of an signature.I made this long ago.

How to put signature?
Just click profile then click signature at the upper portion of the screen then put this code

Code:

[img]Image URL/Image Source/Ang link sa imong Picture[/img]

ex.

Code:

[img]http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o29/remjo/silentlove.gif[/img]

OUTPUT



Once everything is sorted just click on SAVE profile to save the changes.Then go to preference and click always show my signature.Save then done.

Just go to graphics section for request and for premade signatures there.

Reading Threads

I know - it should be pretty obvious... A couple of hints, however. There's a maximum number of thread titles displayed at a time, if you want an older one then click on 'Older Messages' at the top right of each individual fforum, and it'll take you down to the older messages. It has been known for thread titles to disappear off the top after less than a day, so be aware of this, especially if you can't find a thread you wanted to reply to.

Using Search

Search is useful if you can't remember which thread something was in - this is quite common due to the number of threads that quickly drift off topic and also the volume of posts. The search page explains itself, really. Finally, at the bottom of each list of threads is an option to 'View Threads'. This opens out all the post titles in each thread. To get it back to just titles, click on 'Collapse Threads'. The idea of the expanded view is so you can follow arguments and headings, but this falls down as people always tend to reply by typing in the box at the bottom of a thread rather than clicking on 'reply to this message'. People rarely bother changing the title of a post, either. This isn't a criticism, the fforum rarely stays on topic long enough to make it worthwhile.



We use BB Code in making topics.

BBcode works in a similar to HTML. A tag before the text basically says 'format everything after me', and a tag afterwards shouts 'ok, stop now'.

The simplest tags are those for bold, underline and italic text. To write in italics, simply put

Code:

 [ i ] before and [ /i ]

after - but without any spaces between the square brackets and the tag (I can't write them properly or they'll turn invisible!) Bold uses exactly the same format, but with a b instead of an i; underline uses 'u'.

If you want a picture then place the url of the image inside

Code:

[ img ] [ /img

] tags ie [ img ]http://www.anywhere/anyoldpicture.jpg[ /img ]. Try to keep pics to a minimum though as they eat bandwidth like nobody's business, slowing down loading times for those of us poor souls on steam-powered modems. If in doubt try and use a thumbnail and add a link below it.

Links to other pages can be done in one of two ways. The first is to put the address for it between

Code:

 [ url ] [ /url]

tags. The result will be like this: http://www.jasperfforde.com. If you want a true hyperlink like this then the first tag is

Code:

 [ url=http://www.wherever_it_is.here ]

, the second tag is [ /url ] as normal, with the text you want to appear as the link inbetween.

Finally email addresses go between

Code:

[ email ] [/ email ]

tags.

The last thing to say is if you want to leave your sig off a post (eg if somebody has announced bad news and you don't want a bright and bouncy sig to spoil your condolences) then there's a check box at the bottom of the box you type your reply in. There's also an option to get replies emailed to you - you can't turn this off afterwards - so we don't recommend it!

If you use any formatting, it's a good idea to hit 'preview' to check it first!

Editing

If you want to edit a post you must be signed in as the same user you were to write it in the first place. Then click on edit my post at the bottom of the post in question. One thing to mention here is that the forum will now automatically add your sig even if it was turned off before. Weird, huh?

One thing to try to bear in mind - if you're editing a post, try not to make any replies to it completely insensible! Even if you're removing something stupid, leave a note to say 'stupid post deleted' - it makes the rest of the thread much easier to make sense of!


PM
This is used to contace somebody privately and instantly, Once you will receive a msg, there will be a pop-up that says that you have pm. Just read it and if you want to reply,reply it.


Etiquette

So far the forum has remained free of most of the problems that plague message boards. The basic rules of conversation anywhere apply, with the added caveat that whatever you say may be reread and reinterpreted - so try to be careful! Joking tones of voice may also be hard to convey - I'm probably the worst for that kind of thing - so may cause offense by accident. You don't get to see how everyone else is reacting, so it's a bit easy to misjudge a comment.

The worst thing that happens to any message board is 'flaming' and 'trolling'. Trolling is posting comments to piss people off, basically. Flaming is posting personal attacks. Both are pretty unsavoury, and we want to avoid them. Flaming can start when somebody misreads a comment, and replies angrily. The object of this then gets annoyed and a slanging match ensues.

If you have a problem with somebody's post, try not to snap out immediately - this can lead to a flame war starting. Try to work out if the message was really meant in another tone of voice - how would you read it if you weren't feeling annoyed already, for example. If you're still annoyed it might be best to ask the poster first via an email before snapping back on the forum. To snap back openly risks inflaming the situation and forcing others to take sides, and can really annoy people when it spreads to other threads.

One favorite tactic of trolls is to attack somebody's politics or religion - for this reason we tend to try to avoid those subjects. Common sense prevails - nobody would get offended if you said you were off to church next Sunday so wouldn't be posting (or off to hustle in an election, I suppose), but they might if you wrote that religion 'x' is stupid. It has happened before that we got onto it, and pretty quickly most of us realized we came here to avoid it!

The forum has a fair amount of teasing, which happens wherever you get a group of people who like fast wordplay and testing their wits. If you're feeling low and don't want teasing on a particular day (or indeed ever) then say - nobody wants to hurt anybody. So far there has only been one post removed for offensiveness, and that was a pretty crass song parody I idiotically posted a while back.

Swearing is an interesting issue. Occasionally you may feel the need for a good cuss, especially when annoyed. In general we tend to Bowdlerize a little bit - in tabloid style we'll use asterisks. Bear in mind that the forum is read by minors too, and so we don't want it full of cussing. Moderation is the key, really.

Another issue that needs to be raised is that occasionally someone will calculate the posting figures - working out who's saying most. This is just our way of seeing who happens to have been busiest, and isn't a competition. Lots of meaningless posts to get your total up just look silly, and also clog up Mr Ff's inbox. People are more impressed by someone who says interesting things occasionally than someone who says lots of boring things frequently.


Finally, any other problems or questions can be referred to the forum in general in a new thread, or PM(personal mail) me.You can see it below his post.

Cheers!

^_^