Message board Instructions

A message Board (or Forum) is basically a 24 hour meeting place. Members can post messages any time of the day or night, and other members can read what they say and reply 24 hours a day.

If you are simply interested in reading other's posts you can go to this link. Here you should see a list of the topics of discussion other people have posted. Under each topic people can respond, and you may see some of those too. In order to read the topics click the name of the topic, in blue.

If you are interested in learning how to register, and to post or respond to topics, please read the detailed instructions below.

Table of Contents

1. Registration
2. Logging On
3. Forum Basics
4. Basics of a Topic
5. Basics of a Post
6. Replying to a Post
7. Editing a Post
8. Creating a New Topic or Post

It is recommended that you open a new window or tab of http://www.gazela.com/Stroies/Forum (right click and select open new window or new tab) so you can follow along with the guide.

If you have any questions please feel free to email the webmaster at ProjectGazela@gmail.com. Please include 'Gazela' in the subject

Registration

The first thing you will want to do is register for the forum. When you register for a forum, you are creating a place for your information to be stored in the database. Our forum first requires you to agree to terms of service, and then it requires you to provide the following information:

1. Username
2. Your Email
3. Allow other to email you?
4. A Password
5. Verification

USERNAME-Your username can be anything you want it to be. Most people use the same username whenever they sign up for something. If you do not have a username that you use, you can come up with one. Whatever you choose make it something easy to remember as you will be required to enter it to log in.

EMAIL ADDRESS-You should use an active email to register to all forums as most require you to verify your email address before you can post on the forum. Also when you make a post you will get an email when someone responds to it.

ALLOW EMAILS-Put an 'X' in the checkbox if you want your email address to be available to anyone with access to the forum. This could cause your email address to receive spam mail, but can also make it easier for people to contact you.

PASSWORD-Your password should be one you can remember easily but it is hard to figure out. It should be at least 6 characters, a combination of letters and numbers and can not be your user name. An example (you should not use) would be P@$sw0rd.

VERIFICATOIN-Finally enter the series of letters above the box. This is to keep spammers from using programs to sign up automatically.

In order to register to the forum you can either click the following link: (right click and select open in new window, or new tab) or just click the register link in the top left of the message board.

Logging In

After you create an account you may automatically log into your account. If not, or if you want to log in from another computer you can follow the following instructions: Once you register fir your account, and click submit, you will be automatically logged in to your account. For this forum there is no need to validate your email address before you can log in. If you are not automatically logged in or are logging in from another computer or at a future date follow the instructions below.

At the very top left, just below the title 'Gazela Stories' you should see two boxes.



The first box is where you enter your user name, the second your password. The final box is a drop down menu where you can choose the duration you will stay logged in for. If you are using a friend's computer, or a public computer (such as in a library) it is best to select a short period of time for security reasons.

Forum Basics

You are now ready to view and respond to posts. A forum (or message board) is basically a 24 hour meeting place. Members can post messages any time of the day or night, and other members can read what they say and reply 24 hours a day

Below you will see the homepage of the forum.


The link in Green is referred to as the Category. Right now there is only one Category, 'Gazela Stories'. Under a category you have boards, the link in red. Above shows one category and one board, both dedicated to the discussion of the new book 'The Heart of a Ship' and other stories from experiences of crew members, volunteers, and visitors. As time goes on we could add new categories and boards, such as one dedicated to carpooling to ports in the summer. Clicking the link in red will display the posts under that board. 

Basics of a Topic

A topic is the theme for a discussion within a message board, where users can create posts and respond to others within each topic.



The subject of this topic is in the red box, and the author is underlined in green.

If you want to create a new topic, click the link in blue. This process is very similar to replying to a post, both of which will be discussed later.

The box in yellow gives more information about the topic, such as the number of replying posts to the topic, and how many people have read the topic.

Clicking the red link allows you to read posts under each topic

Basics of a Post

The area in red is the starting post of the topic. The green in the responding posts, under the starting post. They will continue going down the page with the oldest on top and the newest on bottom. The Name underlined in pink is the person who posted the post. If you click the link in blue you can respond to the post (a process I will cover next.) Finally, because I created the post in green, I can modify or delete my post with the links in orange.

Replying to a Post

You can reply to a post by clicking the reply button in blue in the above picture. When you click the button you will be presented with the following screen:


The subject of the original post is in Green. Generally you are supposed to stay on the topic of the original post. Below, in blue is the text formatting bar. You can use like any word processing program to format your text, be warned: some of the formatting has been disabled for security reasons, so you should always preview your post before submitting if you use any of them, as described below. The area in red is where you type your response. If you click the pink link you will be presented with options to attach pictures. Finally the links at the bottom in brown are used to post your response and to the right preview if you are using any formatting options.

Editing a Post

As described in the section 'Basics of a Post' modify posts you have made with the orange link.


In light green is the subject of the topic again (when replying you should stay on subject as much as possible), and below it in red is the content of the post. Blue is the formatting options and dark blue in the lower right is how you submit the changes, or preview the post without submitting.

Creating a new topic or post

You then follow the same instruction for Editing a post, except the left button highlighted in blue will say post instead of save.

You then follow the same instruction for Editing a post or replying to a post.