Discussion Forum Tutorial

Learn how to:

Use the Forums

  1. Start A New Thread
  2. Reply To A Post
  3. Reply With A Quotation
  4. Edit Your Post
  5. Rate Posts
  6. Report A Post

 

Read the Forums

  1. Understand The Icons
  2. Read All New Posts
  3. Go To The First Unread Post In A Thread
  4. Use The Activity Feed
  5. Mark Forums As Read

 

Using the Forums

Start A New Thread

  1. Begin by navigating to the appropriate forum.
  2. Once in the desired forum, at the top left, you'll see the Forum Nav tools including the "New Thread" button.
  3. Click the "New Thread" button. 
  4. In the subject field, fill in your desired thread name.  In the body of the post, write your message.  Feel free to add images or add videos.  You can edit your post similarly to a Word document, with bold, underlined, or italicized text, embedded links, bullet points, and tables.
  5. When you are finished, click submit.  You also have the option to preview your post and edit it within a full page editor.

 

Reply To A Post

  1. Navigate to the thread you would like to reply to.
  2. At both the top and bottom of the thread, as well as at the bottom of an individual post, you'll see "Reply" buttons.
  3. Click one of the buttons or simply scroll down to the Quick Reply area at the end of the thread.  In the body of the post, write your message.  Feel free to add images or add videos.  You can edit your post similarly to a Word document, with bold, underlined, or italicized text, embedded links, bullet points, and tables.
  4. Click "Submit Post" when you are finished. 

 

 

Reply With A Quotation

Replying with a Single Quotation

Replying with a quotation allows you to give others context to your reply.  This is generally used when directly replying to another poster's question or comments.

 

  1. Navigate to the post you would like to respond to.
  2. At the bottom of the post, toward the left, you will see the "Quote" button with a single pair of quote marks. 
  3. Click the button to open a reply box with a quotation.
  4. Type your response and hit "Submit" to submit your response.

 

 

Reply with a Multi-Quote

Replying with a multi-quotation allows you to respond in line to another poster and include context to your replies or to reply to multiple posters within the same reply. 

 

  1. Navigate to the posts you would like to respond to.
  2. At the bottom of each post, toward the left, you will see the Multi-Quote button with two sets of quote marks.  Click here on each of the posts you would like to quote.
  3. When you are satisfied with your selection, click the Single-Quote button on one of the posts you would like to quote.
  4. The text editor will open with the posts you have quoted.  When you are finished replying to the posts, click the "Submit Post" button at the bottom of the editor.

 

 

Edit Your Post

  1. Navigate to the post you would like to edit.
  2. At the bottom of the post, you'll see the "Edit" button which has an icon of a pencil.
  3. Edit your text.
  4. Click "Submit Post" and your changes will appear along with a timestamp stating when you made the edits.
  5. If you do not see the Edit button, you cannot currently edit that post.

 

 

 

Rate Posts

Rating a post up essentially means you like it and think it is quality content.  By rating a post or "thumbing up the post," you help quality content rise to the top. 

 

  1. Navigate to a forum thread.
  2. If you find a post you particularly like, feel free to rate up the post by clicking on the thumbs up icon.
  3. You may be able see the post's score which reflects the number of people who have rated up the post, as well as comments left with the ratings.

 

 

 

Report A Post

Occasionally, you may find a post that violates the community posting guidelines.  Feel free to report a post to site administrators at any time.

 

  1. Navigate to the post you would like to report.
  2. At the bottom of the post, you will see the "Report to Admin" button.  Click that and site administrators will review the content.

 

 

 

 

Reading the Forums

Understand The Icons

Forum Icon What It Means

20.jpg
This indicates there is new content within a particular forum since your last visit.  You can click this button to mark the forum as read.  21.jpg This indicates that there is no new content in a particular forum since your last visit.  22.jpg This indicates that there have been new posts written in the given thread since your last visit.  You can click this button to go to the first new post.  23.jpg This indicates that there have been no new posts written in the given thread since your last visit.

 



Read All New Posts

  1. From any page within the Forums, you can access the New Posts page which displays all new posts in chronological order (newest first) regardless of where the thread is within the subforums.
  2. Visit the top of any Forum or Thread page.  You will see the "New Posts" button in the "All Posts" menu.
  3. Click here.  The New Posts page will open.


 

Go To The First Unread Post In A Thread

  1. When viewing a forum or the New Posts page, certain threads will display with the icon of the conversation bubble and the green icon (see Understand The Icons).  This indicates that there has been new content written since your last visit.
  2. Click on the icon to view the first unread post in a thread.
  3. Within the thread itself, you will also see a count of the unread posts within the thread.  Clicking here will take you to the first unread post.

 
 

Use The Activity Feed

View The Site Activity In Summary View
Summary View is a great way to get a general feel of the site's recent activity.  To access Summary View, click on settings.  You can either toggle Summary View on or off to see the detailed view.

Summary View will show you:

  • Threads that have been posted in recently
  • New product reviews
  • New articles
  • User profiles which have been edited


For certain items in the activity feed, you may see + signs next to the action.  Clicking here will expand to show you more detail of that item.  For example, clicking a + next to a thread you might see excerpts of the most recent few posts.


Filter To View Content From One (Or Many) Parts Of The Site
At the top of the activity feed, you'll see buttons for Products (which will show you new reviews and gear added to the site), Forums (which will show you new threads and posts), articles (which will show you new articles and edits), and Profiles (which will show you user profile updates like sig file updates and avatar updates).

To view content from part of the site, click the button.  To remove that content from the feed, click it again!  When the content is "on" in the feed, the indicator light will be green next to the button name.  When it's "off" it will be gray.


Refresh The Feed
At times, you'll see a small refresh button appear at the top of the feed.  This indicates that new content has been created since you opened the activity feed.  Click here to refresh.

 

Mark Forums As Read

  1. To mark an individual forum as read, click the forum icon with the green check mark.
  2. To mark all forums as read, you will see the "Mark Forums Read" button at the top of all forum pages (excluding individual thread pages) and the top right.  Click here.  A popover will appear to allow you to mark all content within the forums as read or to mark the current forum read.