How Do I....? A Dummies Guide to the Forum

From Consumer Wiki
Revision as of 07:43, 28 July 2007 by Mbrowne (talk | contribs)

If you are new to forums this thread will be invaluable:

"How do I...?" A Dummies' Guide to this Forum

It shows you how to:

  • Create and Reply to a thread
  • Quote and Mutiple Quote from another thread
  • Subscribe to a thread
  • Search the forums
  • Report a post
  • User control panel
  • Settings & Options
  • Finding a post/thread
  • Posting links


HOW DO I........?

Internet Forums are not always the easiest thing to navigate, so here is a guide to some of the commands you can use. Some are very basic, some will take a little bit of practice. If you want to practise, don't hesitate to create yourself a thread in the Bear Garden, once confident enough, you can always ask a moderator to delete it for you.


Create a new thread:

Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination




Click on ,

Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination

this opens a new message box.


Give your thread a name, type your message, click on

Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination

.


If you want to double check that your post looks ok (for example, if you are quoting things, or posting a link or an image), you can first click on this

Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination

before submitting your new thread.


Reply to thread:

Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination


Click on

Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination

You can do that to reply to someone else's thread, or to post an update / query on your own thread. Alternatively, you can go to the bottom of the page, where there is a “quick reply” box:

Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination


Ok, so this is what you should now be seeing:

Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination



Let's go through the less obvious buttons.


Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination

This is the Hyperlink button, and allows you to post a link without the long http://consumeractiongroup.... showing. (Note: it works with all http://.... not just the CAG ones!)

Type "This is what I want to say", highlight it, click on

Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination

, paste your link in the box, click ok.

"This is what I want to say” should now look like this, and you can of course change colour, font etc, should you wish to do so (to match the rest of a signature, for example).


Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination

This does the opposite. You might want to post a quote from another site, but not carry the link. Click on the

Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination

, clear the box, click ok. "This is what I want to say”“ will now look like this: "This is what I want to say".


Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination

This is the “Insert e-mail link” button. Type the e-mail address in the box, and it will automatically create the link. People will then be able to click on it to start an e-mail message.


Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination

This is the “Insert image” button. Click on it to insert a picture hosted elsewhere, like Photobucket.


Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination

This is the “Wrap Quote” button. Click on it, and this: will appear in your post, with the cursor between the 2. Just type your message or paste whatever it was you want to quote and it will then show like this:

Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination


Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination

This is a drop-down menu for the smilies. “Show all Smilies” will open a separate window with all the smilies available on this forum.


Quote from another post:

Click on

Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination

in the post you want to quote from, it will automatically open the “reply” box and insert the quote, it will look like this:

[quote = Bookworm; 1027594]This is an example.[/ quote]


Type your reply, and

Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination

.

It will look like this:

Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination


However, sometimes, you might not want to quote the whole post, so you can delete what you want from within the quote marks and only keep what you need, so the end result will look like this:

Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination


Multi-quotes:

If you want to reply to more than one post, click on

Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination

on each post you want to quote from, it will then turn

Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination


On the last post you want to quote from, click on

Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination

first then

Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination

.


The end result will look like this:

Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination


If you change your mind, or have clicked on the wrong post, just click on the again, it will deselect it.

Subscribe to a thread:

You can subscribe to a thread without typing in it:

Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination



Click on “subscribe to this thread”, it will take you to the options menu, where you can choose to get notification by e-mail or not and how frequent the notification.

Search:

For basic search, just type in the box:

Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination



Or for more elaborate search, click on “advanced search”:

Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination



Note: If you want to search for post with “0” replies, change the default “at least” 0 replies to “at most”, and you can of course highlight the forum you want to search if you want to narrow it down.

Report a post:

We ask all of our users to remain vigilant for any posts which contain the following: Insulting language / swearing, threats of violence, racist comments, potentially libelous wording (i.e. the bank 'stole' my money), posts which show complete reproductions of our templated letters, advertising etc. If you are not sure, please report it and let us decide. You can also use it to report a title that needs changing to **WON** or threads that need merging, or moving.


Click on

Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination

under the username of the post you want to report. Type the reason why you are reporting it. Send.


Say thank you for a useful post:

Click on

Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination

. A drop-down opens which you click to say “I approve”, underneath, there is a box for a comment. If you leave a comment, please sign your nick, it's always nice to know who's being nice, and the box doesn't

User CP:

Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination



User CP (control panel) gives you access to your own settings.


When you first click on it, this is what you'll see:

Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination


These are the thanks of people who clicked on your scales.


Next, are these:

Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination



They show the threads to which you have subscribed and which have posts you haven't read yet on them.