| The first thing to do if you want to read more about a story or diary is to click on the title. That 'opens' it so you can read the rest.
Different things people might want to be able to see, and how to get to them:- most important things to know - Front page, center space
- new topics - Menu > Diaries
- most recent comments - Left column
- responses to comments you made last time you visited - Menu > Your comments > recent replies
- your favorite poster - in their diary, click 'subscribe', and it will go on Menu > Hot List
- your favorite subjects - Left Column > Hot Tags
- click the Flu Wiki birds up left to go home, if you ever get lost
- if it's in blue, it's a link, and if it is underlined whenever you put your mouse over it, it's also a link
You have found your way to the new Flu Wiki Forum, all shiny and new. As you kick the tires and look under the hood, let me explain what you need to know.
What we called 'threads' in the old yellow forum are now called Diaries. Anyone can write one (go to the Menu box in the upper right and click New Diary if you want to jump right in. But if you're not used to HTML, the markup used to put links and boxes into the diaries, you might want to wait a bit).
What you need to know
We're going to talk a bit about comments and replies before we get into the Diaries. |
| First of all, the area here that you are reading is called the Front Page, or FP. Only mods can post here. We can, however, promote other authors to the FP. The post you are reading is called a Diary. It has text, and is followed by an area for comments.
If you click on Post a Comment and you are a registered user, you can leave a comment in the comment area. But if a comment is already there, you can Reply to the comment, and instead of your reply showing up at the end, your comment will be placed directly below the one you replied to, and slightly indented. This is called nesting and threading, and allows you to have a conversation with someone in the middle of a series of comments, even if you arrive late.
There is a “post a comment” or a “reply”. Reply gets you a comment directly under and to the right of the comment you are replying to. Post a comment puts it at the very bottom.
If you don't like that feature you can turn it off. Step 1: go to your personal page. The easiest way to find it is in the Menu. You can also click your name in any comment. (You need to be registered to do this - if you are not registered you can not change the indented look. And you don’t have a Menu).
Step 2: click the rightmost link called “profile”.
Step 3: click where is says comment prefs.
Step 4: there is a pull-down menu; set it to flat (unthreaded). There is another for ‘oldest first’ or ‘newest first’.
Step 5: BEFORE YOU LEAVE THIS PAGE, save it!
The comments will no longer be indented; they will appear as they do here. Every registered user has their own personal page, found in the Menu box. Go to it, click Profile, and Comment pref, and play with the settings so it looks the way you want. In fact, once you're commenting go into that personal page area and check Comments and Recent Replies. Comments has every comment you made and Recent Replies will show you who has answered you, even if you don't remember where you left the comment.
The latest comments show up in the Recent Comment box to the left, on the Main Page (you can always get back there by clicking the Flu Wiki birds in the upper left corner on every page, or the Home link upper right and lower right). In your Profile on your own page, you can set Display Prefs for the number of comments that show up. When you get back on later, go to Your page, and click Recent Replies to see who has answered you. This is an awesome feature. You get to your page either through the Menu, top R, or clicking your name anywhere (it's always in one of your comments) - another awesome feature.
Diaries can be written by anyone. You can look in recent diaries to the right and see what's there, and if you like the Diary and want to save it, click on the + sign at the end of the title. The Diary is now saved to your Hot List in the Menu box. You can also Recommend someone's Diary to others.
When you write a Diary, use both the Main Text: and the Extended Text: boxes. Essentially, the Main Text is a short, less than three paragraph part and the extended text is where the bulk of long Diaries goes. If you click on Diaries in the Menu box to the upper right, you'll see all the Diaries listed in most recent first order. There's no bumping! If you like a Diary, recommend it and it will show up in the Recommended Diary list to the right if others feel the same.
When reading or writing a Diary, you'll see something called tags. these are subject descriptors that are editable by anyone in the community. Tags (also can be thought of as keywords) allow you to search for like-minded Diaries, so the tag might be food, Indonesia, or something to help you find the Diary later.
If you want to learn some tricks, like size or bold, or Subscript click on the Simple HTML link in the About box.
Those are the basics, so get to it and enjoy. And ask some one in the community by leaving a comment here on the front page if you don't know how to do something. Someone will answer you soon enough ;-) |
