How to use this forum.

[Sobia]

I know this forum stuff can be pretty intimidating and I want to go over a few things to make everyone more familiar and comfortable moving around in here.

Firstly, I've never used a forum (or even seen one) before this one. So, I'm right there with ya and very new to this all myself. I know a lot of you are confused too. So, hopefully, this post should clear up a lot of questions you are having.

Let's talk about Membership.

If you have joined and still can't post, you need to open an email which is automatically sent to you from the forum when you registered. Check your junk folder. We just need to confirm your email address before you can post. This is for security purposes.

If you are thinking of joining, you basically just need a screen name and an email address. Nothing else is required.

Now, lets move on to terminology.

I'm not sure about all this techno terminology myself so let me explain it in Sobia style. ha ha


Categories. A Category is basically the heading for a group of Forums. Examples would be Welcome! Town Hall! etc.

Forums. Forums are the areas of discussion within the category. It's kind of like it's own little chat village: Sometimes Blog, Chit Chat, Pakapedia, Islam 101...they are all forums.

1. Let's look at the forum Announcements!

At the left of the title is a little symbol. It can either be green or blue. This is here so you can tell in a glance where new posts have been added since your last visit.

• Green means new posts.
• Blue means no new posts.
• Blue with a black lock means no new posts allowed.

To the right side of the forum name is where you find the title of the last topic in that forum. These are called THREADS.

Posts are the replies to a thread.

Under the thread name is the name of the person who made the last post (or who commented) on that Thread. It also gives you the date and time that post was added.

(You can see now that there is a difference between posts and threads. We will discuss this more in a minute. There is a lot of confusion in this area. I know.)

PLEASE READ THIS PART

To the right of the date and time is a little pink box with an arrow in it. When you click on this, it will take you to the latest post BUT IT WILL NOT SHOW YOU ALL THE THREADS IN THAT FORUM.

By using the arrow:

• You can read the latest post.
• You can scroll up to read a previous post within the same thread.
• You can view the beginning thread.

However, you can actually miss a lot of stuff if you only move around the forums by using the arrow.

By only using the arrow:

• You will only see the latest post on a thread and not necessarily the latest thread in that forum.
• You might miss a lot of good stuff to talk about and not even know it!

It's convenient to use the arrow if you are just checking the latest comments on a thread you've already read. However, be sure to check and see if you have missed any new threads by clicking on either previous thread or next thread under the post you just read or click on the forum name (ex: Announcements) in the Category (instead of using the arrow) and see all the threads ever posted in that forum.

Hopefully, this will clear up most of the confusion we are having here.

Also, at the top of the forum are a lot of headings.

User CP is your control panel. You can edit your profile, create a signature, edit email and password, edit avatar and profile picture, create a buddy list, etc.
You can also see new subscribed threads here if you so wish.

FAQ is a place where you can get more answers then here about how to use a forum, maintenance and reading/posting messages.

Members list is pretty self explanatory.

Calendar is where you can add public announcement dates to the calendar to remind us all when special days are.

New Posts is where you can also click and see all the threads submitted since your last visit.

Search is where you can search all the forums for certain member threads or topics.

Quick Links is pretty much a shortened version of user cp.


To retrieve your private messages (pm), check under your log in name. You can send messages by clicking on a members name in a post or from the member list, unless that user has requested that no one be allowed to contact them via pm or email.

So, if you are wondering about anything else, please send us a message. This should help a lot I think.

Have a great day! Sobia