Creating your first post - A guide on how to use our community forums

[Dumbledore]

Hello and welcome Students,

 

In order to communicate with one another, we've created this guide on how to post topics and replies and this is done by using forums.
 

What are forums and how do they work?

• An Internet forum is a discussion area on a website. Website members can post discussions and read and respond to posts by other forum members. A forum can be focused on nearly any subject and a sense of an online community, or virtual community, tends to develop among forum members.
• This type of forum may also be called a message board, discussion group, bulletin board, or web forum, but it differs from a blog, the name for a web log, as a blog is usually written by one user and usually only allows for the responses of others to the blog material. A forum usually allows all members to make posts and start new topics.
• An Internet forum is also different from a chat room. Members in a chat room usually all chat or communicate at the same time, while members in a discussion group post messages to be read by others whenever they happen to log on. Forums also tend to be more topic-focused than chat rooms.
• The separate conversations in a forum are called threads, and they are made up of member-written posts. Members can usually edit their own posts, start new topics, post in their choice of threads, and edit their profile. A profile usually lists optional information about each forum member, such as the city they are located in and their interests.
• We believe this sort of community with a message board is far superior to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Your posts will never be lost, and everyone can join in our conversations.

First, you'll need to know how to navigate. This will be a slightly different experience depending on your device.

Here are our community forums: this is where you can navigate around. Firstly, we have our NAVIGATION MENU.
Home | Forums | Browse | Forum Activity | Hogwarts Activity | Store | Support
 

Just underneath the menu you'll see the navigation location, this tells you where you are currently on the forums.
So in this screenshot we are at HOME --> FORUMS.

 

 

A forum can contain multiple discussions, which are also known as threads. Each discussion can contain multiple posts, which are individual messages written by users.
 

This document illustrates how students can create discussions and reply to posts. It also demonstrates how you access different parts of the forums known as categories and sub-forums.

First, let's take a look at how a forum is laid out.

 

In the above screenshot, you'll see the category 'Welcome Witches, Wizards, Muggles and Squibs!'. Within this category is separate forums, in this example they are:
 

• Getting Started...
• Enrol (Join)
• Harry Potter Polls!
• What are forums?
• House Points
• About Us

 

Each one of these forums is accessible via clicking the title name. If we click 'Getting Started', it'll take us to this forum (see screenshot below).

 

Now that we are in the forum, you'll see a list of topics. Each topic has a title which explains what it will be about. Again, you can click the title in order to read, and reply to the post.

Once you've accessed the topic of your choosing and you wish to reply to it, you can do so by using the 'text editor'. This is the same if you were using any form of social media.

 

At the bottom of the post is where you'll find said editor box.

 

Once you've finished with your message, you click on the 'SUBMIT REPLY' to post your message for everyone else to read.

 

And that's it. Congratulations!

 

We recommend that you start off in our welcome section 'HOGWARTS EXPRESS' and create a post, or reply to the one with your name in the title.

 

Each forum acts the same, so creating and replying to topics/posts is no different, no matter where you are within the community.

 

Our second example, is a little further down in our forum category listing. This time, we'll use the 'THE THREE BROOMSTICKS' forum in order to post a question about the Harry Potter series.

 

We click the forum title name which will take us to a list of topics.

 

As you can see, we have a wide range of topics which I'm sure will pique your interest. Let's choose 'Which is the one Harry Potter scene that made you laugh out loud!' topic.

 

Above in the screenshot is our posts. Remember, you can join in the discussion by heading to the bottom of the page and clicking 'Reply to this topic...'.

 

 

Once you click the 'Reply to this topic..' text, the text editor box will open.

 

Don't forget to click the 'SUBMIT REPLY' button in order to post your reply!

 

We hope this helps people (Students and Muggles) who are not used to using community forums.