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Forums Terms and Concepts
Repoman Forum uses a four-tiered structure for on-line discussions.
This table helps explain each of the four components.
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Forums Components
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Component |
Description |
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Conferences |
Defined by administrators, conferences relate to a broad
topic, community, or business area. |
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Forums |
Defined by administrators, forums focus on individual topic
areas such as a particular product or service. |
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Threads |
Created by end users (that's you) to narrow discussion to a
particular topic in a forum such as a product feature, problem,
or comment. |
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Messages |
End users (you again) post messages in reply to existing
messages, to create new threads, or to add new messages to an
existing thread. |
When you enter a conference you'll see forums, threads, and
messages. You can look over the messages in a forum or thread and move
to other forums just by clicking.
Example
The conference you're using may not be structured anything like
this example, but we thought it might help you understand how the
pieces fit together so that later on when we say something like "Check
out the options available for getting email notification from marked
threads in the conference forum," you'll pretty much know what we're
talking about.
Conferences and forums
Think of a conference like a banquet hall at the Knights of
Columbus. It's full of people gathered into little clusters, carrying
on conversations. Some people are talking, some are listening, others
are sitting along the wall with a nice fresh cigar. Each of the little
clusters is like a forum: it has its own subject matter and its own
group dynamic.
Messages and threads
In each forum, people post messages, or, to stretch the banquet
hall metaphor a little further, people talk with one another. Some of
what's said serves to open a new topic of conversation. Other times,
people respond to a subject that's already in play. A thread is really
just a conversation. Often you post a message in reply to someone
else's message, or you post a message in order to initiate a
conversation (thread). Sometimes all you may want to do is read
messages others have posted. Sometimes, all you want is another plate
of corned beef.
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