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Community Help Guide

Welcome to the Youthwork Web Community. This page will help you use the discussion forums. If there are any problems or queries that you are having with the community section that aren't addressed here, then you can contact community@youthwork.co.uk.

Layout of forums The discussions are organised into themes. This way you can choose a theme that you are interested in and only look at the discussions on that topic. Many of the themes were generated from seminars at the Youthwork Conference. To view a list of themes, click here. Within each theme, there can be many Threads. A thread is a particular discussion. You can browse discussions that are already going on, or you can start a new discussion be creating a new thread. A thread can have any number of messages posted to it. You can add to an existing discussion thread by either replying to a specific message, or creating a new post from within that thread.

How to find and read messages Anyone can read messages on line - you don't have to be registered or logged in. Choose a theme from the community home page. To the right of each theme there is a number which shows you how many discussion threads there are in that theme. If there have been any new messages in the past 3 days, then this will also be indicated. Once you have selected a theme, you will be shown a list of discussion threads. The threads with the most recent postings / additions, will be shown at the top of the list. Click on a particular thread to read the discussion messages. When the messages first come up on the screen, they will be listed in chronological order. (i.e. the order in which they were written). You can change the order by selecting "Sort by Newest First" You will see several messages on the page. If there are lots of messages in the thread, then you can use the "next" button to view the next set of messages. Underneath the messages there is a line telling you how many messages in total there are in this thread.

How to Register In order to contribute to the discussion, you must register as a user. You are required to give your name and email address. Your real name will not be shown to other users, but it is important for administration purposes. Your email address will not automatically be shown to other users. However, once you've logged in, you can go to "My Profile" and select to show your email address if you want people to be able to contact you. Once you have registered, you will be sent your password via email. When you receive it, you can log in and you can change your password to one you can remember, by going to the "My Profile" section. There you can also enter a comment that will appear by all your posts, and you can decide if you wish to be listed in the members directory, which allows other people to contact you through the web site.

Adding a message Once you are logged in, you can add a message by clicking reply to any message on the forum, or you can create a new message in two ways: 1) To add a new message to an existing thread, use the link at the bottom of the page that displays the discussion for that thread. 2) To create a new discussion thread, use the link at the bottom of the theme discussion page. You must enter a subject for your message, and then the message. There are certain tags you can use to format your message if you want to. These are explained on the appropriate pages, but you don't have to use them if you don't want to. Once you have entered your message into the box, you can click on preview, and it will show you your message as it will appear in the discussion. You can then choose to post it, or go back and change it. Once you have posted a message, you can not edit it. When you reply to a message, it quotes the old message in your reply. You can edit this to only show the part of the old message you were refering to, or you can remove it altogether.

Private messages You can send private messages to anyone on the site who has posted a message on the discussion board, or is listed in the members directory. Click on the link next to their posting, or on the link the the members directory. Private messages are not emailed to the user. The person you are sending the message to will have to read it when they next log onto the site. You know if there is a new message waiting for you, as it will appear next to your name when you have logged on.

Email notification If you wish to be notified of new messages via email, there are two ways you can do it: 1) You can be notified of any additional messages in a particular thread. Click on the link at the top of the messages page for that thread. 2) You can be notified of any new threads that are created in a particular theme. Click on the link at the top of the theme page. Emails will be sent to the email address you registered with, which you can change in the "My Profile" section. When you are logged on, and you are in a theme or thread you have requested updates on, you can choose to cancel email notifications if you no longer wish to receive them. NOTE: Some mail servers may reject emails from this web site as spam. If this is the case, you may not be able to recieve email updates. All emails will come from community@youthwork.co.uk