Brief Guide to Forum Terms

[Dave]

Terms about the Forum

Forum - used in two ways - can refer to the whole website or a single discussion forum

Fora - the plural of forum

Forum Index -  the front page of the forum where all the forums are listed

Category - Shown only on the Forum Index page, a category is a way of organizing the list of forums into broad groups.



Board - derived from "Bulletin Board" - the pre-Internet form of today's forum. "Board" is used interchangeably with forum. Like forum, it can refer to the whole forum website or a single discussion forum

Child Board - a "sub forum" used to further separate the topics of a single forum. Appears underneath a forum on the Forum Index page.



SMF - Simple Machines Forum. The group who authored this forum software.



Terms about Topics
Topic - a collection of messages or posts on one specific question or subject within a forum. Also called a "thread".

Thread - see Topic

Topic List - the next level down from the Forum Index Page. Shows a list of topics contained within a particular forum




New Topic Tag - or New Tag for short. Indicates there is a new post within that topic that you have not yet read.




Locked topic - A topic which has been closed by a moderator for some reason so that no further posts can be made there.

Sticky - an important topic which is specially tagged so it stays at the top of the list of topics in a forum

Off topic - when discussion strays from the original subject of the topic

On-topic - when discussion sticks to the original subject of the topic

Hijacking a thread - taking over a topic by asking your own questions and steering discussion away from the original subject

Bumping - when the originator of a topic adds in another post to "bump" it to the top of the topic list and gain everybody's attention again.



Terms about Symbols
New Post icon - The deep blue/grey sphere which appears next to a forum on the Forum Index page indicating there are new posts within that forum



Smileys - small images of faces, which can be added to your post to suggest the tone of your written comment, your emotion, or other non-written communication.



Avatar - A small picture that displays underneath your user name each time you post. It is the visual part of your online identity.





Terms about Messaging
Private Messages - a messaging facility available to all members for communicating with other members. You can access your Private Message mailbox by clicking here at the top of the Forum Index page - 



Or here at the bottom of the Forum Index page.



You can PM another member by clicking on the link under their name.



PM - abbreviation for Private Message



Terms about People

Moderator - An experienced forum member who helps people use a forum, organizes posts, uploads images and generally facilitates smooth operation.

Global Moderator - A senior moderator who covers all areas of the forum.

Administrator - The technical person who manages the software, the server, backups and other techincal tasks.

Profile - a list of your personal preferences and settings. Worth getting to know. You can access it via this link -





Terms about Posts
Post - a single message entered by one person. A collection of posts make up a Topic.

Preview - displays your post for checking before displaying it in the forum. You can Preview as many times as you wish.

Attachment - A file on your PC which is attached to your post and uploaded to the server when you click on Save.

URL - Uniform Resource Locator - the URL of this image is - https://www.douglasmotorcycles.net/aa-files/images/ian/2004/oc600motor/OC600-Motor-1-420.jpg



Link - a clickable line of text with an embedded URL which when clicked, displays another web page or image - This is a link to the forum index page of www.douglasmotorcycles.net

BBCode - a collection of tags which when placed either end of some text, allow you to format your post. The tags are automatically inserted for you when you click on these buttons in the posting window.



Here's some examples - bold, coloured, italic, larger, smaller, glowing

You can also insert links and images - This whole line is a link to this topic.

And quote from other posts...

BBCode - a collection of tags which when placed either end of some text, allow you to format your post with things like

and more...