USING THE BULLETIN BOARD

It's called a "bulletin board" because it is an area where members may "post" a message, just like tacking a piece of paper onto a cork board.  Any member may do so without sending email to the Admin team, which means no delay to you.

First of all, merely using the bulletin board can not break it. 

Secondly, if you post something and later (ANY "later" -- seconds to months) want the post removed, YOU can do so yourself. 

Thirdly, the only rules about using the bulletin board is that the content must follow the ACBL "zero tolerance" policy.  (Yeah, I know we shouldn't need to say that.)

Fourthly, like any skill, it gets easier with practice. 

OK.  Here we go.

To get INTO the bulletin board area, mouse on the left-hand nav bar to the second entry, Discussions, and click.

Your screen should contain something like this:

You can see that the discussion area has not been used much.  We expect that to change. [grin]

Now, let's say you want to READ the messages under the topic "Looking for a Partner."   Merely click on the link, and you'll see something like this:

Now, at this point you can do several things.  You can read the posts merely by clicking on the topic link, and then reply to any or all, if you want.  (In group language:  reading but never replying is called "lurking."  Which is a perfectly OK thing to do, online.)  Or you can start a new topic (sometimes called a "thread").

Let's deal with starting a new topic.  The principle will be the same, if you wanted to reply to an already existing topic: click on the appropriate button.

To start a new topic, simply click on the button that says, "Start a new topic."  You should then see something like this:

You can see that there are many options:

• If you click on the drop-down Message Icon button, next to the word "standard" you can see what I mean.  [Yep, you're going to have to experiment.]
• You can fuss with the type and spacing, just as in Word.
• You can add smileys.
• You can be notified if there are replies on the topic.

Most importantly, you can PREVIEW your message before you post it.  When you click on the "preview" button (post-preview-reset line of button at the bottom), your screen should look something like this:

In this case, I chose to eliminate the word "even" in the last line and to correct the typo in the first line ("ius" --> "is"), by typing the corrections into the body of the message box.  I could, at this point "refresh preview" which would let me see it anew, with the corrections.  However, I feel confident the new version is what I want to appear on the website.  Besides, if I don't like it there, I can always REMOVE it.  [grin]

Anyway, so I decide to post it, by clicking on the POST button at the bottom of the window.  My screen will then look something like this:

And, that's all there is to it.

Have fun, read & post.  You can start any kind of discussion topic.  This is YOUR area to use.  Go to Discussion Area NOW.

Enjoy.