Here you can find answers to questions about how the board works. Use the links or search box below to find your way around.
For the most part, your posts will contain plain text, but on occasions, you may want to emphasize certain words or phrases by making them (for example) bold or italic.
Depending on the rules of the forum, you may use HTML code to produce these effects. However, more often than not, the administrator will have disabled HTML code, and opted instead to use vB Code: a special set of tags which you can use to produce the most popular text-effects. vB code has the advantage that it is very simple to use, and is immune to malicious javascripts and page layout disruption.
You may also find that the administrator has enabled smilies, which allow you to use small icons to convey emotion, and the [img] code, which allows you to add pictures to your message.
For more information about vB code, click here.
What are tags?
Tags are a useful way to search for threads with similar subject matter and content. This complements the normal search system, which searches only for certain words or phrases and/or posts by specific users.
To use tags, you add words or phrases to threads to help describe the content. For instance, if the subject matter is 'photography' then you can add the tag 'photography' to the tag list. But you could also add tags like 'digital image', and 'camera' (depending, of course, on the nature of the thread).
This will categorize this thread with all other threads that have matching tags, whether or not they have the word 'photography' in them.
Who adds the tags?
Tags are initially added to threads by the user who started the thread. Other users may also be able to add and remove tags.
How do I use tags?
Tags are displayed in a box near the bottom of a thread page. Clicking on a tag will allow you to view other threads that have the same tag - and which may be related. Clicking on the word 'Tags' in the top of the box will take you to an overview page with a 'tag cloud.'
This cloud allows you to see which tags are the most popular - the larger the word, the more times it has been used on threads within the board. There is also another tag cloud on the advanced search page that shows you the tags that have been searched for (or clicked on) the most.
