Basic Forum Tutorial

Malky · #1 (**permalink**) 29-03-2008, 11:15 PM

Welcome to my mini guide about the basics of a vBulletin forum. I've been using them for a while and they have all varied in audience and topic, so excuse me if I mention a feature you don't have! I'm not sure if one of these has been done before soo.. Thanks

What Is A Forum?

A forum is basically an online community where you can discuss a topic with other people that have the same interests as you. You can start a discussion by posting a Thread and other members will reply, and voila you've started a discussion! (See Thread section on how to post a thread!)

Threads

A thread is the start of a discussion in a forum. You can start a thread by selecting a correct catergory from the forum that suits the question you want to ask / what you want to talk about. For example -

Q: What substrate do you use for your Bearded Dragon?
This would be placed under the Lizards catergory.

Replying to a Thread

To reply to a thread you firstly (obviously!) have to find the thread you want to reply to. You can find these by clicking on a catergory ie, Lizards or Amphibians and finding a thread you would like to participate in. Once you've found an interesting thread, click it and then click "Post a Reply". You then type in whatever your response is to the thread and then click "Submit New Post". When you're replying to a thread or posting a new one, you can use the keys in the grey box to make your post look more presentable.

User Rank

A user rank is the message that shows underneath your name. This changes the higher the post count you have, it starts at "Hatchling" and finishes at "Posting Deity". Here is a full list of all the ranks and the limited number of posts to get into that rank.

Egg 1

Hatchling 15

Regular 50

Super regular 150

Forum Citizen 300

Super Citizen 600

Ultra Citizen 1000

Premier Citizen 2000

5 Star Member 3500

Gold Star Member 5000

Premier Member 7000

Postaholic Member 10000

No Life Member 15000

Posting Deity 20000

Upgrading Your Account

You can support the forums hosting payments etc. By upgrading your account for a small fee of £0.83 per month. Doing this enables you to have the following exclusive features:

Picture and Attachment Uploads
50MB Storage available for your attachments
The ability to customise and change your user title
Increased PM storage limit (1000 messages)
User rank level = 5 Gold Stars

To do so, do the following - User CP > Paid Subscriptions and follow the instructions from there!

Signatures

A signature is a message that will always appear underneath your post. You can customize this to anything you like including a picture or text! To do so do the following - User CP > Edit Signature

Avatars

You can upload an avatar which is an image that will appear under your name. It could be a picture of you, your reptiles or anything! To change your avatar do the following - User CP > Edit Avatar

Infractions & Warnings
Taken from FAQs

Infraction Warnings - Red & Yellow cards The system on this forum is used to issue either a warning (yellow card) or Infraction points (red cards), when a certain amount of infraction points have been accumulated a temporary automatic ban will be issued.

Insults / Abuse = 1 point
Inappropriate Language = 1 point (only used in the more serious of cases – warning (yellow card) first)
Argumentative/Disruptive = 1 point

Each infraction point lasts for 90 days, if a further infraction point is given it is added on to the remaining time of the previous one.

3 points = 1 day ban
4 points = 3 day ban
5 points = 7 day ban
6+ points = reviewed by Mods

Referrals

A referral is basically a point you get in your profile showing that you have refered a friend to join ReptileForums.co.uk When you register there will be a blank box asking you for a referrer, you can refer friends by telling them about the forum and asking them to put your name in that box.

Blogs

A blog is an add on feature which is basically like an e-diary. You can tell others about your reptiles and recent happenings in your life. To make a blog, click Blogs in the taskbar and then "Post To My Blog" on the left hand side. You can then add a blog entry from there.

I hope this Basic Forum Tutorial helped the enw (and maybe experienced) members in and around the forum. If anything needs to be corrected or added, please tell me and I will put it up there ASAP. Thanks

!