Help:Discussion Forum

The following is an Intellogist Help Topic

The Intellogist Discussion Forum is a place for the community to ask questions and share information related to prior art searching and the Intellogist website and content. The help page below explains how to use the features of the forum software.

Forum Settings

The first thing you should do when entering the forum for the first time is to click on the MemCP tab (this stands for Member Control Panel in our forum software). This is where you can control your settings and upload your forum avatar and signature line, and control whether you can see these things for other members. It is also where you can review your Private Messages (PMs), organize them in folders, and control what will happen when you receive a PM from another forum user. The function of each option in the MemCP menu is described below.

The MemCP user settings page. New Private Messages (PMs) that you have received from other users will be displayed on this page.

PM Options

Selecting this header will open a new window with a short list of user settings for Private Messaging within the forum. Fill in the checkboxes within this menu to determine your own settings. Options include:

• Automatically quote PM when replying – This will ensure that your response to any Private Message contains a copy of the original message that was sent to you. Enabling this feature is recommended.
• Automatically save sent PMs in Sent folder – This will ensure copies of your Private Messages to other users will be stored in your Sent folder. Enabling this feature is recommended.
• Receive an email when you have a new PM - This option will ensure that a notification message will be sent to the main e-mail address that you used to register on the Intellogist website whenever you receive a new Private Message. Enabling this feature is recommended.
• Get a pop-up alert when new PMs arrive – This option will cause a pop-up message to appear when you receive a new Private Message. You will only be able to see this pop-up message when you are viewing the discussion forum pages– it will not appear when you are viewing other parts of Intellogist.

Create New Message - This option will open a new Private Message. You must know the exact username (including capitalization) of the person you are trying to message - the forum will not fill this information in automatically, and does not provide a user lookup feature at this time.

Note that an alternative way to send a Private Message is to hover your cursor over their user name in a post on the forum and click on the hyperlinked "PM."

The alternate way to specify the To: user on a Private Message involves hovering over their name in a forum post allowing a pop-up box to display.

You will notice a small checkbox under the message area. Checking this box indicates that you would like to automatically save a copy of the message in your "Sent" folder.

A new private message. You must know the Intellogist username of the person you are attempting to message. Type the username in the "Send To" line.

PM Folders - under the "Create New Message" option, three folders are shown:

Inbox – Your inbox for new Private Messages that you have received from other users. The number in parentheses indicates the number of Private Messages in the folder.

Sent - The folder where any Private Messages you have sent will be stored. The number in parentheses indicates the number of Private Messages in the folder.

Saved – The folder where any Private Messages you have saved will be stored. The number in parentheses indicates the number of Private Messages in the folder.

General Options

Signature – A space for you to enter a "signature" or a standard message that will display under your posts on the discussion forum. A signature usually says something about you and your interests – it could be a link to your blog or company website, for example. The maximum limit on signature size is 100 characters. This option can also be accessed from the MemCP drop-down menu on the main forum page, as shown in the image below.

A user's signature can be changed via an option on the MemCP menu bar.

Avatar – A small (75 x 75 pixels maximum) image that is used to represent you on the discussion forum. Avatars can be a picture of you, an abstract image, a company logo, etc. Please keep in mind that Intellogist is site for patent information professionals, so we suggest that you consider the site's audience when choosing an avatar. Uploading inappropriate content will result in being banned from the site.

A user's avatar can be changed via an option on the MemCP menu bar.

Board Options

This selection will open a new page with a short list of options to control what you see from other users when you use the discussion forum.

• If installed, Display MediaWiki:Edittools - please ignore this option.

• If extension FCKeditor is installed, Display in forum - please ignore this option.

• View Avatars – this option allows you to decide whether you will be able see other users' avatars when viewing forum threads.

• Display Signatures – This option allows you to decide whether you will be able to see other users' signatures when viewing forum threads.

• Display Signatures Only Once Per-thread – Although it's nice to be able to see a user's signature, seeing it multiple times in the same discussion thread can become distracting. This option tells the system to only display a user's signature the first time they post to a thread – their signature will not display on any subsequent posts. Enabling this option is recommended.

• Display Smiles – This forum supports graphical versions of emoticons. If you do not want to see these illustrations, select "No" on this option.

Wiki Options

These options are not enabled at this time.

Subscriptions

Threads – Selecting this option allows you to see the threads you have subscribed to that have new messages available.

• Via E-mail – Selecting this option will display only those threads that you have subscribed to via e-mail that have new messages available.
• Via MemCP list – Selecting this option will display only those threads that you have subscribed to via the "MemCP list" that have new messages available. You can access your "MemCP list" of subscribed threads by choosing "Goto Subscribed Threads" from the MemCP menu on the main page of the discussion forum, as shown in the screenshot below.

Accessing the list of subscribed threads through the MemCP menu.

Using the Forum

Creating New Threads

The main page is divided into "Forums," and under each Forum multiple "threads" are listed.

Intellogist users are not able to create new categories or forums. To start a new discussion thread in the Intellogist forum, you should pick the forum that best matches your topic, and enter that forum. After choosing the appropriate forum, you will see a variation of the following screen:

The view from inside a forum.

There are two tabs on the upper right corner of the discussion space: Start New Thread, and Subscribe. Selecting the Start New Thread tab will open a form window where you can type your post, as shown in the figure below.

The new thread can be started by typing your first post into this form and choosing "submit".

Formatting can be applied to a post or reply of any kind by using wiki markup or using the toolbars at the top of the text entry area. The wiki formatting toolbar has the following options:

• bold
  
• italic
  
• internal linking
  
• external linking
  
• heading
  
• image linking
  
• media linking
  
• equation display
  
• no wiki formatting
  
• signature
  
• horizontal line

The wiki code toolbar.

To utilize these automatic formatting tools, select the text that you would like bolded (for example) and press the bold button. The appropriate syntax will be placed within the text you have entered.

Similarly, several buttons are also present for other formatting:

• center text
  
• underline
  
• strikethrough
  
• quote text
  
• color text
  
• insert code (nullifies coding)

The forum code toolbar.

Subscribing to Forums and Threads

Selecting the "Subscribe" option in the upper right hand of the forum view (as shown in the figure below) will automatically alert you to any new threads posted in this forum space. Once selected, the tab will change to say "Un-Subscribe" any time you navigate to this forum, and clicking it again will stop any more e-mail alerts from being sent when new threads are added. You must be a registered user with a confirmed e-mail address to use this feature. If you would prefer to set up alerts on an individual discussion thread to see when new items are posted to that particular discussion, you can subscribe to a thread via the "Thread Options" tab (Discussed further below).

The view from inside a forum. New threads can be added to the forum, and users may also choose to "subscribe" to this forum area to be notified when any new threads are added.

After creating submitting a new discussion thread, you will probably want to "subscribe" to the thread you just created so that you can see who else is posting to it. The "Thread Options" tab in the upper right corner can be used to subscribe to the thread via the e-mail address that you used to register with Intellogist, or via your "MemCP list," which is available under the MemCP menu tab (described further in Forum Settings). Once you have subscribed to a thread, the words "Currently Subscribed" will appear next to the Thread Options tab anytime you are viewing the thread.

The Thread Options tab will allow users to be notified when any new posts are made to a discussion thread. The message "Currently Subscribed" will be displayed next to this tab once you have successfully subscribed to the thread.

Replying to a Post

To add a new post to a discussion thread, select the "post" tab that appears in the upper right corner of any post, or simply scroll to the bottom of the page, and fill in the form (shown below). Filling in the title bar of your post is optional. You must be a registered user with a confirmed e-mail address to reply to a post.

Selecting the "post" tab or scrolling to the bottom of the page will take you to the input form for new posts.

Quoting Posts

To post a reply to another user in which you quote from that user's post, select the "Quote" tab on the upper right corner of the post that you wish to quote from. You must be a registered user with a confirmed e-mail address to reply to a post. A new window will appear containing text from the selected post. You can edit the text to remove irrelevant paragraphs, and you can type your own comments above and below the quoted text, in order to make your meaning clear. The screenshot below shows an example of the edit screen when you choose to quote another post.

Sections of a previous post can be included in your post by selecting the "quote" tab to reply to a discussion thread.