Threads, topics, replies, etc.

I've started out with such a detailed description of how to post and discuss, complete with diagrams, that I would up making things much more confusing than clarifying. So, for now, I'm going to work on the assumption that y'all have probably all gotten into conversations on the Internet before, and can at least mostly figure these things out on your own, and can ask questions here if you can't.

That said, it seems that the folks at Forumotion--the people who gave us this site--use slightly different terminology than I'm used to. (Seriously, I think English is a second language to them--I think they're French, actually--and the translations they have of the usual terms for boards like these don't quite match up with the terms that are standard in British and American-based discussion boards.) I'm linking to an image of a marked-up screenshot so you can see what I'm calling things. (In Library School this is called "controlled vocabulary.")

Basically, if you want to start a conversation, you click on the appropriate thread title--I anticipate adding more threads under the Book of the Month topic as we go along, and probably more elsewhere as well.  Then, you click on the New Topic button in the upper left corner to create what I (at least) am calling (at least for now) a "sub-thread," which you give it's own title and where you make your initial point.Once you've done that, any member who goes there--who clicks on the sub-thread title--will see a box where they can type in a response. (Ignore where I crossed out with a big red "x." It was late, I was tired, and now it's late and I'm tired AGAIN and it wasn't worth correcting.) Handily, if you lose track of where you are, it's in blue on the top left of the page, and you can back out by clicking on the topic/sub-topic/whatever title there.

Conversations being what they are, members are going to want to reply to each other at least as much as to you and your initial point. I would suggest that people who want to do that start by clicking on the "quote" button in the upper right corner above the "reply" form. That will include the post you're replying to in your own post, and make it so that it's easy to tell who you're replying to. Honestly, I'm not sure how much deeper it goes from there--I've seen it where the entire back-and-forth conversation is included, not just the post you're actually answering, I've seen where links to the conversation are included, I've seen it where only the actual post you're replying to is quoted...not having gotten that far in our conversations, we'll just have to see how it works. If you want to play with it by making sample posts, stray threads, etc., or to play with formatting (and I'm finding formatting to be a BEAR on this thing!), I've created a thread called "Playing with Posts" just for that, and you'll probably see a number of sub-threads, topics, etc. that I created purely for experimental purposes so I could see how different buttons behaved. Otherwise, post a reply here if you have any questions and I'll see what I can do to help.

I just found that, when you post a reply to someone's post in a sub-thread, there's a slot in the top of the form for something like "reply title." I also found that you can leave that blank, which you can't necessarily do elsewhere.