Discussion Forum Help
This website provides discussion forums where information can be posted related to classes and other events at Gaden Choling, and where participants can hold discussions online and may share material related to those classes and other events.
Accessing the forums
The discussion forums are available to people who have a registered account at this website and who have logged in. Once you log in, a "Forums" link will appear in the left sidebar. Clicking on it will lead to the forums area of the website, and those forums to which you have access will be displayed.
Structure of the forums area
The forums area of the website will present a listing of one or more forums by name. Forums contain two types of posts (postings): topics and comments. Topics are listed when you view a forum, in the order of when they were posted. Topics are also called "threads." Appended to topics may be comments, which are displayed only when you click on a topic within a forum. Depending on the security settings for a particular forum, creating new threads may be limited to only authorized people, but generally any logged in member can add a comment to an existing thread.
Forums area --[contains several]--> individual forums --[each contains several]--> topics/threads --[to which are appended]--> comments.
In the listing of forums you'll find two coumns of numbers to the right of the forum name, titled "topics" and "posts." The topics number shows how many topics/threads have been added to that forum. The posts number shows to the total number of topics plus comments that appear in that forum (both topics and comments count as posts).
Subscribing to forums and threads
People with an account registered at this website can subscribe to forums or to individual threads in order to receive email notification when new items are posted. If you subscribe to a particular forum, you'll be sent an email whenever a new forum topic/thread is added to that particular forum, and when any comment is added to one of that forum's topics/threads. If you subscribe to a particular forum topic/thread, you'll be sent an email whenever a new comment is added to that topic/thread, or when the topic is edited. You don't have be be subscribed to a forum to be subscribed to a specific topic/thread within that forum.
When you enter the forums area a new group of items appears in the left sidebar, titled "Your forum subscriptions." Here you'll find links to manage your subscriptions. If you wish to subscribe to a forum, so that you're notified by email whenever new topics/threads are posted, click the link "Edit your forum subscriptions." That's also where you can unsubscribe from forums. If you wish to unsubscribe from one or more topics/threads that you previously subscribed to, click instead on the link "Edit your discussion thread subscriptions."
If you wish to subscribe to a discussion topic/thread that's been posted to a forum (create a new subscription), then click on the title of that topic/thread within the forum's listing. Below the posting's text you'll see a set of links, including one with the text "Subscribe to: this post." Selecting this link will subscribe you to this particular posted topic/thread.
You'll also see a link with the text "Subscribe to: Posts tagged with [forum name]" or "Unsubscribe from: Posts tagged with [forum name]" depending on whether or not you are subscribed to that particular forum. You can use either this link or the one from the left sidebar to create and remove forum subscriptions.
Please note that you can only post topics or comments to the forums using this website, not by replying to the email notifications you receive. Also, the email sent will generally include only the first paragraph of the posting along with a link to that posting. Clicking on the link will take you to this website, where you can read the entire posting, and also comment on it if you wish.
Thank you for using our discussion forums!