Using Our Boards
Our message boards are the heart of the site—they’re where we do all of our writing, communicating, and collaborating. Truly, they’re magical things! The boards that we use were design specifically for us, so there are a few things you need to know to get started.
A huge thank you has to go to Luke Freeman, who did all of the coding and design of our message boards. He did a fantastic job!
Getting Started — How to Post — Tips & Tricks
Getting Started on the Boards
Firstly, there are a few terms that you need to be familiar with when it comes to our boards:
- Boards: The message board forum on which we post. Note that we do call these ‘message boards’ or ‘boards,’ not forums.
- Post: A single message uploaded to a message board.
- Thread: Several posts written in reply to each other, synonymous with ‘string.’
- String: Several posts written in reply to each other, synonymous with ‘thread.’
- WordPress: The content management system that powers the site and our boards. Learn more at WordPress.org.
Our boards are only open to Wheel of Time RP members, as you are required to have a username and password to log in to them. Your username is your first (and real) name, and is created for you by the administration at the time of your joining. Once it’s created for you, you will be notified via email, and asked to change your password to something you can remember.
How to Post
Once your username and password have been set up, you’re ready to write your first post! First of all, you need to log in to the boards. Go to: http://www.wheeloftimerp.net/boards/wp-admin/ and enter the username and password that you set. This page is now referred to as your ‘WordPress log in page’.
Then, navigate back to the board on which you want to post. You should now be able to see a form like the one below, where you can write a new post or a reply to an existing post. Fill in the form as shown below:
When you’re done writing, hit ‘Post it!’ and your post will go up immediately! You should be shown a blank page that says, ‘Success,’ and then be automatically redirected to your post. To write a reply to another post, navigate to the post that you want to reply to, and write your response in the reply form below that post. Follow the same steps as before.
Editing Your Posts
If you notice a typo in your post or see something else that needs to be fixed, you can edit your own posts quite easily. There are two ways to edit your posts. The first way is to navigate to the post you wish to edit while logged in. Under the post, you’ll see a hyperlink that says, “Edit this entry.” By clicking it, you are taken to the behind-the-scenes WordPress page that lets you update your post. Make your changes and press ‘Update.’ Voila, an updated post! Please note that members are not able to delete their own posts, so be careful what you post where! To get a post deleted, you will have to email your section leader.
Here’s the second way. Navigate back to your WordPress log in page, and sign in. The first page you see once logged in is called your dashboard, and from it, you can access all kinds of things. Mostly, though, you’ll be editing your own posts. Follow these steps:
- Click on the ‘Pages’ link on the left.
- All of your posts that you’ve ever written should now be visible. Click on the one you want to edit, or use the search form to find it, and click on it.
- Make the changes you want to make, and press ‘Update.’
Note: You can also see a link in your Dashboard to ‘Posts.’ This is not where you write your posts on our boards. In a WordPress structure these ‘posts’ are for blog updates and announcements, whereas ‘pages’ are static and hierarchical content. Technically, all of our posts are pages.
Please, please, please do not use or play with any other settings. Our boards are working, but they aren’t foolproof yet. Playing with extra settings may cause unnecessary downtime or something going very awry. If you have any questions, email Joni straight away! The Officers monitor the boards quite carefully, and we can tell when posts are edited or changed. Use edits sparingly, and only for fixing typographical errors.
Tips & Tricks
WordPress has a few interesting built-in features that you might want to know about!
- When writing your post, use the rich text editor built into the post form. HTML tags aren’t necessary and won’t work. (Except in the join form.)
- Using a program on your computer to write a post is a very good idea—glitches happen on the internet, and it really sucks to write a whole post and then have it disappear into the ether. Also, they let you spell check! Once you’re done writing your post, copy and paste it into the post form (use ctrl+c [copy] and ctrl+v [paste] to carry it over).
- Unfortunately, formatting doesn’t carry over from all writing programs (as in, you’ll lose all your italics and whatnot).
- Programs that preserve your formatting: Microsoft Word, Google Documents
- Programs that do NOT preserve your formatting: TextEdit (Mac), Bean (Mac)
- Use another program not listed here? Test out how your formatting copies over, and email Joni so I can add it to this list.
- WordPress automatically converts two hypens into an en dash (–) and three hypens into an em dash (—). A space followed by a hypen followed by a space becomes an en dash also ( – ). So, if you want a long line between text without spaces—like this—be sure to use three hypens instead of two!
- If you need to add a horizontal line into your post to show the passage of time, this must be done from the rich text editor on the site.
- WordPress automatically adds curly quotes!
Questions? Comments? Concerns? Additions? Email your section leader!
