Community Building with ChatSpace Server Manual

Forums
ChatSpace 4 contains a forum feature. Forums provide a venue for longer
term discussions than a chat. Forums consist of topics, which are organized
under a Conference. Conferences are derived from the ChatSpace groups.
The topics are designated as subjects, under which discussions are held
related to the subject. These subjects or topics contain the messages which
make up the discussions.
Browsing Through the Conferences List
Before you begin posting messages to the forum, browse through the
conferences and become familiar with the forum.
Conferences are the organizing principle for the forum. Conferences are
created according to the groups that are created under the ChatSpace
categories. Topic messages and their respective responses provide the
content for conferences. As discussed earlier in this document, groups are
created by users. Topics for discussions can be created by any user, as long
as the conference is not designated as Read Only. Discussions begin when
someone posts a topic to a conference. Other users can respond to the topic by
posting response messages at any time. All messages in a topic thread may
have the same name as the original topic or a different name. Response
messages are indented under the topic message—a visual clue to show the
relationships.
Navigating with Forums and Topics
To access forums:
1. Access a group page under a category.
2. Click the documents icon or the Go to Forums link to access a list of
forums for this group.
The ChatSpace forums page is displayed. The sample page below was
accessed by the created of the group (conference), and therefore can add
new topics to the conference.
The number of topics under each conference is listed in the parentheses ( )
to the right of the conference.
144