WebBoard Help

Understanding Conferences and Messages

Types of Conferences and Messages
Listing Conference Messages
Changing the Order of Topics
Viewing the Conference Profiles

Types of Conferences and Messages

Any board on a WebBoard site can have four different types of conferences:

Public conferences let anyone read and post messages.
Moderated conferences have one or more persons exercising editorial control. Anyone can post, but the messages may be reviewed before being posted. A moderated conference helps keep discussions focused.
Private conferences are limited to specific users who are authorized to read and post messages. Private conferences allow you to discuss confidential or nondisclosure topics, such as new products being developed. Private conferences appear in the Conferences list only for authorized users.
Read-only conferences distribute official information to WebBoard users, such as company policies or product announcements and updates. You can read, but you can’t post messages to a read-only conference.

These conference types can also be mixed. For example, an administrator might create a private, read-only conference for a company’s accounting group to post financial data for executive managers. Or, a private conference might also have a moderator to move the discussion along.

WebBoard conferences can have two different types of messages:

Topic messages start a new thread of a discussion within the overall subject of the conference. You can start a new topic at any time, and you should start a new topic if your message is not a direct response to a previously posted message.
Reply messages respond to an existing topic or reply and keep the current discussion thread going. Replies are always indented under the message being replied to in the Conferences list.

Listing Conference Messages

Conferences are the organizing principle for the board. Topic and response messages provide the content for conferences. A conference is created by a WebBoard administrator or manager, but the real discussion begins when someone posts a topic to it. Other users can respond to the topic by posting response messages at any time. All messages in a topic may have the same name as the original topic or a different name; however, response messages are indented under the topic message—-a visual clue to show the relationships.

WebBoard’s ability to let you browse by conference or topic means you can either follow a subject exhaustively or pick and choose just the messages you want. The conferences list shows all the conferences on this board. The list also includes information about the messages in a conference, for example, who posted them or whether they’re new since you last logged in. An expansion box (+ icon) to the left of a conference name indicates that the conference has topics and messages.

To view a list of the messages in a conference, follow these steps:

Browse to a board to view the listing of conferences. The numbers in parentheses to the right of the conference name tell the total number of messages, how many new messages, and how many messages to your attention are in it. Conferences with new messages have a NEW icon to the right of the conference name.
To see the topics in a conferences, click the conference name or the expansion box. You can expand one conference at a time. When you expand another conference, the previous topic list collapses. Or, you can close the conference list by clicking the expansion box again. Note that:
Topic messages with replies have a plus symbol to the left. They also show a date to the right of the message subject, which is the date the topic message was posted. The numbers in parentheses to the right indicate the total number of messages (topic message plus responses), the number of new response messages, and the number of messages to your attention. Topics with new response messages have a NEW icon to their right.
Topic messages that do not have replies have the name of the author in parentheses to the right of the message subject, followed by the date the message was posted. Italics indicate it is a new topic message.
Use the arrows and hyperlinks in the list to quickly navigate through large conferences with many topics. Clicking the down arrow to the left of the conference name lets you see groups of topics incrementally. At the end of the group of topics, you can click Next or Bottom to bring you to the next set of messages or to the end. Previous and Top links appear at the end of the list so you can return up through the topics or back to the top of the conference.
To see the responses to a topic message, click the expansion box to the left of the topic subject. Note that:
To the right of each message you now see the name of the user who posted the message in parentheses followed by the date the message was posted.
A small paperclip icon next to the message indicates that it has a file attachment. (You choose whether to download an attached file when reading the message.)
To open a message, click the message. It appears in the message window.

Changing the Order of Topics

When you log in to WebBoard and view topics within a conference, you’ll notice that the topics are ordered from newest to oldest. You change the order of topics by editing your user profile:

Select More from the WebBoard menubar. The Options menu appears.
Click Edit Your Profile from the Options menu. The User Profile form appears.
Scroll down the page until you see the Reverse Topic Order selection. To change the topic order and display oldest topics first, select No.
Click Save to update your profile.

The next time you expand a conference or refresh the conference list, the messages are in the new order. The same order applies to the New Messages list as well. Note that guest users cannot change the topic order.

Viewing the Conference Profiles

Each conference has a profile, which includes a brief description, who created it, when it was created, the number of messages, and so on. To view a conference profile, follow these steps:

To see the full profile, click the conference’s name.

The profile gives the following information:

The profile starts with the name of the conference and the description written by the WebBoard administrator or board manager. The description may include HTML (even other links!) and images to give you a better idea of this conference’s purpose.
Creation date: The day and date when the conference was started let you know how long this discussion has been underway.
Creator: The person who set up this conference is shown with a link to that person’s user profile.
Number of messages: The total number of messages posted since the conference started gives you an idea of how busy it is.
Number of new messages: This number tells you how many unread messages you have in this conference. The number is based on messages posted since you last visited the board or you last marked messages read manually.
Private: A private conference has a restricted group of members. If you are not on the list of users allowed to participate in that conference, you will be denied access when you click the conference link.
Read only: A read-only conference doesn’t allow anyone to post messages except authorized moderators (including the WebBoard administrator and board manager). A read-only conference is an excellent vehicle for moderators to disseminate information to other users on the board.
Moderated: A moderated conference means that one or more users has been given moderator privileges for this conference. A moderator may be fairly invisible and act as one of the regular posters, or a moderator may be quite visible, even verifying messages before allowing them to be posted. A moderator has some control over the content and users participating in the conference. If you have questions about a moderated conference, post a query to the conference, and the moderator will let you know the extent of his or her work on the board.