WebBoard Help

Editing Your User Profile

On a board with registered users, each user has a profile, which contains information WebBoard uses in various ways. The most important way is that it stores your login name and password, which WebBoard uses to give you access to boards requiring authentication. Your profile also includes information WebBoard uses (such as your email address), as well as information other users can view (such as your professional information, hobbies, and other interests). You do not have to include personal information if you don’t want to.

Your user profile is also a place for setting up your work environment, for example, turning off paging or selecting full topic view. When you first log in as a new user, WebBoard asks you to fill out a New User Information form. This information is part of what makes up your user profile.

You can edit your user profile at any time, by following these steps:

Click Options on the WebBoard menubar. The Options menu appears.
Click Edit Your Profile from the Options menu. The User Profile page appears.
Make any changes necessary (see the list below). Do not leave any required field blank.
Click Save to update your profile.
Continue with your WebBoard session.

Most user profiles contain the following information. If the administrator has customized the user profile, you may find other fields or similar, but differently named, fields. The standard fields include:

Login Name (required): This name is your unique key for entering WebBoard. You were either assigned this name or created it when you registered on WebBoard the first time you logged in as a new user. In general, this name is not displayed to other users unless the WebBoard administrator has opted to display login names instead of real names for message postings and chat.
First Name (required): This name is normally your real first name. Of course, you can choose to use a pseudonym or even have more than one account under the same or different names on the same board (you’ll have to log in as a new user to create the second account).
Last Name (required): This name is normally your real last name. As with your first name, you can use a pseudonym or have a second account under a different name.
Password (required): This entry is masked (shown as *s) for security. You can change your password to protect your postings and user information. If you do, you must enter it twice on the form to ensure you typed it correctly. The password is never shown to other users.
Email Address (required): This address is used for WebBoard’s email notification and mailing list features. It is also included with each message you post to make it easy for other board members to respond to you directly and in the Search User list. If the email field is too small to hold your email address, contact your WebBoard administrator.
Hide Email: Check No to hide your email address from other users. The board manager and site administrator will still be able to see your email address. Mailing lists and email notification will still work.
City/Town: Your city or town can be of interest to other members of this board. It is often fun to see how widely scattered—or how close by—WebBoard participants are. In a corporate setting, the city field can be used to identify your building location or department.
State/Province: Your state may be either the two-letter abbreviation or the full name. If you are an international user, put your province or locality in this field.
Country: Again, the country where you live can be an opportunity for more discussion on WebBoard. You can use either the two-letter country code or spell out the country name in full.
Home Page: The URL you put in this field is displayed when someone looks at your user information. If you do not have a personal home page, you can enter one that you find interesting or useful.
Bio: This field can hold up to 2,000 characters (about 400 words) describing interesting things about yourself. You can include information about your profession, family, hobbies, or other interests and activities. If this WebBoard focuses on a specific topic area (say, for instance, model trains), you might want to write about that topic and your involvement in it (for example, listing some of the most special trains you own). In a business setting, you may want to use this area to help your colleagues understand your goals, vision, and qualifications. You can include HTML in the description.
Signature: This field holds information that is attached to every message you post. Similar to an email signature, you may want to include your name, contact information, a quotation or vision statement, and so forth. Your signature can be up to 2,000 characters and can contain HTML. Remember, however, that other users probably appreciate short signatures that don’t take long to download.

Note
The information you put in your user profile is used across all boards at the same WebBoard site. If you participate in more than one board, make sure your user information such as hobbies and signature is appropriate for all boards. On the other hand, you can have different user profiles by creating a different account on each board you use, or even creating multiple accounts on a single board. To create a new account, simply log in as a new user as described earlier in this chapter.

Reverse Topic Order: WebBoard lists topics in chronological order. This option lets you decide whether to start with the most recent or the oldest. A Yes means topics are listed from newest to oldest. Select No to view topics with the oldest first.
Mailing List Format: This option allows you to choose which format WebBoard uses to send you mailing lists. The three formats are non-digest, messages sent individually when they are posted; digest, messages sent once a day in a single email message that is indexed by message; digest/ZIPped, messages put into digest format and then zipped up to compress the size of the email. Depending on the traffic and your need to respond to the conferences you participate in by email, you can select the best delivery method. For example, if you want to respond to many messages that are posted, you should select the nondigest form. If you simply need a record of messages posted on a board, select the digest/ZIPped format. Selecting a mailing list format does not subscribe you to any WebBoard mailing lists; you complete that task from the Options menu. Mailing lists are described in more detail in Chapter 14. We recommend you read that chapter before changing the mailing list format.
Automatically Mark new: This setting allows you to configure how messages will be marked read. If this option is enabled then messages will be automatically marked as having been read as soon as you view them. If the option is disabled you will need to manually mark messages as having been read from the Options->Mark Conferences Read area.
Image: Here you can upload a custom image(avatar) to be shown in your profile and in the author box of messages you post.
Optional fields: You may see other fields that were added by the WebBoard administrator. If you have questions about these fields, email the board manager.