Introduction to Forums

1. BIG4TALK.
com
Community of Accountants

2. BIG4TALK.
com
Community of Accountants

3. Introduction
to Web
Forum
BIG4TALK.com
Community of Accountants

4. There are so many different names for a
“forum”.
Some think of them as message boards
or bulletin boards.
Some call them threaded
discussions, discussion boards or
discussion groups while others call them
conferences.
Big4Talk simply calls them forums.
BIG4TALK.com
Community of Accountants

5. The simplistic definition of a forum is a place where
people have the ability to start communication (in the
form of Topic) and reply to other people's Topics.
A member of the community in the forum posts a
message, which is visible to everyone in that
community.
Once read, there is the option to post a reply, which
can also be visible to the community.
Thus, a discussion can build up without all users having
to be online at the same time.
BIG4TALK.com
Community of Accountants

6. Depending on the permissions of community members
as defined by the forum administrator, members can
post replies to existing topics and start new topics as
they wish.
In addition, users of a forum can post anonymously (if
this is enabled by the Forum Administrator) or as their
registered username.
.
BIG4TALK.com
Community of Accountants

7. Basic Structure of a Forum
A forum consists of 4 components:
the forum itself, its categories,
the topics and the messages.
Each component, or level of hierarchy, is illustrated in
the diagram below
.
BIG4TALK.com
Community of Accountants

8. Big4Talk refers to pre-defined types of users.
They are Forum Owner, Moderator, and User.
.
BIG4TALK.com
Community of Accountants

9. Moderators are individuals who have been assigned to
moderate a category within a forum. A moderator can
be assigned to one or multiple categories and their
permissions range from deleting messages/topics to
banning individuals from accessing the forum
.
BIG4TALK.com
Community of Accountants

10. Forum Owners are individuals who have been assigned
to manage a forum. Forum owners have the rights to
change any forum level, create discussion categories for
their forum, create moderators, and manage their own
sets of users.
.
BIG4TALK.com
Community of Accountants

11. Users are individuals or members who have been given
access to a forum or who have publicly registered to
access the forum. These members do not have any
special privileges unless otherwise given by the Forum
Owner. Users can become Moderators or Forum
Owners if designated by the Forum Owner.
.
BIG4TALK.com
Community of Accountants

12. Joining and Registering to a Forum
To join a forum, registering to a forum must be done. To do
this, click on the “Register” link, and the Registration
Agreement will be displayed for the visitor to read and accept
before continuing with the registration process. Upon
acceptance of the terms, the visitor will be required to
complete a form, which requests for information such as,
username, email address, password, location and other
miscellaneous information about the user. When all required
fields (marked with an asterisk) have been provided, the
visitor can proceed by clicking the “Register” link at the
bottom of the forum. ”
BIG4TALK.com
Community of Accountants
.

13. NOW YOU ARE REGISTRED
LOG IN TO
NOW
BIG4TALK.COM
Community of Accountants
BIG4TALK.com
Community of Accountants

14. BIG4TALK.com
Community of Accountants