Internet forums or message boards are used for online discussions between groups of people both small and large. As of the writing of this book, the Joomla! Forum (http://forum.joomla.org ) has almost 350,000 registered users, 440,000 topics of discussion, and close to 2 million posts, making the Joomla! forum one of the largest forums on the Internet. The popularity of the Joomla! forum means that lots of people have asked questions and received answers on how to get started, install, use, and extend Joomla! The forum is also one of the places where the project helps keep the user base informed with announcements, including information on the current status of the various aspects of the project, and it also allows the project to get feedback from users. Most Internet forums are organized with the same basic hierarchical structure. n Forum: Usually the front page that gives an overview of the organizational structure of the forum, showing what boards are available to read and post in. n Board: A general subject category.
Topic: A specific topic of discussion. Topics are started by someone making a new post to ask a question or start a topic of discussion.
Posts: Individual communications from one user. The forum is divided into a number of main boards that help direct users to the proper place to find an answer, ask a question, or start a topic of discussion. Some of the main boards have sub boards that divide the subject matter into smaller themes. The first step is to register your account on the forum. Near the top of the forum is a Register link. Once you click it, you are shown terms and conditions for using the forum and the software that runs the forum. If you agree to the terms, you can continue with the registration process. After you have agreed to the terms, you are taken to the registration screen where you will type in the username that you want to use, your e-mail address (which needs to be a valid e-mail address), and a password. You can also set your language preference and your time zone. There is a spam prevention captcha, which consists of a word recognition puzzle at the bottom that you must solve, and then you can
submit. After you submit the registration form, a verification e-mail will be sent to the e-mail address that you specified. The e-mail sent to you, after submission, will ask you to verify your e-mail address by clicking a link that directs you back to the forum. If you do not perform this step of verification, your forum account will not be activated. If you do not receive the e-mail fairly quickly, check your spam e-mail box to see whether it was redirected there. If you still have not received a verification e-mail, you can visit the forums again and click Login; from that screen, you will be able to have the forum
resend the activation e-mail. The first board is the Joomla! Announcements forum, which is used for the project to announce important events such as a new release (version of Joomla!), security bulletins,
and other information important to the community at large. Subscribing to a board allows you to get e-mails when new announcement posts are made. To subscribe to the Announcements board, you need to be inside the board itself. You do this by clicking the Announcements board title on the front page of the forum. Once you are inside the Announcements forum, you will find the Subscribe forum link just under the title Announcements. It is highly recommended that everyone in the community subscribe
to this forum. If you have come to the forum to solve a problem you are having, using the search function can save you a lot of time. The search box is located in the upper-right corner of the screen. This search box searches all the Joomla.org sites for words or phrases matching your search query. Most common issues and questions have already been asked and answered a number of times on the forums. When searching the forum, it is important to try to use search terms that are relevant to your issue but not so broad as to return results that are too general in nature. For example, if you are having an issue installing Joomla! because it won’t let you continue to the next screen, you could use the
search query installation will not continue. This will lead to a search results page that combines
all the results from all the sites. At the top of the results screen, you can filter the results according to the site the results came from. If you click the Forum link, it will show only results from the forum. You can then browse the results and determine whether one of the results can help solve your problem. If the results are not satisfactory, you can try searching again using different terms or proceed to posting your situation on the forum to get the assistance of the community.
Tip
If you are getting a specific error message, try including the specific message, or portions of it, in your search query. To submit a new post to the forum, it is best to look at the different boards available and find the one that applies the most to the issue or problem you are having. This will help you get assistance more quickly a lot of times, because a lot of community members tend to watch specific boards where they think they have the most experience and where they can do the most to help others. Using our example search query regarding installation, the best fit to get assistance would be the Installation board. When you enter that board, you can scan the available topics to see whether there is already a discussion that applies to your situation; also, at the top of most boards are “sticky” posts that are always situated at the top of the board. These sticky posts usually contain the answers to most commonly asked questions, resources for more help, and posts that are important to that particular board.
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