Getting Started

Getting Started

Welcome to Discus! The following are instructions for beginners. Additional sources of information include the FAQ, Formatting, and Troubleshooting pages, available from the main menu.

Introduction

Discus can be used for three main functions:

To read ongoing discussions on a variety of topics
To contribute to an ongoing discussion topic by "Adding a Message"
To initiate a new conversation within a discussion subtopic by "Creating a New Conversation"

Anyone with access to the World Wide Web can read Discus discussions. At the discretion of the discussion moderators, a user account may be required to post messages or to create new conversations. Instructions for entering your username and password (if required) are provided on each individual page.

Reading discussions

To navigate through the discussions, use the clickable hyperlinks. To advance to another page, single click on the link to the page. To go deeper into a topic, you will generally select links from the body of the page. To return quickly to a page that is further up, you can use the navigation bar which is a series of links at the top of each page.

You may also use the available searching utilities to search pages for new messages or for keywords.

Contributing to discussions

You can contribute to a discussion by posting a message to an existing conversation, or by creating a new conversation with an initial message.

To contribute to an existing conversation, navigate to the conversation of interest and type a message in the "Add a Message" text box. Fill in your username and password (if required) and click on "Preview/Post Message." Check the preview to make sure your message has been properly entered. Click on "Post this Message" when you have verified that the message has been properly entered.

To initiate a new conversation, click on the "Create a New Conversation" button. Type a subject for the conversation in the blank at the top of the screen. Fill in the "Enter an initial message" box as described for the "Add a Message" box in the previous paragraph. You must enter an initial message in order to create a new conversation.