Registration & Login
While all content on the Foundry Web site is available for anyone to read anonymously, to post in the Foundry Forums you must first create an account. To take advantage of all the features offered by the Foundry Forums, such as setting your own avatar, tracking post counts, emailing users, private messages, access private forums, and many other you will need to have an account. It only takes a few seconds to register, and it is FREE.
To create an account you will need to visit the
Registration page at the upper right and complete the form for creating a new account. Here you will need to give your login name and email address and choose a password.
After successfully registering you should have a username and password. You can then visit the
login page at the upper right and enter your username and password to login.
When logging in if you do not check the ‘Remember Me’ option you will be automatically logged off after 20 minutes. If you would like the site to always log you in automatically, please check the ‘Remember Me’ checkbox.
If you have cleared your cookies in your browser, the stored password on your computer may have been erased. Please visit the
login page at the upper right and enter your username and password to login. If you forgot your password, please click the ‘Forgot my username / password’ link on the
login page and have both your username and a new password emailed to you by entering the email account you're registered with. You will be sent a new password since we store your password encrypted and have no way of retrieving the original value. Once you receive your username and new password you can login and change your password.
If you forgot your username and/or password you can click the ‘Forgot my username / password’ link on the
login page and have both your username and a new password emailed to you by entering the email account you're registered with. You will be sent a new password since we store your password encrypted and have no way of retrieving the original value. Once you receive your username and new password you can login and change your password.
If you’ve registered and can’t login, check to ensure you have a valid username and password. If you are sure the username and password are valid, but still can’t login please contact
the forum administrator.
First check to ensure your username and password are correct. Then click the ‘Forgot my username / password’ link on the
login page and have both your username and a new password emailed to you by entering the email account you're registered with. You will be sent a new password since we store your password encrypted and have no way of retrieving the original value. Once you receive your username and new password you can login and change your password. If you still can’t login please contact
the forum administrator.
User Profile & Settings
A profile is information about your account that controls how you view information within the Foundry Forums. You can see your profile by clicking on your name in the upper right corner of the page after logging in. This includes details about posts you’ve contributed to, personal information you wish to share such as your web address or weblog address, as well as setting that control how you interact with the Foundry Forums such as: themes, time zone, and many other settings.
Setting your timezone will enable the Foundry Forums to display all dates and time relative to your time zone.
A signature is a message that is appended to the end of any posts you make in the forums. You can edit your signature from the profile page. This signature will then appear at the bottom of any messages posted by you.
An avatar is a feature of the forums which allows for an image to be displayed along with your posts.
You will see an avatar section when viewing your profile. From here you can complete the forum to name the avatar you wish to use uploading an avatar. You will also need to enable your avatar for it to be displayed with your posts.
The date format used to display any date information can be configured from your profile.
Email tracking is a feature which will send emails to you when messages that you are subscribed to change. You can turn off all email tracking globally from your profile.
There are many different icons that can show up next to usernames in the forums. Common examples are administrators, moderators, or top posters. Other images may be displayed based on groups the user belongs to.
This is primarily to protect the privacy of users who have shared their information or to prevent unwanted/unsolicited emails.
Privacy & Security
Once logged in you can change your password from your Profile page.
Unless the administrator has configured the site to allow username changes you cannot change you username. Otherwise you can change your username from the Profile page. You can see your profile by clicking on your name in the upper right corner of the page after logging in.
Once logged in, you can change your private email address from your Profile page. You can see your profile by clicking on your name in the upper right corner of the page after logging in.
The only profile setting that is required is your private email address and username. This is the email address that is used when you subscribe to the forums, when a forgotten username/password is emailed. The private email address is never shared or displayed publicly. If you wish to share an email address publicly, use the public email address field. The remainder of the profile settings is optional.
You can set the option in your profile and your name will not appear in any member listings, including the listing of who is online.
Navigation
A Forum Group is a top level grouping of related forums. A forum group contains 1 or more forums.
A Forum is a grouping of related threads of discussion. A Forum contains 0 or more threads and 0 or more sub-forums.
A Thread is a grouping of related posts. A Thread contains 1 or more Posts. The first post becomes the Thread and replies to the original post increment details on the Thread, such as the reply count or last post.
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Thread Icon Legend
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Topic with posts you have not read.
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Topic with posts you have read.
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Popular topic with posts you have not read. A topic
becomes popular after a certain number of views and posts (administrator
defined).
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Popular topic with posts you have read. A topic becomes
popular after a certain number of views and posts (administrator
defined).
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Announcement you have not read
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Announcement you have read
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A pinned topic with posts you have not read. Pinned topics are
displayed before other topics until they become unpinned.
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A pinned topic with posts you have read. Pinned topics are displayed
before other topics until they become unpinned.
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A pinned popular topic with posts you have not read. A pinned topic
with enough views or replies to become popular.
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A pinned popular topic with posts you have read. A pinned topic with
enough views or replies to become popular.
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A locked topic with posts you have not read. Locked topics do not
allow replies.
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A locked topic with posts you have read. Locked topics do not allow
replies.
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A forum may not display any threads if there are no threads in the forum or if filters on the forms have been applied and no threads match the filter. An example of a filter is filtering to display threads newer than a certain date, such as threads new in the past 2 weeks.
A forum may or may not be moderated depending upon how the forum has been configured. After posting a message in a moderated forum you may receive a message stating that the post is awaiting moderation. Once the moderator(s) approve your post you post will become visible. The moderators may choose to move, edit, or delete your post to ensure that the post is topical to the current forum.
The icons next to threads when viewing a forum indicate different status. You can move your mouse cursor over these icons to see what the different status / types of threads are.
An announcement is a special post type that is always displayed at the top of a forum for a configured amount of time. The purpose of an announcement is to increase the visibility of certain topics.
A sticky topic is a special post that causes a post to sort to the top of a forum for a specified amount of time. A sticky topic is similar to an announcement, whereas an announcement is displayed separate from other threads and usually does not allow replies.
A locked thread is a special post that does not allow replies. Once a user locks a post or an administrator/moderator locks a thread no more posts are allowed.
Yes, you can sort threads when viewing a forum by Author, Replies, Views, and Last Post. The default sort for a forum is to display the newest threads first (Last Post descending). To sort simply click on the options button at the bottom of the screen and select your desired sort order and click 'Apply'.
The XML icon is linked to the RSS feed for the forum. RSS is used to allow other applications to subscribe to a forum's posts.
This icon indicates the user’s online status. A green icon means the user has been active recently (usually within the last 15 minutes). A red icon means the user has not recently been active. You can hover your mouse over this icon to see details about the user’s past activity.
If you are attempting to access a forum that you have visited before, but now receive an ‘unknown forum’ error there are two likely causes. The first cause is that the forum you are attempting to access is private and you are not signed in. The second cause is that the forum has been removed.
Posting
To post messages on the Foundry Forums, you must register as a member. This registration is free of charge. By reading or registering, you agree to abide the Terms of Membership below.
The Foundry Forums include all forums and Weblogs (blogs) produced by Foundry M&T.
These forum boards, at their own discretion, may bar registration from any specific email service or ISP.
Any message posted on our forums expresses only the views of the author of the message and does not necessarily reflect the views of these forums or any person or entity associated with them. Neither Foundry or Penton Media will be held responsible for the content of any message. Foundry M&T and Penton Media may, on occasion, use excerpts from forum posts in Foundry magazine or other Menton Media Inc. publications.
These forum boards use moderators and administrators to monitor the content and appearance of messages posted in our forum boards. However, considering the real-time nature of this bulletin board, it is impossible for us to monitor or review every message. Therefore, you agree that neither these forum boards, nor any person or entity associated with them, will be held responsible for the contents, accuracy, completeness or validity of any information posted in them.
You agree that you will not use our forum boards to post any material, or links to any material, which is knowingly false and/or defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or otherwise violative of any law.
All message content is the sole property of the posters and is not deemed public domain. It is not permissible to collect information from the pages of this Web site and republish without the express permission of the authors.
You agree that you will not post any copyrighted material without the express permission of the copyright holder, unless such copyright is owned by you, in these forum boards. Advertisements (unless job postings), chain letters, pyramid schemes, and solicitations are also inappropriate on these forum boards.
We have the ability to edit and/or remove objectionable messages. Any user who believes that a posted message is objectionable is encouraged to contact us immediately by email:
webmaster@foundrymag.com. Upon receipt of such notification, we will make every effort to take such action as we deem necessary within a reasonable period of time. Since this is a manual process, you are advised that we may not be able to remove or edit particular messages immediately.
These forum boards reserve the right to edit or delete any message for any reason whatsoever, at our sole discretion. You agree that you are solely responsible for the content of your messages, and that you will indemnify and hold harmless these forum boards and their agents and employees with respect to any claim based upon the appearance and/or transmission of your message(s).
In the event of any complaint or legal action arising from any message posted by you, these forum boards reserve the right to reveal your identity and any other information we may know about you. We encourage you to read our Privacy Policy.
Yes and no. To prevent viruses and other malicious code, you cannot type HTML directly into the editor. If you are using Internet Explorer the default editor for creating new posts will be a Rich Text Editor that will automatically format posts using HTML. If you post with a browser other than Internet Explorer a standard HTML textbox is used and BBCode can be used to mark-up posts.
BBCode is a special syntax for formatting plaintext posts.
Yes though there may be some restrictions on certain attachment types.
Emoticons are graphical elements that can be added within the body of a post to add emotions to the post. Common examples are the use of smilies within the contents of a post. The Foundry Forums have a pre-defined set of emoticons.
You can post a new message to a forum in several ways. When viewing a forum you should see an image button reading New Topic. Clicking on this image button will take you to a form for posting a message or ask you to login first. If you do not see the New Topic image button you may not have enough permissions – even after logging in – to post a message to the forum even though you are allowed to view the forum. For example, in a Blog, only the blogger can start a new topic, though you can comment on his posts.
You can reply to an existing post using either the Reply or Quote image buttons displayed with the post. If you do not see the Reply or Quote image buttons when viewing a post you either do not have permissions to reply or the post may not allow replies.
You will see an Edit image button next to posts you have made. Clicking on this image button will allow you to edit your post.
You will see a Delete image button next to new posts you have made. If a post you have made has one or more replies you will no longer be able to delete the post.
You have used a word that is deemed to be offensive. These words are filtered and replaced with the ‘*’ character.
See How do I add Signature to my Post? in the User Profile and Settings section.
See What is an avatar? And How do I Set my Avatar in the User Profile and Settings section.
Private Messages
A private message is like email within the Foundry Forums. You can send a private message to other users within this Community Server site that is visible only to them. No private information, such as the user's email address, is ever disclosed.
About Community Server
Community Server is a rich knowledge management and collaboration platform designed to meet the demands of the most rigorous collaborative needs. It is used by fortune 100 companies, small start-up businesses, schools, and individuals to better connect, share, and collaborate. Community Server is perfect for setting up a support system for products, reporting, and general information management by organizations or individuals.
Visit
http://www.communityserver.org to download the latest commercial or non-commercial version.
Visit
http://www.communityserver.org for more information on the types of licenses available. Community Server is available in both commercial and non-commercial versions.
Please visit
http://www.communityserver.org to learn how to contribute fixes or report bugs.