Proboards Newbie Guide

Categories, Boards & Posting
Okay.. So you have just joined the new forums. What now? Post your very first topic! How? Okay. Most forums have a Newbie board, or a "Arrivals & Departures" board. If you can't find one, use a general board. That brings us to our first lesson. You see, a forum has "categories" and "boards". Now, a forum may just have one category but most have many. Open the Neo-Reality forums so I can give you a visual. As you scroll down, you will notice a bunch of different categories such as "General", "Neo-Reality", "Member Plaza" and "Resources". These are called categories. Under each of the category names there is a list of "boards" which fall under that category. For example, "Must Reads", "Poll Booth", and "Newbie Room" all fall under the general category. So now, obviously, "Newbie Room" is a board. Now you can click on "Newbie Room". A list of Threads will come up. In the forum world, topics are called threads. You can click on any random one of these and you will see a row of posts. These posts were most likely made by several different forum members. Now go back to the thread index page. That is the page you were on right after you pressed "Newbie Room". When you look on the table just over the top thread to the right, you will see a small "new thread" button. Click on this to make your new thread. Most forums prefer if the subject of the thread is clear. So don't make your thread subject "......" but more like "Hey I'm new!". You can fill out all the spaces and congrats -- you just made your first post :).

Finding your way around
Obviously, first thing you have to do is read all the rules and regulations. Sometimes, certain boards have spacial rules. Just skim through the threads and if you see anything like "Rules" or "important" or "Must read" then.. well, you must read it :).
Before you go nuts asking questions and making a billion new threads, its always good to try & see whats going on in the forums. Its always best to check out the Poll Booth and answer any polls there. If your good at graphics, go check that out too. Take place in the important forum discussion that is been going on. This is important to making you seem less n00bish. By answering a lot of different threads your helping the forum activity, and your automatically integrating yourself into the forum -- plus you get a raised post count which will help raise your rank! Try to get your post count up to at least 10 before you log out that first time. Make sure that all your posts are at least 2 lines long and constructive. It makes your first impression a lot better :).

Messaging
Proboard forums offer a mailing service. This is almost always called a "PM". When Proboards dubbed them PMs, they meant "Private Message" but it has evolved now and it seems to be more of a "personal Message" than anything else. Generally just call 'em PMs. If you like Private or Personal better.. its not really all that important. Anyways, If you wish to PM a certain user just click on their name (you can do this when they post, or if you go to the members list or maybe they are shown as online -- whatever). Anyhow, you will be taken to their profile after clicking on their name. Here a list of different info about that person come up. Their user name (on proboards you can make your user name different from your posting name), their location and so on and so forth. What we are interested in is the "Send Personal Message" button on the top right hand corner of the table. Once you have clicked on that, everything runs very similar to Neopets. You need to fill in a subject & content. To go to your in box: Somewhere near the top banner you will find a "Hey, X, you have 131 messages, 0 are new." You can click on that to be taken to your mail center. It is either to the right of the top banner or below it. Sometimes the forum admin will move it extremely -- in that case post a thread asking were it is. On the Neo-Reality Forums its right below the top banner :).

Avatars & Signatures
On a forum, instead of calling it "logo" and "banner", the small image by your name is called an avatar (just like on the neopets boards!) and the text/image below your post is a signature. Now, to add an avatar or signature go to your Profile. The Profile link is right below the top banner. Then go to "Modify Profile". Scroll down to "Personal Information". Once you get to avatar.. stop. Now you can either type in the URL of your own avatar/one from another site that you want to use OR you can use one of the premade avatars. There is a drop down menu. The amount of avatars/what is offered depends purely on the administrator of the forum. If you used a pre made avatar, leave the height and width settings alone. If you used your own, make sure that you give the correct settings. Never use an avatar over 150 by 150. 100 by 100 is usually best :).
Now we get to the signature. This is also often called "Sig" or "siggy". To make a text signature, simply type in the text as you please. To make an image signature, you will first need to create a signature image. The next important thing is knowing that ProBoards forums run off BBC code. This means you will need to use the following code for your Sig:

Afterword
I hope this little introduction to proboards has helped you feel more comfortable with the forums :). Of course, there is a lot more to learn.. Just play around yourself and always ask questions. Just be sure to ask actual questions and not wail "OMG!!! HELP!!!!" without even naming what exactly the problem is o.O. It makes you seem n00bish and that is generally not what we want :P. Feel free to post any questions on the Neo-Reality Forums or email me at Kathrin433@yahoo.com

~Kathrin