Registration

http://egfar.org/egfar/website/opensite/account/register  
Warning: your browser should have javascript / active scripting enabled and a privacy level not superior to Medium High (which are common settings for navigating intractive websites)

Access

• either directly
at http://egfar.org/egfar/website/opensite/forums: login and you will be able to post 
• or from the e-GFAR homepage (egfar.org)
left menu: Have your say --> Your forums
Warning: a privacy level superior to Medium High will prevent you from using the forum

Keeping easily updated

a) Each time you access the forum, click on “Read new messages since my last visit”. 


b) Email alerts: email notification is not enabled by default, but you can override this by enabling/disabling email notification in your e-GFAR profile page at http://egfar.org/egfar/website/opensite/account/details.
You will receive notification emails only when new messages are posted to the forums/topics you are watching: see next paragraph on how to select forums to watch. You will not be notified of your own posts.

b2) Watching forums / topics
At the bottom of forum pages and topic/thread pages there is a link saying "Watch this forum" / "Watch this topic". If you activated email notification in your e-GFAR account, you will be notified when new messages are posted to the forums/topics you are watching.

Contributing

You can either create a new thread or append a message to an existing thread. You usually start a new thread when you want to introduce a new topic in a forum.

• Posting to an existing thread
go to the forum where the thread is, select the thread to which you want to post and click on the “post reply” button

• Starting a new thread
go to the forum where you want to create a new topic and click on the “new topic” button

Writing and formatting 

The forum uses BB Code for formatting your texts: a few formatting buttons are on top of the message area and are quite self-explanatory. These buttons also allow to insert links and images.

Uploading files

You can upload up to 20 files to each message.
The recommended procedure is to upload the reference/background documents to a “Background documents” thread.
At the bottom of each post creating/editing form, there is an “Attach files” button.

Making a post “sticky”

Users with moderator/facilitator roles can make topics and/or posts “sticky”, meaning that those topics/posts will remain at the top regardless of the thread chronology.
Normally, topics and posts are listed in chronological order.

Polls 

When you create/edit a message, a section below the message area allows you to create polls. You basically define the question, the possible answers and the duration.
Once a poll is created, it always appears on top of the topic posts so that all users can vote. Each user can vote only once, after which they will only see the partial results until the poll ends.
Only one poll at a time can be created for each thread.