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STEVE MARTIN FORUM
Forum Frequently Asked Questions
Find out everything you need to know about how to use the Forum on this site.
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- Do I have to be logged in to use the forum?
- Will my personal details be published in the forum when I make a post?
- How do I post a message?
- Posting a new topic
- Reply to an existing post
- Comment on a story in the News section
- Can I include a video in my post?
- Can I edit my message once I have posted it?
- What about bad language? I'm worried that my little Junior will read messages from other people using bad language.
- What if I find a post to be offensive?
Do I have to be logged in to use the forum?
If all you want to do is to read the posts that other people have written, then you do not need to be logged in.
However, if you want to get the full benefit from the forum by sharing your opinions with the world, then you do
need to register with stevemartin99.com and be logged in to allow this. Registration is quick and easy and can be done
by clicking on this link. Once you have registered, you will
then be able to log into the Forums section of the web site and post messages to your heart's content.
Will my personal details be published in the forum when I make a post?
No, personal details like your name, date of birth, etc. that could be used to determine your real identity
are never displayed in the forum pages. We instead display your stevemartin99.com user name along with any posts
you make just to give a sense of identity to the author of post.
How do I post a message?
There are 3 ways you can post a message into the forum:
(i) Post a new topic
(ii) Reply to a post in an existing topic
(iii) Comment on a story in the News section of the site.
Each of these ways of posting a message are discussed below.
Posting a new topic
If you want to start up a new thread of conversation, go to the main forum pages and select the main topic heading
that you wish to post your new thread under. You will be then shown a page with all the existing conversation
threads in that particular topic. Click on the "Create New Thread" link. You will then be presented
with the "Create a new topic" page, as shown below:
Enter the subject of your new thread into the text box marked "Subject".
Enter whatever you want to say in the main text area labeled"Message Body". The message body will
usually contain just plain text, but you can also change the style of the text you enter and also add extra things
into your posts by using one of the extra controls on the page. In the screen-shot above, you will see these extra
controls labeled in red. These controls do the following:
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Text Style Buttons - These change the appearance of your text to bold, italic, or underlined. To use these
controls, simply highlight the text that you want to apply the style to then click the appropriate button.
Please note that the editor is not WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get), i.e. if you choose to make some text
bold, they will not actually appear bold in the editor. Instead, tags will be applied to the start and end of the
text you selected, e.g. [b]Text to be bold[/b]. Please do not alter or delete these tags, they are used to apply
the desired styles on the main thread view page.
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Insert Hyperlink - To include a URL to another web site, click this button. A dialog box will then appear asking you
to enter the URL of the web site. Again, special tags will be placed at the start and end of the URL when it appears
in the editor, which will be properly formatted as a clickable link when the post is published.
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Insert E-mail Link - To include a mail-to link, i.e. a link that when clicked will open up the user's e-mail client
so that they can send an e-mail to the specified address, click on this button. A dialog box will appear into which
the e-mail address can be entered.
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Insert Image - Images can be included in your post by clicking on this button and entering the URL of the image
into the dialog box that appears. Please note that only images that are already on the world wide web and have
a URL can be inserted into a post; images on your local PC cannot be inserted into a post.
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Insert Preformatted Text - This button allows you to change the font of the text that you highlight to one
that resembles the typical appearance of computer code. This probably won't be of much use to most of you
using the forum, but it does come in handy for reporting any errors that occur when using the web site, as the
error text can be pasted into the post and this style applied to it to make it look like the actual message that
appeared.
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Insert Quoted Text - If you want to quote something that someone else has said, e.g. in a news story or another
post in the forum, paste the text you want to quote into the editor, highlight it and press the Insert Quoted
Text Button. This will apply special formatting to the text to show that it has been quoted from another source.
Emoticons - These fun little icons can help to convey your feelings in your post. Just click on the emoticon that you
want to use, and it will appear in your post in your chosen place. Once again, the actual image of the emoticon will
not appear in the editor whilst you are editing the post - a series of special characters will be put in its place, which
will be transformed into the correct emoticon once the post is published.
Once you have finished, click the Post Message button at the bottom of the screen. Your message will then be saved and
displayed for the whole world to see in the relevant forum.
Reply to an existing post
To reply to an existing message, navigate to the message thread that you want to reply to and click on the
"Add Reply" link. You will then be taken to the "Add a new reply" page which is pretty much
identical to the "Create a new topic" page discussed above, and works in exactly the same way. The only
difference this time is that you don't get to enter a new subject name, as this is taken from the subject of the
original post which you are replying to.
If you want to quote the excising post in your reply, then instead of clicking the "Add Reply" link from the
view topic page, click on the "Quote" link that appears at the bottom right of the message that you wish to
quote. This message will then be pasted automatically into the editor on the page that you then get taken to.
Comment on a story in the News section
Certain stories in the "News" section of the site allow you to comment on. If a news story can be commented
on, a link will appear at the bottom of that particular news story that says "Click here to comment on this story".
Click on this link and you will be taken to page displaying all the previous comments (if any) that have been made so far
regarding this story. Click on the "Add Reply" link that appears on this page and add your comment in the same
way as you would reply to any other post in the forum.
Can I include a video in my post?
Yes, you can. Many popular video-sharing web sites, such as YouTube, give you
the ability to embed videos appearing on these sites into personal websites and forums (like this one) by providing snippets of html code alongside their videos
which can be pasted into websites. To display a video in your post, simply paste one of these html snippets into the post editor
on this site. The video will then be shown whenever someone looks at your post. We do, however, ask that only appropriate videos
be posted here. Any video (or image or text for that matter) that we deem to be inappropriate for use on this site
will be removed and the individual responsible for making the post will have their account de-activated so that they
will no longer able to post to this forum.
Can I edit my message once I have posted it?
Yes. If you find that you have made a mistake in a message that you have posted, you can click on the "Edit" link
at the bottom of your particular message. You can only edit a post if you are the person who created the post in the place,
and you are actually logged in.
What about bad language? I'm worried that my little Junior will read messages from other people using bad language.
We try our best to censor any bad language from post that our members make. When a post is made, we automatically replace anything that
we believe to be a bad word with a series of *****.
What if I find a post to be offensive?
If you find somehting that one of our members has written to be offensive, please let us know by clicking on the
"Report" link for the relvant post. Fill in the form on that page and then hit the Submit button.
We will then check the message that is reported and perform any necessary action.
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