whats a board? a topic? a catagory??

The terminology here takes a bit of getting used to

Partnerdanceonline.com is a forum (so far so good)

It is divided into 'catagories - broad designations that link areas of interest - the dances, dancesport, general issues, ads etc.

Each catagory has one or more 'boards' on it. On some sites these are also called forums but that is obviously confusing. The 'board' is a smaller catagory designation but can not be posted on directly - it is the home for 'topics'

Topics are called 'threads' elsewhere and are specific issues that you can both create and post to.

Posts are, well, posts and are your personal comment on the topic.

We try to leave topics and posts where they are put by the forum member as much as possible but sometimes they are accidentally put in inappropriate places so we have to move them. When that happens a marker is left to show where they went. After a few days I will remove the markers so that the board does not get too cluttered.

By the way, you can change the way the forum responds after you reply to a post. The default is to quit the thread so that you can view the next one. thats find for threads that have very few new posts in them but is irritating for ones that have multiple posts that you want to respond to. Go into your profile area and click on 'Look and Layout Preferences'. Click on the box labeled 'Return to topics after posting by default.' Now after you post you will retun to the same topic and not the list.

There is a separate area for sending personal messages (PMs). These are truly personal - neither I nor any of the PDO staff can access your messages. so if you want to write that 'elisedance is a bratvurst' go for it. Just please don't takie a bite out of me!

Please let me know if there are any othe issues that you need fixing (but realize that there is a limited number that you can set.

One last thing: there is a boards for moderators . these are for us to discuss teh best way to deal with out of place posts and controversil posts. there is alos an admin area here we discuss backups, sofware issues and low-level maintenance.

Just to reitterate, we will discuss matters tht arise as openl and, I hope, as fairy as possible. In time I willset up an off-forum advisor group to give us feedback on he appoahe we use,

ee