Discussion Forum Tutorial  

Learn how to:

Use the Forums

1. Start A New Thread
2. Reply To A Post
3. Reply With A Quotation
4. Edit Your Post
5. Rate Posts
6. Report A Post
7. Export A Forum Post To A Wiki

Read the Forums

1. Understand The Icons
2. Read All New Posts or Help Beta Test The New Activity Feed!
3. Use The "More Forums" Jump Menu
4. Go To The First Unread Post In A Thread
5. Mark Forums As Read

Using the Forums

Start A New Thread

1. Begin by navigating to the appropriate forum.
2. Once in the desired forum, at the top left, above the forum name, you'll see the Forum Nav tools including the "New Thread" button.
3. Click the "New Thread" button.  A New Thread will open.  In the subject field, fill in your desired thread name.  In the body of the post, write your message.  Feel free to add images or add videos.  You can edit your post similarly to a Word document, with bold, underlined, or italicized text, embedded links, bullet points, and tables.
4. When naming a thread, try to be descriptive.  "Help with Samsung PN50B560" is better than "Help Needed" or "Help with new TV" because people familiar with that model will go right to it.  With so many new threads appearing each day, many members just skim titles looking for threads that interest them or that they can contribute to.  A thread with a generic name like "Have Question" or "Home Theater Question" is apt to be left unread by a lot of people.  At the same time, try not to go overboard.  It is a thread title, not a full post.  "Help with Contrast Setting on Samsung PN50B560 that I bought at Best Buy last Thursday" would be going a little overboard.
5. When you are finished, click submit.  You also have the option to preview your post and edit it within a full page editor.

Reply To A Post

1. Navigate to the thread you would like to reply to.
2. At the bottom of every individual post, you'll see a "Reply" button.  Clicking here will take you the reply box at the bottom of the thread.  At the top and bottom of the thread, you will see the option to use the Advanced Reply.  This will take you to a full page editor.
3. In the body of the post, write your message.  Feel free to add images or add videos.  You can edit your post similarly to a Word document, with bold, underlined, or italicized text, embedded links, bullet points, and tables.
4. Click "Submit Post" when you are finished.  At any time, you can edit your post.

Reply With A Quotation

Replying with a Single Quotation

Replying with a quotation allows you to give others context to your reply.  This is generally used when directly replying to another poster's question or comments.

1. Navigate to the post you would like to respond to.
2. At the bottom of the post, you will see the "Quote" button with a single pair of quote marks.
3. Click the button to pull up the quotation in your reply.
4. Type your response and hit "Submit" to submit your response.

Reply with a Multi-Quote

Replying with a multi-quotation allows you to respond to multiple posters within the same reply.  For example, if User 1 asked a question about mounting the Polk Audio On-Wall Speakers and if User 2 asked a question about their sound quality, you could quote them both and reply to each with one post.

1. Navigate to the posts you would like to respond to.
2. At the bottom of each post, you will see the Multi-Quote button with two quote marks.  Click here on each of the posts you would like to quote.
3. When you are satisfied with your selection, click the Single-Quote button on one of the posts you would like to quote.
4. The text editor will include the posts you have quoted.  When you are finished replying to the posts, click the "Submit Post" button at the bottom of the editor.

Edit Your Post

At any time you can edit your post.

1. Navigate to the post you would like to edit.
2. At the bottom of the post, you'll see the "Edit" button.
3. Edit your text.
4. Click "Submit" and your changes will appear along with a time stamp stating when you made the edits.

Rate Posts

Rating a post up essentially means you like it and think it is quality content.  By rating a post or "thumbing up the post," you help quality content rise to the top. 

1. Navigate to a forum thread.
2. If you find a post you particularly like, feel free to rate up the post by clicking on the thumbs up icon.
3. At the top right corner next to the post number, you can also see the post's score which reflects the number of people who have given it a thumbs up.

Report A Post

Occasionally, you may find a post that violates the community posting guidelines.  Feel free to report a post to site administrators at any time.

1. Navigate to the post you would like to report.
2. At the bottom of the post, you will see the "Report" button.  Click that and select the level of severity and the reason behind your report.  Site administrators will review the content.

Export A Forum Post To A Wiki

Occasionally you or another user will write a forum post whose content is better utilized in the form of a Wiki article (for example, it may be a How To or an introductory article).  Creating a Wiki article with the post's content will not remove the forum post.  It will simply copy the content into a Wiki article where it can be edited and added to by the community.

1. Navigate to the forum post you want to convert to a Wiki article.
2. At the bottom of the post, you will see the "Export to Wiki" button.  Click to begin creating the Wiki.
3. The "Export to Wiki" button will take you to a page where you can title the Wiki article.  Enter your title in the blank field and hit 'Submit.'  
4. Your new Wiki will load with the content from the forum post.
5. When you are finished with the Wiki, scroll to the bottom and click "Save."  Your Wiki will not be created until you click "Save."

Reading the Forums

Understand The Icons

Forum Icon	What It Means
	This indicates there is new content within a particular forum since your last visit.  You can click this button to mark the forum as read.
	This indicates that there is no new content in a particular forum since your last visit.
	This indicates that there have been new posts written in the given thread since your last visit.  You can click this button to go to the first new post.
	This indicates that there have been no new posts written in the given thread since your last visit.

Also note a slightly thicker vertical line at the left of any forum thread and a blue background indicates that you have posted in this thread.

Read All New Posts

1. From several places on the home page and from any page within the Forums, you can access the New Posts page which displays all new posts in chronological order (newest first) regardless of where the thread is within the subforums.
2. You will see "All New Posts" button toward the left hand side of the page on the forum pages.
3. Click here.  The New Posts page will open.

Help Beta Test The New Activity Feed!

Now you have two options to view the All New Posts page.  The second option is the Activity Feed currently in beta mode.  You'll also see variations of the feed in other places, like your home page and on your user profile with a summary of your site activity.
 

View The Site Activity In Summary View

Summary View is a great way to get a general feel of the site's recent activity.  To access Summary View, click on settings.  You can either toggle Summary View on or off to see the detailed view.

What Does The "Forums" Button Show You?

In Summary View:

• Threads posted in recently - the red indicator show how many posts have been written since the last time you viewed your thread.
• Some threads may display with a small plus sign (+) next to it - you can click here to expand the thread and see excerpts of the most recent posts.  This will give you a flavor of the thread without having to navigate away.
• At any point, when viewing expanded content, you can click the small minus sign (-) sign to collapse the content.

In Detailed View (i.e. Summary View off):

• Newly created threads
• Newly created posts
• Posts which have been edited
• Threads which have been tagged

When you mouse over a post or thread, you can:

• Go to the first new post to you
• Subscribe to the thread

What Does The "HT Gear & Movies" Button Show You?

In Summary View:

• New reviews
• New gear and movie pages added to the site

In Detailed View (i.e. Summary View off):

• New reviews
• Edited reviews
• New gear and movies pages added to the site
• Updated gear and movie pages

When you mouse over a review or product, you can:

• Add it to Your List
• Review it
• Subscribe for updates

What Does The "Wikis" Button Show You?

In Summary View:

• New Wiki articles written

In Detailed View (i.e. Summary View off):

• New Wiki articles authored
• Wiki articles that have been moved
• Wiki articles that have been edited

When you mouse over a Wiki, you can:

• Contribute to it
• Subscribe to it

What Does The "Profiles" Button Show You?

In Summary View:

• User edits to their Community Profile
• New user avatars
• New user forum signature updates

In Detailed View (i.e. Summary View off):

• User edits to their Community Profile
• New user avatars
• New user forum signature updates
• Updates of products added to a user's List

When you mouse over a user, you can:

• Subscribe to that user's activity

Refresh The Feed
At times, you'll see a small refresh button appear at the top of the feed.  This indicates that new content has been created since you opened the activity feed.  Click here to refresh.

Use The "More Forums" Jump Menu

1. From the top of the forum index pages, thread pages, post-only search results, and all post pages from an individual user, you have access to the "More Forums" jump menu.  This menu will allow you to seamlessly jump from forum to forum without having to navigate back to the main forum index.
2. Roll over any forum area to see any nested sub-forums.  When you are ready to move to another forum area, simply click the name and away you'll go.

Go To The First Unread Post In A Thread

1. When viewing a forum or the New Posts page, certain threads will display with the icon of the conversation bubble and the green icon (see Understand The Icons).  This indicates that there has been new content written since your last visit.
2. Click on the icon to view the first unread post in a thread.
3. When you enter a thread, you can also click the "View First Unread" button.

Mark Forums As Read

1. To mark an individual forum as read, click the forum icon with the green check mark.
2. To mark all forums as read, you will see the "Mark Forums Read" button at the top of all forum pages (excluding individual thread pages) and the top right.  Click here to mark all content within the forums as read.