Using our Dupuytren forum

Topics :

Access to the forum and how to register

Reading posts

Login

Writing posts

Responding to a post

Creating a new topic (thread)

Editing and deleting your own posts

Formatting

Including pictures in your post

Searching the forum

When do I get an email from the forum?

How can I contact another forum user?

Guest book

How can I change my password?

No more newsletters

Deleting your account

 

Monitoring and forum administration

 

Support

 

Access to the forum and how to register

You don't need to register for reading posts but only registered users can write new posts, or create new topics. We recommend registering as forum user because being registered additionally offers a variety of advantages.

In order to register click on Register in the top menu of the forum. Choose a user name (just a single word, no blanks) enter your email address and the displayed security code. Your password will be mailed to you, including instructions how to confirm your registration.

Important: Your email address will be kept strictly confidential. It is not visible for other users and is used by the International Dupuytren Society only for mailing your password, for forwarding mails to you from other users of our forum, and for mailing our newsletter. If you prefer not getting our newsletter you can remove yourself from the distribution list (see below). The International Dupuytren Society will not provide your email address to any other organization, company or private person. To avoid harvesting of email addresses we recommend not including immediately readable email addresses in your posts.

 

Reading posts

Our forum is organized in several boards. When you click on one of those boards, e. g. on "Dupuytren", you will get a list of all topics (= threads) of this board. The topic with the latest post will be listed on top (thus the sequence of topics is not fixed). Clicking on a topic shows the related posts. To help you navigating the top line will always show where you are.

In the above example you are reading the first post of the topic "Tried NA ....ready for surgery". The first post created this topic, that's why topic and post have the same title. If a topic has many posts, they will extend over several pages and an additional page index will show you on which page you are.

If you want to switch to a different topic you can click e.g. in the navigation line on Dupuytren and you will see again all topics of this board. If you want to change to another board, click on Forum and select the new board.

 

Login

Once you registered you can log in by clicking on Login

and entering you user name and password. By the way, you are not required to log off when leaving the forum. You will stay logged in (but your Internet Security might spot a tracking cookie).

What can I do if my login doesn't work?

Please note that user name and password are case sensitive. If that doesn't work and you are confident that you are using the right user name and password then please notify the board administrator (his name is displayed on the forum start page and indicated by a blue A . Clicking on his name opens a mail capability.

I forgot my password!

Click on Login and then on Lost password. Your password will be emailed to the email address stored in My profile. If you previously deleted your email address from My profile (that's possible though not recommended), then you are lost. But you still can either ask the forum admin to enter a valid email address into your profile or you can re-register under a different name.

 

Writing posts

Responding to a post

If you want to respond to a post you have two possibilities: you can either just add your post or you can additionally cite the post to which you want to respond specifically. Clicking on Answer will append your post to the other posts of this topic. Clicking on the New/Answer button of a specific post will create an answer that cites this post.

If you want you can also edit the cited post, e.g. shortening it if it is too long.

Important: To avoid harvesting of email addresses we recommend not including immediately readable email addresses in your posts.

Finally you need to enter the security code (we need this to avoid spamming). This code is generated on the fly and consists of capital letters and digits. Example:

Clicking on Confirm will finally publish your post. You might also Preview it first.

 

Creating a new topic (thread)

If you want to create a new topic (thread) select the respective board and the list of topics. Then click on New topic.

Then continue as with writing a post. The new topic will have the same name as your post.

 

Editing and deleting your own posts

You need to be logged in to edit your posts and your post must have been written by you, i.e. you must have been logged in when writing this post. To edit your existing post click on the button with the pencil. After you confirmed your edits the last editing date will be displayed at the bottom of your post. You can edit a post as often as you want.

You can delete your own posts by clicking on the Delete button on the left side of your post.

 

Formatting

Generally it is sufficient to just type in your post but occasionally you might want to emphasize something or add e.g. bullets. That's where the BB Code comes into play. It's a little bit fuzzier than in usual text editors but it does the job. For formatting your text click on the according BB code and then enter your text between the start and end command of the BB code. That may sound more complicated than it actually is. Here are a few examples.

To write something in bold first click on "[b]" and you will get in your text field something like "[b][/b]". Now enter your text in between (the cursor is already placed there). After confirming your post e.g. "[b]quite simple[/b]" will turn into quite simple.

You can also combine BB codes. "[color=blue][b]quite simple[/b][/color]" will be displayed as quite simple.

The most sophisticated BB code is probably the bullet listing. [list] will create the three lines shown in the top part of below picture. You can then expand them e.g. to the bottom text.


      BB code overview

 

Don't be afraid of using BB code. It's fairly simple and you can preview the result anyway (or edit your post if you are writing it as a registered user).

Including pictures in your post

Not registered users can use the BB code IMG to include a link to a picture in their post. The picture will then be displayed as part of the post. You need to specify the full path to your picture, including the name of the picture file, and the picture must reside on a publicly and permanently available Internet server.

For registered users our forum offers the possibility to upload their picture to the forum server as described below.

    1. write your post
    2. click on Attachment (below the text entry box)
    3. select your picture on your computer
    4. click on "Upload"
    5. enter the security code as usual and confirm.

Note that pictures must be in jpg or gif format and the size mustn't exceed 500 k.

Searching in the forum

Searching is one of the really useful features of our forum. You can quickly search through vast amounts of posts to find those that refer to what you are looking for. To start searching click on Search in the menu on the top of the forum. Enter your keyword(s). When entering more than one keyword, the search result will show posts that contain both keywords. A sequence of keywords or string can be defined by including them in quotation marks “…”, as e.g. also in Google search. Select which board you want to search (default is the full forum which may take a little longer). You might also search for posts from a specific user.

 

Above search will find all posts from the Ledderhose board that contain both words, radiotherapy AND results. The search results will be displayed as a list. By clicking on a specific post you can read this post. You can return to the list and select another post for reading by using the navigation of your browser and return to the previous page.

 

When do I get an email from the forum?

When ...

·         ... you registered.

·         ... someone answers to a topic and you had ticked "E-mail notification of responses to this topic".

·         ... the forum admin sends a newsletter.

·         ... another registered user sends you mail via the forum's mail function (see below).

 

How can I contact another forum user? - The forum's Messaging System

Registered users can use the forum's Private Messaging System to contact other registered users while keeping email addresses confidential. To send a message click on "Private Messages" in the top menu. The click on "Send Message", select the receipient (by searching it), add a message title, and write your message in the text box. Finally click on the Send button.

If you have received a message this will be indicated on the top menu, i.e. once you logged into the forum "Private Messages" will appear in bold and show the number of received messages. If you want to be alerted by email whenever you have a new message you can set this in My Profile in the "Settings" form.

Alternative : the left side of every post shows the author's user name (of registered users). Clicking on that name opens the profile of this user. This form also offers sending of a message.

 

Guest book

You can add comments into the guest book of other users. This feature is so rarely used that we don't encourage using it.

 

How can I change my password?

The forum generates your initial password but that's typically quite difficult to remember. For changing your password login with your initial password, then go to My profile and select Change password .

 

No more newsletters

Occasionally we, i.e. Dupuytren Society or the forum Admin, send newsletters to our forum users. If you want to get off the mailing list login at the forum, go to My profile and select Settings. Untick "Get newsletter".

 

Deleting your account

If you don't want to be a registered user anymore (why not, maybe you want to reconsider?) you can delete your account. Login at the forum, go to My profile and select Delete account. You are required to enter your password one last time.

 

 

Monitoring and forum administration

 

Moderators are reviewing posts after they have been posted. If they are considering the post inadequate, either by language or by content, they will delete this post without prior warning. If a user violates the forum rules severely, e.g. by advertizing or by using inadequate language, the user will be banned immediately without prior warning. In less severe cases, e.g. when a user is posting content that ought to go to some other forum, the user is usually notified. When violation persists the user may be banned. If a user is suspected to misuse this forum, e.g. for extracting contact data, the user account can be deleted immediately and without prior warning.

 

Support

 

If you need support in using our forum please contact

 

        forum / at / dupuytren- online.info

 

The above email address is modified to avoid harvesting. Please delete blanks before using it and replace / at / by @.

 

 

Last edited on 27 Juli 2014 .