Discussion ForumUsage Agreement
and Instructions
Discussion Forum
As a contributor to the GEO Discussion Forum it is expected that you will act with decorum. This means that we will not allow use of inappropriate language. We ask that you not promote particular service providers through outright advertising, personal endorsements or public promotion of any kind..
On the post a message screen you will see that you may upload a document (a text file) that can be viewed from the forum. You may also upload an image in the jpeg or gif format. You can even add a link to your message that will take readers to your own web site where they can get more information about your you subject matter. HTML is allowed in the message body so you can format your posting in any way you wish. If you wish to be contacted by other GEO members, be sure to include a clear way for them to contact you.
When posting a message be sure to enter all of the following information at the top of the Post a Message Form:
Name, Email, Subject.
If you do not enter your email address you will get an error message.
Though you may register and login before you use the forum, you are NOT REQUIRED to do so. The Registration and Login functions simply help to protect your identity. If you Register before posting a message or a reply to a message then you are, in effect, claiming the name that you use to create posts and replies and no one else can post messages under your name. Registration will also allow you to modify messages that you have written. If you post a message without registering and logging in first, then you will not be able to go back and modify your posting at a later time. If you Login before posting a message or a reply to a message then the system will remember you and will enter your username for you automatically.
The forum is not currently moderated. This means that your posts will show up immediately in the forum and will not have to be approved. However if we find that too many people are not abiding by the GEO Guiding principles and are abusing the forum, then we will institute "moderation" where all posts will have to be approved before anyone can se them in the forum.
The light Purple area below the Name: GEO Discussion Forum is the navigation bar. There are two navigation bars; one at the top and one at the bottom of the forum. This is to enable easy access to the navigation bar when the pages become much longer.
Inside the Navigation bar are the following
numbers 1 - 14/14 Tell you that the message board is displaying messages numbers 1 - 14 and that there are 14 current total messages. If it said 5-19/32 then the message board would be displaying messages #5 - 19 and there are 32 total current messages.
Post Message: Click here to post a message.
Find: Click here to search the forum for a particular message or range of messages using a search term of exact characters or a regular expression.
Register: Click to register with the forum and lock in your own isername so that no one else can postemessages under your name.
Login: Click to Login with the system so that you r name and email address are automatically entered when you wish to poste a message.
Each line in the message list stands for one message and any followup messages or replies.
The first words on a line show the subject of the message. The name is the user name of the author. In parentheses is the date of the post. Following the post date is sometimes a number such as +1 or +2. This means that there exist this number of replies to this message. The format of the forum that we have chosen does not allow the subject of any replies to be shown on the discussion forum home page. Since the number after the posting date (+1, +2 , etc) only tells us the number of posts which reply directly to trhe message shown, this does not mean that there are no other posts which are replies to replies. Ther may be 10 replies to the first message but only one is a direct reply to the first message and the others may be replies to replies. If you understand that, you win a nickel!
We have tried to keep the forum as simple and as clear as possible but it is a complicated system and I am sure we will end up with questions. If you have a question or have encountereed an error message please send me your question along with a copy of the error message and I will try to create a FAQ page to satisfy the needs of our members.