Help - Forum List
This page is the entry point to the bulletin board.
It lists all available forums.
Forum List Table
The icons in the first (far left) field of the Forum List table have the following meanings:
-
| Icon | Meaning
|
|---|
 |
If you're effectively logged in†, this means the forum is active but has no unread posts.
If you're not logged in, it means only that the forum is active (the Last Post column tells you the age of the last post).
|
 |
If you're effectively logged in†, this means the forum is active and has at least one unread post.
If you're not logged in, this icon will never show.
|
 |
If you're effectively logged in†, this means the forum is locked and there are no unread posts.
You may read the post(s), but you can't post new messages to the forum, nor can you edit or delete existing posts.
If you're not logged in, it just means the forum is locked (the Last Post column tells you the age of the last post).
|
 |
If you're effectively logged in†, this means the forum is locked and has at least one unread post.
You may read the post(s), but you can't post new messages to the forum, nor can you edit or delete existing posts.
If you're not logged in, this icon will never show.
|
Forum gives the name of the forum, plus a description of what the forum is for.
Please pay particular attention when posting a new topic that you choose the appropriate forum - otherwise your post may well go unread.
Besides, it would be misleading.
Clicking on the link under the name of the forum takes you to the forum itself.
Doing so allows you to read all topics in that forum, post new topics, reply to existing ones, etc.
Topics tells you how many topics are currently listed in the forum.
It can help tell you when new topics start up.
Posts tells you how many total posts are currently listed in the forum.
It can help tell you when new messages are posted.
Each topic has at least one post associated with it, often several, so Posts will always be greater than Topics.
Last Post does three things.
First, it tells you when the most-recent post was made.
By default this is presented in relative format (e.g. 4 hours ago or Mar 27, 2007).
However, you may change the displayed format to absolute (e.g. Mar 27, 2007 7:21 pm) by editing your profile. The second piece of information is who made the most-recent post.
Click on the displayed userName to visit the author's profile.
Lastly, clicking on
takes you to the most recent post in this forum.
† The term effectively logged in means that you're either logged in to Dreamflows,
or Dreamflows can grant you access based on a cookie that was set the last time you were logged in.
See the paragraph on Computer Access on the
profile help page for more information.
Starting a New Bulletin Board Topic
When posting a message to the bulletin board,
it's generally best to reply to an existing topic if you can find one on essentially the same subject.
You can use the Search link on the
Bulletin Board
main page to look for matching topics.
If you don't find anything that matches closely enough, by all means start a new topic.
There are two ways to do this:
- The easier but less wonderful way:
- Decide whether the topic belongs in the Hazards, Flows, Access Issues or General forum.
The descriptions on the
Bulletin Board
main page will help you decide.
- Go to the selected forum, and click on the
button.
- Follow the instructions on that page.
- The slightly harder but much better way - if Dreamflows reports a flow gauge that relates to your post - is as follows:
- Decide whether the topic belongs in the Hazards, Flows, Access Issues or General forum.
The descriptions on the
Bulletin Board
main page will help you decide.
- Go to a flows page that reports a gauge that relates to your post, perhaps the
Realtime
page.
- Locate the gauge that relates to your post (if more than one relates, choose the one you think relates best, e.g.
if you’re reporting a hazard in some rapid, choose the gauge that best serves the run that rapid is on).
- Click on its BBS link (i.e. click on the icon or text that appears in the BBS column, even if it's the
icon).
- Click on the
button.
- Follow the instructions on that page.
View Posts Since Last Visit
Clicking on the View posts since last visit link lists all posts created or edited by others
since the last time you visited Dreamflows (actually, since the last time you logged off Dreamflows).
Note that this page lists posts, not topics.
This list gets emptied each time you click Mark all topics as read, or when you log off Dreamflows.
If your session times out, then you'll be automatically logged out.
In this case, your Last Visit time will be either not updated at all, or updated to the time of the last topic read,
depending on the Automatic Logouts setting in
your profile (see the help page for details). Either way, when you next login the View posts since last visit link may list more or fewer posts than you expect.
Bottom line: it's better to logout from the bulletin board yourself, than wait for it to log you out.
Mark All Topics As Read
Clicking on the Mark all topics as read link marks all topics as read (as you'd expect).
This means that topics which were previously marked
or 
will be now be marked
or 
.
In addition, the Last Visit time is reset to the current time (in effected logging you off and then on again).
Bulletin Board Help Page
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