Clicking on either Public discussion forums or Private discussion forums brings up a page offering a list of available discussion areas (including all the public ones, or the private ones that you have access to, depending on which area you chose to enter).
Until your organization establishes its own forums, you will only see the NetWinder forum listed. Choose a forum, then click on its name to view the list of threads.
After choosing a forum, you will be presented with a list of current discussion topics ("threads"). You can click on the name of a thread to read the relevant messages. If you are the first person to use this forum, the thread list may be empty.
If you wish, you can return to the list of forums again by clicking the word Forums at the top of the page.
Whether any threads exist or not, there will be a button at the bottom of the page called New Thread. Click on it now, then proceed to the next section to post your first discussion group message.
The message posting screen contains several sets of options, as follows:
Username and Password (Private discussions only). You must register a special user account before you can participate in the discussion forums. Read the earlier section, Registering your Account, for more information on how to do this.
Once your account has been registered, enter the username and password in the spaces provided.
If you have already posted a message during this session, these may already be filled in for you.
Subject. This is a one-line identification for your message.
The subject line in a discussion group is more important than the subject line in a private e-mail message. Usually, every message regarding the same topic in a discussion group will keep the same subject line. That's how discussions are sorted, and how people decide whether or not to read your message. If you want your discussion to be read by the right people, you should be sure to use an informative subject line.
Posting. This is the area in which you type your message.
E-mail all replies. If you check this box, people answering your message will be asked to e-mail you privately, in addition to posting public messages to the discussion group.
If you've never used the discussion areas before, try typing in a test message right now; you should use a subject line like Test Message so that people will know it's a test, and can easily skip over it if they want. Don't check the E-mail all replies box for now.
When you're done entering your message, click the Submit button to save it. Proofread carefully! You can't change your message once it has been posted.