Epicski 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, you'll see the Forum Nav tools including the "New Thread" button.
3. Click the "New Thread" button.  A text box 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 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 both the top and bottom of the thread, as well as at the bottom of an individual post, you'll see "Reply" buttons.
3. Click one of the buttons to bring up your reply text box.  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, toward the left, you will see the "Quote" button with a single pair of quote marks.
   

   

3. Click the button to open a reply box with a quotation.
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 in line to another poster and include context to your replies or to reply to multiple posters within the same reply. 

1. Navigate to the posts you would like to respond to.
2. At the bottom of each post, toward the left, you will see the Multi-Quote button with two sets of 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 open with 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 Post" and your changes will appear along with a timestamp 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. You can also see the post's score which reflects the number of people who have rated up the post.

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 to Admin" button.  Click that and 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 "Wiki" button.  Click here to export the content of the post to a Wiki article.
3. This 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.

Read All New Posts

1. 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. Visit the top of any Forum or Thread page.  You will see "All New Posts" button.
3. Click here.  The New Posts page will open.

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.

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.

Summary View will show you:

• Threads that have been posted in recently
• New product reviews
• New wiki articles
• User profiles which have been edited

For certain items in the activity feed, you may see + signs next to the action.  Clicking here will expand to show you more detail of that item.  For example, clicking a + next to a thread you might see excerpts of the most recent few posts.

Filter To View Content From One (Or Many) Parts Of The Site
At the top of the activity feed, you'll see buttons for Gear & Resorts (which will show you new reviews and ski gear added to the site), Forums (which will show you new threads and posts), Wikis (which will show you new Wikis and Wiki edits), and Profiles (which will show you user profile updates like sig file updates and avatar updates).

To view content from part of the site, click the button.  To remove that content from the feed, click it again!  When the content is "on" in the feed, the indicator light will be green next to the button name.  When it's "off" it will be gray.

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.

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.