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Using WebBoard

The trAce WebBoard discussion area is fast and reliable and offers an excellent help page plus live chat, instant messaging, and offline mailing by subscription. WebBoard is the place to discuss writing issues via email, to meet the trAce Writers-in-Residence, and to workshop your writing. We hope you'll join us. Please introduce yourself and say hello.

http://hum-webboard.ntu.ac.uk/~trace | Beginner's introduction | Frequently asked questions

Beginners' Quick Guide

You are welcome to read the discussions as a guest without signing up, but in order to post messages you must sign up (this is a separate process from joining trAce).

We recommend you join trAce (which puts you on our mailing list) and sign up with WebBoard as well to get the most out of the trAce community discussions.
Please note that by joining one you do not automatically become registered with the other. (Privacy Policy)

Ten steps to your first message

1. Click on http://hum-webboard.ntu.ac.uk/~trace and on the Welcome! page click New Users
2. Complete the New User Information form. Fields marked with a red bullet MUST be filled in, the rest is optional. trAce is a community of writers and it is most appropriate to use your real name. However, a pen name is acceptable. Don't forget to enter the same password twice. Once completed, click the Create button.
3. You will now find yourself in the main conference area, with a list of conferences on the left and a welcome message on the right. To list the messages in a conference, click on a conference name, e.g. click on Information for New Members at the top. A list of topics appears, and when you click on one (try Information for New Users) the messages appear in the right frame and you can scroll down and read all the messages on that topic (3 in this case)
4. To see how many messages are in a topic, click on the + sign next to the topic. Click on + next to Add Your Picture and you will see 11 or more messages. It's usually simplest to follow the thread of messages from the beginning if you wish to explore a topic fully. Take some time to browse around the messages a little.
5. Below Conferences is the option to look at New Messages. Once you start coming regularly to WebBoard, you can display (and read) just the most recent messages by clicking <number> New Messages. Try that now. As you start following a conference, such as Poetry or Reading, you can return to read just the new messages in that conference and easily keep up to date with
6. Once you've read all the messages in a conference, or seen enough, you can mark it as read. Click MARK ALL READ in the black menubar. Click on the name of a conference to mark all messages in that conference as read.
7. Now post your introductory message. Click Introduce Yourself Here from the conference list, then click POST at the left of the black menubar.
8. The form headed Post a New Topic in "Introduce Yourself Here (New)" has a space for a topic. Please don't leave this blank, it should be indicative of the subject of your post and encourage other users to read it. "Hello from <your name> or <your location>" is common in this conference! Introduce yourself briefly in the message body. Check that Preview is ticked, then you can review your message before posting. Click Post. If your message is OK, then Post again (otherwise, use your BACK button in your browser to go back and edit your message)
9. Your message should appear (in italics in the left frame, because it is new and has not been marked as read) If not, click REFRESH in the black menubar. You've posted your first message.
10. A quick explanation of the other buttons on the menubar: CHAT is for live chat;
    SEARCH enables you to search through message texts for a word or phrase, or to search for a particular registered user;
    PAGE allows you to send instant messages to any other user SO LONG AS THEY ARE currently logged in;
    MORE allows access to further commands: and
    LOGOFF takes you out of WebBoard and back to the trAce main site

Thanks for visiting. Come back again soon!

If you need help: in WebBoard click HELP on the black menubar.
For more help using WebBoard, or the trAce site, or for any other queries, you can ask our Volunteer Mentors, via a message at WebBoard or by personal email.

To cancel your subscription to WebBoard, simply send an email to trace@ntu.ac.uk with "Leave WebBoard" in the subject line, and we will delete your details.

Participating in discussions via email
Once you have joined WebBoard, you can subscribe to conferences at WebBoard by email, if you prefer. You can choose to receive messages individually, in a digest or in a zipped digest format (for information on how to select these, choose HELP from the black bar within WebBoard).

WebBoard is organised around conferences on different subjects, including General, Writing Workshop, Poetry (for workshopping poetry), Prose, Reading. Within each conference are different topics

To subscribe to one or more conference mailing lists, follow these steps:

• Select More from the WebBoard menubar. The More Options menu appears.
• Click Mailing Lists from the menu. The Mailing Lists page appears.
• Check (click in) the box following the conference name to subscribe to its mailing list.
• Repeat for each conference you wish to subscribe to. The name of the mailing list is in parentheses following the Conference name.
• To unsubscribe to a mailing list, uncheck the box.
• Click Save to complete the subscription process. WebBoard responds with an Edits Saved message.

You will now start receiving the email for the conferences you selected.

If you receive individual messages, you can reply by using your email program's normal methods. In Digest format, click on the Reply To link at the end of each message (do not reply to the digest itself).