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Seminar Discussion Board FAQs

"Excuse me Ms. Smarty-pants, is there something you'd like to share with the whole class?" Sound familiar? Busted for talking in class again? NOT HERE!  We want you to talk away, share with your neighbor, ask questions, pass notes, go wild! One of the best parts of The Motley Fool's Online Seminars are the Discussion Boards. Of course, we're the first to admit the boards can be kind of intimidating if you've never posted, but if you take a few minutes and familiarize yourself with the boards, you'll soon be posting like a pro.

The Motley Fool has Posting Guidelines to help us be better Fools on the boards. Included is the Foolish perspective on how to make your posts informative, how to disagree with civility, and what the Fool expects of folks who post on our boards.

We also have two Foolish Discussion Board tutorials, Beginner's Tutorial and Bells and Whistles. Although your leaders and teammates are happy to help you if you have questions, it is important that you make the effort to familiarize yourself with the information in these two tutorials BEFORE posting questions on your team board. If you make a Foolish effort with the tutorials and the following questions and something still isn't clear, go ahead and post a question on one of the Seminar Discussion Boards.

Frequently Asked Questions and Answers

• How do I post a message on my team board, What does "threaded" mean?
• What's the difference between a chat room and a discussion board?
• How should I title my posts, or "What do I put in the Subject box?"
• How can I use bold and italics? How do I know if anyone replies to my posts?
• How do I copy and paste text from my word processor to an open message box?
• How can I copy a post and keep all the original formatting (bold and italics)?
• Is it ok to type in ALL CAPS?
• Is it ok to refer to a company by its ticker symbol only?
• How do I include a link to another post or website in a post I am writing?

Tools

• If my ISP disconnects me while I'm writing a post, will I lose what I typed?
• Is there a way to spell check my posts?
• Some folks use funny abbreviations. What's that all about?
• What are emoticons (aka funny looking symbols)?
• How do I include a table/spreadsheet in a post and line up the columns properly?
• I want to stroll the Fool site while I am on my team board. Possible?
• How can I print wide pages so that I capture all the text?
• What is bookmarking and how can I use it?
• How can I tell which posts are recommended by others (Recommendations), especially when there are so many posts to read?

Foolish Tools

• What is a user profile and how do I complete mine?
• How can I "remind" myself to reply to certain posts after I read my team board?
• How can I "save" my team board so that I can find it the next time I visit Fool.com?
• May I change the order in which posts are listed on my team discussion board?
• Searching the Fool

Posting Answers

Posting is easy. When you are on a board, click on Post New in the upper left. The first time you post on a board you will get a pop-up search window. If you don't want to search the board, click on Nah, just let me Post. You now have a screen with a box for subject and a box for your message. Make sure you type in a subject that makes it clear what you are talking about in your post. Unfortunately, currently there is no spell checker for Foolish messages. I copy my messages into a word processing program to check spelling. Click on Preview Message to see how your message will look when posted. If you find mistakes when you proofread it, click on Edit Message and make corrections. Then preview again. When your post looks the way you want it to, click on Submit Message. Make sure to proofread your post carefully before submitting it, because once you've posted a message, you can't go back and delete or edit it.

Unthreaded -- Very simply, this lists posts in strictly chronological order. This is our default setting.

Threaded -- Those of you familiar with newsgroups will understand threading. Threaded discussions are grouped according to a specific subject. For example, you might start a thread by posting on the subject of "Intel's Earnings." If I respond to your post, mine will be "Re: Intel's Earnings," and so forth. All of the replies to your subject will be consecutive in threaded mode. This makes it easy to follow each small discussion on a board. The difference between threaded and unthreaded is that threaded takes the subject into consideration first, and the chronological order second.

Discussion boards are not "face-to-face" real-time experiences like chat rooms are. The premise is the same, as people type their thoughts and others respond. But the difference is that each message written (posted) on a discussion board has its own page and shows up alone on your screen. Viewers read one message (post) at a time and can then think about and respond to it. Discussion boards are permanent records of the conversations; you can refer to any post days, weeks, or even months after it was written. Discussion boards, while also social, act as much better research and publishing tools than chat rooms.

Excellent question! This will help keep the team board organized and easy to read.

• L (+ lesson number) = for posts discussing a particular lesson
• OT = Off Topic for personal introduction or other non-seminar comments
• Q = Question

You'll find answers to these and many other questions in the Bells and Whistles tutorial noted above.

To copy, highlight the text you wish to post on the message board and then press your Ctrl and C keys at the same time. To paste this text, position your cursor in the open message box and press the Ctrl and V keys at the same time. Check the look of your message by using the "Preview Reply" button before posting.

Don't be alarmed by the number of steps, this is extremely easy to do and allows you to present the information with all its original bold and italics intact. Very useful for your readers!

1. First, using IE or Netscape, open a second browser window (press the Ctrl and N keys at the same time). This will allow you to have one open window with the source post and one open window with a "New Post" message box ready.
   
   
2. Click the Format for Printing link (at the bottom of the post)
   
   
3. Click on View | Source (on the browser tool bar at the top of screen) -- this will open up the HTML for the page you're viewing in Notepad or other text editor. (In Netscape, go to View, then Page Source.)
   
   
4. Search for the beginning of the stuff you want to use -- there'll be a line like this above and below the stuff you want:
   
   
5. Copy all of the text between those two lines. (To copy, highlight the text and press the Ctrl and C keys at the same time.)
   
   
6. Go to the message box on the board where you would like to post this info and paste the text in the box. (To paste, press the Ctrl and V keys at the same time.)
   
   
7. Click the Preview Message button -- this will allow you to do some cleanup on things like the embedded links -- don't get excited when it doesn't look perfect!
   
   
8. Click on the Edit Message button, which takes you back to the posting box -- this handily strips out most of the extraneous stuff (like the HTML commands that the TMF software inserted in the first place and will re-insert later).
   
   
9. Click on the Preview Message button again -- it should all look good now. Make sure there are no stray HTML tags or anything.
   
   
10. Now you can post it, or edit in your introduction, or whatever else you want. Please be sure to clearly attribute this information to the author of the original post!

Thank you to itkin, Rule Maker Seminar co-leader, for this information.

Nope. TYPING IN ALL CAPS IS CONSIDERED SHOUTING ON THE BOARDS! Let's keep it to a dull roar please!

Please use the company's full name, and if you know it, include the ticker as well. For example, Eastman Kodak (EK). Some of us have not quite finished memorizing the thousands of tickers out there!

Very easy! Click on the URL (for example, www.fool.com) at the top of the screen to highlight it. While the address is highlighted, press your Ctrl and C keys at the same time. Go to the open message box in which you want to include your link, and press the Ctrl and V keys at the same time to paste the link in your post.

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Tools Answers

Yes! To avoid this, write long posts (or any post for that matter) in your word processing software and then copy and paste the completed text into an open message box. Check the look of your message by using the "Preview Reply" button before posting.

Regrettably, no. Consider writing posts in your word processing software and use the spellchecker there. Then copy and paste the text into an open message box on your discussion board. Check the look of your message by using the "Preview Reply" button before posting.

You have stumbled across "boardese." These abbreviations are used by some board devotees as a quick and easy means of expression. It is not necessary to use boardese when writing your messages, however, and as we're going to use some financial terms in this seminar, it's advisable to just write your posts in plain English. FWIW (For what it's worth), if you want to look up a particular abbreviation, here are a couple of lists.

• Fool FAQ on abbreviations
• Chatter's Jargon Dictionary

Emoticons are symbols that are intended to add a little personality to the text of your post. :) (This means I'm smiling at you!) Some folks use 'em, some don't. Here's some interesting info...

• A brief history of the icons
• Common emoticons and acronyms
• Every emoticon you can imagine, and then some

1. Copy the information (from a spreadsheet, word processor, or an SEC filing) and paste it to a text editor (like Notepad in Windows; you can reach Notepad by clicking on the Start button on the lower left of your screen, then go to Programs, then Accessories and then Notepad).
   
   
2. In the text editor, line up the columns (using either tabs or spacebar). Using a monospace font such as Courier can make working with a table easier.
   
   
3. Copy the information and paste it to an open message box on your team discussion board. At the beginning of the information to be included in the table (headings count!), type < pre > and after the table type < /pre >. (Note: You will not include spaces between the < and pre, the spaces just for printing within these instructions.)
   
   
4. Always check your work using "Preview Message" before posting. Make changes using the "Edit Message" feature. Note, there is some trial and error to posting tables, so you may need to give this several attempts before getting it done. Stick with it!

Open a second browser window! Or a third or a fourth... In Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator hit the Ctrl and N keys at the same time. You will now have two windows open, in which you may visit different sites or different pages on the same site.

How can I print wide pages so that I capture all the text?

Try using the Landscape mode for print set up instead of Portrait. In Microsoft Explorer, go to File, Page Setup, and in the bottom left corner click "Landscape." You could also change the margins. (Portrait refers to an 8.5" x 11" sheet of paper with the 8.5" edges along the top and bottom. Landscape refers to the same sheet of paper with the 11" edges along the top and bottom. The names are reminiscent of paintings hung in your favorite museum!)

When you are on any site, you will see the exact URL address at the top of the screen, i.e. www.fool.com. A bookmark allows you to "save" the URL of any site so that you may easily return to this exact site again without having to type in the entire URL address.

In Netscape, look at the top of the page (beside the current URL) for a folder marked "Bookmarks." When you are on a page that you want to save, click on the Bookmarks and then slide the mouse pointer to ADD Bookmarks. This will save the Web address in your Bookmark list.

In Internet Explorer, click on "Favorites" (on the gray tool bar at the top of the page) and then click on "Add." You can use the "Organize" feature to set up folders in which to file individual sites. If you bookmark many sites, this can be very useful. The next time you log on to the Web, go to Favorites and slide your mouse to the site you wish to open. You're there!

When you are viewing the discussion board, with the messages line item listed, you will see a column labeled Recs (recommendations). The number in this column will tell you how many recommendations a Post has received. If you think a Post is particularly good you can recommend it to help others find the best posts. In order to recommend a post, when you are viewing a post click on Recommend It in the upper right. You can only recommend a post once, and you can't recommend your own posts. (Believe me I've tried!)

You can sort a board (unfortunately not all the boards) by the number of recommendations. Just click on Recs and it will automatically sort, listing the most recommended posts first. You can also sort by Author.

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Foolish News

A user profile is a page with information about you that helps users of the boards get to know you better. Some people complete them, some don't. It's entirely up to you.

Check out the profiles of our Foolish co-founders, David Gardner and Tom Gardner.

To complete your profile, while on your team board (or any discussion board) click on "Customize" on the yellow bar at the top of the page. Under Edit, click on "Personal Profile." Include the info you would like to make available to the wonderful world of Fools and hit "Submit changes." You may make changes to your profile at any time. Note: Some people include their full names, some use only their first name. Either way is ok, just remember the Internet is a public forum.

Click the "Reply Later" button at the bottom of the post. When you are ready to answer this post, click on "Favorites & Replies" (on the yellow bar at the top of the page). Then click "Marked for Later Reply" (on the gray bar) and you will have a list of posts waiting for you. Click on the Subject of the post to which you want to reply, and then proceed as usual!

While you are on your team board (or any Foolish discussion board) click the red heart above the author column. This saves the board as one of your "Favorites." The next time you return to Fool.com, click on the "My Fool" tab at the top of any page. Go to the box in the upper left corner (Faves: New Messages) and click on your team board. You're back on your team board!

Yup, and here are your options!

• Unthreaded -- Lists all posts on the board in chronological order. This is the default setting.
  
  
• Threaded -- Each original post is followed by any replies to that post. Basically, it is a specific discussion in chronological order.
  
  
• Collapse All (this is visible if you first click on Threaded) -- This lists original posts only, "collapsing" any replies to these posts. The + to the left of the subject indicates this post has a reply, and the number to the right of the subject indicates the number of replies collapsed. This is helpful if you want to get a sense of the various subjects under discussion on the board.
  
  
• Author -- Lists the posts in alphabetical order by author. The post (and author) at the top of the page when you clicked on "Author" will still be at the top of the page. This can be useful if you want to go through all posts by a certain authors, for example your team co-leaders!
  
  
• Recs -- Lists posts by the number of Recs (recommendations) for each post. This can be helpful if you want to check out the most popular posts on a board.

• Quotes (Company Information)
  In the upper center of every Fool screen is a box labeled Quotes. Type the ticker (symbol) of the stock you want the price quote for in the box and click on Go. This will return a simple quote. From this page you can find articles on the company, SEC information, and the company's discussion board...
  
  
• Fool Articles, Posts, and Boards on a Specific Topic
  In the upper center of every screen is a box labeled Search. Type the topic (one or more words) that you wish to search for in the box and click Go. On the "Search Results" page, in the upper left you can use the pull down menu labeled Search to search Fool articles, discussion boards, or both.
  
  
• Posts by a Specific Author
  To find posts by a specific author, type the username in the Author box at the bottom right of every discussion board screen, and click on Find. This will take you to the user's personal profile. From there you can retrieve up to the last 99 messages by that user.
  

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