Post on Your Phone!
To start with, you may notice that there are many forums to choose from. Many members of TORC post in one or two forums on a regular basis and rarely visit others. For example, Mammo posts primarily in Movies (Tolkien and non-Tolkien) while Alys and I have posted in a variety of forums from Books to Philosophy to Talk. We do tend to spend a little more time in Movies, though.
If you are interested in Role Playing Games, or RPGs, Alys does have some experience in that forum as well as in the Scriptorium, if you want to share your poetry or prose.
One of the best places to start is with Blackwood's excellent New Comprehensive Introduction thread in the Welcome Forum. There is a tremendous amount of information there and you might find some of your basic questions already answered. There is also an FAQ thread in this forum which has more commonly asked questions.
- Please familiarize yourself with the Terms of Service (TOS). These are guidelines of behavior for members of TORC. Much of it is common sense, but it helps to know what the rules are. You can find a link to the TOS in the upper right hand of the screen, no matter what page you are on in the message board.
Please remember that it is against the TOS to post your age on TORC if you are under 18. This is for your protection
Before creating a new thread on a topic, try using the “search” function. You can do a search by keyword to see if someone else has started a thread on your topic. For example, if you type “Ralph Bakshi” in the keyword search you will get quite a few results. Using the “search” function helps to minimize the occurrence of multiple threads on the same subject.
Make sure you are posting in the correct forum. If you post a chat thread in the Philosophy forum, it will probably be locked. If your thread does get locked, the moderator will usually explain why it is being locked. You may not always agree with the reason, but the mods are there to keep order.
To create a thread in a particular forum, you click on “new topic”. A box will open up with a place for a title and another place for your message. Try to be specific with your title so that people don’t have to open up the thread to find out what you are talking about.
If you find a thread on the messageboard that you would like to participate in, it’s a good idea to read the beginning post and some the replies. Some of the threads are started as jokes. This sometimes gets lost as the replies start to stack up. Some of the threads are serious and your response should be too.
If you feel someone has responded to your reply in a harsh manner, ignore them. There is no point in exchanging insults with them. It’s better just to find another thread, or start one of your own.
Bumping” is creating a post so that a thread stays near the top of the forum. Since the creation of the "Sticky Threads" this is rarely used to keep important information at the top of a forum. If you want to keep a favorite thread active, please post more than a smiley or one or two words. Your post should add to the discussion, not just bump the thread.
If you decide to subscribe to a thread, be prepared to get 20-30 e-mails a day or more if it’s a very active thread.
Enjoy your stay at TORC and please feel free to ask any questions that you might have. Alys, Mammo and I will do our best to help find the answers for you
