For the most part, your posts will contain plain text, but on occasions, you may want to emphasize certain words or phrases by making them (for example) bold or italic.

You cannot use HTML tags, but rather a special set of tags called BB Code. BB Codes provide a subset of the functionality of HTML, allowing you to do the most useful text formatting functions like bold and italics, hyperlinks and images.

You can also use smilies, which allow you to include small icons to convey emotion.

• Click here for more information about BB Code.

Smilies are small graphical icons which you can insert into your messages to convey an emotion or feeling, such as a joke or embarrassment. For example, if you entered a sarcastic comment, rather than type "that was a joke", you could simply insert the "wink" smilie.

If you have used email or Internet chat systems, you will probably be familiar with the concept of smilies already. Certain combinations of text characters are converted into smilies. For example, :) is converted into a smiling face. To understand smilie codes, tilt your head to the left and look at the text: you will see that :) represents two eyes and a smiling mouth!

On occasions, you may want to prevent the text in your message being converted into smilies. You will see a checkbox which you can select when you make a new post, which will allow you to Disable Smilies.

• Click here for a list of smilies available in the forums.

You may notice that some threads on this board also include a section where you can vote on an issue or question. These threads are called 'polls' and this is how to create them:

Creating a new poll

When you post a new thread, you will have the option to also create a poll.

This function allows you to ask a question and specify a number of possible responses. Other members will then be able to vote for the response they wish, and the results of the voting will be displayed in the thread.

An example poll might be:

What is your favorite color?

1. Red
2. Blue
3. Yellow
4. Green
5. Sky-blue pink with yellow spots

To create a poll when you post a new thread, simply click the Make This Thread a Poll checkbox at the bottom of the page, and set the number of possible responses you want to include.

When you click the submit button, you will be taken to the poll creation page, where you can specify the question and the list of responses you want to include.

You may also want to specify a time limit for the poll, so that (for example) it only stays open for voting for a week.

Voting in and viewing a poll

To vote in a poll, simply select which option you want to vote for, and click the [Vote!] button. You may view the current results for a poll before you vote by clicking the 'View Results' link. Voting in a poll is entirely optional. You may vote for any of the available options, or cast no vote at all.

Generally, once you have voted in a poll, you will not be able to change your vote later, so place your vote carefully!

Attachments allow you to attach files of certain types to your posts. This could be an image, a text document, a zip file etc. Only files below a certain file size are allowed.

To attach a file to a new post, simply click the Browse button at the bottom of the post composition page, and locate the file that you want to attach from your hard drive.

Only certain types of files may be attached: these are the valid file extensions for files to be attached to this board: gif jpg jpeg png bmp txt zip rar html pdf wav mp3.

After posting, the attachment will show up in the body of your message. To view the contents of the attachment (if it is not already displayed) simply click the filename link that appears next to the icon.

Message icons allow you to specify a small icon to accompany your posting, which is used to convey the emotion or content of a post at a glance.

Yes. To edit or delete your posts, click the button on the post you want to edit. If your post was the first in the thread, then deleting the post may result in the removal of the entire thread.

After you have made your modifications, a note may appear, which notifies other users that you have edited your post.

Moderators oversee specific forums. They generally have the ability to edit and delete posts, move threads, and perform other maintenance tasks. Becoming a moderator for a specific forum is usually rewarded to users who are particularly helpful in, and knowledgable in the subject of, the forum they are moderating.

Certain words may have been automatically censored. If your posts contain any censored words, they will be blanked-out like this: ****.

If you post a new thread, or reply to an existing thread, you can choose to be notified by email when someone else replies to that thread. You can also choose to receive email notifications of new posts in a thread without posting in that thread, by clicking the 'Receive updates to this thread' link displayed at the bottom of the thread page.

If you choose to stop receiving email notifications from a thread, you can turn off the option by either editing your post, or by unsubscribing from the thread here.

Only registered users may receive email notification, and you can set whether you want to receive email notification by default by editing your Options.

Email Notification is also referred to as Thread Subscription.