Glass Chatroom Board

By default the “activity stream” or “Site Activity”, which includes messages, posts, and new member announcements, is displayed on the main page. Clicking on “Home” or “Refresh Messages” will refresh the page. You do not need to be a member to view the site activity.

This feature is useful for notifying another member that you’ve mentioned them in one of your posts. Simply entering @their_user_name in your post activates this feature and will send the member a message that will show up in their “Notifications”. If you are unsure of the username, go to the “Members” tab, select the member from the list and then click on the “Mention this User” button. The “post” window will open and the @username will already be poplulated in the textbox.

Use the messaging functionality if you’d like to send another member a private message which they will receive the next time they log in. To send the message go to the “Members” tab, select the member, then click on the “Send Private Message” button. When they log in or refresh the page, the number of messages they have waiting for them will appear at the top of the page next to the “Notifications” link. Clicking on this number will take them to the messages. Note, these messages do not go to the members personal email account and are strictly internal to this website. Personal email addresses are never exposed to other members or the public. Please see the instructions in the “How To” Manual for using the message feature.

Clicking the “Flag” button that appears at the end of every message posted will report the post to the webmaster. This is similar to the “report” button you may be familiar with from eBay. You won’t see a flag on your own posts for the obvious reason that you shouldn’t be flagging yourself. If a post is flagged by five different members, then an automated email will be sent to the person who posted the message. The email will not reveal who flagged the post, so flagging is anonymous. Only the webmaster can see who flagged it. At this point the person receiving the automated warning should seriously consider deleting their post. If the post is still there when the webmaster reviews it and he agrees that the post is inappropriate, then the post WILL be deleted and the member who posted the message will receive a warning. If the member voluntarily deletes a “flagged” message (or any message) before the webmaster has a chance to react to it, then no warning will be sent. Members who receive repeated warnings will be subject to having their account suspended and/or removed. Your account could be suspended with as few as 3 warnings, depending on the severity of the messages that have been flagged. Obviously some offenses will be worse than others, and the webmaster recognizes the possibility that just because a message has been flagged does not necessarily mean that the post is inappropriate. However, so that the webmaster does not give the appearance of being arbitrary or of playing favorites here is one hard-and-fast rule that WILL be followed: If a message is flagged by at least 10 members, then it WILL be deleted by the webmaster, and the person who posted it WILL receive a warning, regardless of how appropriate the message may or may not be. Basically, the webmaster doesn’t want to spend his valuable time policing your posts, so between the automated email and your ability to delete your own posts, the site is designed to be self-policing. So if you feel that a post is inappropriate but you don’t flag it, then you can’t complain.

If you read a message that you especially like, you can add it to your “Favorites”. Just click on the “Favorite” button at the end of the post. To revisit your favorites click on your linked name (above the Logout button), select the Activity tab, and click on the “Favorites” sub-menu link. Note: Your “Favorites” can be viewed by other members (who must be logged in), so add them judiciously.

Do you have some useful information that you had to post frequently on your old board because it would scroll off every few days? Then send this information to the Webmaster who will set up a separate page for it and add it permanently as a link in the sidebar.