1. What is a Forum?
Forums are located in both Regions and Groups. They are similar to Shout Outs in that they are a place where members can post comments, but the purpose of a Forum is to provide an area to keep all comments about a specific topic in one place. For example, if there were a Group about Novels, one of the Forums might be Favorite Fiction Novels, where members would post the information about their favorite fiction novel. As for Regions, there may be an instance where a specific area within a Region has its own Forum. For example, there may be a Center City Forum within the Philadelphia Region where members who live in or around Center City can post comments about what is going on in their area.
2. Why can't I delete my Forum?
Forums are "public" areas (unless they are in a Private Group) which means that members of the site can view the content that is posted there. Forums in a Group can be deleted by the Group Creator or a Group Administrator since they are the only ones who can change the appearance of a Group.
3. Why can't I open a Forum in a Group?
If you are not the Group Creator or a Group Administrator, it's possible that the Group settings indicate that only Group Administrators can open new Forum topics. If this is the case, we suggest that you post a Shout Out or contact one of the Group Administrators and request that a new topic be opened or that they change the settings.
4. What are the comments to a reply?
There are three main parts of a Forum: the topic, a reply and a comment. When you're in a Region or a Group and you go to the Forums gadget on the page, the name of the Forum that appears there is the Forum Topic. This should be a summary of what the Forum should be about. A Forum reply is anything that is posted in response to the Forum Topic. For example, if I'm in the Novels Group and I open the Favorite Fiction Novels Forum, a reply would be something like "Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky is my favorite fictional novel. The way the novel was written and the tone of the language is amazing and timeless!" And a comment is a response to a reply. So going back to the previous example, Favorite Fiction Novels is the topic, the post about Crime and Punishment is the reply and this would be an example of a comment: "I love that book too! Dostoevsky is a great writer; I especially enjoyed The Brothers Karamazov."
If there are comments to a reply in a Forum topic, you will see a link that will say "View # comments to this reply." Clicking that will display all of the comments posted to that reply. This feature helps streamline the Forums so that comments are not lost when they appear on page 3, but the original reply was posted on page 9. Please be advised that this link will only appear IF there have been comments posted to a reply.