Tolkien Forums

Well as you know Tolkien Forums activebaords are its greatest feature providing members with an all round experience and role playing oppitunity to converse with fellow enthusiasts. It therefore follows that is deserves its own FAQ page.

What are the forums?

What are forum catagories?

What are forum topics?

How do I create a topic?

How do I reply to a topic?

How do I delete my post?

How do I edit my post?

What are emoticons?

The forums are Tolkien Forums' main site feature.
They consists of various catagories each containing an amount of forums. In each of these forums there are topics in which you can voice your opinion on whatever the subject is. This means you can converse with other fanatics and make your comments viewable on the web itself!
As with all forum, they have there own set of rules - to see the rules for all of the forums on display

To visit the Forums homepage .

On the forum homepage you will notice that you have every so often aa title in which a number of individual forums are displyed benath. This is to aid members so that they know which forum they are looking for will be by searching in the correct catagory.

For example:

Catagory - Tolkien books forum

Forums under that catagory - LOTR books 
                                                     Discuss the Silmarillion
                                                     Other Tolkien books
Each of these Forums have a given number of topics with which you can reply and create new topics.

In each forum there are a number of topics which other members have written. These are usually question from other members but could be statements or points of interest etc. You can reply to a topic giving your opinion on whatever the subject is about. Your answer may be countered or accepted.

Creating a topic is very simple. You first need to catagorise where what you want to write belongs. If your writing about 'Elven lore' in the first age then post in that forum. If your writing about the 'Ainur and Eru' in the timeless Void then post in that forum. If your having difficulty trying to find a forum for your post why dont you try the 'General forum'?
If you want to introduce yourself then post in one of the three forums especially made for that.

Once you have found your forum then there is a link on the ringht of the screen saying 'start a new topic'. Click this link and you will be taken to where you create your post.
You will have bar where you should enter what your topic title is. This must be entered.
Then you will have a box in which you type your comment/question/statement etc.
You will notice a number of different options just above this box where you can bold or Italic or underline the writing you select. You will also have options to indent left, right, or centralise your whole post. Also you can highlight a word or phrase and make it a link by using the corresponding icon above. You can even change the colour of the font, the style of the font, insert horizontal rules and view the HTML source.
Also you can use emoticons around your post to express your opinions on a matter in an image format - but only THREE per post maximum.

Topic Tip: to make your topics as interesting as possible include quotes related to your topic with which other members can refer to and discuss.

Once you have completed your topic you can choose a Topic icon - see the topic icons box below the subject box. Then you can preview your post to see what it would look like to others and then Submit the topic itself so it appears on the forums for other to use.

Replying to a topic is even easier than making one! Once you have found a topic you would like to express your opinion in all you have to do is click the 'reply' link on the last members post. You will see it on the top right section on the header line outside the post itself.
Once you have pressed that you will be directed to a page the same as that for creating a topic.

You have all the same features as you do with writing a topic - Underline, Bold, Italics, Indent right, left, centralise, Insert link, horizontal rules etc.

Once you have completed your post that you can preview it to see how others will see it and then submit it so it appears on the forums for others to use and reply to.

Once you have created a post it cannot be deleted. Only Valar and Maiar and special ranks can delete posts. If you most definately do not want your post diaplayed your best bet is to edit it or contact the Maiar in the Contact us page.

If you have a post that you would rather change simply scroll to it and select the 'Edit post' link top right of the post. You will then be led back to the page where you created the post. here you can erase words or phrases or the entire post itself and create a new one! You can insert emoticons change font style/size/colour etc - all the things you could do when creating a post.
Once you have finished either press 'preview post' to see how other members view it or 'Submit post' to allow your post displayed to everyone on the forums.

Emoticons are used on most forums, Tolkien related or not. They are a series of smilies which can be still or animated. They can range in degrees of animation too, from a simple smily face with his eyes rolling or two smilies engaging in a matrix like battle!
They allow the user to express his/here opinion of the given matter in a picture format.
To insert emoticons into your post simply see the emoticon box under the space where you create the post. Simply right click on your chosen emoticon, select 'copy' and then paste it where you wish the emoticon to be in you post.

Note: Under the emoticon box you will find a link saying 'more emoticons'. This will direct you to many dozens of authentic and dramic emoticons, all of which you can add to your post in the same way as the standard ones.

Also once you have added the emoticon to your post you can edit its sizes by clicking and holding down the curser on one of the 8 squares around the emoticon, then drag it in the direction you want and the emoticon will contort to your desired parameters. However don't drag it too much or it will distort into something illegible as the pixels become blurred and prominant.

REMEMBER - only three emoticons MAX per post - they can get annoying.