If your site administrator has enabled you to write and submit articles for publication, you will see a link for submitting articles on the Articles page beneath the list of category icons. If your article is accepted and published, it will appear on the Home page until it is cycled off by the publication of newer articles.
You may quote articles written by other authors, provided you quote and link to your source(s) and give the original author(s) full credit. Claiming another author's work as your own constitutes plagiarism, which is punishable by law. You alone will be held accountable for the content of your article.
In the Write Article screen, your name and email address appear first. These identifiers are not editable, however your site administrator may have enabled a privacy feature, which will protect your actual email address from appearing on the article when it is published.
If you are uncertain whether the privacy function is in force on the site, you can click into the Memberlist and determine whether members' email addresses are viewable or not. If members' email addresses aren't viewable, the privacy feature is fully functional.
The next element of composing an article is the Category under which it will be published. Click the down-arrow next to the "Category" field to view the entire list of available categories. Select the one that is best suited to convey the tone and content of your article.
In the "Subject:" field, give your article an appropriate "Headline", remembering to keep it short and compelling. A good Headline will grab a visitor's attention and make them want to learn more about the subject matter.
Finally, enter the actual text of the article. If your site administrator has enabled you to do so, make full use of UBBC Tags and Smilies to enrich the article and make it visually appealing and easy to read.
If you don't see the UBBC and Smilies legend under the Text box in this screen, you may be able to activate it by going into the Edit Profile screen and clicking a check-mark in the box that reads "Forum/Articles Legend". This option will appear at the bottom of your Profile screen if the site administrator has made the use of UBBC Tags and Smilies available. Make sure to click the Edit Profile button to save your change(s).
If you don't see this option at the bottom of your Profile screen, your site administrator has disabled the use of UBBC tags in articles and forum posts. However, if the UBBC Tags and Smilies are available to you, it's fun and easy. It's worthwhile to learn how to use them. You can access a help file for UBBC tags HERE, and a help file for using Smilies HERE.
When you are satisfied with the content of your article, click the Send Message button at the bottom of the screen. The person responsible for the site's topics will review your article and may edit spelling, grammar, punctuation or certain words to make the article suitable for the site's intended audience. By submitting an article for publication, you agree to allow it to be edited in this way by the site's publisher.
If your article is accepted for publication, it will appear on the Home page of the site until enough new articles are published to cycle it off the page. However, it will still be viewable and searchable by members until the site administrator archives it permanently.
HELPFUL HINT: It may be easier for you to enter the content of your article in a text editor such as Notepad prior to putting it into the Text box area in the Write Article screen. Using this method, you can comfortably check spelling, punctuation, and links to sources and authors quoted. If you take this approach, just copy and paste the finished article into the Text box area of the Write Article screen.
Instant Messages
The Instant Message feature provides a way for you to exchange private discussions with another member. Guests cannot make use of Instant Messages, so if you haven't yet done so... you might want to go ahead and become a member. It's free!
If you've placed a check in the box next to "New IM Pop-ups" in the Member Options of your profile, you'll see a small notification pop-up on your screen whenever you receive an instant message. Note: The pop-up will appear only when you access a page on the site. Click "OK" to close the pop-up screen, if applicable.
To access your instant messages, locate the "Who's Online?" block on the left column of your screen. Beneath that block, the first line informs you that you are logged in as "yourname". Directly underneath that line is another that says "You have X message(s)", where X is the number of messages awaiting you. Click the number and you'll be taken to your Instant Message screen.
The IM area appears as a grid, displaying the following columns:
From: Indicates whom the Instant Message is from.
Date: Displays the date and site time that the message was sent.
Subject: Shows the subject that the sender chose for the message.
Action: Allows you to Reply to or Delete the message, respectively.
To read the message, click its Subject and the message will appear in its entirety, much like a forum post. From this screen, you can either "reply quoted", reply without quotes or delete the message. The icons for these actions appear at the bottom right corner of the message.
Also underneath the message is the grid that displays all of your messages, just like on the Instant Message main screen. This is a timesaving feature so you don't have to click the Back button just to see your message list again.
At the top of the message grid is a link that says "Send IM". This is only one of the many ways you are able to send an IM to another member. Clicking this link will take you to a message composition area with a drop-down box listing all the members of the site.
An more convenient method might be to access the Memberlist, find the member you wish to instant message, and click the icon under the Actions column to "Send a message" to that member. Still another quick, easy way is to access a forum post made by the member you wish to instant message.
Underneath that members post you'll notice four or five icons underneath that person's "signature". Hover your mouse pointer over each of those icons and a small bit of text will float above the pointer, indicating the action that will occur if you click that icon. Click the icon that says, "Send a message to username", where "username" is the name of the member who wrote the forum post.
When you no longer want to keep a message in your list of instant messages, click the second icon in the Action column next to the message. You may also delete the message as you're viewing it. At the bottom right corner underneath the message body, click the last icon on the right.
Using the Search Function
Using the Search feature can speed up your quest for answers or information. The AskernDRC search feature examines all the forum posts and articles that have been published on the site. Clicking into Advanced Search enables you to also search the Links and Downloads.
The biggest part of learning to use any search utility is knowing what word or phrase to search for. It helps to know that if you enter more than one word in the search box, the utility treats those words as a phrase. So if you search for the words "not authorized" (without the quotes), the search utility will scour the site for all articles and forum posts that contain those two words together.
Want to see what words or phrases other people have been searching for? When you're in the Advanced Search screen, click on Recent Searches. You'll get a list of the last five searches that were done on the site. Next to these hyper-linked search listings, you'll see a number in parenthesis. That number indicates how many results were returned on that particular search term.
You can click the search term to see the results, if you like. Sometimes the best way to learn how to use a tool is by following great examples. The Recent Search link could be very helpful to those who are unfamiliar with using a search utility.
Topics Section
The topics, or articles, that appear on the front page may not appear in their entirety. To read the full article, click the "More" link at the bottom of that article's summary. Next to the "More" link, a count is kept of the number of comments that members have made concerning that specific article. Your site administrator may or may not have enabled you to leave comments about an article.
Additionally, you may print or email the article by clicking the "Print" icon or the "Email" icon at the bottom left of the article summary on the home page, or the bottom left of the full article after clicking the "More" link. Next to the print and email icons, the number of times an article has been read appears in parenthesis.
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respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster.
