Suppose that I have a hand or a topic I'd like to discuss. For example, I might wish to discuss what criteria our club should use to decide whether or not a card has been played. So, I come to the message board and select "POST". This will create a new sequence of comments, called a thread, to which people can add there comments. So, when I select "POST", a new page appears. Any biographical information you wish to include with your comment may be entered into the initial fields. For example, when creating this post, I typed "Christopher Carolan" in the name field, typed my e-mail address into the e-mail field, and entered "How To Use the Message Board" into the subject field. Then I typed my message into the message field. Notice that the biographical information of the author appears to the left, the subject is the title, and the message appears to the right.
Email: carolanc@ecu.edu
Now suppose that Pal has come across this topic and reads my post. He wants to voice his opinion, so he hits "reply". A reply will be tacked onto the original post, selecting "post" creates a new thread.
So Pal types in his biographical info [name and maybe subject are the only necessary things, e-mail is opinional]. Then his message might read "a card is played by a defender if it is held in a position where the partner could see it, but the partner doesn't necessarily have to see it.
Now suppose that Carole Exum comes to the message board and sees the the topic I started. She picks that topic and sees what I originally wrote and also sees the reply that Pal made. Having the rule book in hand, she looks up the applicable law. She selects "reply" and fills in her name, e-mail, the subject seen above, and type her message which states the substance to the applicable laws.
Naturally, I could not find "new post" so here I am. I just want to say Hi to all my bridge buddies (or enemies as the case may be!) and miss seeing my bridge family. I hope to be able to get back to the table next Saturday - my partner and I will show you how this game is played!!
Good luck, today - most of all, have fun.
Love you all, Dot