Message board guidelines
The VOC message boards are a central hub to communication within the club. There are two main boards: the general VOC Message Boards and the VOC Trips board.
Contents
Message Boards
VOC Message Board
If you have a question about anything outdoors related, are planning a trip, buying/selling/borrowing gear, looking for partners, etc... then post it and you'll likely get a ton of really insightful replies. We're a small but tight-knit community and encourage everyone to chime in :)
VOC Trips Board
This board is specifically for planning and organizing trips. Using a message board in which everyone can see often helps simplify a lot of email-faff and keep the logistics as clear as possible. You can also ask questions here and get information about conditions, opinions and tips on your trip from other more experienced members. Only trip leaders should create message board threads for their trips if they so choose.
Note: There are many 'unofficial' trips which are organized on the message boards only. If you're looking for something to do then it's worth checking the boards for these trips or post an idea and find a partners. Many great adventures started here.
Message Board Guidelines
- Post Details
- Post a single thread for each topic
- For trips: include the proposed date of the trip in the message title
- Avoid crossposting between boards
- Only trip leaders should create message board threads for their trips if they so choose
- Etiquette
- Debate is encouraged but please keep it civil
- Discrimination, insults or bullying won't be tolerated
- Try to keep personal jokes to a minimume. They create a clique-y feel
- DON'T USE EXCESSIVE CAPITALIZATION.
- Encourage new users to participate and involve everyone
Tips and Tricks
Following a post
If you're interested in a post you can subscribe for email updates whenever someone replies to it. At the bottom of the post, but above where you reply, there is a banner with 'Follow Topic' in it (ctrl-f Follow Topic).
Keep track of new posts
The forum will automatically flag new posts since your last visit but all posts are flagged as 'new' when you join. To reset the flags you can 'Mark Forum Read' for each board.
Embed hyperlinks in messages
Best Method
The preferred way of linking is like this :
[url=http://www.example.com/climb]Climbing Website[/url]
which will show up as :
Alternate Method for Short URLs
For short URLs only you can do the following:
Enter the text like this (don't forget the "http://"):
<http://www.mec.ca>
And it turns into this:
Please do not use this method for long URLs as it will mess up the formating for the entire thread.
Embed images in message
First, your image needs to exist somewhere on the internet like one of the classic photo-hosting sites or even the VOC's own gallery. Then you reference it's URL like this:
[img]http://www.ubc-voc.com/gallery/d/85951-2/IMGP1847.jpg[/img]
Make sure to right click on the image and select "view image" "open image," "copy image address" or "copy image location" or similar so you can copy the correct url. (Hint: if it doesn't end with an image extension, like jpeg, jpg, png etc. it's not the correct url). So, if you are trying to link to an image from the VOC gallery, you can't just go to the picture page there and copy the address for that page. You need to find out the actual address of the image itself using the above technique. The example code above is something like what the address should look like, it shouldn't be the address that includes your name etc.
Don't put huge images, it's annoying. The main concern is the width. Definitely keep it under 800 pixels. Smaller is probably better. You can surround the image with the URL tags and make it a link to the full-sized image, if you like.
Use "preview" before posting!
Formatting Tips
To use bold or italics on the message board enclose your text in [b] [/b] or [i] [/i] tags respectively. So for bold, you would type:
[b]This is bold![/b]
And it becomes:
This is bold!
The final tip is to notice the preview button, and give it a test. Note that if your login has timed out and you push preview, however, your carefully crafted post may be lost. Could be worth copying it to the clipboard first.
