How to post on the MOA Forum

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Below are a few guidelines on how to submit a new post on the forum for situations where you are introducing yourself the first time or if you have a question about your specific motorcycle. If you see an existing thread in one of the forum areas and you would like to add your thoughts, the approach to posting a reply is given.

So, below you will see how to:

- start a new thread in the appropriate area of the forum
- reply to an existing thread or discussion
- quote another member in your reply
- add an image to your post

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First, you should identify the area of the forum that is appropriate for your post. On the main forum page, you will see large icons along the left side and a key, bolded phrase next to it. These are the name forum area. There are areas such as New Members, Airheads, Oilheads, Hexheads/Camheads, Gear, Just Ridin', etc. In addition, there are more general areas such as Motorrad, Campfire, Photography. Please look at the description under each of these main forum areas to decide where your new thread should be.

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Once you've selected the main forum area, click on the description link to open that area of the forum.

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Click on the button in the upper left to start a new thread.

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For your new post, enter a title. Try to be specific in the title to help others quickly see what it is that your are posting about. If you're a new member, indicate where you're from. If it's a question about your 2000 model R1150R front brake, put that information in your title. Adding this kind of information to the title will help later during searches for a similar topic.

Then enter your message in the box below similar to what you might do on any Windows/Mac word processing program. If desired, there are features to change font color, add bold or italics, and any number of other text enhancements.

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There are a number of smilies that you can add to your message that might help convey your emotions about your post. Are you confused (), happy about something (), thanking someone for their help/insight (), or maybe just trying to be funny (). Sitting behind our keyboards all the way across the country, it's hard to tell when someone is pulling our leg or not!

A complete smilie list is shown on the right of the screen.

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Once you're finished entering your text, click the submit button in the lower right. You can also preview your post, too.

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If after posting you realize you need to correct spelling or add more information, click on the edit button below your post. Click on the Save button when you are finished.

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Say that you find an ongoing discussion and you want to add your comments or input. When you are viewing that thread, click on one of the Reply to Thread buttons. That will open up the message just like has been discussed. Enter your message and submit the post.

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If you were reading another member's post and you wanted to quote that person as a lead-in to your post, find the Reply with Quote button at the bottom right of that person's post.

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You will then see a screen like below. Note the "quote tags" at the beginning and end of the other person's message. If you want to trim the quoted text to get to a specific part that you want to reference, just edit the text within the "quote tags".

After entering your message, submit your post as described above.

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Images can either be uploaded to the MOA servers from your computer and attached to your post. For uploaded images, a good resolution to use is 1024x768 pixels and/or about 1 megabyte in file size. Or images that are hosted on another photo sharing site, such as flickr, smugmug, etc., can be linked to your post. Including images requires different steps for each of these approaches.

To add images to your post, you should scroll down below the message area into the Additional Options and select Manage Attachments.

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To upload pictures from your computer, you would work in Section A below and perform steps 1 thru 3. Step 1 is to browse your computer and select the image you want to upload. Once selected, you then perform Step 2 by clicking on the upload button. It will take some time to upload the picture depending on the speed of your internet connection. It could take 30-90 seconds. You may or may not see anything happening during the upload...sometimes the activity indicator on the screen doesn't show up. A successful upload will be indicated by the name of the file showing up on the screen...see the blue arrow below. You can upload a maximum of 3 images using this method.

A great deal of information is contained in a forum thread on "How to do I post a picture". That thread is here:

http://forums.forums.bmwmoa.orgdispl...ated-questions

One of our members has also provide another method of uploading pictures to your post. It is contained in the above thread and can be seen here:

http://forums.bmwmoa.org/showthread....l=1#post927981

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If the images are located on another website, there are several different methods to include the images in your post. These methods are:

- go to the website where the image is located. Copy the URL of the JPG or BMW file from that website. Click on Manage Attachments and paste the URL into the "B" box shown above. Then click on the Upload button (4).

- if you don't want to go through the above to link the image to your post, you can simply paste the URL of the image directly into the post as shown below. For people to see your image, they would need to click on the link you provide.

http:// {...this would contain the URL of your image or link...}

- you can use image tags in special coding to force your image to be displayed. These are the letters "img" in braces before and after the URL of the image as shown below:

[i m g] {...this would contain the URL of your image..} [/ i m g] ***note that the spaces around the "img" letters will need to be removed in this example

- often times, the web hosting sites like flickr or smugmug provide you with the ability to embed your image using other HTML coding. Please review the choices on your hosting service and copy and paste those links in your post

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Another way to upload an image is to use the picture icon above the message box.
PictureIcon.jpg