How to be a member of a forum?

[jessicacarr]

How do i become a member of a forum? What do you get to do when you join a forum?
jessicacarr

[pdswife]

I'm sorry Jessica... I'm not sure what you're asking.

[amber]

Are you talking about subscribing to a thread? I am not really sure what you mean.

[karadekoolaid]

Originally Posted by jessicacarr

How do i become a member of a forum? What do you get to do when you join a forum?
jessicacarr

The word "Forum" is latin, and means "a public place, a meeting place, a place for public assembly, a place of meeting for public discussion."

By posting your question here, you ARE a member of the forum. If you were to decide, for example, to post on the "Appetizers and Hors d'Oeuvres" forum, I suppose you'd either require some information or advice, or would be tendering some.Maybe you are an expert on tapas, or canapés, or bruschettas, or meatballs, or what ever.

What do you get to do when you join? Participate. Learn. Listen. Give opinions. Discuss. Share. Enjoy. Have fun. It never cease to amaze me that a simple question like, for example , "How do you boil an egg?" could have so many varied answers; but it does. That is part of the enjoyment of being a Forum member.

No-one gets paid - except in kind .

[jessicacarr]

thank you for your comments and willingness to try to answer. i have figured out what is it and learned that i worded my question incorrectly. it is 'subscribing' to a fourm. so i stumble upon how to subscribe. when a forum is selected and it takes you to the page that lists the forum threads...at the top you go to 'forum tools' > 'subscribe to a forum'. so i 'subscribe to the fish and seafood forum.
so, at this point, i guess my revised question is, what does it mean to 'subscribe' to a forum?

[goboenomo]

i guess IMO it would mean to dedicate yourself to a certain thread
or the whole forum
and recieve emails for replies to your topics.. or just posts

[Michael in FtW]

Originally Posted by jessicacarr

so, at this point, i guess my revised question is, what does it mean to 'subscribe' to a forum?

Whenever you post in a Thread or Forum you are automatically subscribed.

When you click the subscribe to a thread or a forum button you have the option to automatically receive an email notification everytime someone post to that forum or thread (daily or weekly) ... email notification is also known as Forum or Thread subscription. This is covered in the FAQ's that you can access by clicking on FAQ at the top of the page. Here is what the FAQ says about this.

You get no perks, no additional privileges, just a bunch of email notifications that someone has posted something. Unless you are tracking a specific thread ... and WANT email notifications ... I would suggest you don't.

We get more requests from people wanting to turn this off than to turn it on!

[jessicacarr]

thanks everyone! this is informative and helpful. i understand now about subscribing.