HOW TO POST AT SKYSCRAPERCITY
It's quite easy! By and
Topics:
» Should I start a new thread?
It is a good idea to “lurk" for a while before you start posting on any internet forum or similar medium. “Lurking" means visiting the forum regularly and hanging around, observing and reading through the postings. Get to know the regulars, the types of topics posted, and the forum rules – written and unwritten. A good way to familiarize yourself with the forum is to look through the entire history of older threads and see what people have chosen to post about.
On many forums certain types of topics are discouraged or not allowed, and the same is true for ways to respond acceptably. It is bad form to jump into a forum and start posting questions and comments that have been asked before – frequently. It is also unwise to engage in arguments without knowing the history of the board. Lurking will give you a feel for behaviour that is frowned-upon, as well as what type of behaviour will earn you the respect of the more experienced members.
One of the most common mistakes made by “newbies" (new members) is to start a new thread in the wrong forum. Get to know the sub-forums well and make sure you understand the differences between them. If you don’t, look for an area where members can ask questions of the moderators/administrators. Not to damage your ego, but you’re not the first person to join the forum; chances are, if you have a basic question about how to use the forum, it’s likely been asked before, and the question and answer might be posted somewhere in the forums. Also, locate the 
button at the top of the screen; pick a good keyword and see if you can find a thread where your question has been discussed.
» How do I start a new thread?
Once you are in the proper forum, click on the 
button. All you need to do is make sure the thread has a title in the Subject field, and your comments in the Message box.
When you think you are ready to publish your new thread, check your work! Click on the 
button at the bottom. This will show you what your post will look like without publishing it. You may be surprised to see something doesn’t look the way you’d wanted it to, and this is your chance to correct it. If there are mistakes, the test post is displayed above a message box with your original comments; make your changes in the box, and you have the choice of previewing again – as many times as you want.
Once you are sure there are no mistakes, go ahead and click on the 
button to post it publicly.
» How do I correct a post?
Once a new thread or post is public, it is still not too late to make changes. You might be surprised at how often you decide you want to change comments or fix a broken link.
It is a common mistake for newbies to think that a public post cannot be changed. Many newbies start a duplicate thread or add an additional post to tell everyone about a correction. This can be annoying to the experienced forumers.
To fix or change an existing post, simply look at the bottom of the post; click on the 
button. Make your changes in the Message to edit box, and then Save Changes. You can do this as often as you want.
» How do I post a picture that is on my computer's hard drive?
You can't. The picture must be stored somewhere on the internet, such as a website or an imagehost.
- Your email account may come with free webspace. If that is the case, your ISP will have instructions for setting the webspace up and uploading your pictures.
- If you use an imagehost, note that currently many imagehosts are reconfiguring their servers to block external linking (also called “deep linking" or “hotlinking"), which simply means you will not be able to post any pictures directly from that imagehost. Geocities, Tripod, Dotphoto, and Webshots are all examples of imagehosts which no longer allow external linking. Be aware that the current trend toward blocking external linking has been spreading. An imagehost which allows external linking today may change its policy tomorrow.
If you find an imagehost that does not block external linking, they will have instructions for uploading your pictures. Once this is done, you will be ready to post your pics at SkyscraperCity.
» How do I find the URL for a picture I want to post?
These instructions are given for Internet Explorer, although other browsers work similarly.
1.) While looking at the picture in your browser, right-click on the picture and click on "Properties":
2.) In the window that pops up, copy the entire entry entitled, "Address".
In the example, it reads: http://members.rogers.com/binq/images/fountainplace.jpg . To make things easier, you can drag your mouse across the entire URL to select it (highlighted, as in the picture), then hit CTRL + C to copy the address.
» How do I post a picture?
Back in the SkyscraperCity “New Thread" or “Post Reply" window, all you now need to do is paste the picture URL (copied in the last step) into your Message (for “New Thread") or Your Reply (for “Post Reply") box, and enclose it in image tags. There are two ways to do this:
- Click on the “IMG" button:
This will open a new window for the picture URL:
Simply paste the URL by hitting CTRL + V :
and then click on OK. This will automatically insert the proper picture URL with image tags into the Message box:
Note that although the closing image tag “[/IMG]" has been wrapped to the next line in the box in the example above, it is all one line with no spaces. Inserting spaces will prevent the picture from being posted.
- Instead of using the
button, you can simply type the text manually. Be careful of typos! The image tags are simply [IMG] and [/IMG]. (Lower case works as well.) The picture URL goes in between the tags. It is important not to insert spaces between the tags and the URL.
» How do I add comments?
You can insert them before or after your picture. Just be careful not to break up the picture URL or image tags:
Test to see if your post will work! You should always do this – particularly when posting pictures. Simply use the button.
There is one more test you can do to make sure your pictures will be posted properly. When using an imagehost, remember that there is always the chance the host may stop external linking – possibly without notifying you. The problem is that this is not immediately obvious to you, because the pictures you are working with are already in your computer’s cache (a type of storage), and so they will appear to you on your computer but might not to others on the internet. To detect this possible problem, clear your computer’s cache when Previewing. How? While looking at the Preview (following the previous step), hit CTRL + F5. You should see the following warning:
Click on “Retry" or simply hit “enter" to continue. The Preview page will reload and if your picture is visible, you are all set to Submit!
» How to stay out of trouble on the forums…
If you use the 
button, be smart with its use:
- If you want to quote the entire text of someone’s post, instead of using the quote button, use the “@" symbol and the person’s name. For example, to refer to “John’s" post above, preface your comment with “@ John".
- If you want to quote part of someone’s post, use the quote button but edit out the parts of the quote that are not relevant to your comments. If the person has written fifty lines and you are only referring to the last three, cut out the first 47.
- If you want to quote someone’s picture post, you can use the quote button, but for heaven’s sake – edit out the pictures! Quoting a lengthy picture post and re-posting all the pictures will make you very unpopular on the forums.
Do not obsess about post-counts. When you post 100 one-line comments a day, it very quickly becomes clear to the other forumers that you are not a valuable contributor. This kind of behaviour will also attract the wrong kind of attention from the moderators.
Keep personal arguments off the forums. If you have an issue with one particular member, use the