Welcome to the "Physics for Society" Discussions!
New Member's Introduction to the BBS

This is an introduction to "Physics for Society" Discussions! and to the Citadel BBS concept that it uses. It is intended for new members so that they can more easily become aquainted with the messaging system. Of course, old members might learn something new each time they read through it.

Full help for the BBS commands can be obtained by typing <.H>elp SUMMARY when you are in Discussions!

The CITADEL BBS room concept

The term BBS stands for "Bulletin-Board System". The analogy is appropriate: one posts messages so that others may read them. In order to organize the posts, people can post in different areas of the BBS, called rooms.

In order to post in a certain room, you need to be "in" that room. Your current prompt is usually the room that you are in, followed the greater-than-sign, such as:
Lobby>

The easiest way to traverse the room structure is with the "Goto" command. Clicking on a "Goto" link will take you to the next room in the "scanlist" (see below) that has new messages in it. Once you've "Gotoed" every room in the system (or all of the ones you choose to read) you return to the "Lobby," the first and last room in the system. If new messages get posted to rooms you've already read during your session you will be brought BACK to those rooms so you can read them.

Scanlist

All the room names are stored in a scanlist, which is just a string containing all the room names. When you "Goto" or "Skip" a room, you are placed in the next room in your scanlist THAT HAS NEW MESSAGES. If you have no new messages in any of the rooms on your scanlist, you will keep going to the Lobby>.

To return to a room that is no longer on your scanlist, use the "Enter hidden room" command to enter it, and it will be re-inserted into your scanlist. In the case of returning to hidden rooms, you must type the room name in its entirety. REMEMBER, rooms with no new messages will not show on your scanlist! Incidentally, you cannot change the order of the rooms on your scanlist. It's the same for everybody.

Special rooms

There are two special rooms on Discussions! that you should know about.

The first is the Lobby>. It's used for system announcements and other such administrativia. You cannot remove the Lobby> from your scanlist. Each time you first login, you will be placed in the Lobby>.

The second is Mail>. In Mail>, when you post a messages, you are prompted to enter the person (handle) who you want to send the message to. Only the person who you send the message to can read the message. NO ONE else can read it, not even the aides. Mail> is the first room on the scanlist, and can't be removed, so you can be sure that the person will get the message.

System aides

These people, along with the room aides, keep the BBS running smoothly.

Among the many things that aides do are: create rooms, delete rooms, set access levels, invite users, check registration, grant room aide status, and countless other things. They have access to the Aide> room, a special room only for aides.

If you enter a mail message to "Sysop" it will be placed in the Aide> room so that the next aide online will read it and deal with it. Aides cannot remove rooms from their scanlist. All the rooms are always on each aide's scanlist. Aides can read *any* and *every* room, but they *CAN* *NOT* read other user's Mail!

Room aides

Room aides are granted special privileges in rooms that they aide. They are *NOT* true system aides; their power extends only over the rooms that they control, and they answer to the system aides.

A room aide's job is to keep the topic of their room on track, with nudges in the right direction now and then. A room aide can also move an off topic post to another room, or delete a post, if he/she feels it is necessary.

Currently, very few rooms have room aides. Most rooms do not need their own specific room aide. Being a room aide requires a certain amount of trust, due to the additional privileges granted.

Citadel messages

Most of the time, the bbs code does not print a lot of messages to your screen. This is a great benefit once you become familiar with the system, because you do not have endless menus and screens to navigate through. Nevertheless, there are some messages which you might see from time to time.

"There were messages posted while you were entering."

This is also known as "simulposting." When you start entering a message, the system knows where you last left off. When you save your message, the system checks to see if any messages were entered while you were typing. This is so that you know whether you need to go back and re-read the last few messages. This message may appear in any room.

"*** You have new mail"

This message is essentially the same as the above message, but can appear at any time. It simply means that new mail has arrived for you while you are logged in. Simply go to the Mail> room to read it.

Who list

The "Current user list" command shows you the names of all users who are currently online. It also shows you the name of the room they are currently in. If they are in any type of private room, however, the room name will simply display as "<private room>". Along with this information is displayed the name of the host computer the user is logged in from.

(This file was shamelessly swiped from QuartzBBS, by way of the Citadel/UX home page. Thanks to its original author for putting it together.)