About The Sustainability Forum
Welcome to The Sustainability Forum.
Our vision is to offer the environmental community a place
where mature, productive, cutting edge discussion on solving
the sustainability problem can be found.
The general topic of this forum is the analysis and
development of practical solutions to help solve the global
environmental sustainability problem. Because no significant
progress has been made on this problem since it was identified
by Limits
to Growth in 1972, novel and more effective ways of
approaching the problem are encouraged.
To get to the forum, please click on the Forum link in the
navigation bar at the top of each page. Note your ability to adjust the size of the font on the upper right.
How to become a member of the forum
Anyone can read the messages, but only members can post. To join, email Thwink.org and say why you'd like to join the forum. Be sure to lurk a lot first. If you have a sincere desire to make productive contributions and can explain a little about how you hope to do that, you will be approved. Your member account will be added and activated. You will receive some emails with your user name (your real name) and password.
Then you can log on and begin the fine art of posting thoughtful messages. The first time you log on you may want to click on User Control Panel to edit your own information, such as time zone, website, occupation, interests, etc.
How to Start Posting Messages on the Forum
The forum is organized into different subject areas. To view
the threads within a subject such as General Discussion, click
on the subject name. You will then see a list of the
topics (threads) in that subject. Click on a topic name
to see the messages in that thread.
You must be logged in to post messages. To start
a new topic (more commonly called a thread) click on New
Topic.
To reply to an existing topic click on Post Reply.
Either will take you to the message composition page.
If you are starting a new thread enter a carefully worded
Subject. This should make it easy for visitors to see what
a thread is about without having to read the first message.
For example, avoid subjects like "What do you think about
this?"
If you are posting a reply it is usually best to leave the
subject blank.
If you are entering a long message, you have probably already
written it using your favorite word processor. Remember to
include a blank line between each paragraph. Copy and paste
the whole thing into the Message Body textbox. If a short message
you can type it in on the spot. When done click on Preview to
see how your message will look. You can then edit it to get
it to look perfect and then click Preview again
to see the effect of the changes. When satisfied click on Submit and
you're done.
Before you click that fateful Submit button,
think about your message. Is it as short, clear, and to the
point as possible? Does it observe net etiquette? Is it on
topic? Above all, does it help to achieve our goal?
One of the great advantages of a group discussion forum is
that new members coming aboard have a vast treasure trove of
old messages to read, so as to get up to speed on what the
group is up to. But with this comes responsibility. Please
take the time to compose thoughtful posts, because all those
who come after you will be reading them. And one never
knows who that might be....
Attachments
This is a serious discussion forum, so we welcome attachments. These are useful for things like a document a new thread is about, an analysis you've done, etc. If the file exists somewhere else on the internet, use a link instead of an attachment.
If the file (usually a document, sometime an image or a video) will be referenced a lot or in different threads, it would be better put on a work page on the main Thwink.org site. To do that, just send us an email with the attachment.
Tips on Editing Messages
While editing a message you may want to use italics, bold,
and so on to make your message more expressive and readable.
That's what the little buttons above the Message Body are for.
For example, to bold some text, select it with your mouse or
via the keyboard, then click on the Bold button.
Avoid long quotes from other sites or messages. They are better
linked to. But short quotes are useful, especially from other
messages in the same thread. Copy and paste the text you'd
like to quote, select it, and then click on Quote.
Links can be extremely useful. There are two ways
to enter them. The simplest is to paste the URL into your message,
select it, and then click on URL. Be sure
to check your links while previewing.
After you have posted a message you can edit it. To do this
go to the message and click on Edit. Edits
should be very minor. You can also delete your own messages,
though this should be rare, because it essentially rewrites
history.
Additional Forum Features
The Search feature is very useful. However, it's not as powerful as Google. To search the forum using Google, enter search strings like "analytical activism site:thwink.org/forum".
After you have logged in you can click on Memberlist.
This is a great way to see who else is a member and where they
are from. To see more about a member or to contact them, click
on their name.
The "View posts since last visit" and related links on the
upper right of the forum home page are useful.
To update your email address, password, location, etc you
can edit your Profile information
anytime. If you forget/lose your password and can't login,
we can reset it for you. For the first three Preferences we
recommend:
- Allow email to be sent to me: Yes (Your
email address is not exposed)
- Hide your online status:
No (Let's others see who's online by name)
- Always notify me of replies: Yes (Very handy,
a real time saver)
For much more, click on FAQ in the forum.
Thanks for helping to make this a great community....
