Hi Beth,
Just wanted to say hello, and welcome to Kick AS! I know I can speak for everyone when I say that we are all very glad you took the time to figure out how to make that first post--good for you for not hesitating to ask your daughter to help you out! Of course, hearing that you did need her help--and that you still aren't sure how to make your own top-level post--does let me know that our admin team needs to make sure we are always giving new members all the tools they need to dive into the site feet first. Hopefully, after you read this post and one or two others I point you toward, you'll feel like a long-time veteran when it comes to any "how to post" issues!
First of all, I'm going to begin with a general post that I try to leave for every new member when I notice them posting for the first time. This isn't any kind of formal "welcome wagon," but rather just a quickie introduction that I whipped up a while ago and refined quite a bit right now. It gives you an idea of what to expect when you check out some of KA's 17 specialized forums, each of which addresses a specific slice of the KA pie. Among these forums are:
- Interested in alternative and non-pharmaceutical ways of dealing with your AS? Then check out the NSD Forum to learn all about the No-Starch Diet, which has absolutely worked wonders for many of our members and may be at the very core of how AS should be treated. Or, check out the aptly titled "Alternatives" forum to check out lots of other nontraditional treatment options.
- Alternatives not your cup of tea, but instead you want to learn about new drug options for treating AS? You'll want to visit the Anti-TNF and Other Biological Medications forum or the broader AS Pharmacy forum.
- Ever encounter a specific problem that hit thanks to AS, then come up with a great, possibly one-of-a-kind solution to that problem that you just HAVE to share with yuor fellow AS kickers? Or maybe you're stuck at the problem phase and hoping other KAers might have already come up with a solution that will work for you? I'm sure it won't surprise you at all to find the Helpful Tips forum, where KA folks rush to share their moments of inspiration--and perspiration (from the frustration you feel when, you know, you have a prob....aww, forget it, I was reaching on that one, I know!
- We've got separate men's (called No Ma'am) and Women's forums for gender-specific issues, especially ones you might not feel comfortable discussing in the main forum. In addition, there's a special Friends and Family Support Group for loved ones whot want to learn more about your disease. Perhaps more importantly, it gives the people in your life a place to share with others who understand how hard it can be watching a loved one fight AS and a safe haven to discuss the stress it can cause in their own lives, which is so often overlooked. [Note: I've edited my original post because I was wrong about the Family and Friends forum being private. -B.] Please note that while the Friends and Family forum is open to all, the men's and women's forums are private; to gain access to the forum that applies to you, all you have to do is send a PM to me or any member of the KA administration team (any name that appears in red or green!).
- Tired of talking about not feeling so good and just want to relax for a while? Visit Kicking Back in the ASylum, where having fun talking about anything but AS is the only instruction you have to follow. Or, if you want a guaranteed laugh, then head to the Jokes forum.
That's only a partial list of the specialized forums here at KA--just wanted to give you a basic idea of the amazing amount of information you'll find here. Click on the "Main Index" link up above to see the entire forum list. When trying to determine which forum is best for you at any given moment, remember that some forums are busier than others, so it might take a while to get a response in the lightly trafficked ones. And hey, you can never go wrong posting in the main forum, the #1 AS Web Support Group (psst...that's where you are right now!).
Alrighty then! Now that I got that out of the way, I had a couple of quick questions after reading your post. You say that your doctor recommended KA to you--that is not something we hear very often, believe me! In fact, I'd say that is one with-it, enlightened doc you've got there--what city is s/he in? It's really great to hear that at least one doctor out there knows about KA and is helping us to spread the gospel according to KA (well, one that doesn't have AS and belong to KA, that is, as we've got a couple doctors in our midst because they actually have AS). Did he say anything about the site other than simply telling you to check it out?
I am sorry to hear that you were so confused by our layout and had ultimately could not figure out how to start your own new thread. I've got a couple tips that can help you out with that and other navigation issues: 1) Do not pass Go, do not collect $200--go immediately to the post called "USER GUIDE" which is a stickie post right at the top of this forum. Once in the post, click on the link to the actual User Guide, a brief, but well-done, document put together by the folks who produce the software we use to run the KA forums. It will tell you how to do all the basics: making new posts, replying to posts, changing how you view posts, and many more. 2) You can alter your display preferences in order to change the way KA looks on your screen, and some of these changes will make it easier for you to follow threads and make posts. This information is covered in passing in the "Customizing the Look and Feel" section of the User Guide, but I'll cover some specifics. At the top of the page, click on "My Home" to get to the page where you'll find your private messages and all of your personal preference controls. At the top fo the page you'll see your PM mailbox, so just scroll down a bit until you see the section called "Main Configuration."
In that section, the middle option is "Display Preferences . . .". If you look to the right, you'll see the word "Edit" listed for all of the Configuration sections; click on the one directly to the right of Display Preferences. This will bring up the screen that contains numerous settings that control how KA will look on your screen. Right near the top you'll see "Which Style Sheet (skin) do you want to use for your display?," which is right above a drop-down menu. On that menu, you've got about 30 different color and font schemes from which to choose. Select whichever one you want to try, then click on the "Preview" button to the right of the drop-down menu; once you find the one you like, just leave that one in the menu window so you can save it once you've made any other display changes.
As you scroll down the Display Preferences page, you'll see settings for date and time, what you want to appear as your start page, the default display and default view settings (more on those in a moment), number of posts you want displayed on one page, size of your text box when making posts (generally, don't change these numbers unless your monitor's resolution setting is forcing you to scroll sideways to read every post), and whether or not you want to view pictures within posts. Most of these are self-explanatory and, usually, do not need to be changed from their default values. However, anything you do want to change, it is easy to do so and then take a look at how those changes will affect your display by clicking "Submit" at the bottom of the screen; if you don't like what you see with the new settings, just hit the "Back" button and reset any changes you made to your Preferences.
The two options you really might want to change are the Default Display and Default View. These two determine how messages (also called posts) appear both on a forum's main page and within an individual message once you click on it to read it. Any post that appears on a forum's main page is called a "top-level" post, as all replies to that post are grouped underneath it. The Default View allows you to change how posts appear on the main page only: If you select "Expanded Topics," you will see not only a list of top-level posts, but also the links to every response to that top-level post as well. Responses are indented from the left of the screen, as are responses-to-responses, etc. Most people find this the Expanded Topics to be too cluttered and confusing. Instead, they prefer "Collapsed Topics," which displays only the top-level posts on a forum's main page. (Please not that you can also change the Expanded and Collapsed settings at the top of the main page of any forum--right above the first post, at the far right-hand side of the screen, you will see either the word "Expand" or "Collapse," depending on which setting you chose on the Display Preferences page; simply click on the word to change to the opposite view.)
The Default Display determines how each post will look once you've clicked on the top-level post on the forum's main page. If you choose "Flat Mode," every response to a top-level post will appear in its entirety immediately following the top-level post. Responses will appear chronologically as they were made, earliest to latest. You can determine how many of these complete responses appear on one page via the "Total posts to show on one page when viewing in flat mode" option right there on the Display Preferences screen. The default is 10, I prefer 20 so that I don't have to flip through so many pages when a post has received many responses. The main reason people prefer Flat Mode is because they are able to immediately begin reading all of the replies to a post without doing anything else. In a post with only a few replies, it is very easy to read all the posts that followed the top-level. However, if a top-level post received many responses, and those initial responses then received many responses of their own, it can become almost impossible to determine who was responding to whom (yeesh, Mr. Editor isn't even sure if I got that one right!), since the posts are in overall chronological order.
It is on such lengthy posts with multiple responses that the other Default Display option comes in handy. It is called "Threaded Mode," and it treats the responses to a top-level post as a hierarchy that is continued when responses are made to the responses. This is a very hard concept to explain with words alone. To understand what you will see in Threaded Mode, I highly recommend you view the screen shots found in the User Guide under "Change from Threaded to Flat Display." In addition to the different look of the Threaded Mode, using it is much different than Flat Mode, as each post made after the top-level post must be clicked on individually in order to read it. (Please not that you can also change the Flat and Threaded mode settings once you've clicked on any top-level post. At the top of the page--right above the first post, at the far right-hand side of the screen, you will see either the word "Flat" or "Threaded," depending on which setting you chose on the Display Preferences page; simply click on the word to change to the opposite view.)
Phew. I didn't realize when I started to explain the Display Preferences options that it would take so long to run through them and be rather convoluted to do so. I fear I have made things more confusing instead of making them easier to understand, and if that's the case, well, oops, sorry about that! If I did bungle these explanations, then please just ignore that portion of my post and stick with the User Guide, or simply play around a little until you find the display settings you like. How's that for having confidence in one's own writing?
If you are thoroughly confused now Beth (or any other new member who read this), or if you have any other questions, don't hesitate to either make a post in this forum, or send me a PM.
Again, welcome to KA, and we are very glad to have you. Don't you worry at all about how you sound when you write something down--you did a great job on your first post, as it wasn't hard to read or understand at all. Most people can handle the type of writing required in forums just fine, and you are no exception to that. Besides, it's much more important for you to ask questions and get your ideas out there than it is for you to be grammatically correct or use formal English. Never hesitate to dive right in, ok? That is true for any new member reading this right now!
Brad
