QuickTopic Frequently Asked Questions

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Frequently Asked Questions
	Here are some of the most frequently asked questions about QuickTopic, and their answers. If there's an answer you don't see here or a feature you'd like to see, please let us know. For topic creators/administrators I have a web site. Can I link my QuickTopic board to my site? Can I customize QuickTopic to match my site? Certainly. To link your QuickTopic board to your web site, click the "Link from your website" link in the Admin Tools bar at the top of your topic page. You'll see some HTML you can copy and paste to your own web page. For customizing your QuickTopic board to match your site, QuickTopic Pro lets you display your logo and pick your colors and fonts. Here's an example. For more involved integrations, contact us for more information. We're open to all kinds of ideas. How private is my message board? Will it be indexed by search engines? It's as private as the URL. In general, search engines won't find it unless you link it from a public web page, though certain browser add-ons like the Alexa toolbar can send your page's URL to these services. There's more discussion of this here. If you'd like additional privacy assurance, you can password protect your message board with Quick Doc Review Pro, which lets you assign a secret password to each of your document reviews and QuickTopic message boards. How do I invite people to my discussion? Click the "Invite Readers" link in the Admin Tools bar near the top of your topic page, and you can easily send an invitation to a group of friends by email, using our form or by emailing it yourself. You can invite others later on, and they can catch up by viewing all the previous messages on the message board. That's one of the big advantages over email-based group discussions (along with the fact that everyone's inbox doesn't get flooded). How do I choose who can participate in my discussion? Anyone that knows about it can participate, and anyone that doesn't know about it is very unlikely to run across it (here's the explanation). Right after you create a topic, you'll see an Invite link (see above) as a reminder. Can I delete people's messages if they're inappropriate? Yes, click the "More Admin Tools" link in the Admin Tools bar near the top of your topic page, and go from there. With QuickTopic Pro you can also delete entire ranges of messages easily, and you can block the IP addresses of any persistent annoyers. Can I create several boards? How do I manage them? You can create as many boards as you like. You get a personal My Topics page that provides an index of QuickTopic boards you've created or visited. You can also create a "Shared Topics" page, much like your My Topics page, but with its own web address (URL). Link that to your web site and you'll have a public multi-topic index page. To create a Shared Topics page, click the link at the top of your "My Topics" page and go from there. How long will my message board remain if I don't use it? Virtually "forever", unless you delete it (see below). So we appreciate it if you delete boards you're not using. If our disk space runs short, we'll get more. I'm finished with my message board. Can I delete it? Yes, if you created it. Yes, click the "More Admin Tools" link in the Admin Tools bar near the top of your topic page, and go from there. Nobody else can delete your topic, because only you, the topic creator, can see or use this feature on your topic. Thanks for tidying up! My discussion is getting pretty long. Is there a limit on the number of messages? No limit, though QuickTopic is optimal for shorter discussions. After the first few messages have been posted, your topic page is automatically separated into separate pages, which makes it faster for readers using slower Internet connections to view the message board. The most recent messages are first, so it's easy to catch up with your reading. Here's a trick for displaying any range of messages: when your discussion is long and you jump from page to page, you'll note that the URL (address) in your browser's "Address" or "Location" box changes, and you'll see something like /p109.90 at the end of the address. In this example, the 109 means "start with message 109", the 90 means "end with message 90". To select any range of messages, just replace those numbers with the higher-numbered and lower-numbered messages of your choice, and hit the Enter key on your keyboard. You can even display a single message by using the same starting and ending number, but there's an easier way to display a specific message and its neighbors: append the main topic URL with /mNN, where NN is your message number. Can I archive my topic? Yes, if you created it. Yes, click the "More Admin Tools" link in the Admin Tools bar near the top of your topic page, and select "Download CSV format". This lets you download your entire topic in a format that's readable by Microsoft Excel and other applications. Admin Tools Bar The first place to look for all administrative functions is the Admin Tools bar near the top of your topic page. Click the "More Admin Tools" link if needed. You also get a sneak preview of the functions available with QuickTopic Pro. If you don't see the Admin Tools bar, be sure you're signed in as the person who created the topic, and click your browser's Refresh button. Back For everyone Can I browse or search the topics that already exist? No, because they're all private by default (see the question above). It's up to each topic creator to publicize the topic by sending email or linking it from their website (we give you instructions about this when you create a topic). We're thinking about adding the ability for topic creators to publicize their topics here in a topic index. Please let us know if this would be useful for you. Can I use HTML in my messages? Yes, you can use a selected set of HTML tags to format your message. Also, if you just type a web address into your message as, for example, http://www.quicktopic.com, that link gets made "live". This works for email addresses too if you type them starting with "mailto:", for example mailto:contact@quicktopic.com. Also, referring to another message in the same message board by its number like this: /m123 will create a link that'll pop up that message in a separate window -- handy for replying to specific messages. Why don't you have threaded messages? QuickTopic is built to handle single-topic, active discussions best, and to be as simple and direct as possible. So it uses the "bulletin board" model of showing the entire text of each message in a single linear presentation. Most people we've talked to think this is best for active, dynamic discussions. In most usages, each topic has its own page. You can use the My Topics feature to keep track of several topics at once. You can get something like threads -- branching a new topic from another -- if you use the "Start your own topic" link on your topic page, and select the "Link previous topic to new topic" checkbox. When you do that, a message gets created in the first message board that links to your new board, effectively branching off there. A link appears in your new board back to the previous discussion, so you can easily jump between the 2 topics. If you do think that threading is important here, we'd like to know about it. What does the pale star next to the name of a poster mean? It means that the person posting the message was signed in when they posted the message via the web. Because each registered name must be unique, signing in before posting lets you show others that you're really who you say you are. How can I change my user name? Because your username is our unique way of identifying you, you can't change it. However, you can sign out and register as another user name, but you'll lose your personal topic list, so save it first (File->Save in your browser's menu). To register as another user, sign out, click the sign in link, submit the form without a password, then click the register link on that page, erase your current name and type in your correct name and go from there. I've moved to a new email address. How do I change it? If you never registered* at QuickTopic, then do the following to change your subscription address for a topic: click the Subscribe button on the web page of your board, unsubscribe, then click the Subscribe button again, erase your old email address and type your new one and subscribe. You need to do this for each board you're subscribed to. If on the other hand you registered with your old email address, you can change that and all your subscription addresses at once by clicking the Profile link at the top of the web page of your board and going from there. Registering is different than subscribing to a topic -- you can subscribe without registering. When you register, you provide a password and email address, usually just before creating your first topic. How do I edit or delete a message that I posted?* If you were signed in when you posted the message (indicated by a star next to your name), you can edit or delete it any time. When you're signed in you'll see Edit and Delete links to the right of each message. If you weren't signed in, you can only edit or delete your message using the same internet connection (IP address) that you posted from and only until another message is posted. This difference is a good reason to register and sign in when using QuickTopic. You can't edit or delete messages that you posted by email. Are you going to be around a long time? Yes, we'll be around a good long time. We've been here over seven years already. We have a large and growing number of satisfied customers who renew their Pro subscriptions each year. We never went for the pattern of huge growth and high expenses, but chose instead to evolve QuickTopic carefully to fit your uses, in response to your feedback. Publicity is almost entirely word-of-mouth (and you can help with this :-).
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