Posting in the forums is a great way to participate in the Westover web community. At first, it may seem a little intimidating, with strange terminology, weird links, and windows that shift and move seemingly at random, but there is a method to the madness.

Before we go too far, let's go over some of the terminology that will be used in this help guide.

• Forum - Think of a forum like a bulletin board you may have up in your office, on which you tack up various "topics". Each forum is devoted to a certain "theme"-- for example, all topics on "Praise and Thanks" should be topics of praise or thanks- not general questions about the website. This helps to organize the website and making finding topics of interest easier.
• Topic  - A forum topic is pretty self-explanatory: it's a single line of thought posted by a user. The topic should fit the over all theme of the forum as stated above.
• Comment - a comment is a follow-up remark by other users or by the original poster of a topic. This is where the community really comes into play and how discussions happen.

Your first step should be visiting our forums. This can be done by clicking on "Our Community", and then on the "Forums" link. The forums can also be directly reached by typing: "http://westoverdsm.com/forum" into your browser's address bar.

Once you have reached the forums page, you will see a list of the various forums available. Some users may see different forums than another user- this all depends on which groups you are a member of. If you don't see some forums you remember seeing before, make sure you are logged in. The system will log you out after a certain period of inactivity, so this is normal and a common occurence. To log in, click on the "Log In" link at the very top right corner. Also, you must be logged in to post forum topics or comments.

Navigation is simple- to visit any particular forum, simply click on its name. You will be taken to that forum and shown a list of all topics within that forum.