Registration & Login
To take advantage of all the features offered by our Forums, such as setting your own avatar, tracking post counts, emailing users, private messages, and many others you will need to have an account. It only takes a few seconds to register, and it is recommended you do so.
To create an account you will need to visit the Log-in link located in the top right corner, and complete the form for creating a new account. Here you will specify details such as your login name and email address, password and display name – if you choose to use one.
After successfully registering you should have a username and password. You can then visit the login page and enter your username and password to login.
If you forgot your username and/or password e-mail Melissa Matta,
mmatta@merion.com, for assistance.
If you’ve registered and can’t login, check to ensure you have a valid username and password. If you are sure the username and password are valid, but still can’t login please e-mail Melissa Matta,
mmatta@merion.com.
User Profile & Settings
A profile is information about your account that controls how you view information within our Forums. This includes details about posts you’ve contributed to, your avatar, a display name option, personal information you wish to share, as well as settings that control how you interact with this Forum site.
Setting your time zone will enable the Forums to display all dates and time relative to your time zone.
A signature is a message that is appended to the end of any posts you make in the forums. You can edit your signature from the profile page. This signature will then appear at the bottom of any messages posted by you.
An avatar is a feature of the forums which allows for an image to be displayed along with your posts.
You will see an avatar section when viewing your profile. From here you can complete the form to name the avatar you wish to use, either uploading an avatar or specifying a URL to your avatar. You will also need to enable your avatar for it to be displayed with your posts.
An E-mail alert is a feature which will send emails to you when messages that you are subscribed to change. You can turn on/off e-mail alerts from your profile.
This is primarily to protect the privacy of users who have shared their information or to prevent unwanted/unsolicited e-mails.
Privacy & Security
Once logged in you can change your password from your Profile page.
You cannot change your username. Please contact Melissa Matta,
mmatta@merion.com, for assistance.
Once logged in, you can change your private e-mail address from your Profile page.
The only profile setting that is required is your private e-mail address. This is the e-mail address that is used when you subscribe to the forums, when a forgotten username/password is emailed. The private email address is never shared or displayed publicly. If you wish to share an email address publicly, use the public email address field. The remainder of the profile settings is optional.
Posting
Emoticons are graphical elements that can be added within the body of a post to add emotions to the post. Common examples are the use of “smilies” within the contents of a post.
When viewing the forums you should see an image button reading Create a New Discussion. Clicking on this image button will take you to a form for posting a message.
You can reply to an existing post using either the Reply or Quote image buttons displayed with the post.
When word filters are enabled certain words that are deemed to be offensive are filtered and replaced with the ‘*’ character.
See How do I add Signature to my Post? in the User Profile and Settings section.
See What is an avatar? And How do I Set my Avatar in the User Profile and Settings section.
Private Messages
A private message is like email within our Forums. You can send a private message to other users within this Forum site that is visible only to them. No private information, such as the user's email address, is ever disclosed.