SharePoint 2007: The Definitive Guide

Participating in a Discussion

Now that you've created your board, customized it, and added a welcome message, it's ready to host discussions. The following sections describe how board members can create a new discussion thread, post a reply in a thread, edit their submissions, and more.

Starting a Discussion Thread

In the "Introduction" section of this chapter, some examples of discussion boards were presented that would be appropriate for a team of software developers. The example groups were Applications, Languages, and Libraries (API). Let's say the three boards were created and one of the developers wants to start a discussion having to do with the Perl language in the Languages board. Here's how the developer would proceed:

1. Launch the discussion board, either from Quick Launch or from the View All Site Content page.

2. Click New and select Discussion from the list.

3. When the text editor opens, type a title for your discussion in the Subject field, such as "Core Perl Documentation Update."

4. Type whatever message you want in the text area.

   Tip

   See the "Using the Discussion Board Rich Text Editor" section, later in this chapter, for formatting options.

5. Click OK to post your new discussion thread to the board, as shown in Figure 11-16.

Replying to a Discussion Thread

Naturally, the software developer who posted the announcement about the update to the Core Perl Documentation will be expecting responses or questions regarding the message. Here's how another developer would reply:

1. Launch the discussion ...