We hope that you find the time you spend in IBPSA-England Talk to be useful and informative. To ensure that everyone has the best possible experience, we've established a few guidelines. Please take a moment to read them, and thank you for participating in a IBPSA-England Online Community.
Expectations of service
IBPSA-England's Role: IBPSA-England does not offer formal support for the communities you'll find here. Instead, our role is to provide a platform for people who want to take advantage of the global community of building simulation users and developers. IBPSA-England may monitor content to ensure the accuracy of the information you'll find, but any information provided by IBPSA-England staff is offered "AS IS" with no warranties, and no rights are conferred. You assume all risk for your use.
IBPSA-England MVPs: IBPSA-England MVPs (Most Valuable Professionals) volunteer technical answers and expertise in IBPSA-England Talk. IBPSA-England MVPs come from a wide range of backgrounds and professions. All share a willingness to give their time, expertise, and advice to enhance the technical skills of others. Note that IBPSA-England MVPs are volunteers and therefore have no expectations of MVPs beyond the expectations of courtesy and professionalism. IBPSA-England MVPs will present their view regularly in the FAQ section.
Rules of conduct
Appropriate Language: The purpose of IBPSA-England Talk is to exchange technical information and expertise about building simulation. Please avoid personal attacks, slurs, and profanity in your interactions.
Relevance to Topics: Please make sure that your postings in discussion groups and chats are relevant to the subject at hand. It is normal for some topics to drift from the stated subject. However, to ensure maximum benefit for everyone, we encourage you to keep your postings as close to the subject as possible. Advertising/Solicitation: The IBPSA-England Talk was created as a forum for providing peer-to-peer assistance on building simulation. We ask that you refrain from posting advertisements or solicitations that do not pertain directly to the intended use and purpose of the discussion group. Confidentiality: Please keep in mind that IBPSA-England Talk is public space, so don't post anything that you don't want the world to see. Credit card numbers, product keys, and other confidential information should not be posted to a discussion group.
Also useful: FAQs about this forum (will be updated occasionally)
Account You can display and edit your own user profile under the Account page tab. This page also allows you to change your forum preferences, choose other display styles, etc. Your user profile is visible to other members of your forum. All other aspects of your account are visible online only to the forum administrator and yourself.
Administrator Each forum has at least one administrator. They have super-rights (permissions) to approve new members, assign user roles, inspect every comment in a forum (including whispers), edit comments, delete discussions, etc. (An administrator may share some of their rights with other members.)
Category Each discussion must be assigned to a category when first started. Vanilla comes with a few default categories. Administrators may create new categories or delete existing categories. A deleted category must have a replacement category. Comments from the deleted category are moved automatically to the replacement category.
Closed Discussions An administrator can end discussions. No further comments can be added to a closed discussion, unless an administrator gives that right to a specific user role. A closed discussion is flagged by the label 'Closed' in the main discussion list. Closed discussions can be read normally or re-opened for more comments by an administrator.
Comments Each entry posted by a user - to start a discussion or reply within a discussion - is termed a 'comment'.
Discussion Each discussion contains a date-sequenced series of comments on a single topic. Comments are displayed beginning with the most recent one published. Members may start a discussion with the 'Start a new discussion' link. Other forum software often refers to a discussion as a 'thread' or 'topic'.
Forum IBPSA England TALK is a forum. A forum can support a very large number (thousands) of discussions. Forums are structured by categories and discussions within each category.
Guests By default, only registered users (members) are permitted to view a forum or post comments to it. An administrator can allow guests to view some or all of the discussions on a forum.
Members Applicants who have been approved for membership in a forum by an administrator are reassigned from the Applicant role to the role of Member. Forum users are often referred to as forum members.
Roles Each forum user is assigned to a unique role by its administrator. Your role defines the 'permissions' you have been given to carry out various functions. For instance, you might be given permission to delete discussions ... or not; to make a discussion sticky ... or not. Contact your administrator with any specific questions.
Search You may search for discussions and comments by the discussion title (topic) or the text within the comments of discussions under the Search page tab. Enter one or more keywords to narrow the search. Search results are displayed as a list with a link to the discussion found. You may also search by 'users' (member names). These searches lead to a member's user profile.
Sign In/Sign Out By default, all Vanilla forums are private to members. As a member, you must sign-in each time you visit a forum. You will probably only need to sign-out if you are using a computer in a public space shared with other users.
Sink Discussions Discussions are listed, by default, with the most recently updated discussions at the top of the page. Some forum roles may be assigned the right to 'sink' a discussion. A sinked discussion can be updated with new comments, but updates will not return the discussion to the top of the page. Instead, the discussion will 'sink' (display lower on the page) over time as other non-sinked discussions are updated.
Sticky Discussions An administrator can define a discussion as 'sticky'. Sticky discussions are always displayed at the top of the Discussions page. Stickiness can be switched on-or-off as needed.
User Profile Your profile contains personal information about yourself - your username, when you became a member, the number of your contributions to the forum, etc. This is visible to other forum users. You may optionally allow your email account to be public.