Forum Help
Welcome to the HousingPolicy.org Forum, a section of HousingPolicy.org and Foreclosure-Response.org! This interactive discussion forum is organized around key policy categories and is a place to pose questions, exchange ideas, and learn from the experience and expertise of others.
You may have noticed that the Forum includes some extra features that are not found on other parts of HousingPolicy.org. This page is designed to help you learn about these features and get the most out of this section of the site. If at any time you have any questions that are not answered by this guide, please feel free to email us with "Forum" in the subject line.
Please click on any of the links below to go to a Help category or skip directly to your question.
Signing Up and Signing In
How do I sign up and add comments?
Why do I have to sign up to add comments?
How can I connect my Forum profile with my other social networking accounts?
Discussions
What are the posting guidelines for the Forum?
What is a discussion thread?
How do I respond to a threaded discussion?
How do I add a new thread?
How do I add an attachment to my reply?
How do I add a link to my reply?
Email Notifications
How do I follow a discussion category?
Can I get emails about all new discussions?
How do I check and/or modify my email settings?
Can I use an RSS reader instead of email?
Forum Groups
What are Forum Groups?
How do I follow a Forum Group?
How do I follow one thread in a Group?
Signing Up and Signing In
How do I sign up and add comments?
You can view posts on the HousingPolicy.org Forum without creating a profile. However, you will need to sign up for the Forum if you want to add comments of your own. To sign up at any time, you can always click on the large orange Sign Up link in the upper right corner of any page. If you are not signed in and try to add a reply, you will also be prompted to Sign Up or Sign In.
Click on the Sign Up button if you have not already created a profile. (Use Sign In to log on if you are already a Forum member.) On the next page you will be asked to enter basic information about yourself.
Click Sign Up when you are done. The next screen will ask for some more detailed information for your profile. (See Why do I have to sign up to add comments? for more on why we ask for this information.) Items that have an asterisk next to them are required, and your answers to those with a lock sign will be kept private.
When you have finished creating your profile click Join. The next screen will display a message that your membership is pending approval. We review all applications to avoid spammers. If you fill out the form during the workday, you should be approved in a minute or two; outside of office hours it may take longer. You will receive an email notification when your application has been approved; however, you can still explore most of the site prior to approval by clicking Continue.
If you were trying to post a reply, you will then be returned to the page you were previously visiting. When your Forum membership has been approved, you can post a reply.
Visit the Email Notifications section of this page to learn more about managing your preferences once you have created a profile.
back to topWhy do I have to sign up to add comments?
The HousingPolicy.org Forum is intended to be a resource for all housing practitioners. In order to maintain quality dialogue and reduce the likelihood of spam, we ask that all users create a brief profile before adding comments. All information in your profile that is marked "private" will be kept confidential. Occasionally, we may send updates alerting you to new content available at HousingPolicy.org - you may opt out of receiving these updates by clicking on the "Unsubscribe" link at the bottom of any email message.
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How can I connect my Forum profile with my other social networking accounts?
After you have joined the HousingPolicy.org Forum, you can connect your account with your Facebook, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn, and/or Yahoo accounts. You can connect these accounts by clicking "Settings" in the options under your name in the upper right. Then click Connections on the left-side menu.
Using the options under Connections, you can link your Forum account with Facebook and Twitter as a method of sharing content that you post to the Forum. You can also connect other accounts (Twitter, Google, LinkedIn, and Yahoo) to make it easier to sign in to the HousingPolicy.org Forum.
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Discussions
What are the posting guidelines for the Forum?
The Forum is intended as a venue for dialogue and information exchange among affordable housing practitioners and policymakers, particularly those focused on the state or local level.
Posts on the Forum should:
- Be relevant to the thread's topic
- Concern matters that would be relevant to policymakers, practitioners, or advocates in the state and local housing community
- Provide/request information or commentary
Posts should not:
- Reproduce information from other sources without providing proper credit and/or a link to the original source
- Advertise or promote specific services or organizations, with exceptions for cases that are clearly geared toward educating or assisting non-profits or governments on a not-for-profit basis in matters related to the discussion thread
For example, members of the Forum are encouraged to share information about upcoming events, workshops, webinars, and opportunities for collaboration or partnerships, but not to advertise their organization's housing developments, consulting services, etc.
Posts that do not comply with these posting guidelines may be removed at the discretion of the Forum's moderators.
What is a discussion thread?
The Forum consists of many discussions called "threads." Each thread addresses a different question or topic, making it easier to follow a specific conversation and reply to other users' questions and responses.
Although discussion threads can be viewed by anyone, you will still need to sign up to for the Forum to add your own reply. When you post a new inquiry on the Forum, you will be creating a new thread, and all responses to your inquiry will be organized under this thread. To avoid duplication, you may want to see if your question has already been addressed in a prior thread. You can search the Forum by using the search box in the upper right corner of the page.
How do I respond to a threaded discussion?
If you want to respond directly to the original post in a thread, click in the text editor under "Reply to This" below the main question. (The text editor only appears if you are signed in to the Forum. See How do I Sign Up and Add Comments? for help.) Press the "Add Reply" button and your response will be added to the conversation! If you reply to the original post that started the thread, your entry will appear at the end of the thread, below previous responses.
You can also reply directly to someone else's response, rather than to the original inquiry. Just click on the "Reply" link that appears directly below the answer you are responding to, and a text editor will appear.
Once you have added your reply, you will notice that it appears at a slight indent, making it easier to follow the conversation.
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How do I add a new thread?
You can create a new discussion thread by clicking +Add a Discussion on the Forum's home page or clicking +Add in the upper right of other Forum pages.
You will be prompted to include a discussion title and content, select a category, and identify any "tags." Tags are just one more way to classify discussions and make it easy for other users to find related posts. For example, if you are writing about a program in New York, consider including a "New York" tag. Clicking on the tag will pull up any other responses that have the same tag.
When you add a new thread, you have the option to click a checkbox to automatically share the post on Facebook or Twitter. (Don't see the Twitter option? Click here to learn how to connect your Twitter and Forum accounts.)
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How do I add an attachment to my reply?
There may be times when you want to attach a PDF, picture, or other file to your reply. To add an attachment, just use the "Browse" button under the text editor box to find the files you want to attach, and they will be accessible to all users when you add your reply.
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How do I add a link to my reply?
If you want to add a link, the first step is to highlight the word or words in your response that you want hyperlinked. Next, click on the word LINK above the text editor.
A pop-up window will appear in which you can enter the link destination. Enter the website, press OK, and you have created a link!
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Email Notifications
How do I follow a discussion category?
If you would like to stay in regular contact with discussions happening around a specific topic, you may want to follow a discussion category on the Forum. This will ensure that you get email notification when new activity occurs.
To follow a discussion category, go to the page of All Discussions by Category and find the category of interest to you. For example, if you are interested in following Inclusionary Zoning discussions, you would click on that category's page.
Go to the bottom of the category's page and click the Follow link to immediately learn of new discussions in this topic.
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Can I get emails about all new discussions?
Just as you can follow a specific discussion category, you can choose to follow all discussions. The page of All Discussions by Category has a Follow link on the bottom. That Follow link allows you to get emails about new discussions no matter what category they fall in.
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How do I check and/or modify my email settings?
To stay up-to-date with new posts, check your email settings to make sure you will be notified of new Forum activity and messages. To check your email notification settings, first click on the "Settings" link in the upper right corner of any page.
Next, from the "My Settings" page, click on the "Email" link in the left column, which will take you to the email settings page. From this page, you will be able to modify all of your email preferences to customize when you receive notifications. At the bottom of the page, you can also click on "None: I don't want to receive emails from HousingPolicy.org Forum" to opt out of receiving any emails.
In addition to the automatic notifications sent by the HousingPolicy.org Forum, members of the Forum receive periodic Forum Digest emails created by the Center for Housing Policy staff. The Forum Digest is a summary of activity on the Forum organized by category. The Forum Digest is generally sent just once per week, so we recommend turning on automatic email notifications to be aware of posts in a more timely fashion.
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Can I use an RSS reader instead of email?
Yes, you are welcome to use an RSS reader to receive update notifications. Just scroll to the bottom of the Forum main page and click on the RSS icon.
back to topForum Groups
Note: The content below applies to private Forum Groups. For help with public discussions, see Discussions above.
What are Forum Groups?
Prior to September 2012, the HousingPolicy.org Forum nested each discussion thread within one of several Forum Groups. These groups added a step to the process of signing up before members could post content. We determined that this process was unnecessarily burdensome and have therefore moved to having a discussion forum with fewer entry barriers. The topic of each former Forum Group is now a category that users can select when posting or reading items in the Forum.
Some Forum Groups still exist as ways to host private forums for working groups whose content is not yet ready for public dissemination. If you are in one of these working groups and need additional guidance on following a Forum Group, the content below may be helpful. You can also email us for additional guidance on joining or using private Forum Groups.
How do I follow a Forum Group?
If you want a notification whenever a new question or thread has been added to a Forum Group that you're a member of, click on the "Follow" link near the top of the page. Once you have decided to follow a Forum Group, you can always click the link again to "Stop Following."
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How do I follow one thread in a Group?
If you are not interested in receiving updates when new threads are added to a Forum Group, but do want to follow a single thread, just click on the "Follow" link at the very bottom of the page. You will receive an email notification when anyone replies to this discussion thread.
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