Your Talk City Room comes with a message board that gives you complete control over how threads are organized. This page will help you organize discussions in a way that makes sense for your board.

Creating Folders

Folders help organize the discussions in your message board. You can have up to 16 folders and separately control access for each one. To add a folder, go to Controls, Manage Folders, and simply replace the *Add New Folder Here* text with your new folder's name (up to 30 characters). Be sure to click the confirmation box, then submit. Need more than 16 folders? Sorry, there are a maximum of 16 folders allowed.

Changing Folder Names - You can change the name of any existing folder. However, this should be done with caution, since any messages in those folders were posted based on the original folder names. You might end up with chicken recipes in your politics folder.

Deleting Folders - The most commonly asked question about folders is how to delete them. Folders cannot be deleted, but you can change the access to them so no one can see them, including you! To make a folder seem to disappear from your forum, go to Controls, Manage Folders, and change the access to "No Members."

Granting Access to Folders

You can control the access to both your forum, and to the individual folders in your forum. You can make a folder read only, reply only, or completely private. Remember to give yourself access to any private folders. Use Set Privileges, or the Options link on the message board to give access to any restricted folders. You'll need to log out of Talk City and back in again to see any changes, and may need to clear your cache.

To make a folder private - Create the folder, give yourself, and any other members you wish access. Remember though, that if you change the access to a folder, all members that had access to the folder before, will retain access until they've logged out of Talk City. Make sure you're viewing the board in Advanced View, as well, or you won't see the folder. Basic View won't show folders with no new or unread messages.

Folder Read Access

  • All Members - the default, make folder available to all members of your Forum.
  • Some Members - make a folder available to only certain members of your forum. (Use 'Set Privileges' to grant or take away access).
  • No Members - make a folder totally invisible on your message board


Folder Post Access

  • Full - All Members (but not Guests) can start discussions or reply to discussions in that folder.
  • Reply-Only - All Members (but not Guests) can reply to discussions. Only Hosts can start discussions.
  • Read-Only - Only Hosts can start or reply to discussions in that folder.
  • Post-Only - All Members (but not Guests) can start discussions. Only Hosts can reply.

Moderation - Determines which new posts, if any, should be directed to the moderation queue instead of posting directly to the message board, forum-wide, or on a per folder basis.

  • Default - These folders will behave as you have selected in the radio button control entitled "Moderation" on the Change Folder Access page. This is typicaly the only setting you need.
  • None - All posts to this folder are immediately sent to the message board.
  • All - All posts to this folder are directed to the moderation queue.
  • Filtered Words - Only objectionable messages will be sent to the moderation queue. Word Filtering must be set to Filter Words.

Folder Display Order

On Talk City, you can fix the display order of your folders. You can determine which folder(s) your members will see first when they enter the forum. You might want to have forum announcements always at the top, followed more general interest folders. All folders with the same Display Order will be ordered according to which ones contain the newer posts. Go to Manage Folders in your Control Center and set the first folder you want seen with a value of "1st". The next folder gets a "2nd", and so on. If you want some folders to display according to which ones have the newest posts, mark all those with the same number. If you don't want to have fixed display order folders, leave them all set to "1st".

Expanding The Folders

To open a folder, click on the plus sign (+) on the folder title bar. This will display the 50 most recent discussions in the folder. To see the next 50 discussions, scroll all the way to the bottom of the folder listing, and look for the "Next 50" link.

Do your folders appear empty? That means all the messages have been read, there are only older messages in the thread, or that the person viewing the folder is a Basic member. Start new discussions in each folder frequently, or revive older ones, so new members will see that you have active discussions in each subject. To bring a particular discussion or folder to your members' attention, post to the discussion again to make it show new. You may wish to encourage your members to browse through older messages for specific information.

Still can't see your folder?

If you've set up a new folder, and still can't see it, try the following tips:

  • Check to see if you're in Basic View. The folder may be hidden, if there are no recent posts.
  • Confirm that you've given yourself access. Are any of these "missing" folders set to Some Members for access? If so, have you remembered to add your own membername to them via Set Privileges?
  • Clear your browser cache and use the Logout link to leave Talk City, then log back in again.
  • Confirm that the folder confirmation went through. Make sure you confirm your folder changes by marking the confirmation box, then click 'Submit'.