Help for the TACH Bulletin Boards

TACH Bulletin Board Moderator Help

Your Role

In a TACH moderated chat, the messages submitted by users are not immediately displayed on the live bulletin board. Instead, they go to a special buffer where only you (the moderator) can see them. It is your duty to approve or reject these messages for promotion to public viewing status. Until you approve a message, it will not appear on the bulletin board. Several moderators can manage the same bulletin board, because any given message gets sent to only one moderator--no overlap occurs.

The Screen Layout

The bulletin board screen is divided into three frames. The top frame (this one) allows you to join the conversation by submitting messages for other users to read. The frame on the bottom left-hand side shows you all the messages that have not yet been approved (or rejected) for promotion to the live bulletin board. The frame on the bottom right-hand side lists all the users who have recently contributed to the conversation.

Keeping Track of Submitted Messages

The lower left-hand window displays the messages in your moderator buffer. Beside each message is a checkbox to approve that message for promotion to the live bulletin board. If you want the public to be able to read this message, you must click on the checkbox. If you want to reject this message, don't click the checkbox. Once you've reviewed all the messages in your window, click on the Approve/Reject Messages button. This will post the approved messages to the bulletin board and bring you the next set of new messages.

The moderator version of the bulletin board interface does not have an auto-refresh feature. Therefore, you will not get the latest submissions until you click on the Approve/Reject Messages button.

NOTE: Once you have approved/rejected a message and clicked Approve/Reject Messages, the results are permanent. You cannot remove a message from the live bulletin board, nor can you get back a message that you rejected. Sorry, but maybe this will be implemented in the next version of the software.

To view only a few messages from the moderator buffer at a time, just type the number of messages you'd like to see in the View How Many Messages box.

Sending Messages

As moderator, you have the godlike power to post messages directly to the live bulletin board, without having to approve them. Simply type your pronouncement into the text area at the top of the screen, and click on Post Your Message. Now all the users can read the pithy morsel of wisdom you've sent down from on high.

NOTE: As moderator, the handle on your posted messages will appear as "TACH". This is to avoid giving away the secret password for moderator mode.

If you want others on the bulletin board to access some web page, or if you'd like to include a graphic or sound file, just type in the full address of the page or file you want to point to. For example, 

      http://www.theautochannel.com/images/tacht.gif

Who Else is Here?

The bottom right-hand corner of the screen displays a list of the users who have posted to the bulletin board within the past 20 minutes. To update this list, click on Who's Here. To have it update automatically every 60 seconds, click on the Auto-Refresh checkbox and then hit the Who's Here button. To turn off auto-refreshing, click on the checkbox again and hit Who's Here.