Tahoe-Truckee Issue Forum

The Tahoe-Truckee Issue Forum is intended to highlight topical issues and provide all stakeholders access to relevant information and to community dialogue. Each topic is continued for at least one month.

How to Use the Issue Forum

The Tahoe-Truckee Issue Forum uses a program called HyperNews, version 1.9.2. HyperNews is a software package, developed by the National Center for Supercomputing Activities (NCSA), that allows large numbers of people to participate in web-based conferences. HyperNews lets you read and contribute commentary, and allows you to receive notification as the conference develops.

Please first examine the data, study, or fact sheet prepared by the organization involved in the issue so you can understand the basis for discussion.

Second, please find the right place to post your message. HyperNews assumes that the current article you are displaying is the one being replied to, so first make sure you have the message or base article you want to reply to on the screen. If you are submitting a base article, please do so on the main Tahoe-Truckee Issue Forum page.

What is HyperNews?

HyperNews selectively combines the hypermedia of the World-Wide Web (WWW) and Usenet News or NetNews functionality to support conferencing on the WWW. Readers can browse through the base articles and responses written (each group is called a forum), and add responses to existing base articles and/or other responses. HyperNews then places the message in the appropriate forum.

These messages are laid out in an indented tree format that shows how the messages are related (i.e. all replies to a message are listed under it and indented). Users can become members of HyperNews or subscribe to a forum in order to get e-mail whenever a new message is posted.

Using HyperNews

Each HyperNews conference begins with a "base article", which is followed by a nested list of contributions by conference participants. The buttons at the bottom of the page allow you to: contribute messages and/or replies; set subscription preferences; edit the membership information that others in the conference can see; and get general help with HyperNews. A more detailed description of these buttons is given below.

HyperNews allows conferences to be secured in various ways. For example, the "owner" of a base article might limit access to that article, or the ability to add messages to that article, to a specific set of "members". Each member of a HyperNews conference has a user name and a password and may be required to type these in a dialog box if the HyperNews conference is secured.

• Reading Messages. You do not have to be a member to read messages posted to the discussion topics. A HyperNews "base article" looks like a normal web page except there may be "messages" appended to the end after a "Messages" header, and there are controls to traverse the messages, add new ones, etc.

  New messages are always postioned after older messages in the same discussion. The newest of the new messages have an icon of some kind to draw your attention.

• Navigation. You can use one of several navigation buttons to simplify reading of neighboring messages.

  "Next Message"

  Go to the next message that is replying to the same thing, skipping over any replies to this message. If there is no next message, go to the next message one level up.

  "Previous Message"

  Go to the previous message that is replying to the same thing. If there is no previous message, just go up to the immediate parent.

  "Out (or "Next Thread")

  Go to the next message one level up, skipping replies and following messages at the same level.

  "More (or "Next-in-Thread")

  Go to the first reply, if there is one, or the next message at the same level, or some higher level. Use this to read every message.

• The Add Message button takes you to a page where you can compose a message for the conference. If this is the first button you click, and the conference is secured, you will likely be prompted for your user name and password. To allow HyperNews to develop and accomodate various threads in the discussion, make sure you click on the Add Message button on the page that contains the text to which you want to respond. In other words: if you want to add a message that concerns the base article, click on the Add Message button on the page that contains the text of the base article; if you want to add a reply to a conference participant's message, click on the Add Message button on the page that contains the text of that message.

  When you add a message to a HyperNews conference, you will have several formatting choices. You can choose (using radio buttons):

  • Smart Text (suggested) is the default format. You type in English, and the software adds html tags. URLs are automatically made into links.
  • Plain Text leaves your text just as you typed it.
  • HTML - You include html tags. HyperNews does no reformatting.
  • URL allows you to enter only the URL of a valid, accessible document.

• Submitting your Message. When you are done editing your message, select the Preview Message button. The next page will be your message formatted as it will appear to readers (using your browser at least), with a Submit button at the top. If it looks OK, go ahead and Submit it. If you want to edit your message, use your browser to go back to the previous page, the message form.

• To subscribe, unsubscribe, or inquire about your subscription status for a particular article or message, first display that article or message. Then select the "Subscribe" button at the bottom of the page.

  As a member of a conference, you have the option to be notified of changes to the site by E-Mail. The Subscribe button allows you to set the subscription specifications for your account, or to inquire about the subscription status of other members. If the conference is secured, you may be prompted for your user name and password when you click the Subscription button. When you first join (or are made a member of) a HyperNews conference, your subscription status will be "Not Specified".




• When you become a "member" of a HyperNews site, you will be given certain rights; these rights vary depending on how the site is configured. Although you are not required to become a member in order to write messages, you will probably want to become a member if you visit this site regularly.The Members Button allows you to set your own membership information and read information about another member.

  HyperNews can work as an electronic address-book for the participants and you should include only that information you want to share with other members. When you include your e-mail address and homepage url in the membership information, this information will appear (as links from your address and name) along with the messages that you contribute to the conference. Keep in mind that if you erase your e-mail address from your membership information, HyperNews has no way to notify you of changes to the conference.

• With the Admin button you can edit or remove any messages you have added to the conference. Simply select the messages you want, then click on the Copy/Move/Delete button.
• The Frames mode lets you view several sections of the conference at once. You see the Base Article, the list of Messages, and the current message all at once. In the frames mode it is important to remember the "back in frame" command in the file menu or with a mouse hold-down on the documnent.

• HyperNews Help takes you to a HyperNews help file more detailed than this one.