How to read messages in the BBS

Before learning how to read the messages, a couple of points need to be made about how messages are organized. Messages are grouped into what we call 'conferences', this is so that discussions are kept in the same general area, rather than have total chaos. Each message is recorded with its author (the person who wrote it) and its addressee (the person it was written to). Two special addressees exist in the system, ALL, meaning that this is a general message that is not aimed at anyone in particular, and SYSOP, the SYStem OPerator. Messages are also 'linked' together, in other words the system keeps track of which messages are replies to which. You will learn how to use this later in this document.

In each conference, the system keeps track of how far you have read the messages, in order that it may automatically give you new messages that have arrived since last time you were on the system.

1. Joining conferences

Before starting to discuss how to read messages in conferences, it will help if you know a little bit about how the conferences work, and how you join them.

The system remembers which conferences you are a member of and will only report conference status for these. To become a member of a conference you use the JOIN command from any of the system prompts. If you know the name of the conference then you can type 'JOIN xxxxx', where xxxxx is the name of the conference, otherwise just type 'JOIN' and the system will tell you what is available. Note that you do not have to type this in full, a single 'J' is enough, and you only have to type enough of the conference name to ensure that there is no confusion about which one you mean. For example, to join the 'Borland' conference on a system where this is the only conference that has a name starting with B, type 'J B'.

There are a couple of special conference types you should know about. The first kind is a 'mail' conference. This type of conference is intended for private mail from one user to another or between the SYSOP and users. Any message in this kind of conference is automatically made 'private'. This means that only the person who wrote the message and the person it is addressed to will be able to read it (also the SYSOP, who can always read any message on the system).

Another kind of conference is a 'READ ONLY' conference. You will be informed of this when you join the conference, and this simply means that you will not be allowed to enter messages there. This may either be because the SYSOP does not want any new messages in that conference, or because only a certain group of users are allowed to enter messages.

The last kind of conference is a 'private' conference. You will not be allowed to join this one at all, unless you are given permission to do so by the SYSOP. If the conference looks interesting then send a private message (in a 'mail' conference!) to the SYSOP asking for access.

It is extremely important that you become a member of exactly those conferences you wish to follow, as the system will do quite a lot of work for you once you are registered in the 'right places'. So take the time to look through what is available, and use the JOIN command to get yourself into the interesting ones. If you find yourself a member of a conference that you do not wish to be a part of, note that you can use the RESIGN command to remove yourself from the list of participants.

2. Reading messages

Right. You are registered in the conferences you are interested in and would like to start reading the messages that are there. You will by now probably be at the read prompt already (the Join command automatically sets you in read mode); if not then use the 'R' command to get there. You can tell that you are in read mode from the prompt, which will say 'Read Command:'. To read the first message that is available for you, press the Enter key without entering a command, and the system will respond by showing you the message. Press Enter one more time and the next message will be shown. It's as easy as that.

If you carry on pressing Enter long enough the system will sooner or later get to the last message that has been entered in the conference. Pressing Enter one more time will do something slightly different now. In that there are no more messages to read in the conference you are in, the system will scan through all of the conferences you are registered in and find the first one with messages you have not yet read. You will automatically be taken to that conference and can continue reading as before, by pressing enter for each new message.

If you do not want to read all the new messages in one particular conference immediately, you can use the JOIN command to switch to another conference at any time; in this case the system will remember how far you got in the first conference ready for next time you go back there.

If in addition you do NOT wish to read any of the new messages AT ALL, then you must 'fool' the system into thinking you have read them all. This is easy to do; when you joined the conference the system informed you of the highest message number in the conference (if you don't remember what that was then just do a new Join to the conference you are already in, for example 'J M' to join the main board). Instead of skipping to the next conference directly, what you do now is to read that very last message by typing in its number and pressing enter. NOW skip to the next conference with the Join command. The system will remember that you have read that last message and will therefore assume that you don't want to read all those that came before it.

3. Entering a message

This is simple. Just use the enter message command (E) while you are in the conference that you wish the message to be recorded in. You will be asked who the message is for (just press Enter if you don't have anyone particular in mind, or type the name of the person the message is to). Afterwards you will be asked for a short title for the message and from there on you will be in the message editor, which is described elsewhere.

3. Replying to a message

If, while reading messages, you see a message that you would like to comment on, you can use the reply command (RE) to add your own message to the conference. The RE command works just like the enter command except that you don't have to provide the name of the user the message is for or a title; these are taken from the original message. The RE command works on the last message you read, in other words you must read the message first. If you know the number of the message you want to reply to and don't want to read it again then just say 'RE nnn' where nnn is the number of the message you want to reply to.

4. The message header

Before going on to more advanced topics, let's spend just a few seconds looking at a typical message to find out what the various pieces actually mean.

Main board message #123 from SYSOP to JOHN SMITH (read). Entered on September 15, 1987 at 19:43, 2 lines. Reply to msg # 111. (More replies have been made.) There are replies to this message.

Subject: Your access level

I have given you access to the VIP conference. -sysop-

Let's just see what this tells us. The first line shows which conference the message is in (useful if you have dumped messages to your local computer) and the number of the message. Also who the message is from and who it is for. The comment (read) means that the person the message is for has read the message.

The second line tells us when the message was actually entered, and how many lines of text there are in it. The third is quite interesting, it tells us that this message was entered as a reply to message number 111, and that there are more replies to that message on the system. The fourth line tells us in addition that someone has made a reply to THIS message.

5. Marking messages (simple)

Now you are able to read messages, put in your own messages, and reply to other messages, we can start getting a little bit more advanced. The problem you will most likely encounter first is that you see a message that you would like to comment on but notice that there are already replies that have been made to that message. You would like to have read these before making your own reply, so that you are sure that you are not saying something that already has been said by another user. This is where the MARK command comes in. When you see a message like this, type M to tell the system to remember the message. When you have got to the last new message the system will come back to this one and show it to you again, at which point you can decide whether or not you want to reply.

The simplest way of thinking of this is to imagine that the system has a box of reference cards for the messages in the conference. When you join a conference the system extracts those cards that correspond to messages you have not read. As you read the messages they are put back into the box and the card on top of the heap is used. What you are doing with the mark command is in effect telling the system NOT to put that one in the box, but instead to put it at the bottom of the pile of cards it is reading. You can do this for several messages while reading new ones.