Guide to Townhall

Get an account

Anyone may get an account on Townhall. To get an account you simply go to Townhall in your Web browser and when you are prompted to log in you click on the register button. You will then be asked to enter a log in name, a password, and your e-mail address. Once you have entered your information you press the register button again and you should receive a message saying "Registration Complete."

If you have a Mason account then you must register using your Mason (OSF/1) log in name. All GMU students and employees have a Mason account (whether they use it or not).  For example, if your username is jsmith5 on Mason, enter jsmith5 as your Townhall username. Note that there is no real connection between your Mason account and your Townhall account. Changing your password on one account (or doing anything to one account for that matter) will not affect the other. Registering using your Mason log in name just makes it easy for the system administrators to give you proper access to the server and guarantees that log in names will be unique even if everyone at the university suddenly decides to start using Townhall.

If you are are not a GMU student or employee you may have an account if you are participating in discussions at the invitation of GMU faculty. You must register using an acronym for your institution followed by an underscore, your first initial, and your last name. For example, if you are Mark Bickenstaff from James Madison register as JMU_mbickenstaff.  If you are Roland Brown from George Washington University register as GWU_rbrown.

If you attempt to register using one of the methods described above and you receive a message saying "That user name is already taken, please try a different one," or any other error message, send an e-mail to townhall@gmu.edu.   If you register without following one of the above methods your account may be deleted without notification.

You can access the Townhall server without logging into your account by clicking the guest button when prompted to log in. You can then browse through the discussion forums as a guest. You will only be able to see the discussion forums which have been configured to allow guest access. If you have an account on Townhall there is really no reason to log on as a guest but you can inform others who may wish to take a look around Townhall without or before registering of this "Guest Access" feature.

If you have not done so already, take a look at the Introduction to Using Townhall. If you are a faculty member interested in creating forums for use in supporting your courses or research you need to read Hosting a Discussion Forum on Townhall.

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for ways in which to use Web Crossing on Townhall please send an e-mail to townhall@gmu.edu.

Introduction to Townhall

The term discussion forum is used extensively throughout this document to mean an area of Townhall set aside for a particular purpose such as supporting a specific class (e.g. CS 330 Section 001). A discussion forum may be composed of many folders, discussions, links, and chats all contained within a single "top-level" folder. For example, the CS 330 Section 001 class mentioned above would have a folder called "CS330-001" which might contain the folders "Course Readings," "Homework Discussions," and "Project Discussions," as well as some discussions and a real-time chat. Collectively all of these items would be referred to as the CS 330 Section 001 discussion forum.

Discussion forums on Web Crossing are built from four basic components:

	Folders	Folders are simply containers which hold other folders, discussions, links, or chats. They exist solely for organizational purposes, like folders (directories) on your hard disk.
	Discussions	A discussion is a collection of posted (asynchronous) messages. When you click on a discussion you will be taken to the discussion's page where you will see the title of the discussion, a description of the discussion (if one was provided), and all of the messages in the discussion listed one right after the other. Each message will have the name of the individual who posted the message, when they posted it, a subject for the message, and the body text of the message. Note that this is a linear structure, not threaded like you may be used to if you have worked with Usenet newsgroups. A discussion will usually try to focus on one particular topic, if major new threads of conversation come up then new discussions should be created for them.
	Links	A link is simply a hypertext link to another Web page. That page could be somewhere else within Townhall or anywhere else on the World Wide Web. Links are most often used to provide connections to content which may be appropriate to a particular discussion forum but which is not housed on the Townhall server (e.g. a course home page on Mason).
	Chats	A chat is a real-time (synchronous) chat room where you can converse with other people who are in the same chat room at the same time. To participate in a chat you must have a Java enabled Web browser such as the latest version of Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator/Communicator, or Sun's HotJava.

User Access Levels

Wherever you are in Townhall there will be buttons near the bottom of the page that tell you what you can do. Remember that you may have different levels of access at different places in Townhall and therefore you may see different buttons.  Sometimes you'll only be able to read discussions, sometimes you'll be able to post to them.  The buttons will tell you what you can do.  If you don't see a button for it, you can't do it.  If you feel you should be able to do something (e.g. post a message) but find you are unable to (i.e. you don't see a button to post a message) then usually the problem is that the host(s), the person(s) who run the discussion forum, didn't give you the correct level of access.  This usually is just an oversight on the part of the host and if you mention it to them they will be able to fix it.  Please do not contact the system operators of Townhall until after you have checked with the host (usually the instructor for the course) of the discussion forum you are having problems with.

There are five levels of access you might have to any particular folder or discussion on Townhall.  Remember that your level of access might be different depending on where you are:

What the Buttons Do

A typical user will see the following buttons when they are in a discussion forum they are a participant in.  Note that you may not see all of the "Add" buttons, depending on how the host set things up:

A brief description of each button:

	This will display the first message you haven't read in any folders or discussions you are subscribed to.  After reading that message, clicking the button again will show you the next unread message and so on and so on.  See the description of the Subscribe button below for more information.
	If you are in a folder or discussion you haven't subscribed to clicking this button will add it to your subscription list.  Subscribing to a folder subscribes you to everything beneath it (all of its subfolders and discussions) as well.  Once you have subscribed to one or more folders or discussions you can check for new messages in those folders or discussions each time you log on by using the Check Messages button described above.  In a folder or discussion you are already subscribed to this button will read Cancel Subscripts and clicking it will cancel your subscription to that folder or discussion and all of its subfolders and discussions.
	Clicking this button creates a new discussion in the current folder. Enter a title for the discussion and a description if you wish.  You can edit or delete the discussion until the first message is posted to it.  At that point only the host(s) or sysop can delete or edit it.
	Use this button to create a hypertext link to another place on the Web.  It can link to someplace else in Townhall or anyplace on the Web.  You supply a title for the link, the URL to link to, and an optional description.
	This creates a new folder for holding (organizing) other folders and/or discussions.   You supply a name for the folder and an optional description.  A host has several additional options available when creating a folder. Read Hosting a Discussion Forum on Townhall for more information.
	Clicking this button takes you to your preference page where you can change your name and password, view your subscription list, add your picture, and set other options relating to how Web Crossing presents information to you.  You should look through this page to see what's there.
	This will send an e-mail to the sysops of Townhall.  Please ask your instructor or the host(s) of the discussion forum(s) you are having trouble with for help before e-mailing the sysops.

Using HTML in Postings (Formatted Postings)

Any place you have a text box you can type in on Townhall you can use HTML.  HTML is the language for creating Web pages and it is what you have to use if you wish to post messages to Townhall and have them retain their formatting (i.e. paragraphs, tables, bold, underline, etc.).  You can use it in message postings, folder and discussion descriptions, and anyplace else you see a text box like this:

(This is just a picture of a text box.  You can't type in it.)

You have two options for using HTML in your Townhall postings: you can do it by hand, typing the HTML codes directly into the text box -- or you can use some sort of tool to create the HTML, and then cut and paste it into the text box. 

Hosting a Discussion

All you need to know to be a host is a little bit more about setting up discussion forums and restricting what the users can do in them. Each user has an access level for each folder or discussion on Townhall.  That access level defines what the user is allowed to do in that folder or discussion.  As a host, you have one or more folders set aside for you somewhere on Townhall that you have complete control over.   You can create subfolders, discussions, links, and chats to your hearts content inside your folder.  Once you have created some content for your folder, you will want to decide who can see it, and what they can do in your folders and discussions.   This is controlled using Access Lists.  Each folder and discussion can have its own Access List.  If an Access List has not been explicitly created for a folder or discussion then it uses the Access List of the folder it is inside of (that folder may use the Access List of the folder it is inside of, and so on until a folder with a defined Access List is reached).  Before we go any further, here is what an Access List looks like (note that this is just a picture of an Access List so you can't do anything with it).  As you can see, there is a list of users, each user has a radio button selected to indicate their access level.  Below that, there are some buttons for updating and viewing Groups (which we'll talk about in a bit), and finally, there is a text box where you can add users to the Access List.  Let's look at each piece in a bit more detail:

The first thing you see on an Access List is the list of users who are already on the Access List (see picture above).  Each user's name is listed and you can see their access level defined by the radio button that is selected to the right of their name.   A user can be removed from the Access List by unchecking the box next to their name.  You can change a user's access level by selecting a different radio button to the right of their name.  By far the most important settings here are the access level for "Other registered users" and "Guest users."  Any user who is not explicitly on the Access List falls into one of those two categories.   Anybody who has an account on Townhall falls into the "Other registered users" category, and anyone who logged onto Townhall by clicking on the guest access button falls into the "Guest users" category.  Some hosts decide to leave their discussion forums open to participation for anyone with a Townhall account.  In that case, the Access List has only one user (the host) explicitly listed, and the access level for "Other registered users" is set to "Participant."  In general, try to keep things as simple as possible with Access Lists.  Ask yourself the following questions when setting up your Access Lists:

1. Do I want to restrict my discussion forum to a particular group of people (e.g. the students in a particular class), or is it okay for anyone to participate?
2. Do I want to have different Access List settings for different parts of my discussion forum? (e.g. You could have some folders in which students could particpate in discussions, another folder where they couldn't, you could break your class into groups of users and have each group have different access to different folders and discussions...)

If you design the structure of your folders carefully you can usually achieve even a complex Access List setup with minimal effort.  Remember that if a host hasn't explicitly defined an Access List for a folder or discussion then it inherits the Access List of the folder it is inside of.  When you click on the access list button in a folder or discussion that doesn't have one defined you'll get the following message:

If you want to give the folder or discussion its own Access List then click on the "Create Access List" button and you'll be taken to a blank Access List.  The first thing you should always do when you create a new Access List is add yourself as the host!  If you forget to add yourself as the host you may end up in a wierd situation where you can't get back into the folder or discussion to change its Access List.  If you ever lock yourself out of a folder or discussion or you think you've really screwed up the Access List then send an e-mail to townhall@gmu.edu.  Once you have modified the list you click on the "Update" button.  The "Clear" button clears all users from the Access List.  The "The "Cancel" button cancels the changes you made.With that in mind let's take a look at how you add new users to an Access List.

To add new users to the Access List you just have to type their usernames into the text box, only one username per line, and then click on the "Add Users" button.   Note that while you can type as many names as you want in the text box, you can only add one type of user at a time (i.e. you could add 3 hosts, or 15 participants, or 7 read-only users).  The type of user you are adding is selected by choosing one of the radio buttons above the text box.