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About The Arc’s Forums
Welcome to The Arc of Massachusetts' forums.
Our forums are intended to foster and facilitate discussion among our members on matters of concern for people with intellectual impairments and disabilities. Initially, there are only a few forum topics open to the public. Hopefully, as participation grows, we will have a vibrant interactive resource for members to seek out advice and contribute to the general knowledge of the community.
Over time, as the need becomes evident, we will add forums with topics that our members deem desirable. Consider, if you will, the accumulated knowledge that these forums could contain after only a year of lively discussion on topics pertinent to our cause and your needs.
The best thing about this form of knowledge sharing is that people can search for not only facts, but also insights, philosophy, case studies, life experiences, etc.
FORUMS, TOPICS AND SUBSCRIPTIONS
Each forum has a Forum Heading that identifies the classification of Topics found thereunder. Forums can be open to the public, or restricted to Registered Arc members and further restricted to certain classes of Arc members. You need to determine for yourself which Forums are open to you. Please contact us if you wish to participate in a Forum to which you are currently prohibited.
If granted access to a Forum, a participant may start a Topic in a Forum and subscribe to the Topic, or alternatively subscribe to the Forum. If you subscribe to a Topic in a Forum, you will receive an email each time anyone posts to the Topic. If you subscribe to a Forum, you will receive an email each time a post is made to any Topic in the Forum. You must be a Registered user with The Arc to subscribe because the email in your account is used to send your subscription notices.
You may subscribe to a Forum, or Topic within a Forum, without ever making a post to a Forum or Topic yourself, but we encourage you to feel welcome to contribute.
POSTING
A participant in a Forum starts contributing to the Forum by entering some “discussion text” into a Topic that already exists or one that the participant chooses to start. This is called a Post to a Topic in a Forum. All of the posts to a specific Topic are called the “Discussion Thread,” which you follow in chronological succession to get a stream-of-thought. It can be very interesting, or even exciting, to see how a collaboration can evolve from a little idea kernel into a full-blown campaign for change. It happens!
FINDING YOUR WAY AROUND
This Forum software is used by thousands of websites and millions of people around the world. So it has been through many trials of user acceptance testing. However, if you are not familiar with online forum usage, you may be slightly intimidated at first. If you feel this way, we suggest you browse around the Forums and click the link buttons to see their purpose. You can do no harm. Eventually, a topic will motivate you to want to jump in.
FORUM ETIQUETTE
Obviously we want to encourage participation in our Forums. We ask, however, that you maintain a professional tone in your posts at all times. The forums should not be used for socializing because it can cause clutter that impedes the usefulness of the Forums. Exchanging simple "pleasantries" is welcome. All posts to a Forum should be on a Topic appropriate for the Forum. This enhances the knowledge searching capabilities in the Forum. Please contact us if you want to start Topics that are not appropriate for the Forums we currently have set up. We can then decide to create a new Forum, if warranted.
How Do I Register?
In order to Post and Subscribe to certain Forums, including our Shout Out forum on needs and resources, you need to Register with The Arc of Massachusetts. Registration is free and does not obligate you to anything. You will find a link to Register at the top right-hand corner of each page on this website, just to the left of the current date. (Or, you can click here to Register.) After you register the link is changed to your name when you are logged on. If desired, you may then change your registration information by clicking on your name.
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