Main Settings

This is where you manage the basic settings for your forum.

This is where you can change the name of your forum. The forum name appears at the top of the screen when viewing your forum, and also appears in the Delphi Forums index and search results. To change the forum name, just enter the new name you want, scroll down to the bottom of the page, and click the Submit button.

By default the navigation controls and labels in your forum will appear in U.S. English. If you would like that text to appear in a different language, you can select it here. Simply select the language you would like from the drop-down menu, then scroll down to the bottom of the page, and click the Submit button.

By default, people can attach files to messages posted in your message board. If you wish to turn off that option, you may do so here. Use the radio buttons to select the option you prefer, then scroll down to the bottom of the page, and click the Submit button.

By default, those that post messages on your message board can edit their messages after they are posted. This is a helpful tool for cleaning up typos and spelling errors, and all edits are noted in an audit trail at the bottom of the message. But if you prefer to turn off that option, you may do so here. Use the radio buttons to select the option you prefer, then scroll down to the bottom of the page, and click the Submit button.

With Guest Access enabled, it is not necessary to log in to view messages in your message board (private folders would still require login and folder access). Guest Access is enabled by default so that people can learn about your forum before they decide whether they want to create a Delphi Forums account. Guest Access is strongly recommended, but if you wish to disable it, you may do so here. Use the radio buttons to select the option you prefer, then scroll down to the bottom of the page, and click the Submit button. Note that turning this option off is no guarantee of privacy, as anyone can create an account to view your forum.

Polls are online surveys that appear as the first message in a discussion thread. There are three options for this feature: Allow any member to create polls, limit poll creation to authorized forum staff, or disable polls entirely. Enabling this feature allows people to create polls within the message board. You can limit the creation of polls to hosts only, open it to all members, or disable the feature entirely. Use the radio buttons to select the option you prefer, then scroll down to the bottom of the page, and click the Submit button.

This option allows members to post messages with custom fonts, colors and links using our message formatting editor or HTML code. If you turn this option off, the message formatting editor will not appear and users will only be able to post with plain text. Use the radio buttons to select the option you prefer, then scroll down to the bottom of the page, and click the Submit button.

Use this option to prevent new members from posting in your forum or participating in chat before they've been registered users for a specified length of time. This option is useful if you have troublemakers creating new accounts to enter your forum. Enter the number of hours you want to require new members to wait before posting, then scroll down to the bottom of the page, and click the Submit button.

If you've created a webpage for your forum, you can add a tab at the top of your forum that links to it. Enter your webpage address starting with "http://" then scroll down to the bottom of the page, and click the Submit button.

If you wish to permanently close your forum, use this option. Note that this process is not reversible. Once you close your forum, it's closed for good. Click on the link to access the forum closure controls, select the Closed radio button at the bottom of the page, check the Confirm box and click the Change button.

If you opt to make your forum private, only those you authorize will be able to gain entry. Use the radio buttons to select the option you prefer, then scroll down to the bottom of the page, and click the Submit button. If you opt to make your forum private, you can allow access by creating a special password called the Group Registration Code, or grant access to individuals using the Invite Friends tool in the Forum Promotion section of the Control Center.

Advanced Settings

This is where you manage Message & Discussion Ratings and Community Moderation.

This option allows users to rate messages in your message boards. The ratings will appear as a row of stars at the bottom of each message. Use the radio buttons to select the option you prefer, then scroll down to the bottom of the page, and click the Submit button.

When this option is enabled, users can alert you to inappropriate content in your message board. Users will see a Report Violations option in the Options drop-down menu that appears at the bottom-left of all messages. Selecting that option will display a form users can use to alert you to the message in question. Use the radio buttons to select the option you prefer, then scroll down to the bottom of the page, and click the Submit button.

This option allows you to customize what appears at the top of the Report Violations form that users see when selecting that option from the Options rollover menu on each message. Edit the text and HTML code as you see fit, then scroll down to the bottom of the page, and click the Submit button.

This option allows you to specify which email addresses will receive violation reports (note that these reports will go only to the addresses entered, and not to Delphi Forums staff). Enter the email addresses you wish to specify, then scroll down to the bottom of the page, and click the Submit button.

Forum Ownership*

This option allows you to transfer ownership of your forum to another Delphi Forums member. The new host must be on your friends list (which you manage through your member profile), or must have recently visited the forum. If you transfer ownership of the forum, you will lose your (W) Wizard flag and all other privileges in the forum and it will no longer appear in the My Forums section of your My Forums page (it will appear in the Favorite Forums section). If you wish to proceed and turn your forum over to another member, select that member from one of the drop-down menus, click the Confirm box, and click the Submit button. If the incoming host does not appear in one of the drop-down menus, have him or her visit the forum, or use the Set Privileges page to find the member and designate him or her as a friend.

Manage Folders

This page allows you to create and manage up to 16 folders for your message board. These are several settings available for each folder. After you have selected the desired settings, click the Submit button. Note that once you create a folder, you cannot delete it (though you may rename it and change access to it).

This is where you can set or change the name of the folder.

This is where you can set whether All Members, Some Members or No Members can view messages in the folder. When All Members is selected, anybody who can enter the forum can view messages in the folder. When Some Members is selected, only those members you designate can access the folder. Use the Set Privileges page to grant access to this folder. Selecting No Members hides the folder from everyone, including you.

This is where you can control what messages are posted in a folder. There are three options: Full, Reply Only, Read Only and Post Only. Full means anybody who is logged in can start or reply to discussions. Reply-Only means anybody who is logged in can reply to discussions, but only hosts can start a new discussion. Read-Only means only hosts can start or reply to discussions. Post Only means anybody who is logged in can start discussions, but only hosts can reply.

This is where you can set which, if any, messages will be held for review. The options are Forum Default, None, and All. Forum Default means the setting in the Forum Moderation controls applies to the folder. None means no messages will be held for review, regardless of the default setting for the forum. All means all messages will be held for review, regardless of the default setting for the forum.

This setting allows you to specify the order that folders are presented on the discussion listing page. All folders with the same Display Order will be ordered according to which ones contain the newer posts.

Forum Moderation

This page allows you to control which messages, if any, will be held for review before appearing in the message board. When a message is held, you can review it on this page and decide whether or not it will appear on your message board.

There are three options on this page: All messages will be moderated, No messages will be moderated, and Only objectionable messages will be moderated. The All messages will be moderated setting means that every message that is posted in your message board will appear on this page for review before appearing in your message board. If you have used the Set Privileges controls to grant (V) Voice flags, messages from members with that flag will bypass the review process. The No messages will be moderated setting means that messages will appear in your message board as soon as they are posted. If you have used the Set Privileges controls to assign (P) Probation flags, messages from members with that flag will appear on this page for review even if you've selected this setting. The Only objectionable messages will be moderated setting is used in conjunction with Word Filtering. Select the option you wish to use and click the Submit button.

This section of the page is where you'll find messages held for review. There are four options for messages held for review: Approve, Deny, Hold, and Grant Voice. Selecting Approve will release the message from the moderation queue and it will appear in the message board. Deny deletes the message and it will not appear in the message board. Hold retains the message in the moderation queue. Grant Voice will release the message from the moderation queue for publication in the message board, and the poster will receive a (V) Voice flag in the forum, bypassing moderation for all future posts. You still must approve all of his or her posts currently awaiting approval. If you wish to revoke the poster's V flag, you may do so using the Set Privileges section of the Control Center.

Word Filtering

This feature allows you to restrict certain language you want to bar from your message board.

There are three settings: Disabled, Filter Words, and Force revision. When the Disabled option is selected, no language is filtered. With the Filter Words option is selected, banned text will appear in messages as ####. The Filter Words option can also be used in conjunction with the Forum Moderation controls to hold messages with banned text for review. When the Force revision option is selected, messages submitted with banned text will be rejected until the banned text is removed.

To manage banned text, enter words you want to suppress in the text box, separated by the "|" character. You can also use certain character sets to ban variations on words. See the instructions on the page. Note that your suppressed word list may have some text included by default. This is text the Delphi Forums staff has entered for all forums due to site-wide issues. You are free to remove or edit this text as you wish. After making changes to the text, click the Submit button below the text box.

If you wish to test how your Word Filtering settings would behave with certain text, enter the text you'd like to test in the box at the bottom of the page and click the Submit button under the box. When the page reloads, scroll to the bottom of the screen to see the results.

Set Privileges

Use this page to manage forum members' rights and access by assigning "flags." This page is also used to manage access to folders that you have restricted using the Manage Folders controls*. Use the search form to look up the user you wish to manage by membername (not nickname). When you have located the member, use the check boxes to add or remove flags (or grant/revoke folder access), then click the Apply button.

There are nine flags:

The person with this flag is in charge of the forum. A forum can have only one W flag assigned at a time. The member who created the forum is, by default, the Wizard. The member with this flag has the authority to assign and revoke all other flags, and can grant and remove (C) Chat Moderator flags in chat.

Those with this flag have all the same privileges as the Wizard, except he or she cannot add or take away other A flags, cannot change forum's Public/Private status, cannot close the forum, and can grant and remove (C) Chat Moderator flags in chat.

Those with this flag have administrative rights in the forums chat room(s). They can gag chatters, ban chatters from the room, grant or revoke the (V) Voice flag, kick chatters out of the room, open and close rooms, change the chat topic, set up logging for chat transcripts, change the maximum number of chatters allowed in the room, and send URLs to all chatters. For details on how to use these controls, see our Chat Features page.

Editors are able to edit and delete messages, manage discussions, promote discussions, and set access to folders, but do not have access to the Control Center.

In forums where Forum Moderation is activated, those with this flag can post messages that appear immediately rather than waiting for them to pass through the moderation process.

Posts by members with this flag must go through the Forum Moderation process before they are appear in the message board, even when the forum is not on moderation. (If you assign a "V" flag, it will trump a previously assigned "P" flag.)

Those with this flag cannot post in the forum, but can access the forum and view messages. This flag takes effect immediately.

Those with this flag are barred from the forum entirely. If this flag is assigned with the intent to keep a user out for good, that user's record should be retained in the Member list, but kept in lockout state. Note that the user has to log out before this setting takes effect.

Those with this flag see their own posts, but all others see a deleted message. This allows forum managers to non-obtrusively deal with problem users. In chat text entered by those with this flag does not appear in the chat room.

Priv Change Log*

This page provides a record of all changes made to member rights and access in the forum. Each change is noted with a timestamp and the name of the member who made the change. Click on the member's screen name to get to his or her record in the Set Privileges controls.

Start Page

This is where you can customize the "front door" of your forum. The Start Page is what people see when they click through to your forum from the forum index or search results. You can customize the main content area of the page using the box at the top of the page. Enter the text, links and images you wish to include, then click the Update, Preview or Cancel button. The Update button immediately applies your changes to the Start Page. The Preview button reloads the page and displays a preview of your changes below the editing box. The Cancel button removes your changes and reloads the page.

If chat is enabled in your forum (see the Chat Setup instructions) you can select this option to add a module to your Start Page featuring chat activity in your forum. The chat module will appear on the upper left side of your Start Page, and will include the screen names of anyone in your chat room(s). When this option is turned off, a smaller module will appear on the lower left of the Start Page with only the name(s) of your chat room(s) and the number of chatters. Select or deselect the check box as desired and click on the Apply button.

By default, a list of recent visitors to your forum appears on the left side of the Start Page. You can manage that setting here. Select or deselect the check box as desired and click on the Apply button.

If you run promotions for your forum (see the Forum Promotion instructions), you can use this feature to display those promotions on your home page. When enabled, any active promotions appear in the left column of your Start Page under the heading "Forum Highlights." If you want to change the heading text, replace the default text with your own in the form field. Select or deselect the check box and/or edit the heading text as desired and click on the Apply button.

By default, your Start Page includes buttons that let visitors publicize your forum on Facebook and Google+. This module appears on the right side of the page and includes a Facebook "Like" button and a Google +1 button. This option is managed through the Social Sharing controls.

Related Forums

This option allows you to place a drop-down menu at the top of your forum that links to other communities on Delphi Forums.

To turn this option on or off, select the Enabled or Disabled radio button in this section, scroll down to the bottom of the page, and click the submit button.

By default, the drop-down menu will be labeled "- Click for Related Forums -" but you can change this wording using the text field in this section. Change the text as desired, scroll down to the bottom of the page, and click the submit button.

You can add forums to your list by entering the webtag for each forum in the text box labeled "***Add a Webtag***." Enter the webtag of each forum you want to include, then click the Add button. (The webtag is a forum's unique identifier, and usually appears immediately after delphiforums.com in a forum's URL. For example, the webtag of our Member Services forum is service, and it's located at forums.delphiforums.com/service.)

Once you have entered all of the desired forums, you can re-arrange them if you wish using the Move Up, Move Down and Delete buttons. Once you are happy with the order of forums, scroll down to the bottom of the page, and click the submit button.

You'll see this section of the page if other forums have added yours to their Related Forums list. Each of these forums will appear in a list, and you can visit these forums by clicking on them. To add them to your list, simply click on the Add button next to the forum, scroll down to the bottom of the page, and click the submit button.

Color Themes*

If you want to change the look and feel of your forum, select one of these Color Themes. To see what one of these themes looks like in a test forum, click on the theme name. To select the theme, click the button next to the name, scroll down to the bottom of the page, and click the submit button.

Colors and Fonts*

Use these controls to change the style of individual components of your forum. You can select a color for each component (link color, button color, etc.) using the color picker, which can be launched by clicking on the Pick Color link. Advanced users can manually enter the desired color code, and further customize each component using CSS code. Refer to the diagram at the bottom of the page to see what each component label represents. You can also customize the Message Border Size, Font Face, and Font Size near the bottom of the page. When you are finished making your selections, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the Submit button.

Stylesheet Editor*

For advanced users only. This page allows you to enter freeform CSS code to more precisely customize your forum. For help with this page, visit the Premium Forum Styles Center, where volunteers are available to answer your questions.

Chat Setup*

This page allows you to create and manage chat rooms for your forum.

There are three forum chat settings: Disabled, Enabled, Enabled with Dynamic Rooms, and Dynamic Rooms Only.

This option means the forum will have no chat room.

Use this option to create one or more persistent chat rooms that will exist whether or not chatters are present in the room.

This option allows you to have both persistent rooms and rooms that only exist when chatters are present.

Select this option if you don't want any persistent rooms, and only want rooms to exist when chatters are present. With this option, members can click on the Chat tab in your forum to create a chat room, and that room disappears when the last chatter leaves. Select the desired option, then click the Submit button.

Those with (W) Wizard, (A) Assistant, and (C) Chat Moderator flags have moderator privileges (sometimes referred to as "ops") in chat rooms (see the Set Privileges section for more on flags). Those with moderator privileges will appear in the chat room with a special icon next to their names. You can change the icon used with the second drop-down menu on the page. Select the desired option, then click the Submit button.

Use this section to create, delete, and manage chat rooms. When creating a room, there are several options: Name, Topic, Welcome Message, Max users, and List/Publish. The Name and Topic will appear at the top of the chat screen when people enter the room, and will appear in the Delphi Forums chat listings. The Welcome Message is displayed to new chatters when they enter the room. The Max users option allows you to specify the maximum number of chatters allowed in the room. The List/Publish option lets you decide whether you want the room to be published in the Delphi Forums chat listings. When a room has already been created, there is an additional Delete Room option. Select the desired options, then click the Add Room (for new rooms) or Update (for existing rooms) button.

Chat Transcripts*

You can opt to create a transcript of any chat session. Anybody with moderator privileges in chat can turn this option on or off using the "/log" command. Enter "/log on" in chat to start logging, and enter "/log off" to stop it. Any member can see whether the chat is being logged by entering the "/log" command. When chat transcripts are created, you can view them on this page. Just click the View link to the right of the title of the transcript you'd like to view. Transcripts are retained for two weeks.

Chat Sessions by Day*

This report allows you to see detailed information about each day's chat activity. To select the time span for which you'd like to view data, enter the start and end dates. The dates/times should be in the format MM/DD/YYYY HH:MM. For example, 3/20/2012 13:24 would represent March 20, 2012 at 1:24 p.m. Enter the desired dates/times in the Starting Date and Ending Date fields and click the Run Report button. The resulting table has six columns: Year, Month, Day, Total Sessions, Distinct Users, and Total Minutes. The Year is just that: the year. The Month is the numerical representation of the month (e.g. 3 represents March). The Day is the day of the month. Total Sessions is the total number of times people were in chat during the specified time period counted by the time the chat session ended (if somebody entered chat just before midnight on the 5th, then left just before 1 a.m. on the 6th, that session would be counted on the 6th). Distinct Users represents the number of unique chatters whose sessions ended during the specified time span. Total Minutes represents the total number of minutes spent in chat by all chatters whose sessions ended during the specified time span.

Chat Usage by Hour*

This report gives you an hour-by-hour breakdown of chat activity during a single date. Enter the date you want to look up in in the format MM/DD/YYYY. For example, 3/20/2012 would represent March 20, 2012. Then click the Run Report button. The resulting table has six columns: Hour, Peak Users, Max Rooms, Joins, Parts, and Minutes. Hour represents the hour of the day in 24 hour time in the Eastern time zone. Peak Users represents the highest number of chatters during that hour. Max Rooms represents the highest number of rooms during the hour. Joins represents the number of people entering chat during the hour. Parts represents the number of people leaving chat during the hour. Minutes represents the total number of minutes spent in chat by all chatters during the hour.

Visitor Log*

This report shows you the usernames of the 100 most recent visitors to the forum, along with the date and time of that member's last visit. Clicking on a member's name will take you to the Set Privileges controls for that user. The table near the top of the page indicates the total numbers for the forum. Use the form at the top of the page to shorten the list to just those who have visited since a certain date (in busy forums, the form may not have an effect on the list, since there may have been more than 100 visitors in the past day or few days).

Use this form to look up recent visitors that don't appear on the list. You can look up members by nickname or membername (screen name). For example, if you see a member listed as "Big Bob (robert1293)," that person's nickname is "Big Bob" and his membername is "robert1293." You can also use the "%" character as a wildcard, so entering "robert%" in the Membername field would find "Big Bob (robert1293)" and anyone else with a membername beginning with "robert." Enter the information in the form and click the Find button.

Detailed Traffic*

This page displays information on visitors to the forum over the past 75 days. The table has eight columns: Day, Member Visitors, Guest Visitors, Message Views, Discussion Views, Messages Posted, Visits, and New Members. Day represents the 24-hour period ending at midnight Eastern Time for that day. Member Visitors represents the total number of registered users who visited the forum during the period. Guest Visitors represents the total number of non-registered users who visited the forum during the period (note that forums that bar guests may see a few guest visitors, as attempted forum views by guests that are blocked may be counted here). Message Views represents the number of messages viewed within the message board. Discussion Views represents the number of individual discussion pages viewed during the period. (A discussion page can contain between one and twenty messages, depending on the user's settings.) Messages Posted represents the number of messages posted during the period. Visits represents the number of instances of a user visiting the forum during the period. New Members represents the number of visitors during the period who had never visited this forum before. Use the controls at the bottom of the page to view the table as a spreadsheet or a text file.

Pageview Report

This page shows you the number of pages viewed by those visiting the forum. Uncheck the box next to "Include subscription plan data" if you don't want the numbers grouped by subscription plan (DelphiPlus, DelphiExtra, etc.). Enter the date range desired and click the New Report button. Select the Excel or Text option if you'd like to see the data in a spreadsheet or as plain text. The resulting table shows you page views by day broken out by subscription plan (unless you de-selected that option). Note that days are measured from midnight to midnight, Eastern Time.

Posts By Member*

This report allows you to see which members are posting messages in your forum. Select the preferred sort option at the top of the page. If you select the "Only posts by this ScreenName" option, you'll need to enter the screen name and not the nickname. For example, of a user appears in the forum as "Big Bob (robert1293)" you'd enter "robert1293" in the text entry field. Enter the desired time span in the fields in the middle of the page. The report counts a day as midnight to midnight Eastern time. Select the desired output option below (if you're not sure which option to pick, leave "HTML" selected). Then click the New Report button.

The report table has six columns: Member, Messages Posted, Discussions Started, Attachments Uploaded, Average Rating, and Total Ratings. The member's screen name appears in the Member column and is linked to that member's profile. Messages Posted represents the number of messages posted by the member during the selected time period. Discussions Started represents new threads created by the member. Attachments Uploaded represents the total number of files attached to messages by the member. Average Rating is the average rating given to messages by the user using message ratings system. The Total Ratings number represents the total number of times the member's messages have been rated. The total number of posts and the total number of users posting messages appears at the bottom of the report.

Change Log*

The Change Log shows most Control Center changes made over the life of the forum. The table has five columns: Date, ScreenName, Property, Old Value, and New Value. The Date shows the date and time the change was made. The ScreenName indicates who made the change and is linked to the Set Privileges controls for that user, The Property column shows what was changed. The Old Value and New Value columns show the settings before and after the change was made. Note that the last three columns can be difficult to understand. The name that appears in the Property column is the same name that this setting is known by in the Delphi Forums Database. For example, a change to the chat setup will appear as "chat.PChat_MODE" and the old and new settings would show up as a number. If you ever have any question about what these columns mean, please visit the Hosts Forum and post a message with your question.

Promo Clicks*

This report lets you see how many times a promotion you've submitted has been clicked on. Enter the date range you want to see statistics for and click on the New Report button (if you'd like to see the report in spreadsheet or plain text format, select that option). You'll see a table with your webtag and the total number of clicks. Click the webtag to review your current promotions.

Subscriptions*

The page shows each discussion that has been subscribed to along with the number of times that thread has been subscribed to. If there are more than 20 discussions with subscriptions, this report will only show you the top 20.

Referring Websites

The page shows which websites visitors to your forum are coming from. Only data from the past seven days on websites (more specifically, domains) that have generated at least five visits to your forum during this period are included in this report. The "Total Referred" column shows the total number of visits, while the "New Referred" column shows the count of these visits where there is no Delphi Forums browser cookie present. Previous visitors to Delphi Forums (both members and guests) have a cookie present unless that person explicitly deletes it, so this number is a good indication of the number of new visitors a site is sending to your forum.

Clicking on a referring website will display information on the 500 most recent visits from that domain. If available, the "Source" column indicates which page on that website the visit came from. When applicable, the search terms entered on that page are displayed. The "Destination" column indicates the visitor's destination in your forum. The "New" column indicates whether this is a new visitor.