Dear Dragonfly and others,
May I suggest a way that may help you or some others manage to come here more efficiently? At least it's a way I have found can work for me. If you can't get
on the forum at a slow time you will need to only read replies to your root articles or posts written by people whose posts you especially like.
When there is a lot of traffic the forum is slower and this may not work for you
. In that case, if you can, do this when traffic is slow on the forum in China.
This is usually before 8 am your time and after 10 or 11 pm your time. You need only check the forum once per day. If your time is limited when you do this
look for replies to your own root articles. Another thing you can do is
select the posts sent by people you like to read and open those. If you have enough time though, do the whole thing as recommended below.
Here's my way:
Write one little reply when time is short, no matter how brief. Then you will know where to begin reading when you open up the "search" function. Of course, choose to make this post a true reply to someone here. :-)
When you open the forum each day go immediately to the search function at the top right and use it. When the search form appears don't write in any name or date. Use the button at the bottom of the search page.
All the posts that have ever come in, both root and reply, will appear in the order they were received. Go to your own latest little post. It is a marker post
for you, as well as a reply to that forum friend you wanted to acknowledge. Everything above your last post is new.
Begin to read each post in order, up from there to the top of the page. If you
notice that there are a great many reply posts to the same topic, open one of them and use it to go to the "root article" function at the upper right.
When you use that the root post that called forth all those replies will open, and you will be able to refresh your memory of it, and then scroll down to the replies, where you will only read the ones you haven't read before.
Remember, you can write as many replies as you wish. But if you want to writea root post you can only write one at a time, because that's all that the forum
server allows. You will need to reopen the forum again to send another. It
is better to make a few notes to yourself, and save any root articles tell later
.
Continue to read each ascending post until you reach the top of the most recent
page. Reply to any or all of them, as you have time and inspiration. Always be
sure to reply to at least one person whose post interests you so your marker post for the next day will be there for you. This is a way to efficient
read and write on the forum every day, according to the time you have available
.
Note: if you go away for a few days you may find the number of new posts to be
too many for you upon your return. That's how it becomes easy to overlook something that was written to you, as I did recently. That's the only drawback. People become used to your frequent replies and miss them if they aren't there.
I hope this helps you, although because you have limited access to a computer I
realize it may not be possible for you at this time. In any event, it may help
somebody else who has limited time.
I wish you the very best in your endeavours Dragonfly, and with your exams.
Best wishes to you in this hard working time, Dragonfly, and good wishes for all
, Mary