About how best to navigate various forums, key words etc.
When you get to the forum you want you will find the most current threads on the first and second page, these are great to comment on and most likely to generate a response.
Posting on really old threads is not really cool in most cases, some run for years and still stay current so there are exceptions.
Expect to read a lot of knowledge, some right some wrong, you will have to ultimately decide on what you believe or not but over time you should see the what works and dosent.
Many topics with no real answers, dont get to worked up in these debates.
General, Newbie and Plant problem are the three most used forums and are at the top of the forum page, after that check out a few others that catch your interest, toke and talk is a great place for talking crap, weird stuff and general banter thats not so much weed related, highly recomend this forum.
I only really post in general but read a lot in others, indoor growing forum and led forum always catch my intrest (beware any led hype), there are sub sections at the top of forums, in the indoor forum they have a flourescent subsection at the top which if you click on opens up a whole new forum. We have a couple subsections at the top of general but i forget what they are.
Any threads at the top of the forum with red marks next to them are stickies, they are threads that do not move down the boards and are always there, generally a wealth of info on the first page or so then 300 pages of members comments which can be far too laborious to read.
Never found the search function or key word much use, everyone uses too many key words (i use none) and search for white widow grow and you get results that vary from how to make shatter all the way up to some random toke and talk thread on why the earth is flat and crazy shit.
Use it like Facebook, scan the boards you like everyday, comment and answer the alerts for each thread you commented on to see all subsequent posts and answers.
If i write @ followed by a users name it will alert them to a thread, so if i wrote@Kingrow1and selected
@Kingrow1 icon iwill then get an alert to say some member has spoken of me or wants to summon me to that thread for some particular intrest.
Be thick skinned, were all anonymous, far to o easy to forget basic manners and not fly of the handle at some random poster that thinks a plant is male when its infact female etc etc, anyway just think longterm not short and you will get on with most over time.
The above might need some corrections but if there is anything else i can write just post and i'll do my best