Ready to take the plunge and comment on the posts of others or create new posts of your own? It is easy to do but there are a few tips to make the most of the opportunity.



1. Log in before posting. (You did already join the Google Earth Community, right?) You can verify that you are signed in by looking at the BBS menu bar. If there is an entry to "Logout" than you are already logged in; if there is an entry to "Login" then guess what--now is the time.

2. Decide where to post. This is easier when replying so that is the situation we will discuss first. You have logged in, found a post that you want to comment on, and are ready to make your reply. All you need to do is select the post you want to reply to and then click "Reply." Makes sense to me.

3. You will now see a "Reply to" page that asks for the new subject for your reply and provides an area to add the body of your post. If you have not read these tips in order then you may see a tiny Post window, but if you followed the suggestions and read the posts in order (and took their advice) then you now see a nice big edit box for your august commentary.

4. When you are done composing, click at the bottom that you want to continue. You will be shown a preview of the new post. This is your chance to read the post carefully for typos or mistakes. If you have errors just scroll down to the bottom edit area and make yuor changes. Once this cycle has produced your intended result, click the preview-area Continue button to submit your post.

The second "preview and compose more" page is in two parts, an upper preview area and a lower edit area. (Each area is surrounded by a box.) Either click "continue" in the upper preview box to 'submit your completed page' for posting or scroll down to the edit box, make your changes, and then click the "continue" in that box to 'preview these edits'. The button text imay be confusing at first, but will become clear with practice. Failing to click the top-most continue button means that you will never actually post anything; only clicking the bottom-most continue button will trap you in an endless preview cycle.

In just a few moments, your thoughts will be shared with the world. Thousands of readers will see more than your ideas; they will know that you graduated from grammar school by your writing style and will sense the depth of your thinking by the new subject that you chose for your post. (Moral: make sure the subject line is appropriate and use the preview to review your posts!)

What happens if the subject line is left unchanged? Here is an example:


What you saw if you did the exercise suggested in the prior post

Notice that the first post, the one by gmdealer, was about a water park in Tokyo, Japan. When osc3 replied to this post to share another water park--this one in Las Vegas--the subject was unchanged. Not a problem, but not very helpful to people deciding what posts to read. Someone planning to visit Las Vegas may never learn about the water park near the Sahara Hotel that has been so helpfully shared. Further, the automatic script that publishes every post with a placemark as a new entry in the Google Earth Community data layer will use this 'Tokyo Waterpark' subject as the label for the icon in the Google Earth database. Now you know why there is a "Tokyo Waterpark" in Las Vegas.

Please think about this when you post so that your information is readable and properly indexed. A little attention now means that you will someday be able to look back and see all of your nicely written posts and the corresponding aptly-named icons in the Google Earth Community data layer.

You have now graduated the first course. Congratulations!

With what you have learned, you should be able to enjoy Google Earth and the Google Earth Community both easily and competently, and we welcome you as a learned new member.

In the Google Earth, just as in the real one, there are always further layers to the onion. If you want to master the creating and sharing of Placemarks(TM), there is no better way to learn than to continue your education with community member Lrae's excellent Placemarks and Overlays (Basic Training) tutorial. (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED) When you extend your education with his entertaining information, you will be able to post not only places on the world, but pictures (photos, maps, aerials, charts) that are an even more rewarding annotation to the Google Earth.

P.S. Notice that osc3's reply is indented below gmdealer's post? This is the way of posts and replies. When a thread gets long with many posts it is especially helpful to others that you choose carefully which post you are replying to, but that is a subject for another tip!