How to Use Community Forums
The MLA website features community forums where you can interact with your colleagues online, view conversations as threads, and search conversation topics. Forums are available for all caucuses and committees, as well as a few other ad hoc groups.
These forums replace the email lists previously used by many groups. They can still be used as an email list for those who prefer this type of experience.
Most forums are private, meaning they can only be seen and subscribed to by members of that group.
Post to the Forums
To start a new thread in your forum, select the speech bubble icon from the menu on the left side of your screen.
To respond to an existing thread, select the "reply" arrow at the bottom of the last post in the thread.
See more detailed instructions for further help.
To Use Your Forum Like an Email List
Simply send an email to the email address associated with your forum. The email address can be found on the main page of your forum.
Customize Your Subscription/Delivery Preferences
For many forums, email notification delivery defaults to either a daily digest or immediate email. You can see your current email delivery settings under "My Subscriptions" in your member profile.
To change a subscription:
- Select "My Options" (found near the top right of your screen).
- Select "My Subscriptions."
- Choose the edit/pencil sign to the left of each subscription to edit your subscription for that group. Choose the appropriate category according to how you prefer to receive notifications.
The following email notification options are available:
- immediate email (an immediate email for every update to that forum)
- immediate digest with links
- summary digest (a daily digest summarizing that day's activity)
- full digest with attachments
- full digest with links (a daily digest including full content, but not attachments)
- immediate email on thread creation (an immediate email only when a new thread is created)
To stop receiving email notifications for a particular forum, simply delete the subscription. This does not affect your membership in a group--you will still be able to access the forum on the web.
Caucus Forums
Caucus forums are available only to caucus members. When you join a caucus, you are automatically subscribed to its forum. If you don't wish to receive emails about forum activities, simply remove the subscription from your "My Subscription" area. This will remove your subscription, but will not cancel your membership in the caucus.
How to Join a caucus:
Any MLA member can subscribe to any caucus forum. To subscribe, you must join the caucus. There is no fee associated with joining. Simply visit the main caucus page and click the "join" button next to the caucus you wish to join.
Committee Forums
If you are a member of an MLA committee, you will be subscribed to the committee forum for the duration of your term. We highly recommend immediate delivery of email notifications so that you do not miss out on important committee discussions. Immediate delivery is the default for committee forums/email lists.
To Find Older Conversations
The content of some old-style email lists have been archived based on the group's request. These older conversations are/will be available in the "Online File Storage" section of your community. Conversations are saved by year by month and are not searchable through the main site or community search function. They are downloadable as files and searchable through your PDF reader.
If you have questions about how to use, access, or subscribe to forums, please contact us.