In a matter of hours the proposal has been transferred to The Web host computer in Toronto. When a staff member at the Canadian NGO in B.C. logs in to check the daily mail the project update has already arrived in their electronic mail box. Conferences are not unlike a large community bulletin board. Each conference is organized on specific subjects such as global warming, women's issues, tropical rainforests, or around a common problem such as the elaboration of a large project. Within each conference the users post messages in the form of new topics or responses to existing topics.
Conferences can be private, where only a designated list of users can read, or public.
Some public conferences are limited to who can read or post messages while others use a moderator to control inappropriate postings. Because the APC host computers connect to one another by high speed telephone links there is a constant flow of information to and from each host. This data consists of electronic mail and additions to the conferences. Due to a special software developed for this type of conferencing, the conferences on the host computers around the world are continually updated with new messages posted on other networks. What that means is that a user in Brazil can respond with a message to a topic on the Alternex system that was posted by a user in Sweden.