Beyond3D Console Forum User Manual.
About This Manual
This user manual introduces you to the many features in the Console Forum posting rights.
The moderation team consider that each and every members read and agreed to comply with these rules.
Warning: When posting in the forum try to remember that you're in a console technical Forum.
Simply put, it's not the best place in the internet world if you only want to talk about gameplay.
Update: You can use the new Console Games Forum if you want to discuss gameplay.
>The latest update 23/08/07 can be read here.
Preface
by Dave Baumann :
Personally, and this applies to all forums here, I think the question that people should have in mind when they are posting is: "does my post add value?".
Posts that are contributing to a discussion by adding information or even advancing the conversation in a constructive manner are obviously addding value, but even a simple query / question can be of value as it can result in useful information which is of value from other posters and advancing and those results can advance both the original asker of the question's knowledge and others reading.
Contents:
(Use Ctrl+F)
- Threads Subjects & Titles
- Punctuation and Capitalization
- Opinions, Bias and attitude toward them
- Flames/uncalled for Remarks
- Trolls and Troll Name Calling
- Warnings, Temporary & Permanent Bans
- Questions about Locked Threads
- Quoting Someone's Words
- Posting Pictures - UPDATED 06/10/07 -
- Posting Scans from Recent Publications
- Quoting News items or Articles
- About the Moderation
- Have any other Questions?
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- Appendix A: What not to do, in any case!
- Threads Subjects & Titles:
Science fact: A Thread title can turn a discussion into an intelligent an educational exchange, or into a "storm made of fecal matter".
How? Simple, let's take an example:
An Intel paper presents the performances of the CPU used in Infinium Labs Phantom. Let's say that this paper shows that under certain circumstances, the real world floating point performance of the CPU is around 5Gflops. *cough*
A bad, very bad, thread title would be:
OMG, Phantom CPU = 5Gflops lol!!!!!?!1??
Or
Official: the PS2 > the Phantom (6.2Gflops VS 5Gflops)!!!??!!
A thread like this should, and will, be locked on sight. Actually only for the, how can I say, colorful, punctuation the thread can be locked (Use only one question or exclamation mark, damn!).
The subject of this thread, the Intel paper, can legitimately be discussed, but because of the tabloid like sensationalist title, no good can come out of this. No good.
A good title would be more like:
Intel paper about Phantom's CPU performance
or if you want absolutely to emphasize the bad results:
Intel's report reveals Phantom's CPU sub par performances
In this case, a sane and interresting discussion can happen. People with different opinions can debate the subject without calling the thread starter names, etc...
- Punctuation and Capitalization:
A minimum of punctuation and correct capitalization is asked from you B3Der. Try to capitalize the first letter and put a, properly chosen, point at the end of your every sentence. Use the preview function and read yourself before posting anything.
Especially in thread titles.
i saw pictures, and all i have to say is WOWWWW!!!!!???!!1!
Wrong, folks, wrong!
I just saw a few pictures of this rendering engine, and I have to say it's extremely impressive!
That's the way it should be!
- Opinions, Bias and Attitude Toward them
If you suspect someone to be biased or worse have an opinion distinctly different from yours about a given subject, then *FAST*, don't waste time, contact the authorities of your country, as soon as possible, and explain them that someone, on the internet *cough*, disagree respectfully with your point of view on a videogame machine!
...Sigh...
Opinions are like... err... hairdo, everybody has one (Except John Reynolds, may his hair rest in peace).
And, interesting fact, message boards were created in an attempt to exchange those opinions with other people (No, they weren't made for exchanging hairdos).
Remarkably, some persons are overly opinionated in their statements, and have a clear preference for one of the console manufacturer, for only god knows what reasons.
The thing is some people are indeed biased, but just like opinions, bias is not uncommon, nor extraordinary.
Just don't waste your, and everybody's time arguing with someone just to try to make him/her agree with your POV. It's useless. Just state, politely, your point of view on a subject and leave it at that. You can ask someone to expand on a subject, if you wish. But that would be about all.
- Flames/Uncalled for Remarks
If a comment/remark is viewed as a flame by a moderator, the reply will be deleted, and so will be the replies that refer to it.
Note that even the slightest "tongue in cheek" remarks can also be deleted, because of "noise: signal ratio" reasons.
- Trolls and Troll Name Calling
What not to do: One of the worst thing to do, when you consider someone's post to be a troll/disturbance to the forum, is to actually reply to this post and start calling out for troll.
Trolls are detrimental because they add nothing but more noise to the forum. Calling others people posts trolls or "teh biased" will not negate those posts. Actually it will just add more noise to the thread, making it worse and subject to be locked/pruned.
That's why troll name calling is considered just as bad as trolling and treated as much.
Trolling or calling people troll can (and will after a warning) be sanctioned with a temporary ban or a permanent ban.
What to do: Just ignore the trolls, and point them out to the moderators with the Report Bad Post button.
- Warnings, Temporary & Permanent Bans
In order to keep forums clean, and let the flow of meaningful discussions continue naturally, the ingenious creators of forum softwares introduced the Ban feature.
How does that work, you may ask?
Well, it’s simple, when someone do not follow the established rules of the forum, this someone sees his/her posting privileges restricted for a certain amount of time (From a couple of days to ad vitam eternam, or forever in plain English).
First, you get warned, publicly or privately (PMs), then in a second time you get banned for a short period (Ranging from two days to two weeks). The ban decision will also be either publicly announced or PM’ed.
After this short ban you be placed under “temporary probation” for a few weeks. If, no matter what has been said, you continue to not follow the rules of the forum during this probationary period you will be banned for a longer period of time (Ranging from a month to a permanent ban).
Of course, the duration of the ban periods are up to the moderation team decision, they will vary depending on the reasons that triggered the ban.
Same thing, some offenses can grant you a ban without any warning (This includes: insults, racial slur, etc…).
Important: Note that just as mentioned in the “About the Moderation” section, others B3D forum Mods can (And will) ban people in the Console Forums. And in their case, they’re not asked to provide any explanation for their moderation decisions. If you have a question about that, just ask, by PM, Sonic or me.
- Questions about Locked Threads
Sometimes threads turn into off-topic jamborees. Bickering, mud-slinging, name calling, etc...
Those threads simply get the lock.
Nevertheless, if you want to continue the original, meaningful, discussion, then just start a new thread*, or ask a mod to do some pruning in the locked thread, if possible. Note that it's far easier to start a new thread*.
*If a thread is locked for something else than off-topic and bickering. Do not start a new thread on the same subject.
- Netiquette
- How Quoting Someone's Words.
The ancient and noble art of quoting is not that complex to learn. Really...
A lot of apprentice posters nest more than one level of quotes like this:
Oh, ok then, if Kyle says so.
And that's the wrong thing to do!
You have to respond to only one level of quote at the time. Like this:
Oh, ok then, if Kyle says so.
Now, that's the correct way of using quotes!
You see, quoting-fu is an easy thing to learn. Learn it!
Update: The new forum software does all the work for you. Isn't technology great?
- About Posting Pictures
You can post pictures as long as you don't post boatloads of pictures (Posting a few pictures plus a link to the rest is enough). The B3D forum, as default behavior, will resize all inline pictures bigger than 800 pixels wide to 800 pixels so as to preserve thread formatting on the screen. Users may then click on the picture to see the full size. The User CP "Options" screen also has several per-user options to control this behavior. The staff reserves the right to tell users that a pointlessly huge picture must still be resized or deleted when such size serves no purpose but does negatively impact dial-up users (e.g. the case for posting 9000x6000 pictures is still pretty weak).
- About Posting Scans from Recent Publications
That rule is simple. You don't have the right to do that. Easy to remember, isn't it?
You can, nevertheless, post scans from "vintages" publications, and from promotional printed materials (Ads, Press kits...).
- How Quoting News Items or Articles
You're only allowed to quotes in their entirety, Wire news and PR announcements.
Never, ever post complete article and interviews*, it a bad thing to do, as bad as crossing the streams.
People who wrote those articles, need the incomes generated by the visits of their site, and for paper publications, they need people to buy their magazines.
Nevertheless, you can quote either the first part of the interview or the part that seems the most important to you, put a link at the bottom of your quotes that says "The rest of the article is here" or explain from which magazine you got those quotes.
Do always provide a link to what you're quoting and if you cannot provide a link explain, briefly, why (example "I found this posted, as is, on another forum").
*Except if you did translate them from another language.
- About the Moderation
When you signed to the board you accepted a few conditions, you specifically accepted the fact that the administrators and moderation team can Edit, Lock or Delete any messages or content that they'd consider inappropriate for the forum.
In other words, if a Thread, Post... Forum... is locked/deleted/edited don't ask why the moderation team did that, but ask yourself why they had to do that.
However, each time a thread get locked by the Console Mods*, the reasons why it was locked will be posted at the end of the thread.
*Note that, the Admins and other forums Mods can lock/delete/edit threads in the Console Forum without obligation to give any explanations.
- Others questions?
Simply send a PM to a mod, Carl B, ERP, Geo, Graham, ShiftyGeezer, StefanS, Ingenu, Rys or Farid
