Hey there, that’s my first day on the new forum (rip official forum) i need a little help on how stuff works like what are each category for, how to interact with people etc… All advice is welcome, thank you
Hi! I really need to write some intro stuff - or someone else could contribute it - either way.
Broadly Discourse which is the software underwriting this forum works quite differently than Zenoforo - it is focused on building a geniune community and getting largely out of the way by creating a positive incentive structure to encourage constructive forum behaviour - taking lessons from the most successful forums on the net.
So the first thing you need to know is about trust levels - fortunately someone has written that: Basic Trust Level Guide
Broadly what you need to know is that your permissions are gated by your trust level - as the forum software gets to know you, you get more and more privileges. This does a number of things, but mainly it prevents spammers from wrecking havok.
Secondly you need to know that the only rating available is the heart - and you have a daily limit to the number of hearts you can give which increases based on your trust level. This is intentional - it makes ratings count and farming them harder (except by producing geniunely good content).
Thirdly you need to know that as you participate in the forum you will earn badges. These are awarded basically as you develop and exercise your understanding of the forum software (for example there is a bot that messaged you when you joined and gives you a tutorial - if you complete that tutorial you will get a badge), they are also awarded in the basis of being a helpful productive forum member for example by answering questions in the help sections. There are and will also be forum specific badges that are awarded to productive members of the community.
Fourthly you need to know that you can use bbcode or markdown to format your posts.
Fifthly you need to know in terms of personalising yourself that signatures are dead - they clutter up forums (one study of forums showed that the average forum only 22% of the screen is filled by content - the rest is fluff like profile pics, side stuff and in particular signatures. In Discourse you have two ways to personalise yourself - firstly with your card (which is like a signature) and secondly with your profile. You access people’s card by tapping on their profile pic once, and their profile by tapping twice.
Sixthly you need to know about groups - these are basically things you can chose or try to join - they are used to give you titles, for fun, and to gate areas of the forums that not everyone wants to access like off topic and the broken pipe. You can find the groups here: https://vgforums.net/groups
Finally in regards to the categories - these are basically like the forums and sub forums - each should have a post in them that tells you about what belongs where, and who has posting rights in each category.
If you have any other specific questions - let me know!
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