General disclaimer

The site does not own and cannot be held responsible for statements made by members on the forum. This site is offered as-is to the user. Any statements made on the board may be altered or removed at the discretion of the staff. Furthermore, all users are expected to have read, understood, and agreed to The Rules before posting.

We do not sell, distribute or otherwise disclose member information like IP addresses to any third party. If you have questions about any information contained in this FAQ, please send a private message with your question to a moderator or administrator before posting.

Why should I register an account on the board?

By registering a user account, you will be able to post on the board as well as use several features only accessible through registering, such as the ability to mark forums as read and private messaging. Unregistered users have guest access to the board, meaning they can view threads but not reply to them. They can also only see the board in whatever theme is the default.

I'm new, where should I start?

The best place for newcomers to start is the New Members thread where you can introduce yourself to the board. If you have any questions not addressed by The Rules, feel free to ask them in the proper forum.

Why are there name and password fields in the New Reply form?

You must not have seen many AcmlmBoards before. These allow you to post without needing to log in first, which is handy when cookies are disabled (see below), or when someone else is logged in and you want to get your message in without logging out the other guy.

Are cookies used for this board?

Yes, it uses cookies to store your login information. You can still use this board with cookies disabled, but you'll have to enter your username and password every time it's asked, and some features may not be available.

What is the standard of acceptable behaviour on the board?

First off, do not assume that our rules are the same as those of other bulletin boards — just because spam posts might be acceptable on another forum they are not necessarily so here.

However, most of the rules are not that hard to follow, and as long as you keep them in mind, you should not run into trouble.

Do

Don't

Naturally, exceptions to most of those rules could arise out of social context or similar; however, unless you have gained a deeper understanding of the forum community, you are on the safe side assuming that to not be the case. In case of any remaining doubts, common sense prevails.

What is considered "spam" at the board?

Spam is making:

If you feel that a thread is spam, then PM or IM an admin and ask them to take a look at it. Don't ask for someone to take a look at it in the thread itself or lecture the poster on the dangers of spamming.

What is the strike system?

In most cases, the staff at the board follows a three-strike system when it comes to punishments. For most minor offenses, an offending user will be warned about his/her conduct through a PM. If they continue to break the rules, they will be banned for 24 hours (possibly more if it was a serious offense, up to 72 hours). If the user continues to cause trouble, they will receive a second warning, possibly followed by another ban which could last anywhere from 72 hours to a week. Finally, if the user is still causing trouble after all these warnings, they will be permanently banned from the board.

Harsher bans may be issued if a user racks up multiple warnings in a short amount of time or does something idiotic such as flooding the board or posting questionable material.

Note that if you register another account to post with during a ban, you will be permanently banned on the spot.

What can I do about my thread being closed/trashed/deleted?

First off, don't complain on the board about a thread being closed or deleted, and don't single out a certain mod or admin as being responsible. This will result in a ban. Learn from your mistakes and move on.

If you feel you need clarification on why the thread was closed, or if you feel a mistake was made, contact a staff member, preferably a local moderator who's in charge of the relevant forum, and politely explain the problem.

Help! I've been banned! What do I do now?

First off, do not create a new account to complain about your ban, as that will just result in a permanent ban from the board. If you feel that the ban was unfair or if you wish to know exactly why you were banned, PM an admin and calmly ask about it. Aside from that, the only thing you can do is wait for the ban to expire and make sure you know why it happened.

How can I change my username?

You can't change it yourself, only administrators can, but you can ask one of them for a name change.

What's with the funky colors everyone's names are written in?

The color of a given user's name is determined by that user's sex and power level.

Male Female N/A
Banned user
Normal user Normal user Normal user
Local Moderator Local Moderator Local Moderator
Full Moderator Full Moderator Full Moderator
Administrator Administrator Administrator
Root Root Root

So basically, if a user's name is written in a solid yellow, that user is an administrator of unspecified gender, whereas a bright blue indicates an ordinary male user. Note that some themes may change these colors to better match their general style.

Can HTML be used?

Yes, it can be used in posts, private messages, nearly everywhere except in things such as thread titles, usernames, etc.

Is there some sort of replacement code for HTML?

Yes, but it's a bit limited. Most of the possibilities are listed on the new thread/reply pages.

What are all the smilies?

They are listed in the new thread/reply pages, right above the Post Help box. You can click on them to insert them into your post, and they have tooltips showing the exact string to type if you want to do it by hand.

How do I add my EXP and post counters to my signature or post?

You don't — this board software does not have things like Levels, experience or item shops, unlike the AcmlmBoard software it is based on.

What are the user rankings?

It's all listed on the Ranks page. Ranks nobody is on and which you didn't reach aren't listed (to keep some suspense), unless you're a full moderator (moderating all the forums) or administrator on this board.

How can I get a custom title?

You can get one by being on staff and/or having at least 200 posts. There may be a few rare exceptions, but asking for a custom title before having the requirements for it usually won't get you one.

The word required for registration is .

How do I edit a poll I made?

You don't. Poll editing is rather difficult to correctly implement and carries a risk of gross abuse. Imagine if you will, that you make a poll about something, and you don't like the results. With poll editing, you could then go and switch the answers around. If you really need to edit a poll, ask an admin with database access (for example, Mega-Mario) to edit it for you.

Are there any rules for post layouts?

There are a few simple rules which all users should follow in their layouts:

If your layout is spotted or reported as breaking any of these rules, it will be deleted and you will be notified of what was wrong by private message, possibly with suggestions. If the problem is not related to images but perhaps just badly chosen color values we may try to fix it for you and inform you later by PM. Anything else is out of our hands, so yeah.

The last few rules and the deletion/editing policy are blatantly taken from Stark. Thanks, ma'am!

On a highly related note, if you link in external CSS files you can use the $theme variable in your post header to link in specific versions:

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://.../MyLayout_$theme.css" /> becomes <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://.../MyLayout_default.css" /> with the current board settings.

The following are possible: default, default_, abxd20, defaultold, defaultsharp, cycle, cheese, dos, grayscale, monogreen

Why does the board seem to scroll sluggishly?

That's because of your browser's smooth scroll setting, combined with a fair amount of CSS3 special effects. Basically, with smooth scrolling disabled, each tick you scroll is a single frame, be it a single notch of the mouse wheel or a single press of the (page) up and down keys. With smooth scroll enabled, there are several frames per scroll tick, and each frame requires the effects to be rendered, slowing down what is otherwise a perfectly fine animation.

Some browsers may seem to handle this scenario better, but that's just because of different default settings or not even supporting smooth scroll:

Opera
Enabled by default
Chrome
Requires SmoothScroll extension
Safari
Enabled by default on MacOS, unavailable on Windows
Firefox 2
Requires SmoothWheel extension
Firefox 3
Disabled by default
Internet Explorer
Enabled by default

I tried to join a User Group but I've been waiting for approval for weeks. What gives?

The group leader just hasn't been paying attention to the waiting list. Did you try sending a PM? Mind you, you really shouldn't send a PM right after submitting a join request.

I accidentally my avatar while browsing the Avatar Library. How can I get it back?

Not. You were warned. We even gave you a last chance to save your old avatar.

How can I become a moderator or administrator?

If us administrators trust you enough for this. Don't ask us, we may ask you if we ever feel you worthy of being promoted. Being a good and regular member helps, while asking for this doesn't. It also depends whether we feel a need to promote more people, which isn't so often the case.

How can I get a copy of this board software?

You can get the latest stable version here. Keep in mind that you'll need some place to run it on, and that place must support PHP and MySQL. Having basic skills in PHP and MySQL database management can be very useful.