MaNGOS Forum FAQ
From MaNGOS
FAQ By: TheLuda
Where can I find a list of forum rules?
On the Forums Policy & Expectations page. These are also shown to every user when they sign up for an account.
How can I find out if my question has been asked/answered before I post?
Use the search function! You will find it on the main page as well as in the link bar near the top of every page. You can even do more precise searches by clicking "Search" and selecting "Advanced Search."
How do I view my account profile?
In the link bar near the top of every page click on your username to see your full profile.
How do I change my password or email address that is listed on my account?
Click User CP (for user control panel), then on the new page click the link on the left that says "Edit email & password"?
How do I change/add user info to my account?
Click User CP (for user control panel). You will have lots of links to various options at the left of the page. These will include, but are not limited to, choosing whether to display user profiles on top of posts or at the left, hiding/showing your post count (beans) and choosing whether to allow other users to send you email or private messages on the forums. Take a tour!
Who/what are administrators? Who are the staff of MaNGOS Community Forums?
The administrators are the people who keep this site up and running. They are the tech gurus that perform all the maintenance and make the forums work. We all owe them a debt of gratitude.
The staff are people who have been chosen to help moderate discussions because of consistently helpful and kind attitudes, a willingness to serve others as demonstrated by their posting history prior to being chosen as staff, and the fact that they happily agreed to do tons of work behind the scenes with very little recognition and absolutely no payment other than having their usernames in purple and the ability to put images in their signatures.
You may see a few people hanging around the forums with an "emeritus staff" title. These are former staff. Emeritus means retired or honourably discharged from active professional duty, but retaining the title of one's office or position: like a dean emeritus of a graduate school; or a newspaper editor in chief emeritus. Currently the honourers holding this title include siuolly, mmcs, captnoord, NeWbY, and Spuddlethud.
What's the deal with those grey boxes and the funny titles?
There isn't a list of what you get, and when, because that's not the point. The reason for the secrecy was/is this: while we want to reward people who participate in these forums with titles and changing symbols we really don't want them to become some sort of gauge that people use to determine whether someone is speaking with more/less authority on a support topic. Other forums use the title/icon system that way and more power to them.
However, there are people here with less than 20 posts who can code circles around much of the staff and are capable of giving amazing and useful responses to support questions...and there are some of us here with thousands of posts who might get lucky with a good and helpful reply on occasion. The fear is that people might use post count and titles/symbols as a means of judging the validity of a post's content rather than the content itself.
We had a long discussion about this in the forums when they were first started and this subject has been revisited among the staff several times. Some forum members and staff wanted to eliminate the post count and title/icon system completely, some have gone the other way wanting a complete ranking system that is clear and gives honorific titles with great meaning to those with higher post counts (that particular group is in the extreme minority). The current system is a compromise that has been working pretty well for a while. With the compromise of meaningless titles/icons, post count can be hidden in your control panel.
Anyway, this is why we don't publish how many posts are necessary for a change in title/icon...it's just a silly reward. The post numbers needed for title changes is something that is easy to modify so it gets modified on occasion, when the administrators don't have better things occupying their time, merely to maintain the surprise factor. Bottom line: it just a trivial, whimsically amusing little thing. Don't read too much into it...it really isn't worth the slightest emotional involvement.
What is all that info in the user profile (the banner at the top or left of each post)?
For each registered user who posts you will find the certain bits of information which I will now try to define and demystify a little bit. Some of these are more obvious than others, but I'll talk about them anyway.
The "Join Date" is the month and year the user registered in these forums.
The "From" is something that can be set by the user and may be an actual, physical place or a state of mind or even just something whimsical. Some people don't have this because they didn't set one in their My Controls (user control panel). There is also a place in My Controls where you can set to display which MaNGOS version you are using so you will often see that listed as well.
The picture that most users have is called an "avatar" and it is a small graphic image the user chose that best represents him/her or at least their mood the day the picture was chosen. You can upload one in the My Controls (user control panel).
Can avatars/signatures/images be turned off?
Yes, they can! Go to User CP > Edit Options and scroll down to thread display options and check/uncheck at will.
Why can't I use images in my signature? (Why are the staff allowed to use them?)
Banners, flashing images, colourful and hidden links...the list is a long one. This is primarily a tech support forum with a small number of frivolous additions. This was something that people either love or hate, and people looking for tech support answers with as little distraction as possible are among those who hate this feature so we turned it off. The staff of the forums are allowed this as a perk since they are volunteers and receive no payment or other renumeration for their time, efforts and services here.
Can I change my username?
No. Usernames can not be changed - dashes can not be added, lower-case cannot be made upper-case, etc. However, you may choose to create a new account. The only exceptions to this are extreme cases, such as when a user has been harassed by another user.
Note: If you do make a new account, you will have to transfer all information yourself, as we will not do this for you. Also, we can't transfer your statistics boxes, account age and the like) to the new account.
Will you delete my account for me?
We are sorry to say that account deletions are no longer possible. If you wish for your account to become inactive we recommend you contact an administrator who can remove your email address from the account and change the password to make the account permanently inaccessible. Account deletions that have occurred in the past have made all of those users' posts belong to "unknown" and have made it impossible to track issues. There will be no exceptions to this policy.
Why does a forum for free software use a proprietary software?
While we would love to use an open source solution, InvisionPower Board provides all that we need right now and also much of what we want. Other software does not. Serving this community well is our main priority and so we can/will not use something that does not provide what we require. If anything else provided what we must have and what we really would like to have, we would be using it instead; at this juncture, there is no viable alternative.
Why was my post moved/what is the most appropriate location to ask X?
Here is a short, annotated list of what should be posted where. It is not complete, but it covers the basics.
Absolute Beginner Talk is for anything computer/operating system/MaNGOS related, but with the expectation that answers will be simplified as much as possible for the user ... and you might be told that your topic is something best left to someone with more experience or that you will need to do some studying or research before you can understand the answer, please don't be offended if that happens.
Help & Support is for anything usage/installation/configuration/MaNGOS related. Off topic posts are not acceptable, we already do have sub-forum for general discussion in Community Talk.
MaNGOS Development comes in only a few pieces, being a General Discussion section where you might want to talk about concepts or ideas for changes to MaNGOS, Server Development just serves one purpose, and this is code ... code ... *cough* -- what was it? -- code! Last, but not least, we do have a combined section for Database & Content, for anything database development/scripting development related goes.
If all went wrong, and you do see core dumps, crashes, etc. we do have a Bug Reports forum. Prepare to have gdb, valgrind, and friends ready. We might poke you to do stuff for us after you filed your report.
And finally, if all went right, you can submit patches, see which are under review, check if your patch or other patches went into the official source repository, or see patches that didn't make it into the source repository, and find our why.
Some forums can not be posted in by users or require moderation (a staff member has to look at the post before it will show up). For example, all posts going into Faqs, Howtos and Tips need to be approved as it is not a place to ask questions, just to share neat tricks that you have learned or knowledge you have discovered. Posting is not allowed in Announcements & News, you may only reply.
Finally, everyone should know of the existence of three important forums, even if you never need them. Forum Feedback & Help is for reporting problems or requesting assistance with forums-specific issues. The Jail is where all spam ends up as well as really bad posts ... no posts are ever fully deleted in the MaNGOS Community Forums. That way, if there is any sort of controversy over what has transpired the old posts can be found and used as evidence. Finally, if you ever have a dispute with staff or administrators regarding their actions in the forums you are welcome to use the Resolution Centre which is a public-readable place to express your grievance and receive an answer. Please read the rules there before posting so you know what to expect and how things will be dealt with.
You will probably also want to read "The basic philosophy of moderation among the staff."
What is an infraction? How do infractions work? Do they ever expire?
When someone posts in a way that violates the Forums Policy staff have the ability to issue infractions or warnings. In either case the offending party is notified by private message what the problem was. If an infraction is issued it will have a point value attached to it as well as an expiration date. If 10 unexpired points are accumulated by a user then all his posts must be reviewed by a staff member before becoming visible to other users. If 15 are accumulated the user is suspended until they expire and may be banned. The staff have some leeway in assigning a point value to infractions or whether a warning is better suited to the issue at hand. In the case of a dispute between a user and a staff member the Resolution Centre is the place to go to file a grievance.
How do I report bad posts or bad behaviour on the forums?
For each post, at the bottom left you will find a small rectangular icon below the user avatar with the word "REPORT" in capitals in it. If a post needs the attention of a moderator for any reason just click that icon and type a reason in the box that pops up and a staff member will look at the post as soon as possible.
How do I subscribe to a thread (or unsubscribe from one)?
You can change your thread subscription status for any thread you are currently viewing by clicking the "Options" button at the top of the first post and selecting “Subscribe to this Forum†or "Unsubscribe from this Forum" as appropriate.
Credit to TheLuda. (Revisions need to be made with fresh links)
