The Newbie's Guide to Fanboys

Veserius · 06-17-2009, 10:35 PM

I wrote this guide to replace the previous one because it was not only drastically out of date, it was poorly written and unfocused. This guide is for new and not so new posters to level up their F@NB0Y$ forum skills, and to make the experience of posting as simple, easy, and enjoyable as possible. If there are any questions or things you think should be added to the guide, feel free to message me about them I'll do my best to help.

The Newbie's Guide to F@NB0Y$ v.097

I. Rules: Read them here before doing anything else. Fanboys is a pretty relaxed place, but we do have rules. They aren't the most strictly enforced, but they exist for a reason and you should keep them in mind. If a thread or section has rules make sure you know what they are before posting. Reading the stickies for a section or the first post of the thread will let you know what to do generally.

II. Introducing Yourself: When people join the forum they generally want to let people know they did, instead of cluttering up the forum with a bunch of individual threads we have a collective topic for it. Just copy the template(feel free to add anything extra you want to) that other people are using and fill in your own answers. It's a nice way to not only let other posters know about you, but for you to get to know the other posters. Reading through it is a good way to find members with similar interests.

III. Posting Images: You might see other people posting images, and wonder how to do that. The easiest way is to use an image hosting service. I recommend Photobucket, Tinypic, and Imageshack, though you have to make an account for Photobucket. Once your image is hosted it is as simple as posting the Forum or bbcode URL the site gives you [img]blahblahblah[/img]. Post that and a picture will appear. DO NOT HOTLINK. Hotlinking is when you take someone else's hosted image and post it. Not only are you using that other person's bandwidth, but 99% of pictures you find not on an image hosting service are hotlink protected. Your image will not show up for anyone but you.

IV. Thread Subscriptions: By default if you post in a thread you will be subscribed to it(this can be toggled in the edit options area of the user CP) . What does that mean exactly? If you are subscribed to a thread you can be notified when it is updated in multiple ways. The first way is that in your user cp there will be a section called new subscribed threads. This will have a link in it to view all of your subscribed threads. You can also have emails sent to your inbox which have info on updated threads. You can manually subscribe to threads as well by clicking "Thread Tools" in a thread and clicking "Subscribe to this Thread".

Posting tricks and tips:
Disabling smilies: Sometimes you'll want to post the text version of a smiley, or heck just a timestamp and the forum overrides your 1:33 into a 1

3, which looks a bit silly. If you want you can disable smilies in your post by simply checking this box under the input field

Useful Threads and such:
The Pumpernickel Depository: Basically the general chat thread of the forum. Most of the regular posters post in there. Decent way to get to know your fellow members.
Junk Art Thread: Did you make a doodle? Well show it off. While you are in the art section you might be interested in our weekly art contests. The topic changes weekly, so if you don't see something you like, you can always come back later.
#thesociety: The unofficial forum IRC channel. Faster paced than the depository, and has a different sort of flow. Info on how to join in on chatting can be found here.

Veserius · 06-17-2009, 10:35 PM

Embedding Youtube Videos: Looking around you might see(or more likely hear) a youtube video. You might be thinking you'd like to know how to do that yourself. (Or you might be thinking you want it to stop. skip to the end of this section for that )

Step one: Copy the youtube video ID. That is everything after the v='s in the url. In the case of
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJunYwdWAr4 it would be the bolded part.

Step two: you want to paste that video ID like so(click show).

Spoiler for click:

If you'd like the sound from the video to play automatically without the video being visible you can substitute the [youtube][/youtube] tag with [music][/music]

The important thing is when and where it is appropriate to embed a video.
•Don't quote embeds! Especially of the [music] [/music] type variety. Hearing double the music might seem awesome in theory, but it is headache inducing in practice.
•If the current page in the Pumpernickel Depository does not have an embed in it currently you can go ahead and do so. Make sure there isn't another one before doing so.
•If you make a thread on a specific topic it is generally okay to use the youtube tag. The music tag is a bit frowned on outside of the Depository, but feel free to use it in Livejournal or Rantings of Madmen threads you make.
•Embedding using the music tag on a page that already has music in it is something you want to avoid. You also probably want to avoid the youtube tag in this case simply for the fact that if someone hits play on your video, the audio will be mangled with music.
•Embedding using the music tag in someone else's thread is also generally a no go. The obvious exception is the Depository.
•Embedding using the video tag is generally okay. If it feels wrong to put one somewhere, just ask a moderator or the thread starter and they'll generally let you know. Or just use a link.

Stopping [music] tags: As cool as the tags are at times, they can also be annoying if you are trying to listen to something else, or if you don't quite like the embedder's taste.

Heres a couple of ways to get around that.

Spoiler for OS Fixes:

Spoiler for Browser Fixes:

Embed tricks, also work on Youtube itself. simply add them to the end of the video ID.

Spoiler for Tricks: