For a look at the general board rules you can check out:
The [Official] FAQ
For a user perspective on Rants:
A few logical fallacies good to avoid:
Or... "Rants: the FAQ"
Topics in the order they are addressed (for your scrolling needs):
What is Ranting?: Agitated Speech. Threads about stuff people are angry about. Ranting is the act of venting your spleen about something that mmmakes you so mmmad...
Try it. It's fun.
What is the Rants Folder for?: The Rants folder is for venting about the things that mmmake you so mmmad, and heated discussion will probably ensue, as well as intelligent debate and discussion (depending upon the topic). Some general tips:
1. If you have something you want to Rant about; post the topic and keep the topic on track. Don't let it wander off topic, or become a mindless chat room or pointless flame war.
2. If you're not in the mood to argue - don't get into arguments with people.
3. There are trolls in this section. Be advised that, If you feed them - they'll keep coming back for more. 4. While a certain degree of sarcasm is perhaps to be expected, out and out flaming is not acceptable and could lead to being banned.
"But SwimMod_Luuv - what is flaming?": Flaming is: "YOU'RE ALL A BUNCH OF **bleep**ING DONKEY **bleep** LICKING **bleep** FACES!!!" But if, within the context of an argument, somebody calls your intelligence into question, that's just part of the debate process you know? Try to recognize flaming for what it is and report it when you see it. But also - don't report every little barb or bit of sarcasm that somebody throws your way.
Flaming isn't: "If you had half the intelligence god gave my pet chihuahua 'Guadalupe' you would understand that 'Show A' is much much better than 'Show B'" Try not to be insulting at all if you can. But if you get stabbed with a few sarcastic barbs here and there - it's part of what goes on in this folder. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. Now go forth in anger my children.
"Okay then... what's a troll?": A Troll is somebody who picks out a thread and takes up residence in it for the sole purpose of insulting the topic, and/or one or more of the people that post to the thread. If this practice occurs in a thread you are posting in, please feel free to report it as abuse via the "Report Abuse" feature.
This thread explains how to use it:
DO NOT report it unless it is occurring over the course of several posts. One or two posts of this nature are perhaps to be expected in the Rants Folder, or in any disagreement, but if it goes on for several posts, please report it.
One other side note:
I suppose there is really nothing wrong in and of itself with cliques per se. But I ask you all as individuals to be aware of the following possibility when you are part of a board clique:
Are you harassing/trolling a thread? Harassment/Trolling as a pack WILL get you banned if I see it happening, and I don't care how long you've been on the boards. I think that's about the most pathetic and egregious thing people can do, get together as a group and attack some individual with malicious intent. Be it due to their religion, race, sex, sexual orientation, or just plain because you don't like the person. So, if you and your friends are contributing negativity to a thread: Please stop and ask yourself what you're doing, and if what you're doing is simply trashing a person because you don't like them - I'm asking you to just stop doing it the second you realize it's happening.
I think participating in that kind of harassment damages the harassers as much as the person being harassed. It's erosive to you as much as the person you're harassing.
Note that no one of the board rank of "SwimNewbie" may post a new thread. They can post within already existing threads that are open to posting, but not post their own new threads. SwimNewbies should take this time to acquaint themselves with the Official FAQ.
Before posting your thread, know that we often delete duplicate threads, so be sure to search for an already existing thread with the same topic. You can most easily do this by using the Advanced Search function or the regular old Search. Once you're sure there isn't an already existing topic:
1. Toward the top left hand corner of the page click the "New Message" button with the page icon next to it.
2. Type the name of your thread into the white "Message Subject" line. Be sure to search for already existing similar topics before making a new one, and be sure the title of your thread is relevant to the folder you are posting it in, as well as to the topic you are posting about.
3. Type your message in big black text box. You may use board features to alter the font, the type size, color of the text, hyperlink, insert smileys, use bold face, italics, underline or scratch features to enhance your message. There are other tricks you can use as well by editing your post as html. For tips on that, consult Rahx's threads in the AdultSwim.com folder, Forum HTML and You and the more advanced the advanced HTML guide.
4. Once your post is complete, hit the "Submit Post" button in the lower lefthand corner of the screen. Within seconds, your thread should appear on the message board in the folder in which you posted it.
5. Once your thread is posted, try to keep it on topic.
"Got it, now all I want to know is... Why was my thread deleted?":
According to the Official FAQ for the Adult Swim Message Board:
Answer: Boring threads/messages are often deleted in order to protect our desire to provide this forum. "Boring" is defined as anything that hurts our heads. This includes malicious flaming and references to illicit acts (We enjoy most illicit acts, but we don't feel a need to discuss them here - You shouldn't either.), Repetitive threads, chatting, shout-outs, trolling and flaming.
I'm going to add; I think it's important for people to be able to rant and say what they feel, BUT I really think it's of equal or greater importance that individuals on the board who might be gay or of a certain race or religion, not feel as though they are under any threat for posting here. So - for that reason, we try to get rid of racist, homophobic, or "hate speech" type posts as soon as we see them.
Other quick guidelines:
1. Have a real topic "I'm bored" doesn't count.
2. Don't exchange personal or contact information on the board. That will likely get your thread deleted. The only exception to this is IM screen names, which you may exchange. If you wish to exchange any other contact or personal information, please do it in IM or elsewhere.
3. Once your thread is posted, try to keep it on topic. If your thread becomes flamey or chatty, one option is to send in an abuse report on your own thread, requesting that the mod not delete the thread, but maybe warn the flamers or chatters, and perhaps delete just the offending posts. Note that this might not be possible if there are too many such flame/chat posts in the thread, but if there is only a few, it might be salvageable.
4. Search for an already existing topic before making a new one, duplicate topics are often deleted.
Also, once again, I suppose there is really nothing wrong in and of itself with cliques per se se. But I ask you all as individuals to be aware of the following possibility when you are part of a board clique:
Are you chatting in the threads you are contributing to? IE: are you going off topic to turn the thread into a kind of social chatroom like back-and-forth in which you inquire about each others' day and announce your comings and goings "I'm back!" "hi!" "how was your day?" that kind of thing. Doing too much of that, if it's an obvious pattern and is leading to the deaths of otherwise topical and good threads, will lead to you and your friends getting banned. So try not to chat.
If you find that you are being harassed/followed around the board by a specific clique or individual who is doing it solely to harass you, flame you, or drive you from the board, DO NOT flame back. The best course of action is to express yourself as simply and calmly as possible, use the "report abuse" feature explained in this thread, Report Abuse: What to report and how to use it.
If you flame back, you are merely contributing to the situation, weakening your position, and contributing to an overall negative atmosphere on the board. I suggest that you don't interact with the harassers/trolls at all, just respond to posts that are relevant to your topic and send in the abuse report. But if you must respond, do so in a civil tone with simplistic language. Diatribes and manifestos will only make things worse. Keep your replies calm, short, and as logical as possible.
Occasionally on the board, we see the forming of board cliques, grudges, rivalries, vendettas, and things of that nature.
These boards are for everyone. You are all of equal value. And for somebody not acknowledge that is shortchanging themselves out of a lot of things that this life has to offer.
I occasionally notice grudges heating up between certain regulars/individual users and sometimes between board cliques. Hence:
1. Do not insult other users as part of your signature.
2. If you dislike a certain poster: avoid their threads. Basically by posting in their threads you are only stirring up controversy and drawing attention/sympathy for the person anyway, and possibly jeopardizing your own screenname by getting banned for trolling/flaming or harassment. It's not worth it. Just don't post to the threads of people you don't like unless it's for purposes of discussion. If you find yourself posting to a thread SOLELY because you don't like the person, you're probably going to end up banned, because you're obviously harassing the person.
3. If a thread irritates you: don't post in it. If you find that there's a topic you don't agree with, and wish to register your thoughts and participate in a discussion or debate on said topic: there is nothing wrong with that. HOWEVER - if you find that your purpose for posting to the thread is not to discuss/debate, and instead simply to harass or troll, do not post to the thread.
A good indicator: If your last post had nothing to do with the topic, and was instead simply an expression of frustration at a specific individual: it's time to move on.
4. If you send in a false abuse report, that's bad. Don't do that. If it becomes a pattern, if I get several abuse reports from the same user, all about the same user, and none or a very small percentage of them are legitimate, I'll ban you for abusing the abuse report system. So: U = warned.
If you are being harassed (legitimately harassed) and are not part of a flame war back-and-forth type situation, report it. And a mod will deal with it. If I get the report and check the thread and see the person who sent in the report is actually trolling, harassing, or engaging in a back-and-forth flame war, I might just ban both participants.
So watch your behavior, and be careful what you report. And don't report people just because you don't like them, because we can see through that right away. I mean - you know - it's pretty obvious when there are 6 or 8 abuse reports from the same person or clique complaining about the same user.
How do I use the Search Function?:
At the bottom of every page of the AdultSwim.Com message boards is the search function. You can use it to search for a specific word, user, or in advanced mode.
To use the "user search" click the "User Search" tab. To use the "advanced search" click the "Advanced Search" tab.
To use the basic search function, simply type in the word that you wish to search. Then from the pulldown menu select how many results you would like to see on each page.
Then click "Search."
You will get a list of posts which contain that word that you used as your search criteria. The post list contains several columns:
1. Score: This is the % to which the entry in question matches your search criteria.
2. Subject/Message Board: This column displays the thread topic of the post in question and the folder in which it appears. You will notice that in the white column heading "Subject/Message board" both "subject" and "message board" are clickable links.
Clicking the "Subject" link will cause the list of results to be sorted alphabetically by the post/thread subject heading.
Clicking the "Message Board" link will cause the list of results to be sorted alphabetically by the Folder in which they appear (Action, AdultSwim.Com, Williams Street Culture, etc).
3. Author. This column displays the author of the post. Clicking this category heading will resort the list alphabetically by post author.
4. Replies: This column displays the number of replies to the post in question. Clicking this category heading is supposed to resort the list somehow by number of replies, but it never seems to work when I try it.
5. Views: This column displays the number of times the post in question has been viewed. Clicking this category heading will resort the list by number of times each post has been viewed.
6. Date/Time: This column displays the date and time the message was posted. Clicking this category heading will resort the list according to chronological age of the posts from From recent on back.
Advanced Message Search Mode: This is a more detailed version of the post search function described above. Once on the Message Search page, to the right of the "Search" button, you will see a link that will take you to "Advanced Mode". click that.
In the upper right hand corner, just above the text search fields of the Advanced Mode, there is a link that will return you to "Simple Mode" if you wish.
The Advanced Mode allows you to refine or expand your search with extra criteria.
First, there are three search criteria boxes for "Message Body". These search for things in the body of a post.
1. The first field "With All the Words"; Type into this field any words that you wish to include in your search. If you use this field, only posts that contain only all of the words you type will come up.
2. "With zero or more of the words": Type into this field any words that you wish to include, but that aren't completely necessary to define the search. If your search is more along the lines of "well - I'm looking for discussions about horses, Inuyasha, or Abortion Rights". Then you might type in those words. The search results will return posts that contain the words in question, but not necessarily all of the search criteria words in one post as with "#1" above.
3. "Without the words": Type into this field any words that you wish to exclude from your results. Using this field will cause only those posts that do not contain the words you type into the text field to appear in your search, and can be used to refine searches such that you can gradually eliminate from posts or discussions until you find exactly what you are looking for.
Next, from the pulldown menu select how many "results per page" you would like to view. DO NOT click the "Search" button next to the "results per page" unless you are finished inputting all of your search criteria.
Beneath that there are more fields:
1. Message Subject: Using this field will cause only those messages whose Subject Heading/Title contain the words you type to appear in your search results.
2. Message Author: Using this field will cause only those message whose Author matches the screen name you input to appear in your search results.
3. Boards: From the pulldown menu, you may select a specific Folder or Board in which to search. You can chose "any board", you can chose a general section like "Adult Swim Headquarters" or a specific folder with a section like "Williams Street Culture" for example.
4. Open Response: Clicking this box will only return threads/posts with no replies.
5. Fuzzy Logic: Clicking this box will use "Fuzzy Logic" and allow your search to return with close matches and possible misspellings of the criteria in question.
When you are all finished inputting the criteria you wish to use in your search, click the "Search" button in the center of the page next to the "Results per page" pulldown menu.
User Search: This allows you to search for specific registers users on the Adult Swim Message Boards. Instead of typing a word into the search criteria, click the "Users" tab. This will give you a new search criteria bar.
Type in the user name you wish to search.
From the pulldown menu next to the search criteria text box, select how many results you would like to see per page.
Click "Search".
You will get a list of posts which contain that word that you used as your search criteria.
The post list contains several columns:
1. Score: This is the % to which the entry in question matches your search criteria.
2. Login: This is a listing of screen names. Clicking this category heading will result in the user list being resorted alphabetically by Login (aka "Screen Name").
3. Posts: This tells the number of posts the user in question has made. Clicking this category heading will result in the user list being resorted by number of posts.
4. Friends List: This column allows you to add or remove a user to your friends list. This function has been largely disabled, but there are still things that work in conjunction with the Friends List function. For example, you can edit your Personal Profile Preference Privacy settings to allow only those on your friends list to view your profile, or see your online status. Clicking "add this user to my friends list" will add them. Once added, the option then changes to "remove this user from my friends list", if you click "remove this user from my friends list", it will remove them.
5. Ignore List: This column allows you to add or remove a user from your ignore list. I believe this function is attached to the Private Messaging system and is therefore disabled.
6. Send Message: This function has been disabled.
7. Send Note: This function has been disabled.
The News Section is a great place to start for news on the programming, sechedule, and on new shows coming up. And the Help Section of the site answers a great deal of the questions you may have about the site and the message boards.
The AdultSwim.com folder will sport threads on board changes and other site related things, so is also great to check. This folder also sports the "Ask The Mods" series of threads, all of which are floated and should be easy to spot. Those threads are used if you have a question about a thread closing/deleting, or a banning. If you go to this thread and ask about a thread deletion or closing, please be sure to include the name of the thread deleted, it's folder, and what it was about. If you're asking about a a ban, please be sure to include the name banned.
All folders also have "floats" or "stickies." This threads are always at the top of the folder, and often provide information on the folder you're in (many folders have their own Mini-FAQ's, like this one) and there are also usually helpful or informative threads floated as well. It's always good to check the floated threads before asking a question.
Everybody deserves a chance at having a good life. And everybody deserves a chance to have a good time on the boards.
Every thread deserves a chance to grow into something that might surprise you.
Every thought leads somewhere. And somewhere is usually a pretty interesting place once you get there, at least to me.
Please use the board. Let it entertain and elighten you and allow you to entertain and enlighten others.
The board, and your overall experience with it, can be very fun and very enriching.
It's your choice.
Message Edited by SwimMod_Isen on 09-14-2005 09:30 PM
super duper
AdultSwim.com is part of Turner Entertainment Digital which is part of the Turner Sports & Entertainment Digital Network.
