Regular Forum Rules

Regular Forum Rules

By spyware | 14255 Reads |

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Everyone sees it, yes no one acknowledges it. People running amok when posting comments, being off-topic, phr35z!ng Q’s liek dis!

This article has been written to help you, stop the madness and cure the community.

-How to post a thread-

Hellbound Hackers has a forum (most people call this “forums”, this is wrong). In this forum people can ask questions, talk about things and contribute something to the community. In this forum you can find threads. A thread is a discussion, not a MSN chat, but (hopefully) an intellectual discussion about a subject you wish to discuss.

Before you even create a thread, you should search if your subject is already covered. You can search manually (http://www.hellboundhackers.org/forum/index.php) or, like every sane person on Earth, use the search function, it's located here: http://www.hellboundhackers.org/search.php - you can search news, articles, forum posts and web links. If you need help on a challenge, go to the forum first. Most likely your problem has been covered and discussed already. When you are sure your question wasn't covered already, you can post your own thread. First, you go to the forum. Then, you choose a category in which your thread belongs. Click on the category, and you will be taken to the sub-forum. A white button (top-right) says “New Thread”, click it.

You have to fill in (only) two things: A title and a message. Say you have a problem with MSN on Windows XP, Service Pack 2, it crashes the instant you open it. The title would be something like this: “Msn instant crash problem on Windows XP SP2”. A good title says something about the actual message/question you post, and thereby informs the reader. This way, you have a good chance your post will attract people who have knowledge about your question.

The second thing you need to type is a message. The most important thing is typing understandable. Don’t use “AOL-speak” or “leetspeak”, and never, **NEVER USE CAPS-LOCK **(hehe). Type your message in plain English and try to construct a readable text. If you have questions: ask detailed questions. An example could be this:

“I am running Windows XP, Service Pack 2. I have Msn 7.5, I installed it this morning. Before this I used 6.0, I used that without any problems. When I tried to open the 7.5 version however, it instantly crashed. I have been searching for a patch, but I couldn’t find any.”

This would make a nice post, however, it could be improved. If you think the problem is related to your computer, you should post your system specifications. This way, readers will have a much better understanding of what’s going on. Anyway, click on “Preview Thread” and check your post. If it’s good to go, click “post”. If not, edit it and then post it.

For all non-English people on Hellbound Hackers (must be over 50%): It doesn’t matter if your English isn’t very good. You don’t need to apologize for it. Just try to write a readable message. If you need help, you can ask Babelfish (http://babelfish.altavista.com). Babelfish is a translation program, which can translate words into another language. Do not try to translate full sentences, it will fail on that.

-How to post a reply-

You want to post a reply. You went to a thread, read it (reading all the posts is advised), and you want to contribute your knowledge.

Quoting: You can quote other people by clicking on the “quote” button under their post. This way, you will include their original message and can respond to it in the same post. Example:

Does anyone know where I can get the latest release of JTR?

Then you reply, and quote Spyware, your post will look like this:

[qu.ote][b.]Spyware wrote:[/b.] Does anyone know where I can get the latest release of JTR?[/qu.ote] Yes! You can get it at their website; http://www.openwall.com/john/.

Now, Spyware wants to say thank you, so he presses the “quote” button, but WATCH OUT. After two quotes, you post will get a little bit messy, here is an example:

[qu.ote][b.]Spyware wrote:[/b.] [qu.ote][b.]CloneBoy wrote:[/b.] Does anyone know where I can get the latest release of JTR?[/qu.ote] Yes! You can get it at their website; http://www.openwall.com/john/.[/qu.ote] Thanks for your help! – Spy

If you want to quote correctly, you have to move only one line, the message should look like:

[qu.ote][b.]Spyware wrote:[/b.] Does anyone know where I can get the latest release of JTR?[/qu.ote] [qu.ote][b.]CloneBoy wrote:[/b.] Yes! You can get it at their website; http://www.openwall.com/john/.[/qu.ote] Thanks for your help! – Spy

Always check how much you are quoting, and fix the quote like I did. This will prevent a messy lay-out, and an unreadable post.

To enhance your post you can add emoticons and/or BBcode. Emoticons are very easy to use, all you have to do is click on their image in the posting area (or type them out if you know them by head). Be warned however: admins and experienced users won’t appreciate many emoticons. So either use them rarely, or use them never.

BBcode is special code designed for forums. With this code, you can add tags to make your post a bit dynamic. You can use the following tags:

[.b]Bold text here[./b] – The “B” tag will make your text bold. This is useful if you want to give special attention to something.

[.i]Italic text here[./i] – The “I” tag will make your text italic. Use this if you want to outline a name, or a special word. (IE. We have a piano, a Kawai piano)

[.u]Underlined text here[./u] – The “U” tag will underline your text. Use this tag if you want to give a piece of text extra attention. Example: if you notice someone missed something when he posted a reply, quote the original message they were responding to and underline the part he failed to notice.

[.url]http://website.com/example.htm[./url] – The URL tag is being used to create hyperlinks. Use this tag if you want to link users to a page. (WARNING: HBH doesn’t link pages with “weird” characters in the url. Encoded HTML tags like spaces will break the URL tag!)

[.mail]Email here[./mail] – The mail tag is disabled on HBH, and therefore it will not work. Do not use it.

[.img]http://image.com/goeshere.jpg[./img] – The IMG tag is used for displaying pictures. Pictures can help you explain a situation better. Use this tag with caution, for the forum users don’t like big pictures. Use an URL tag to link to big pictures, small pictures can be displayed with this tag.

[.center]Center some text[./center] – The Center tag is used to… center text. You can do this for various reasons, mostly important for a layout structure in your post. Use this only when you need to.

[.small]Small text[./small] – With this tag you can make text small. Again, this is used for layout reasons. Do not use this when you don’t need to.

[.code]Code goes in here[./code] – The Code tag is used to display code. If you need to post some code (whatever language it is), put it between the code tag.

[.quote]Quote a text[./quote] – The quote tag is used to quote text. Use this to quote other people/content. This tag is very important, it will give your post a good structure.

There are three other options you can use: font color, disable smileys and disable your signature.

You can give your text some color by

1. Select the text you want to give color
2. Click on the dropdown box and choose a color

As you can see coloring text is very useful. Don’t color your text unnecessary, the forum readers like black (default color) the best.

Disabling smileys can be done by checking the checkbox in front of it. Do this if you don’t want to display smileys in a forum post, but most important is; CHECK THIS IF YOU POST SOME CODE. Smileys can tear code apart and create a mess. Therefore check this box if you post some code.

You can disable your signature if you don’t want users to see your signature. Do this if your signature is ugly, irritating or not finished yet.

-General Advise-

Don't make large signatures. Keep graphics 300x200 pixels MAX. Also, don't post large texts. This will disrupt the forum layout.

Flaming can be fun, but keep in mind what you say. You can hurt people, don't forget that. You are held responsible for every post you make, be sure to post the right thing.

Off-topic posting is posting a reply unrelated to the thread. Always try to avoid posting 100% off-topic. If you want to post something off-topic, be sure to reply to the initial subject too, that way you are still contributing to the thread.

Asking for help is easy, yes, but not always advised. Before you ask for help with something, try to study/research the subject yourself first. If your question is answered with one easy Google search people will frown upon you.

-Fin-

If you still have questions about the forum, please post them in the comments. I will edit my article if you make a valid point.

Thanks for reading. Please be so kind to comply with these standards, it would not only benefit you, but the whole community.

-Spyware

Thank you, Flaming_figures, Only.Samurai, Mozzer and you, the reader.