Frequently Asked Questions

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Ron2K
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Frequently Asked Questions

Post by Ron2K »

NOTE: This forum-specific FAQ is complementary to the board's own FAQ - be sure to read that as well.

I cannot change my e-mail address or password!

Are you entering your current password in the box provided? For security reasons, you have to provide your current password whenever you want to change your e-mail address or password.

I changed my e-mail address, and now I can't log on!

The board requires that each user has a valid e-mail address - when you register or change your e-mail address, you will be sent an e-mail with a confirmation link that you must click. Your account is automatically disabled until you do this.

If you don't get your confirmation e-mail within a reasonable period of time, send a polite e-mail to PCF HQ.

How does the avatar gallery work?

Previously, the avatar gallery displayed all uploaded avatars, but this is no longer the case due to issues we've had where users would use another person's avatar.

Now, the gallery contains a few pre-defined images, organised into categories. When you go to the avatar management page, selecting "Display Gallery" will display the avatar gallery. You can then select the image category that you want, and select an image from that.

I've made a great new image. Can it be added to the gallery?

If it meets the criteria, yes.

The criteria are:
  • The image must be compliant with the forum rules with regards to size, weight, decency and so forth.
  • The image must be your own work.
  • The image may not infringe upon anyone else's copyright.
If your image meets the criteria, please host it on an image hosting service, and drop us a PM. We will then review your image, and add it to the gallery if it's suitable (it will appear in the "User Submissions" category).

What are the posting limits?
  • Maximum of 60,000 characters per post.
  • Maximum of 3 nested quotes (NOT total quotes) per post.
  • Maximum of 20 smilies per post.
  • Images contained within posts may not be greater than 800x600.
The board automatically enforces these limits, and will give you an error message if you exceed them. If this happens to you, correct the error and submit your post again.

Can't you get the forum to display all messages in Afrikaans?

phpBB was designed to be translated into other languages - however, an Afrikaans translation currently does not exist.

If you feel strongly about this, you're welcome to do the translation yourself - head over to phpBB.com and find out how to do it. Last time I checked, there was someone working on an Afrikaans translation, so you may want to find out if you can collaborate with that person. The translation won't be difficult to do if you have a command for both languages, but it will be very time-consuming.

I found a post that breaks the forum rules - what do I do?

Firstly, please don't respond to such topics yourself - let the forum staff handle it.

To get our attention, you can use the post reporting feature - each post has a "report this post" button associated with it. The next forum staff member who comes along will notice your report, and will take action.

Please don't abuse this feature; users that repeatedly do this are likely to receive a forum warning.

Why did I get warned/banned?

Probably because you've done something silly.

The general progression is: first warning, second warning, final warning, temporary ban, permanent ban. The key word here is "general" - for serious offences, or when multiple offences have been committed in the past, we may put you on final warning or ban you outright.

If you believe that your warning or ban is unfair, please discuss this with whoever issued the warning via PM. Do not complain publicly; such topics will be locked on sight. Also, do not argue with forum staff over warning matters; users that do this may receive an automatic additional warning or be banned.

Can I be a moderator?

Short answer: no.

Long answer: moderators are appointed when we need them. Asking to be a moderator will not work; in fact, it is likely to completely destroy any chance you may have (usually, the users asking to be moderators are the users most likely to cause trouble).

If we feel we need another moderator, and we feel that you're suitable, we'll approach you - do NOT approach us.

I have a great idea for a new forum feature.

New ideas are always welcome; however, not all new ideas will be implemented. Some suggestions are simply impossible or not feasible to implement; others, even if technically possible, would complicate and/or slow down the forum too much for too little benefit. In general, new features should have wide applicability (be useful for many people) and be as simple as possible to use, and they should not duplicate features already present in the forum. If you are familiar with PHP and the phpBB codebase, and have written code to implement your suggestion, feel free to send it along with (but not instead of!) a description of the suggestion itself.

Some example of feature suggestions, and why they have not been added:
  • A sidebar to display recent topics. I see no necessity for this, as the forum has its own active topics page that already does a great job. Furthermore, a sidebar would be less useful than the current active topics page as it would not be able to support all of the features that the active topics page does, and it would add unnecessary clutter to every page on the forum. This request has been discussed to death on the forum, so please do not ask for it to be reconsidered. ("But", I hear you say, "if enough people want a sidebar, shouldn't it be added?" No - just because you can get a hundred people to agree with you doesn't in and of itself make your beliefs correct.)
  • BBCode that adds text alignment features. This one looks good on paper, but I've seen it used elsewhere - it's very easy to make a post unreadable with these.
I found a bug with the forum.

Please tell us, we'd like to hear about it so that we can fix it.

If it's security related, do NOT post about it publicly - doing so may cause unscrupulous users to take advantage of it before we're able to put a fix in place.

OK, I read the forum's own FAQ, and this post, and my question still hasn't been answered!

Feel free to start a thread then - you'll find plenty of friendly users here willing to help you out.

It's preferable to post publicly rather than send a PM off to someone (unless there's private information involved) - if we see things posted about repeatedly, we can improve this FAQ.
Kia kaha, Kia māia, Kia manawanui.
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