Users Comprehensive Guide
Opening
Greetings, we'd like to thank you for joining the community and as such; we give you our warm welcome. Here at DF, we specialize in Resources, Programming, and General Discussion. As a member of the Demon Forums Family, we grant you access to a vast amount of knowledge shared by our community giving you a new insight on everything that we have to offer.
In this comprehensive Guide, I want to cover a lot of ground to the new users, and less active users that may give you a heads up on why you should support us, what benefits we give, and how to conduct yourself as a member of this site.
One of the first things that I'd like to start off with is that questions are to be asked. If you don't understand something, be sure to drop a reply or PM myself and/or a member of the DF Staff Team.
That wraps up the beginning sector of this guide, now let's delve into more detailed aspects of the forum.
Forum History
@3 is the owner of Demon Forums, and just like every other forum owner; it wasn't his first time being a part of a community. The intention was just as it is, a forum to obtain resources, programming knowledge, and have open discussions and debates. With the help of @427 and @20 Demon Forums became what it is today.
Demon Forums was founded in late 2015 and is alive today as you read this guide. With it's constant growing member base and support into the developing scene; Demon Forums has continued to grow in activity and within the rankings.
Rules and Regulations
As with every other forum, there are rules to follow when browsing and posting on the forums. These rules aren't too strict, but meant to separate the people who use the forums to leech, from the members who are contributing to the forums.
Rules branch off as listed below.
Rules and Regulations
- General Rules
- Posting Rules
- Marketplace Rules
- Reputation System
- Vouch System
- Like System
- Passphrase / 2 step information
- Legal Disclaimer
Furthermore, by registering to the forums; you agree to follow these rules as stated. Staff of DF have the right to change these documents at any given time.
Posting
High Quality Posting
Activity is great, and we'd love for everyone to post and share things to the community; but there's a fine line between being active and being a low quality member.
Here on Demon Forums the posting of short or one-word posts will ultimately result in a suspension or permanent restriction from using the forums. Saying "thank you" to multiple leaks to boost your post count or to leech our content will share the same fate, we don't tolerate this and as such; you should be more thoughtful of what you post, before you post it.
Replying
When posting, there will be many events in which someone "quotes" you, or simply replies to a post you make. By clicking the reply button on their post, or the quote button on their post; you can respond to them and continue the discussion. The reply and quote buttons can be found at the bottom of every post. By quoting another user, you will alert them which will show up in their notification box, allowing them to come back to the thread and continue conversation.
In a situation where you need to alert someone, but they haven't posted on a specific thread, simply tag them. In order to tag someone into a post, you need to get their UID and place it after a '@' symbol, like so;
Spoiler Show
Introduction Section
For starters, we strongly recommend that as a new member to the community; you introduce yourself to us. This gives everyone a chance to see who you are and what you could possibly bring to the forums.
The Introductions section can be found here.
Please, do not give out your personal information that you wouldn't want going around the internet. Information such as your name, age, hobbies, and what you will be bringing to the forums are the best to include in your introduction thread.
We also advice all of the current registered members whether you're slightly new or a veteran of the forums to kindly welcome these new members whenever they create a thread.
Your Account
This is a matter that should be your first concern on the internet. Make sure you have a strong password that you share with nobody else. This will prevent the breaching of your account in the future. Most times your account is never hacked, it's the lack of you protecting your account. When I say strong password; it doesn't have to be 20 characters long with percentages and different characters. Just something that is not along the lines of 'password123' or your username.
In the event that your password is lost and you can't remember it, simply reset it.
Under the circumstance where you can't reset it if you don't have access to your email, contact an administrator to see what can be done about the retrieval of your account.
Profile
With your account comes a lot of customization. Here is some of what you can have as a standard member on the site.
Avatars - In the postbit of each post, you will see a few things, including the avatar. Your avatar is a picture that represents your profile and can be changed at any given time. You can change your avatar here.
Signatures - Signatures show up at the bottom of your post. Signatures can contain whatever you want as long as it follows the sites guidelines. The range is endless, from a quote, to a graphic designed signature. Signatures require 10 Posts before you can activate or customize one. You can edit your signature here.
Basic Profile - Your profile is compiled of a lot of information, you can edit these at your will in the Edit Profile section of your Control Panel. You can find Edit Profile here.
Everything listed above for customization can be found in your Control Panel along with tons of other features, check out your Control Panel here.
Custom User Titles and Username Colors - As you may have already observed, you cannot customize your user title unless you are an upgraded member to the community. The same goes for a username color. In order to customize your user title, you have to be at least Gold.
Upgrades
Upgrading is a great way to show your support to the community and it comes with a lot of perks. Currently there are 7 branches of membership. ( 3 of which being user upgrades )
- Registered
- Gold
- Diamond
- Emerald
- Staff (Not obtainable aside from promotion from the Administration Panel)
- Developers (Not obtainable aside from promotion from the Administration Panel)
- Administrators (Not obtainable aside from promotion from the Administration Panel)
Staff Ranks
The Staff Team is the group of people who lay down time in their day to moderate the forums content and make sure that everything is done correctly on the forums. They are chosen wisely and there aren't many. If you're interested in being a conductive member of the community and contributing in large ways, staff may be something worth considering in the future of your Demon Forums 'career'
There is no specific way to become staff, please don't ask how you become staff because there simply isn't an actual answer. The only way to become staff is if you're constructive in the community, active, and the Administration Panel sees that you're fit to helping out within the moderation aspects of the team. Currently the team is compiled of 5 members - 2 of which are moderators, 1 Developer, and 2 are administrators.
Asking for staff will ultimately end with you being denied and it might be taken further.
You can find the staff list here.
Administrators
Administrators are the go to people on the forums for account issues, name changes, and everything that the lower branches cannot do. They are also the most busy so bare that in mind when contacting them, keep it detailed so they can help you.
Developers
Developers are simply what their title infers, they are the people who develop plugins and content for the forums. Anything you see on the forums that can be improved or new ideas you have, can be made a reality by these gifted programmers.
Staff
Staff are the people that moderate the forums. They have the ability to edit,delete, and move posts. They also have the power to ban users when they're not following the rules. This position is hard to earn, and just as hard to maintain. So if you make it here, don't take it for granted.
Reputation
Reputation is simply a number that adds up based on how many times a user rates you. Each time someone reps you, it's calculated to your count.
Asking/Selling/Buying/Trading of reputation points are not allowed, doing so will result in a consequence.
Credits
Credits appear on your profile and on your postbit; they can be used to unlock hidden content, Buy Awards, and play forum games.
You earn credits by posting. You cannot purchase credits with actual money so the only way to gain them is by being active on the site. A post gives you two credits, a thread gives you three, and a referral gives you twenty.
More information on the credits system can be found here.
Awards
Awards are icons in your postbit and on your profile that you gain by doing certain actions. They range from post count, to donations, to purchasing with credits, even over to how much you know about gaming.
Awards are not meant to show who's better than the other, but it's definitely cool to have more awards and pimp out your postbit.
The full list of awards and how they can be obtained can be found here.
And you can request your awards here.
Groups
Groups are paid smaller 'memberships' that include a sub-forum for users of that group to discuss and share private content in. Anyone can apply to groups that have open recruitment, if you meet the requirements of course. These groups come with a nice userbar to go on your postbit to represent that you're a member of this group.
If you're interested in joining a group, check out the Group Discussion and Information section here.
Closure
That pretty much ends this long read, I hope it was of use to you newer members and can serve as a placement holder for the knowledge of the community. To wrap things up, I want to thank you for taking time out of your day/night in order to read this. I'm looking forward to seeing each and every one of you on the forums, enjoy yourself.
~ Axe
Credits
@2243- Creating guide© 2016-2017. All rights reserved.
~ Time you enjoy wasting, is not wasted time ~