Open allPinside forum FAQ
How can I participate on the Pinside?
Anyone can read the forum without posting (also called 'lurking'). But to participate on the forum, you'll need a Pinside account. An account is free so go ahead and sign up here!
What are sub-forums?
Each topic on the Pinside forum belongs to one sub-forum. The forum home page shows all topics from all sub-forums, the topic with the most recent reply is at the top of the page. The left hand side of the forum home page shows all the sub-forums. This way you can easily browse, for example, all the topics posted in "tech help".
When posting a new topic, please make sure you are posting it in the right forum. Posting stuff for sale is only allowed in the market sub-forum. Stuff not related to pinball should be posted in the off topic bar. Keep in mind that politics, religion (and other subjects that are causing wars around the world) are not allowed.
What are NSFW/NFF warnings?
Sometimes a post may contain images not suited for all, while still falling within the Pinside rules. On the internet this is often called Not Safe For Work or sometimes Not Family Friendly. We ask you, our visitors, to help tag these images using the little icon that will be visible under an image in a forum post. As others will do the same, this forms a user-moderated "shield" so we can all safely browse the site in public spaces, at work, or when our kids are around. Tagging your own image uploads is mandatory. Failure to do so may earn you a Pinside rules violation warning, so please be responsible and help keep the Pinside fun for all.
So tagging images as NSFW/NFF is a form of censorship?
Gosh no! It's up to you how you set your automatic-image-hiding threshold. You can even disable it to see all content, regardless of how many tags it got. These warnings are merely a way to protect sensitive eyes from forum content which some may regard as "dangerous" or "unsuitable".
What do the arrow up and down buttons do?
Using the up- and downvote buttons, you can tell the poster (and everyone else for that matter) that you (dis)agree with his post. This is the equivalent of -1 or +1 or +10000 posts.
What are the forum rules?
It's good to remember that you're a guest on the Pinside and there a certain rules that you need to stick to, a bit like house rules. The most important rule is to be nice: we expect everyone to behave in a respectful manner. When signing up for a Pinside account, you agreed with our community rules, if you haven't read them yet, now is a great time to do so.
Ignoring users
Don't you wish you could sometimes completely ignore someone? On the Pinside you can and they won't even know about it! Use the ignore link above a post by someone who is annoying you and you add add that person to your ignored users list. All posts by that user will now be muted to you. Please don't make mention of ignoring someone, at least not in public. This defeats the purpose of the ignore feature and is against the rules.
Site operations Who built this thing? Where can I report bugs or feature ideas?
robin is the founder of Pinside.com (early 2003)
I'm Robin, the founder of Pinside.com - My main focus on the forum is to make sure everything works technically and visually! I'm always on the lookout for new features to add and bugs to fix. I'm also looking to make sure people stick to our forum rules and make sure the site can't get into trouble because of what people post. Lastly I'm participating like a regular visitor and reading and posting to the threads that interest me!
Okay, so who are the Pinside moderators?
To keep all things running smoothly and to make sure our community rules are followed, there are some Pinsiders with extra abilities - they are called moderators and here they are, sorted alphabetically:
Look here for an overview of Pinside moderators.
What do the moderators do?
The Pinside moderators can change your topic title if it is not clear what your topic is about. They can edit your posts if you, for example, use swear words. They will move your topic if it's in the wrong sub-forum or close topics when things get out of control. Sometimes images or even complete posts may be removed by moderators but they will tell you about it and why if this ever happens.
Please don't publicly question a moderators judgment, action or decision in the forum. Keep the topics clean of this. if you feel a moderator made a bad decision (hard to believe, but beyond their moderator super capabilities they are human beings too) you can:
a) discuss issues with the moderator team in the "moderator feedback" sub-forum, which was recently opened for this purpose. This will allow a closed (private) discussion between you and the moderator team. Only you and the mod team can read topics posted in this sub-forum.
b) forward the violation notification to Pinside Webmaster and explain why you disagree. Only use this option if you have severe issues with the moderator team. Contacting the webmaster is not guaranteed to give you an answer so in most cases option a) is the choice.
What happens if I break the Pinside rules?
Relax, if you break the rules this will not immediately get expelled from Pinside country. You might get a warning or the content in question will be edited. Since March 2014 we have a rules violation system system in place:
If your behavior is "out of bounds" a moderator may send you a "Pinside rules violation" message. For example, if you keep getting into fights with other forum users, if you don't adhere to moderator requests or if you keep posting content that is not in compliance with our site rules.
One or more violations may lead to a (temporary) ban from the site. This really depends on the severity of the violation and is ultimately decided by the Pinside administration. A temporary ban will only stop you from logging in (particiating on the site) but you will still be able to browse and read everything.
Can you help me keep track of topics I visited?
Sure! When you are signed in, the system keeps track for you. You will notice the badges on the forum home page. The blue ones are unread topics, the green ones indicate the number of new posts since you last visited that topic. Click on the green badge to automatically jump to the last read post in that topic. Another tip is that you can automatically jump to the last post in a topic by clicking on the word (e.g. "6 minutes") in the forum topics list 'freshness' column.
What about favorites?
You can "bookmark" your favorite topics by adding them to your favorites. The link to do this can be found right under a topic's title on the right side of the screen. Look for the big star icon.
Help! I'm getting an error "Too many links for a user of your status" when posting!
This is our spam filter detecting weird behavior from you, your posts, your IP, etc. Contact webmaster for more info.
Why do I have a blue badge with the text OP on my user avatar? I'm not an OP!
OP means you are the person who started the threads, hence it shows this blue icon "OP". It helps others keep track throughout the topic that you are the one making the (O)pening (P)ost.
WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS CAPTION?
Glad that this got your attention, but having a thread title in ALL CAPS is not allowed. A moderator will edit your thread title and make an edit note. Do this again and there may be less friendly repercussions. Don't say I didn't warn you!
Can I sell stuff on Pinside via the forum?
Pinside has a dedicated Marketplace section for selling games, parts, mods etc. If you're selling something on Pinside, the Marketplace is the place where it's allowed.
There is one exception to this rule, called "Regional for sale threads". Read more about that in this post.
This site rocks! How can I help?
Thanks! There are so many ways to help out here, it's uncanny. Some examples:
- first and foremost: be a good Pinside citizen! Be friendly, be nice!
- contribute your knowledge/help on the forum, reply to forum topics that don't yet have replies
- contribute financially (make a donation)
- contribute to the pinball archive, making edits to the info there, upload images, add videos, add ratings
- add locations to the pinball map, upload images of locations, add comments about locations
- write good stories, archive wiki entries, rating reviews
- add pinball events
- did I mention: be nice!
More info about the site can be found here.
This FAQ is a work in progress, more will be added later...
Alkmaar
