Welcome to the brand new and super-shiny Forum Description 101: Where Do I Put These Threads thread. I'm Mercy and I'll be your guide today. This thread will give you brief descriptions of each of the main forums (and small overviews of what to do with character/concept forums) and how to know where to put your thread.
Part 1: Main Forums
1. Gen. Discussion
This forum pertains to anything related to comics. Topics like 'what's your favorite team', 'who's the best character', 'is the comic industry overrated' go here. Basically the vague topics with a broad scope. If you have something that pertains to a single character/team/publisher/item etc, it goes in that specific forum, which will be covered later down.
2. Bug Reporting
The forum name is about as straightforward as you get. This is the forum where any bugs (something that is broken with the site) goes. Make sure to post your OS and Browser and any details that's going on with the bug. For more info read How to submit a bug. If you are using any of the Stylish scripts designed by Pikahyper, shoot him a PM first to see if the bug is associated with that.
3. Artist Show-Off
This forum is the home to all of the amazingly talented artists at CV. If you have some work (done by YOU), then create a thread in there and let everybody marvel at it! This forum is also the home to all of our artist-related contests, which are open to everybody, as is the voting for the contests.
4. Off-Topic
Anything and everything not related to comics goes in this forum. Stuff about television shows, music, how pretty that girl you saw today was (seriously though, please don't make threads about that, it's a little awkward), etc. As a sidenote, if the television show did have a comic, we have a related forum, throw it in there (more on this later)
5. Contests
This forum is used for ACTUAL CONTESTS. These contests can be set up by the staff, the mods, or regular users. Prizes are optional. This forum is NOT for 'contests' like battles, or who has the coolest powers, or who gets the most chicks.
6. Battles
The battle forum is for actual fights between characters. Things like 'who has the coolest power' or 'who gets the most chicks' ARE NOT BATTLES. Just because you put 'vs' in the title, does not automatically make it battle forum worthy. They should be placed in general discussion or in off-topic (again depending on what they're about). As well, fights with characters who are not comic book characters or haven't made appearances in comic books (Bruce Lee vs Chuck Norris, Barney Stinson vs Joey Tribbian etc) do not belong in the battle forum, either.
WHEN IS A BATTLE NOT A BATTLE: GUIDELINES ON WHAT A BATTLE IS
This has been discussed between the battle forum mods a bit. These are guidelines for what does and does not constitute a battle.
- Who Can Beat _____? - These are not battles and should be placed in that characters forum from this point forward. If they aren't and a mod notices, they'll be moved.
- Power vs Power - Things like Optic Blast vs Heat Vision are not battles and will be moved to the appropriate forum from now on.
- Item vs Item - Things like Mjolnir vs Captain America's Shield are not battles and will be moved to the appropriate forum from now on.
- Can ___ Do ____? - Things like 'Can Wolverine's Claws Cut Cap's Shield' or "Can Superman's Heat Vision Melt Adamantium' are not battles and will be moved to the appropriate forum from now on.
For more information on the battle forum, please read The Battles Bible - MANDATORY READING BEFORE POSTING! and BATTLE FORUM RULES: ALL USERS MUST READ.
7. Fan-Fic
Pretty self explanatory. This forum is for ORIGINAL fan-fiction writing. DO NOT copy/paste stuff written by others and claim it as your own.
Fan-Fic rules can be found here.
8. RPG
This forum is for roleplaying games. However, it is only having to do with CV characters. For example, if you were to start a topic about Assassin's Creed, it would actually go in off-topic (providing that it doesn't have a comic book, in which case, it would go in the related forum). Things like 'who is the best RPGer', 'which team do you wish you were on', 'why is your character hero/neutral/villian' and of course actual RPGs and OOCs go in there. Things like 'what's the best RPG of the last decade' or things pertaining to Dragon Age, D&D etc, go in off-topic or their related forum.
For more information, check out the Official RPG Information Thread
9. Comic Book Preview
This forum is for the posting of official comic book previews. The only people who are allowed to create topics in this forum are staff members, due to copyright issues. If you want to post a solicit to something, do so in that team/character forum. If you post a topic in this forum, your topic will be moved and/or locked.
For more information on why this is, please read Purpose of This Board
10. API Developers
This forum deals with Comic Vine's API key.
11. Editing & Tools
This forum is to discuss the editing and wiki side of CV. If you have any questions about how things are done, post them here. There are also quite a few threads pinned to the top of that forum with guidelines, rules and help for all of our wiki editors. It's suggested that you read them before you start editing our database just so you know how we do things.
12. Podcast
This forum features discussions of the Comic Vine podcast and a question thread for G-Man and Inferiorego.
13. Quests
This forum is about the Comic Vine quest system. Whether you need help, want to know when the next one is (don't we all) or want to try and give help to others, this is your place to go.
Part 2: Specific Forums
Every character, concept, issue, team, publisher etc on Comic Vine has it's own forum. Rule of thumb is if it had a page, it has a forum. When you are making a thread involving a specific character (is Cyke the coolest character ever, how freaking awesome is Emma Frost, should X-23 have her own solo again), you put it in that characters forum.
If you're doing something like 'who is the best character currently being used at DC?' or something involving a specific publisher, you'd put it in that publisher's forum.
Pretty easy to grasp, yeah?
There are a couple different ways to access these forums. There's the dropdown at the top right of your bar.
There's also this, on the left, right underneath the forums tab
And then there's also this way, because obviously not every page displays on the popular lists.
We're going to use Emma Frost as an example. Go to her page.
And voila! You've found her forum.
Part 3: General Guidelines on Thread Posting and Tips to Figure Out Where Your Thread Goes
1. Comic Book Related Threads
When you post a thread, there are a couple of different ways to figure out which forum it belongs in. If you're doing a topic about a specific character, it goes in their forum. A topic about a team goes in that forum. If you're doing a topic about two characters (for example: Should Storm and Wolverine Hook Up?), since they're both X-Men, you'd put it in that forum. If they were both on different Marvel teams, but from Marvel, you put it in the Marvel forum so on and so forth. Makes sense, right?
2. Television Show/Movie Threads
If you're creating a thread having to deal with a television show and that television show has a spin-off comic, then that show also has a page related to the comic on CV. For example, if you wanted to create a thread about how Firefly is totally the best show ever, you'd throw it in the Serenity forum. Anything that doesn't have a page on the site and is a television show or movie would go in Off-Topic.
3. Video Game Threads
Just like shows and movies, many video games have related forums. For example, if you wanted to create a topic about how boss Chun Li is, we have a forum for that. Same thing goes for any other video game character that appeared in a comic book like Princess Peach or Dr. Liara T'Soni.
Conclusion
That wraps up our forum navigating/posting tutorial. If you have any questions/comments/concerns, feel free to post them below.
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