Hey guys, you probably have all noticed by now, but just in case you haven't, the mechanic which hides posts after they receive a certain number of negative ratings have been removed.  You can still rate posts, the rating just doesn't do anything anymore.

Additionally, the Community Ratings Tool has been disabled for quite some time.  In lieu of an actual reporting feature, please refer to this post on How To Contact A Moderator which I just updated with some more current information.  Contact one of us directly when you need something.

This happened a while ago, but there were no official announcements.  Thank the guys upstairs for this one. 

Here are some links to more threads and the Forum Guide which you may find helpfull:

GiantBomb Community IRC Channel
Using Game-specific forums
Giant Bomb How-To: Creating a New Gallery and Adding Images 
Giant Bomb How-To: Editing Your Icon 
Giant Bomb How-To: Creating & Adding to Lists


-Mike

Hi everyone!

Since launch, we have pretty much kept the same, small staff of forum moderators.  There were five of us in the beginning:  Myself, Hamz, Suneku, CitizenKane, and BoG.  That worked out just fine for awhile, then we brought over one of the many excellent Wiki mods to the forum side, TheBeast, in mid-August.  Since then, things have been pretty status quo around here.  The forums have generally been running themselves, and things have been going well, for the most part anyway.  However...Kush has always been there supporting the site from the very beginning.  We all thought that with school starting up and most of the forum mods going back to college this week, that this would be a good time to bring on another forum moderator.

Kush was an easy choice for all of us.  He's active, never has a bad word to say about anyone, and has always been a big help to the staff.  He was constantly keeping us advised of issues that were developing on the forums with certain threads or trolls when none of us were around to do anything about it, so he really was a great help to us in that respect.

With that, I welcome Kush to the dark side of Giant Bomb, may your shiney new tools keep you warm amongst the hate!

If you all hadn't noticed yet, there is a "feature" which leaves blog posts that are published to the forums virtually pinned to the top until they get a reply.  You won't see this in the newest topics feed - you need to go into the individual main forums like Off Topic or General to see this.  Take a look at this:

Please post your requests for search engine alias changes here!  Aliases allow users to find games under different names or acronyms that they are commonly referred to as. 

For example, Star Wars: The Old Republic has the following aliases:

SWOR
SWTOR
KOTOR MMO
Star Wars MMO

You can see for yourself how an alias works by typing one of the above nicknames for The Old Republic in the search window in the upper right corner of your screen.  Try putting in Star Wars MMO...as you can see, it immediately finds the correct game. 

Since aliases affect Giant Bomb's search engine a great deal, please only request to add or remove an Alias if it is critical for the page you're suggesting it for.  Aliases need to be used sparingly so the search engine doesn't get completely filled with bad results - this is why Alias is and will remain a staff-only field.  I'll use The Old Republic again as a good example.  Since this title is new, many people may not know it's called The Old Republic, but they may know that there is a Star Wars MMO in the works and in this case, the alias is a success and guides them to the correct place.

When requesting a change to an Alias, please provide the name of the game, a link to the Wiki page, the alias change you wish to make, and a brief reason you think the change should be made.  Your request will be reviewed as soon as possible and if the changes seem justifiable, it'll be done.

Now, I just bide my time until coding drives Snider so insane that he goes on an absinthe binge and cuts off part of his left ear...then, profit!

This man is obviously in the wrong line of work.

First, we have a piece titled "Inigo".  Simply brilliant.






Next, a stunning yet unnamed example of raw, natural talent...straight out of Snider's own personal sketchbook.  This is going to be worth millions one day.

test 2

In short, multiple accounts are not allowed under any circumstances.  This is covered in the Giant Bomb Terms & Conditions under the "You may not create user accounts...under false pretenses." clause.  In particular, these are a few of the things we look for:

• Ban dodging.  Creating an alternate account to continue posting while banned
• Bumping one's own posts. Users having conversations with themselves, also known as spam
• Using multiple accounts to negatively rate topics
• Creating accounts solely to insult or attack other users with

UPDATE - Multiple accounts are not allowed for any reason, that includes "Role-Playing".

A couple of boring pieces of business for Tuesday, August 12th:

• The ability for users to delete their own first post in a forum topic has been removed.  This was causing problems because users were going back and deleting their own first post, leaving an empty shell of a topic that made no sense and had to be locked or deleted.
• Special characters can no longer be used as the only part of a forum topic. This should cut down on unclickable posts and other craziness.

Effective immediately, anyone found to be exploiting the WIki by either plagiarizing others' work or otherwise abusing their live edit privileges to get points will have their points reset to zero.  In addition, these people will be banned from making any further submissions or edits to the site.  If you've copy & pasted something from another website into the Wiki, it would be best if you went back and editied that stuff out before you get caught by one of us.  Remember, we want original material in your own words, and no watermarked images from other sites in galleries.

Thankfully, there are a few users who have taken it upon themselves to investigate the submission history of users that are on the top of the leaderboards.  If you come across suspected plagiarism, PM me and I'll make sure the appropriate action is taken.   Make sure you include plenty of links and supporting information. 

On a related note, please do not submit thousands of screenshots into a gallery.  I'm not naming names here, but there are a few people that are submitting hundreds and even thousands of screenshots for games that were only taken a second or two apart from one another.  This realliy ruins screenshot galleries, and it makes looking for a specific shot like looking for a needle in a stack of needles.

Troll starts acting up

Users negatively rate the bad post

Once the specified number of negative ratings is reached, a Moderator

checks out the thread and handles business.

Everyone goes back to business as usual!