New User Guide

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Contents

[edit] Welcome!

We hope you find here a happy niche for yourself in our little slice of the intertubes while also enjoying yourself in the process. Many of us came here from other news/discussion websites or on a friend's recommendation. However you got here, this guide is intended to provide a quick overview of the nifty features and fun here at bN. We hope it's written in an order that makes sense, but if you find the first few items boring, get over it and read further down.


[edit] Registration

Registration is quick and easy! Click the "register" link in the top right corner of the main page and provide the requested information. We promise to never sell that info to anybody. We need to verify your age because of some of the site's content. Your email address is required in case we ever need to contact you.


[edit] Self-explanatory

  • You just registered a username and password, didn't you? Enter them already. The "log in" link is at the top right of the main page.


[edit] Safe For Work/Not Safe For Work and Images On/Off Toggles

  • Some folks are uncomfortable viewing sick and twisted stuff. And even if you are interested, your boss may not want you looking at clown porn on company time.
  • Therefore, all threads and links are classified either "Safe For Work" or "Not Safe For Work," giving YOU control over what appears after you log in. Click the link at the top of the page that says either "in sfw mode" or "in dangerous mode" and that will determine what you will see.
  • Similarly, you may be willing to engage in bizarre discussions, but not willing to risk having certain images appear. So, right next to the "sfw/dangerous" toggle link, there is an "images are off/on" toggle link. If you ever see [image hidden] while reading a thread, that's an indicator that you have images turned off. To turn them on again, just click the image toggle link.
  • Finally, as a gentle reminder, the main page displays a colored warning blurb letting you know what your current status is: green for relatively SFW with no images, yellow for 'spicy mode' (NSFW-enabled but with no images), orange for 'trusting mode' (SFW with images), and red for 'dangerous mode' (NSFW-enabled with images, hold onto your butts!).
  • We can't guarantee things will always be labeled correctly, or that things marked SFW will necessarily be safe for your particular office. So, these are just guidelines.


[edit] PLEASE NOTE: Even SFW with no images is only "relatively" safe.

On bN, NSFW is considered to refer mainly to images. NSFW language can appear in SFW threads, and frequently does. This is neither encouraged nor discouraged. For your viewing pleasure, your user profile page also has a toggle for a profanity filter. This filter is no guarantee of total protection for your virgin eyes, but it gets most of the crap on here, not to mention creates some fun accidental words like doc*ment.

[edit] The Queue

  • Any registered user can submit a link to share with the others along with a (hopefully humorous) headline. Everyone - including the submitter - is then free to vote on whether the article should appear on the main page, or just disappear into the ether. The best way to learn about how the submission queue works is to watch it run for a little while and see which items make the front page.
  • Any registered member may also post a "discussion" topic. An article link is not required, just a headline that prompts a discussion. Again, your best bet is to take a look at the queue and see how "discussion" topics are handled.

IMPORTANT: EVERY ITEM SUBMITTED TO THE QUEUE MUST BE CLASSIFIED AS 'SAFE FOR WORK' OR 'NOT SAFE FOR WORK!'.

  • But it's up to the submitter to decide. "Safe for work" means you're limiting what's allowed in the discussion thread. You are also vouching that the article will not cost people their jobs at reasonable companies. In contrast, NSFW threads are much closer to "anything goes" but are seen by fewer people so they might not make the front page as readily. Use your best judgment. If you think an article is safe but may lead to a lot of raunchy comments, please mark it NSFW!
  • Another feature of the queue allows submission of alternate headlines. If you love the story but hate the headline, then try it! You may save a great story from being totally ignored because the original submitter provided an unpopular headline.

Discussion Threads

  • Discussion threads are where SFW/NSFW and images really come to life. There really is no way to describe them. You just have to go in and start reading. When commenting on another post, feel free to use the "reply to" function next to the "cool" and "inappropriate" vote links. This will post a header to your comment including the username and text of whatever you're replying to with a link back to that comment.
  • There is no edit function right now, so proofread your posts before submitting them. By popular demand, there is now a preview function, SO USE IT DAMMIT! Nothing looks stupider than 3 consecutive posts by the same person just trying to get one lousy image to show up.
  • Perhaps most importantly: WE ARE A COMMUNITY THAT MODERATES ITSELF. Ask yourself before submitting anything - a link, an image, a comment - is what I'm doing acceptable in a SFW (or any) thread? If not, the rest of us will vote it down. You won't be able to cry censorship since it's a democratic process. So there..

[edit] Voting

  • Whether it be in the queue or in the threads, every user receives one vote per item. Within the threads, the options for voting are "cool" and "inappropriate". THIS DOES NOT MEAN "I AGREE" OR "I DISAGREE!"
  • This site was founded partly in the name of free speech and against censorship. Voting down contrary viewpoints is HIGHLY FROWNED UPON. You really should only use "inappropriate" in cases where an item truly is - either nudity or obscenity in a safe for work thread or an illegal or thoroughly unpleasant item in a NSFW thread (e.g. no goatse, no tubgirl, no meatspin). For this reason, at a net score of -3 a posting will be hidden.
  • If you see that an item has been voted down (-1 or -2) in a thread in which it is not actually inappropriate, you are encouraged to try and "rescue" it by voting it back up again. The site owners do look into what people are doing. If votes are being abused, they will take action. Also, anyone who votes something down which is later voted back up copiously will receive points on his/her "Nancy" index - which, if it reaches a certain threshold, can lead to lulz.
  • Within the queue, you are freer to use your negative votes openly. There are two forms of downvote in the queue. If you just think an article is stupid/not worth discussing, vote it down. If you think an article is a dupe, a broken link, illegal (ie kiddie porn), NSFW (and ID'd as SFW), or spam, then click the "options" link next to each entry and then click the appropriate option. These options result in 2x the downvoting power of a normal downvote. It is still frowned upon to down vote a queue item in these ways simply because you disagree with it.
  • At the end of the options list are "Report a Duplicate" and "See Votes." Reporting a thread as a duplicate takes things one step farther than just voting it as a duplicate. It asks you to find and match the thread back with the one you think duplicates it, thereby verifying your claim, and making it clearer to everyone else that you aren't full of crap. "See Votes" allows you to see who voted and tagged what on a given thread. While you shouldn't make a habit of it, feel free to ask members why they voted something "spam" when it wasn't. We tolerate no shenanigans in the queue!
  • While you're free to use your half-down vote for this, please consider simply abstain from voting on articles you simply don't like. Silence is its own vote, and anyway, if there's a lot going on, that item may just sit there and not reach the front page.
  • Please, take your vote and your submissions seriously. This community is based on self-moderation. We truly are flying without a safety net. If someone posts something illegal, it is our community responsibility to get rid of it ourselves. There's no nanny in the next room looking over our shoulders.

[edit] Hot Nuts

There are nuts on the main page that indicate site activity for each of the threads. They are based on comments per hour. 

(No Nut) = 0 Comments in the last 15 Minutes
nut1.png = More than 0 comments in the last hour
nut2.png = More than 32 comments in the last hour
nut3.png = More than 64 comments in the last hour
nut4.png = More than 128 comments in the last hour
nut5.png = More than 256 comments in the last hour

The numbers given are estimated rough guesses.

[edit] Discussing/Interfering With Other Sites

  • Many of us are refugees from other social discussion/news sites. That having been said, this is NOT a forum for expressing your grievances against any other site.
  • Occasional references to other sites or to happenings there, adaptations of their clichés and SOPs can't be helped. We here wish to take the higher road, to rise above petty bickering and censorship. We as a community are dedicated to self-rule and self-moderation - as long as we don't piss off the ownership.
  • For this reason, keep the bashing of other sites to a minimum. Also, "suicide posts" in other sites' discussion threads are frowned upon. We can't make you stop doing it, but if you want to recruit your other online friends, do it in a peaceful manner please, like emailing them independently.

[edit] Tags

  • Another fun function on bN is the tag cloud. Most other sites that use such things generally have very useful tags which give you an idea of what the article is about. Don't expect any such nonsense here.
  • If you see a tag that seems amusing in the tag cloud, click it and the thread that was so tagged will be highlighted in yellow for you to find it easily.
  • If you wish to tag a thread, it should be pretty self explanatory how to do so at the top of the thread's page. Be warned that there is a maximum allowed length and that certain punctuation still isn't allowed.
  • The taggiNation Firefox extension can be used to enter multiple tags, seperated by commas. Several users have taken advantage of this feature to Quoterize entire posts, quickly filling the tag cloud with relevant (and not-so-relevant) phrases.
  • For a tag to show at the top of a thread, it needs at least 2 people to have tagged that way. For a tag to show on the main page tag cloud...well, that's a secret formula, to prevent people from abusing the system (not that we ever do that around here).
  • If you find a tag REALLY inappropriate, you can un-tag that by adding a minus sign in front of the tag text. So, for example, if someone happens to tag a sports thread "Ron Paul," you simply type "-Ron Paul" into the box and it'll remove 1 Ron Paul tag from the thread. This won't necessarily make it go away though, you have to have as many people un-tag as originally tagged in order for something to go away.
  • In your user profile, you can make a list of tags you like, love, and hate. These go into the magic computer system that determines the order things appear on your mainpage, so that if you hate politics threads, any thread tagged politics should shuffle relatively far down in the pile. This is not the only factor in that equation though, so don't whine just because you happened to see a Hillary thread appear - no one's forcing you to read the damn thing.
  • Special "Meta" tag - Since some people find "meta" discussions (discussions about how things should work on the site or problems on the site) annoying, any thread which has been tagged "meta" a sufficient number of times (it's a large number) will be hidden from sight in the "Mhetto." You can access the Mhetto by clicking on the "Meta Discussions" link at the very bottom of the main page.

[edit] IRC Chat

  • The "chat" link in the toolbar takes you to a Java chat client that runs in your browser. If you already have an IRC client of choice, use these settings: 
   Server: irc.fdfnet.net
   Port: 6667
   Channel: #bannination
  • More information can be found here
  • You guys are on your own in the IRC chat room - Banned Ventures LLC has no influence or control whatsoever in that forum. Have a good time!


[edit] RSS Feed

  • Links are provided on the main page to add the banniNation RSS feed to your Google page and your "My Yahoo" page, along with a link directly to the feed itself. The RSS feed updates every ten minutes, and only the SFW headlines from the main page are included.

[edit] Donations

  • You may notice that (at least as of right now) bN doesn't have any advertisements on it. In large part that's because advertisers don't like this crap, but it's also because part of community moderation is supporting the community. There is no subscription to bannination, however, you are free to donate (please!).
  • On your user profile there is a link to "Manage Donations." This will allow you to provide a one time credit card donation. This is NOT a subscription, you will NOT be re-billed later unless you re-enter your information to donate some more.
  • As a little reward for those who donated, there are some secret functions that appear only after you donate. For each $5 of donation, you get 1 month of "MasterbNer" status. I wish I could tell you which functions were only for donors, but I can't remember any more - just chip in the $5 for a month and find out for yourself.
  • The ownership may, from time to time, award free months of donor status to everyone on the site, as a celebration of important milestones.

[edit] Any other problems? ASK!

Thanks to sarmydoc and finnley wren for initially writing and editing this guide
Site (C) Banned Ventures, LLC 2007. Logo (C) Untrustworthy. Report abuse to abuse AT bannination DOT com
Retrieved from "http://wiki.bannination.com/wiki/New_User_Guide"
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