Forum glossary, read it!

by **Webmaster** Tue Jun 03, 2008 8:49 pm

- Administrator : This is the highest permission level for a member. He can manage the whole board by creating/organizing categories and sections, setting up permissions, changing the board's design, managing the users, etc.

- Announcement : Topic which always stays at the top of the topic list even if this topic is old. It appears at every page of a forum. They are generally used for board rules

- Avatar : Personal image which is shown below the username in posts. The avatar is choosen by the user and it usually reflects a personality trait, a passion or a mood.

- Category : A group of forums (section). They can't contain topics directly.

- Flood : From the original definition of the word, this term is used to talk about the action of mass-posting only to raise the member's rank, to put a forum out of order or anything else. It may be posts which are extremely short. On Forumotion, this kind of post penalize forums in their position in the Forumotion directory.

- Fora : Latin plural for "Forum"

- Forum : Two definitions
1) Website or dynamic website part which allows written expression of its members. Also called "board", "message board" or "bulletin board"
2) A group which contains topics (or threads), also called "section"

- Founder : The administrator who created the board. He has rights the other admins don't, such as modifying his own profile, changing the board's address, deleting his board, having access the the restoration utilities (the creation password is needed)

- Guest : User who's not logged in to your board

- Hidden user : Registered user who chose to hide his online status. It can be done by ticking "Yes" to "Hide your online status" when you edit your profile. Administrators and moderators (if the admins allowed it in Admins Panel > Security) can see them, their names appear in italic.

- Moderator : A member who's charged to ensure a nice ambiance in a section or in a group of sections. For this, he has tools simple member don't have, such as moving, locking, unlocking, deleting, splitting, merging topics, editing or deleting posts, banning troublesome members (if the admin allowed it in Admin panel > Security)

- Post : Part of a topic which contains what a member wrote. It also contains the avatar and the informative links about the same member. It is synonym of "message"

- Private message : As the name means, it's a message you send to a single member who will be the only one to read it. This is useful for transmitting confidential information (ex : abuse report). Also called PM

- SMS : Kind of writing which is often used in textual messages exchanged between mobile phones. This writing has the characteristic to be very abbreviated by using a single letter or number for a sound (ex : "U" for "you", "2" for "to", "sk8" for "skate"). this kind of writing MUST be avoided on this board because it's hard to read!

- Sticky : Topîc which always stays at the top of the topic list, under an annoucement (if there is one), even if this topic is old. It appears only on the first page of a forum. They are generally used to display useful content which must stays visible for everyone.

- Topic : A series of posts. Also called "thread"

- Troll : Message or poster aimed to engage in controversy at an excessive level. It harms the forum ambiance because it annoys members, it's not very appreciated.

- Usergroup : A group of users which has special permissions, such as having access to a private section, or moderating a section. Any user who's member of a group will have the access/moderation permission given to the group. This simplifies the permissions management a lot.