Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

[Knight-Dragon]

shane has moved it elsewhere for a review. It'll be restored when he's done.

[Sir_Lancelot]

Originally Posted by Domination3000

I can see your point here. I personally feel it is a differnation in words. TECHNICALLY, "Idiot" is actually a term for someone of an IQ of 25 or lower, Imbecile for someone between 25 and 50, and Moron between 50 and 75. I've never heard of anyone claiming any of these words are offensive due to this.

That said, there may be a reason why retarded is singled out and these words are not. But I'm not seeing it.

I'm curious from where you have those definitions with IQ levels for "idiot", "imbecile" and "moron"? From a quality source or just some internet dictionary that you don't know who has edited?
I used to think all those words meant exactly the same, or actually I thought "moron" was slightly more offensive than "idiot".

I wonder why other offensive words (idiot, moron etc) are not cencored? Where I am from, [72 smilies] means idiot but [72 smilies] sounds a bit nicer.

Additional question: Would it be tolerable to bypass the autocencor in a situation like this, where we discuss the cencored word? The cencored word is not a curse word and I can only hope that you understand what word was replaced with 72 smilies by the autocencor.

Originally Posted by aimeeandbeatles

question: how do invisible users appear to moderators in the list?

Appears as visible with an asterisk * next to their name.

[Plotinus]

What we may call "the R word" is considered offensive for reasons that go beyond its plain meaning.

This is the case with most words considered offensive. Think of abusive racial terms. Many of these are inoffensive as far as pure meaning goes, if we take that in the sense of etymology. Even "the N word" is nothing more than a derivative of the Latin for "black". But no-one says, "Why's 'the N word' offensive when 'black' isn't offensive?" because we all know that one of these words has acquired connotations beyond its pure meaning from the way it has been used.

So too with "the R word". You may think that, strictly speaking, it has the same meaning as "idiot" or whatever, and this may be the case, but it has connotations which make it more offensive than that. We don't censor words because they are unkind things to say to people - if we did then maybe "idiot" and the others would be censored as well - we censor words that carry a greater weight of intrinsic offensiveness. You say that you're unaware of them being more intrinsically offensive, and they're not used in that way where you live? Well, great. But that is not generally the case.

[aimeeandbeatles]

Is CFC being spotty or is it just me?

And why dont they update the site status blog anymore.

[Joecoolyo]

Originally Posted by aimeeandbeatles

Is CFC being spotty or is it just me?

Great site I found, should be useful in your situation.

http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/

[aimeeandbeatles]

Originally Posted by Joecoolyo

Great site I found, should be useful in your situation.

http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/

The thing is, at the time it was timing out and then not timing out sporadically.

Moderator Action: Possible missing posts further down the thread are in the moderation queue. The_J

[.Shane.]

Originally Posted by Earthling

What happened to the "Chinese parenting" (I forget the title but that's roughly it) thread that was in OT? Did it just move somewhere else or was it one of those that got whisked off to the netherworld and posters who ever mention such a topic or any posts about it again are in for it? I mean I know I found better discussion at teamliquid anyway but still, threads disappearing rather than actual locking or other indications of what the moderators did is annoying, sorry if that's a hassle and if it just moved thanks to whoever can point that out.

It may be annoying, but that would be fault of the people who dragged it into an unredeemable mess.

That said, if you want to start a new attempt at the subject that has a reasonable open post, please do.

[Turner]

Originally Posted by Luckymoose

It's a serious question that many, many posters are talking about off-forum and I want an answer. I'm not being slanderous and it's highly necessary to question authority.

Moderator Action: If you have an issue with a moderator, take it up with the admins. Posting like this is unacceptable and against the forum rules.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/faq.php?faq=updated_rules_2011

[PlutonianEmpire]

How do I report glitches with the Ignore list, since posting about it gets people into trouble?

[Turner]

Report it to the admins. Mods can't do much with the technical aspects of the site.

[aimeeandbeatles]

Originally Posted by aimeeandbeatles

The thing is, at the time it was timing out and then not timing out sporadically.

Moderator Action: Possible missing posts further down the thread are in the moderation queue. The_J

I just noticed this. Am I in trouble?!?!?!

[The_J]

No, you aren't.
I just edited that notice into your post, because it was the last legitimate post at that time, and it was not important enough for a new post.

[aimeeandbeatles]

How do you report a spammish signature? Somebody posted something with a spam link in his sig so I reported his only post. But what if the person has more than 1 post?

[Abaddon]

@J: Why did you chose to make the text smaller than usual?

[Padma]

Originally Posted by aimeeandbeatles

How do you report a spammish signature? Somebody posted something with a spam link in his sig so I reported his only post. But what if the person has more than 1 post?

Report the post, and identify the problem as being a spam sig. That will tell us to check the sig, and if we concur, we will delete all that spammer's posts.

[MarineCorps]

Does CFC use the VB stop Forum spam plugin? I installed it on my forum and it's blocked several thousands attempts to join by spammers.

[ainwood]

Not as a plug-in for registration. We've actually added a menu option for moderators to search for posters there. Its not great, as its username (not IP) and its reactive.

[MarineCorps]

Originally Posted by ainwood

Not as a plug-in for registration. We've actually added a menu option for moderators to search for posters there. Its not great, as its username (not IP) and its reactive.

I rather like it. I have had it for just under 2 weeks and already 1,335 blocked registration. Checks on all three prongs and if it gets a hit on one then it doesn't let it go through.

[Sir_Lancelot]

Originally Posted by MarineCorps

Does CFC use the VB stop Forum spam plugin? I installed it on my forum and it's blocked several thousands attempts to join by spammers.

I've not tried that one yet, it prevents spammers from creating an account?

Many boards don't mind spammers creating an account as long as they fail in posting spam. If all spam accounts wasn't there, a forum would have maybe 50% less users and all boards like to have high user numbers.


Question to the CFC staff:

Have you noticed a big increase in spambot numbers after the new year? I read that some forums are getting hit by a wave of spambots.

[The_J]

The admins improved the bot protection right after the new year, so he had in fact a decrease (but it's going up again).