GameFAQs message boards

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The GameFAQs Message Boards are a set of message boards hosted by GameFAQs, a popular video game website. Though the original purpose of the board system was to facilitate game discussion, a number of other board categories have been added since the boards first came online on November 7, 1999. The boards were originally custom-made by Jeff "CJayC" Veasey, the site's founder. His code serves as the basis for the engine that currently runs the forums of GameFAQs, GameSpot, MP3.com, and TV.com.

User Levels

Every board member is assigned a board User Level that controls which boards and special features are available. Many of the levels are gained by earning "karma". Karma is a score similar to the post counting methods used by other boards, except only one karma point can be earned per day (with the exception of the annual karma boosts which are based on a percentage of existing karma). In order to gain the daily karma point, a user must visit the boards while logged in. Originally, another requirement was that the user have at least one active message on the boards, but this restriction has since been removed. The User Levels and their karma requirements have been altered quite a few times. An out-of-date list is located here [link].

Administrative Staff

GameFAQs is continually managed and monitored through the efforts of site administrators and moderators. While most of the workload is still done by CJayC, there are other administrators who perform various tasks around the site, and a team of moderators monitors the message boards.

Administrators

Administrators control all aspects of the boards. Initially, only CJayC was an administrator and therefore had full control over the site. After the acquisition by CNET Networks and the merger with GameSpot, CJayC maintained his administrative duties, but more administrators have been added to the staff with varying responsibilities.

There are currently two active administrators on GameFAQs: CJayC and Sailor Bacon (a former moderator). Both of them review contributions and handle board issues, such as banning users, on a daily basis. CJayC continues to do coding work for the site and handles other behind-the-scenes issues. There are four developers from CNET with GameFAQs administrator accounts (sbritton, jsd, gs_vincel, and Teivan), but they mostly do coding/debugging for other CNET Games & Entertainment sites. BethanyM and JodyR are GameSpot community managers that have had little to no role on the GameFAQs boards. Shadotak, who is CJayC's wife, has an administrator account, but is also inactive.

GameFAQs administrators (except Shadotak) are paid employees of CNET Networks, Inc.

Moderators

Moderators on GameFAQs are volunteers selected by CJayC who have been appointed to keep order in community discussion and activities. Moderators are only expected to handle cases brought forward by users (users can "mark" messages for moderators to review). Their typical duties include deleting TOS violations, suspending users, closing topics, and sticking topics.

While not obligated to, some moderators choose to perform more active roles on GameFAQs. Some moderators frequent popular boards to participate in board discussions, with their presence dissuading some tendencies for users to violate the site rules. Others act as the site's public relations representatives to form a link between the userbase and the staff. Moderators on GameFAQs have relatively little authority on the site, unlike many other online communities. Furthermore, they are not employees of CNET or its affiliates.

New moderators are hand-picked by CJayC, with recommendations given out by current moderators. From 2000 through 2005, over 130 moderators were selected in seven different application proccesses. Only users who are extremely active on the site with a very good moderation history and have remained for a long time (typically at least 2 or 3 years) even have a chance of being selected. The acceptance rate was well below 1% during the last moderator applications.

Starting on June 20th 2006, CJayC opened moderator applications on a permanant basis. [link]

Boards

Game and System

Every game in the GameFAQs database has a message board for game discussion. With the exception of a few older systems, topicality on these boards is strictly enforced. Popular games may have additional boards for social (non-topical), game strategy-related, or other miscellaneous discussion for that game.

In addition to games, each system on GameFAQs has a General board for discussing the hardware, upcoming games, and other topics not specific to one particular game. Most of these are inactive except for the relatively recent consoles.

Site

These are boards created to allow users to discuss matters relating to GameFAQs and its message boards.

• Message Board Announcements [link] is where administrators post general notices and warnings for the entire community. Only administrators can post on this board.
• GameFAQs Contributors [link] is a split board containing numerous boards for FAQ writers, review writers, and other contributors.
• Message Board Help (MBH) [link] is a help/complaint forum for the boards.
• Site Suggestions [link] is the official petitioning board, though very few suggestions are actually implemented.
• GameFAQs Contests [link] is a board for the annual Summer Character Contest, a huge event at GameFAQs, where the Poll of the Day is replaced by a video game character tournament. When there is no contest, the board acts as a social board. Due to multiple name changes, many GameFAQs users refer to the board by its ID number (board 8).
• The Daily Grind [link] is a board that was meant as a blog for the administrators during their time at E3 2005. However, they did not post there until November 7, 2005. CJayC said that he would use this board as a blog, posting small updates and the like. Only administrators can post on this board.

Social

Social boards are boards made purely for the purpose of socializing. These boards do not have topicality rules. These boards are usually the largest boards on GameFAQs at any given time. The largest of these boards are Current Events, Random Insanity, and Poll of the Day. A list of all Social boards can be found here: [link]

Special Interest

Special Interest boards are boards similar to game boards, but about any one of various topics that GameFAQs users have petitioned the administration to create. These are not social boards; all topics have to match the respective board's description or risk moderation.

There are boards for popular book/movie series like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and Star Wars; hobbies such as poetry, drawing, and books; and popular sports such as martial arts, racing, basketball, football, and baseball. A list of all Special Interest boards can be found here: [link]

LUE

LUE, which stands for "Life, the Universe, and Everything", is one of the most controversial boards in GameFAQs history. Its name is a reference to Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, and its original board number (42) continued the reference. Users on LUE refer to themselves as "LUEsers" and often attach "LUE" to other popular fads and events on the board, including the ASCII art known as "LUEshi". Due to the number of board invasions and the high number of moderations the board users have committed, CJayC has taken several drastic steps to curb LUEsers, including making LUE into a Private board.

1. After LUE users initiated a forum invasion of the Zelda Social Board, another board on GameFAQs, CJayC took drastic action. He raised the board level requirement from 30 (75 karma) to 31 (150 karma) (known on LUE as "RevoLUEtion"). He also created the board Another Place (board 411) as a haven for those shut out by the change.
2. On October 12, 2003, LUE was removed from the Board Manager ("SecLUEsion"). This event made LUE the first public board to become "secret"; that is, no direct public links were available. This was not very successful since users merely asked for the board link if they wanted to visit it.
3. On November 15, 2003, following a major invasion of a dead girl's LiveJournal, CJayC closed LUE to new members ("SteriLUEzation"). This event closed access to everybody above user ID 888113, which was the highest ID at the time. [link]
4. Although no major infractions had occurred, CJayC announced plans to privatize LUE ("ExcLUEsion") on January 14, 2004. [link] [link]. Users who wished to remain at LUE were required to signup during the two-week signup period.

LUE is the only board in GameFAQs history to receive such curtailed access. On several occasions, CJayC has stated that he will never open new signups for LUE access.

On April 29, 2005, in [the Great GameFAQs Q&A], CJayC said, "22,584 accounts originally signed up for LUE. Of those, 17,193 remain, the rest being lost to bans and purges."

Special

Special boards (also commonly known as secret boards) are a series of 17 message boards that are hard to find because users must manually type the board number in the address bar; they are not linked on the site.

1. Brilliant (-1) [link]
2. Nine (9) [link]
3. Board 250 (250) [link]
4. Eggbeater (486) [link]
5. Spork (542) [link]
6. Spatula (622) [link]
7. Semprini (709) [link]
8. (60666) [link]
9. The Goggles, They Do Nothing (185183) [link]
10. Snakes on a Plane (417148) [link]
11. Angela (8535937) [link]
12. Jenny (8675309) [link]
13. Lame (20040401) [link]
14. Rnd() (123456789) [link]
15. Pie (314159265) [link]
16. Toaster Oven (909090909) [link]
17. WOT (408) – see note below [link]

• WOT is now categorized as a Special board; however, unlike the other 16 boards, WOT was public at first (and was named "War on Terrorism"), but was de-linked on August 28, 2005 and given its current name. WOT was previously designated as a Special Interest board, but later became a Social board. However, many moderators continued deleting posts for being off-topic. CJayC consequently made the board secret and removed the direct reference to the War on Terrorism from the title to remove any doubt that topicality was not enforced on the board. WOT topics remain loosely focused upon issues pertaining to the War on Terrorism and International Politics with an almost equal number of social discussion amongst regulars.

Other Boards

• Regional boards are boards where gamers can chat with people in their own region as well as the world. All the regional boards are created on March 2002. As of September 2005, the top three most active boards are the United Kingdom (313) board, the Australia/New Zealand (ANZ) board, and the Brazil board. The UK and ANZ boards have become so active that they have off-site mailing lists, tournaments, role-playing games, IRC servers, and they each have their own Wikis. A list of all Regional boards can be found here [link].

• Level-Specific Social boards are social boards that require a specific user level to be viewed and posted on. The boards are generally named after the title of the minimum user level that the board requires. The level-specific social boards are: Another Place (30), Long-Timers (30), Veterans (31), Legends (32), The Elite (33), Iconia (34), Idolatry (35), and Temple of the Ancients (36). The numbers in parentheses are the user levels required to access those boards.

• The Private boards are boards owned by individual users. CJayC originally posted application topics for private boards on the Iconia and Idolatry boards on April Fool's Day (2004). Many users thought it was an April Fool's joke until the boards (810 through 819) were created a few days later. Two other private boards (820 and 821) were created at a later time after the owners found major exploits. Owners of these boards are allowed to choose the name of their board and choose co-owners for their board. A list of all private boards can be found here [link].

• The dead boards (also commonly known as secret boards) are game boards where off-topic posting is allowed. This is generally because the systems the games belong to are so antiquated and obsolete that very little genuine discussion would otherwise take place on them. Many GameFAQs users have adopted some of these boards for their own use. A list of the top 50 largest secret boards is kept on [Zamzara (C64)]. The largest secret board ever (in terms of posts) was [Bushido (C64)]. The board's original founder, NickBush24, managed to get this board to 89,536 posts before letting it purge on July 15, 2005.

Spinoff websites

Due to the high popularity of GameFAQs' forums, many users have created their own forums based on the layout and general functioning of those of GameFAQs. They are commonly referred to as spinoffs. Most contained additional features not present in GameFAQs' forums, some original and others culled from popular forum software. A few of them had contribution systems mimicking GameFAQs', but they were rarely used. Arguably the most popular spinoff is a website called "LUElinks", a spinoff of the board Life, the Universe and Everything and other boards on GameFAQs, with over 10,000 registered users.

External links

• [GameFAQs]
• [GameFAQs Message Boards]
• [Secondary Boards FAQ]
• [WikiFAQs] - a Wiki dedicated to GameFAQs

 

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