Hey all,Silver Sol here. With the mantle of Halo being handed over to 343,there is bound to be many people coming from the Bungie.net forums. With this migration there will be a handful of ‘Immature’ posters who will delibrately set up threads in an attempt to fool,annoy or provoke aggressive responses from forum posters here. Before reading on, I recommend you Read the forum rules to know what to do should the case arise. Usually an admin will arrive should a post be reported,and will see fit what to do with it. If an admin has to lock a thread,they will leave a short,but fair explanation as to why they had to.
Q:How do I report an abusive post?
A: Simple,click the little triangle on the Top Right of the post,and give your reason why it needs to be reported.
Q: Who and what are the Admins?
A: Admin is short for Administrator. They will usually oversee the forums and will respond to threads that have been reported,or will just post their opinion in the odd thread or two. The Admins are your friends,and you have nothing to fear from them,unless your on the end of the report stick. Now the most common Admin I see patrolling the forums is usually **bs angel,**give her a shout if you have a question about the forums or need help.
Now,many of you are wondering,What is Trolling/Spamming/Flaming?, or What are Trolls/Spammers/Flamers?
Allow me to explain.
Trolls/Trolling
Trolls are people who deliberately post a response or thread in an attempt to Prank/Trick the reader. The Troll will often get a laugh at the person who realises they are pranked. When the pranked or tricked person leaves a negative response,not only does this bring it to the front page where others will see it,but the Troll will often laugh at the person who is tricked,usually leaving the terms, "Umad? “Problem?” and “Lulz” as their response.
Normally Trolls are harmless and will at the most just annoy people. But some have been known to post links that lead to -Yoink!- material,“Free” downloads,which more than likely contain viruses,or leading to similar sites in an attempt to steal the person/s user data-Passwords,account details via asking them for their username,details and/or credit card details.
There is an exception to this,even though trolling back is against the rules in this forum,many people can outwit the troller and turn him into the trollee with a well-prepared response,usually humiliating the original Troll in a shower of laighter,it’s probably the most effective counter-measure I’ve seen used against trolls. However I do imply that you DO NOT attempt to troll back,even if you wanted to show the troll a lesson. It could end up landing you in trouble. The best you should do in this case is report the abusive post in the Waypoint forums.
Spammers/Spamming
Spammers are people who will constantly post diffirent topics which are of little interest to people,generally these would be in the same forum and usually posted by the same user. These topics will generally come in masses and will often flood the front page of a forum. The sole point of these is to merely annoy the reader and to flood the page with useless topics. I would recommend reporting every single one of these threads,even if you think it is a waste of time,but it can bring the poster to the attention of the Admins much faster than by just reporting a single post/thread.
Flamers/Flaming
These guys are perhaps the worst. The Flamer is usually an over-aggressive poster,probably at the time of posting angry at someone or something and will vent their rage online via forums. They are generally aggressive towards the public and are hoping to expect an agressive response back as they can argue their problems with someone.Usually more and more posters will end up in the arguement,creating a flame war.
They will also purposly bash a certain subject hoping to receive a fight back,this is also known as Flamebaiting. These are by far the most immature people in a forum. These actions will also trigger a flame war from the readers,should they be offended by what the Flamer has said.
In video-gaming especially,incredibly immature flamers will “challenge” you by asking you to “1V1” them. If you refuse they will often insult you. Being incredibly narrow-minded and,assuming that you refused,they think they are better than you automatically. More often than not the case of this type of Flamer ends up usually being a young person,given their perhaps constant caps lock type,bad spelling and vocabulary consisting of more F-bombs that I could possibly think up of in one sentence. These people are to be Ignored at all times,no matter what. Hit that report button the minute you know someone is flaming.
Now,don’t get over-imaginative,the forums will not instantly become flooded with these types of people. Hopefully,should they arise,you,the community,should take every action against these types of people. The Administrators will do everything they can to help deal with Trolling,Spamming,and Flaming.
Happy Posting!