TWC:FAQ

Total War Centre FAQ - The Guide to TWC

Written and updated by the Black Prince any problems questions or comments, PM the Black Prince.
Contributions from Justinian, imb39, Simetrical and Gigagaia last updated on 30th June, 2007

This guide is intended to provide pretty much all the basic information you need to understand this forum, and answer all the questions that get repeatedly posted.

Guide to VBulletin

Here you can find an FAQ for vBulletin, who provide our forum software. Questions on how to use the forum itself, can be found here

TWC's BB Code

Ever wondered how to make your text go bold or italic or all the many many other things you can do with text?
Here's the complete list of all the BB tags we use here.

TWC Terms of Service and Forum Rules

Every member when they sign up is expected to keep to these rules. They're enforced by the moderators, and failure to comply will result in warnings suspensions, and ultimately, a permanent ban. We recommend you read and familiarise yourself with them! Terms of Service

The Tribunal and the Questions and Suggestions Forum

These two forums are located in the Administrative Forums at the bottom of the main page, and provide a place for members to come and sort out and any problems or issues.

The Tribunal

This is the place to go if you think you've been unfairly moderated, or received a caution warning or suspension you don't think is justified. Here you can air your grievance, and 3 appointed Judges, independent of the moderating staff will review your case. Suspended members have the ability to post in this forum, and this forum alone.

Questions and Suggestions

If you have a question that's not been answered by this handy little guide, or you have any suggestion or comment you'd like to make that you think might make TWC that little bit better, then here is the place to post. All thoughts and comments welcome!

Some Frequently Asked Questions

Here's the answers to some miscellaneous questions we've been regularly asked, not covered elsewhere in this guide.

How do I make polls?

You can only make a poll if you are starting a new topic. What you need to click to add a poll to your post is the 'Yes, post a poll...' box near the bottom of the screen. If you need to add a poll later then you need to PM a senior Moderator.

What's the "Report" button?

This red button at the bottom right of each post will generate an automatic email to all the moderators of that forum telling that that post has been reported. You can use it to tell the moderators every time you see a post that breaks the Terms of Service. Reporting posts is encouraged!

I've just taken a glance at the Political Mudpit and the Ethos, Mores, et Monastica sections of the Common Community, and I want to post there! But I do not want to get completely butchered by the experienced members who already post in those sections. How can I, a complete newb, post in those sections without getting hacked into little pieces?

I can offer four pieces of advice for this: read, edit, give sources, and stay calm.

I. Read - What you first need to do is read the entire thread. This is important as it can give you sources for information (which are very important for a debate) and tells you what has already been argued about. You really do not want to bring up something that was mentioned ten pages ago if you want to be taken seriously.

II. Edit - After you have written your response, always send it through a spellchecker after reading it over again yourself. I cannot stress how important it is to make sure that there are as few as possible spelling and grammatical errors in your post.

III. Give Sources - This is more of a secondary thing to keep in mind. A credible source can go a long way in helping you win a debate.

IV. Stay Calm - Far to often I have seen members become frustrated and angry on various threads. This will happen to you at sometime, and the best cure is to step away from the debate. What you do after that is up to you, but do not go back to the debate until you have calmed down.

How would I defend myself against flamers and trolls?

Hopefully you won't have to! But if someone does flame you, or troll you, report their post using the Report button. DON'T respond in kind. If you flame someone who flames you, that just starts a flame war, and you'll find yourself in as much trouble as the original flamer.

What if I want to express my opinion about certain members and I want to contact them individually?

Try emailing them, if they enabled their email address, or use the "private messaging" - PM. Be careful though, some member do report harassing or annoying pms to moderators.

But what if I want to make a conversation public?

PM conversations can be made public only if both members that are conversing allow it to be made public. Otherwise, it cannot be made public.

What about MSN conversations?

Same as the above, and chatlogs of any other kind as well. They can only be posted publicly with the permission of everyone who was involved.

Can I Vote in Polls?

To vote in polls you have to have 50 posts and been registered for at least one week. This was introduced to prevent people creating duplicate accounts and spamming our site awards with them.

The Constitution and the Curia

If you've got this far, you've probably realised TWC isn't like any other major forum you've been a part of. The Constitution is a big reason why. About 4 years ago, when TWC was small and cosy, the 3 administrators of the time felt that it would be good to reward their core body of active members. The reward they gave this core group was the ability to have a say on how the site is run.

Since then, the system has increased and flourished. While the site is governed by the Administrators who form the Council, a lot of the site policy is decided by the Curia. Here, those core members, the Citizens of TWC, can come together to debate, and vote, on what goes on here. The powers of the Curia are wide ranging, and while they don't have a say on moderation policy, anything else that goes on here is likely to have been debated in the Curia first. The Constitution is the document that sets out how it all works.

The Citizen class has grown considerably over 4 years, and is now divided into 2 levels, Citizens, and Patricians. Citizenship is awarded to members who make noteworthy contributions to the forum, to go further, and become a Patrician, you have to make a substantial contribution and show great dedication. Additionally, there are two types of Citizen. A Civitate is a Citizen who's primary contribution has been in debates and discussions. An Artifex is a Citizen whose primary contribution has been modding work. All the moderators on the site are drawn from the citizen class as well. To find out how to become a citizen, read on below!

The Curia has a number of institutions which help to oversee the citizen class, or run the site. One of them, the Tribunal, has already been mentioned above. The three Tribunal judges are all elected by the Curia.

The Consilium de Civitate

This is a body of 16 elected Patricians who govern promotions and demotions. They vote on whether a member should be promoted from Peregrinus to Citizen, and further again to Patrician. If a Citizen has broken the rules, they may also vote to suspend or strip him of his rank. The CdeC maintain a thread in the Curia giving updates on who the current members are and what they've been doing. You can view their thread here.

The Curial Officers

To oversee the running of the Curia and its various bodies, there are a number of elected Curial Officers.

The Speaker of the House. The Speaker is the voice of the Curia to the rest of the site. He's an administrator, and and a member of the Council. He's elected from among the Patricians and serves a 6 month term.

The Speaker is Ozymandias

The Curator The Curator deals with the day to day running of the Curia. he moves debates vote, orders the archives, maintains order in the Curia, and also makes rulings on the interpretation of the constitution where necessary. He holds his term for 3 months.

The current Curator is the Black Prince

The Modding Registrar The Registrar is responsible for running and maintaining the modding registry. He holds his term for 3 months.

The current Registrar is Hader

The TWC Wiki Editor The Wiki editor is responsible for overseeing the work done on the Wiki Project. He has a 3 month term.

The current Editor is Makanyane

Modder Liaison Officer The Liaison officer is elected to improve communications between the modding community and the Curia. He serves a 3 month term.

The current Officer is Hader

The Curial Committees

A Curial Committee can be convened by the Council to discuss or investigate a particular issue. They are designed to bring members of the staff and the Curia together to work on a particular project. There is currently one committee, The Curial Committee on the expansion of TWC.

How to become a Citizen

So, after reading all that, has it caught your interest? Do you want to get involved in running this site? Do you want to have your say on how we do things here? Then here's how.

To become a citizen of TWC you first have to meet the qualifications. These are set pretty low, and its not a case of everyone who meets these gets the rank automatically. To qualify for Citizen, a member must have at least fifty posts, been a registered member for one month, and have no warnings within the last three months.

Above and beyond that, the rank is then awarded for contributions. So if you think you make a valuable contribution to the site, chances are, you're citizen material.

To get promoted, you have to be patronised by an existing citizen. There are two ways this can happen. The most common is for a citizen to notice your contributions and send you a PM asking if you'd like the rank. If however, you think you are worthy, you don't have to wait to be noticed! You can PM a citizen direct, and ask if they will sponsor you. Only those citizens who have themselves held their rank for 3 months can patronise.

If you get asked, or a citizen agrees to patronise you, you then have to write a short paragraph explaining why you want to be a citizen, and why you think you are worthy. PM the paragraph to your patron, they'll add their own comments, and PM both to a member of the Consilium de Civitate. The CdeC will then take a week to discuss and vote on you. If you get 60% of the non abstaining votes, you'll receive a PM from the Curator congratulating you, and have your rank, a shiny new badge, and all the privileges of being recognised as one of TWC's outstanding members!

If, for whatever reason, you should fail the vote, you must wait 1 month before you can apply again