Chainsaw Message Board
F R E Q U E N T L Y A S K E D Q U E S T I O N S
Chainsaw Message Board
F R E Q U E N T L Y A S K E D Q U E S T I O N S
General use Questions
Registration-Related Questions
Security Concerns
General use Questions
There are a couple ways to do this, actually... the first is to use the plain ol' HTML way:
<img src="http://thesite.com/thepicture.jpg">
...the second is to type:
[img]http://thesite.com/thepicture.jpg[/img]
Just exchange the picture's actual address for the http://thesite.com/thepicture.jpg stuff.
A couple notes about this:
Yes! You can use HTML, providing that you a) are a registered user, and b) are posting to a forum that allows HTML (currently all but the anonymous viewer forums). Even in the anonymous forums, though, you can still *kind of* use HTML. It's this stuff called UBB Code. Read about it over here. This covers things like bold text, italics, hyperlinks, and so on. Everything listed in the link above works in the anonymous forums except for the pictures.
All you have to do is hit enter now! :D None of this <br> or <p> stuff anymore. Yay!
All this bouncing around from forum to forum is a real pain in the rear.
Oh, ye who like to complain. Guess what?! If you click on the Click Here To View Today's Active Topics (all public forums) link from the main page, it will show you a list all consolidated-like of all the posts that have been replied to that day, no matter what forum they're on. Kind of reminds you of the old days, doesn't it? :) Slick!
D'oh!! I posted something I wish I hadn't now.. can I erase the post?
No, sorry... only the management can delete posts. :( But you CAN edit any post that you make to re-word things, fix an HTML error, etc. (see below)
What do the little icons that appear by peoples' names mean?
What the various icons do is described below. If you ever forget, just lie your mouse on top of
the icon for a few seconds and a little box will come up and remind you of what it does.
Profile
This icon will show you a profile of whoever's name it's next to. The profile contains info such as
the person's status, how many posts they've made, their e-mail address, homepage, location,
occupation, interests, ICQ number, etc. Some fields may be blank, depending on how much the person
decided to fill in about themselves.
E-Mail
If you click this icon, it will show you the e-mail address of the person (providing they've opted for
other people to know what their e-mail address is). You can then click on that address to send the
person an e-mail, if you want.
Edit Messages
You can select this icon to make changes to a message that you've posted previously. Note that only
the person who posted the message can edit it. Also note that unregistered users can't edit
their messages.
Reply with Quote
This allows you to reply to a message (which is much easier than scrolling all the way to the top or
bottom on some of the longer posts), along with the post of the other person's, if you want to comment
on something they said specifically. If you use this, you don't have to copy and paste everything
they've written like on old-school Chainsaw; it'll automatically do it for you.
How many posts do you have to have before you aren't a lil' pup anymore? And what does it change to?
Good question! Once you hit 31 posts, your status changes to ye olde.
Why, because of those damn moderators of course! Blasted censors! They ALL have a grudge against
YOU; yes, specifically YOU out of ALL the 800+ people registered to Chainsaw. Why? No one knows
what goes on in the evil moderators' minds. Perhaps they're on a mad power trip fueled by the
satisfaction that only sifting through mountainous piles of HTML purely to destroy your online
life can bring them. Perhaps they are lifeless robots who need not do things like pay bills, work,
go to school, and so on and therefore can focus all their attention on making your life miserable!
Perhaps they think you smell funny. But in any case, they took it upon themselves to leave that
post up for 2 days, and then on the third day, vanquish it from Chainsaw history forever in a
violent fit of maniacal laughter, such as this: MWAHAHAHAHAAA!!
...
Okay, no. The REAL reason is this: See that drop down box in the upper-righthand corner underneath
"Post New Topic" on the forum display pages that says "Show topics from last x days"? Try changing
that to a number higher than what it is now and press "Go". You should be able to find your post
again. Unless of course you're being a complete asshole, in which case the post probably WAS deleted.
What is that weird dogface-skully-looking icon supposed to be?
You mean this 
?
Hahha... a panda. Sorry. It's hard to draw in a 16x16 pixel square. :P
In addition, 
is supposed to be a Chainsaw.
is an angry punkrocker with a mohawk.
is a safety pin.
is an anarchy symbol.
And 
and 
are queer triangles; pink and rainbow, respectively.
Hope that clears up the Chainsaw Icon Mystery. ;)
Yeah, you think 
's
bad?? Check out all the ones you can do here,
hahaha. 
is my
personal favourite. ;)
Registration-Related Questions
NO. The anonymous viewer forums do not require registration,
and you can still browse on all the forums without registering. You DO need to register to post to
any of the other forums and to use HTML, however.
If you do choose to register, all that's required is a valid e-mail address, which you can opt to
have hidden from the general public. If you're squeamish about this, you could always go to
someplace like Yahoo! Mail and sign up for a junk e-mail
account there to use as your registration. You can make up as many different names as you'd like
(as long as no one else is using any of them), and can leave the location, interest, and all of the
other fields in your profile blank.
How long do I have to wait for my flippin' password to be e-mailed to me?!
I think it varies... it took mine about 7 minutes or so, but I've heard of it taking as long as a half hour. If it's been a REALLY long time (like overnight, for instance), you might try re-registering, making sure that you spelled your e-mail address correctly. Of course, making sure that you spell your e-mail address right the first time will dramatically cut down on the waiting period. ;)
I got my e-mail okay and a password. AHHH! It's scary!! Can I change it?!
Yes! To change your password to one a little easier to remember:
Voila! :)
Oops. I forgot my password! What now?!
Providing that you only have one name registered to your e-mail address, simply click on the link
that says Forget your
password? and enter your e-mail address that you registered your handle under there. You'll
get an e-mail within a few minutes with your username/password, unless you registered more than one
name under that e-mail address. Then e-mail Donna,
I guess.
In order to address this problem (and others), Chainsaw now only allows one registered name per
e-mail address.
I still don't have a definitive answer on this either, but one thing to keep in mind is that the username and password fields are both case-sensitive. What that means is that "Grover the Flaming Moo-Cow" is different than "grover the flaming moo-cow". Same deal with passwords, 7Fvd4wSa isn't the same as 7fvd4wsa. So double-check to make sure that what you're entering matches *exactly* with what the fields are supposed to be.
Security Concerns
What's with this cookie stuff?
A cookie is a little chunk of text which a site stores on your computer. When you come back, the site looks for this chunk of text
to determine things like how many times you've been to the site, your preferences, and some other things.
The new message board's cookie stores information about your preferences, including when your last visit was (so that it can tell which
posts are new to you and which ones aren't), how far back you'd like to go in browsing the posts (2 days, 30 days, etc.), and what your
username/password are so that you don't have to go typing them in everytime you reply. They make posting more convenient, but they
aren't required. And in fact...
!! NOTE !! If you're posting on the board from a computer which more than one person uses (i.e. public places such as school, an
internet café, etc.), make sure to go to "Preferences" on the main message board screen and tell it to delete the cookie before you
leave. If you don't do this, an unscrupulous someone could post under your name... Just a heads-up...
What is an IP and why is it logged?
IP is short for IP address. An IP address is a bunch of numbers that are assigned to your computer each time you log on the Internet. Each IP address is different, and they identify who you connect to the Internet through (also called an Internet Service Provider or ISP). Some examples of ISPs might be AOL, Earthlink, a school/college, an Internet café, etc. IP addresses are logged (kept track of) so that if someone says something really out of line, such as making death threats and the like, the management can contact the person's ISP to take action against them.
The only people who can view that are moderators and the management. You're required to enter a management-level username and password when you click on the link to view the log. And since they're all very busy people, they won't bother to look at these unless you're doing something VERY uncool.
FAQ last updated July 10, 2000
If you have any contributions, additions, clarifications, complaints, or whatever, e-mail AlienShe :
webgeek at snarkles dot net. Thanks! :)