Notable Events

From Gfwiki

Revision as of 16:39, 21 July 2007

Throughout the history of GamingForums, there have been a number of spectacular, hilarious, annoying or just plain odd incidents. This page will attempt to detail some of these peculiar occurances, some of which are still ongoing.

Feel free to edit this page.

Post Jumping and Thread Jacking.

This unfortunate forum error has had quite a lot of publicity of late, and has spawned a new sport for the Spam-forum regulars - hijack as many threads as possible in the shortest amount of time.

The mechanics of this problem are fairly simple; due to the fact that the server clocks are out of synchronisation if a user posts a reply in rapid succession to a new thread being created, there is a small chance that the user's post will skip to the top of the thread. The forum software will then treat the thread as if it was created by that user, giving him or her the power to edit the thread's original content, its title, or to delete it altogether. This can also happen mid-thread, in which case it is referred to as a "post jump", the frequency of which can cause extreme annoyance to members attempting to make sense of who posted what.

Understandably, this glitch is extremely annoying to those members who find themselves "threadjacked" on a regular basis.

Recently, DavetheFo discovered a method by which moderators can re-jack their threads. So far, only Donavan and the oh-so-sneaky rebornintheglory know this closely guarded secret. The ability is not often used, as it is considered unfair, however, andything goes in the spam forum really.

Why Mic No Worky?

Why Mic No Worky?", or simply "The Mic Incident" was an unscripted gag caused by the lack of sight by a now banned member called :|Dark|:. He had asked for help with his microphone, when, after uploading screenshots, Chris Down noticed it was on mute. The thread spread over two more pages of rofling. And then it was mercilessly locked by Rookie_42. But it was too late. The laughter had already happened.

Link: Urgent !! need help!

April Fools

As an April fools joke in 2005 the staff decided to remove all of the 'General chit-chat' forums apart from the spam forum.

The announcement accompanying this action declared that:

'Gaming Forums will be moving over to a strictly Gaming related forum format. All non-gaming related forums will be eliminated. Until we get those forums properly archived, they will be marked as non-post-counting forums. We will make a another annoucement once these forums have been archived and they are ready to be removed.

I hope you will enjoy the changes you will be seeing over the next few weeks. This is just the beginning!

Thanks!' http://forums.filefront.com/showthread.php?t=186058&highlight=April+fools

Horrified users were quick to start petitions and generally complained very loudly as staff members appeared to resign over the issue and the IRC channel associated with the forum became active emerging from the depths of its paralysis to momentarily pour outrage upon the incident. Either an act of despicable naughtiness or one of the best April fools jokes that's ever been played it nonetheless remains a vivid memory for many of Gaming Forums denizens

The revolt of 2005

In january of 2005 two members began an attack on the great forum known as gamingforums, this attack involved the editing of an senior administators signiture and the mass moving of many babe forum threads, this act left the two users banned quickly, the act itself has never reoccured.

the only record of this event is this image here taken by the culprit himself the two members in question were "HeadShock" & "Mac Daddy", the main offender being HeadShock who took control of the mods account and abused the system.

The Death of the Melee Forum.

This Secret Forum that no one could talk about died. People still talk about the glory days of the Melee.

Forum Changeover

The old Vb 3.5 you know has been modified to Vb 3.6 by the FileFront Tech team and FileTrekker

AzH retires for good.

On october 11th, 2006, Azh posted news of his retirement from the staff of gamingforums, permanently. His message constisted of

"In order to prevent rumour, un-truths and half-truths from permeating the community you have here and in order to set the record straight, I feel it is your right to hear and my right to tell you the reasons for my departure from the staff here. I know there are already questions being asked so this should put those questions to rest.

Yesterday I re-signed my position as Senior Admin at gamingforums (It will always be gamingforums to me, fuck that FileFront bullshit!!). I did something stupid which made my position untenable. In the course of my duty I stumbled across a spammer who was posting referral links all over the forums. I told him to stop, he did not, so I sent him a message telling him he was about to be banned and referring to him as a 'fucktard'. The user complained.

Now, for a long time, the users of this forum who are banned no longer fall under the protection of the rules here. It turns out that now, because of the ridiculously PC nature of the forums (these stupid 'disclaimers' a product of that), banned users are afforded the same rights as out regular law abiding members.

Okay, so I probably shouldn’t have called him a 'fucktard', but to be honest I've called people worse. I've called regular members worse (behind closed doors), so I didn’t think too much of it. Pro-Filer did think much of it and this is why we reached the impasse we did. In order to avoid any pointless investigation or any action being taken against me, I quit. Simple as. You could say I have quit rather then being fired, and you might be right, but the end result is the same no matter which way you look at it:

"I'm no longer staff here and I never will be again."

I'm sure this will be celebrated by some people, not by others, and some of you simply won't care. Either way, I'd like to thank you for allowing me to help lead this community for three years. In particular I'd like to say thank you to the following.

'n0e', for having faith in me originally and granting me the opportunity in the first place. Also for covering my ass when I went up against certain people in the past with some unorthodox methods.

'gizmo', for standing by me through all the bullshit over the last two years and helping me to come to terms with the 'corporatisation' of the forums. We may have had our disagreements but we always came out as buddies again.

'Dreadnought[DK]' for being the unmoving rock of the administration and for having the dry almost unnoticeable sense of humour you have. If it weren't for you standing firm whilst everything was in flux around you, I think we'd have fallen apart long ago.

'The Supermods' for the dedication and commitment to fighting evil wherever it may be. I would like to think that I was a good role model for you to follow, despite my obvious flaws.

'The Mods', each and every one of them. The Moderators are the most important yet unglamorous group of people on this forum. Without their constant vigilance, diligence and hard work, this place would not be the place it is. Thanks to each and every one of you for your support and understanding as we passed through the difficulties of recent events such as the ZDM takeover and introduction of more stringent guidelines.

Also, I would like to say a huge thank you to all the members past and present who have made this place what it is. It is you guys, not FileFront, not Ziff Davis, not the Admins or the staff who make a forum great.

And an honourable mention to the following members and staff (in no order and from memory): FileTrekker, Mr.Matt, *SW3D3*, SirPaul, Kerian, Sheepeep, Hfx_Rebel, elmo, Ensign Riles, Reven, AmySue, MerrickDS, WiseBobo, Tap112, TheMack, CHAKA, Nordicvs, and every other bastard amongst you who has engaged me in discussion, got my blood boiling, fired the old grey matter or otherwise had something to do with me.

Have a blast without me!

Alan 'AzH' Smith"

Thread link --> [[1]]

1000+ Posts in the Staff Party Thread

Recently on March 12, 2006 members who were disgusted at the deletion of their posts in the Staff Party thread decided to revolt. Within 7 hours - from 6PM PST to 12AM PST over 1000 posts occured. The primary culprits were: SeinfieldRules, Red Menace, Red Rebel, Dr.Fritz, UGSAce, DarthParrot, Vantage, 6of7, CorT, jackthehammer, and Mr. Matt. Sigs were made by Vantage, and SeinfieldRules to commerate the event. You can read the thread here: [[2]]

Since then it has not happened again....

Until, on the 9th of April 2007, 6 members managed it again. This time however the 1000 post barrier was broken in a little over 1 hour.

The members responsible were:

FeelFree, Sunray, Gavin1701, AdmiralHocking, Crazy Wolf and Karst.

Bloody April

On April 1, 2007 after some routine forum maitenence, incorrect forum permissions were set by administrators. This resulted in staff forums being displayed. Members were posting in threads that they were not supposed to. Reven the Tech Admin warned members not to post in any more threads, and after a final warning post, beloved Spam forum member SeinfieldRules did so, and in result was perma-banned. The Spam Forum members were aghast at this decision, and decided to revolt against the staff. Everybody thought that the Staff forums being in the open was an April fools joke, however by April 2nd it was appearnt it wasnt. The days became known as Bloody April. As this is being written, the members conspiring against the staff are posting in the staff forums. So far, there has been no punishment against them.

After a few days it all turned out to be an april fools and all the banned members were un-banned. Some members still think it was real, we'll never know for sure.