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Opening the DoorsYou, my dear reader, may be facing the same dillema right now. If that is so, take my hand and let me guide you into the unknown. If, more likely, you are a long term forum veteran with burnt eyebrows, come with me nevertheless, for on this trip a little hidden inner searching will take place.
The dreaded link called Forums, my young apprentice, can be found on this very page. Similar links can be found on most official sites of your favourite sims. They are a door to plenty of knowledge and great ideas, but not all is roses and a few guidelines and warnings are in place.
Enter and see for yourself. Use a new window, though, I would hate to loose you reading this! The good thing about the forums is that you can mingle unnoticed. You'll see lots of interesting discussions started, and read even more interesting posts in their response. Believe me, soon you will be itching to contribute yourself.
Fig. 2. Yes Virginia, that is a Backfire on the deck.The first sin to commit is to post unregistered. Some forums don't even have such an option. It is not as much a sin towards the community, although it might be perceived as such, as in how it damages your own credibility. By registering you sign a contract to be a part of a community and are to be taken seriously from now on. Posting unregistered just makes you look like an occasional bystander. You might have worries seeing that all registered posters have oh-so-many posts carved on the fuselage of their plane. Nothing to worry about, you'll be amazed at how helpful the community can get when a relative newbee has a question.
When registering you usually have to present some personal data for your profile. Do that, and be sure to include an e-mail address. Internet can make you hide really well so you don't need to stand behind what you write. A valid e-mail address will score some necessary respect points. The most important thing to fill in, of course, is your handle (username) that will appear on all your posts. 'Falc0nRulz' might do well in some other communities, but you must bear in mind that simming probably attracts a widely age spread and on average a more educated if a bit thinner audience than most other genres. Bear that in mind, not only when choosing your handle, but also when posting.
The point and fun of posting is of course the interactivity. You can start by joining an already developed discussion, but to make your presence more prominent start your own thread. If you want to be really prominent, go, for example, to the Falcon 4.0 board, get yourself a 'JanesLover' handle (see above) and start a thread that points out the deficiencies in that sim with mentioning how your own sim does certain things much better.
Soon you will learn a couple of new words that can be written down only by using the characters outside the usual alphabet (still in ASCII, though). One word that is bound to appear, though, is a 'troll'. 'Trolling' means exactly the behaviour described before, which is posting something with intent of getting as much furious response as possible. If you're still a relative newbee, wait until you have an acknowledged position in the simmers' circle, only then you can do whatever you want. Just like in any other community, both off- and online.
