There are a number of commonly used items around the forum that may or may not have a explanation behind. For the simplicity of understanding what items must be paid mind verses those that might be breezed over quickly, this tutorial discusses the use of smilies, images, global announcements, regular announcements, sticky topics, locked topics, and topic icons.

Smilies, also termed emoticons, are small images that express desired emotions. A crying smiley face may denote a sad person, as opposed to a grinning smiley face representing excitement or joy. A full list of all available emoticons/smiley faces is present anytime you are devising, revising, or otherwise creating a topic, post, or private message. The yellow and rounded smiley faces are termed as emoticons throughout the site, and we have placed a limit of seven emoticons per post.

You can, however, post an unlimited number of in-text smiley faces (smiley faces composed of forms of punctuation as opposed to an actual depicting image). We do not allow imported smiley faces/emoticons in any part of the forums. As such, we are at liberty to remove any and all imported smiley faces and private message you with a reminder of these rules. Please note that while smiley faces are indeed useful in relaying an emotion or feeling to the reader, overuse is discouraged; with overuse, the effectiveness of the emoticons diminishes.

Besides smilies, we do allow images on to be used on our forums. You are at liberty to include images within your posts, signatures, and private messages. Within posts and signatures, you may upload the image as an attachment or you may provide a link in the text to the image. Since attachments are not allowed within private messaging, you may only provide in-line links to other users via the PM system. When displaying or linking to images on the forum, please be sure to follow the forum guidelines and keep the images appropriate for people of all ages. We are at liberty to remove a link or an image, should the content be in direct violation of the rules or contain inappropriate content.

Now, regarding post order and types. When one submits a new topic, there is an option to advance that topic to a sticky, announcement or global announcement (though, only Forum Team members are allowed to see and utilize these options). A post is rendered a sticky if the content of that post should always be placed at the top of the individual forum's list of topics, mainly due to the importance or weight of the said topic. Stickies are not required to be read by all members, but are rather given a bit larger spot light in order to draw more attention.

There are two kinds of announcements, a regular announcement and a global announcement. Both types of announcements will appear in a separated box above the regular list of topics in each of the individual forums and should be read by all members. The major difference between a global announcement and a regular announcement lies in what the content pertains to. If the content is meant for a specific forum, it will be a regular announcement and only appear in the top box of the particular forum the content pertains to. If the content pertains to Holy Worlds at large, it will be made a global announcement and appear in the top box of every single forum on the board as well as in you User Control Panel. Global announcements are kept to a minimum here on the forums. If something in important must be announced to the users, we generally use the Announcements forum. Please read these threads.

As far as topic types, there are two specific ones: locked topics and open topics. Locked topics are closed topics and are no longer allowed to be posted on. Most of the locked topics appear in our Archives, where users are not allowed to post responses or start new topics anyhow. Most announcements are locked as well, in order to prevent user replies from cluttering up the original message. Other than announcements and archived threads, all other topics should be open to users for responding, unless otherwise noted by a Moderator.

Some forums allow the use of topic icons, or small icons that appear next to the title of topics in order to draw attention to them. We have disabled such items from use on these forums and you will not find topic icons in use around Holy Worlds.

For any other questions regarding excess features and topic types, please respond to this post, and we will address your question as soon as possible.