[Informational] Your Guided Tour of various Halforums Threads (new users look here)

GasBandit

Staff member
So you're new to halforums, and it looks daunting. There's hundreds of people and they've all apparently known each other for a dozen years and you're unsure how to get started participating. This thread is for you!

First of all, you're going to want to hit up the Introduce Yourself thread, it should be stickied at the top of the general subforum, and introduce yourself. That's a good way to get started. Don't be afraid to be verbose in your introduction, tell us who you are and what you like.

You can make your own threads if you want, to talk about whatever you want - just try to stick em in the appropriate subforum. But that can be kind of daunting when you are still getting your bearings, so here's some good places to start in pre-existing long-running threads where pretty much everybody participates and would be a good way to get your feet wet. Just skip to the last page of any of the following threads and get started!

A good place to start is he Random Crap thread. Want to post something, but not sure where it goes, what it is, or even if it's even worth posting? Head on over here! We post everything from interesting links to jokes to song lyrics to random bullshit nonsense. It's almost more chat room than forum thread, really, and most anything (safe for work) goes, here.

After that, we've got lots of places you might go.

Everybody likes funny pictures.
We've got a general Funny Pictures thread, a funny political/religious pictures thread to keep the potentially controversial stuff in one place, and a GIF thread if you're not afraid to get bogged down in bandwidth heavy animation. Similarly, there's also a thread for Awesome videos.

Do you like video games?
Well, tell us What you're currently playing, or check out the Video game news thread. Or head on over to the Games and More subforum for more specific topics or to start your own thread.

Are you interested in movies or TV shows?
Try the Movie News and Miscellany thread, the Upcoming Movie Trailers thread, or Talk About the Last Movie You Saw. You can Talk About the Last TV You Watched, or What Anime You Are Watching, or what other Animation You Are Watching for all your western animation topics.

For more of that nature, check out the Media Madness subforum. There are threads there for specific shows such as Game of Thrones, Walking Dead, and many others - and if you don't see the one you want to talk about, start a new thread!

Want to talk about how life is treating you?
If you want to share your triumphs, we've got two places we generally use, the Minor Victory thread for those little moments of triumph, and then the Epic Win thread for your momentously good news you'd like to share.

On the other side of the coin, we also have threads where people drown their sorrows, in rising order of severity, they are the Whine Like a Baby thread, the Minor Rant thread, and the full blown Rant thread for when life good and truly screws you over. Generally, most minor gripes go in the whine thread, most work and lesser personal life stuff goes in the minor rant thread, and the big boy Rant thread is usually for when somebody dies or your life is severely impacted.

If you've got a whole lot to say about yourself, you might consider starting a blog over in the blogs section of the site.

Need some tech help?
If you want advice on building a new computer, there's a thread for that. If you've got a specific issue, go ahead and head over to the Tech Talk subforum and start a thread, and odds are somebody will reply to you pretty soon. Probably PatrThom.

You ready to start checking out things that are a little more edgy?
There's a thread for not-so-funny pics, where the subject matter runs from the thought provoking to the horrifying to the stomach-churningly disgusting. You will see people live, unfiltered. You will see people die, unfiltered. You will see the cosmos laid bare before you. It can get a little not-safe-for-lunch, let alone work.

For your recommended allowance of WTF, there's the Bizarre things thread. Unsurprisingly, a lot of the content comes from Japan. It can also get a little risque, so maybe don't go there while you're at work or in a crowded room. Not safe for grandma.

Are you under the influence of a mind altering substance, or want to read the postings of people who are? There's a thread for that, too.

Or maybe you just want to brag that you just got laid.

Not edgy enough for you? Sounds like you're ready for the full-on "Halforums After Dark" experience.
For this, you'll have to opt in to NSFW content. Mouse over your username in the upper right hand corner, and a menu will open. Click "Join User Groups" and then check "NSFW Viewer."

This will gain you access to the Late Night @ Halforums and NSFW subforums. Things get real, here. Things get naked. Things get heavy. Things get invasively personal. Things get pornographic and things will undermine your faith in humanity. Enter at your own risk.


This is by no means an exhaustive list, I haven't even touched the Cosplay sections or the Political subforums. But the above are good places to get started and dive into the Halforums community.

Once you've got some posts under your belt, let me direct your attention to two specific links at the top of the screen - Watched Threads and New Posts. The former will show you any new activity in threads you've participated in, which is very handy to keep up with ongoing conversations. It's by far the link I use most on the site. The latter will check for everything new from everywhere in the forum, and display it all with the newest activity at the top, regardless of what subforum it is in.

Happy posting!
 
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I feel so cheap. This is the kind of thing I should have thought of years ago.
That's Dave, everyone. He's the guy who started this forum in the first place, and is most responsible for keeping it running and giving us all a place to get together and yell at/to/about/with each other.
You treat him nice, 'cuz he deserves it. Also 'cuz it's rude to disrespect your elders.

--Patrick
 
It should also be pointed out that, for those of us whose extracurricular activities including watching and playing sporting things, there's a sub-forum for that too.

Of course, @GasBandit doesn't like talking about work when he's here, so he didn't mention it intentionally.
 
So you're new to halforums, and it looks daunting. There's hundreds of people and they've all apparently known each other for a dozen years and you're unsure how to get started participating. This thread is for you!
Hundreds? Is there some sort of hidden forum here I'm not aware of?
 
Also, we have a running gag on the forum about Dave being really old. We make all these jokes about him being thousands of years old and whatnot, but really he isn't a day over 90 eons.
FTFY.


(if new members are going to start off with a taste of our bad humor, it's going to come from me, dammit!)
 

Dave

Staff member
I'm not even 50 YEARS old, damn it!

(*I will not be able to say that in October as I'll hit the dreaded milestone. Ugh.)
 
I loved being not-quite-40.
I worked midnight shifts for > 10 yrs.
I'm only now starting to get grey hairs.
I would tell people, "I'm 40 years old."
They would exclaim, open-mouthed, "Oh no you are not!"
I would reply, "Hah! You caught me. I'm only 39 and a half."

--Patrick
 
@Gruebeard: The one at the right side end of the 'like' buttons, just like the "I need this explained to me" one.. It's a 'one-way entry' sign that says "You're doing the thing again."

Haven't seen it before, I imagine there's a specific reason that this was added?
Edit: I see you've already got some :p
 

GasBandit

Staff member
@Gruebeard: The one at the right side end of the 'like' buttons, just like the "I need this explained to me" one.. It's a 'one-way entry' sign that says "You're doing the thing again."

Haven't seen it before, I imagine there's a specific reason that this was added?
Edit: I see you've already got some :p
It's for when somebody's doing the thing again.
 
James Arness is the character I'm referring to from an earlier incarnation, everyone but Dave would sooner think of the latter; Addams Family isn't "the Thing" but "Thing". The VW.... Well, I'll grant you that one :p
 

GasBandit

Staff member
So what is the thing? What am I doing that I keep getting this rating on nearly all of my posts?
"You're doing the thing again" originated mostly as a response to certain members' repeated (if not CONSTANT AND CEASELESS) uses of the intentional misunderstanding of obvious concepts as a vehicle for attempted humor.
 
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