Getting started in the SWDb Forum [FAQ]

system · November 21, 2015, 8:10am

Welcome to the Spaghetti Western Database Forum. After logging in or signing up, please read the Community Guidelines, Terms of Use and explanations below to earn your first badges. Contact us any time if you need help.

What’s the Spaghetti Western Database?

The SWDb (at www.spaghetti-western.net) is an international encyclopedia about the European western (a movie genre). This is our community forum. It is open to everyone.

What is the main benefit of this Forum?

Since November 2015 we use new state-of-the-art discussion software called Discourse. Its highlights are

works on mobile devices
you can reply to topic notifications or personal messages by email
you can earn badges for activities and be promoted to new trust levels
better protection from spam
super fast and easy search, including in-topic search
endless scrolling (no need to browse pages)
dark/light mode
post previews
share individual posts….

Where can I get help?

Read this entire post. Send us an email if you have trouble (office@spaghetti-western.net).

Feel free to leave feedback about the new layout and questions in our feedback topic.

How to get started?

Log in (or sign up) and browse around and get to know the place.

Look at your profile and update it, e.g. with an avatar picture, background and name. This will earn you a badge!
Read our TOS, Privacy Policy and Community Guidelines. Badge!
Introduce yourself in the Welcome topic.
If you see something cool, click on the little heart to like it. Earn a badge!
Use the search to find topics you’re interested in and read them!
Click on the SWDb Forum logo any time to return to the start page, where you can also access a list of all categories we have.
If you want to get involved in a discussion, click “reply”, if you want to quote someone, highlight a portion of their text, and click “quote reply”. To mention another user, start typing @ and the forum will suggest the right username.

Use our Sandbox topic to play around with functionality and get acquainted with the use of this forum.

What the hell are badges?

Some activities earn you badges, signaling a certain maturity within our community an proficiency with the use of the forum. For example, having read our Terms of Service will earn you a badge, or doing a certain action in the forum for the very first time, e.g. liking a post.

Read our guide to trust levels and badges (under construction)

Latest, New, Unread, Top, what are these?

The starting page for the Forum now shows the latest topics with activity, most recent change first.

Latest: topics with recent posts or changes (updated edits)
New: topics created in the last few days
Unread: topics you are watching or tracking with new posts you have not read
Top: most active topics, you can filter by year, month, week or day.

You can also click on “Categories” to enter a specific category.

Can I see who’s online and other statistics?

You can click on the hamburger menu and then click users and filter by day, week, month etc to get a sense of who is active. Some stats you can also see per user by visiting their profile (e.g. when they were last online). For a lot of other statistics, we depend on what this software can currently do, which will change over time. If you are interested in a particular information about the forum, please do contact the @Admin he is very willing to share all kinds of stats as long as they are available. You can also use the chat to talk to others currently online (the little bubble icon next to your avatar in the top right corner).

I’m having trouble logging in - what now?

If you’re experiencing login problems, please try a) logging in with your email instead of your username, b) requesting a new password or c) contacting the @Admin (office@spaghetti-western.net) if you’re still unable to login. We can solve all login issues.

Admin · December 4, 2015, 8:44am

Here are a few quick tips to get you started:

Reading

To read more, just keep scrolling down!

As new replies or new topics arrive, they will appear automatically – no need to refresh the page.

Navigation

For search, your user page, or the ☰ menu, use the icon buttons at upper right.
Selecting a topic title will always take you to the next unread reply in the topic. To enter at the top or bottom, select the reply count or last reply date instead.
While reading a topic, select the progress bar at the bottom right for full navigation controls. Quickly jump back to the top by selecting the topic title. Press ? for a list of super-speedy keyboard shortcuts.

Replying

To reply to the topic in general, use at the very bottom of the topic.
To reply to a specific person, use on their post.
To reply with a new topic, use to the right of the post. Both old and new topics will be automatically linked together.

To insert a quote, select the text you wish to quote, then press any Reply button. Repeat for multiple quotes!

To notify someone about your reply, mention their name. Type @ to begin selecting a username.

To use standard Emoji, just type : to match by name, or use the traditional smileys ;)

To generate a summary for a link, paste it on a line by itself:

Actions

There are action buttons at the bottom of each post:

To let someone know that you enjoyed and appreciated their post, use the like button. Share the love!

If you see a problem with someone’s post, privately let them, or our staff, know about it with the flag button. You can also share a link to a post, or bookmark it for later reference on your user page.

Notifications

When someone replies to you, quotes your post, or mentions your @username, a number will immediately appear at the top right of the page. Use it to access your notifications.

Don’t worry about missing a reply – you’ll be emailed any notifications that arrive when you are away.

Your Preferences

All topics less than two days old are considered new.
Any topic you’ve actively participated in (by creating, replying, or reading for an extended period) will be automatically tracked.

You will see the blue new and unread number indicators next to these topics:

You can change your notifications for any topic via the notification control at the bottom of the topic.

You can also set notification state per category, if you want to watch every new topic in a specific category.

To change any of these settings, see your user preferences.

Community Trust

As you participate here, over time you’ll gain the trust of the community, become a full citizen, and new user limitations will be lifted. At a high enough trust level, you’ll gain new abilities to help us manage our community together.

We believe in civilized community behavior at all times.

Enjoy your stay!

(If you need to communicate with staff members as a new user, just reply to this message.)

Admin · December 27, 2016, 11:48am

This is also very helpful, not just for newbies:

Admin · July 10, 2022, 9:50am

We totally want to encourage everyone to personalize their “SWDb home” as much as possible. Pick a cool avatar, background picture, some words about yourself, maybe a link to your blog. Play around with it, it will make your and everyone else’s experience here feel less anonymous

Admin · March 2, 2023, 4:28pm

New FAQ:

How to invite friends to the forums - and why

Let’s start with why: this is a greater place the more and diverse our community. In more concrete terms, you can earn badges and make a real contribution to this community by helping to grow it!

The forum’s built-in invite system can be accessed by clicking your avatar on the top right corner of the forum, then clicking the profile icon at the bottom of the vertical list of icons, and then click “invites”.

You will find this just as well if you are on your profile page through other avenues:

Now you can click “invite” to do so

Now the most commun ways to do this is, to either add email addresses of friends and contacts (please only really invite spaghetti western fans, do not use this to spam people), OR you create a sharable link (in that case you don’t need to enter email adresses):

Example: If you just want to invite one person, enter that email and click “save and send email”. If you want a link that you can share elsewhere, let’s say a relevant message board somewhere on the net, make sure the “max uses” are set to a high number and the link doesn’t expire too soon, and click “save invite”.

Some of the badges that can be earned are

Champion: This badge is granted when you’ve invited 5 people who subsequently spent enough time on the site to become full members. Wow! Thanks for expanding the diversity of our community with new members!
Campaigner: This badge is granted when you’ve invited 3 people who subsequently spent enough time on the site to become basic users. A vibrant community needs a regular infusion of newcomers who regularly participate and add new voices to the conversations.
Promoter: This badge is granted when you invite someone to join the community via the invite button on your user page, or at the bottom of a topic. Inviting friends who might be interested in specific discussions is a great way to introduce new people to our community, so thanks!