Welcome to the WhatIfSports' Forums. This is the place to discuss our games, our editorial and sports in general. The forums are highly customizable so you can see only what you want to see. While we have rules for our forums, we've designed it so that you, the user, can control much of what should be read.

Anyone can read the forums, but only users that have purchased one of our games in the last two years can post in the forums.

All Forums:

The All Forums page is the hub for our forums. We've organized the forums into natural forum categories. If you're a member of a private forum (for a SimLeague Baseball progressive league, for instance), you'll see the forum but others without access will not. Some forums, such as the Critical News forums, are locked so that only site staff can post. To help keep the forums manageable, we automatically remove very old, stale threads.

If you're a registered user and are logged in, you can customize your view:

• Click the / buttons to control which forum categories you want to see.
• Click the / buttons to specify the order of the forum categories.
• Click the Expand All or Collapse All links at the bottom of the forum list to see or hide everything quickly.
• Click the Reset Display Order link at the bottom of the forum to reset order of the forum categories.
• Click the Mark All Posts As Read link at the bottom of the forum to reset the status of each forum.

Below the full list of forums, you'll see the 10 most recent forum posts. This view mimics the Topics page...

Topics:

Each topic page starts with the hierarchy (or bread crumb) at the top left so you can easily go back to certain areas of the forum. You can also adjust the date range of threads within the topic. The default is always threads with activity in the last 30 days.

Within the list of topics is the type of thread (the icon legend is at the bottom of the table) and the topic rating. The more slices of the pie that are filled, the higher rated the topic.

You can also add a topic to your Favorite Topics collection by clicking . You can then view your Favorite Topics on your My Forums page. You may have up to 10 favorite topics.

To quickly go to the last post in the topic, click the post date link within the Last Post column.

To see a snapshot of the first post in a topic, hover over the topic name.

Some topics will be minimized if its rating is below your threshold setting (one of your My Forums settings). It means that the posts in the topic have been rated in such a way that it falls below your specified setting. You can always expand it or modify your setting.

If you're the author of the topic, you can rename your topic at any time by clicking the "Rename Topic" icon to the right of the topic name on the Topics page.

New Topics:

Anyone with proper access can create a new topic in an unlocked forum. A new topic consists of a Subject and a Message (or post). In addition, a user with a forum rating at the Veteran level or higher can assign tags to the topic. A tag is a way to classify a topic and is a big part of the new and improved forum Search. Details on the new message or post tool are below.

Off topic posts will be periodically moved to their more appropriate location in an attempt to keep the organization of the forums meaningful and reliable for all users.

Posts:

Each Posts page starts with the hierarchy (or bread crumb) at the top left so you can easily go back to certain areas of the forum.

Each post within the topic contains the user information, post details and some actions you may take. If the topic is unlocked, you may also add a post.

User Information

• User name, which is a link to the user's WhatIfSports profile.
• Game Rating, which is an underlying point system represented as a range of terms. Points are earned at the conclusion of a season of any of our nine full-season games. The points earned are based on winning percentage and bonus points are earned for winning the championship. All seasons result in a positive gain. A season of any of our games is comparable to the other, so the most points you can earn from a season of Gridiron Dynasty is the same as SimLeague Baskeball. The range of terms includes:
  1. Newbie
  2. Prospect
  3. Rookie
  4. Pro
  5. Veteran
  6. All-Star
  7. Hall-of-Famer
• Forum Rating, which is another value system represented as a range of terms. Points are earned for making posts and for having posts rated positively. Poorly rated posts and having offensive posts deleted by site staff negatively affect the rating. The range of terms includes:
  1. Prospect
  2. Rookie
  3. Pro
  4. Veteran
  5. All-Star
  6. Hall-of-Famer
  7. WIS, a WhatIfSports Site Staff member
• The number of posts the user has made and (the number of posts he/she's made today)
• You can block a user so you don't have to see any of his/her posts. If blocked, you may unblock the user.
• You can add a user to your Favorite Users collection. If already a favorite, you may remove the user from the list. You may have up to 25 favorite users.
• The list of full-season games the user has played. If you hover over the game logo, you can see the number of seasons he's played. This count is updated at the conclusion of the final post-season game of the season.

Post Details

• Each post has an underlying rating represented by 5 stars. Each time a post receives a "Good" vote, it increases by one. A "Bad" vote decreases it by one. The post can be anywhere from 5 red stars (least useful post) to 5 green stars (most useful post). You can control which posts you see by using the settings in the My Forums page.
• The date the post was added. If the post was edited after the fact, it is indicated.
• The actual post.

Actions

• You can rate a post as good or bad. But remember, you have a limited number of votes you can make each day so use them wisely. This number is derived from your forum rating:
  • Prospect: 2
  • Rookie : 5
  • Pro: 10
  • Veteran: 15
  • All-Star: 25
  • Hall-of-Famer: 50
• You can grab a direct link to an individual post by clicking the "Link" link.
• If it's your post, you can delete it.
• If it's your topic, you can report an off-topic or offensive post for us to review. Abusing this (i.e. reporting clean or on-topic posts), however, can result in a penalty to your forum rating.
• You can quote another user.

Make a Post

We've introduced a commonplace and friendly tool to assist in making posts. The features of the tool are plentiful and include the ability to format text in many different ways.

You can reliably copy and paste tables into a post, which is a huge improvement over our old forums. You can also grab links from our profile and boxscore pages across the site and paste them into a post. Want someone to evaluate your team? Copy and paste the link from the Team Profile. Want someone to help you determine what went wrong in a game, copy and paste the link to the boxscore.

My Forums:

The My Forums page allows you to centralize and personalize your forums. You can follow your favorite topics, favorite users and your 10 most recent posts all in one location. In addition, this is where you can adjust your forum settings. They include:

• View Items Rated At Least: this is your rating threshold that controls which topics and threads are displayed or minimized from view. If you don't want to bother wasting time viewing posts or topics rated 2 red stars or below, you can specify that here.
• Image View: determine how you want to view pictures within the forums. If you don't want to waste time loading large images, you can specify that here.
• Profanity Filter: don't want to see profanity and other offensive words in the forums? Turn the filter on.

Within the "My Favorite Topics" and "My 10 Most Recent Posts", the first column specifies the topic's forum. To see the full path of the forum, hover over the forum name.

Search:

The Search page allows you to find what you're looking for using a variety of criteria. You can choose from any of the on-screen criteria (all self explanatory). Click the Topic name in the results and it will take you directly to the thread. Click the Reset button to clear your search. Please note that there are some minimum search criteria to help pinpoint desired results.

Top 20 Forum Users:

Curious who the best forum users are? Want to know who posts the most often? Interested in who is the most popular or unpopular forum user? This is the place to slice and dice forum users. You can even view links to their 3 most recent posts. You can also add them as a favorite or block them from this page.

Private Forums:

Some of our games use private forums so only members can view and post in the forum. For example, multi-season theme leagues in SimLeague Baseball automatically create and maintain private forums. If you're a member of a private forum, you'll see the forum, topics and posts listed accordingly. If you're the owner of a private forum, you'll be able to update the membership list. The owner and membership list is automatically updated when the next league of a multi-season league is created.

Forum Rules:

Our Terms of Service applies to the entire site, including the forums. To recap, here are a few rules that, if broken, will result in some form of penalty:

• Posting nude images
• Using profanity in non-adult themed forums
• Spamming
• Posting any personal information (real name, address, phone number, etc.) regarding other users
• Deliberately posting false information (about the site, another user, etc.)
• Making a habit of off-topic posts
• Failure to comply with any warnings we administer via support ticket, site mail, forum post, etc.

It's also important to note that we do not read every post in our forums -- we simply don't have the time. As a result, we won't catch every instance of someone breaking a rule. We rely on each of you to police the forums by rating posts accordingly, reporting offensive posts using the "Report" link when it's within one of your topics, or submitting a support ticket when you see something you think should be punished. When we're made aware of infractions, we will address them fairly and consistently. We view each owner as the same person, regardless of the account. So if you have multiple user names, we base our decision on the history of the individual, not the history of the account.

Our site is nothing without our user community and our forums play a large role. Suggestions to improve the forums can be made at any time. Thank you.