by bobwhite
Welcome to the MCForum FAQ. This is your one-stop, handy-dandy reference for such exciting topics as making text appear in italics and “Where should I post this funny picture of a hot dog choking Darth Whocares to death?” Included as well are some extra links and information that the members of the MCForum have gathered to help you along your path of mind control... uh, stuff.
This document is split into five parts. Really basic information is found in the “What is/Who is...?” section. “How do I...?” deals with—you guessed it—how to do things on the forum. If you want to start a topic (or “thread”), “Where do I...?” gives you an idea on which board you should start it. The few rules on what you can post are found in the “Rules” FAQ (separate from this one), and the “Helpful Links” section has a list of links that are calculated to be helpful for you in all of your writing endeavors.
Q: What is this FAQ? How do
I use it?
A: This FAQ is a document that tells you how
to do things on the MCForum, and where to do them.
If you have a question about how to make a post look a
certain way, or how to PM somebody, look here first.
Q: What is this
“MC” that I see everywhere?
A: “MC” is an abbreviation for
“Mind Control.” Used in the context of this
forum, it is usually interchangeable with “EMC”
(“Erotic Mind Control”) and MCE (“Mind
Control Erotica”), but “MC” does not
necessarily indicate erotica—only mind control.
“MC” is also not to be confused with magnesium
chloride, a useful salt which is abbreviated
MgCl2 (not “MC”); or MCHammer, a man
who is conspicuously less useful than magnesium chloride.
Q: What is the
MCForum?
A: The MCForum is an Internet Forum on which fans of
all things MC (movies, stories, books, hypnotist shows,
etc.) gather and talk about MC. Members have access to
seven of the boards into which the forum is divided. There
are descriptions of the individual boards shown on the main
page of the forum, and the “Where do I?” part
of this FAQ goes into more detail about what kind of
messages should be posted to each board. Members can post
in six of the seven boards; “Forum Policies and
Announcements” is an announcement board only and only
Administrators can post there.
Q: Who are the
Administrators and Moderators, and what do they
do?
A: Short answer: They are who they are, and
hopefully they don’t have to do much of
anything.
A: Longer answer: this forum has three
Administrators (or Admins for short):
Chase the Wind, the resident tech head; Michelle
(also known as MichelleLovesTo), and bobwhite (also
known as Joe). Administrators approve
memberships, monitor the forum, address concerns about the
forum (posts, member behavior, bugs, etc.), make
announcements... you get the idea. Admins can edit or
delete a member’s post or thread if it’s
offensive or if it breaks the rules. They can lock threads,
split threads when they go too off-topic, merge similar
threads, move threads to more appropriate locations on the
forum, etc.
There are also Moderators (or Mods for short), and for the most part they serve as Admins of their respective boards. Mods can do pretty much the same things Admins can do, except for approving memberships and other high-level Admin stuff. The Mods for the boards are listed next to the board’s name.
When you report a posted message to the moderators by clicking the “Report to Moderator” link at the bottom of the message, both the Admins and Moderator(s) of that board are alerted.
Q: What is this
“Nothing, or nothing you can see...”
business in the “Who’s Online”
page?
A: When snooping around on the Who’s Online
page to see what’s going on, you’ll see
messages like “Nothing, or nothing you can
see...” and “Unknown action”
every so often. Usually, this is a Mod or an Admin doing
something behind the scenes that members cannot see on the
Who’s Online page. It’s as simple as that.
Q: What is a Profile? What
can be found on a member’s profile?
A: Every member of the forum has a Profile. A
profile, as you probably know, is a page that tells curious
people and automated email web spiders a little about you.
You can edit your own profile and view the profiles of
others. From a member’s profile, you can see his or
her general statistics, find his or her email or website if
he or she hasn’t hidden it, and even click a link to
see all of that member’s posts. Editing is described
below in the “How do I...?” section.
Q: What is “Quick
Reply?” How do I activate it?
A: “Quick Reply” is a box at the
bottom of every topic/thread page that you can show or
hide. If you show it, you can quickly reply to messages
without hitting the Reply button at the top of the
thread page you’re on, or the quote icon on a
message you want to quote.
To show it, go to your profile by clicking the Profile button at the top of any page on the forum. Then, click Look and Layout Preferences on the left side of the screen. Near the bottom of the screen, there’s a drop down menu called Use quick reply on topic display: and there are three choices. The default, “don’t show at all,” hides the Quick Reply box completely. “Show, off by default” puts a “Quick Reply” link at the bottom of a thread’s page, and clicking it should open the Quick Reply box, but this feature is buggy at best and usually does not work.
Selecting “show, on by default” puts the Quick Reply box at the bottom of every thread page on which you can type a reply. More on this later.
Q: What is the
#MC_Forum Chatroom?
A: The #MC_Forum chatroom is the official
chatroom of the MCForum. It’s on Everywherechat, and
there is more information below about how to access the
chatroom. (There is a wealth of information about IRC out
there on the net, the only info included here is specific
to the forum and instructions on how to register your
nickname.) The chatroom is “owned” by bobwhite,
who is currently the sole moderator of the channel.
Q: How do I view a
member’s profile?
A: Almost any time you see a member’s name
(other than if it’s just mentioned in a message or
post), you can click it. When you do, you’ll go to
that member’s public profile. If you click your own
name, you’ll go to your own where you can edit it as
described below.
Q: How do I add an
avatar?
A: You can select one of the “stock”
avatars, or use your own picture as an avatar. To use a
stock avatar, follow these steps:
To add your own avatar, there’s a bit more work involved, but it’s still easy.
Q: How do I add a
signature to each post?
A: It’s easy!
Q: How do I change that
“I am a llama” text under my
avatar?
A: Like most other things about your profile,
changing your llama status is easy.
Q: (Profile) How
do I keep others from seeing that I’m logged
in?
A: If you don’t want others to see when
you’re online, that’s fine. There is an easy
way to change your profile so that you’ll be
“hidden” to other members, Admins, Mods, and
guests.
Q: How do I read the
messages in a topic/thread? What about just the most recent
messages?
A: Well, reading the messages in a topic is easy,
once you’ve learned something about literacy. Of
course, if you couldn’t read, you could not possibly
read this FAQ, so I guess that remark is pointless. Reading
the messages (or posts) in a topic (or
thread) is as easy as going to the appropriate board
by clicking the link to that board (MC
Writing/Stories Discussion, Forum
Feedback, etc.) and then clicking on the title of a
thread. This will display the first page of that thread,
and you can start reading from the first post.
Sometimes, there’s a thread that you’ve been following, and you may not want to wade through the old posts to get to the new ones. If the thread spans more than one page, then you can start on the latest page and go, but there’s an easier way: if you see a small blue icon that reads new next to the title of a thread, click that icon. You’ll zoom to the first new message in the thread.
Of course, there are other ways to get to the newer posts. On the forum index (the front page), you can see the most recent post by clicking the link to it in the far right column. Below the list of discussion boards, there are links to the last five posts, and below that there are links to both the most recent post on the forum and to a page with the 10 most recent posts.
Q: How do I post a reply
in an existing thread?
A: There are several ways to do this. The easiest is
to click the reply button at the top of the thread;
you then go to the Post reply screen. On that
screen, you can edit the text of the subject for your
particular reply (this will not change the subject of the
thread, though) or just type your message in the Message
box. If you click the quote icon on a member’s
message, you’ll be taken to this screen and the
message whose quote icon you clicked will be quoted inside
the text box for you. Type your reply below the quoted
text. Whichever way you got there, you can check the
spelling and/or preview the message before you post it by
clicking the appropriate button.
If you have Quick Reply enabled (see above), you can type your reply directly into the Quick Reply box at the bottom of every thread page. Once you’ve typed the message, you can check its spelling, preview it, or post it.
Q: How do I start a
topic/thread?
A: Before you start a new topic/thread, you must
already have posted three (3) replies to existing threads.
This rule, enacted the Day After Pi Day 2007, was put in
place to keep spammers at bay. Once you have posted three
replies in existing threads (they don’t all have to
be in the same thread, nor do they all have to be in different
threads), you’re ready.
You can start a new thread any time you need help with something (like finding a story, writing a scene, buying hypnosis fetish videos, etc.), or if you just want to open up a discussion and you don’t see any threads that fit your topic. (You should avoid starting several threads at once about the same topic, but more on this is covered in the Rules section.)
To start your new thread, first go to the appropriate board. (If you’re unsure, see the “Where do I?” part of the FAQ.) Then, click the new topic button at the head of the board you’re on. You’ll go to the Start new topic page, and from there you can enter a Subject (this will be the title of the thread), select a Message icon (this icon will be to the left of the thread title), and finally type out the first post in your new thread. When you’re done, you can spell check it, preview it, and/or post it. Once it’s posted, though, it’s posted—while you can delete your own posts, you cannot delete a thread-starting post.
Q: How do I start a
poll?
A: Before you start a new poll, you must
already have posted three (3) replies to existing threads.
This rule, enacted the Day After Pi Day 2007, was put in
place to keep spammers at bay. Once you have posted three
replies in existing threads (they don’t all have to
be in the same thread, nor do they all have to be in different
threads), you’re ready.
A: A poll is a thread that, in the first post, has some kind of voting poll attached. This can be any kind of poll on any allowed subject (more on what’s allowed in the Rules FAQ). Starting a poll is very similar to starting a thread, but you click the new poll button instead of new topic. Then, you enter the Subject (title of the poll thread) and select a Message icon.
Now, you have to have some kind of question, or some statement about what the forum members are voting for. Enter this in the Question field—don’t worry if it’s long; the text will scroll to the side as you type. Then, you must fill in at least two choices; put these in the appropriate Option # fields. Again, it will scroll as you type, so be as specific as you want. If your poll has more than five choices, you can add more by clicking Add Option. (I’ve tested this to three hundred, so don’t worry—you won’t run out of options to add.)
You can set the maximum number of votes a member can enter in the Poll Options field; a 1 makes the choices radio buttons so only one choice can be selected, while any number greater than that creates check boxes. If you want, you can limit the number of days the poll can be voted on; when that time has elapsed the poll will lock down. There are three self-explanatory options that follow that allow you to control what results members see and when they see them. In the Message box, you can type the main part of your poll thread starter, just like you would if you were starting a thread.
Later, if you want to change the poll options and settings, you can click Edit Poll and do so. You can also lock the poll at any time. But, to change the post you started the poll with, see How do I change a post I’ve made after it’s posted? below.
How do I hide
some or all of the text in my posts?
A:There are many times when you'll want to hide
some parts of your post and allow anyone reading it to
decide whether or not they want to see what's hidden.
(Say, for example, posting a spoiler in a review
for a story.) In the olden days of yore, you could simply
use a tag to color your text to one of the two very
slightly different background colors that were used on the
MCForum, and your text would be invisible unless someone
highlighted the hidden text. However, any member can
select from a variety of background color themes now, so
that method is unreliable.
Instead, use the aptly-named Spoiler feature. When writing a post in the editor screen, just select the text you'd like to hide, click the Spoiler button, and the text will be enclosed in [spoiler] spoiler tags [/spoiler]. You can also click the button first, and enter your text between the tags. If you're using the Quick Reply feature to reply and don't have access to the button, or if you just don't want to click it, you can also manually type the tag (like you can with all tags).
When you preview or post your message, you'll see that all the text (or images or whatever) you've placed between the tags is hidden, and in its place is "Spoiler (click to show/hide)." When someone clicks on the word "Spoiler," they'll see whatever you had between the tags. You can alter this slightly by changing the first tag to [spoiler=Your Text Here], which will add whatever short message you type after the "=" to the tag; in this example, it'd read "Spoiler: Your Text Here (click to shoe/hide)."
Q: How do I quote
somebody’s post in my reply?
A: As described above, clicking the quote
icon on a member’s message will take you to the
Post reply page with the message already quoted in
the Message box (if Quick Reply is disabled).
If Quick Reply is enabled, the message you quote will be
pasted into the Quick Reply box.
You can edit the text in the quote (to add emphasis, or delete extra text to focus on one point) if you want. The quoted text is between the [quote...] tag and the [/quote] tag, and all quoted text appears in a gray box.
Q: How do I quote more than
one post in my reply?
A: With Quick Reply enabled, click the
quote icon on each message on that page in the
thread you want to quote. They’ll be pasted into the
Quick Reply box in order. If you want to quote several
messages and some are on other pages in the thread,
you’ll have to use a text editor like Microsoft
Notepad and, after quoting all the messages on one page,
copy all of that text into the editor, go to the
next page, and repeat until you’ve quoted everything
you want to quote. Then, type your reply. You can type in
between the quotes if you want, just separate the quoted
messages (marked with [quote...] (quoted text)
[/quote] tags) and type where you want.
Q: How do I enhance
(italicize, embolden, etc.) the text in my
post?
A: When you are typing up a message (a new topic, a
reply to an existing one, a private message, etc.),
you’ll see a bunch of icons above the text box. At
any time, you can highlight the text you want to affect and
click one of the icons; this causes the corresponding tag
to be applied. The icons are pretty much standard in word
processing and thus self explanatory.
However, some browsers behave strangely when you try to do that. Also, if you use Quick Reply to post, you don’t even have those buttons to play with. So, you’ll have to manually enter the tags, putting the text you want to enhance or format between the opening ([tag]) and ending ([/tag]) tags. Some of the most common ones are below.
Q: How do I format
the text in my post (alignment, lists, tables,
etc.)?
A: Alignment is easy—surround the text with
[center] or [right] tags (don’t
forget the [/center] or [/right] ending
tags!); by default, any text not tagged with either of
these is aligned left so no tag is needed for that.
Lists: You can set up bulleted lists (numbered lists are not supported and must be typed in manually). These lists have a round bullet for each list item, and hanging indents keep it looking nice. Use the template below:
[list](List Title, if any) [li](first list item)[/li] [li](second list item)[/li] . . . [li](last list item)[/li] [/list]
Tables: You can put text in tables. These tables have invisible borders and aren’t too customizable, but they’re still handy. You use [table] ... [/table] tags to set up the table, [tr] ... [/tr] to set up rows, and [td] ... [/td] to set up individual columns (cells in most cases) within those rows. Use the template below:
[table] [tr] [td]Text in Row 1, Cell 1[/td] [td]Text in Row 1, Cell 2[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Text in Row 2, Cell 1[/td] [td]Text in Row 2, Cell 2[/td] [/tr] [table]
Q: How do I put a
link to a web site without just putting the entire URL in
my post? Can I link to a specific post on the
MCForum?
A: To link to other web sites, images, files, etc.;
you can always just put the whole URL in your post.
It’ll be clickable automatically. But, if that URL is
quite long (and they often are), it may cause the thread
page to get so wide a horizontal scroll bar will appear at
the bottom of everybody’s browser, since the forum
doesn’t automatically wrap URLs that are wider than
the screen. So, instead of doing that, try this:
[url=http://www.website.com]Click here[/url]
You can put any URL in place of http://www.website.com, even one pointing to an image or file. You can use any text between the [url] ... [/url] tags; that text will be clickable and the URL will be invisible.
You can link to any specific post, thread, or board on the MCForum by using the same method, but you’ll need the URL of the post, thread, or board; and you can’t always get it from your browser’s address bar.
To get the URL of a board on the forum (like MC Writing/Stories Discussion, for example), locate the board’s name and hover over it with your mouse. Hover over the title of a thread in order to link to a specific thread. Or, to link to a specific post, navigate to that post and hover over the subject at the top of that exact post (usually, it’s something like “Re: Thread Title”).
Now that you’ve found the link you need, you have to copy that URL. Usually, it appears near the bottom of your browser—you can manually type it out, or you can copy the link location by bringing up a context menu (usually by right-clicking the link, or by clicking and holding the button down on one-button mouse systems) and selecting the appropriate option. This can be “Copy Shortcut,” “Copy Link Location,” or something similar. Once you have the URL, you can follow the directions above to link to that exact spot in the forum.
Q. How do I put
an email link without putting the entire email address in
my post?
A: Typing an email address in your post
automatically makes it clickable once it’s posted,
but to have an email link that’s not just your email
address, try this:
[email=email_address@whatever.something]Email me![/email]
You can use any email address in place of email_address@whatever.something. And you can change the text between the tags.
Q: How do I put an
image in my post? What is
“hotlinking?”
A: “Hotlinking” is the only method of
putting images in your posts. Basically, you need to have
an image that’s on the Internet somewhere (you
can’t use one on your local computer), you need the
URL of that image (like
),
and you need to be sure the server supports
hotlinking—for best results, use an image hosting
service like ImageShack
(for non-pornographic images) or Image Pile (porn-friendly).
There are many others, so look around. Most image hosting
services allow hotlinking, and even give you the code to
use.
Once you have the URL of the image, put that URL between [img] ... [/img] tags:
[img]http://www.image_host_service.com/url_of_image.jpg[/img]
Once it’s posted or previewed, hit Refresh/Reload/Whatever on your browser. If the image disappears and does not reload, you can’t hotlink from that site and will have to host it somewhere. If it reloads, then hotlinking is allowed and everybody can see your image.
Q: How do I change
a post I’ve made after it’s posted? Can I
delete it?
A: After you’ve made a post, you can edit it
(change it) or delete it altogether. Note: You cannot
delete your post if you used it to start a new topic/thread
or poll. If you need to do that, contact a Mod or Admin.
To edit your post, go to your post and click the modify icon. You’ll go to a screen where you can modify your post; when you’re done, you can spell check, preview, or save the changes. To delete your post, go to the post and click the delete icon. You’ll be asked if you want to remove the message—click OK or Yes if you’re sure you want it gone. Once it’s deleted, you cannot bring it back; you’ll have to retype the message and post it at the end of the thread.
Q: How do I
alert the Moderators or Administrators to a post that I
think is either overly offensive or otherwise breaks the
rules?
A: If you come across a post that you feel should be
reported to the moderators (abusive or offensive language,
religious or political content, trolling, etc.), click the
Report to moderator link at the bottom of the post.
The Moderator(s) of that board, and the Admins, will be
alerted. Note: they will know who reported the message, but
they won’t divulge that information.
Q: How do I send
another forum member a Private Message?
A: Private Messages, or PMs, are like
emails within the forum. To send one to a member, you can
either click that member’s Personal Message
icon on one of their posts (it looks like a small green
scroll), or go to that member’s profile by clicking
that member’s name. Form the profile screen, you can
scroll down and click Send this member a personal
message.
You can also go to your own messages screen (Clicking the link at the top of the screen that says, Hey, Member, you have X messages, X are new), clicking the new msg button, and entering the member(s) name(s) to whom you want to send a message in the To: field. You can blind carbon-copy, as well, using the Bcc: field. Put commas between member names if you are sending to more than one person.
Q: How do I join
the #MC_Forum chatroom with the Java client?
A: Click the Chat button near the top of the
screen. You’ll be taken to the chat page, and the
Java client will begin to load (if it does not, or if you
get an error, you must download the latest version of Java
at http://www.java.com/). You will be assigned a nickname
that’s your MCForum member name with
“_mcf” added at the end.
Q: How do I join the
#MC_Forum chatroom with an IRC client other than the Java
one on the forum?
A: Other clients have their own ways of doing
things, but generally, all you need to know is the server,
channel, and sometimes the port. Once you have these, you
can use the documentation for your individual
client—Chatzilla, mIRC, Trillian, etc.—to
configure that client to connect to the chatroom.
Here’s what you need to know:
Q: How do I
register a nickname in the #MC_Forum
chatroom?
A: You can choose to register your nickname for the
chatroom. You don’t really have to do this, but when
you register your nickname, you will have a
password-protected nickname (or “nick”) that
nobody else in any chatroom on Everywherechat can use...
unless they know your password. This is handy if
you’re worried that someone will pretend to be you.
In the Java client, when you’re in the chatroom, you’ll see a line of icons at the top of the client. The third one from the left looks like a glorified stick figure standing in front of a giant notepad. When you hover your mouse over it, Member Profile appears at the bottom of the client. Click this button, and the Profile for YourNickname window will pop up. On the Profile tab, put a password in the Password field and click Register. You’re done!
In any other client, type the following, using your nickname for YourNickname and your password for YourPassword:
/services register YourNickname YourPassword
Q: Where do I post this
new story I just wrote?
A: Well, whenever you write a story, read a story,
want to talk about stories, want to talk about writing
stories for others to read, etc., go to the MC
Writing/Stories Discussion board. Writing MC stories,
discussing MC stories, and anything in between goes on
there. Have a question about grammar? Want to start yet
another “Best MC Stories of the
week/month/year/ever” thread? Do it there. Just make
sure it’s MC story related.
If you’ve written a few stories and posted them to the forum, and you want to list them somewhere on a thread designed just for that purpose, find a thread in the MC Writing/Stories Discussion board called “Our Own Forum Creative Links...”. Post links to your stories in that thread.
Q: Where do I post this
idea for a writing event or contest, or story for such an
event?
A: Good question. If you want to look into hosting a
story contest or exhibition, then go to Writing
Contests/Exhibitions, and look around. Check out the
top topic, “Event Scheduling Thread,” to see
what’s coming up and to put your name in for the next
available time slot. This isn’t necessary, of course,
as you can announce a contest at any time—but it
is polite.
Q: Where do I post
this information about mind control movies, stage shows,
photo manips, etc.?
A: Head on down to MC
– Everything Else. If it’s MC but
it’s not a story or poem, it’s here. If you
have manips, remember that they must be hosted somewhere
else—the MCForum does not allow you to actually
attach images to posts like some forums do.
Q: Where can I let
the administrators know that there’s a problem with
the forum (i.e., something is not working
right)?
A: Forum
Feedback is the board on which you can post bug reports
(when the forum isn’t working properly), complaints,
comments, and praise about the forum itself.
Messages that are not specifically about the forum, or its
Admins or Mods, should not go on this board.
Q: Where do I post
this funny joke, or some other message that has nothing to
do with mind control?
A: It has often been said that all off-topic
discussion should go to Non-MC
Related. And there’s a reason for this
conventional wisdom: it’s actually correct! If you
want to say something that’s not about MC Stories, MC
Story contests, MC movies or books or manips, MC Forum
news, or barbecue pork, then it should go to the Non-MC
Related board. And just to be safe, put all posts
pertaining to barbecue pork (unless it’s an MC device
you’re using in a story) in the Non-MC board as well.
Q: Where do I start a
topic that will almost certainly get people all in a
huff—the Controversial area? It’s the
controversial area, isn’t it?
A: Easy there, Lucky. You should always think twice
about posting something if you are pretty sure it’s
going to piss a lot of people off. This goes for almost any
topic—one thing that makes the MCForum a great place
is the fact that, by and large, we’re fairly nice to
each other most of the time.
That said, if you absolutely have to post something that you know will veer toward the political or religious side of things, put it in the Politics, Religion, and Too Controversial board. This goes for new topics, and for posts you plan on making in threads that are on the other boards. The same goes for other controversial topics that may not be inherently political or religious in nature, but that are nonetheless likely to cause some heated debate.
Keep in mind that the things that you talk about in that board should probably stay in that board. Posts of a political, religious, or otherwise overly controversial nature that are made in other boards are subject to movement to that board, or deletion altogether.
Helpful Links for
writers
There are a number of good links for writers located in
this handy and aptly named thread, Writing
Tips by various writers!
Free Archives Featuring MC Stories.
How to find a long
lost MC story, even if you don’t know the title or
author:
The most effective things you can do is ask—start a
thread about it in the MC
Writing/Stories Discussion board. But, if you
don’t want to do that just yet, you do have some
other options to try first.
If you think you know where a story was when you read it, try searching there. Some sites, like ASSTR, have their own search engines. Others, like the EMCSA, require you to browse by categories, titles, authors, etc. If you read the story on the MCForum, then there’s a chance its author has linked to it in the “Our Own Forum Creative Links...” thread.
Sometimes, you don’t know the author or the title, but you think you know where the story was and that site’s search engine (if there is one) isn’t helping. In that case, you can Google the site in question for that specific story (see below). If you suspect that the story was removed from a certain site, you can go to the Wayback Machine, enter the URL of the site in question, and look around for an archived version of the site from a time near when you originally read the story.
Example: To find a story on the EMCSA that was somehow about a perfume that made females want to have sex:
How to submit more
helpful links.
If you want to add helpful writing links to the
aforementioned Writing
Tips by various writers! thread, then send a PM to any
of the Admins, or either of the Mod for that group
(Wiseguy).
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