Welcome! As a new user of this forum, we hope you will find this site intuitive and clearly structured, but here is some guidance to get you started. If you’re lost, reach out to us.
What is this place, anyways?
Welcome!
In a personal sense, this place is an online haven for local and displaced NFL fans. Draft aficionados. The 12th man. That dude wearing the jersey with his name plastered on the back because, dammit, this thing matters as much to him as it does the actual team.
In a technical sense, it’s an online forum/message board, comprised of users from across the football universe, who want to discuss their team with fellow fans, and in particular, share their take on the “Super Bowl” of the 31 teams who didn’t get the grand prize—the draft.
So pull up a chair. You’re with friends.
Basic Terms
Before we get too far into the weeds, let’s start with some basics (although if you lurk other forums, message boards, or social media, you can probably skip this part).
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Topic: The collection of messages grouped together in a meaningful conversation, with a title, listed in a War Room or other category, beginning with an Original Post, and including all replies in chronological order.
Elsewhere this might be called a ‘thread’ but we use ‘topic’, although for sports communities, these terms are somewhat interchangeable. -
Post: Each response within the topic is referred to as a post. Each post has its own author and can be moved to a different topic if necessary, or even become the start of a new topic.
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Original Post (or OP): The first post in any topic. This is key since it determines the focus of the topic and is what the title and tags will link to.
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War Room (or Category): Each NFL team has its own respective category—identical to a ‘forum’ on other sites, you can also configure notification preferences per category or even mute them as explained below. Sometimes forum/category/War Room are terms used interchangeably.
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Draft Tag: This is what distinguishes this community! A tag is a marker placed on a topic to help identify its ‘aboutness.’ This is usually a draft prospect’s name (ie. Aidan Hutchinson) or position grouping (ie. EDGE), but there will be miscellaneous draft tags.While a topic can only exist in one forum, it can have multiple tags, thus making it viewable and of interest to everyone.
If your post is about Aidan Hutchinson and Kayvon Thibodeaux, it would be tagged to both players and the position grouping of EDGE. -
User: This is you! Although most topics and posts can be read by anyone, you will always be required to register in order to create topics, posts and record any actions such as bookmarking, liking, tagging, and flagging. You also need to be registered to be on our leaderboard. Most site activity, therefore, is based around registered Users
Activity — What You’re Looking At
By default, this site’s homepage will show all Latest conversations in the community across all team war rooms, but you can filter this list in a number of ways:
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By level of activity: if you click on ‘Top’ the conversation topics will be listed in order of most activity (views and replies) for a specific time period. You can choose whether this is for all time, or select a specific period such as quarter, month, week or just today.
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By what’s ‘New’ to you: by default, new topics are those created in the last 2 days that you have not opened yet to keep the list fresh and relevant. New topics show a small blue dot next to the topic title
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By what topics are “Unread”: by default, unread topics are those that you have previously opened and read for at least 4 minutes, and that have new posts (replies) submitted to them. Unread topics show a number in a blue circle indicating how many new posts are in the topic.
Personalize Your Experience
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My War Rooms: By default, the most popular war rooms are on your personalized sidebar, under “War Rooms.” You can open/close your sidebar by clicking the hamburger icon (3 horizontal lines) at the top of every page. This section should also include your favorite team that you added upon sign-up. If not, you can adjust this in your preferences.
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My Draft Tags: Similar to the above, you can customize which preferred draft tags show up on your personalized sidebar. You can select which tags to follow this in your preferences.
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Dark Mode: By default, dark mode is turned off. If dark mode is a preferred reading experience, you can turn this on in your preferences, simply choose “Dark” under the Theme option.
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Notification Preferences: By default, you will be alerted via email to weekly summary of topics, and responses to any topics you create. You can also opt to turn on live notifications to enhance your experience. You can adjust notifications and email alerts alerts in your preferences.
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Change Avatar, Username, Email Address, Password, Etc.: To make adjustments to your profile or account, simply visit your account preferences page page!
Leaderboard & Badges
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Leaderboard: The more active you become, the more points you earn on the leaderboard. The leaderboard is bragging rights for our most active users. We are currently putting plans in place to reward users for certain milestones, such as unlocking 100,000 total points, or leading all users in activity during the year!
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Badges: Like the leaderboard, badges are rewarded to users based on activity milestones. They’re not related to the leaderboard points system, but give you some fancy flair to show off your community involvement.
See who is participating
There are several ways to see who is involved in topics.
Sitting atop the activity feed is a list of avatars (profile pictures) of those who happen to be online at the moment.
Within the feed, you’ll see …
- the user who started the topic (always the first photo);
- a selection of the most active participants;
- and, who created the most recent post (usually the last photo).
- in some cases, the first photo has a blue border or blue halo to indicate that the original poster is also the most recent poster
- in some cases, avatars that have a green halo around them mean they’re currently online
The box at the bottom of the OP (original post) tells you who created the post and when, gives a count of the replies and views in this topic to date, and a display of the avatars of the most frequent participants.
Navigation Tools
- For Search, the Menu, or your User page, use the icon buttons at the upper right.
Reading Topics
A healthy community needs members to be posting new content, but this activity is not everything. Readers are the true indicators of how healthy the community is. What’s the point of posts that no-one reads? We encourage and track reading habits so community managers can keep a healthy balance!
Keep scrolling
Click a topic title and read down the list of replies in chronological order, following links or previewing replies and quotes as you go. Use your mouse to scroll the screen, or use the timeline scroll bar on the right which also shows you how far through the conversation you’ve read. On smaller screens, select the bottom progress bar to expand it.
Jump back in
- Selecting a topic title will take you to your last read post in the topic. To enter at the top ↑ or bottom ↓ instead, click the reply count or last reply date.
- Topics above the light red line on a list are new or updated since your last visit. If you have read all the way to the end of a topic, the title will be light grey instead of black.
Related topics
Sometimes conversations are clearer if topics are split, where posts are moved to a more appropriate topic, or two related topics are merged. If a post is moved, a link will appear that will allow readers to jump to that comment wherever it has been moved to, and the person who posted it will also be notified.
At the end of the OP you will also see lists of related topics that link to the one you are reading
Joining The Conversation
Create a New Topic
We know you’re excited. But before you jump in too fast, we advise that you actually read some threads. First, get a sense of the tone and how to best engage.
Think about how you’d go to a local pub to watch a game. Would you start shouting at the TV upon arrival, or adjust to the environment? That’s what we thought. Second, make sure your topic idea hasn’t already posted. You’ll lose A LOT of credibility and annoy other by posting a news item that someone started the day before.
Otherwise, click “New Topic” and you’e on your way!
- Title: This is basically the “subject” line of your post. Keep it short and succinct. We have no problem with clickbait, if that’s your jam.
- Pick a War Room: This might be prefilled. If you’re a Detroit Lions fan, it’s likely that’s what you will choose. But if your topic is instead, about, say Patrick Mahomes setting a new passing record, then you’d choose the Kansas City Chiefs War Room. Just start typing the team name, and it will appear!
- Draft Tag: If your post is draft related, this is where you can truly unlock the power of this site. To tag an NFL draft prospect, choose the Position, then the Player. Once you select the position, you can simply search the player’s name. If he isn’t available on the tags page, you can request him by contacting us.
Replying
Press any
Reply button to open the editor panel at the bottom of your browser. You can continue reading (and even search or navigate to different topics) while you compose your reply.
We show all posts in the order they are published. It does not make you chase down multiple threaded paths. However, it still gives you lots of ways to follow the context of conversations.
To reply to a specific post in a topic, clicking the grey Reply button at the end of each post and your reply is linked to that post.
- If your reply is the next one published after the post you are replying to, this will appear next in chronological order
- If yours is NOT next, then two things happen after your post is published:
- Your post will include a new link in its header with an image to show what this is ‘in reply to’ - clicking this link displays that previous post for context next to your reply
- The original post includes a count of replies at the bottom - clicking this link displays the content of the replies
Drafts
Drafts will automatically be saved as you write. If you minimize the editor or navigate to a different topic, the editor might disappear. To open a draft, return to the topic you were replying to or click the highlighted bar at the bottom of your browser, and the editor will reappear with your draft.
Quoting
To insert a quote, select the text you wish to quote, then press the Quote button that pops up. There is no need to quote a whole message: it helps to be specific. Repeat this for multiple quotes even from different posts and different users. The quoted text will point to their original source.
Mentioning
To notify someone about your reply, mention their name. Type @ to begin selecting a username. This search will also search the name fields in case you don’t know a particular username.
Emoji
To use standard Emoji, just type : to match by name, or traditional smileys ;)
Alternatively, click on more to see a complete list of emoji to select from.
Link Previews
To generate a summary for a link, paste it on a line by itself. To start a topic with a link, paste the link into the title field.
Formatting
Your reply can be formatted using simple HTML, BBCode, or Markdown:
This is <b>bold</b>.
This is [b]bold[/b].
This is **bold**.
For more formatting tips, try our 10 minute tutorial.
Actions and Reactions
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!
- Grab a copy-pasteable (permalink) link to any reply or topic via the link button.
- Use the … button to reveal more actions. Flag to privately let the author, or the site staff, know about a problem. Bookmark to find this post later on your profile page.
Notifications
When someone is talking directly to you — by replying to you, quoting your post, mentioning your @username , or even linking to your post, a blue number will immediately appear over your profile picture at the top right.
When you have been sent a Personal Message you will receive this in your Inbox and a green number will appear over your profile picture to the left.
Click your profile image to scroll through all your notifications.
Remember, you can always adjust your notification preferences.
You can optionally receive all these notifications as push notifications to your desktop browser or Android device. Simply allow the site to send you notifications through your browser when it asks permission.
Don’t worry about missing a reply—you’ll be emailed any notifications that arrive when you are away.
If you want, you can get notified about other things happening on the site as well, either at the category or topic level.
Topic notifications
You can change your notification level for any individual topic via the notification control at the bottom, and right hand side, of each topic.
Category notifications
Notification level can also be set per category. To change any of these defaults, see your user preferences, or visit the category page, and use the notification control above the topic list, on the right side.
Tag notifications
Notification level can even be set per tag. To change any of these defaults, see your user preferences, or visit the tag page, and use the notification control above the topic list, on the right hand side.
