Forum Glossary

Administrator
This is the highest permission level for a member. He can manage the whole baord by creating/organizing categories and sections, setting up permissions, changing the board's design, managing the users, etc.

Announcement
Topic which always stays at the top of the topic list even if this topic is old. It appears at every page of a forum. They are generally used for board rules.

Avatar
Personal image which is shown below the username in posts. The avatar is choosen by the user and it usually reflects a personality trait, a passion or a mood.

Category
A group of forums (section). They can't contain topics directly.

Flood
From the original definition of the word, this term is used to talk about the action of mass-posting only to raise the member's rank, to put a forum out of order or anything else. It may be posts which are extremely short. On Forumotion, this kind of post penalize forums in their position in the Forumotion directory.

Fora
Latin plural for "Forum"

Forum
Two definitions
1) Website or dynamic website part which allows written expression of its members. Also called "board", "message board" or "bulletin board"
2) A group which contains topics (or threads), also called "section"

Founder
The administrator who created the board. He has rights the other admins haven't, such as modifying his own profile, changing the board's address or deleting his board. He also has access to the restoration tools (utilities).

Guest
User who's not logged in to your board

Hidden user
Registered user who have chosen to hide their online status. It can be done by setting "Hide your online status" to YES when you edit your profile. Administrators and moderators (if allowed in "Admin Panel >> General >> Security") can still see them, their names appear in italic.

Moderator
A member who's charged to ensure a nice ambiance in a section or in a group of sections. For this, he has tools simple member don't have, such as moving, locking, unlocking, deleting, splitting, merging topics, editing or deleting posts, banning troublesome members (if the admin allowed it in "Admin Panel >> General >> Security")

Post
Part of a topic which contains what a member wrote. It also contains the avatar and the informative links about the same member. It is synonym of "message"

Private message
As the name means, it's a message you send to a single member who will be the only one to read it. This is useful for transmitting confidential information (ex : abuse report). Also called PM.

SMS
Kind of writing which is often used in textual messages exchanged between mobile phones. This writing has the characteristic to be very abbreviated by using a single letter or number for a sound (ex : "U" for "you", "2" for "to", "sk8" for "skate"). this kind of writing MUST be avoided on this board because it's hard to read!

Sticky
A topîc that always stays at the top of the topic list, below annoucements (if there is one), even if this topic is old. It appears only on the first page of a forum. They are generally used to display useful content which must stays visible for everyone.

Topic
A series of posts. Also called "thread"

Troll
Message or poster aimed to engage in controversy at an excessive level. It harms the forum ambiance because it annoys members, it's not very appreciated.

Usergroup
A group of users which has special permissions, such as having access to a private section, or moderating a section. Any user who's member of a group will have the access/moderation permission given to the group. This simplifies the permissions management a lot.