GameFAQs message boards

Social Boards

• Another Place (AP) is a GameFAQs Social Board that was created when LUE's user level requirement went up to 30. AP is definitely not a part of LUE anymore, and has somewhat of a tightly-knit community. There are many social topics around and is known by its inhabitants as "Your GameFAQs home for polygamy and wit." Some of AP's residents have made their first names known to the board and ask to be addressed by them. AP also has its own, semi-official website containing a set of guidelines, quotes, and a member list, or APe list.

• Current Events (CE) is the oldest social board on GameFAQs. It is usually the third most popular social board on GameFAQs. It is frequented by many of the moderators, and even CJayC from time to time.

• The Couch, The Hallway, The Porch, and The Forum are "forum" message boards for general chitchat, with The Couch being the largest among them.

• Long-Timers, Veterans, Legends, The Elite, Iconia, Idolatry, and Temple of the Ancients are user-level specific boards. Long-Timers is for user-level 30, Veterans is for level 31, Legends is for level 32, The Elite is for level 33, Iconia is for level 34, Idolatry is for level 35, and Temple of the Ancients is for level 36 users. Sadly, traffic among the level 33+ boards is lacking, partially due to lack of members meeting the requirements, partially because the boards do not allow any discussion that cannot be found elsewhere.

• War on Terrorism was created soon after the September 11th Attacks to discuss the War on Terrorism and related conflicts like the Middle East. That said, it has quickly evolved into a massive debate forum with subjects spanning the wide perimeter of the American social and economic scene. Due to its intended subject matter, however, it has become a lightning rod for trolls, a problem exacerbated by its status as a social board. Currently, topics consist of a mixture of domestic USA issues and social topics, though rounds of anti-religion topics are as en vogue as ever.

Random Insanity

Random Insanity (RI) was originally created to shunt the less-serious users off of CE. It quickly became host to text-based roleplaying and "social topics" where people could come in and talk about nothing in particular. One of the most popular of these is Pikadeth's Playhouse, which spawned many imitators. Originally RI was slightly hostile towards CE (the origin of "board invasion" being a ToS violation), with the RICE wars being remembered by the "old RIers". RI also has a history of being competitive with LUE; in the early days, users would perform "raids" on LUE in the PM hours. Before the RI Refugee Crisis it usually had twice the number of posts on CE and LUE combined. However, after the incident most of them migrated to LUE.

RI had many dramas and traditions of its own, including roleplaying, which started on the board and later moved to the board Role-Playing/Fan-Fiction. Gaw's Laws, a set of rules for roleplaying popularly used at the site, originated at RI. Today, roleplaying is somewhat of a niche, with social topics and one-liners dominating instead. RI has often had problems accepting new users, with resistance coming from "veterans" -- users who, while not necessarily there for very long, tried to establish standards on the "randomly insane" board. One event that still resonates with even the newest users is the Gamequeen incident.

Life, the Universe, and Everything

Life, the Universe, and Everything (LUE) is the most popular GameFAQs social board with usually well over 30,000 posts at any time, quite a remarkable number given the frequent purging of old posts. The name was derived from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams. It was originally created to provide a place to discuss such things as religion and existence. Discussion today is often sex-related and has been for years.

LUE is also home to many fads, including the infamous LUEshi (an ASCII image of Mario riding Yoshi created by the user Patamon. Posting it was grounds for suspension, but it is now legal in designated ASCII topics.), and the phrase "y helo thar", which was said on a live broadcast of Late Night with Conan O'Brien. The phrase 'Y helo thar' originated in a flash video called "The Attention Whore", which mocks the reactions of male posters to the appearance of women on message boards.

Though the board used to be open to all members with 30 Karma, it was raised to 75 Karma following the "Scum Wars" around November 2002. A 150 Karma requirement was implemented after the RevoLUEtion on May 7 2003, and soon after the board was removed from all board listings. To get to it, one has to manually type in the URL and/or add it to one's favorite board list.

On November 15 2003, following a massive LiveJournal invasion by LUE, CJayC "sterilized" LUE by forbidding any user with a user ID greater than 888113 from ever reaching LUE. The last person to ever get into LUE, Lunarhawk99, was hailed as "The One" (pressing Alt+888113 gives the character "1") and regarded as a celebrity, although this perceived status was lost soon after he gained access. However, while it did last, many LUEsers followed him around, posting in his threads, often with words of praise, most particularly: "OMG, he is teh one!11!" Soon after, from January 4 to January 15, CJayC ran a sign-up for LUE; people that haven't signed up aren't allowed to visit the board. This was done to prevent any new members from visiting and to permanently remove banned users. In exchange, LUE was granted slightly more leeway when it comes to controversial topics.

The LUE Trinity (sometimes referred to as the "Unholy Trinity") is the term for the three most commonly posted shock sites on GameFAQs - Goatse, Tubgirl, and the Harlequin Fetus. "Goatse" and "Tubgirl" are autoflagged words, and it is now a major offense to provide links to the sites. The trinity is rarely heard from these days.

Other popular LUE fads include:

• 'Why must you turn LUE into a house of LIIIEEESSS', which originated from an episode of The Simpsons
• 'CRAWWWWLLLIINNNG INNN MYYYY SKIIINN', poking fun at the angsty rock band Linkin Park
• 'Nobody expects Jinjo!', a fad that originated when a LUEser posted a trap topic with an ASCII of Jinjo from Banjo-Kazooie
• And many more! LUE 402 for life!

Special Boards

• The beta boards were created when the message boards of GameFAQs and GameSpot were merged and GameFAQs was switched to PHP from ASP. They include three boards: GameFaqs Forums Beta Discussion, GameFaqs Forums Beta Bug Reports, and GS-GFQs Sharing Test Board. Although they are no longer needed, they have not been removed and some people still post on them.

• Regional boards are boards where gamers can chat to people in their own region as well as the world. The top three most active boards based on the number of posts and topics is the UK, the Australia and New Zealand board, and the Brazil board. The UK (313) and ANZ board have expanded off-site such as a mailing list for the UK board, tournemants and role playing on the ANZ board as well as their own chat channel. (See external links.)

• 810–820 Boards were created a few days after April Fool's Day. Originally, CJayC posted on the Icon board (1,000 karma requirement) on April Fools Day about making private boards for the first few icons that signed up. Many thought it an April Fool's joke until these boards were actually created. The few people that received these boards also are allowed to name them. So far, the ones that have been named are: 810 (Mostly Harmless), 813 (Unnatural Selection), 814 (The Upper Room), 816 (#showarr), 818 (KGB), 819 (CE Reloaded), and 820 (Hacked). In order to access these boards, the founders must send an invite.

• Secret Boards are game boards where off-topic posting is allowed. This is generally because the systems the games belong to have become so antiquated and obsolete that very little genuine discussion would otherwise take place on them. Many GameFAQsers have adopted some of these boards for their own use. The systems whose game boards are secret boards are found in the KSOT FAQ. The accepted capital of the secret boards is Zamzara, which also houses the weekly Top 50 Secret Boards list. The largest secret boards at this time include Bushido, Moon Cradle, and Captain Goodnight.

Special Interest Boards

• Special Interest Boards are boards that, while not related to specific games (and in most cases, not related to gaming at all), are proof that petitions on Site Suggestions do occasionally pass. Special Interest boards include Anime, Music, Graphics, Television, Web Design, Pro Wrestling, RPGs (including paper and Square Enix), Sports, Movies, Web Cartoons and Design, Card Games, Martial Arts, Books, Classic Gaming, Paranormal & Conspiracy, Next Generation Gaming discussion, Adult Swim, and Poetry. Even popular things like The Simpsons, Star Trek, Harry Potter, Pokémon, Star Wars, Dragon Ball, and James Bond have their own boards.

• Game Design and Programming is a board where people can discuss programming concepts and code. The veterans at this board usually look down on "Game Makers", especially the illegal English version of RPG Maker, focusing instead on making the games using OpenGL and SDL. There are even a couple of professional video game programmers who hang out at this board.

Site Boards

• Message Board Announcements is where administrators post general notices and warnings for the entire community. Originally an open board (only admins can start topics but anyone may reply), but it was filled with first posts and other junk. In early 2005, it was changed so that only administrators may post there.

• Message Board Help is the unofficial complaint forum of the boards. If a user feels something is wrong with the moderation system or staff, or possibly a board error, it is usually reported here. It is also used to ask questions about board features. This board was named Questions and Suggestions until the Karma system was introduced. After that, all suggestions and petitions have gone to Site Suggestions. MBH is still often used as complaints forum, despite recent ground rules to discourage this. New users that ask questions readily available in the ToS are sometimes ridiculed by the users that frequent the board. This board is not meant as board to report violations. Instead, users are requested to go to the dead board "Snack Attack," considered to be an unofficial Message Detail 2.

• Poll of the Day (PotD) is another social board, similar to LUE, although the topics there are not usually as vulgar or bizarre. Topicality was eliminated from the board in the summer of 2002 and the poll is seldom discussed now. Topic content is generally completely random and polls are fairly scarce. Women and love are uncommon discussed topics.

• Review Contributors is the board for all the review writers to talk about common interests. This board has been split to better categorize the discussions on it. It is now composed out of three boards: General, Help and Critiques, and Social.

• Site Suggestions is the official petitioning board, though very few ever pass. Usually passed petitions are a new special interest or social board, though very occasionally a new feature might be added. A new option "sticky topic" is avalible, which allows topics with great importance to be allows at the begining of the boards topic list. Current petitions that might pass or have potential are the History, Technology/Science and Comedy Central board.

• Summer Contest is the board where people talk about the Summer Character Contest, a huge event at GameFAQs, where the Poll of the Day is replaced by a video game character tournament. Previous winners were Link from The Legend of Zelda, Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII, and Link again in 2004. This board has evolved since 2002 for the most part independently from the other boards mentioned. One well-known event on these boards has happened 2 years in a row, directly after Crono's loss to Mario in both tournaments, each by around 100 votes. Mass account suicides, flaming/trolling, and even accusations of CJayC cheating ensued for days after both times. This board is also known for the constant flame wars between certain groups of users, and the word "fanboy" is horribly overused. During the Spring of 2004, the board name changed to represent the Spring Best Game Ever contest (which was eventually won by Final Fantasy VII), but it is normally under its Summer Contest moniker. Board 8, as it is called, has become a social board. Only during the Summer Contest does it really revert (somewhat) back to its intended purpose.

Secret Boards

• Secret Boards are a series of thirteen known message boards that are hard to find because users must manually type their board numbers in the address bar; they do not show up in the board manager. There are thirteen known leaked secret boards, but there are rumors of a fourteenth one named "Zen." The boards have since been revealed, causing good Hunters to look for new hang-outs.

In all of these boards, one can usually find topics that are used for karma raising, even though such topics are no longer necessary. Toaster Oven (see below) in particular had been rumored to exist for years, and was finally created by CJayC along with Rnd(), Nine, and Lame as the April Fool's joke for 2004. After Angela was leaked in late 2004, CJayC said [1] that it was created on the same day as Jenny.

• Toaster Oven (TO) was created for April Fool's 2004. Before this date, the existence of a secret board called Toaster Oven was a myth on GameFAQs social boards. Toaster Oven is the most popular GameFAQs 'special' board, with over 40,000 posts on its best days and an average of 6000–7000 posts now. The origin of its name is unknown. Discussion today consists in random topics. The board has recently spawned some spinoffs such as TO2.

• Special Social Boards (also called Series Boards) are very much like the Special Boards, in that they are de-linked from the social board list. However, the de-linking has eventually caused them to grow dead, and some users have petitioned for the social boards to be agains re-linked. On these boards, discussions related to an individual video game series can be discussed at great length, but because they are social boards, topicality is not enforced. Special Social Boards are:

1. Capcom vs SNK (504)
2. Digimon (510)
3. Mario (556)
4. MegaMan (527)
5. Metroid (578)
6. Pokemon (534)
7. Resident Evil (551)
8. Sonic (569)
9. Three Kingdoms (570)
10. WWE (546)
11. Yu-Gi-Oh (557)
12. Zelda (548)

Jargon

This is a short list of Internet slang used largely on GameFAQs message boards.

• 313er - The term for those who frequent the UK regional board.
• Autoflagged word - Words that have been abused but still have legitimate means. Autoflagged words are not allowed in topic titles. Contrary to popular belief, the post is not automatically sent to the moderator queue. The way it works: A post with an autoflagged word that is marked by someone is given higher priority in the queue.
• B& / B7 - Another term used in the same way as Banninated. B& is pronounced "banned". B7 is used as a joke because 7 is the key which the character "&" appears on when shift is held.
• Banninate - Term frequently posted when a user posts a message which contains a major ToS violation that normally leads to being banned from the website. The phrase is a play on of the word "burninate" which originated from Homestar Runner with the character "Trogdor the Burninator"
• BALEETED or BAL33T3D - A joke term to signify a post that will surely be moderated (another Homestar Runner reference).
• Board Hunting (or Secret Board Hunting) - Going through dead systems (such as Commodore 64, Atari 2600, Amiga, etc.) and posting in threads on the game boards. More info can be found in the Secret Board Hunting FAQ, found in the External Links section.
• CEer - A term to describe a person who goes to CE(Current Events board) regularly, sometimes called "CEmen".
• TOaster - A term to describe a person who frequents the Toaster Oven Board.
• Evil Republicans - A popular club on the War on Terrorism board, consisting of, with very few exceptions, extremely politically conservative users. Attempts to create competing liberal and libertarian clubs have ended in failure.
• ITT (Ignore This Topic) - A term originating on the War on Terrorism board, as a response to topics perceived by users as trolling. Ironically, as any post in a topic moves it to the top of the board, posting "ITT" increases the likelihood of people reading it rather than ignoring it.
• Karma - A number representing a user's status on the message boards. Each day that a user logs in and has at least one active post earns him/her one point of Karma, and TOS violations can result in loss of Karma. Higher Karma unlocks additional board features and higher posting limits. Once a user reaches 75 Karma, he/she becomes a "Regular User" with no posting restrictions, but some boards are restricted to higher-level users.
• KOS (Kill on Sight) - Although rare, this is the worst punishment one can receive on GameFAQS. It is given to those with past violations on multiple accounts. Any new accounts of those who have been KOSed are suspended on sight by moderators, without question. KOS orders peaked in the 2002-2003 period.
• LUEicide/LUEcide - Term used for account suicide (intentionally violating as many rules as possible in order to be banned) by a LUEser. It was popularized on March 4 2003, when the infamous "Black LUEsday" occurred. Both LUEicide and LUEcide were autoflagged for awhile in an attempt to keep people from account suiciding, with the message "Bad idea."
• LUEsers - Describes people who go to and frequent LUE. It is pronounced "loser", which is most likely an intentional pun.
• LUEshi - An ASCII image of Mario riding Yoshi created by the user Patamon. LUEshi quickly became one of the largest fads on GameFAQs, and posting it outside of designated ASCII topics was considered a serious TOS violation. It epitomized disobedience and defiance and punishments went from lenient to harsh. As of now, it is considered as regular ASCII and thus moderated only when disruptive (i.e. not in ASCII topics).
• Meta Mod - A now obsolete feature which allowed users with 40+ Karma to rate the fairness of moderations. It was abandoned due in large part to some users rating all moderations, no matter how obviously justified, as unfair.
• MIASU (Mark it and shut up) - Polite Message Board Help (MBH) users asked users to wait 24 hours after marking a message to complain. Less polite members bluntly told them to MIASU (Mark it and Shut Up). It grew in popularity, but is now moderated for trolling (inciting flames).
• Mod Baiting - Purposely attracting a moderator's attention, either by posting an autoflagged word (which, despite popular belief, is not automatically marked) or posting a topic implying that one is underage (i.e. Topic: I am 12 / Message: hundred years old)
• Notification - A minor moderation that results in the loss of three karma.
• Purgatory - A term used for the temporary suspension of users whose TOS violations are not quite severe enough to warrant banning.
• Purge - The regular deleting of topics that have not been posted in for a time determined by the number of posts on a board. Also used to mean "purgatory" in some cases.
• RIer - Name given to users who frequent Random Insanity. Can be pronounced either "Are-Eye-er" or "Ryer"
• Usermap - A listing of the accounts which have been used to log into the site via a certain computer IP address, which supposedly records logins from up to 60 days before the current date. (Translation - it takes 60 days from the date of a login being recorded to the login being purged from the usermap.) Specific information about usermaps (such as the specific IP addresses and the accounts on a usermap) are restricted, and considered mod-only information. The information above is one of the only things that moderators are allowed to divulge to non-moderators, along with the warning that logging into the site from a public computer (ex. computer at school, computer at an internet cafe, etc.) means that you run the risk of losing your account if another user logs in on that computer and violates the TOS, resulting in a usermap axe.
• Usermap Axe (or "Axed") - A severe administrative response to a problematic user wherein an account is banned, as are any account(s) of any user(s) whose IP has logged into the former account.
• UUA (or "Underage User Alert") - Used in response to somebody who either admits to being underage or (in jest) to somebody who posts something considered so inane that only an underage user could have posted it.
• WoTer- A frequent visitor to the War on Terrorism board. Pronunciation rhymes with "water."