I am not a web programmer. I have no knowledge of PHP or any of those other things you guys are using to reanimate 64Digits. Hence, I have not asked for access to the code.

However, I am a writer. And I do want to contribute to the site's improvement. So here's a new FAQ (do what you will with it):

Q: What does everything on the homepage do?

A: What it should. Most of the time. The recent blog list with the avatars that takes up much of the screen shows all most the recent "fronted" (we'll get to that in a minute) blogs. Similarly, the recent games showcase shows off six of the site's most recently accepted games

The activity feed, on the other hand, works on comments and forum posts. It shows what games, examples, blogs, and forum posts were most recently commented on (not in all cases, though - but more on that later). It also shows you whether you've read something's most recent comments/posts or not, by making the entry bold if you haven't, and putting it in standard text if you have.

Q: What does "on the front page"/"fronted" mean?

A: This versatile statement can apply to games, examples and even blogs - a game or example is on the front page when its preview appears in one of the six "Recent Submission" boxes, and a blog is on the front page when it's listed in the recent blog list in the middle of the screen. You can use "fronted" as an adjective to describe these types of blogs, but don't apply it to games. No-one does that.

Bear in mind that if you want your fronted blog to stay fronted (and unedited), you need to abide by some rules.

Q: What rules are there regarding fronted blogs?

A:

1. Don't swear in the title, or in the first sentence or so. This also goes for unfronted blogs that appear on the activity feed. We don't want swearwords on our homepage, thank you.

2. Make it long enough. The official rule is "fronted blogs must be at least 300 words", but mods tend to be okay with your blog being on the frontpage if it has a decent amount of "content". Sadly, "content" isn't really objectively measurable - you'll have to use your discretion.

3. Only post one fronted blog a day.

4. Remember, these rules are subject to change at the staff's whim. Life's more exciting that way.

Q: What's the dropdown box on the blog entry page for?

A: It allows you to decide whether or not you'd like your blog entry to appear on the front page (and therefore on the activity feed), just on the activity feed, or on neither of the two.

While a non-fronted blog is not as likely to be seen as a fronted one, it is exempt from the rules that govern fronted blogs, so you may want to consider not fronting hourly tweets.

Q: What is the checkbox under the comment box for?

A: Pretty self-explantory - check the box if you don't want the activity feed notified of your comment.

The box is checked by default when commenting on blogs/games older than 2 weeks. This is to prevent necroposting, so don't uncheck it without a very good reason.

Q: Tell me about custom hitcounters. Why isn't mine working?

It used to be that special counters were a special privilege, but these days anyone's hitcounter text can be changed in Preferences.

The tag "[HITS]" needs to be in your hitcounter text, to show the site where you want the actual number. For example:

"[HITS] Pageviews"

"Hits: [HITS]"

"[HITS] + [HITS] = 2([HITS])"

If you don't put the "[HITS]" tag in your counter, your hits won't be displayed there. Which might be what you want, in which case, feel free to leave it out.

Q: What do the badges do?

A: They sit on your page, and if you hover your cursor over one, you can discover its name and what it's for.

Badges are given out for a lot of different things.

There are the automated statistics badges - things like number of hits, number of games submitted, number of friends, old bean (given to users who've been here for three years or more) etc…

There are the badges given out by specific people - Arcalyth's Seal of Awesomeness, Ace02's cool banner badge, etc… Obviously, getting one of these is dependent on whether or not the giver is online much, and more dependent on whether or not the giver likes you.

There are also the game badges (for achievements in ColumnsX and Twisterghost's LOLOMGWTFBBQ series) but it's not currently possible to get one of those. Anyone who has one has had it for a very long time.

If you absolutely abhor your badges, there's a checkbox in Preferences that allows you to stop them from being displayed.

Q: What languages can I write my submissions in?

A: We used to accept only "Game Maker"-made submissions, so you'll find that our archive is largely made up of GM games and examples. However, we've recently lifted that restriction, and are in the process of building a more varied collection of programs.

For games: Anything you care to make them in, so long as they're easy to download and play.

For examples: A good number of different languages:

Game Maker (versions 5-8)

Unity

C/C++

C#

Java

Python

Like everything, this is subject to change at the staff's discretion.

Q: I submitted a game/example but it's not on the site! What gives?

A: If your game/example submission hasn't gone through, it's probably because of one of these reasons:

1. It's a Game Maker 6 EXE and won't work on newer versions of Windows. Please convert all GM6 submission with the Vista convertor available here before submitting them. The game mods are not going to do it for you.

2. It wasn't up to standard. All site submissions are tested for quality by our game moderators, ensuring our archives don't become bloated with garbage no-one wants to download.

("Up to standard", in this context, is as dependent on your submission's objective quality as it is on the personal opinions and moods of the game mods. Some things are bad in an entertaining way - remember that before complaining about any submissions we have accepted.)

3. No game mods have got around to playing it yet. Check your queue.

4. The title contained swearing. Blog title swearing rules also apply to game titles.

Q: Your site layout is a rip-off of some other site!

A: That's not really important to us. We like to consider the blog system as a more relaxed alternative to regular forums - and hey, you don't hear pre-built forum sites getting chewed out for being ripoffs of other pre-built forum sites.

Q: Can I be a mod/admin/person with access to the site code?

A: The laws which govern who gets what privileges and responsibilities are based on how active the site is, how active the staff is, and how trustworthy the staff judges potential new staff to be. Basically, don't ask, and you might get. If we need you.

People with access to the site code are a slightly different story, but don't expect to be granted access the day you join.

Q: What are the "[whatever]" tags in front of blogs for?

A: Time for a history lesson. Long ago, the site we all know and love had a slightly different format. There was no activity feed, and the recent blogs and news lists had their places swapped. Seeing as a recent blog's only presence on the front page was its title, some people used these tags to let others know whose blogs they were about to read:

For example:

[Ciri] Title goes here

could've been a blog by a user named "Ciribot".

The site's redesign has made this titling convention obsolete, but you may see it pop up again occasionally.

Q: Such-and-such a feature doesn't work/is different! Why?

A: 64Digits will always be a work-in-progress. There are always bugs to fix or more features to implement. Also, many of our users use/have used the site's creation as a way of learning more about web programming, so mistakes can be made. Be patient, either it'll be sorted out soon, or it'll become an essential part of your 64Digits experience.

Q: Are there really that many guests?

A: Yup. The counter used to show "1 guest" almost constantly, then someone fixed it, and we found out the surprising truth. If you're a guest and you're reading this, would you consider joining? The site's much nicer if you're a member.

Q: So is this site actually gonna stay up for a few months?

A: We'd like to think so, yes. We've had some very lengthy downtimes (Q1 2009 comes to mind), but now we've got reliable hosting, downtimes should be the exception rather than the rule.

If you do come here one day and find it down, see it as an opportunity to go outside. Sunlight makes you happy.

<BBCode lists go here - I didn't rewrite them because why?>

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I think that covers everything, but please check, and feel free to add stuff where necessary.

Thoughts?

F1ak3r