Alright, this will be a work in progress...

Welcome to the Negative World. I am Zero, the code monkey, etc. around here. If you ever have an issue with the site, want to report a bug, have a suggestion, etc. you should post it in this thread. If it is something that needs to be personally brought to my attention for one reason or another, you can always send me a private message. Sweet.

As a quick explanation, the Negative World is basically a site made by Nintendo fans for Nintendo fans. Though I do all the main programming, we tend to think of it as a group effort, and everyone has a voice. Essentially the site came about when we realized there was a large erm... lacking... in the quality of user on the average public Nintendo forum, and the forums suffered because of this. So we decided to create a forum where true Nintendo fans had a place to speak about Nintendo without worrying about constant haters and trolls. This doesn't mean everyone has to be constantly positive towards Nintendo all the time (believe me, we ALL hate friend codes,) but we want to keep the environment pretty positive overall. In the end, it makes for a pretty unique site, we think, though it is a shame that a site without Nintendo haters is actually a rare thing.

Onto the FAQ.

A. Your Profile, Etc.

Before you get started, you should probably go edit your profile. Fill in whatever you want, no one cares about you. KIDDING. Also, once you hit 15000 XP you can choose a new avatar so you don’t get stuck with an 8bit avatar. Otherwise you will look like a follower, when in reality you are a leader. But do NOT spam the forum to get XP!

B. Site Experience (XP), Levels, Etc.

You may notice in the menu bar above that you have a level and an XP score next to your username. XP is basically site experience. Pretty much every time you do anything, from clicking pages to making posts, playing online games if you unlocked them, etc. you get XP. How much XP do you get per what action? Well, that is up to you to find out. Here is a warning though... do not try to exploit the XP. All XP is tracked and anytime something seems a bit out of whack, we will take a look into it. If I find out someone is exploiting a loophole then BAM... MASSIVE XP DEDUCTION, BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA. Just don't do it, alright? However, we have no problem with people gaining massive XP by getting actively involved in the site, in fact that is the point. So don't hesitate to click around, make posts, etc. just don't spam or exploit.
The XP is then used to unlock features, such as private avatar, background user color, site skins...
You can check the current XP leaders here, and the XP unlocking guide here!

Levels are a bit different than XP. Do not assume that levels are related to your XP, they aren't. Levels are just a means of controlling access to the various functionality of the site. Most new users start somewhere from level -1 to level -3. Levels go downwards. Level -5 is considered a site administrator. Etc. There is no official way built into the site to move down a level... if we feel you deserve it, we will move you down. If you feel you deserve it, well... let me know. But don't cry if you get DENIED. Don't worry too much about levels, there really isn't a whole lot to be gained by moving down a few levels. The differences between the various levels will be explained later in this FAQ.

C. Posting on the Forum

As stated above, we happen to enjoy the fact that we have a Nintendo forum with an overall positive vibe, and we plan to keep it that way. Posting about other companies, posting off topic, disagreeing with Nintendo, etc. are perfectly fine (though you should probably get a feel for how the forum works before going nuts with that.) Flaming, trolling, etc. are not. Disagree, but disagree with respect for the others. As for content, we are pretty much completely open... discussions on modding, linking to other sites images, pictures of (legal aged) guys in Super Mario underoos, all of that is fine. Just make sure to include a NSFW label on anything that is NSFW so those who don’t want to see it will know not to click.

Our main forum is set up a bit differently than many, so it might be a tad bit confusing at first, but you will get the hang of it in no time. Actually it is our only forum. It is, however, controlled by levels. Users can post threads based on what level they are. For instance, a level -1 user can only post a level -1 thread, which everyone can see. A level -5 admin, however, can post a level -5 thread that only those level -5 or lower can view. On the main forum, you will see a “board view level” option. This allows lower level users, if they please, to filter the board to only view posts from certain levels. It’s really not as confusing as it might sound.

Our forum uses BBCode, which you can insert with form buttons. You can have more information about it if you click the question mark in the "edit a post" page, but on the whole it's easy to use. Just know you can resize posted images if they're wider than 740px, so it doesn't break the site layout, like this: (img=640x360), and that links must have text between the url tags. The forum also allows HTML, which means you can put embed videos in the site.

When posting a topic or reply, just fill in the big box at the top or bottom of the board / thread. Topic and message should be obvious. If you have alternate personas (more on that later) you can select what persona you want to post as. Admins have a few other options (more on that later as well.) Select the level you want the post to be (for the most part, we post -1 unless there is a really valid reason to not let the higher levels see a thread) and click the submit button. Sweet. You can also edit and delete any threads / replies made by you or one of your alternate personas. That is pretty self-explanatory so I won’t bother explaining how.

You can add a poll using the "create poll" link under the board heading in the menu bar above.

You can also send private messages to individual users. To do this, click on their username to view their profile, and then click on the "Send PM" link contained in their profile. If you have a new / unread private message a link to bring you to your private messages will appear next to your name on the top menu bar. However, you can view your private messages at any time by clicking the private message link under the board menu above.

D. Functionality of Levels

This is just a quick rundown of the various added functionality you can gain through moving down in the levels. There is probably a bit more not included below, if you have any questions about levels please send me a private message.

Level -3
-Upload new midis and upload new sprites on their respective pages.
-Add new games to the games database (using the upload form on top of the page.)
-Create a new persona which can be used to post. Fun to confuse people with (but don't try to TROLL with it, we can check on whose personas are whose pretty easily.)
-Create your own webcomic (ask me about this if interested.)

Level -5
-Post a news or rant to the public default page of the Negative World (just switch the "normal" option to news or rant when you make a new post on the forum.)
-Post a Top Ten list to the default page.
-various administrative functionality in the "admin" link up on the top menu bar.

Level -7
-Wouldn't you like to know?

Don't ask me what advantages levels -2, -4, and -6 have. Damned if I know.

E. The Neverending Experience Quest

One of the most loved things on the Negative World is the (newly dubbed) Neverending Experience Quest. Think of it as a sort of interactive "game" that takes place on the Negative World. Clues are given, and you have to solve each stage to move onto the next. Some stages you will be answering straight-forward game questions, others you will be forced to think outside the box, and still others you will be running all over the site like a headless chicken trying to figure out what to do. But it is all in good fun, and a very nice way to earn XP quickly as well.

F. Other Assorted Fun Stuff

Store your Nintendo Wii and DS codes here. Functionality is coming soon to be able to view others quickly and neatly.

Negative World has a pretty unique games list where you can not only add games to your collection, but rate various games and see how your scores stand next to the Negative World average. At the moment Super Metroid is our highest rated game... agree? Disagree? Go rate it! You can get a lot of experience quickly by rating games, so I'd suggest checking it out! If you don't see a game on our list, you can add it to the database using the submission form at the top of the page. Sweet!

Interested in getting Homebrew up and running on your Wii? Check out this thread for full details! Personally I haven't done this so I can't be too much help, so if you have any questions or need some help you should probably message Junkie_XL, our resident Homebrew expect.

Everyone likes game media right? Check out our video game midis and our video game sprites pages. And if you are level -3 or lower, you can upload new media!

If you are anything like me, you hate spending more money on games, consoles, and accessories than you have to. Check out our video game deals thread for tips on how to save money, and to post / read about current game deals. I have saved literally hundreds of dollars this way, and you can (and should) as well!

MORE COMING SOON.

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Still waiting on my slick radial menu scripted entirely out of basic HTML...

I don't get what you mean. I understand what you're saying, but every function about that appeared to work. All the input fields updated for me. Are you specifically referencing when the colors are actually saved?

Ahhh, I see what you're getting at. I actually noticed that, but thought nothing of it because I was looking for something else.

Why would you need to trick it to think it was manually changed, though? Couldn't you simply design it to where the code itself "manually" changes it by maybe clearing the field and having it re-enter the number in a split second? I'm not too familiar with actually coding, but I know you can do some pretty clever work-arounds with it until a permanent solution is found.

I'm not sure if this has been suggested since it's too early to wade through 6 pages of suggestions, but the game database would be easier to navigate if it had a search function that immediately let me add the game to collection/rate it

Yeah we do have to work on the games database a bit. Technically the add IS kind of a search, but the search displays the results in the old format and doesn't allow updating from that page, right now.

Ok so I take it that the colours are in the works? After changing skins to classic (as I unlocked it) then went back to default skin, my border around my Icon changed from black to white and I can't seem to change the background colour.. I may have forgotten how. I changed the colour of my name so you can at least see it for now..

S

The threads should show both who started them, AND who was the last poster. That would be more complete information.

Yeah. Wow. I'm blind, apparently.

...Well.

...it's a good thing that it does that.

OWNED.

I may be alone on this but it kind of annoys me that the same person can have numerous, different personas...

Whenever I see a new username pop up, instead of thinking that they're someone new who decided to join the party, I think it's someone's alternate username. Or at the very least it makes me wonder whether it's someone's alternate username. It's not fun...

Not gonna read 7 pages to check, but has anyone made the suggestion for a chat room? Could be handy for arranging on-line games or when you're really bored (hint hint).

David V

For the past 20 minutes or so the site has been wonky. It's not always loading, you have to refresh once or twice.

Is there any way to choose a persona as the default one? I keep selecting my other persona when making posts (VofEscaflowne) but it'll switch back to Spectre every time since that's the username I chose back when I created this account. Would I be better off just creating another account? Can I even do that now since I've taken up VofEscaflowne as a persona?

I know I'm more of a lurker than a contributer, but my profile says I have 0 posts

Now I have one post :-P

Annoying demand for new stuff that probably takes stupid amounts of effort to code #2619:

I'm assuming this isn't here because I can't find it, if I'm just blind smack me with a whiffle bat or something.

Any way of getting a button on the threads that automatically jumps you to the first new (unread) post? Paticularly on the larger multi-page threads it's getting a tad annoying to go and find the page/post I left off from last time.

Sorry Simba :P

The Invision boards I've posted on are able to do it, but I don't know how they're coded, so ....yeah. That's probably an issue if they're different.

And yes I assume thats how it does it, if you click a thread it assumes you've read everything up to the last post, when you come back later it automatically jumps you to the very next one.

I know this seems silly, but is age important here?

I'm surprised this site doesn't use animated emoticons, and instead we're stuck with just the plain old text versions. Is there any way in the future we could get those? :)

Not sure if this has been suggested yet...

We should have a user setting to format the date to our liking. For example, mm/dd/yyyy, dd/mm/yy, 10 Jun 2010, etc.