About Plus Forward - Site Guide
Page 1: General Site Structure and features
Site Structure
Since there are a lot of different content and media types in this world this site tries to organize them into various post types for easier reading and finding of the relevant information.
Activity Summaries
The top menu offers readers a lot of summary information about the latest activity on the site. All of these lists are affected by any active filters.
Filters
This site provides two sort of content filters, the quick filters which are available to any reader with or without an account and the general filters for registered users.
Instant Messages
Plus Forward gives registered users to ability to send messages to any other user through the use of instant Messages. Do note that already read iMsgs are only stored for up to 2 Weeks.
Recruitment
This site offers a recruitment feature meant to help new and old players easily find a team suitable for their competitive needs. By creating a recruitment post you allow other players to see that you or your team is currently looking for a team or other players to join your team. When creating a post can provide an approximate skill level and the game specific gametype you are interested in. For team posts you should also provide a Location so potential new players know where you are from. For player posts do note that the Location from the user profile will be shown, so make sure to keep it up to date to increase your chances of finding other players.
Recruitment posts are active for one month after which they will not be shown in the Recruitment table any longer. If you have found a team / player before the 1 month deadline make sure to "close" the recruitment post via the post menu, this will remove it from the Recruitment table as well.
The default options to contact the creator of the recruitment post is via an PlusForward iMsg. If you wish a different contact option please mention it in the post.
Betting
Plus Forward offers its users the ability to place bets with virtual money called "PlusCoins" on matches. Newly registered users are given 100 PlusCoins, if your PlusCoins are below 100 you will get a daily set of 10 until it is back up to 100. The maximum bet allowed on a single match is 1000 PlusCoins. Please note that at no point in this process is real money or anything of value being transferred.
The site has betting seasons with an overview and some stats shown on the betting page with the possibility for sponsored betting seasons in the future to award the best "gamblers" with some prizes.
Search
This site offers a search function for anyone looking for specific posts. The default search only searches through post titles. For a more thorough search you can tell the function to also search the post content, comments and the usernames of posts/comments or to only search specific post types. Do note that due to the nature of mysqls fulltext search, "stopwords" are ignored from the search input.
Since there are a lot of different content and media types in this world this site tries to organize them into various post types for easier reading and finding of the relevant information.
- News
Factual information about things happening in the arena fps community. - Forum
Discussions on all kinds of topics categorized by sub-forums. - Article
Longer features devoted to specific topic. Can span across multiple post pages. - Column
A more personal opinion piece. - Journal
Personal diary like user posts. - VOD
Recording of a streamed significant or otherwise interesting event. - Guide
Guides for games or other topics. Can span across multiple post pages. - Match
Summary of a competitive match with the possibility for PlusCoin betting. - Event
Summary of a competitive event with tournaments. - Gallery
Publicly view able collection of images with the possibility for comments on each image. - Movie
Gaming movies with download links and user ratings.
Activity Summaries
The top menu offers readers a lot of summary information about the latest activity on the site. All of these lists are affected by any active filters.
- Latest Activity
Lists the most recent news, guides, articles etc. posts ordered by the last comment activity. - Recent Columns
Lists the most recent columns ordered by their submission date. - Forum Activity
Same as Latest Activity except just for forum posts. - Journals
Same as Latest Activity except just for journals. - Recruitment Activity
Same as Latest Activity except just for recruitment posts. - VODs
Lists the most recent VODs ordered by their submission date. - Match Ticker & Recent Results
Lists upcoming and recently finished matches ordered by the match times. - Polls
Lists the most recent polls ordered by their submission date with the possibility to vote on the most recent one.
Filters
This site provides two sort of content filters, the quick filters which are available to any reader with or without an account and the general filters for registered users.
- Quick Filters
A quick filter applies a content filter to the whole site, this includes the menus, the activity summaries and content tables where applicable for the selected game plus some default categories (e.g. Plus Forward, Hardware, General Gaming). To activate a quick filter click on a game under Quick Filters (if Quick Filters are closed, first click on "Quick Filters" to open them). Only one quick filter can be active at the time. To deactivate the Quick Filters click on the currently active game again. Quick Filters settings are saved in a cookie for the browser session meaning it is reset after a browser restart. - General Filters
Same as the quick filter the general filter covers the whole site but they offer more precision as to which categories should be shown. General Filters can be set in the profile settings and are permanent (a browser restart will not reset general filters). If a Quick Filter is active it will override the general filter settings though.
Instant Messages
Plus Forward gives registered users to ability to send messages to any other user through the use of instant Messages. Do note that already read iMsgs are only stored for up to 2 Weeks.
Recruitment
This site offers a recruitment feature meant to help new and old players easily find a team suitable for their competitive needs. By creating a recruitment post you allow other players to see that you or your team is currently looking for a team or other players to join your team. When creating a post can provide an approximate skill level and the game specific gametype you are interested in. For team posts you should also provide a Location so potential new players know where you are from. For player posts do note that the Location from the user profile will be shown, so make sure to keep it up to date to increase your chances of finding other players.
Recruitment posts are active for one month after which they will not be shown in the Recruitment table any longer. If you have found a team / player before the 1 month deadline make sure to "close" the recruitment post via the post menu, this will remove it from the Recruitment table as well.
The default options to contact the creator of the recruitment post is via an PlusForward iMsg. If you wish a different contact option please mention it in the post.
Betting
Plus Forward offers its users the ability to place bets with virtual money called "PlusCoins" on matches. Newly registered users are given 100 PlusCoins, if your PlusCoins are below 100 you will get a daily set of 10 until it is back up to 100. The maximum bet allowed on a single match is 1000 PlusCoins. Please note that at no point in this process is real money or anything of value being transferred.
The site has betting seasons with an overview and some stats shown on the betting page with the possibility for sponsored betting seasons in the future to award the best "gamblers" with some prizes.
Search
This site offers a search function for anyone looking for specific posts. The default search only searches through post titles. For a more thorough search you can tell the function to also search the post content, comments and the usernames of posts/comments or to only search specific post types. Do note that due to the nature of mysqls fulltext search, "stopwords" are ignored from the search input.
