Contacting the Moderator Team

[Renatus]

I'm very sorry for your first impressions on RAT. I find this place actually to be one of the nicest forums I am (or have been) a member of. Most of the members on here are helpful and very willing to share their knowledge. So I really hope you to stay and enjoy reading and contributing to topics.

And about M.VIB.M. I think he meant the relevant topics in that section which handles the rating system. So there you would have been able to find out that the wreaths are coloured as a visual addition to your rank. The 'Thank you' system is totally independent of that as it has been introduced by the recent upgrade of forum software. Of course there is no need (and no logic) in back-reading the 'introduce yourself' topic. You can introduce yourself there, but then start reading in all other fora, as they are more interesting and way more worth to spent your valuable time on.

Thanks for your encouragement. I appreciate it.

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

I was indeed referring to the useful and nessecary topics in that specific section.

You wrote :
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"If you are typical of the sort of person that I am likely to encounter in this forum, this is not the place for me. I am used to some courtesy. So, I throw out the challenge - am I welcome or am I not? It is your choice. I believe that I have something to offer: after all, I have been a student of the Roman army for over 40 years. I was probably studying the subject when you were still in short trousers. However, it is no skin off my nose whether I make my contribution here or elsewhere. My experience of this forum so far has not been a happy one but I am prepared to give it a go. Are others prepared to encourage me?"
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Let me elaborate:

I am definetely not the typical person you will encounter on this forum...

I am the official forum nutter.

I am the Oni:



who gets chastised by the mods about every other period of time because of "criticising" and ridiculing people who boast about their own scholarship and knowledge, especially when they have never published anything noteworthy in Scientific magazines under peer review, as well as those who do not seek.

I am highly critical, especially about my own knowledge.

I know nothing.

My ultimate and only knowledge is emptiness:



I welcome you wholeheartedly however, especially because of your seemingly rough start.

On this forum you will find a lot of interesting topics about anything ancient. You can converse about these with hobbyists and scholars alike, re-enactors, experimental archaeologists, weapon makers and what have you. It is the best forum out there for these things.

What you should need to make your credo is : Search and thou shall find.

No need to browse through thousands of posts, nor ask "irrelevant" questions about forum reward systems, what time it takes to get colours under your name et cetera.

Just go with the flow and you will be fine, and dont feel unwelcome.

You are more than welcome !

Just be:



Fast like the wind,

Silent like a forest,

Intrusive like the fire,

Immobile like a mountain.



M.VIB.M.

[Renatus]

Thank you for your response, M.VIB.M. I am much encouraged by it.

I am with you on those who boast of their knowledge with little evidence to back it up. I fear that I may have been guilty of trailing the sleave a little in my penultimate post and I apologise for that. You will probably find, if I stay as a member, that my hobby-horse is opposition to those who make dogmatic assertions without references to support them. That said, if only those who had been published were allowed to contribute, RAT would be a pretty thin forum.

I will say two things in my own defence. First, I have searched and have not found. Secondly, I do not think it irrelevant to enquire about rankings and the rewards system. These things exist and must have a significance, otherwise they would not be there. This being so, are we not entitled to know about them?

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

I think it depends, some see a rank system as a nice addition, some others take it more serious, and some even, but not on this forum thank the gods, get their own self esteem from it. I see it as just a statement, some colours, and some added capability in editing unwanted posts and getting rid of unwanted members. Nothing fancy there.

About publishing, a published article does not say that you are right about what you write in your article, just that you did proper research and may have a point. I find that often amateurs who have a zeal for personal study attribute more than any scholar with years of experience in the field, often because professional deformation took place at one stage.

But then again, this is the best board around for these kinds of investigations to what Rome and Greece were all about. Not only military, but also civic life is debated.

So once again, feel absolutely welcome !!

M.VIB.M.

[Gaius Opius Fugi]

Renatus,

At the moment the rewards systems haven't been put back into place yet, and I am not sure when we will get it back into place. Here is how the awards system used to work on the previous versions of RAT (at least since 2.0): http://www.ancient-warfare.org/index.php...&Itemid=40

As mentioned above, we used to have a "Laudes" system, but that was replaced by the "Thank You" button on this new system, and the ranking under your profile changes with the amount of posts you make. I think it is something like 2,000-3,000 posts and you can request a custom ranking under your name, like Jvrjenivs above.

"You will probably find, if I stay as a member, that my hobby-horse is opposition to those who make dogmatic assertions without references to support them. "

First off....please do stay a member. You will find that you are in good company here, as we have a number of members who are like this.

*moderator hat off* ...the following is NOT a warning, but merely friendly advice based on some recent events...

Having said that, some of them have also been problematic for us mods and we just had to ban two of them after prolonged and extensive warnings. We encourage debate here, but all we ask is not to make personal attacks and baseless assertions on a personal level. As long as you can play nice, and keep it a purely academic debate, we won't have any problems....but when things get heated, and even if the other guy is starting to make personal attacks, just keep a cool head yourself (and if he does make attacks, contact one of us moderators privately by PM and we'll handle it). I am only telling you this so you don't end up like these other two guys we recently had to ban, as one of them shared your hobby-horse and relations between both of them got personal...which ended up derailing a number of threads, and discouraging participation in the discussion by other members, thereby exterminating any kind of intellectual progress that might have been made. I am really interested in seeing what you have to say on various topics here at RAT, but do please remember to keep things civil. Now enough on that...

Welcome to RAT, when/if we get the medals going again you'll know as a "they're back" posting will be made, and in the mean time play nice and enjoy yourself.

Cheers,
Adam C.

[Renatus]

Adam,

Thank you for your helpful post.

As to your non-warning, there is no need to worry. I am the most placid person imaginable. Very occasionally, when provoked, the worm will turn but this is extremely rare. On the occasion that I assume you have in mind, I was frustrated at not being able to find out what I wanted to know and M.VIB.M.'s post was the last straw. I knew then that my response was not really appropriate and I half expected to be booted out straightaway, but by that stage I was past caring. However, he and I seem to have reached a rapprochement, so there should be no further trouble.

Cheers,
Renatus

[Macedon II]

I am user "Macedon" but I am not able to log in with my normal account. The system does not send me an email when I prompt it for a new code. Someone please activate it and send me a code?

Thx

Macedon

[Praefectusclassis]

Hi all,
Michael, apologies for not responding earlier. I've been buried in work lately. The 'banned' Jasper account was an account I used to set this new forum up before migration. As it was a security risk to leave that account in place while I used my old, migrated one, I blocked it immediately. I forgot that people could then still find it, so it has been deleted since. There should no longer be a problem contacting me.

George, your account has been enabled now. It looks like it was never properly activated (which is what you have to do after registering). Perhaps somewhere along the way all emails from this domain are blocked before they reach you?

[Macedon]

Thank you so much!

[Renatus]

Jasper, thank you for the explanation. I hope that I will not have to trouble you too often.

Michael

[Macedon II]

Well... it seems the forum banned my account too yet again... please reactivate?

(Macedon)

[Macedon II]

Reactivate user Macedon please????:roll: :roll: :roll:

[Praefectusclassis]

Done!

[Macedon]

Thx!