How to use the forums

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

Disclaimer: I don't use the forums on mobile, all of this is for desktops.

FAQ on functionality:

Q: How do I embed images in my posts?
A: The forums don't host images, so you have to use a photo-hosting site, like imgur.com.  A direct link (i.e. xxxx.jpg, xxxx.png) to most images will auto-embed, or you can hit "Insert other media" then "Insert image from URL." 

Q: How do I embed imgur albums in my posts?
A: You no longer can. Albums have always been kind of weird, so you'll see lots of broken embeds on older posts. Linking them still works fine though.

Q: How do I take screenshots in KSP?
A: F1 and F2 take screenshots and hide the HUD, respectively. They are saved to <Your KSP directory>\Screenshots. If you have KSP on Steam, F12 takes a screenshot via Steam's service, but it also activates the aero visualization mode. Either of these can be rebound do a different key.

Q: How do I post craft files to the forums?
A: Just like pictures, the forum does not allow uploading of craft files. You need to use any file sharing website, such as dropbox. https://kerbalx.com/ is the most common since it's built for KSP. Craft files are found in <KSP directory>/KSP_<OS>/saves/<Savename>/VAB <OR> SPH/<Craft file>.craft. Then you just paste the link into your post.

Q: How do I add a link to a post?
A: Copying the url and paste it in the post, or paste it in the pop-up from the link button in the editor (looks like a chain).

Q: What do the dots under a username mean?
A: How many posts you have. Thresholds are:

0 to 4 posts = 1 dot

5 to 99= 2 dots

100 to 499 = 3 dots

500 to 1499 = 4 dots

1500 or more = 5 dots.

Q: How do I edit my signature?
A: Go to your account settings (Username>account settings) then click the "Signature" tab.

Q: How do I edit my user title?
A: Go to your profile and click "Edit Profile."

Q: How do I change my avatar?
A: Navigate to your profile (click your username on the upper-right of the forums, then "Profile") and, in the lower-left corner of your current avatar, there is a small white icon.  Click that, and you are given options to upload avatars.

Q: How do I rep someone?
A: Rep is now called likes, and you give them by clicking the blue "<3 like this" button in the lower-right corner of a post. This has now been replaced with "reactions" with all but the "like" reaction removed. It looks like a thumbs-up.

Q: How do I delete a quote or spoiler?
A: Left-click the object, then Ctrl-right-click it and hit "Delete <Object>"

Q: How do I do a single line break?
A: Shift-enter makes a single line break, like the old forum's enter functionality.

Q: How do I check for when a mod will be updated?
A: With consideration. Modders are volunteers doing quite a lot of work for free, and as such they owe nothing to the users of the mod. Keep in mind that they get a lot of requests for updates after every KSP update, and the most harmless message can sound obnoxious when repeated tens or hundreds of times. Basically, make sure that your question hasn't been already answered, even if it means sifting through the last few pages of a mod thread.

Q: What happened to/where are my subscriptions?
A: They were sacrificed to prevent 502s.  All your subs can be found be clicking your username at the top of the forums, then "Manage Followed Content."  You can duplicate the function of the old settings page with a custom activity stream, like this link: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/discover/25/. The green check mark next to the title will make it "default" so it shows up on every page, right below the search bar.

Q: What is this "Green Iron Crown" thing?
A: Green Iron Crown was a test account made by the moderators to test negative reputation, which on the old forums was shown as a set of red bars below a username.  Someone noticed the account, and a game was quickly made out of trying to give GIC a full set of positive rep bars.

Q: What is the great forum derp/kraken attack/disaster?
A: I'll let the KSP dev team explain: http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Great_April_Derp TL;DR, the forums were reverted back a month or so.

Q: What is the "Rocket builders" and "old forum" stuff?
A: In November 2015, the forums were upgraded from Vbulliten 4 to IPS 4.  One of the major changes was the removal of the rocket builders subforum which was removed because it was technically role-playing, which is banned.

Notes on etiquette:

There are a few other guides on etiquette for the forums, which you should definitely read: The Good Conduct Guide and The Positive Forum Movement.

For the sake of conciseness, I won't repeat everything they say here, but the key elements are: 
Be nice
Treat others how you'd like to be treated
If you have criticism, make it constructive

However, they do not cover the etiquette of dealing with mods, so I'll go over that here:

Mods are great. They extend the functionality and content of KSP massively. And for many people, a certain mod is critical to how they play KSP. However, it is important to keep in mind that modders are unpaid volunteers, and that they owe players nothing. Not to say that modders don't care about their mods and the community, but they are not able to make modding their first priority. Keeping that in mind, there are situations where you want to ask questions or get support for a certain mod. The thing to remember here is that a request or question which may not be annoying individually may be irritating if repeated over and over. So what should you do? This is my list of ways to make sure that you're not being a nuisance, based on the above principles:

1. First ask yourself what you want from the modder. Information, a bug fix, an update, etc.
2. The golden rule of asking about anything is: see if your question is answered elsewhere. Check the OP of the thread, any pages that are linked to from the OP, and at least the last two pages of the thread, along with a search of the thread, which you can do by clicking in the search bar, and selecting "this topic" from the menu.
3. If you've found a bug, the most important thing to remember is that a bug report will get it fixed the fastest, and be the most helpful to the modder. Ideally, you should follow this guide to making a bug report, but simply testing the mod on a clean install, writing basic reproduction steps, and providing logs is great. Also, keep politeness in mind: "Your mod is broken" is bad, "I've found a bug in your mod, here's what causes it, thanks for taking the time to look at this" is good.
4. Check whether you have downloaded the mod from an official source, especially since some modders don't bother with CKAN, and so any problems with installation via CKAN is not their problem.
5. If the version of KSP you're using doesn't match the version in the title of the thread, don't bother reporting a bug. The version of KSP is almost certainly the problem.
6. If you want to report a compatibility issue with another mod, first make sure that it could theoretically be compatible. I.e., one life support mod will almost certainly not be compatible with another, unless it is explicitly stated. Second, if a mod has a list of compatible mods, it is likely not compatible with any others, so don't bother. Next, try to figure out which mod is causing the problem, and if you can't tell, make it clear in your bug report that you're not sure which mod is causing the problem.
7. If asking for a feature, again, make sure it isn't already on a planned or never-going-to-happen feature list somewhere. If you do ask, make it clear that you appreciate the mod either way, and do not argue about how easy your feature would be to implement.
8. Asking for an update: In general, you probably should never ask about updates, there are lots of reasons updates can take longer than expected, from real life obligations to major changes in the code of KSP. If the mod is important to lots of people, it will probably be revived or patched by someone else. This can be against the forum rules in some cases, if you are "demanding or pressuring for release dates or updates from [...] content creators."
9. If you must ask about updates, only ask about an update if: there is nothing in the OP or in the thread since the latest version of KSP came out about an update, the latest version of KSP is a x.1 increment update, and not a patch (x.x.1 or two) or smaller, the mod does not appear to be abandoned (multiple full versions behind and modder is not active on the forums), and it has been a while since the update or any posts from the modder.
10. Even then, be sure you are polite and non-demanding about asking.

Editor:

1. The editor is now WYSIWYG, or What You See Is What You Get.  Most of the old BBCode works.
2. Enter gives double spaces now. 
3. Shift-Enter makes it only single spaced
4. ctrl-RMB gives paste options and allows deletion/modification of embedded content, including links and images.
5. Tags allow your thread to be more easily found when someone searches for a tag.
6. Font size: Now in points instead of arbitrary numbers. 14 is the default.
7. Font face: Arial is the default.
8. Spoilers cannot be named anymore.
9. If someone posts while you're writing a post, there will be a button to show the posts. It does not always work, but it does most of the time.
10. No preview post button.
11. New indent buttons!  This means that we can have book-like paragraphs, like this:
    1. See?
12. To embed images just drop a direct link (i.e. xxxx.jpg, xxxx.png) and it will auto-embed, or hit "Insert other media" in the lower-left corner of the editor, then "Insert image from URL."
13. To link an image, you can either ctrl-RMB click it and then there's an option for adding a URL.  You can also click the link button, and then put something like this into it, and then you'll get a linked image:

    URL:		https://exapmle.target.link.ksp/content
    Link text:	[IMG=http://i.imgur.com/vwxyz.jpg]

14. If you want to take screenshots at a larger resolution than your monitor's without using mods, @NumlockHolmesBR figured out how to do it with a config file edit here: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/169020-how-to-super-sample-your-screenshots/
15. Meta tags no longer exist.  Those were a pre-selected set of tags which could be selected when making a new thread.
16. [goto] bbcode tags don't work anymore.
17. You can no longer click "Last edited by <Username> at <Time> to see a history of your edits.  (It looks like mods can, though.)
18. Double-clicking on images will give you some options.
19. By going RMB>inspect element then RMB>Edit as HTML on <p> you can edit raw HTML for your post, allowing some options not available on the WYSIWYG editor, such as text color and easier tables, but iframes, javascript, and other advanced stuff cannot be embedded in posts.
20. Tables: Click on the icon that looks like a bunch of boxes, most of the options should be self-explanatory.  You can change the size of the table when it's in the editor by dragging the squares, but you cannot add more rows or columns. A more powerful option is to make the HTML for your table off of the forums, then inspect element on the editor, and paste the HTML table into it.
21. Copy/pasting quotes barely works, and it works weirdly. Use the little arrow box at the top right in the editor to drag the quote around instead.
22. When making a new post, clicking the "Poll" tab at the top of the editor will make a poll.  You can always go back to an old post and add a poll by editing the post, then going to the "Poll" tab.
23. If you have an old post with broken BBcode in it, sometimes editing it and then saving it will fix some of the BBcode.
24. When editing a thread (not a post) the button to save the edits says "Edit Topic." Don't worry, this does save your edits.

Notifications:

1. To edit your notifications, click the bell icon on the top of the forum, then hit "Notification Settings"
2. Following a thread means that it goes in this list: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/followed/ and you can chose what kind of notification you get about new posts on it there. The notification settings lets you chose defaults for followed threads, and also what things should be automatically followed. The default activity stream "Threads I Follow" is, I believe, the same. "Threads I Posted in" works without the auto-following set up, but does not allow you to remove threads from it.
3. I suggest auto-following everything you post or post in, have no notifications or emails sent, then using a activity stream to show all of your followed content, which lets you click the "go to first unread post" button and read from where you left off.
4. To follow or unfollow a thread manually, click the button to the right of the title that either says "follow" or "following," and select the appropriate options.
5. I also suggest being notified on quotes, mentions, receiving reputation, and all of the "profile" options.
6. I think "Send me news and information" sends IPS ads to your email.
7. Everything else if self-explanatory.
8. When you ignore a user, you can select whether to ignore posts, messages sigs, or notifications.
9. You can "mention" a user, which sends them a notification (depending on their settings) by typing @, then the first few character of their username, which should cause a dropdown to show up, where you can pick the user you're looking for. If it doesn't work, just backspace past the @ and start over. If it works, it will look like this: @Mad Rocket Scientist even in the editor. Sometimes it just breaks entirely and you have to post and edit or start over. 

Posts and threads:

1. Instead of rep, we now have likes. These only give one reputation point to the user, but it tracks which post it was given to.
2. You can only give out 25 likes per day.
3. To get the post URL, you now need to hit the share icon on the post or hit the "Posted at <time>" which will go to a link to the post.
4. The quote button works like always, but the multi-quote buttons like this: Click it on every post you to quote, and a pop-up will appear in the lower left corner of the forum, to use all the quotes, hit that. It will follow you to other tabs, if you reload them or go from page to page.
5. If you have a quote in your post, you can hit enter two times while your cursor is in the appropriate location within the quote, and the quote will be split there.
6. You can now see who is following a thread, in the upper-right of the thread. However, this is only the people who have chosen to make that visible to others.
7. To follow or unfollow a thread manually, click the button to the right of the title that either says "follow" or "following," and select the appropriate options.
8. Selecting text gives an option to quote it.
9. 25 Posts per page by default.
10. In some pages there's a button which makes a condensed view.  May be slightly easier on the eyes for some.
11. To embed youtube or other common video hosts' videos, post the link, then hit enter and a player will appear. This includes gfycat links.
12. Certain weird characters have been changed by the update to gibberish.
13. The "First unread post" button now looks like this circle, or a star if you've posted in it: [defunct image link removed by moderator]
14. You can now create threads and status updates from anywhere in the forums with the "+ Create" button at the top of the forums, here: http://i.imgur.com/35YcdnO.png
15. Articles are now known as devblogs.
16. The search is still not as good as using google with "site:forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com" Plus, it has a 5 second wait, which is reset when you press the back button to get back to your last search.
17. To search individual threads or subforums, click the search box while nothing is in it. That will let you select "this topic" or "this forum" to search threads or subforums, respectively.
18. There is a blue line above the first unread post.  I LOVE THIS FEATURE!
19. Click on images in posts enlarges them, and lets you click through all images in a post like an album.
20. In the PM system, you can only add around 5 members initially to a PM, but if you send the PM, and then click the picture of the "+" and the person icon, you can add as many as you like.
21. Clicking the time of posting of the last of post on a thread, goes to the last post.
22. Want to use tables like before? Let NecroBones help you:

On 11/30/2015 at 11:09 AM, NecroBones said:

Yep, I got it working by editing a local HTML file to look the way I want, opening it in a browser, and then pasting the pre-formatted text into the editor. It's a bit of a work-around, but it works.

Account stuff and sigs:

1. Sigs are 152 pixels high.
2. Most profile info can be edited by clicking your username at the top of the forums, then "Profile" then "Edit Profile"
3. The cover photo is the background photo behind your name on your profile.
4. Hitting your username, the "Account settings" will access the rest of account options.
5. Username> "Manage followed content" will show all of your followed threads.
6. Mail icon> "Inbox" goes to something like the old PMs.
7. The grey dots below your username on posts are linked to post count as follows: 

   0 to 4 posts = 1 dot

   5 to 99= 2 dots

   100 to 499 = 3 dots

   500 to 1499 = 4 dots

   1500 or more = 5 dots.

8. Online indicators do not exist anymore, but there is a tab for online users.
9. Avatars must be < 1 mb.

Streams:

1. To get a activity similar to the old "Settings," click "activity," then click "my activity streams" then "Create new stream" then make all the settings look like this (aside from the name): https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/61004449/KSP/Moderation/CustomStream.png or use this link: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/discover/25/
2. Click the little box icon on the upper-left corner of any activity stream to enter a condensed view.
3. All other tabs in the activity tab are self-explanatory. You can edit preset streams with the "edit this stream" button on them.
4. Hitting the grey checkbox next to a custom stream title will make it a default stream, so you see a little link to it anywhere in the forums, to the right of the breadcrumbs.
5. You can share one of your streams by posting the URL from it.

New, and removed forums:

Spoiler

 

1. Two new sub-sub-forums in the sub-forum "Plugin Development Help and Support", called "Plugins For Addon Devs" and "Plugin Requests and Ideas", these have only posts from .14 and .15.
2. The Rocket Builders sub-forum has been changed so you can only see your own threads in it.
3. Welcome aboard was moved from "General" to "Community."
4. "Challenges" is now called "Challenges & Mission ideas."
5. "Live from mission control" was merged with "Mission reports."
6. "Development and support" category  was renamed "Gameplay and Technical Support."
7. The two support threads has had "Technical" tacked on to the front of them.
8. "Gameplay Questions and Tutorials" Has been moved from "General" to "Gameplay and Technical Support."
9. "Suggestions & Development Discussion" was moved from the old "Development and support" into "General."
10. "General Add-on Affairs" was renamed "Add-on Discussions."
11. "Other forums" category was renamed "Community."
12. "International" forum has had five sub-forums removed, leaving only "Spanish" and "Portuguese."
13. "Gameplay Questions and Tutorials," "Technical Support (unmodded installs)," and "Technical Support (modded installs)" now use a upvote system to find the best answers to a problem.
14. There is now a new category for hot threads (lots of replies in a short amount of time).

 

NOTE: Use this info at your own risk.  I don't have time to check everything on this forum, so much of this is a compiled list of problems and fixes from other threads.

EDIT:

May 12th 2019 - Added supersampling trick, removed outdated info about imgur albums.

July 25th 2018 - Updated, cleaned up, and title changed

July 26th 2018 - Added mod etiquette section

August 3rd 2018 - Added post count / dot thresholds

August 5th 2018 - Reformatted and phrased post count/dot thresholds

January 19th 2019 - Corrected mistake saying that polls could not be added to existing threads

March 6th 2019 - Quick note on search functionality, courtesy of @Jammer-TD, and mention of steam screenshot guide. Also spoiler'ed the new and changed subforums section, since it's out of date and not that useful. A few other tweaks as well.

[nightingale]

Shift-enter will do a single spaced linefeed. 

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

40 minutes ago, nightingale said:

Shift-enter will do a single spaced linefeed. 

Perfect!   That's the kind of thing I need!
Like this?
Yes!

[legoclone09]

Normal font is Arial.

[Van Disaster]

Fonts are in this order: Helvetica Neue,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif ( all in the style sheet ).

[Superfluous J]

Anybody know how to go to the oldest post in a thread since your last visit please post here. The forum puts a line there, but all the links I've found only go to the first post or the last post.

[Hcube]

Is there any way to set enter=single space by default ? Shift-enter will not work on mobile.

[Superfluous J]

58 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

Anybody know how to go to the oldest post in a thread since your last visit please post here. The forum puts a line there, but all the links I've found only go to the first post or the last post.

Found it. It's the dot between the avatar of the last poster and the thread title.

And here's a tip: In the upper-right of some screens (this one in particular) there is a "condensed view" button. Makes browsing that page far less white-spacey.

[Nookos]

Probably not the right procedure but to remove a poll that was created before the change ( timer disappeared) I removed the question and choices and left them blank, saved changes. It gave me an error message. I did it again and it worked.. weird.

One thing I miss and can't find how to do is give a title to a spoiler. Anybody knows?

[PB666]

Some of the titles have morphed

∆V in a human?

meant to say how much delta V in a human, apparently.

 

[Beale]

13 hours ago, Mad Rocket Scientist said:

 

1. The editor is now WYSIWYG, or What You See Is What You Get.  No more BBCode, now there's buttons for all functions.

Sketchfab no longer possible? Or is it just well hidden...?

[curtquarquesso]

My biggest issue at the moment is post order in a thread. I've always set it to latest reply at the top of the page. I can't access settings at the moment, and there are no thread tools. Anyone know how to view post in reverse chronological order? (Latest post at the top of the page)

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

14 hours ago, legoclone09 said:

Normal font is Arial.

 

13 hours ago, Van Disaster said:

Fonts are in this order: Helvetica Neue,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif ( all in the style sheet ).

So is it Arial or Helvetica Neue?

13 hours ago, Hcube said:

Is there any way to set enter=single space by default ? Shift-enter will not work on mobile.

I'll see if I find anything.

12 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

Found it. It's the dot between the avatar of the last poster and the thread title.

And here's a tip: In the upper-right of some screens (this one in particular) there is a "condensed view" button. Makes browsing that page far less white-spacey.

I see the condensed view thing, but not the dot.  Could you please provide a screencap?  Thanks!

9 hours ago, Nookos said:

Probably not the right procedure but to remove a poll that was created before the change ( timer disappeared) I removed the question and choices and left them blank, saved changes. It gave me an error message. I did it again and it worked.. weird.

One thing I miss and can't find how to do is give a title to a spoiler. Anybody knows?

I'll see what can be done with polls.

6 hours ago, PB666 said:

Some of the titles have morphed

∆V in a human?

meant to say how much delta V in a human, apparently.

 

That's weird, I'll try weird characters: Δ

5 hours ago, Beale said:

Sketchfab no longer possible? Or is it just well hidden...?

I don't know, it looks like it's not possible.

1 hour ago, curtquarquesso said:

My biggest issue at the moment is post order in a thread. I've always set it to latest reply at the top of the page. I can't access settings at the moment, and there are no thread tools. Anyone know how to view post in reverse chronological order? (Latest post at the top of the page)

I don't know, I'll try to find out.

[Superfluous J]

36 minutes ago, Mad Rocket Scientist said:

So is it Arial or Helvetica Neue?

I see the condensed view thing, but not the dot.  Could you please provide a screencap?  Thanks!

It's Arial. Helvetica Neue isn't an option on my dropdown.

I typed this in default.
I typed this formatted Arial.
 

Here's a screengrab. See the big blue dot right in front of the "[" ? It's a star if you've posted in the thread, too.

Edited November 30, 2015 by 5thHorseman

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

2 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

It's Arial. Helvetica Neue isn't an option on my dropdown.

I typed this in default.
I typed this formatted Arial.
 

Here's a screengrab. See the big blue dot right in front of the "[" ? It's a star if you've posted in the thread, too.

Great!  Thanks!

[adsii1970]

Lots of great stuff here. Once I figured this stuff out, mind if I link my thread on signatures to this one?

Edited November 30, 2015 by adsii1970

[KasperVld]

This is an excellent post!

[Mobius]

Are there "advanced reply" and "preview post" options? I can't seem to find them.

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

3 hours ago, adsii1970 said:

Lots of great stuff here. Once I figured this stuff out, mind if I link my thread on signatures to this one?

Not at all!  I'll be happy to add the link to the OP.

3 minutes ago, KasperVld said:

This is an excellent post!

Thanks!

[Bill Phil]

Apparently you can create threads from the home screen by using the create button. Much more streamlined, IMO.

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

Just now, Bill Phil said:

Apparently you can create threads from the home screen by using the create button. Much more streamlined, IMO.

That will probably go in Misc.

[Bill Phil]

Also, mousing over a thread shows some (if not all) of the first post, and can show the last post.

5 minutes ago, Mobius said:

Are there "advanced reply" and "preview post" options? I can't seem to find them.

I don't think so. What you are writing is supposed to be a "preview."
Advanced reply was probably also booted.

[razark]

Has anyone found a way to get "Activity Streams" like the "Threads I Follow" thing to only show threads, not every damn single post?

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

25 minutes ago, razark said:

Has anyone found a way to get "Activity Streams" like the "Threads I Follow" thing to only show threads, not every damn single post?

Take a look at the OP again, I just updated it.

[razark]

3 minutes ago, Mad Rocket Scientist said:

Take a look at the OP again, I just updated it.

Actually, I think I found out what I wanted.

It's mostly like your screenshot (http://i.imgur.com/8aDdV7i.png), but under "Show Me", change the option to "Content items only".  That keeps it from showing an entry for every post.