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This is meant for new Citizens that are curious about the inner workings of the Mongoliad. There is a FAQ page, and there's important information there as well, but the message there is Ancients to Citizens. This cheat sheet is Citizens to Citizens, and if at any point in time you discover something new, or wish to add anything else, feel free to edit it. Alternatively, if you have a question relating to this page's contents, ask it in the discussion and someone will update the page.

What are Justified Ancients?

These are members of the Subutai corp, and creators of this whole thing. There seems to be two different types of ancients, alpha and beta ancients, although most of them seem to be alpha. Their profiles typically have a few more badges, but other than that are identical to Citizens'. This is Neal Stephenson's. Many of them follow updates to this site closely, and if you ask them a question they'll likely answer within 24 hours.

What are Citizens? What are the different types?

• Citizen I are registered non-paying members. You have access to the Preview, most of the 'pedia, and part of the forums.
• Citizen II are registered paying members. You have access to all published chapters, the full forum, and you can edit the 'pedia.
• Citizen III seem to be exemplary members of the community. Citizen III depends on three things: how long you've been a Citizen, how much you've been posting, and whether the Ancients like what you've been doing. It is partly mediated; if you write good stories (in the creative forum), help out the developers reporting bugs, or for some other reasons, you can be upgraded from II to III. Level III Citizens can remove tags from the 'pedia, and have bragging rights among the other members. There's also a mention that higher ranks will be able to see some hidden pedia pages, though this hasn't happened yet.

What are the badges on our user pages?

There are at least twelve different types of badges, and many of them have different levels. You'll notice that all Citizens' profiles have a badge that either says 3571 or 199. We think that the numbers belong to the Lucas sequence, which is a Fibonacci-type sequence. We're still not sure what they mean exactly, some theories are that badge 199 is for the first 199 members, badge 3571 for the next up to 3571, although there is recorded evidence of at least one case where the badge changed. We have an ongoing discussion here. There's a badge for helping out other citizens, one for adding side stories, and others for hitting milestones. If you right-click on a badge, 'copy image location', and paste this somewhere else, the resulting line of text will give you some idea of what the badge was for.

You can find a list of badges discovered so far here.

What does the number below the badges mean?

This refers to the number of comments that you have made, and if people liked them. Each time you post a comment you get one point by default, and people can decide to vote your comment up (or down). This currently doesn't work for the first post in a forum thread, but it works everywhere else. There are arrows (up and down) at the bottom of each comment. You don't get points for editing the 'pedia, but your profile will show the number of 'pedia edits you have done, as well as total comments. Unofficially after 100 points you get a nice basket badge, and there's promises for new badges when you hit other milestones.

How do I change the 'Pedia?

Editing the 'pedia is as easy as hitting the edit button at the top of the page. If you're having trouble formatting your text (making something bold, quoting, bullet-pointing, etc.) You can take a look at the editing help link on the left, but it's probably easiest to just look at any 'pedia entry that has the format you want. Pretty much anything that is connected to the Mongoliad gets a 'pedia entry, some people even write entries for things we think might eventually be related. That being said, you can make new pages simply by typing mongoliad.com/pedia/whatever. If there is no 'whatever' entry yet, it will ask if you want to create it and start editing it. Characters from the stories each have their 'pedia entry, and we keep track of which chapters they appear on.

Can I contribute art, add side stories, or fan fiction in general?

An emphatic yes. So far mongoliad citizens have created haikus and sonnets, pictures, jokes, stories with pictures in them, and of course side stories. There's talks about people contributing music. Most of these can be found in the Creative branch of the Forum, and are conveniently listed in a user-maintained pedia page here. Feel free to contribute whatever you feel like, as well as to comment on what other people are doing.

The new (as of July 2011) standardized way for submitting contributions is through this page, and there is now an automatic way of tracking everybody's contributions and a few other things in the new community link on the left. A page with your own contributions is here.

What are the Secrets?

The intro to the Pedia page mentioned secrets. Don't look too hard for these, many have disappeared as the site was polished and bugs removed. That being said, there are some hidden facts that reward the tenacious seeker, and we will probably see more as the project grows. Checking the page history of some of the main characters would not be a bad place to start.

What should I know about the avatar image?

It's not too hard to change. If you've visited the 'My Page' link at the top you should've seen a 'change avatar' link under the default image. You should probably use a square image of at least 120x120 pixels if you want your avatar to look normal and un-stretched on the forums and your user page.

General Advice

• We welcome suggestions and critique about every part of this site, but please keep it respectful and civil. The community right now is open and friendly; we'd like to keep it that way.

• Ask questions liberally. We were all new once, and we're happy to help.

• Contribute! You don't have to be a writer or artist to add to Foreworld. Historic or martial arts knowledge, extensive grammatical skills, whatever. Random musings are welcome. This site is ten times more fun when you're an active member, and we love to hear fresh opinions on things.

• Explore. This site is already large and complex; there is plenty to find if you go for a wander.

• Enjoy