Just a note to welcome you all to our brand-new forums. If you, like me, think they came out rather spiffy, you can thank Phillip for his (literally) years of hard work to make this happen.

Our forums are a bit different than some of the other forums that other webcomics have on their sites, but our system is incredibly flexible -- you can customize [goats.com] them to function almost any way you like.

I highly suggest that if you haven't done so, you may want to take a minute to register [goats.com] (the link is over on the right, if you're not yet registered or logged in) so you can take full advantage fo all the forum features. Once you've done so, be sure to check out the forum options section (also linked to on the right).

Registered users can gain Karma, which allows you to moderate [goats.com] (assign positive or negative values to people's posts, which can then be used for filtering out crap or reading only the most brilliant posts) and to start new discussions. You gain Karma by having your posts moderated up (and lose it by being modded down), so be sure to keep that in mind when you post.

We have five different forums, each designed for a different purpose.

• Goats News [goats.com] -- discussions pertaining to the newsposts you find on the homepage. Only Phillip and I (and other folks with news-posting priveledges) can start these discussions, but anyone can participate.
  
  
• The Pub [goats.com] -- on-topic discussions about the comic strip and related subjects (one degree of separation). This won't be heavily enforced, but it seemed like a good idea when we came up with this. We'll see how well it works.
  
  
• Ring of Fire [goats.com] -- for discussion of pretty much anything you'd like. An all-purpose discussion area.
  
  
• Blatant Self-Promotion [goats.com] -- this area is for webcomics authors to share their stuff, post links, and discuss online comics and related issues. Basically, if you're here to ask people to check out your stuff, this is the place to do it. Keep in mind that you'll still need the minimum Karma level (3+) to start discussions here.
  
  
• Patent Pending [goats.com] -- for discussion pertaining to my other comic strip, Patent Pending [moderntales.com].
  
  

I think that covers just about everything. Please, if you're having problems, don't understand something, find a bug, or just want to comment on the forums, feel free to let us know your thoughts. We've already got improvements planned for the future, but I'm always interested in hearing what you'd like to see.

Enjoy!

Just a note to let you know that you have, in one swift stroke, changed goats.com from a website I visit religiously once or twice a day into a soul-sucking timesink that I must check every minute with the obsessiveness of a terrier after a beef-flavored tennis ball. My life will end now.

Thank you.

don't feel too bad. i have it set to my browsers homepage.

hopelessly addicted since 1999.

In Response to Pusch (#356):

Unfortunately, I reserve that honor for Thinkgeek's fortune page [thinkgeek.com], but I've currently got twelve bookmarks relating to the goats.com domain set up (storylines, store stuff, readmes, and of course, now, forums). I can only hope that this forum thing doesn't suck up every waking moment of my time, or else I'm going to have one truly pissed girlfriend taking an axe to my computer one of these days...

ive been reading this comic since april of this year,
since they were handing out free previews at I-CON.
i even read the entire comic, from beginning to end in about a week, my eyes still hurt, but that doesnt stop me from continuing with the new ones.
keep it up jon and phillip, you guys kick ass!!

In Response to evil_jester (#407):

My other major online addiction is memepool [memepool.com]. It was, in fact, memepool that led me to goats. Long live linking!

hey jon, i took a small look at the communal storytime and i couldnt help realizing that a main character in there is sex dwarf, i think the people are trying(subtley of course...) to say they want him back. i mean we allmiss that cute little leather clad midget...

In Response to evil_jester (#511):

Heh. Well, I can't speak for the other contributers, but as for me, SD was never one of my favorite characters. I'd much rather see, like, the return of the eggplant.

In Response to mea37 (#521):

well who in their right mind doesnt love a little horny dwarf humping everything in sight, it makes me feel all gooey inside...

So, every time I come to these forums, (which granted is waaay too often) I check my Karma. When I notice that my Karma has changed (which is often, as I post waaay too often), I want to know why.

Currently, to find out which messages of mine have changed in Karma value, I have to remember everywhere I posted and search them out.

It would be nice to have a page that would let me see an itemization of my recent Karma changes - for some unit of recent that seems convenient.

In Response to zamphir (#743):

See the post above this one? The one that's yours?

Click on the link that says "zamphir's Info". It appears on all of your posts.

Conversely, you could click on the "your stats" link, over on the right.

Or, you can click on this link [goats.com].

The score that you see next to each of your posts corresponds (roughly) to your karma. Every time a post is modded up below it's base level (which is 1 for folks below 25 karma, and 2 for folks above 25 karma), you get a karma point.

In Response to jon (#748):

I don't think I can put "D'oh" in big enough letters.