mormont

Sometimes we do. Sometimes we don't. Usually threads are locked for length. There's no point posting an explanation for that. Same with wrong forum threads. We more usually comment if a thread's been closed because it's gone off the rails due to misbehaviour: then, we might post a warning.

[mod] Let's get back to the topic, please. The topic is not ADWD: it's how you rate this episode. [/mod]

At present the board is in performance mode. This means that certain functions are temporarily disabled to help cope with unusually high traffic. These functions include searching, using 'View New Content' or 'My Content' (as these are functions of search) and viewing other users' profiles. Full functionality will be restored as traffic eases.

[mod] TV show discussion stays in the TV forums, please. [/mod]

New pinned topic for those looking. One simple rule applies and will be rigidly enforced - ONLY legal means of locating or reading sample material may be referenced. No links to copyright-infringing materials, or other advice that may encourage copyright infringement: anyone posting such will have their post deleted and additional measures may be taken against you.

10 seconds x the number of threads in the approval queue = no notification. Sorry. (It would take rather longer than 10 seconds anyway to provide a full explanation, then you have to factor in people disputing the decision and expecting a reply to that, and so on.)

A reminder: If your thread is not specifically about the upcoming 'World of Ice and Fire' book, it does not go in here. It will be locked. If you repeatedly ignore this warning, you may face penalties including suspension.

Please note that new topics in this forum won't show up unless and until a moderator has approved them. This forum is specifically and solely for discussion of The Winds of Winter, in particular the spoiler material available through chapter readings at conventions, etc. This means that if your thread is not specifically about The Winds of Winter it will not be approved. General discussion about the book series, including general speculation about what characters might do in future, how the series might end, etc. is best placed in the General book forum.

Why say 'not to be vulgar' when you've been nothing but? People, yes, there are explicit sex scenes. That's no excuse for talking about them as if you were eleven years old and just discovered your older brother's porn magazine collection. Class it up a bit, please, or posts will be deleted. Take that as an official mod warning.

I think you might not get that option until you have posted at least once (in a forum that actually increases your post count, which 'Help' does not).

See http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/topic/50972-cant-view-profiles-or-send-pms/

No. The ADWD forum will remain as the main place for discussing ADWD for a while. At some point it will then become the TWOW forum, for discussion of the next book. That will depend on traffic: there's so much ADWD discussion just now that it would swamp all other topics, so it still merits its own forum. Other than that, as the announcement states - the rules have changed. We still have thread approval in place for now, but you no longer require the [ADWD Spoiler] tag in the title. Topic titles should still be non-spoilery, though we might be a bit more relaxed in the case of minor spoilers. We will allow spoilers in General if relevant to the topic and properly hidden, but threads primarily about ADWD should be in here. We still want to avoid duplicate topics. The rules for 'Still Reading' are the same, of course. Any questions, post them here.

How long it takes depends on whether there's a mod available, which is obviously going to lead to a wide variance in approval times. Sometimes it's minutes, sometimes it's hours. If it takes longer than that... it probably hasn't been approved. As for PMs, I'm afraid that's not going to happen. For one thing the board spends a lot of time in performance mode, which makes them impossible at those times, and for another it would be quite a lot of work - frequently we're deciding on five or six new threads at a time. The advice is: if you want to make sure your new thread gets approved, make sure it is properly labelled, make sure it is in line with the other board rules, and make sure it is genuinely covering substantial new ground. Not every new thought requires a new thread - sometimes they make better contributions to an existing discussion. (We're being very strict on approving new threads just now because of high traffic: once this slows a bit, you may find we're a bit more relaxed.)

Some board functions have been disabled on purpose to help reduce SQL errors. There's an easy alternative to the board search - just use Google, including 'asoiaf.westeros.org' as one of your search terms.

An important note: If you have submitted a topic and it has not appeared, please do not submit it again. It's either in the queue or it has not been approved (for whatever reason). Either way, submitting it again is just making more work for no reason.

Welcome! :)

I think it's a mix. In scale, geography, and climate, Westeros is much more like the Americas: in culture, it's more like Western Europe generally (not just Britain): in history, the closest analogies are probably with Britain.

St Andrews is lovely, yes, but not as nice as Edinburgh (where I also went to uni :))

Welcome Mistral! :)

Welcome, or welcome back, to you all. :)

[nitpick] Actually, apart from Ran all the mods have a positive rep, including Angalin though I'm sure she hasn't actually posted since the rep system was created. I realise I have now cursed us all to being negged to within an inch of our lives. No need to thank me, fellow mods. :P Not sure I agree with either point. Taking away the negs means that some people who are now zero or negative will have a positive rep: there being no way, in that case, to cancel out a 'plus'. So, people who have (e.g.) controversial views, popular with a handful but deeply unpopular with the majority, will be more likely to get a positive rep if you make it positive-only. That's a significant difference. It makes it, in my view, worse than no system at all, because it's confusing and misleading. That's one reason I came round to being against the positive-only. Making it non-anonymous wouldn't bother me - I've handed out a few negs and would be quite happy to defend each and every one of them. I appreciate that others might feel more constrained, but I can't see how this equates to getting rid of it altogether, which appears to be what you're saying.

Think you might be disappointed... GRRM made a comment about that. IIRC, he said that the 'main' viewpoints would be Jon and Dany and Tyrion, with around eight (?) chapters each. That doesn't leave enough room for more than four Bran chapters, I think.

One Goodkind topic is enough, I think, especially since they're not substantially different. :)

Well, I agree with you there... but is it due to a deliberate reference/homage to Rama? Almost certainly not.

The number '3' is pretty culturally significant generally in the West: consider the Holy Trinity, fairy tales and other stories (there are always three princes, three wishes, three witches: Peter denies Jesus three times, etc.). Whole books have been written about this in anthropology. So I'm fairly sure this is not drawn from a specific source. Particularly as to some degree GRRM seems to have deliberately used seven rather than three as a culturally significant number in Westeros.