TiVo Community Forum

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The TiVo Community Forums (often abbreviated TCF) are forums dedicated to the digital video recorder device, TiVo. As of January 11, 2007, there were over 140,000 registered users, a large number of which are not currently active. In order to view all sections of the forum, a user must be registered (registration is free). Until then, the user will not be able to access the heavily-trafficked Off-Topic Discussion section of the forum. The forum's owner is David Bott, a resident of Rochester, New York.

TiVo Community Forum uses vBulletin 3.0.6 as its forum software and vBadvanced 2.0.0 as a portal on its homepage . According to Netcraft, this is run on a server running Linux and Apache.^[1]

1 History of the forums
2 Popular Subforums
3 TCF Culture
4 Offshoots
5 References
6 External links

[edit] History of the forums

The forums were established in January 1998 by David Bott. Since then, the user base has grown substantially to its current level of over 140,000 registered users.

[edit] Popular Subforums

TiVo Coffee House[1] -- for general TiVo-related discussion.

TiVo Help Center[2] -- forum members help other forum members who have questions or problems with their TiVos.

Now Playing - TV Show Talk[3] -- lively discussions of many television shows in every genre, from sci-fi to drama to reality TV to game shows.

TiVo Upgrade Center[4] -- forum members help other forum members upgrade the hardware in their TiVo boxes.

TiVo Underground[5] -- forum members help other forum members hack the software in their TiVo boxes.

TiVo Happy Hour[6] -- (for registered forum members only) the hugely popular subforum for general chit-chat on a variety of non-TiVo topics.

TiVo Community Meets & Local Happenings[7] -- (for registered forum members only) the place to organize large or small gatherings with other forum members.

[edit] TCF Culture

[edit] Acronyms & Terminology

On the forum, there is a deep and rich culture, particularly for a forum. There are, for example, several terms that are frequently used:

Smeeking: A reference to the most prolific poster of the forum, jsmeeker, who as of January 11, 2007 had well over 37,000 posts. It is a forum joke that jsmeeker attained a good number of these posts by quickly responding to a thread before reading the complete discussion, thereby posting something that has already been stated. To smeek is to post a response to a thread that has previously been suggested by another poster.

SOAK: The Source Of All Knowledge. This is a reference to the ability of a forum of this size to be able to answer most any question, no matter how specific it may be, quickly, due to the sheer diversity of forum users.

UMF: Unseen Magical Force or Unseen Mystical Force. The UMF is the collective consciousness at TiVoCommunity that compels you to make purchases of goods and services mentioned by other members. The phrase (as used on this forum) was coined by sallypnut (in this thread) and, as used on this site, carries a connotation that generally involves both covetousness and bank account depletion. Items with a high UMF "level" tend to be those of higher quality than similar items in the marketplace, or simply unique items that clearly solve a particular problem (sometimes a problem that one did not know they had until seeing the item).

WAYT: "What Are You Thinking?". A thread that is simply the thoughts and musings of the posters in it. The original WAYT thread was over 50,000 posts long, and had posts from hundreds of distinct users contributed into it. In January 2006, the site owner noticed that this thread was causing a strain on the server every time it was loaded due to its size. A new rule was then created, and is still in effect today, requiring threads to be closed after receiving 1000 posts. Due to this rule, a new WAYT thread is created about once a week, on average.

YAMM: Yet Anothter Meaningless Milestone. A YAMM is when a member's post count reaches a significant number (multiples of 100 for new members, multiples of 1,000 for the more senior members, or sometimes just a number that is particularly distinctive). The YAMM is sometimes celebrated with a new thread and sometimes simply with a post in the thread wherein the YAMM happens. YAMM-announcing threads used to be quite common but their time may have passed as most people don't seem to bother with them. The term YAMM was coined by ehopper (RIP).

[edit] Oft Referenced, Famous/Infamous Threads

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Many of the most well known and often referenced threads and posts from the TCF Happy Hour, frequently cited by other members, can be read in the forum archives. TiVoCommunity member rhuntington3 currently maintains a link list to these threads (rhuntington3's Guide to Good Thread in TCF Happy Hour). Due to occasional archiving of the TCF database, some of the links may not take you directly to the thread, but that's easily correctable by following the subsequent links given to archive1 or archive2.

A few of the more famous ones include:
- What are you thinking? is the single largest thread ever on TCF, and was only open for less than a year.
- I got into a fist fight this morning on a plane
- Don't talk to me at the gas pump
- For those that *still* think Britney is hot... received the largest number of views of any TCF thread (over 1,000,000, although it received only 826 replies before being locked on 1/11/06).
- Jonathan Elias
- How can I gain weight overnight? includes a now-infamous post made by heyitscory.
- Mysterious Beeping in House- Help! was written about in the Washington City Paper (story available in the archives for a $2.95 fee); many TCF members were quoted
- Is this wrong? and What is right & wrong? are examples of threads that give rise to the still-asked moral dilemma, "Is this Stealing?"

[edit] Recurring Thread Themes

Is this stealing?: Usually containing a story about how someone came by something easily and/or in a questionable manner, often at low or no cost. The original thread to pose the question involved removal of Tabasco sauce from a Fuddruckers restaurant.

Driving/Parking issues that people have to deal with, often with pictures.

Rants and/or pet-peeves, closely associated with the Driving/Parking threads.

Yet Another * Threads: These threads are so common that they get the preface of YA in the thread title. Examples would be YAITST (Yet Another Is This Stealing Thread), YAMM (Yet Another Meaningless Milestone), etc. YAMM is the progenitor of the YA threads.

Show Us Your * Threads: Threads which invite the members to share something of theirs. Threads include Show Us Your Pet Pics, Show Us Your Home Improvements, and Random Pictures You Took.

[edit] Controversies

The site has often been criticized for excessive downtime brought on by the demands of hundreds or even thousands of concurrent users. Often, the site has been taken down for a period of time to limit the strain on the servers.

Additionally, there have been many accusations of heavy-handed, fickle or unfair moderation.

[edit] Meetings

Annual Meeting - Every year since 2004, the TCF community gets together for a conference. The conference has been held in Las Vegas during its initial three years, and grows in size each year. TiVo Inc. does not sponsor the conference, but does send representatives and provides door prizes to the event. TCF members organize the entire event, generally in a series of threads in the TCF "Meets" section.

Mini-meets - Various regions of the country will hold mini-meets at random dates during the year. Washington DC, New York, and Dallas/Ft. Worth have been popular spots for these mini-meets. The size varies, but several meets in DC have grown to approx. 60 people and can span several days.

[edit] Offshoots

There have been several "offshoots" of TiVo Community Forum. The most significant one was TC Rebel! (18+ forum), which was created to allow discussion of topics forbidden at TCF, due to them not being family friendly and/or controversial; this forum closed in January 2007. However the owners of TCRebel have started a new forum, Mainsquare [8]. These offshoots are not supported by or connected to TCF or David Bott, but rather are started and maintained by individual TCF users. Other offshoots include: TC Poker Community (since there are so many poker fans among TCF Users) and The Photography Experience (For photography enthusiasts).