The JCF was created in 2001 after the closure of the JMMB, another forum which was part of J2C (Jazz2City). There was a discussion about the name for the new board, where names like "JMMB2" were suggested. However, Dethman, the webmaster of the old J2C, didn't want the name to include "JMMB" so finally everyone agreed with "JCF".
First the JCF was powered by phpBB. When Nebula joined the team the JCF switched to vBulletin, a much more powerful engine. Currently the JCF is still powered by vBulletin, version 3.0.6.
The JCF consists of a number of forums, divided into several categories. Those are:
- Jazz-related forums
This is the largest category. It includes all forums that directly relate to the Jazz Jackrabbit 2 PC game, such as a Technical help forum, a forum about level editing and the War tavern, a forum for fan fiction.
-Non Jazz-related forums
This includes forums such as Miscellaneous Stuff, where everything off-topic goes, The Comedy Cafe, a forum meant for funny topics but sadly mostly occupied by really non-humorous topics and 2 other forums, which will not be described here (click the link at the bottom)
- Maintenance
This category only includes one forum, solely meant for comments, suggestions and other feedback on the JCF or J2O.
The rules on the JCF are enforced by various people, of which only about 70% is active. The most active administrators (users with the power to edit posts in all forums, ban people or do anything they want) are FQuist, Link and Derby. ShadowGPW and Disguise are a little less active, but you might still find them editing inappropriate posts. The other administrators are either inactive, not using their administrator powers. or working behind-the-scenes.
Apart from the administrators there's another group of users that has "powers": the moderators. Those are mainly the same as administrators except for the fact that they have power over only one, or a few, forums and that they are not able to edit users' details or ban them. The only active moderator is Coppertop, the others are not visiting the JCF frequently.
Finally there's The Moving Bot, a Super-Moderator, which is actually an account created by the admins to notify readers of moved topic of the new location of the topic. It has nowadays become useless because vBulletin handles this automatically.
The JCF currently supports a big load of themes. Most of them were made by users, though there are some "JCF-style" themes and a vBulletin standard theme. The Lori Central forum is the only forum with a different standard theme than the rest of the board: it (obviously) has a Lori theme. Not many know that the JCF actually has a really really secret forum too! Refer to link 6 to visit it. It basically contains topics from the good old past of the JCF and it's really boring. gg?
The JCF, actually mainly its most active forum Miscellaneous Stuff, is currently characterized by a constant stream of topics that express the opinion of someone about a random phenomene, involve stupid forum games or make a chanceless attempt at starting a serious discussion. The really interesting stuff is in the Jazz Jackrabbit-related forums.
The JCF is usually a pretty good forum, though it has rather strict rules. Any form of suggesting illegal ways of acquiring software (also known as "warez") is forbidden, and so are swear words and personal attacks. Every now and then someone will open a thread about this and it is discussed whether this is good or bad, but it never works.
LINKS:
1 - The JCF (http://www.jazz2online.com/jcf
)2 - J2O (http://www.jazz2online.com/J2Ov2
)3 - Jazz2City (http://www.jazz2city.com
)4 - phpBB (http://www.phpbb.com
)5 - vBulletin (http://www.jelsoft.com
)6 - Really Really secret forum (http://www.jazz2online.com/jcf/forumdisplay.php?f=15
)[change 1-2-05: added some useless info]
[change 29-3-05: minor edits]