Terminology

''All information supplied here comes courtesy of the Terminology thread on the forums. Our thanks go to all the people involved there.''

1337

(*See leet) Leet, a corruption of elite, generally used in a silly situation or to describe something epic.

1st stage hatchling (S1) A hatchling that has just hatched and has no wings.

2nd stage hatchling (S2) A hatchling with wings (or has grown bigger) and now has a gender.  3.51 days (sometimes 3.5) A possible age for an egg or hatchling that is responsible for many posts on the venting thread. This is the last age at which a dragon is guaranteed to not grow up. Eggs/hatchlings at this state tend to cause teeth-gnashing in their owners; thus, dentists fear this condition.
 * This possible age is no longer true as hatching time has been randomized since the last server transfer and updates.
 * Neither are true anymore. If they have enough views, eggs and hatchling can now grow up after 3 days (so less than 4 days remaining until death).

42 A number favored by TJ usually seen on polls of threads made by him. The number 42 is an internet meme that came from the book by Douglas Adams, the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy".

''Acording to the book, 42 is The Almighty Answer to "Life, the Universe, and Everything". It was calculated by the computer Deep Thought for seven million years and when asked to build a better computer to discover the Question to the Life, the Universe, and Everything, it built the Earth.''

 A 

Abandoned Page / AP Where non-picked bred eggs, abandoned eggs and hatchlings go, and the place for trading.


 * The Abandoned Page is now no longer the most often used trading place since of June 10, 2011, when the Magi Dragons gained the Breed Specific Action "Teleport", which allows users to trade an egg/hatchling or more for another or others.

Admin Administrator of the forums. Has the most power of any user; an admin can do pretty much anything. On the DC forums, there is only one admin, TJ09.

Adopting Antonym : Gifting The act of receiving of a dragon, usually via /abandoned/code, kindly given by another who has an excess/doesn't want/need anymore of that breed.

Alt Abbreviation for Alternate, referring to secondary sprites for specific dragon Hatchlings/Adults that can be obtained only by breeding.

Alt Lottery Catching a specific colored egg and raising it till it hatches to see if it is an alternate sprite, with no intention of keeping the hatchling if it is the normal variety.

Alot

A large furry creature. Often mistaken for the phrase, "a lot". Alots were spawned form the imagination of Hyberbole and a Half in her blog. There is also a lineage featuring the creature.

AP Blocked Occurs when the Abandoned Page is full, resulting in users being unable to grab cave-born eggs off of the front page for a period of time until a certain amount of abandoned eggs are removed.

API

Application Programming Interface. The "official" fansites use this to connect in a different way than the normal users to the cave, the API gives them a way that is less strenuous on the cave and probably easier for the fansites' software to deal with. External Wiki link.

Approve, Abstain, Reject The three options you can chose when looking at descriptions (note you must have 10 adult dragons to rate descriptions)

Artists (*See Spriters) Also known as spriters, these are the wonderful creative people who have designed the dragons that you see here on Dragon Cave, often working in collaboration with others. Artists should always be treated with respect and will want you to ask permission if you wish to alter or use any of their sprites outside of Dragon Cave. Artist credits can be found at the bottom of a dragon's page when you are viewing their description and statistics.

ARK list An honorary listing of site members who have shown kindness towards other members of the board enough to be recognized for it. ARK list members can be identified by a gold badge in their signature.

Army A huge number of a specific breed that someone has amassed on his or her scroll. Their scrolls often contain small numbers of other breeds, and dozens of the breed of choice.

It can also refer to when the abandoned page or cave entrance are full of the exact same egg. (Like armies of vines that appear during mass breeds.)

Auto abandon What will happen if you breed more than one egg. You can only keep one. The others will vanish from your scroll and automatically be abandoned on the next hour, without you having to abandon them.

Auto-refresher and Auto-F-5er An add-on for internet programs such as Firefox that automatically refreshes a web page every second/set of seconds/minutes. Considered cheating by many DC members and mods for giving an unfair advantage in catching dragons to those with the add-on.

 B 

BIC An acronym standing for "back in character" - as contrasted to "out of character" (OOC). Used to denote one is roleplaying and fully in character again after real-life related comments.

Blacklist A list of users that meet certain requirements, which can differ from site/topic to site/topic. They are "bad" users, those who are detrimental to the site/topic. Often times the Blacklist includes flamers, trolls, and spammers. Those that break the rules of the site/topic often may also be blacklisted.

-Blacklisted: to be added to the Blacklist -Blacklistee/Blacklister: a user whose name is on the Blacklist. Often "banned" from a topic, as sites actually CAN ban people. When "banned" any posts they make are to be ignored. They are no longer eligible to participate in the activity of the topic, often seen with gifting/trading topics.

Bouncing Snagging an emergency egg (typically one with less that two days left) from the abandoned page, then abandoning it as soon as it gets the extra day added to it instead of posting it on DCF or some other website to hatch it. A practice that can annoy more seasoned members of the DC collective.

Bregging A concatenation of the word Breeder and Begging. Refers to the annoying act of PMing members of the forums and asking/begging/pleading with them to breed a specific egg for you. Someone who partakes in bregging is known as a bregger.

Bred Antonym : Caveborn Bred is a title given to an egg, hatchling, or dragon that is the offspring of two user owned dragons. Bred eggs can be obtained by breeding two dragons on your scroll or by adopting them at the abandoned page. User preference varies when it comes to choosing between a caveborn or bred egg/hatchling.

Breed (*See Held Egg) 1. Action of breeding dragons, to make a new egg. Random results may occur. 2. A specific type of dragon

Breedable Any dragon that can produce eggs when bred with another dragon is considered breedable. Some dragons can only breed within their species, while dragons considered rare cannot breed with other rare dragons. These dragons can be obtained through the cave and also through breeding.

Non Breedable/Unbreedable Any dragon that cannot breed, regardless of whether or not the "breed" option shows up. These dragons can only be obtained through the main page during cave drops.

Breed Specific Actions (BSA) Specific abilities granted to different breed of dragons. This ability could only be be used once every x period (which may vary depending on the breed).

BUMP! An acronym for Bring Up My Post 1.A word used when "bumping" topics back to the tp of the list. When a topic doesn't get any replies in a while, it is eventually overlapped by other threads that are getting responses. The said topic is sent to the second page eventually, being unable to get new people to read it. As an attempt to make more people see said topic and work/disscuss on it again, the word bump is posted alone, sending the topic all the way back to the top of the first page. Some informative and service threads often require lots of bumps to maintain their activity and usefullness, possibly even this one in a near to distant future.

2.What people do inside threads (like The Trading Thread) when they quote themselves in order to have their post part of the last/active page of the thread.

Burned scroll When a user has done something against the rules that is bad enough for their scroll to be burned as punishment.

 C 

C&C (*See Concrit) Short for "constructive criticism", this is what creators of original works prefer to receive rather than outright flames. Both spriters and writers, when asking for concrit, expect reviewers to be specific about what areas need improvement, without resorting to statements of preference without a rationale.

Catch To catch/To help catch The term used when another person (or group of people) try to get eggs from a multi-egg clutch, with the intent of returning them to the breeder. Breeders enlist them to catch eggs if they want to keep more than one egg in a clutch. This is considered a risky move, as it involves two chances for the trade to be intercepted.

Camping (*See Haunting) When someone sits around on the abandoned page repeatedly refreshing, waiting for something they want to pop up.

Caveborn/CB Antonym : Bred Caveborn is a title given to an egg, hatchling, or dragon that has been generated by the site and given out at hour and 5-minute drops. User preference varies when it comes to choosing between a caveborn or bred egg/hatchling.

CDN Also referred to as CDN option. Abbreviation for Content Delivery Network. On dragcave the CDN option is used when talking about incubators. It is an option that can be selected when creating an incubator which doesn't involve replacing the code in the signature. In technical terms: A content delivery network or content distribution network (CDN) is a system of computers networked together across the Internet that cooperate transparently to deliver content to end users, most often for the purpose of improving performance, scalability, and cost efficiency.

Click There is one click added per IP address every 24 hours. A click is gained when someone click on the dragon, or on the 'view' link.

Click Happy A term describing a person who cannot seem to control their clicking finger and is relatively successful at getting what they click. The usage is similar to that in "report happy" where someone reports every minor infraction they see; a click happy person clicks every egg, rare egg, hatchling, etc. that they see out of reflex, whether they truly want said dragon or not. Click happies are often blamed by themselves for "locking" their scrolls (* see scroll lock), and by others for "swiping" trades. Related to, but not the same as, fast fingers.

!C|ick My 3ggs(*See Warn Me Please) On the forums, Typing using symbols in place of letters (example:wri7in9 l1k3 th1$=writing like this) as well as begging for clicks is not encouraged and can lead to a warning. If you do beg for clicks and/or type using symbols it looks like you are saying "Yes please I want a warning!"

Clutch (*See Breed, Held egg) The number of eggs produced by breeding, or eggs acquired in one instance.

Code The 4 alphanumeric code unique to each dragon and is widely used in trading and gifting. ie; http://dragcave.net/view/CODE


 * Since June 10, 2011, the codes have 5 alphanumeric characters.

Completed List A list of all completed dragon requests. Some sprites have been removed for pending release.

Completed Request Section A sub-forum in the Suggestion/Request board where all completed requests. Posting is prohibited unless you point out a major flaw (anatomy error, file type error, lack of transparency, description flaws, etc) and will earn you a 10% warn for unwarranted bumping.

Concrit Short for "constructive criticism", this is what creators of original works prefer to receive rather than outright flames. Both spriters and writers, when asking for concrit, expect reviewers to be specific about what areas need improvement, without resorting to statements of preference without a rationale.

C&P Copy and paste (a post containing a statement which has been copied and pasted - refers to a repetitive statement).

 D 

Database Error An unfortunate event in which the entire DC site is blocked off except for the not found page. Instead, a message simply saying "Database Error" is shown. The largest one yet lasted for an entire day in November 2008.

Datamonster/DM or D/M  An evil dragon that devoured users' dragons on July 20th, 2009. TJ rescued/revived most of the lost dragons but this dragon may make an appearance again.

Acronym for Datamonster Survivors - Survivors of the Datamonster who may or may not be participating in the DMSLP (see DMSLP).
 * DMS or DM/S

Acronym for Datamonster Survivors Lineage Project - A breeding project that involves listing all the survivors of the Datamonster, breeding purebred generations from those survivors and documenting the lineage.
 * DMSLP

DC  Dragon Cave - the site. Not at all related to comics.

Description A small user written text that appears under the regular description for each breed, that may be written under the Actions page for all adult dragons and frozen hatchlings. It must go under a small review by the members of the site and by a mod as well before it is allowed to appear on the individual page of a dragon. There are several rules applied to writing descriptions, which involve mostly a good grasp of the written English language, humility and maintaining a consistent temporal setting.

Doom (*See WSOD) That horrible blank page you get where you know that all the rares are spawning while you madly hit F5.

Drama llama Someone who makes a huge deal over something small. (Ex: someone who goes into a blind raging rant against someone because that person has a bunch of silvers and the drama llama doesn't.) Drama llamas over-exaggerate, over-react, like to hurl accusations, and can become flamers.

Drop 1.When eggs appear on the front page. 2. Using the Abandon action to release the dragon to the Abandon Page. This definition of drop is used mainly when trading/gifting. i.e I am dropping the egg at the count of 5 so keep refreshing the /abandoned/code page.

-Hour drop The drop that occurs upon the hour and lasts for more than 3 eggs. (the hourly drop may not occur when the abandoned page is full thus blocking the cave entrance.)

-5 minutes drop The drop of 3 eggs that occurs every 5 minutes.

Duplicate A possible status for a thread which usually causes great exasperation among "experienced" members. Duplicates are, as the name suggests, threads that have similar topics already been made, no matter if they are labeled incorrectly or weeks old, and should not be created. In a duplicate, one should not post "SPAM!" or anything to that effect, but instead direct the thread creator to the other existing thread, lest they anger the mods.

 E 

Egg Rush(*See Hour Drop) The drop that occurs upon the hour and lasts for more then 3 eggs. (the hourly drop may not occur when the abandoned page is full thus blocking the cave entrance)

Egg Killer Completely unrelated to the option to kill an egg oneself through the action's page. Generally as an act of revenge, an egg killer is someone who found a way to give a massive amount of either clicks or views to a single egg, leading to its premature death by soft shell. There was some trouble in the site with Egg Killers in the past, which led to a small case of mass hysteria and eventually to the ban of several sites and to the eradication of the Type I soft shell (egg death by excess of Views alone). This activity seems to be non existent right now, and is considered as the highest grade of malicious action against an egg and against Dragcave in general.

Egg Killing A frequent vent (or for a small minority, enjoyable activity) on DC. The action refers to taking a new egg without high views, that can be abandoned easily, and using the kill option on it instead. This usually results in a dead egg, a blemish on one's DC record, and a very angry breeder. Said breeder may claim they will not breed any more eggs for 'ungrateful idiots', though this promise is usually broken quickly.

Egg Lag 1.The lag caused an egg to appear a few times after refresh, causing you to click on it madly only to receive the dreaded *This egg has been taken* message.

2.The lag caused a gold egg to appear a few times after refresh, causing you to click on it madly and hit F5 at the same time out of habit, only to receive the "adopt an egg" message with a dreaded pink egg on it.

Eggspam 1.Posting your eggs in entries on the board, rather than your signature. Not allowed on DC Forums.

2. Making pointless topics asking for clicks for your eggs. This is not allowed per board rules and will usually be reported at first sighting.

Egg Sitter(s) A person or group of people who will look after your scroll whilst you are away. This includes helping them to get views and making sure they don't die.

Egg Stages A term used to denote the different "stages" of hatching, or cracking, an egg can be in. Many people use different terms for these stages: '' - first crack/just started cracking: the first crack on an egg, a small diagonal line on the upper left - usually not given a name: the second crack on an egg, a jagged diagonal line that forks into two parts - full crack/crack across/vertical split: the third crack on an egg, a jagged vertical line that goes all the way across the egg - small hole: the fourth crack on an egg, a small, diamond-shaped hole in the middle of the egg - big hole: the last cracking stage; a large black hole in the center with small cracks radiating from around it''

- jagged horizontal line, only showing half the egg sprite: your egg died

Emergency This depends mostly on the site or community you happen to be on. Most communities do not consider an egg or hatchling an "emergency" unless it has 2 days or fewer to grow up. However, some are as strict as requiring 1 day or less, and others are as lenient as classifying anything with 3 days or less as an emergency."

Emergency Room/ER A very common name for a page inside fansites where emergency eggs are listed so that people entering it may give them views and also copy their codes and post them elsewhere if they feel like it.

Epic Expression that means total and utter greatness. Usually referred to a great deed of awesome magnitude, completed in a startling way which impresses anyone who witnessed or recollects it.

Epicfail/Phfail An event or occurrence so catastrophic, it causes anyone who gazes upon it to :facepalm: at the sheer magnitude of idiocy involved. Often used as an example of how bad things can get.

Epicwin 1.An expression often used to describe something utterly, utterly awesome that rivals that of epic. 2.Something or someone who failed so hard and so completely, or in a way that so utterly defies logic that it breaks through the fail barrier and becomes a win.

EST- Eastern Standard Time A time zone located mostly along the eastern coast of North America and the western coast of South America, and also TJ's time zone and the time kept on DragonCave. It is calculated as GMT -5 (five hours earlier than Greenwich Mean Time) and observes Daylight Savings Time (DST), which moves the clock forward one hour every spring and backward again in the fall. Many DC members use EST as a standard when talking about time to avoid confusion (though sometimes it may create more).

ETA ETA is an acronym for Edit To Add. Often used by posters who just submitted a post, but realized that they had forgotten something. Going back to edit their post, some users may add ETA just to clarify that this was added later, by edit.

 F 

F5  The refresh button located above the 5 and 6 keys. On many DC'ers' keyboards, this button has been badly abused by repeatedly using it to refresh the abandoned or cave pages. Also used as a verb, meaning to refresh internet pages.

F5-ing  Constantly refreshing using the F5 key.

F5 frenzy Any time you madly use F5 trying to either a. get an egg (or hatchling) or b. hatch an egg or grow up a hatchling that has reached the 3.49 mark w/o advancing to the next stage.

Fail It may not mean failure literally, but a funny situation in which something unforeseen has happened. Can be used to explain an event in the forum or a caption/picture that normally bring laughter around the community where it was posted.

Fail Page The "Cannot Find Server"/"404"/"500"/etc page when DC refuses to load for whatever reason. Thought to be annihilated by the server transfer of 2009, only to be brought back a week later.

Failticket  A hatchling that turned out to be of the normal variety and not alt - in relation to playing the alt lottery.

Fansite(s) A wonderful website(s) created by DC fan(s) that many DC'ers visit to submit eggs/hatchlings. These fansites are generally well organized and provide a variety of services to help make the DC gameplay more enjoyable. Fansite(s) can also be a forum, where users are allowed to chat about non-DC related topics, express their own artwork, and just have fun in general.

-DC Fansite The DC Fansite is a website where you can post your dragons to get views, and view others' dragons, including an ICU

-DDF Daily Dragon Fix, a website where you can post your dragons to get views, and view others' dragons

Fast Fingers People who have the ability to snatch eggs with lighting speed ability, usually interfering with a trade/gift along the way.

FAQs Short for "Frequently Asked Questions" Several stickied topics the new members often fail to read that provide all the useful information that they would ever need to know about the basic dragcave game play. Always standing on top of the Help forum, this compilation of threads have all the rules and information cleared in a way capable of making need for an help forum obsolete.

FFA Abbreviation for Free For All. Use when referring to an event where a person will provide the eggs/hatchlings code and abandon it. The abandoned egg/hatchling is then freely available for anyone trying for it.

Flaming A personal attack by one person on another person that has nothing to do with the topic at hand. This most often occurs because one person has nothing constructive to add and is called a noob, or has a mini mod come by and insert criticism.

Flight A collective noun for a group of dragons. Example: A flight of skywings soared overhead, arching towards the city spires.

Flutter-drawls The momentary heart-flutter-slash-panic when the site goes down for more than a few minutes. Often this condition is fleeting, but may make itself manifest in 2-3 threads around the forums. Flutter-drawls are fleeting, and while resulting in some annoyance, usually fade before the Refresh Finger starts twitching.

Forcing The act of dropping an egg (using the 'Kill' action) in the hope of forcing it out alive and early.

Forumite If you have an account on this forum, and you interact with the rest of us on this message board, you are a Forumite.

Fog When an egg is fogged, it is hidden. It looks like it is covered in a cloud of fog. It will not receive any clicks or views.

-The Fog (of 2008) The few weeks where the whole cave was covered in a fog. Dragons could not breed, no eggs were found at the cave entrance and dragons were covered in a fog sprite. This is the period of time between the copyrighted ("old") sprites, and the user-made ("new") sprites. Sprites were replaced at this time. Members were also in an uproar at this time. When the Fog of 2008 is mentioned, it makes members from before then feel old.

FTW Acronym for "For The Win." It is commonly used to express domination of one thing over another; e.g.: X and Y have both submitted a sprite for a dragon. X's fits the original description, and is epic. Y's doesn't fit the name or idea, and looks like an old Pokémon sprite. User W might post "X's sprite FTW." to show support of X's sprite.

Freezing Stopping a hatchling from growing up.

 G 

Gender In a hatchling, to reach the second stage, causing the gender to be visible on the viewdragon page.

Gender Heavy When a scroll is primarily comprised of Dragons which contain the same gender. When scrolls reach/pass approximately a 2:3 ratio, they can be considered gender heavy. A female heavy scroll is comprised of primarily female Dragons, and a male heavy scroll is the opposite.

Gendered Wrong When a hatchling turns out a different gender than expected/wanted/needed.

Getdragon code/link A link that when clicked on/typed in allows a user to adopt an abandoned or caveborn dragon.
 * You may still see this reference in some fansites but since the server changes, the correct link to adopt abandon dragons used to be http://dragcave.net/abandoned/**** (CODE). Since teleport was introduced, this method of grabbing no longer works.

GD General Discussion section of the forums.

Gifting A term for people coordinating drops and pickups on the abandoned page. Same as trading, but only one-way.

Glitch Can refer to a problem in the gaming code, resulting in a problem with the site. (Similar to a bug.) It can also mean something that wasn't supposed to happen even if no bug is causing it, such as the rainbow sort revealing the names of dragons. Often people will take advantage of glitches, but if you find one it's best to report it, because many times you'll get in trouble if you take advantage of one.

 H 

Hard Refresh The key sequence Ctrl + F5, refreshing and reloading the entire page instead of just some changes.

Hatchery A very common name for a page inside Fansites where non-emergency eggs and sometimes hatchlings are listed, but due to the name, hatchlings are rarely accepted in hatcheries. They serve as a list of eggs members of the fansite can click if they feel like helping other members, and also as a ground for multi-egg viewing with hitting F5 as few times as possible.

Hatchling A newborn baby dragon; just emerge from its shell.

-Hatchie/Hatchy An endearing term referring to a hatchling.

Haunting (*See Camping) When someone sits around on the abandoned page repeatedly refreshing, waiting for something they want to pop up.

Held Eggs Eggs that have been produced by a breeder, but not dropped yet. Generally, a breeder will message a getcode to those interested in acquiring such an egg and then "drop" (in this case, select another egg to keep) the eggs at a prearranged time.

Hide The act of fogging an egg.

Hidden eggs Eggs that are fogged.

Hoard/H**** 1. Informally, it means to collect multiple dragons of the same breeds; while the term can be applied to commons, it is usually dozens of rare dragons that causes the most anger among those who do not hoard. The subject was finally banned by the resident mod on the Venting thread (and therefore everywhere) after multiple flame wars. Many people have one of two viewpoints: 1. That hoarding is a natural right and the point of DC; or that 2. Hoarding prevents people without amazing internet from getting rares. This word has been declared officially nonexistent on DC by the site creator TJ. We apologize for our fake definition.

2. Hoarder- fictional creatures not actually existing.

Holiday Dragons Also called "Seasonal Dragons" on occasion, but must not be confused with the breed. Holiday Dragons which are special dragons only released during certain holidays, such as Halloween, Christmas and Valentine's Day.

Hunting The process of persuing a greatly-wanted dragon, either from the cave, the AP, or another user.

Hyper egg When the egg has a really big hole before day 4, and you have to wait a couple days for it to hatch.

 I 

ICU/Intensive Care Unit A place where people who forget to post on normal fansites can post their emergency (see emergency) eggs. These places are often taken advantage of by unscrupulous/ignorant users who see them as easy places to get quick views, even though their eggs have large amounts of time. Often these people are well repaid by the soft-shell their 7 day eggs get from massive overviewing. Also the name of a thread in Site Discussion, offering a specialized ICU service.

inb4.lock In before block. To post in a forum topic before it gets lock. Posting inb4.lock is considered SPAM and you will receive a 10% warning for this violation.

Inbred/Inbreeding

When a Dragon has children with a family member, such as a sibling or its parents. Inbreeding is often accidental, or done in order to maintain a purebred lineage. Example.

Incubator Image with small pictures of all or some of a user's dragons. They do nothing on their own, but most users use them to link to their scrolls. The incubators generated by the site look like pieces of parchment with the owner's username written on them. Some people make their own, and these have various forms. Sometimes, any dragcave-themed picture that leads to a scroll is termed "incubator," even if it does not showcase the user's dragons in the way that more common ones do.

In Queue (*See Limbo) The state of being in a place where all the hungry rare-searchers are attempting to find your code to snatch you off abandoned. Often used with the phrase "bred eggs" to indicate that extra eggs have been auto-abandoned by a breeder. This status is usually possible because no one wants all those extra pinks in queue on abandoned anyways. Technical explanation: Since there are too many eggs on the abandoned page, other eggs are "backed up" and only the oldest eggs show up. This is why no eggs with more than, say, 6.89 days will show up at many times. The eggs in the backlog are considered to be "in queue" or "in limbo".

 J 

J/K (also JK) : Means "Just Kidding"

1) A term used when some one wants to take back something they promised without looking like an A hole, usually makes the person look like an even bigger jerk, but makes it harder to get mad at them about it.

2) Said right after saying something sarcastic to help the reader understand it was meant as a joke, or sarcasm. This is often done because things that depend on the tone of a voice are often lost when typed.

 K 

Kill Limit The coding that automatically burns your pixel scroll when you have killed ten eggs (note that hatchlings/adults do not count) using the kill button (accidental deaths do not count).


 * With the new server update, this limit has been replaced with a system where only five can be killed before the kill option cannot be used at all.

 L 

Lag When pages take a long time to load or time out. 'How much lag' is usually measured in how long it takes a page to load.

Lagcave One of the nicer terms given to DC when the cave and or AP are lagging badly. Often the source of much frustration, hair-pulling, teeth-gnashing and wailing, especially during gift/trades.

Lagmonster The physical personification of the lag experienced in the cave. First appeared on Marth 17th, 2009, causing users to suffer extreme excruciating pain waiting for the cave to load. Since its appearance, many users have rallied behind the creation of a lagmonster dragon. The lagmonster thread on DragCave forums can be found HERE.

l33t, leet, 1337 A corruption of elite, generally used in a silly situation, or to describe something epic

leetle From http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=leetle 1. A very tiny and disgustingly cute and/or fascinating thing. 2. A a whole lot!

Leetle Tree A time period from December 29th to Dec 31st where tiny trees could be picked off of both the cave and the AP. They count as eggs, did not register clicks or views and are unkillable. There is a limit per scroll of one. In 2010-2011 they dropped.

Legacy Sort The old custom sort, where users can sort their dragons by giving them a numerical value.

Lineage 1. A dragon's family tree. Only bred dragons have any kind of lineage, those picked up from the cave entrance won't. Some people will pick up certain dragons because they like their lineage, (like the names, breeds, etc of the dragon's family).

2. A family of dragons which follows certain critera: for example -all dragons are of the same breed (pureblood lineage) -all pairings are formed by dragons of two breeds only (for example, only gold x white pairings) -all dragons have a themed name or a family name (ex. Dorkface, Ridiculous, Riddle) -all dragons descend from the same dragon (ex. Dorkfaces all descend from Midas Dorkface)

Lister A person who has followed the rules on The Giving Tree (tgt/TGT) thread in the Site Discussion forum to be put on a request list for a particular kind of dragon. Anyone with that type of dragon may contact them and offer it to them as a gift.

Locked scroll Scroll filled with eggs and/or hatchlings, so one doesn't have room for anything from the cave or the AP. There is also a limit to the number of eggs and hatchlings you can have at any one time, as follows:

-With no trophy (less than 50 dragons): 4 eggs/12 total -With a bronze trophy (50-199 dragons): 5 eggs/15 total -With a silver trophy (200-499 dragons): 6 eggs/18 total -With a gold trophy (500 dragons or more): -7 eggs/21 total

Lurking 1. Where you're haunting the egg drops and/or AP. 1a. Where you're reading the topics and just reply on the odd ocassion.

 M 

Mass Breed The very annoying condition when there is an overwhelming amount of eggs on the abandoned page (also known as AB or AP). the eggs are generally all one type (mostly vine because people want alts). It is a very annoying condition, although it makes trades and gifts easier. The hourly/5 minute drops sometimes do not happen because of the overload of eggs.

Mature When a dragon reaches its adult form.

-Mature Hatchling (*See 2nd Stage Hatchling)

Minimod What a regular user can get called, if someone else thinks that he/she is acting too much like a mod/correcting other users inapropriately.

Missingno A dragon that doesn't have a species. There is only one in known existence. It looks just like a cloud of fog. It is named after a glitch in the early Pokémon games.

Mod Moderator of the forums. Depending on rank, mods may have the power to lock, delete, bump or sticky threads, edit posts that aren't theirs, increase a user's warn level. Mods can be global, meaning that they moderate all forums, or confined to a certain forum. They also have the final say on whether or not a dragon's description is approved or rejected. They are very important to the thread, as without them, the forums can go off-topic and be filled with spam.

Mystery/Mystery Egg The eggs that show up in the cave during the the hour and 5 min drops. Only the egg description is included to give hint of what the mystery egg might be.

 N 

Necro-ing Reviving a thread that has been inactive for months, often times with useless comments... Newbie (NewB, NooB) 1a) A person with no adult dragons. This person has yet to show that they can raise a dragon and may often be termed as such until one or more adult dragons are on the scroll

1b) A person who has fewer than 5 adult dragons. This person might still be considered a noob by many as they have only had one set of eggs grow up and may still be learning the ropes. 2) A person who doesn't read the rules before posting in the forum, often manifesting as egg spam.

3) A semi derogatory term for any stupid post made by a member of the forum community, even if that person has been here a while. This usage of the word is most often the cause for flaming on a forum.

Newspaper A rolled up newspaper used by certain artists to keep n00bs in line. It has also been used to punish those who edit without permission and request while requests are closed.

Ninja'd or 'd/ph34r

1. A situation where someone posts the same information as you do just before you hit 'add reply'. Entries are often edited to say 'd. 2. When an egg is nabbed during an attempted trade/gifting or finding out that an egg on the abandoned page or main page has already been picked up once you've clicked on it.

{FOR DRAGCAVE FORUMS}

'Nunnery 'The figurative place where the female dragons who reject all attempts at breeding live. Male dragons can also be said to live in a nunnery if they reject all breeding attempts, but it is a rare usage of the term.'

Nursery A less common name for a page inside Fansites where emergency eggs are listed so that people entering it may give them views and also copy their codes and post them elsewhere if they feel like it.

 O 

OOC - also denoted by (( action )) 'An acronym for "out of character", primarily used in roleplays when the roleplayer is making comments/asking questions not from the point of view of their character. Using too much OOC in literate/advanced roleplays is generally frowned upon, though in others OOC may make up the majority of the posts due to the roleplayers' natural inclination to chat instead of roleplay.'

OP 'Original Post'' A way to refer to the first post created in the thread you're currently looking at or posting in. Original Poster A way to refer to the person that created the thread you're currently looking at or posting in.'''

'' Orphan An abandoned hatchling, most commonly wrong gendered splits and vines and blacks for people trying for alts.''

OT 'A term that stands for "off topic". Most threads/topics/boards are related to a specific subject. However, when people deviate from that subject, it is called being off topic. Used in a way, when people are talking about a specific subject, but something of other matters may flicker across their mind, and their initial subject may change.'

 P 

Panidrawma 'The combination panic, withdrawal, and resulting drama the comes with site downtime longer than 1 hour. Unlike its pre-symptom, "Flutter-drawls", Panidrawma usually manifests itself in at least 5+ threads around the forums, and can easily waver between light-hearted kidding, panic, annoyance, off-topic questions and may even culminate in drama. In severe cases, Mod interference may take place, in the form of stern warning and rolled up newspapers. Common symptoms include Refresh Finger twitching, Facial tics, Screen/Monitor aimed profanities, and on rare occasion, Computer and/or Brain Meltdown.'

Phantom Clicks What happens when you click an egg or hatchling and no new clicks (or no clicks at all) show up.

Pillow shaded 'A type of shading where the light source originates from the point of view of the viewer. This style of shading is typically frowned upon, as it makes sprites appear very 2D.'

Pinned(*See Sticky) 'A 'pinned' topic is a topic that is permanently at the top of a section. Usually for information, news or reminders.'

Pixel '(*See Sprite) A pixel is a small square of color of variable size and itensity that will make part of a grid of similar squares. The grid, whereas known as "Bitmap", is always either square or rectangular in shape, and its measurements come in pixels, meaning that a Sprite with the 60x50 dimensions is made up of a bitmap with 60 pixels in width and 50 pixel in height. The pixel's color information is stored acordingly to to the itensity of three primary colors: Red, Green and Blue. The information about a color in a single pixel may be given by the design programs in two languages, where the red color may be said to either be the the "Hex" color #FF0000 or it may be the RGB (short for RedGreenBlue) color 255,0,0.'

''Poke/Poking People will type that they are *poking* their eggs/hatchlings as a show of being frustrated that they haven't hatched or grown up yet.''

''Pokémon Invasion/Pokémon Night A time period that started on December 27th and lasted for a mere 7 hours where some dragcave sprites were replaced with Pokémon icons by TJ as a play on the similarities to its catchphrase: "Gotta catch 'em all" The sprites replaced were:''

'''Red turned into Charizard Gray/Fog turned into Castform Vine turned into Venusaur Vampire turned into Crobat Split turned into Doduo Water turned into Gyarados Rock turned into Onyx Guardian turned into Wobbuffet Skywing turned into Rayquaza Chicken turned into Arceus 'Zombie turned into Gastly''

Pokémon Invasion Screenshot 1 {C}Pokémon Invasion Screenshot 2

Progress List

The Progress List shows the current development of sprites for new dragon suggestions. However, not every single suggestion may be on the List.

Purebred

When the lineage of a Dragon is the same from beginning to end. Sometimes connected to Inbred Dragons, but not always. {C}Example: My Skywing is a purebred because its ancestors have only had children with other Skywings for 5 generations.

PM

Private Message used in forum communication between members.

 Q 

QFT

An abbreviation for Quoted for Truth. Often used when someone makes statement so logical and true that another person cannot help but quote them to preserve the accuracy of the statement.

 R 

Rainbowsort

{C}A secret link that got wiped after being found out a bug in it that could be used to tell a new breed's species beforehand. It used to automatically save the dragons in a scroll like if they were forming a rainbow. Very eye-appealing when used and then scrolled trough on bigger scrolls.

Rare

An egg/hatchling not often found.

Rareflex Clicking(*See Reflex Clicking)

Similar as Reflex Clicking but occurs only when rares appear.

Reflex Click

When you see a dragon (egg or hatchling) on the abandoned page, that you may have been hunting before, and reflexively click on it. Even if you currently do not want it.

Rescue

Taking in an emergency or unwanted egg or hatchling.

Room

Space on a scroll for new Dragons. If a user needs to "make room" for (a) new Dragon(s), their scroll is currently locked. If they "have room" for (a) new Dragon(s), their scroll is not currently locked.

RP (also known as roleplay)

An activity on many forums, and also in real life, where one pretends to be a "character" better than their actual selves. Roleplays may be done with one other person or with large groups, and each person may control several characters. Most roleplay characters have a different look and personality range from average humans or have powers that clearly cannot exist in real life. Roleplaying forums are subdivided by skill level (literacy), types of "intros" (first posts, which generally describe the "charrie" and setting/plot), rules, and settings (ex dragons, teenage mutants, angsty high school preppies w/ mutations that let them fly and kill people quickly, etc.)

 S 

Scroll

Refers to the link you can use to let others see your dragons. i.e. http://dragcave.net/user/your_username

Scroll goal

Any goal a member has for his/her scroll, like collecting all kinds of dragons.

Scroll locked

Scroll filled with eggs and/or hatchlings, so one doesn't have room for anything new from the cave, the AP or through breeding. {C}There is a limit to the number of eggs and hatchlings you can have at any one time, as follows:

-With no trophy (less than 50 dragons): 4 eggs/12 total -With a bronze trophy (50-199 dragons): 5 eggs/15 total -With a silver trophy (200-499 dragons): 6 eggs/18 total -With a gold trophy (500 dragons or more): -7 eggs/21 total

SD

Site Discussion Section of the forums.

Secret Caves/Secret Links

Links to certain parts of he site that have no specific way to be reached from the site itself. Most got wiped as they were found and TJ wanted them left in secrecy. A good example is the /WTF or the /customsortjs/user/yourusername

Site Maintenance

Occurs daily at 3am EST. Maintenance time varies and can take up between half and hour to more than an hour and a half. During site maintenance, DC will be inaccessible/unavailable.

Stalk (*See camping/haunting)

When someone sits around on the abandoned page repeatedly refreshing, waiting for something they want to pop up.

Snag

Commonly used term for what people do when they manage to get a trade-intended egg from the abandoned page.

Snap clicks

Another Internet add-on which allows a user to easily click on multiple objects at the same time. Deemed illegal by DC mods and TJ09 due to giving an unfair advantage in catching eggs (especially when used with an auto-refresher), and because it causes an additional (and rather pronounced) strain on the already-abused server.

Sniping

The act of deliberately spying on an ongoing trade or gifting between two users and then attempting and succeeding to acquire the egg before its recipient, typically via getcode.

Soft shell

When the views and or clicks of a dragon are incorrect and the egg becomes sick, and will die if not taken care of.

Sort/Sorting

The act of arranging dragons in your scroll according to different preference. {C}There are three sorting methods available:- {C}(*See - Drag and Drop, Legacy Sort, Customsort2)

Sprite (*See Pixel)

A sprite is a bidimensional pixelated image or animation that is used in computer graphics that is intregated in a bigger scene. Sprites have been used in old school video games as a way to improve perfomance, where individual animated bitmaps (the sprites themselves) for the main character or the enemies, would scroll on a fixed background. With the move to 3D gaming, sprites became misued, to be replaced by tridimendional models, however, sprites could still be found in 3D games, sometimes over textures, as a rotating seemingless "flat" objects, or even on an object that looked the same regardless of the angle the game camera was looking at it from.

In dragcave, all the dragons are considered sprites, and thus, all of the cave's art is considered to be user-made pixel art.

Spriters (*See Artists)

Also known as artists, these are the wonderful creative people who have designed the dragons that you see here on Dragon Cave, often working in collaboration with others. Artists should always be treated with respect and will want you to ask permission if you wish to alter or use any of their sprites outside of Dragon Cave. Artist credits can be found at the bottom of a dragon's page when you are viewing their description and statistics.

SSS

Refer to the condition of an egg, when it is sick and is afflicted a soft shell.

Stats

Statistics of an egg/hatchling usually written in the form of Views/Unique Views/Clicks, ie 65/34/12

Swiping

Accidentally interfering with a trade, this being different then sniping because it is an accident and occasionally the person who swiped the dragon will try and find out who the trade was actually meant for; though more often it is by someone who has no idea and thinks they just got lucky.

 T 

Teleport

Teleport is now the only way to pass dragons bvetween scrolls. It allows you to send eggs and hatchlings to other users by gifting (one way teleport) or trading (two way trades). It is done by using the BSA of the Magi dragon.

TJ09 Creator, and unofficial god, of Dragcave.

TJsort A method of sorting dragons the same way TJ09 has them arranged on his scroll. This is done by by visiting http://dragcave.net/tjsort and clicking "save custom sorting" at the bottom of the page. However, this has since been removed.

TGT/The Giving Tree A popular thread for gifting eggs or hatchlings.

Trading Term for people coordinating drops and pickups on the abandoned page. One person gets x, and gives y back.

Trading currency The "price" assigned to a specific dragon when trading, or asking for another dragon in trade of one's own. For example, usually, traders that are looking to trade their rares ask for another rare in payment. Likewise, the commons are also traded for other commons. It is unlikely that a person trading off a rare will accept a common as trade.
 * Note:Recently, the trading currency of alts may have skyrocketed due to a change that TJ09 had made on DC.

Timing Out When an egg or hatchling runs out of time and dies.

Troll A person on the forum who tries to tick others off by posting unreasonable opinions and findings, when someone takes the bait and gets trolled the troll will deem him/herself successful. this is not to be confused with ignorant people, since ingorancy is (most of the time) unintended.

Twitch Click, Twitch Hit (*See Reflex Click) See Reflex click. Term is also used as Twitch hit when applied to refreshing when the person wanted to click an egg.

 U 

UFT Abbreviation of Up for trade (referring to an egg or hatchling which has been offered for trade for another egg/hatchling.

 V 

Vibes An ambiance that surrounds wingless hatchlings, which will determine their gender. Artificial vibes are those that are produced when member make use of an imaginary magic wand to encircle the wingless hatchling to help it gender correctly. However, this method has a 50% chance of being successful.

Certain members are believed to contain the special ability to sense the vibes on their genderless hatchlings and can predict which side they may swing. This talent may otherwise be known as "pure luck" and "excellent at guestimating."

Views The number of times an egg/hatchling is viewed. The max number of views is 15 times the unique views.

- Unique Views One unique view is given to each egg/hatchling viewed from one IP address

 W 

Wall of ---  On the abandoned page, since the egg sprites are stacked in neat, impossible rows, they resemble a "wall". When many eggs of the same breed - usually vine, black, mint, or pink - are on that page, it is considered a "wall of" that egg. Also frequently used as a vent to say that someone's preferred egg type is being blocked out by a wall of.

-Green Wall -- Phenomenon during which a wall of solid green eggs appear on the abandoned page, usually caused by repeated attempts by breeders to produce the very elusive Alt Vine and Alt Black dragons. Generally accompanied by mass breeding accusations and serious cave lag.

Warn This is an official warning given by a moderator for an infraction of the rules (eg eggspam/spam posting, abuse or giving information about dragons which is not allowed). It is accessible in your signature, and will include a reason why you were warned. It is only visible to yourself and the moderators and will disappear after four weeks. It is measured in percentages, ie, 1 warn is 10%.

WARN ME PLEASE (*See !C|ick My 3ggs) On the forums, Typing using symbols in place of letters (example:wri7in9 l1k3 th1$=writing like this) as well as begging for clicks is not encouraged and can lead to a warning. If you do beg for clicks and/or type using symbols it looks like you are saying "Yes please I want a warning!"

Welcome Wagon A group of people who post in newcomers topics offering information, tips and advice. Their posts are often C&P posts.

Whitelist A list of users that meet certain requirements, which can differ on each site/topic. They are "good" users, those that contribute positively, either often or, when not as often, something very good (beyond the normal positive contributions of other whitelisters) -Whitelisted  : to be added to the Whitelist -Whitelistee/Whitelister : a user whose name is on the Whitelist. May sometimes (depending on the site/topic) receive special "bonuses" (a special badge/banner/icon/gift/etc)

Wipe When a thread/forum has all user entries 'wiped' by a moderator.

Wilderness A secret link "inside" of the cave that shows up un-owned adult dragons and abandoned eggs that are in queue in a random fashion, sometimes leading into dragons appearing outside the boundaries of the webpage page itself. No purpose whatsoever was found for it, other than taking funny snapshots and staring at a bunch of dragons.

Word Filter The forum validator will check user submitted words against banned terms or incorrect spelling. ie :- definitely (I, not A) and a lot (two words, not one).

WTF @ U The cave doesn't like you saying it and tells it back to you!

WSOD/White Screen of Death (*See Doom) That horrible blank page you get where you know that all the rares are spawning while you madly hit F5.

 X 

 Y 

 Z 

Common Social Expressions The following contains common expressions/terms that are used by members to indicate their current state of mind or psychological standing.

Action of showing of irritation, similar to *headdesk*.

ASDFGHJKL/*keyboard mash* A rapid "expression" of frustration. Said keyboard mash can contain any letters from across the keyboard.

Action or occurrence when a person has tried to gain something, but when he finally gets it, a unforeseen circumstance somehow takes it away. The sound of a head hitting their desk (see THUD) as they realiae they have made a mistake, whether it be missing a rare egg, forgetting to hatch eggs, or otherwise. Equally applies to real life circumstances.

NONONONONO/nopenopenope An expression suggesting someone does not approve of a given situation.

OMG Short hand for "Oh my god" repeated over and over again. An expression of shock or amazement.

OH SHI-/OH FU- {C}A phrase that is self explanatory, but cut off for obvious reasons. Used in situations of exclamation, especially if the reason is significant.

*thud* (see *headdesk*)

T.T/T_T A symbol for crying, disappointment, or frustration.

Win! A positive event in forums that leaves the readers and posters feeling like something has been accomplished.

Winfail An event in forums so humorously negative/idiotic, it leaves the viewers feeling like something has been accomplished.

XD/xD/xDDD A symbol to express general silliness or sarcastiness, or sometimes laughter. Sometimes used sarcastically, with JK, XP or LOL. Extra Ds are used for additional emphasis.

XP/xP A symbol for sticking your tongue out at someone in a joking or sometimes sarcastic manner.

YEEK A sound made when you go to check on your dragons' offspring, to find they have 1 day left.

ZOMGWTFRARE An exclamation of surprise, used generally to refer to when a user suddenly realizes there is a rare dragon egg on the screen.