Posting Guide

Guide to Good Posting Etiquette

Hello. If you are new to Play By E-mail games, or role playing, then you've probably discovered that there are a lot of details to remember when you're posting. If you're not new, you already know this, and probably also know that the rules of what is considered good posting is always just a little bit different for each group or club. This guide is designed to teach you what we consider good manners here at Storm Fires Weyr and Rising Dawn Weyr. We're glad youÕre with us, and we want to help you and everyone else in the group get the most fun that we can. Feel free to click on the links below to skip to any part of this narrative that interests you.

Subjects, Headers and Signatures
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We use Subjects, Headers and Signatures to make it easy to tell what is happening and who is involved. The Subject refers to the subject line of your e-mail. This is very important because it is the title of your sl. There are usually several sl's going at the same time, so it is important to be able to categorize them in some way, even before you open and read them. Think how confusing it would be if you went to the library and none of the books had titles! A Header comes before your post and includes the Who, What, and Where. It would look something like this:

Who: R'lon
Where: his weyr, Rising Dawn Weyr
When: a random afternoon

The "Who" line is somewhat self-explanatory. It tells us who is involved in a sl. Remember to add your character's name to this line if you join someone else's sl.

The "Where" line has become very important now that we have opened Rising Dawn Weyr for play. V'gran could not spot R'lon outside next to his dragon if R'lon is at Rising Dawn Weyr and V'gran is at Storm Fires Weyr, after all.

The "When" line could be as simple as what is written above, or it could be a very specific time, for example, Òafternoon, after class but before supper, the day before the Hatching.

A Signature is exactly what it sounds like, but it is for your character, not you. It tells us that your post is finished, and gives us the basic information about your character. It looks something like this:

R'lon, Bonded to Brown Tavereth, Magnet to brown flitter Scrap

Now you know the most basic facts about who the character is, which can help you identify him. Many people put a "return" where the comma is in the signature, so that each piece of the signature is on a new line, and that is fine too. If you keep it all in one line it takes less room in e-mail. Other things people may or may not choose to do is to include a small picture, use different fonts, or use different colors. If you use colors in your signature, however, please do not use colored text for your post itself. It can be very hard for some people to read colored text. It is easier to read in a signature because the signature is usually larger and in bold, but please be considerate of other members in this. Signatures are optional.

Starting a Storyline
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There are a few different ways you can go about starting a storyline. The first is that, you may have just a single post. Maybe you are writing about a short event, or all the characters involved all belong to you, so you will be writing the entire storyline yourself. In this case, you can just write your post, using the Subject, Header, and Signature as described above.

The second possibility is that you wish to allow other players the opportunity to join your sl. The only thing you will change about this post is to add the word "Open" in parentheses to either your Subject, or the "Who" line of your header. It doesn't matter which place you put it. The (open) tag lets the other players know that they are free to join the sl if they want to. The opposite, (closed), tells people they are not allowed to join unless you have invited them to. Also in the "Who" line, you can tag someone to join your post. For example, if R'lon is looking for Raynea, it might look like this:

Who: R'lon (tags Raynea)

The third possibility is called co-posting, which will be discussed later on.

Replying to a Post
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Of course, writing by yourself all the time can get pretty boring. The whole point is to be able to write with other people, so let's get to it! This is where manners comes into play. We want each post to be thoughtful and easily readable, and sometimes that takes a little extra effort when you reply. But don't worry, it's really not that bad.

The first and probably the most important rule to remember when you begin to write your response post is that your reply MUST be at least three sentences in length. Three proper, decent-length sentences, mind you. This is a courtesy to the other writer to show that you put as much thought into your response as they put into theirs. If you have some difficulty thinking of how to expand your reply, consider adding some details about what your character is seeing or hearing, or the thoughts he or she is having. If you take some time to think about these things, you should have no problem coming up with a good reply of at least three sentences.

This next part is about the format of your reply. Those little black or blue lines along the side: Some e-mail programs, such as Outlook Express, add a colored vertical line running alongside the text you are replying to. This very conveniently tells us what we've already read, but for our purposes, it's annoying. Especially when you consider that the next time that message is replied to, you will get two of those colored lines, then three, and so on. Some sl's go on for quite a while, so you could end up accumulating so many of those little lines, you can't find the story anymore. That's no good!

The best way to get rid of those lines is to copy (Ctrl + C) and paste (Ctrl + V) only what you need into your e-mail. After you hit the reply button, delete everything from the e-mail so you are starting with a blank message. Copy and paste from the old message the parts you need, add your reply, sign it, and send. Other mail programs use other devices to set off original text, and again, you should clean it up before they pile up.

So what parts do you need to keep? Actually, you probably do not need to keep very much of the old post. The subject line will tell us what sl we're in. You'll need the Header, of course, and a few lines of the old post to refresh our memories. You should choose how much of the old post you will keep based on it's relevancy to what you will be writing. Let's go back to our example of R'lon looking for Raynea. When Amy responds, she might write something like this:

{{ R'lon knocked on Raynea's door. "Hello? Raynea, are you there? I need to ask you something." }}

"Hi, come on in!" Raynea called, opening the door.

Notice how she did not include the entire post about how R'lon wandered all over the Weyr looking for Raynea. She included only what was relevant and immediate. It was enough to let us know where we left off in the sl, but not so much that it we had to go searching for the new post. It's like rereading the last paragraph when you pick up a book. You don't go back and reread the whole book, or even the whole chapter, you just read enough so that you know where you left off.

{{ }} : These tags are one of the most useful and important punctuation we use. They take the place of those colored lines we discussed earlier. It's still important for us to know which pieces of the post we've already read. Sometimes a writer might write a comment, thought, action, or speech in the middle of what was already written, and these tags help to separate those actions. Taking our example from before:

{{ R'lon knocked on Raynea's door. "Hello? Raynea, are you there?" }}

Raynea opened the door, "Hi, R'lon, what's up?"

{{ "I need to ask you something." }}

See how easy it is to see what the two different writers wrote?

That leads us to the last thing these tags do... establish authorship. By putting text inside these tags, you are saying, "I did not write this part." That can be important, because flaming is always considered extremely bad manners.

Co-Posting
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The last way to write a sl is to do what's called a co-post, or a joint post. This is generally used for two reasons. One is that your reply may be very short, so rather than posting one or two lines, you co-post with the other person in your sl. The other reason is if you are planning a sl with another player and you don't want anyone else joining it, or you need to post the entire sl in one email, then you can do a co-post. The way it works is basically the same as any other post, with the exception that it is written off list and e-mailed only to the players involved. When the post is finished, whichever player ends it will send it to the list for everyone to read.

Some things to remember about this is to clean it up before sending it. Take out all your OOC comments to each other, double-check that all characters involved have a signature and all signatures are at the bottom, rather than embedded in the post somewhere, all those little details of editing. The nice part is that computers make it so easy for us!

Flaming
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Flaming is one of the most universal and most strictly enforced rules. Basically, it means to write something for another player's character. It may seem to be only common sense that you wouldn't do that, but this rule has been bent and broken repeatedly. The only time it is ok to write something for another's players character is if you have that player's express permission for that specific instance. This is rare, and people will usually include a very short OOC note at the end of the post to say that they did have permission.

If you do not have permission, it's not ok. Characters include dragons, fire-lizards, other pets, and owned NPCs. You can't write about them doing things, and you can't write about things happening to them, unless it's something their player has already written about. Flaming is basically putting words in someone else's mouth, and possibly forcing them to change what they wanted to write. You wouldn't like someone doing it to you in real life or in writing, so don't do it to anyone else either.

OOC List
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Many clubs, including this one, have an OOC list where you can post your OOC comments and questions. This helps keep the chatter and the details separate from the stories. Our rules about OOC are that comments on the main board should be kept to a minimum, and comments on the OOC board should be kept club-related. We get a lot of messages passed around every day and people's mailboxes fill up very fast. If you want to just talk, please exchange e-mail addresses and IMs. Anyone can answer questions on the OOC list; if you know the answer, speak up. The BoD is very busy providing a fun environment, so we appreciate the support.

Conclusion
Well, that is about it. If I missed anything, let me know and I'll add it. Hope this was helpful in explaining why we have things the way we do! See you at the Weyr... and happy role-playing!

The Rules

Application

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