The Guide to Posts for Dummies

[Shift 4,272]

no no no, this is not for arguing about the post count minimum or stuff. This is about that little badge below your avatar.

THE GUIDE TO POSTS FOR DUMMIES

Because apparently some people aren't mature enough to handle badges
A huge thanks to those n00bs out there for giving me the idea of this thread

THIS IS A [MOSTLY] SERIOUS POST

Welcome to the guide to posting for dummies. If you are here, apparently you are a dummy, or are just here because you want to know why I would make a dummy thread. If it is none of the above...good for you. Alright, first off, have any of you seen THESE threads?

http://mlpforums.com...100#entry641909
http://mlpforums.com...m-post-lengths/
http://mlpforums.com...racter-minimum/
http://mlpforums.com...to-50-the-poll/

If you haven't, read them. Like NOW.

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Alright, your done. So, what do they all have in common? They all have to do with character limit. And because you must of noticed that big sub-title, what does this have to do about badges? A lot, actually. Let me explain.

People are always making dumb, short, noncontributing posts. The mods attempted to stop that with the character limit. But look, nothing is happening. The mods need help. And only you guys can help them. Still not getting what this has to do about badges? Let me explain a bit more.

Alright, onto roleplaying. In roleplaying, most of us do short posts that are nice and short, like this;

Nacho Cheese walked through the park. He noticed Gorilla Suit and started talking.

"Whats up Gorilla Suit?" he said, a sly look on his face.

Now, do we want these posts? For some of us, they are fine. For the RP mods, they are not.

Before I forget, but still on the subject of roleplaying, this is what i've seen too many people do;

"Nothing man, just watching the Amazing Spiderpony."
(Character Limit: rvdntkghljgolkhiylfdgkhilgfdilfiojgltk)

Yeah, just a heads up, this is BAD. No doing that Character Limit: j5u6jflgkcfjxlifjcglf thing. It's just horrible for me, the mods, and you. And you'll get banned/post deleted/warned for it. Also, it's not in the roleplay section, it's everywhere. And please no doing the invisible character to get out of it. The mods don't sleep. Well, if your out there saying "But I already made my point across. How can I match the character limit?". Well, for example, instead of 'I Like this' say 'I like this because...<Justifacation here>'.

So, how can we make nice detailed posts? Well, here is the exact same 'Short Post Example', except more detailed.

Nacho Cheese walked through the fresh summer park. The breeze was very serene and fresh in the summer breeze. As he was smelling a fresh petunia picked from beneath his favorite old oak tree, he noticed his BFF Gorilla Suit. Nacho Cheese loves conservations, especially ones with Gorilla Suit, so he walked over.

"Whats up Gorilla Suit?" Nacho Cheese asked, a grin that was as big as the Mayors when Winter Wrap Up was done on time.

Yeah people, this is how you do it. Do that. If we all did that, then perhaps we wouldn't get such a massive flood of posts each day.

Alright! Now, about badges. The reason why people are doing this is because of badges. What are badges? Little pieces of pixels splattered at the bottom of your avi. Why do people care so much? because the phoenix badge is bawss Because they are immature. I am not saying that we should get rid of badges, just not make such a big deal out of them. Feld0 privileged us with badges. Let us not get them taken away.

On a similar note, Zoop put these charts on a thread. I thought these were worth enough to put on here...and it's not good. Make the mods lives easiler, and make these charts look better. The Charts are in the spoiler.

Some useful topics you should read;
http://mlpforums.com/topic/26532-7-legit-tips-to-get-you-to-the-100-or-200-character-limit/

A big thanks to Evilshy for showing us how to post like a cool person:

How to Post Like a Cool person:

1. Cool people follow rules and bring up any concerns they have in the feedback section. Stupid people break rules and then bitch about it when they get in trouble.

2. Cool people use proper spelling and grammar. Stupid people do not. This is very simple to understand, and unless English is your second language, you will receive no sympathy from me or other cool people. And even then, this is an English forum, so "I'm bad at English" doesn't automatically mean you can post unreadable stuff.

3. Cool people have thoughts and ideas, which they then form into well structured sentences (and paragraphs, if needed). Stupid people just kinda post whatever the fuck comes to mind and then bitch about it when people misunderstand them, or point out that they aren't making much sense.

4. Cool people follow Xfizzles rules because Xfizzle is a cool person. Stupid people do not follow Xfizzles rules, and only a stupid person would not follow them. I mean, look at the guy. Trust him, he's a Doctor. And he has a pimpin' Fez. Xfizzle gets all the temporally distorted chicks with that Fez.

5. Cool people don't act like this site is their personal forum and bastion of complete freedom. Cool people acknowledge that Feld0 is our Lord and Savior the site owner and it is out of the goodness of his heart that he gives us this much freedom in the first place. Stupid people completely ignore the fact that this site is way better than the majority of other sites and bitch about a decline in their freedom to be stupid.

6. Cool people agree with Evilshy because he is right the vast majority of the time.

6. Cool people acknowledge the difference between facts and opinions. Stupid people see statements of opinion as factual claims and usually feel the need to point out why everybody who disagrees with them is wrong.

6a. Cool people know that even if they post something as their opinion, they should back it up. Stupid people think that the phrase 'in my opinion" is a magical shield that protects them from having to come up with reasons why they have a certain opinion.

7. Cool people are not dicks. Stupid people may or may not be dicks.

So, do us a big favor and be a man/lady and actually make long, nice detailed posts, so we can make the mods life extreamly easier, and not surpass character minimum.

Thank you.

I will add more when I have time, as this is currently a WIP, but other then that, this is all I have to say.

If this is in the wrong section, move it.

Edited August 7, 2012 by Resolution

[Twilight Sky 449]

This should be pinned somewhere and when members join we should reference them here with a link. How does that sound?

[Dragonshy 2,305]

A few things.

 

No I don't see people posting, "Character Limit (wetwgvdsg)". Why? Because the moderators warn them and delete those posts, you even aknowledge it, so why complain?

 

Not all roleplays need to be of higher intellect. If they want to leave a post that gets the point across, then so be it. They already have to meet the character minimum AND it doesn't even go towards their post count.

 

Badges are not pointless and just because someone wants a little prestige doesn't make them immature.

 

So, do us a big favor and be a man/lady and actually make long, nice detailed posts, not surpass character minimum, and rage on people that do?

Don't speak upon us. I will not rage on someone who surpasses the character, I will simply report them.

[Shift 4,272]

@Dragonshy:

 

This post was meant for the newbs, and those who actually surpass the character limit / make short roleplay stuff. It gets on the mods nerves, so I'm telling them to just lighten up a little bit and don't surpass the character limit. It makes the mods job a lot easier. Part of this was a joke, but most of it was serious. The rage part was one of them, it wasn't literal. Because reading a huge wall of text with no humor is boring.

 

I was working on this for a couple of days and i'm currently not done, so this all isn't 100% Accurate.

 

 

About the badges, a lot of people are currently making a lot of posts just to level up, so i'm telling them to just cool down with the posting and that badges aren't everything.

 

About the making roleplays more in quality and detail was because the roleplay posts don't count, and a large part was because of the quick posts. Arlly was already telling us a large amount of the reason she got rid of the post counts on the roleplay section was because of the quick posts. She expected us with more detail, and we didn't give it to her. Just getting the point across.

 

As I said, this is not 100% done, and I'm going to add a lot more and spice this up a bit. No need to go and go all mad on the little things I was going to fix.

[Shankveld 4,950]

I may be more impressed by this thread, if it wasn't the exact same concepts and points (nearly the same wording) used in the threads regarding character limit.

If you see someone trying to bypass the character limit, report it.

~

[Doctor XFizzle 8,669]

Plus I believe you're missing a big point about posting

 

1. Post like The Doctor and you will be cool because The Doctor wears a bow tie and bow ties are cool.

 

To clarify point 1, it means use complete sentences, above average vocabulary, proper sentence structure, and proper punctuation to make your posting experience EASIER. Don't have to write a novel or a post that an English professor would give an A+ to, just post like a semi-intelligent person and you should have little trouble reaching the minimum.

[kirbyboi 588]

I honestly have never seen people on the forums try to make silly posts like that (at least, I myself haven't). But if they are, simplyreport them. If they keep repeating this over and over again, then you need to ask admin. Also, you don't have to force yourself to right super-long essays on here. Just add a bit more detail. Believe me, 100 characters isn't that long.

 

I just try to make my posts as meaningful as possible. I just love talking, so I guess it comes naturally to me. But again, like Resolution said, this is only for the n00bs who don't know anything about proper posting. I'm sure you wouldn't see any of this with our older members.

[Arylett Charnoa 4,919]

Not all roleplays need to be of higher intellect. If they want to leave a post that gets the point across, then so be it. They already have to meet the character minimum AND it doesn't even go towards their post count.

I will quote myself from my most recent announcement:

 

My intention was to improve upon a chaotic system and make it better. To use organization to encourage roleplayers to put more thought and detail. My vision has been sorely derailed, and I am aware that my section is one of the lowest quality sections of these forums. Is it elitist to say so? No. There is a difference from being elitist to having standards. Being an elitist is only allowing a small select group of people to do something, as well as acting like a snob about it. I don't want to be a snob. In fact, I consider my own guidelines rather lenient as it is. It'd be nice if you just even made so much as three or four sentences in most posts, but I wouldn't mind an occasional shorter post. Good spelling/grammar makes it easier to understand. It makes the site look better, it makes more people come, and it creates good and cleaner posts. Some people may not have a preference for that, and if that is not their preference, I respect that. They may find many other types of roleplaying sites or chats (probably the latter) that they may join in if they are not satisfied with what I attempt to provide. (Which isn't me saying: LISTEN TO ARYLETT OR GO THE HELL AWAY I'll listen to suggestions, I did listen to the suggestion to remove RP World post count from several members. If you have a good point for improving RP World, I won't just reject it. But that's neither here nor there.)

 

Basically: Most of the people who post in there post spammish content. Not every roleplay has to be high intellect, no. But when very few roleplays are decent enough to warrant at least a semi-thoughtful response, something is very wrong. MLP Forums as a whole have an entire rule about making quality posts. Let me show you:

 

Make quality posts. Posts - and threads - that lack content are not allowed and may be deleted without notice. Repeatedly creating posts and/or threads that are off-topic, spammy, or otherwise pointless will result in your posting capabilities becoming restricted.

This currently describes most of RP World. We'd basically have to delete an entire sub-section to conform to the rules of MLP Forums.

 

So no, it is not just because it is what I want. It is also what Feld0 (who, mind you, is the owner of the site and decides all that goes on), and several other decent roleplayers want. They've actually left my section because of how low-quality it has become. It's chasing people away.

 

 

On-topic: Good idea, Resolution! I'm glad to see members who are concerned with this and are giving advice to other members.

[Evilshy 5,090]

How to Post Like a Cool person:

 

1. Cool people follow rules and bring up any concerns they have in the feedback section. Stupid people break rules and then bitch about it when they get in trouble.

 

2. Cool people use proper spelling and grammar. Stupid people do not. This is very simple to understand, and unless English is your second language, you will receive no sympathy from me or other cool people. And even then, this is an English forum, so "I'm bad at English" doesn't automatically mean you can post unreadable stuff.

 

3. Cool people have thoughts and ideas, which they then form into well structured sentences (and paragraphs, if needed). Stupid people just kinda post whatever the fuck comes to mind and then bitch about it when people misunderstand them, or point out that they aren't making much sense.

 

4. Cool people follow Xfizzles rules because Xfizzle is a cool person. Stupid people do not follow Xfizzles rules, and only a stupid person would not follow them. I mean, look at the guy. Trust him, he's a Doctor. And he has a pimpin' Fez. Xfizzle gets all the temporally distorted chicks with that Fez.

 

5. Cool people don't act like this site is their personal forum and bastion of complete freedom. Cool people acknowledge that Feld0 is our Lord and Savior the site owner and it is out of the goodness of his heart that he gives us this much freedom in the first place. Stupid people completely ignore the fact that this site is way better than the majority of other sites and bitch about a decline in their freedom to be stupid.

 

6. Cool people agree with Evilshy because he is right the vast majority of the time.

 

6. Cool people acknowledge the difference between facts and opinions. Stupid people see statements of opinion as factual claims and usually feel the need to point out why everybody who disagrees with them is wrong.

 

6a. Cool people know that even if they post something as their opinion, they should back it up. Stupid people think that the phrase 'in my opinion" is a magical shield that protects them from having to come up with reasons why they have a certain opinion.

 

7. Cool people are not dicks. Stupid people may or may not be dicks.

[Shift 4,272]

^ Putting that in OP. Like right Now. That is simply, absolutely, undoubtedly, undeniably genius, no matter whatever angle your looking at it from.

[NavelColt 22,882]

Amazing post

 

Hmmm, I dunno, one of these days Shankveld (and maybe Fizzle, who knows) and this one right here may have to have a fight to the death for who kicks more ass. Just saying.

 

I agree with all the points made in response to this post, but I also want to be cliche and say thanks for taking the time to make a guide in general, Resolution. It's always great to see regular users contributing to the site's references, because it helps in that relationship staff have with members, and also gives the site a library of information, past what the actual staff members create.