Fwurg

[Veolian Commonwealth]

We should really agree on some convention with regard to post formatting. I've seen every (and I'm guilty of most) combination of italics and normal text for both actions and speech.

I'm not opposed to creativity, but I propose that we agree on some convention. It is not a bad thing to have some uniformity in the format we use, mainly to ensure that things do not become to confusing for new players.

So here goes my poke at writing down the unwritten conventions we sort-of used:

• Up till now there was some agreement that speech and related acts go as follows: "Hello", she started," how are you doing?"
• And that actual actions with some degree of importance work like this: She picked up her lightsaber just in time.
  These actions might followed by a ((OOC: Force Level + Attribute + Skill + optional relevant circumstance claims)), or other ooc comment either directly after the action, or at the end of the post.
• And of course we all know holo communication: I'm speaking to you through the holonet. All other forms of formatting (i.e., actions, "speech" and normal actions) are used inside a holo communication as well.

To clarify the conventions to new (and veteran) players we should really have a short page/sticky topic (in General Discussion or Game Questions?) that outlines the current convention.

But, before we make the convention sticky, we need to agree on it. What do you people think?

[Stuiter]

On other boards rules can be different like to use color for speach.
So I agree with these general rules.

[Sundarian Federation]

I can agree with the predefined convention mentioned earlier.

[Praetorian Empire]

agreed, lets make these conventions official.

[Mercury]

I think these conventions are a good thing. I will make a proper sticky post of it this weekend (or if someone else wishes to write up a full thingy, I'll put it up as sticky)

[Veolian Commonwealth]

You (admin) write it!

But seriously, I've tried, I couldn't write it compact and nice while keeping it clear. Just write it, and anything that's unclear will be pointed out in this thread! So you can just edit the other thread with impunity.

[Brend]

A second try be me.

Since communication through a text medium is not as easy as direct communication, we have some conventions on how to post on the IC boards. Please read these posting convention before posting on the IC boards.


Speaking
Speech and related acts go as follows: "Hello", she started, "how are you doing?"

You can easily hold longer monologues, or explanation, just open a quote, and close once you stop speaking.


Relevant actions
Actual actions with some degree of importance work like this: She picked up her lightsaber just in time.

These actions might be followed by a ((OOC: Force Level + Attribute + Skill + optional relevant circumstance claims)), or other ooc comment either directly after the action, or at the end of the post. This makes it an even stronger indication to the story teller that you want some feedback on your action.

You can add an OOC (out of character) block with the 'ooc' button above the text area.

Holo communication
We don't use text colouring, unless it has a specific meaning. One of these meanings is communication through holonet or other forms of remote communication.

For example: Some posturing before we start speaking: "I'm speaking to you through the holonet".

All other forms of formatting (i.e., actions and "speech") are used inside a holo communication as well.

Take care to make sure that the actions you describe can be perceived at the other end of the line, of you have a sound-only channel, the other side will probably miss your impressive posturing.

You can add holo text with the 'holo button above the text area.

Spell checking and paragraphs
Needless to mention, use a spelling checker.

Before posting, reread your post to catch small errors (like using 'i' instead of 'I'), and read difficult parts aloud to see if the flow feels all-right.

Don't hesitate to add some empty lines to make the post flow better.

It's up to admin to make take the embedded post and make it sticky all-over. And, everyone, please do comment or update as you see fit in this thread.

[Mercury]

I completely lost track of this, thank you for diving into it.

I've made a few edits:

• Removed the 'please read' message - if you are reading the message you are reading it
• Made quotes of the examples
• Changed some of the examples to recognisable Star Wars quotes
• Removed the spell-checker comment - I don't think we need a guideline for that.

What do you think?

Since communication through a text medium is not as easy as direct communication, we have some conventions on how to post on the IC boards.

Basic speaking and describing
We use the 'book style' for basic speech and descriptions. For example:

"No..." he stated, breathing heavily "I am your father!"

You can easily hold longer monologues, or explanations: just open a quote, and close once you stop speaking. To put emphasis on a spoken word, you can use underlining.

Relevant actions
Combat Actions, and acts which similarly may have a large impact can be marked as important using italics, like this:

She picked up her lightsaber just in time.

These actions might be followed by a ((OOC: Force Level + Attribute + Skill + optional relevant circumstance claims)), or other ooc comment either directly after the action, or at the end of the post. This makes it an even stronger indication to the storyteller that you want some feedback on your action.

You can add an OOC (out of character) block with the 'ooc' button above the text area.

Holo communication
We don't use text colouring, unless it has a specific meaning. One of these meanings is communication through holonet or other forms of remote communication. All other forms of formatting (i.e., actions and "speech") are used inside a holo communication as well. For example:

The cloaked figure looked up at the Viceroy "I will make it legal.".

Take care to make sure that the actions you describe can be perceived at the other end of the line, of you have a sound-only channel, the other side will probably miss your impressive posturing.

You can add holo text with the holo button above the text area.

Readability
To maximize the ease of reading, try not to make paragraphs too big - this avoids a "wall of text" which people find difficult to read. Don't hesitate to add some empty lines to make the post flow better.

[Brend]

As always, any comments is greatly appreciated.

I would not use the underlining for emphasis, those should be reserved for links and/or headings. Let's use bold for what it's meant. We could also use italics if the 'boldness' of bold is not deemed strong enough, but personally I prefer the subtle bold -- it's just enough to emphasize the word, without turning into a text decoration circus.

i.e.:

To put emphasis on a spoken word, you can use bold.

and

The cloaked figure looked up at the Viceroy "I will make it legal.".

[Mercury]

Bold works for me - so long as there is a means to note it.

[Brend]

I completely lost track of this, thank you for diving into it.

We all tend to do this -- the forum is very active, and posts just float down the board.

So, I bump this because I'm seeing some good RP from new players; they should have the benefit of a good posting guide. (Note to self: we might look into making the same speech syntax available on the wiki, so we can write a guide over there?)

Changes from previews version:

• Changed the emphasis text to italics again, experience dictates that this works better than bold.
• Added mental communication is done with "this color" (fixme: needs a telepathic button and styling)
• Added private threads: format topic as "To X: Subject" or "Subject <private>" and add OOC to give list of invited parties
• Use of icons, no plural-s behind an icon; zones are (:icon)-zone (i.e. -zone)

Since communication through a text medium is not as easy as direct communication, we have some conventions on how to post on the IC boards.

Basic speaking and describing
We use the 'book style' for basic speech and descriptions. For example:

"No..." he stated, breathing heavily "I am your father!"

You can easily hold longer monologues, or explanations: just open a quote, and close once you stop speaking. To put emphasis on a spoken word, you can use italics.

Relevant actions
Combat Actions, and acts which similarly may have a large impact can be marked as important using italics, like this:

She picked up her lightsaber just in time.

These actions might be followed by a ((OOC: Force Level + Attribute + Skill + optional relevant circumstance claims)), or other ooc comment either directly after the action, or at the end of the post. This makes it an even stronger indication to the storyteller that you want some feedback on your action.

You can add an OOC (out of character) block with the 'ooc' button above the text area.

Holo communication
We don't use text colouring, unless it has a specific meaning. One of these meanings is communication through holonet or other forms of remote communication. All other forms of formatting (i.e., actions and "speech") are used inside a holo communication as well. For example:

The cloaked figure looked up at the Viceroy "I will make it legal.".

Take care to make sure that the actions you describe can be perceived at the other end of the line, of you have a sound-only channel, the other side will probably miss your impressive posturing.

You can add holo text with the 'holo' button above the text area.

Telepathic communication
Another use of text colouring is telepathic communication. Telepathic communication isn't extremely common, but some jedi specialize in mental disciplines.

She concentrated for a moment and reach out to him: "There are two troopers directly above you!"

Keep in mind the limitations of the form of telepathy you use. Most forms are limited to short messages, while other forms allow for longer discussions, or even the sharing of images.

You can add telepathic text with the 'telepathic' button above the text area.

Readability
To maximize the ease of reading, try not to make paragraphs too big - this avoids a "wall of text" which people find difficult to read. Don't hesitate to add some empty lines to make the post flow better.

Icons
To help reading the forums we have a lot of icons with specific meanings. If you hold your mouse over an icon, a small tooltip will show you the meaning of the icon.

Because the icons are symbols, you can use them both as singular and plurals:

"Good friend, a price of 800 over the next 10 is most agreeable. Please start you delivery in 42."

When talking about zones you can add a '-zone' to distinguish the zone from the product it produces:

"I don't think building yet another -zone is the solution; we should look into starting a corporation."

All of these icons can be added from the Smilies list to the right of the text area.

Private Threads and Private Communique's

There are two ways to mark your communication as private.

The first way is used when you want to communicate with a single other party. This is useful if you want to propose a trade deal or other form of partnership. To indicate this to other players, use a topic with the following format "To {name}: {subject}". You should, of course, replace {name} with the name of your intended recipient and {subject} with the subject of the message. For example:

To Bisidn embassy: Trade Fleet expansion

The second way is used if you want to invite a group into a private conversation. Use a topic like: "{subject} <private>", and place an OOC remark at the top of the first post with a list of invited parties.

For example a topic of:

Summit of civilized and cultured writing <private>

With a post containing:

((OOC: This thread is private to: the Veolian Commonwealth, The Praetorian Empire and the Corporation for Intergalactic Exploration of Xi))

I'm not sure whether the posting convention is the best place to mention the "No signature on IC accounts" thing. I think this should be listed somewhere, as IC signatures seriously break up the flow of text in the forums -- anyone has an idea on this?

[Azuma]

I'm also missing details on how to format internal monologue or people talking to themselves. I don't know about you all, but I tend to use it quite often to show posture and facial expression by lack of imagery and to add a bit more flavour to my posts. I don't want people to confuse this with my characters actually saying something. Of course I could add '[character name] thought to him/herself' to every bit, but to be honest, I think it's ugly, especially since I tend to use it a lot...

From other forums, I am used to single-quote italic like this:
'Why is that bastard taking so long to finish his speech?'

However, I can imagine that this will be confusing with the current way italic is used. Does enyone have a better idea for this?

[Mercury]

What is currently often done is that the text that is internal monologue is not quoted at all. If it is in with descriptive text in that way, it probably isn't too confusing. I'm open to suggestions and curious to hear what people think of the italics option.

[Brend]

We could also use a more exotic quoting style, to make it exceedingly clear that it is an internal monologue. (problem with this is the annoyingness of typing them)

«Something like this would do well...»

I've also seen a lot of texts where asterisks were used for such purpose.

*Something like this*

But I think that it can just be worked into the normal text without much required quotation.

[Elmer]

<<something like this would work I guess>> Elmer said to himself.
'But then again, why not just post that he was only thinking?' Then he made up his mind and talked to the others: "I think that single quotes works pretty well. The most important thing is to simply write down your character is thinking, not talking. Then everything would be quite clear."

As I said in my example, I like single quotes, and players just should write down they are thinking, just like in normal book style.

[Azuma]

"The most important thing is to simply write down your character is thinking, not talking. Then everything would be quite clear."

Perhaps, but I tend to use it a lot-ish. Just like I don' t want to keep on repeating 'said [character]' after every spoken sentence, I'd rather not add 'thought [character]' to every thought in my post, though usually I am able to make it clear enough that it is a thought without having to add that...

Still I' m wondering what's more confusing, having thoughts look too much like normal speech 'like this' vs. "like this", or have it look too much like an important action 'like this' vs. like this... Any thoughts?

[Brend]

Still I' m wondering what's more confusing, having thoughts look too much like normal speech 'like this' vs. "like this", or have it look too much like an important action 'like this' vs. like this... Any thoughts?

I find them both confusing, to be honest. But I think I am more confused by the 'like this' vs. like this. Tis is because the single quotes are easy to pass over while reading because the italics requires just a little more effort to read.

I think that if you don't add "[character reference] thought" or something along those lines, the post will be difficult to read in either case. For example (a contrived one):

'Ugh, he is so slow. Why won't he just use the damn jetpack.'

"Come on you can do it, you have to climb a little farther!"

If there is a third character standing nearby, that is very easily interpreted as two uttered phrases. The first directed at the third character on top of the cliff, who is standing next to the character for which you write. The second phrase is directed at the climbing guy.

That being said, I have to agree with Mercury:

What is currently often done is that the text that is internal monologue is not quoted at all. If it is in with descriptive text in that way, it probably isn't too confusing.

I think we should reserve the italics for emphasis and actions, and use context to indicate internal monologue. I do think that single quotes might best be used if the internal monologue is embedded in a context that makes it clear it is internal monologue.

A "she thought", "she mused" or "she realized" once in a while couldn't hurt, as it serves to draw attention to the fact that it is internal monologue. Just like you can describe a facial expression, or a sigh of exasperation, so to can you describe that something is internal monologue without only using the "she thought" suffix.