Here are listed some rules which we can modify as time goes on and different situations develop. They were devised in order to avoid strange outcomes like two people posting the same part of a story simultaneously, people waiting forever to hear the continuation of a story, stories running off the board before people can read them, etc. The basic idea is to keep the message board a place where it is easy to read things and enjoy them and avoid confusion.
Check this out for an example of how a story might look when posted to the board:
1. ONCE TO A STORY: Although it's tempting to want to
jump into a story and envision the outcome and go crazy with the whole concept
and just take it over, that's not fair to everyone else, because this is
an interactive story board. And please take G as a gift. There are a lot
of places around where you can post your own complete story, but the idea
of this board is for people to share a story, and for everyone to have fun
contributing. It think it becomes a psychic closeness to the one person
who posted the last part, but with everyone watching, and that's cool.
2. RESERVATIONS: It can take a while to write a
story, and it could be very frustrating to spend that time writing, only
to discover that someone else was quicker and has posted the next part of
the story already. This isn't a race, fersure. I'd rather see stories that
are good and evolve slowly as opposed to stories that come fast, but are
poorly written. Relax & enjoy the sensations of writing, and make a
reservation for your *special* part. CAUTION: Once you reserve your
place, please try to finish your part of the story within 48 HOURS.
If you are running into a problem and need a little bit more time, you can
email me, and I'm sure we can work it out. If you see that someone has reserved
the next part of a story and the 48 hour limit is up, please don't jump
in and post. Let me decide what to do if the 48 hour limit is up, OK? Play
by the rules, or live by the consequences. :)
3. COMMENTS: Comments are
welcome. Post them in a reply to the part of the story that you wish to
comment about. If you want to comment on the first part of the story, put
the word: "COMMENT" in the subject line please, so that people
don't think that you have posted the next part of the story. Experienced
writers are also experienced with receiving negative criticism, and there's
nothing wrong with that in principle, but please be constructive and polite!
An example of what not to say: "Your story really sucks, and so do you. Why don't you go back to grammar school, you moron!"
An example of total diplomacy: "Thanks for the contribution, but in my humble opinion, your story lacked certain qualities that I believe are important, namely ... I might also respectfully suggest that you use a spelling checker when you post a story next time. Just my 2 cents. Thanks, and that means with a capital T.
4. LENGTH OF A PART: Boardhost has a limit on how long a post
can be. See below. It would be *really nice* if each story part fit
into only one post, so we wouldn't have to worry about parts of parts. That
gets really complicated for a simple message board format to handle, I think.Here's
what happens if you post something too long:
The message you are attempting to post is too large. Messages are limited to 10,000 characters (about 2,000 words). You may return to the form and make modifications to your message by pressing the "Back" button on your browser.
I personally recommend that if you are using a word processor, just find the tool that does a word count and check as you write. 10,000 characters or 2,000 is actually a lot, but I have hit that limit before, and so may you. I guess we can work out things that are longer than one post will allow, but I'd rather not make a habit out of it.Smoking is enough of a habit already. *giggle*
5. LENGTH OF A STORY: Boardhost allows 300 messages
on a page. Below, I'll choose 10 stories as the limit, and that means if
there were a maximum of 10 parts to a story, it would make 100 messages,
allowing plenty of room for comments and also for completed stories to hang
around for a while before they scroll off. On the other hand, One's lonely,
two's company, three's a crowd, four's a clique, and five's a party! So
let's use a minimum of 5 parts to a story. But if it goes too long,
people may nod off, no matter how exciting it might be.
6. NUMBER OF STORIES: If there
are 10 stories in progress, please don't start a new one. It can
get exhausting to keep track of many stories at once unless you have lots
of time. Maybe you have that much time, but I don't. I need to save a lot
of time for researching all of the other pleasures which the smoking fetish
has to offer...
Check this out for an example of how a story might look when posted to the board:
