⋮ No. 6052 ► 
Since there seems to have been an influx of newcomers lately, and their actions and behaviour has started to grate on the regular visitors of this site, once again Anon has risen in /blue/.
So, in order to help inform the newcomers of present and future, this thread will be a place for general board etiquette and other miscellaneous information to help the population as a whole. I apologize if there's any seemingly 'important' information I leave out at first, since I'm typing this off the top of my head.
Important Information
1) Emoticons are discouraged. Be they :(, or >.>, or ^_^, or even the dreaded xD, they are not required, and you will only be scorned and mocked for using them. You are able to post without them (I should hope), so if you absolutely must convey your emotional state, do so with words.
2) This is an imageboard for voting on, discussing and chatting about Touhou and Touhou fanfiction. *Actions* are not required, and are looked down upon. The only implied actions occurring in imageboard posts should be limited solely to story narrative and other creative writing ventures. Like emoticons, you will be mocked.
3) Posts made in the story boards, and in story threads, should try to stay on topic. Discussion related to events of the story are fine, and chatter about various other facets of related material to the story is acceptable as per author's judgment. Prolonged shitstorms over things not related to the story at all are naturally not acceptable, and will result in post deletions at best, and temp bans at worst. No one wants to see posts between two or more anons bitching at each other over nothing.
3a) Sometimes, arguments over various actions within the story context can spark up due to conflicts in personal interests and how votes made to cater to a particular taste might oppose others. While they can be unavoidable, it's preferred to keep them at a minimum. Everyone has their own tastes, and surely they can clash at times when opposing groups have two differing views on what should happen, and these prolonged arguments can derail threads, and even cause the writers to lose interest in the story in lieu of wanting to avoid more 'fan-faction' in-fighting.
4) Errant meme-spewing is discouraged. Invoking a meme can be humourous if done or timed well, but overuse of them gets tired and contributes little. You will very likely get called out if you post almost exclusively in memes, or use them at any opportunity. Needless to say, a story overloaded with memes will not likely last to autosage.
5) 'Namefagging' is preferably avoided if you're not a writer or otherwise contribute to the site in some kind of meaningful way. While this is slightly less important of a guideline than the others, using a name when you're not a writer will just call that much more attention to you and make you more of a target for harassment.
Getting Along
1) Spelling and grammar are both held in fairly high regard, and English is more or less the standard language of the site. Now understandably, there might be some users to whom English is a second, or even third language, so in such cases it's understandable that they might make some mistakes with the language and grammar. However, if English is your primary language, there is no excuse aside from laziness. You are likely not in any particular rush while posting, so take your time and make sure your posts are written correctly. Bad grammar, poor spelling, shorthand and other lazy typing will just get you mocked more often than not. It goes without saying as well that if you are an aspiring writer and you suffer these problems, you should probably reconsider your typing habits first before starting.
2) Do not needlessly pick 'fights' with other users over nothing. This kind of pointless antagonism will just start shitstorms and gets on people's nerves. The site is at it's best when everyone gets along, and if everyone follows the guidelines presented here, that will be a good step in the right direction.
For Newcoming Writers
There is a rather set standard of quality on this site, and the user base does a fairly good job of self-moderating stories that come along. While I can't currently give a definite list of tips to ensure your story is of quality, no doubt remains that the regulars will point out 'bad writers' when they appear. If you get a lot of negative comments on your story, it's best to take them to heart and attempt to improve. Disregarding these comments will just make things worse in the long run, while taking heed and working to improve will only serve to help you and the site grow.
On reporting
To be noted, reporting posts for frivolous reasons can lead to bans. It's best to report posts that can be seen as excessive breaches of the guidelines above, or other rules of the site. If possible, try to consider the context of a given post before reporting it, it could just be that you are misinterpreting what they're saying. As well, it's best to report posts that occur from now on, rather than backtracking to older posts and tagging them. Any course of action made from moderating potentially problematic posts is best made after a relatively new post, where it has more chance of being remembered by the poster. As well, only report a post if you suspect it to be from the same person that continues to ignore the advice of this thread. The best course of action to deal with someone is to courteously link them to this thread, and if they insist on continuing with how they were, report only one of their posts. This would avoid a potentially large amount of reports for one person that would all likely be seen anyway, and reduces clutter.
Try to avoid reporting one off posts of bad grammar, poor spelling, etc. Everyone has some bad posts now and again. If there are a number of poorly written posts in a thread though, that would be fine.
So far, this is a general set of guidelines, important information and what could be considered 'unwritten rules' of the site that will help newcomers avoid getting singled out and drawing ire for any unwelcome behavioural tendencies. The faithful regulars of this site hold themselves to a standard of quality, and those that fall outside of it are sure to be let known about their sexual preferences by those that take issue with their behaviour. For the enjoyment of all visitors, these guidelines can be your best bet to a peaceful, harmonious site.
If you absolutely cannot help yourself when it comes to how you act and type, for whatever reason, then it's likely for the best to stick solely to voting on stories and keeping silent otherwise. It'd be in your best interest to avoid the complaints and moderation you'd get for disregarding the behavioural standards and making a scene be refusing to adhere to the guidelines. While you won't be banned for a single breach of the guidelines, continuous and blatant disregard for the standard will lead to moderation.
Somehow I expect this to backfire on me now.
⋮ No. 6056 > 3) Posts made in the story boards, and in story threads, should try to stay on topic. Discussion related to events of the story are fine, and chatter about various other facets of related material to the story is acceptable as per author's judgment. Prolonged shitstorms over things not related to the story at all are naturally not acceptable, and will result in post deletions at best, and temp bans at worst. No one wants to see posts between two or more anons bitching at each other over nothing.
> 3a) Sometimes, arguments over various actions within the story context can spark up due to conflicts in personal interests and how votes made to cater to a particular taste might oppose others. While they can be unavoidable, it's preferred to keep them at a minimum. Everyone has their own tastes, and surely they can clash at times when opposing groups have two differing views on what should happen, and these prolonged arguments can derail threads, and even cause the writers to lose interest in the story in lieu of wanting to avoid more 'fan-faction' in-fighting.
Where were these when Gensokyo High was running?
⋮ No. 6062 >>6061 They're largely meant to keep down on shitposting and extended conversations about unrelated subjects that would be better off in the discussion/rage boards and not clogging up a story thread. I know I've heard complaints in the past about wanting to diminish the amount of off-topic posts and other protracted arguments as useless, under the logic that threads aren't a limited resource. While that's true, reader and writer patience for the posts is quite finite.
3a is a bit of a tricky one though, since it requires judgment to be made where to draw the line at. I would imagine that the unease of it comes from the supposition that it's meant to cut down any kind of vocal support for a certain story path/character/etc. This is not the case, it's perfectly acceptable to voice opinions on which direction to take a story, but when there are two sides that want their personal tastes to win so much that they votespam and cause arguments over trying to force their preferences, to the point it derails threads, that's when there's a definite problem. The idea is that with the warning that getting to such a point is unacceptable, people would hopefully restrain themselves. Unfortunately, I can only really foresee this as a method of preventing lengthy shitstorms, but it would probably not stop people from defending opposing sentiments on story progress.
It's a touchy subject to be sure, as a true solution to the threat of story deadlock between two equal strength fan-factions cannot be moderated as disruptive until it gets far out of control, and other than asking a compromise between the sides, it relies on writer judgment and the readers themselves.
I hope this clarifies it a bit.
⋮ No. 6070 >>6062 was 3a made with GH in mind? As that has fighting between two rather roughly equal fan factions, other the 2nd varies depending on who has the best chance of defeating the first. Looking at how that played out proves pretty
entertaining.
I have a question: can we report people who jump into the middle of the story and try to basically force their goals onto everyone else?
⋮ No. 6086 >>6085 Mmm... I saw moderators leaving the website during shitstorms like this one.
Compared to them, Mode is quite the perfect and elegant
maid mod.
⋮ No. 6094 >>6093 Because, for the most part, the community is made up of old/current /jp/ users, with an increasing number of pooshlmer users, and both are places where sage is used. Therefore, you're considered retarded if it's usage escapes you. I suppose if you're from a regular forum, it would seem confusing.
Of course, if the person is question had
lurked more he would have seen that the thread was a couple pages back and not done what was essentially necroposting, and hell, maybe even learned what sage was without being snapped at, but it seems that's a bit too much to hope for.
⋮ No. 6100 >>6095 Fact of the matter is that the majority of people that find this place are more or less aware of even the basic features of imageboards. I know more people that at least know the basics of imageboards that don't, and frankly, if you don't already know the basic commands, you're either new to the internet in general, or you've been extremely limited in your browsing and rarely venture outside of a handful of sites.
Given the nature of the story boards as well, it's not really a stretch to assume that the active, live stories are going to be in the first two pages. I don't think there's enough active stories on any board that you'll need more than the first two pages to know what's still alive. Threads over 250 posts are past autosage and no longer bump, so they're 'dead'. Anything else that's on a higher page number is dead, with probably very few exceptions.
As for this thread not getting too much exposure, that's why for the meantime users should try to spread it's existence and bring it up when they see others acting outside of these. I keep forgetting to try to get one of the admins to link this in the blotter or something. Worse comes to worse, I could probably post a sticky linking here at the top of each board if it's absolutely necessary.
⋮ No. 6117 >>6114 Not sure if troll, but this needs to be added to the thread anyway, so hey.
Typing "sage" in the e-mail field of a post (without the quotes) prevents the thread from being bumped to the top of the board like it would be for a normal post. On most imageboards, it is considered polite to sage your post if its contents don't relate to the topic of the thread at large, so as to make it easier for people to ignore inactive or derailed threads.
On THP, this means that any post that is not either an update, a vote, or discussion directly related to the story should be saged. This is especially important when posting in threads belonging to completed or dead stories.
⋮ No. 6119 >>6118 It's typically expected that if you're here, you probably already know how to use sage and even basic imageboard features.
To be frank, the majority of the Touhou fanbase that would likely fit in well here already knows how to use an imageboard at even the basic level. Those that don't already know how are either new to the internet in general, or probably not people that should be here.
I'm thinking maybe I should remake this thread, update the guidelines with the info on name usage, and apparently the use of sage, so that it's all in one post. I suppose this should be considered a request for any other details that could be necessary information.
⋮ No. 6120 >>6119 I'll be frank.
Except for some lurk on 4chan, I never used any imageboard before.
I discovered Touhou thanks to the wiki, and thanks to some forum. I know it's basic knowledge to the average touhoufag, but there are exception.
⋮ No. 6123 >>6122 I thought you were just using that thread as an example, but then I saw it near the top of /sdm/.
I know all the necroposting bitching is more than old by now, but
really? The last post in that thread was over a year ago. How dumb can you get?
⋮ No. 6215 >>6213 >Are there any imageboards features other than sage I should be aware of? noko is the only one I can think of. BBcode exists here as well; read the FAQ.
>And lastly, I’ve been wondering if there is any motivation behind rules 1 and 2? It's essentially profiling. Posters that use *actions*, emoticons, and the like are simply more likely to be shit-tier posters. If you take a moron and force him to use proper capitalization, no emoticons, no actions, no random japanese words, and whatever else, he won't automatically become a good poster but his posts will at least become more bearable to read. And if he chooses to not follow the conventions then it's obvious he has no place here, making him an easy scapegoat.
>On the subject of random Japanese words; what about Japanese words that can't translate into the English language? Words that cannot be translated effectively from Japanese to English can very well be left in Japanese, so long as it is expected that the audience knows the meaning of the Japanese.
However that is a rule for
translations, and very few translations are actually done on this site. While it is perfectly reasonable for Marisa to call Reimu "Reimu-chan" in a doujin, it is not reasonable for you to write "Reimu-chan" in a story simply because neither the writer nor the audience is Japanese (probably). There is no risk of subtle meaning being lost in translation when no translation is occuring.
>Also, using this ಠ_ಠ smiley doesn’t seem to be looked down upon. Is this true? And if so, just out of curiosity, why is it fine using this particular smiley? These guidelines are simply guidelines and not absolutely enforced rules. The guidelines should only be strictly followed until one has spent enough time on the board to actually learn the etiquette to follow, rather than following the crash course. Sage is a good example of this; it is frequently stated that every post should be a sage if it is not a writer giving an update. This is certainly not true, but it is a good guideline to follow until you learn to not fucking bump year old stories.
For example, if someone posts "lol Reimu was so mean to poor cirno in that last update :(", they'd be a fucktard unnecessarily using emoticons and will probably get called out for it. However if someone else posts "Isn't is sad, Sacchin ;_;", then that's perfectly acceptable (more or less). Why? What's the difference? Well, you just need to lurk for a long time until you pick up on what that meme is and where it came from (e.g. forever, because it originates from 4chan and honestly isn't used that often here)
⋮ No. 6217 >>6215 That makes sense.
Thank you, Anon. I’ve been enlightened.
Also, forgive my ignorance, but what are those random characters that can be seen besides the name of the writers?
If I suddenly decided to write a story, do I have to get one of those? And if so, how do I do it?
⋮ No. 6218 >>6217 Those are tripcodes. Come to think of it, you probably want to read the 4chan FAQ (
http://www.4chan.org/faq) if you're completely new to imageboards at large.
And
>>6215 beat me in responding to
>>6213, but in the spirit of the Christmas season, I still feel compelled to post this story of Old Testament tribes killing each other which illustrates the role of smileys on THP:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibboleth ⋮ No. 6243 >>6215 Another important thing:
This whole website isn't like /b/, but Anon still can be an ass sometimes. Don't take Anon's words too seriously.
Basically, you should be able to tell if Anon try to annoy you, or if he's giving you constructive criticism.
(Tip: if there's any valid point, it's constructive. Otherwise, be careful!)
For example, if Anon says:
"This story is shitty!!1!"
Don't take that too seriously, it MAY be a troll.
But if Anon says:
"This story is shitty, the characters are flat and there's no plot !!1!"
Then you should ask yourself if he's right.
⋮ No. 6244 >>6243 Comparing absolutely
anyone on this site to /b/ is a massive insult and you should feel bad for it. Even Random Anon, though thoroughly retarded, isn't that bad.
It may be blind optimism on my part, but I earnestly don't believe we have any real trolls on this site. Everyone genuinely posts what they believe, and if it comes across as trolling, than that is merely a failure on their part to effectively communicate what they are thinking.
⋮ No. 6246 >>6245 Re-read what I wrote.
I specifically said comparing
anyone on the site to an average /b/ user is an insult beyond ken. Even our worst posters aren't as bad as the average /b/tard.
>people who act like dicks Get over it. Even the most berating and mean-spirited post is worth listening to if it has intelligent points.
⋮ No. 7038 >>7029 Yeah, the problem's more that most people never finish one story.
I got advice: if you want to do a story, don't worry about the concept's popularity or approval too much - just focus on never giving up on it. Whatever story you want to write should be something you really,
really like that you're also fine with doing for a potentially indefinite amount of time. Otherwise, if some other idea comes your way that you like more, you might work on that instead and never finish either. People can accept a cliche premise, especially if it's done well; it's not finishing that grinds their gears.
⋮ No. 7127 >>7111 People probably do it because of what
>>7112 said: it's not like anybody here does anything that's not CYOA. If they wanted to do a regular story, they'd probably start on FF.net or something like that.
>>7112 ...Wait, was your post supposed to be ironic?
⋮ No. 7141 >>7112 Hey, man, I started with short stories and stayed with them for some time. I guess I'm an exception, but I always thought the biggest draw of Touhou was seeing people's own idea of these characters. People everywhere have their very own Gensokyo, and sharing them with each other - through shorts
or longer stories - not only allows Gensokyo and these characters to expand, making every look draw memories from not just the one story but the
hundreds, but it gives a look into your mind, which can be a really personal thing hidden under layers of fantasy.
This may not have been the best place to write a bunch of shorts, and now that I'm balls-deep in it I must admit writing a CYOA is wicked fun, but had I started with CFA there's no way I would have been able to explore and imagine my own Gensokyo as well as I have. I feel like starting with shorts let me contribute so much more to all of that, and I'm glad that I did.
I'm sure there's a point in there if you look.
⋮ No. 7757 >>7756 Well, people won't particularly mind if you just fire it off. Whether you get a response kinds of depends on people's moods and who's there, but almost any time you'll at least be able to find a good number of authors hanging out. Of course, lots of them (myself included) choose names that are different from their trip, but most are given half-ops and marked with a %. If you want to talk to someone specific, we don't really hide our identities or anything, so you can ask.
Gotta warn you, though. First off, not everyone there is known for their mercy. If you're not up to par, you can expect to get chewed up. other than that, the room gets
stupid sometimes. Like, "Just close the window and save yourself the trouble" stupid. Don't let these scare you away, it's a nice place all in all. Just try to stay loose and have fun while you're there.
⋮ No. 7979 >>7978 Use some damn common sense.
For example,
If I reported you because you made a dumb post, that would be frivolous.
If I reported you because you were shitting up a thread, that would not be frivolous.
If you were a bot posting spam links, posting CP, or posting untagged NSFW anywhere other than /at/, that would not be frivolous.
⋮ No. 8175 >>8058 >>8059 The US standard is month-day-year. Numeric day-month-year is unknown, and essentially unused.
The European standard is day-month-year. Month-day-year is known, but largely only because of Americans.
The
Asian standard is year-month-day. Year-month-day is also ISO 8601, and relatedly is common among programmers, as it makes lexicographical sorting equivalent to sorting by date.
On the other hand, dropping the first two digits of the year is nowhere standard, and invites confusion, as there is no cue to distinguish which the above three formats that, e.g., "10/11/09" is in.
⋮ No. 10016 >>10015 Nevermind, I just found out the solution to that.
Download that Firefox add-on that lets you monitor webpages for updates. It can check every 5 minutes so it's quite convenient.
Ah, Firefox and its addons. What would I do without you?
⋮ No. 10067 >>10018 One more thing. That program has a tendency to check for your cache instead of the real, updated page.
So, make sure to set your browser to check for a newer version of a webpage every time you visit it. This is very important, especially for Firefox users since the default is to reload from the cache instead of checking for the newer version. The program won't work exactly how you want it to with that setting.
I'll just give a link for the explanation.
http://www.imasuper.com/53/technology/firefox-caching-get-latest-page-every-time/ Just found out about this myself. Fixes the problem of pages updating without being picked up by the scanner.
⋮ No. 12981 >>12979 In what sense? A little context would be helpful.
Also, you probably would have been better off asking at
>>/blue/18124, General Discussion isn't the most active of boards and most people wouldn't notice that someone had bumped a pinned thread unless they're watching the home page at the right time, as people tend to subconsciously ignore them after a long enough period.
