FAQLET: How to post a FANFIC
The object of this FAQ is to provide the reader with sufficent
information to post his/her own fanfic.
1.0 USENET
1.1 What is a news group?
1.2 What is propogation?
1.3 What are the "rules" of posting?
2.0 FONTS
3.0 How to compose the fanfic using
3.1 vi
3.2 pico
3.3 MS WORD (Windows & MAC)
3.4 Using a Mac **NEW**
4.0 How to post a fanfic using
4.1 trn
4.2 Netscape
=====================================================================
1.0 USENET
USENET isn't one particular object. Instead, it is a data
stream/bulletin board system. It doesn't exist in one place at one
time. Instead, it exists on thousands of computers all at the same
time.
The internet was originally part of ARPA Net, a US Department of
Defense research and development network. Thus the network was
designed to automatically route around obstructions.
1.1 What is a Newsgroup?
A newsgroup on USENET is a container to hold articles on similar
topics. For example, when Alt.Toys.Transformers was created, it was
intended to hold articles on the topic of Transformers. Now it has
two subgroups, Marketplace and Fanfic, which are designed to hold their
respective segments of the topic group Transformers.
1.2 What is Propogation?
Because a Newsgroup doesn't exist in one place (it is a grouping of a
data stream), an article posted to the group in one place might take a
while to reach another place. The movement of an article from one
system to another system is called propogation. This becomes a
consideration when posting an article, because not everyone will see
the same article at the same time. When an article is seen on a
server is dependent (network-wise) on the distance the server is from
the originating computer. The order in which messages are seen
ary according to how the receiving computer receives them. Just because
you sent out Message #1 and then Message #2 does not ensure that all
receiving sites will display them in that order.
1.3 What are the "rules" of posting?
Well, there aren't any rules per se, but there are things you can do
which will make your post easier to read. That is the subject of this
FAQLET.
LINE LENGTH:
When posting an article, you should restrict the length of each line to
between 70 and 75 characters. The origin of this restriction is from
the days of VT100 terminals. The old text terminals were capable of
displaying a maximum of 80 characters. 5 characters were subtracted
from this amount for quoted follow ups, as quoting a previous article
would increase the line length. To ensure the entire line could be
displayed, the initial line length was restricted. Many newsreaders
still enforce this limit, which leads to odd line-wrapping problems in
some posts. (I play it safe and restrict my lines to 60-70 characters.
Better having a short line than weird wrapping.)
ASCII TEXT:
The odds are the computer you are using to post is not the same as the
computer someone else is using to read. The only thing common between
the computers is ASCII, which stands for American Standard Code for
Information Interchange. With the wide variety of computers on the
internet, you should restrict your post to ASCII. That way, everyone
can read it without making a special effort.
Specifically, this means:
If you are using Netscape, turn off the HTML encoding for posts. It
makes it very difficult to read if you are not using Netscape. It also
waists a lot of space. (ie Bandwidth)
turn off any 'smart quote' features your word processor or text editor
may have. These options turn quotes, apostrophies, and dashes into
'prettier' ones; while it may look great on your computer, people with
different programs will not be able to see them.
Don't post a binary. Binary is ok for pictures in a pictures group.
It is not ok for posting a fanfic. Odds are someone who wants to read
your story doesn't have the same word processor as you and won't be
able to read it. When you are dealing with something you want someone
to read, the easier it is to read, the more likely they will read it.
Binaries need to be decoded before they are read, which can be a hassle
on some news readers. When you are using a newsreader and you post your
story as an attachment (in other words, you can't see it in the message
window), you are posting it as a binary.
2.0 FONTS
Earlier, I mentioned that each line in a post should only be between 70
and 75 characters in length. How do you do that in a word processor?
Word processors have two types of fonts: Fixed-width and
********tional-spaced.
The fixed-width font is a carryover from the early days of computers,
when they were little more than glorified typewriters. However, for
posting a news article, they are exactly what you want to use. Compared
to the current ********tional-spaced fonts, they are ugly to look at but,
they have a feature that is essential to usenet: Every
character is the SAME width. That means an "i" will take up the same
amount of space horizontally as an "m". When counting characters, this
is very im****taint. The other type of font is ********tional. These are
very pretty fonts, the ones you would generally use if you were writing
a letter to your friend. However, an "i" takes up much less space than
an "m", which throws off your character count on a line.
Example of ********tional font: Times New Roman
Example of fixed font: Courier
3.0 How to compose the fanfic using
3.1 vi
Vi is an excellent editor if you know how to use it. You don't have
to worry about it throwing in non-ascii characters. What you type
in vi is exactly what you get--no more, no less. It is a very basic
editor.
However, vi normally does not wrap words for you. You must tell it to
wrap words, otherwise it will quite happily put everything on one large
line for you.
TERMINAL
If you are using a terminal, the size of your screen will be 80
characters (unless you have a strange configuration). To tell vi to
wrap at 70 characters, enter the following command:
:set wm=10
The wrap margin is the number of characters from the right at which you
would like to wrap. In this case, 80-70 = 10.
X-WINDOWS
Vi can also be run inside an X window. The width of an X-Term can be
any size that will fit on your screen.
1. First, find out the size of your X Window.
a. If you have xwininfo, this should tell you the size.
b. If you are running a system with out xwininfo, then try
resizing the window. Often, the window manager will
display the size of the window as you resize it. The
first number (x) is the one you are interested in.
2. Perform the following calculation:
size of window - 70 = num
3. issue the following command in vi:
:set wm=num <- where num is the number you discovered in
step 2.
4. Much easier method with the newer versions of vi
:set tw=70
3.2 pico
Pico is the editor used in the PINE mail program from Wa****ngton State
University. If you are using Pine for mail, chances are Pico is
somewhere on your system.
Pico will automatically word-wrap new text at 10 characters from the
right side of the display. This is great for a terminal. If you are
using a plain terminal, just fire up pico and have fun. Like vi, it
won't throw in non-ascii characters on you. Unlike vi, it is friendlier
to the beginner.
***UPDATE***
from Eduardo Chappa <chappa@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> July 25, 2002
start Pico with pico -r 70 to force it to line wrap at 70 characters.
X-WINDOWS
Unfortunately, if you are using X-WINDOWS and pico inside a window, you
will have to resize your window to 80 characters before starting pico.
I know PINE forces pico to wrap at 70 characters no matter the size of
the window in which is run it, but I don't know how PINE does that, so
until someone finds out, you are stuck resizing your window to 80
characters before starting pico.
3.3 MS WORD (Windows & MAC)
Compose your story just as you would anything else in Word. Once you
are done, do the following:
1. Set your left and right margins to the Word default of 1.25"
if you changed them.
2. Go to the Edit menu and choose "Select All".
3. Change the font to Courier size 10 or 12. (I prefer 12 for
the shorter line length.)
4. Go to the File menu and choose "Save As".
Give the file a name with a .txt ending
In the File Type area, choose MS DOS TEXT with LINE BREAKS.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This line is very im****tant, for it does several things: It
removes all smart quotes from the file, it restricts the
contents of the file to standard ASCII characters, and it
inserts a return at the end of every line.
If you are using a MAC choose Plain Text with Line Breaks.
However, in this case you must make sure the smart quotes
setting is off before you attempt to save.
The text file you have just created will be the file you will post.
NOTE: I have recently received instructions for turning off smart
quotes in word from Diana Calder.
Well, as far as the "smart quotes" part goes, the solution depends
somewhat on which version of Word you have, since Microsoft likes
moving menu options from one version to the next. However, it should go
something like this: Go to the "Tools" menu. Click on "AutoCorrect".
In the window that pops up, select the "AutoFormat As You Type" tab.
Under "Replace as you type", uncheck "Straight quotes" with "smart
quotes" (actually, unchecking everything in this list is probably a good
idea since they're virtually all special characters of one sort or
another). This works verbatim in Word97, but should be very similar in
other versions.
3.4 Using a Mac BBEdit Lite (freeware)
from Andres Rosado-Sepulveda
The editor is BBEdit Lite, version 6.1 . You write the fanfic as in a
regular editor. You can start writing and use a soft wrap, activated by
going to the menu Edit, Text Options and selecting Soft Wrap Text
option. There the width can be set to whatever you want.
Later, to insert the breaks, you go to the menu Text, Hard Wrap. From
there also, you can set the width to whatever you want.
4.0 How to post a fanfic using
4.1 trn/rn
Trn is threaded read news, and it is the newsreader I use the most.
It is available on virtually all unix machines, but in case it isn't,
the other reader with the same command structure is rn.
Long ago, I forgot the proper posting command for trn. (I will have to
look it up one of these days) I instead grab an article and use the
follow-up command. (f)
1. f
2. Do you wish to start a new subject [ynq] y
3. This will post to thousand of newsgroups, etc... [ynq] y
4. Subject: [FANFIC] Name of Story part x of y
5. Enter name of file: filename of fanfic
6. Send, Abort, Edit
Here you have an op****tunity to edit your fanfic or the
headers of the article.
7. send your story to the group.
The nice feature of using the follow-up command is that if you are
posting a multi-part story and the previous part is still on your
server, you can follow up to it and answer "no" in step 2. This will
create a thread of your story. If someone comes into your story later,
they can grab the most recent piece and use the threading commands of
their newsreader (or DejaNews) to find the previous pieces with little
effort.
4.2 Netscape
Netscape can be a little difficult, since what it is doing isn't
readily obvious.
When you are ready to post the first part of your fanfic, choose "To
News". You will encounter a dialogue box similar to the Mail dialogue
box.
In the Subject line, enter something similar to
[FANFIC] Name of Story part x of y
Adding the story:
IM****TANT: Do not go to "Attach" and attach your story file. This
causes Netscape to treat your story as a binary file even if it isn't.
Netscape will encode the file before sending it out.
Instead, open your file in another window and copy and paste your story
into the message area. I know it is a pain, but that is the best way to
do it.
Netscape automatically wraps new lines at 70 characters. If you have
already wrapped your lines at 75 characters, you will find that the
last word of every line will appear on the next line and it won't look
very good. The next time you post, wrap your lines at a lower
character count and things will turn out better.
If you are posting a part of your story after part 1 and the previous
part is still on the news server, you should try using the "RE: News"
button instead. While you have the annoyance of deleting your
previous story before pasting in the new part, it has the added benefit
of threading your story, making it easier for a new reader to find the
other parts.
*********************************************************************
Thanks To Diana Calder and Robert Jung for their comments
Thanks to Doug Dlin for editing the first version of this FAQLET
--
-Vulcana
*********pawright@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
or ****pawright@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Mistress of Tranfic Base ** Home Page *
* http://tfb.l8r.net/transformers
** http://tfb.l8r.net/pawright
*
*Moderates rec.arts.comics.creative and rec.toys.transformers.moderated*
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