TUTORIAL #1(hopefully first and last)
How to make a thread for Celebrity Bday/Show anniversary/Farewell
Or in short How to make a Global announcement thread.😆Disclaimer- This thread is not to belittle anyone. We all are here for our love for TV shows and actors, we put a lot of time, energy and effort to do something special for them. In past I have tried to do the same and had a lot of difficulty to pull them off cause I had no experience like most of the first timers. The purpose of this post is to share a few things for the members here so they don't go through same apocalypse-esqe crisis in future😆. Members who have been around for quite some time, do share a few tips as well.
Cool? Acha here it goes . . .
Step 1- Plan the whole thing.
DO NOT THINK ABOUT DOING IT ALONE. It may look easier that all you have to do is collect write ups and siggies and copy paste it, but trust me, it's NOT. Before doing anything look around and make sure none else is doing the same thing. If a group of members already organizing the event join them. If not, then go ahead. Take help, if you don't have much friends post a note in the forum and PM the Mods to make it sticky. Content of the post would be-
- The date of the event (for eg. Rudra aka Leenesh bday is on 3 March so lets make a thread guys what say)
- Volunteers you would need. Many people will come forward to help, all of us loves actors and shows. Pick people as per your convenience and plan it.
Try to plan the entire thing One month in advance. It's not only about your availability, there will be people behind you. One month give or take should be enough to pull it off successfully.
So you got a team, now Step -2
Go reserve a post outside the forum. Like Members Lounge or Meme4U. Whatever discussion regarding the event will take place there. Everyone would post ideas, a collective decision would be taken and theme would be finalize. Put everything there, it will make it easy for later. Step 3- Now it gets tricky.
Like I mentioned earlier, many members will come forward to volunteer. But you got to pick only a few ones. Now what would be the criteria? Obviously first one will be she won't leave you at the alter 😆. . . jokes apart, the consistence of the members matter. If they promise you to give write ups or siggies and are MIA for days it will be an issue, right? Discuss with the volunteers that by what time they can submit their works (siggies VMs write ups any other gifts). Discuss it with the team. Looks good? Great, welcome aboard. If you have any doubt, you can have back up. It's not that you doubt the member, we all have real lives. It may be possible that tomorrow she has exam, or family emergency, or the evergreen Internet issue. So in case she don't fulfill it, you can ask another person. Always keep back up plan.
Now about volunteers- It may get offensive for some now, so maybe hit the backspace? *Shrugs* Ok, rest of the people, still want to go ahead? Here it is- The major things you would need for a thread, Bday/Farewell/Anniversary is Tags/siggies. A few examples is below-
=Tag
^^^^ Siggie (I used to think both are same😆😆)
Credit to the makers
They will make the thread look pretty, and add to this prettiness, dhashoo write ups will knock it out of park. These two are major thing, rest (VMs or audio messages) is secondary. [Once again, if you want to include anything else please tell the maker in advance, it takes ages to download videos or pictures and make something. Hounding her at last moment would serve nothing.] Your primary focus should be these two. For write up, in my honest opinion you should approach writers who write that particular character (Rudra for example) or couple (eg ArShi) superbly. Quality of writing is again, it's up to you. What you should notice is Grammar, proper punctuation, the phrasing, the style. How she manages to tell so many things in a small paragraph, uses simple words which don't make you run for dictionary, for example😆. These things are important not only because you want best things for thread, but also it will actually lessen your burden for 11th hour. Do you really want to sit down and edit hundred of words? That was rhetorical, in case there was any confusion.
Now you got your bunch of writers, ask them which sections they would be comfortable about writing. This post started with Lee/Rudra's bday, so if we continue with this maybe divide the write ups in several parts-
Intro (main post), Biography (born and brought up, education), Career (Modelling, previous shows).
If we take a Show's anniversary/farewell thread then maybe post breakdown can be like this-
Intro (How show touched our lives, for eg), About show (Iss Pyar ko kya naam doon, for eg) , characters (ASR, Khushi, for eg), relationships (Arshi, Payash)
***^^^ this above one was just an example. The main thing is plan the post, what you want to put in which order, how much write ups you want and who will take them up.
If you are not scared enough / offended enough let's proceed in danger zone.😈
The Tags/siggies
Now many will volunteer, no doubt. It's a prestigious thing cause people will see your work and appreciate it, and these day actors visit IF, read our posts and then comment about it in social networking sites (SNS). For this we want good Graphicers. Just like write ups, its also about what you and your team thinks. Visit the CGs of these people, or look up their previous works. If they are good, great! In my experience Graphicers always works slower than writers *don't mind people, you know it's true😆😛* So in case there is no ata pata of them, why do you have PM then? Poke them, do some bossgiri. It may be irritating but trust me, end result will be gorgeous.
***Now about tags/siggies/banners- I never really noticed it (cz imma idiot) but usually tags have the same colors which matches with the color codes of write ups. Examples of this are (notice colors in writings and tags)-
****Ye color code kya che?
While you type a reply in IF you may have notice a colorful thing beside Bold,Italic,Underlined tools, right? (A) Click on it and you can find plenty of different colors which you can use to make your write ups colorful. Pick colors which you and co. think will look beautiful and if you want, tell the graphicers to keep that color palette in mind while making tags. It can be 2/3/4 colors, really depends upon the length of the thread you are planning.
If you're not getting sufficient Graphicers, welcome to
Avatar and signature shop The people here makes superb siggies and banners that will blow your mind. Ask around, if anyone is free they would surely help.
(No, this wasn't AS forum's advertisement😆)
Step 4
Now you have writers and graphicers doing the job, so you can do a few more things, sit back and relax until its 3 days before D-day. First, maybe make a post in forum, inviting people so that they can post their wishes/thoughts/ memories for the thread (wishes for bday, memories of show or forum masti). Now it's an annoying habit of ours, we all res but never unres.🥱 Keep an eye as people post, PM them as the day draws near to unres their posts. If someone don't, leave it. She may not have been active for weeks, who knows? Once again, it's not mandatory. For eg check these-
Sultan Salman Khan's 51st Celebration
**Here's another thing- while planning, make sure whatever you're planning to post they all should fit in the first page itself. You can post credit in second page but try to fit everything in one page. If it's inevitable then *shrugs*, whatever, it's just a page.
***Now, maybe hunt for dividers. A few examples are-
We IFians mostly hunt Glitter Graphics for these, you should also have a go at it. Try to keep in mind the color palette according to which graphicers are making tags, but if the dividers are super pretty, chuck it. Some graphicers also make dividers, ask the assigned Graphicers if they do. One member I can think right now is Naz/ Violetta Step 5 (in case people are still here😆)
Now you have everything- graphicers have been sweethearts, writers gave bang on writings which makes your heart flutter. Members were very helpful and you have all messages/VMs/whatever else you wanted. Dividers ugh, so pretty! You and friends have Resed in main forum and ready to post.
***Like you had planned in prep thread, post like that. While copy pasting keep these things in mind.
-Font style and size.
Look at these two examples
a quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog...
A quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.
Now think which looks better.
IF has a few styles- Times now, Verdana, Arial. Chose what looks best. Size don't make so small that one would need glasses, font sizes are weird when you access a post from phone and PC🤓. But don't make it too big either.
-Proper spacing
Tags-write up-color code-space. Space between paras, between para and divider/tags is very important. You don't want it to look too crowded, right? So spacing is the way.
-Grammar, punctuations, spelling mistakesIt is important folks, really. Nothing is more off putting than seeing sentences running without commas and fullstops. Or sentences where fullstops don't end (Khushi means happiness...she was a bubbly girl...) And spelling ugh🥱 No, it's not about Grammar nazi. If you are blessed with writers who takes care of these things before sending you write ups, you are lucky and send that writer hundreds of hug emo😆 (Off topic, when IF adding a kiss emo? It's necessary!) But always check these three. Actor's name, surname, Show's proper name, the important stuffs.
-Central alignment
Holy Shit does IF gives us grief for this! (as if it doesn't give us grief in other things🤪) But it's necessary, why? Umm...cause it will maawk yur thwead luk pweeety? Personally, this lady tried doing central alignment from phone. It sucks! You have to put BB code for center ([CENTER*]text[/*CENTER] remove the *) in each para, (thought my one friends says otherwise but check it yourself) so better access IF through PC, use Chrome or Internet Explorer (ugh) and click on center alignment tool. Voila!
All set? Now edit the title, and start posting. And always, always PM a Global Mod so that she can make it Global announcement. When a post become GAed it stays on the homepage of IF so everyone can see it. Yayy, right? You want everyone to see it, obviously. So PM. Once again, it's about time. The 3 day thingy I mentioned above? Keep that in mind. Finish thread a day before D day and request GA.
And this marks the end of my rant. Once again, like the disclaimer says, this post was not meant to offend anyone. If anyone felt so, apologies Bae. Others, as a victim of past screwed up here is I want to say- we put a lot of efforts to do something special for our favorite show and actors. That's the reason we are in this website. So the upper mentioned How to? Take it as a basic idea as to how one should approach in this area. Does it looks scary and putting you off? It is.😵 Taking responsibility is scary, that's why you have a team. The beautiful threads we see, there is load of hard work behind it. We just clap, say 'Good job' and walk away. If you want to make something close to those pretty threads, take it seriously. At times you will be frustrated, nothing will work out but don't give up. Think about the end result, the vision you and team had. That will make things go easier. And another thing **Preach alert😆- many of us visits the forums we like, but only a few people take up responsibilities to actually organize the special threads (bday/anniversary). Some of us are so utter idiots that we don't even unres our wishes and messages. We all need to change it, we can't directly help. But indirectly we can do a few bits. Maybe unres faster, send VMs/siggies/audio messages/anything else before due date of thread. These small things help a lot, trust me.
Here's RS signing out. I neither accept shoes or tamatars. Curse in your head, and any criticism/points to improve, please post. Always here to improve myself.😛
Tata.☯️
ETA helps from lovely ladies here-
Originally posted by: .annihilation.
That was A LOT of help, seriously. For someone who has learnt her way through a hell lot of alignment issues, I know what's it like to beat your head around it trying to make it work. Although, I'd rather put the center codes for every paragraph, just to be sure. Because IF has the tendency to screw up your page alignment no matter how careful you have been with it. 😆
Edited by .Avengers. - 8 years ago
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