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What's A Post Template?


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This may seem like a silly question to some but I'm serious. My forum experience is with phpBB, InvisionFree, and Invision Power Board. if these forum programs had 'Post Templates' I would have heard about them before now. As it is- I have never heard of them until today. So, could someone please explain to me what these things are and why people don't like them? I'm curious. If you could show me an example, that'd be great.

 

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Arch

"He who trims himself to suit everyone soon whittles himself away."
- Raymond Hull

 

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Like code that forces the indent of the first sentence in a paragraph- or something more complex?

 

As a writer, I get the desire for the aesthetics- but c'mon, this is a hobby, it's supposed to FUN. The more 'technical' you make things, the more complicated it becomes and that just kills the FUN.  Leave the formatting to the pros, IMO. and post away. 

 

On my site, I do the formatting, the editing, and such not because I'm a glutton for punishment. I do it for the experience. Editing is part of the writing process and I take every opportunity I can to work on my skills. My editor and beta readers appreciate it. The other reason I do it is to get the stories off the forum, lighten the load on the database etc. And it's actually fun for me.

"He who trims himself to suit everyone soon whittles himself away."
- Raymond Hull

 

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They can be very complex. Oftentimes they include places to put pictures of your characters, they might have hovers, or gifs, resize text, change colors, all sorts of stuff. They really just exist to make things pretty and because people are often in love with their character's faces. 

 

But just as often I've seen people use ones that have no pictures or backgrounds, that are really simple and just justify text and adjust the size, which is fab because it often makes it bigger and my old eyes appreciate it. Honestly if you go to any of the resource sites and scroll down to Thread Templates, you can get all kinds of examples. I used to be a huge fan of them, but not so much anymore.

Edited by Kittenmitten
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Attached is a screenshot of one in action

 

A lot of people don't like them because they:

- include effects that make them not mobile-reading friendly (like hover).

- reduce the font size.

- reduce the line height or font spacing.

- reduce the full line width (so instead of having say 800px for the post area, they have only 400 because all the graphic effects cut into it).

- remove use of capitals (forcing lowercase).

- increase difficulty in posting (especially from mobiles).

- increase time it takes to post (whether filling in the template or having to search one out to use).

- focus far too much on looking pretty.

 

 

post template example1.jpg

Edited by VirusZero
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"There are three sides to every story... Your side, their side, and then somewhere in the middle is the truth."
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Post templates themselves have been around for well over ten years and simply increased in popularity. Many people use them but there are varying degrees on who does and does not like them and their reasons as to why (as @VirusZero pointed out).

 

We don't have a ton but we have Post templates listed here:

https://rpginitiative.com/search/?tags=Post Templates

 

Some really old ones that the example is here and still working:

 

 

0_mainsignature.jpg

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Profile set made by myself and original Artwork by Fae Merriman, my daughter.

 

 

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Thank you very much,. I got it now. no thanks, I grew out of picture books when I was 7.

 

As a writer I prefer to read the description in words. Show me in your words the rain drop hitting the pool the ripple it made. Don't show me an actual picture of the ripple.

 

This is just how I roll with my reading and writing.

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"He who trims himself to suit everyone soon whittles himself away."
- Raymond Hull

 

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Not all post templates have to have images. I tend to use ones that match the site (colour and font) and neatly formats the writing xD 

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Plot | Rules | Canons | Wanted | Advertising

 

 

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THAT I get. however, with some forum systems- like Invision, there are certain codes built in. IIRC indent is one of them.

phpBB doesn't but that's okay, it's not that important on the forum. My members simply add spacing between the paragraphs. I take care of the formatting when it's time to Archive- taking a story off the forum to place it on a static page within the sub-domain for the specific Venue.

"He who trims himself to suit everyone soon whittles himself away."
- Raymond Hull

 

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The one template I will use is a simple justified column of text, thats it. No borders, no backgrounds, no images, just text. I find that this template sometimes is easier to read in a post on mobile than the default layout of the site. This is what it looks like: 

 

MCQwH9K.png

 

Simple, easy, and quick if you like uniformity. 

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Thanks for showing that- it does look nice- but what's the point of the picture when there's an avatar on the account?

"He who trims himself to suit everyone soon whittles himself away."
- Raymond Hull

 

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It is a seamless transition then because I can't tell where the break is between the avatar area and the actual post.

That's nice.

"He who trims himself to suit everyone soon whittles himself away."
- Raymond Hull

 

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I just spent a couple hours this morning poking around codes and figuring out some templates, and I don't even have a site to use them on.  Guess I'm just trying to expand my skills.

 

Post templates can be cumbersome and the like, but they can also enhance certain features.  For example, @Morrigan posted the example with a book.  Sometimes it's really neat to be able to come up with a visual image that you can write whatever you want in/on; this can be used to enhance the writing in some way.  I used polyvore (this weird fashion/collage website) to create a note from an NPC and posted it up for others to read.  Sure, I could have just used plain text, but it gave me a bit of a break from the usual and a creative outlet for something different.

 

For regular text, I prefer not to use them because they're a hassle, and I don't really join sites that use them for that reason.  On many sites, there's a lot of emphasis on making "pretty" templates, but unfortunately these are often not functional.

 

I think there's a bit of peer pressure associated with them.  It's like everyone is having a silly hat contest, but then the next thing you know, people are wearing trombones and boulders on their heads, and they can't get through doors and they're having spinal problems, but they're not complaining because they're just trying to show that they're the best at wearing silly hats.  And then other people come along and compliment them on their usage of musical instruments and granite slabs, so they keep on wearing them.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I wouldn't mind dressing up some of my informationals with simple templates, but I can't even find the discipline to sit and make new forum-name graphics for the slight reorganizing I want to do on my site lol. That Polyvore IC note sounds fun though @Uaithne, I think I'm going to steal that and file it away for future use XD. 

On an old site, I used to make a magazine cover image every few months and then post that with a few article highlights to function as a Gossip Magazine regarding IC events around the board. I found that apparently I'm really good at writing tabloid articles. Templates would have been GREAT for that, if I had known about them at the time. 

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