OOC: Formatting Nexus Posts - Narrative Text!

GUIDE TO NEXUS POSTING ORIGINALLY CREATED BY NECTARBELLY




The Nexus, being an IC internet, has something of a special nature in terms of post formatting.  This arises from the fact that our characters, ICly on their computers, are not looking at the Galaxy Citizen site.  They're looking at any number of different sites, all with different layouts, all more complex than simple walls of text.




As such, it is necessary to describe just what our characters are seeing on their computer screens.  But we can't include this information in the main body of our posts, because that would imply that our characters themselves typed it.  It's not really OOC information, either - it exists within the RP universe and is perceivable by our characters.




This might seem sort of abstract, but consider standard RP post formatting.  There's narrative text (things like descriptions and emotes), dialogue (what our characters are actually saying), and OOC text (what we're saying).




It's precisely the same.  Except that, normally, dialogue can simply be marked with quotation marks (or, in the case of in-game RP, where all posts are dialogue by default, narration can be marked with asterisks).  However, an IC internet is a text medium that our characters are using - what happens when they need to use quotation marks or asterisks themselves?




There's a simple solution.  Roleplayers already use (( special notation )) to mark OOC text.  That's common.




All we need is a new // special notation \ to mark narrative text.




It's nothing complex.  You can describe anything you want with narrative text.  Describing your character's blog's layout is exactly like describing your character's bedroom, for instance.




Please note: When your character posts on Nexus discussion boards, you should use narrative text to give their username.  If they use an avatar, feel free to describe it.  You can even provide an unobtrusive link to it, if you actually have it.  Please always give enough information so that the intent of your post is clear - if you don't give a username, then who is making the post?  You?  Certainly not.




A few examples of narrative text used for Nexus purposes, off the top of my head: