VFDC Posting Guide

<font color=orange>Note: </font color=orange>The <a target="_blank" href=http://virtuafighter.com/versuscity/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Board=versus&Number=15920&page=&view=&sb=&o=>original thread can be found here</a> in case you want to catch up on any old replies.


Posting for Dummies! A Guide for the Rest of You.
by CreeD


Lately I've been seeing a lot of posts on the board that piss me off. It's not that I resent someone else's opinion. It's not that I dislike topics unrelated to Virtua Fighter. It's not even specific people.*
It's posting etiquette, or the lack of. Actually, etiquette is the wrong word, it reminds people of old women and baptists with hangups about putting your elbows on the table while you eat. I guess the term I'm looking for is common sense.
There's a gaping, sucking vortex in places where it ought to be. So I thought I'd whip up this handy guide.

*this is a lie

POSTING NONO's, level 1 (mildly irritating, not intentionally harmful)
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1. Me Too! replies.

In some threads you'll see a very valid, well written point, or just something that makes you nod your head and say "yeah I know just what this guy is talking about"... sometimes you'll see one or two other people agree with this guy.
Well, the point was made, and someone else let the guy know that he wasn't alone in thinking that way. Unless there's a new or opposing point that you feel needs to be made, all the work in this thread has been done.
Time to pack it up and ship it home. No need to extend its parole by posting stuff like "LOL!" and "Ya, I totally agree. Something should be done about that". PLEASE don't post something that says "ok". It's been done before.
Probably my favorite example is the thread about Sarah where someone posted some decent info, and this was followed with a lot of "do u like sarah?" "yah she's got speed and a lot of kicks what about u" "yah I'm just learning her but I like her too" "me too" "yah me too. I also like shun." "yah the old man is cool" ... it was like 6 levels of me-tooing.

2. Beating a topic with a sledgehammer.

After a point, there isn't much more to say about something, but someone says it anyway... and they go on.. and on ....
on . .. . .and . . . . . . on .. I'm an offender sometimes too.
Click post. Type like crazy. Click post preview. Reread it entirely before going to the edit window. Go to the edit window and cut out stuff that doesn't help your point, or only helps it by .0000001% ... finally re-edit it for sentence length, clarity, etc.
Make one final consideration: was this said before? If not, then uncheck preview and post it. Don't put people to sleep. It makes us work too hard to find your point. It weakens your point.

3. Posting stuff that was already posted a while ago.

This is less annoying than the next one.

4. Asking questions about stuff that was answered a while ago.

RTFM@! RTFFAQ!@!@! ... if you have a specific question, and it's not about VF4, try going to gamefaqs.com and checking out the character faqs there. Or if it's more of an opinion thing or the answer isn't on gamefaqs, try the thread search button and keep your search string very general.. like if you're looking for good VF3 sarah tactics try just "VF3 sarah" and look back 1 year. It isn't much work, and it's much faster than waiting for someone to feel sorry for you and answer. If you have a question about VF4, looking at posts in the past 3 months with anything in the topic will probably work... but then again, if it's an unusual question post it anyway. Maybe it will lead to a good thread.

5. Aimless chatter. This is what email is for. The board even makes it as easy as humanly possible with the "email reply" button.
There's also built in instant messenger. These are all designed to keep the board as uncluttered as possible. I'll get sick if I see another "so how did it go last night?" "okay, although timmy really raped me with his lau" "yah his lau is sick. Did you see kazuki's akira? lol!" "man did his akira suck that night. You gonna be there friday night?" "I dunno, maybe. Depends on work" "yah I was gonna go last weekend but I had to hump my girlfriend" "LOL yah I know how it is with them. My wife is always on me about going out on weekends. I'll try to make it. Hey, what's your cell?" "I lost the cell, but you can IM me" "oh okay."
To this day there are 2 or 3 threads going on like this. We don't wanna read them, but we don't wanna screw with having glaring unread posts. Plus, maybe someone said something worthwhile in all that drivel.
So the thread gets hundreds of views long after it died of natural causes.

6. "WTF" replies. Replies that make the reader go WTF because the original poster is saying something out of left field. It's one thing to say "I know it's got nothing to do with wolf combos, but where can I find some good VF2 combos?"
and it's another to see this: "Wolf's hcb+P in combos is elite, you can get OTB stuff afterwards in VF4."
.. . "Has anyone seen my cat?"
It's frustrating to readers try to figure out what the connection is. And the original poster feels like you could give a shit about what he's saying since it's clear that poster B didn't take the time to read and understand poster A. Either agree with the point and add to it, or clarify it, or disagree with it, or post something that is tied in and relevant.
Don't do this: "Wolf's elbow is okay, but the recovery sucks and it doesn't guarantee anything much for followups" ..."re: Wolf's elbow - it's actually got a longer recovery than it looks like it has, I've never gotten a reliable followup. I refuse to try a dash in throw afterwards. Pai doesn't even have an elbow. It's a shame Wolf's sidekick doesn't stagger. But if it did it'd probably be even less useful than his elbow stagger. Where did my cat go?"

7. Trying really hard to sound like an expert when you know you are not. "Lau can't do shit, his spinkick doesn't even knock down every time after the triple punch and he can't reverse agains jeffry at all. I was playing a kid at the mall and owned his lau for nine straight matches with jeff's splash mountain throw and pai's crane move" - it makes the rest of us laugh.
Don't post something as an irrevocable fact about VF2 if you have only played VF3.
Don't say one character sucks if you have only played local mall scrubs.
If you think you have something new and unusual to say, try using the search button. I bet you're wrong.

8. No dignity. What's that supposed to mean? Having no dignity in your posts defeats the point of posting. You want the stuff you write to be read by people right? But if you sound like a drunken redneck, people will just shake their heads and laugh. And then never read your posts again. So there are some basics you need to learn before you can say ANYTHING - 1. If you don't speak english as a second language, or you live somewhere where it isn't the primary language, you are allowed as many mistakes as you want. Anyone who says otherwise is an asshole. But if don't live in a trailer in arkansas, what's your excuse for sounding like you do? There's a spellcheck button for christ's sake. You can argue that good spelling isn't necessary to make a good point, but who cares? Without good spelling you're not going to get read by as many people and you won't convince anyone that you know what you're talking about. How can you be qualified to master VF motor skills and strategy if you haven't mastered "Now I know my ABC's"?
And you may want to keep away from "Brummmm brmmm I'll kick u 2 the moon" stuff too. Even if you can spell it correctly, it still sounds dumb.* As long as we're on the topic: "WTF I asked this an hour ago where's all the skill ppl replies?" looks really stupid too. Learn to have patience.

*This will be the only overt personal attack in the FAQ, I promise.

9. Links to pet projects, bigass graphics that nobody will care about, anything even remotely political, ....anything that just wastes time. Put it away. Go home.

10. Quote. It's silly to see a reply that needs you to click back on the original post, then click back to the response. Just use an i in a pair of square brackets to put stuff in italics, then copy and paste the stuff you're addressing. The original post is right below the field you're typing in. It's easy to highlight it, press control-C, go to the posting pane, press control-V, and put the [] with the i in between to
make it italicised. You'll have an easier time crafting your reply too, no scrolling back and forth.

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POSTING NONO's Level 2:

1. Flaming because you misunderstood the original poster. Boy do you look dumb, you failed to read correctly and as a result you pissed all over some guy who didn't deserve it. You end up looking both stupid and mean. Flaming is called for in some circumstances, but don't make it a way of life. Triple check what the other guy is saying before you flame.

2. Spamming the board, either by 30 original threads in one hour or replying to every dead thread in the past three months. Try to contain your enthusiasm. If you have something to say, check to see if the thread has been done before.
Then you can resurrect it. Don't start a new thread with old news. It's especially lame if the topic in question is being discussed on a thread that's already going. Part of this no-spam mentality: check for replies before replying yourself.
It's dumb to see stuff like:
JimBob: "VF2 didn't have cool okizeme because you can't dodge"
Mr. Reamer: "(400 word essay covering every possible way jimbob is wrong)"
Manchui: "(250 word essay covering some of Mr. Reamer's points and nothing else)"
... it's also frustrating to see "Does anyone know where I can find some VF4 movies?"
Feixaq: Try this URL: blah.blah.blah.com
Jimbob: Have you tried Feixaq's site
Dimbulb69: There was one like www.dmxrules.com or something I think
TommyBoy: There are tons, just look around.
--- once the question is answered, it's ANSWERED. If you want to look REALLY smart and dedicated, try finding a post from a little while ago that answered the question, then be the first person to refer the original poster to it. That magic search button will save you so much work, because somebody else has said what you were going to. All you have to do is cut'n'paste or copy a link.

3. Trying to argue a point further when YOU ARE WRONG. There's nothing worse than a dude who can't admit that he fucked up and is just backpedaling to cover up the fact that YOU ARE WRONG. If someone posts a reply that crushes your argument then don't try to salvage one or two points of it just to retain credibility because YOU ARE WRONG. At some point in your posting career YOU WILL BE WRONG unless you are the great archiver of VF everything, and even -then- you are STILL WRONG. Learn to swallow your pride and let it drop. Let the other dude get in the last word if he really managed to show you up. Arguing for the sake of arguing doesn't preserve credibility, it destroys it and bores the rest
of us to death. Even a really nasty flame can get old after a while. Lay it to rest. YOU ARE WRONG.

4. Posting in the wrong board. It's not just one extra post for the rest of us to read, it's the 100 replies to that one offtopic post that we dread reading too. PLEASE don't post a goddamned THING about Tekken in the VF board. I'd almost
say that you shouldn't even post a tekken vs. VF thread in the VF board because the VF board is not for "possible alternatives that you could argue are comparable to VF"... it's for Virtua Fighter, and the rest of the games out there can go to hell, we'll go to Zaibatsu or SRK.com if we want to talk about them.

5. Timewaster posts. Jimmy: The board is slow this week. Timmy: I know, let's post a favorite character thread. Jimmy: good idea. You first.
Timmy: Hey everyone, the topic says it all? What's your favorite character in VF? Mine's sarah. Jimmy: Mine's shun.
Snnxxxxxxxxx ... ZZZZZzzzZZzz ... I know, it's VF talk, and it's a free country, and the board might even be slow. But really, if you want to post for the sake of posting, make it interesting. Make a topic that's likely to generate "good stuff" ... replies with valid, interesting, and useful information. Specific strategies and whatnot will come from "Is Kage's Jumonji stance really useful?" .. they won't come from "Which VF game do you think is best?" ... the first topic will generate ten replies and the second will generate 100, but the first was worth reading.

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POSTING NONO's Level 3:

1. Trolling. Oh jesus, shut the fuck UP already. You can only make claims based on past information. Nobody cares about your level of skill. We only care abour our own. Some classic examples:

My country is better than your country at VF.
OMG These DOA movies knock the socks off of VF4!
Tekken >>>>> VF
Why VF2 Sucked
Koreans Play Boring
Naomi: Outshined by XBoX?

.... please resist the urge to get flamed. I know you're bored, and I know it's fun to stir the pot, but just don't bother. At best you lose credibility. At worst? Who knows... but don't tempt the moderators. Even if you genuinely are trying to spark legitimate debate, you HAVE to know that coming into a VF board with a "CAPCOM IS THE BEST SEGA SUX!" post will get you killed. You won't win over any converts so why bother trying? Go to another board. Or IRC, where you can be /ignored. Or /kicked. Or /banned. KTHX.

2. Advertising. We get enough of this crap on the web. We don't want it on a private board. In fact you will lose business for doing this because we will boycott you and tell all our friends. Advertising belongs somewhere, but not on a message board on VFDC. If you want to bring a VF related site to our attention, do it once and then shut up. Keep it short and sweet. Then go away or else contribute.

3. Refusing to accept reality. This is sort of like YOU ARE WRONG but at a higher level, whereby you go out of your way to post unverified, inaccurate information that you just KNOW is probably shaky, but you want to believe without verifying. Or you're too lazy to. Or too stubborn. The goal of debate is not to WIN. It is to seek the TRUTH of a matter. Using sleazy tactics
to further a debate, distract from the original topic, or attack someone all in an effort to win an already lost cause ... this is insanity. Stop it. Learn to be a conscientious poster. If you're unsure about the last sentence you typed, put in one or two words to the left or right of it that say so. If you are correcting someone, be -correct- and if you have to back something up, do it with facts, not with "I remember this one page that I translated in altavista said that this one dude said that it was possible sometimes in open stance, IIRC."
Find facts that people can verify themselves to support your argument, or else bow out and let someone more worth take over. If nobody does, then it's probable that YOU ARE WRONG.

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any questions?