Advice/Guidelines on Posting

[mickmackusa]

To keep Power Pinochle forums clean, orderly, and compact, please consider the following advice / guidelines before posting a message:

Placement - Ask yourself the basic questions about the Forum and the Thread that you are in.
    Forum relevance:

• If you are discussing an aspect of Pinochle involving the play of the Dummy(Declarer's Partner), then be sure to use the "Pinochle Game Play - Offense" forum.
  
• If you are making a specific remark/question about bidding and have a supporting hand history, post in the Pinochle Bidding forum.
  
• If you are asking for general feedback about a hand or game and have a hand history to share, then Hand History Analysis is best suited.  
  
• etc...  putting your posts in logical forums will help them to be discovered and appreciated by others.
  

    Thread relevance:

• If a thread is marked "Pinochle Literature" and you want to discuss/review a particular book, perfect. You can even drill down into specific points covered in the book, say, to refute a bidding convention.  Just be careful to not diverge too far from the thread's topic -- when you feel the discussion is starting to careen, try to refocus the discussion within the thread or move the discussion to a more appropriately labeled new/existing thread.
  
• When a discussion needs to change threads, it is helpful to others to offer connections in the form of hyperlinks.  For maximum courtesy, offer a hyperlink from the old thread to the new thread, and from the new thread to the old thread.
  

Thread Naming - Give your thread the best chance of being found.

• Be specific about your topic and use thoughtful keywords in the thread title.
  
• If your grandmother tends to hold certain aces during play, a poor title might be "My Wacko Meemaw", a better one might be "Situational Sandbagging" or "Sandbagging Long Sidesuits" or other.  If you are new to Pinochle, don't know all the slang and terms, or don't know how to ask a certain question -- don't stress we are here to help you.  The thread's title can be edited later if a better title can be found.
  

Linking - Let others go on your thought journey.  *if you need support with this, ask an admin or active member.
     Inspiration and Flow:

• If you starting a new thread which has been inspired by a particular event, object, article, etc it is helpful to provide a means to access your inspiration.  If you are going to discuss a rules document, a video, (hand histories aren't linkable yet) or another discussion, share the url at the beginning of your post.
  
• If you'd like to continue a discussion that no longer belongs in the current thread, write a post in an appropriate new location then copy its newly generated url and paste it in the old thread.
  

Embedding Non-text - Use all of the tools / features on offer.
     What's on offer:

• There are some simple text tools at the top of text area when posting.  Putting your cursor over the little icons will present the tool's name.  Some are fairly straight forward, some you may need to experiment with to understand them.  The right-most icon will toggle your message between rich-text and raw-text which is sometimes useful when dividing previously quoted text into separate quote blocks.
  
• When providing hand histories to be imported to the Hand Animator, please use the Code tag as it is the best suited tag.  In the future, a new dedicated tag will be provided for capturing Pinochle Notation -- it will automatically generate a hyperlink using the text that is held inside the Code block.
  
• Use the iCards where appropriate, they are located to the left of the posting text area in a box labeled Smilies.
  
• Attach images to your post.  Use the buttons below the posting area to import a screenshot or image directly into the post.  First, Choose File, then Add Attachment, then Insert Into Post.  After you've inserted your uploaded image into your post, you can re-position / view it by toggling between rich-text and raw text.
  
• If you have a question that seeks a popular vote, you can add a poll.  Again, see below the posting area for the feature that will guide you through the generation of a Poll.  
  

Quoting - Be clear about who and what you are responding to (if anyone).

• If you are responding to the direct communication of someone else, you can quote their text so that everyone knows what you are addressing.
  
• If you are not responding to any one particular quote, omit previous quotations from your post by selecting "New Reply" or by deleting all previous quotes manually from your new post.  This helps to reduce thread length.
  
• If someone has offered a multi-pointed post, and you wish to respond in an itemized fashion, it is recommended to toggle the posting area to raw-text, and then individually wrap their text in [ quote ] & [ / quote ] tags (I had to space them out to avoid normal rendering).  Type your itemized responses between the quote blocks that you have made.
  

If you have questions or concerns about any of the above, do not hesitate to send me a Private Message.
I will help you to make the most of your Power Pinochle membership.

Happy posting!

mickmackusa
Power Pinochle Web Support & Development