|
Welcome to Everything 2. E2 is a complicated place, and what
you don't know may cause you trouble. You'll be a lot happier if you make
a good first impression, so here are a few tips to help you get off
to a good start by avoiding some common innocent mistakes made by new
users.
- Your First Writeup
-
Before adding a writeup to E2, ask yourself whether others
will find it interesting. If not, you should find something
else to write about. You might also want to hesitate before revealing
anything intensely personal or potentially embarassing: Hundreds
of people will eventually read what you've written. Don't do something
you'll regret later on when you run for Congress.
Whatever you write about, tell us all about it. One line
isn't enough. We'd like to know more. Don't just tell us that
you work at Bob's House of Botulism: Tell us where it is, tell
us why you work there, tell us what it's like. If you're adding
a writeup to a node that has a lot of writeups already, read
the others first because your idea may have been added by someone
before you got there.
-
Make links. Some people here get hostile if you don't
do that, because the whole point is that everything here is linked
to other things. It's easy: Just put square brackets around
words and phrases, like so:
- My job at [McDonald's] is depressing because a
[giant frog] lives in the [fryer]. His name
is Anthony, and he ate three [customer]s just last week.
[Their anguished cries haunt me still], but I got to
eat their food so it wasn't a total loss. The frog knows all
the words to "[Bohemian Rhapsody]". He has the voice
of an angel.
When the writeup is displayed, "McDonald's", "giant frog",
and the other bracketed text will become links to other E2 nodes,
like so: McDonald's, giant frog.
-
Spelling and grammar count. You may not agree, but a
lot of people here take that stuff seriously and arguing will
never change their minds. It is especially important to spell
your links correctly, because if they're misspelled they won't
lead anywhere. For example: There is already a node for McDonald's,
but there is no node for MacDonolds. Nobody likes a broken
link that leads nowhere.
-
Formatting is a good idea. If you don't know HTML,
you can at least separate your paragraphs by putting a "paragraph
tag" at the beginning of each one:
- <p>This is a [paragraph].
When the time comes to learn more, you can read E2 HTML tags
: Quick Start.
-
Read it again before you submit it. You'll catch a lot
of errors that way. If you get into that habit, you'll do much
better here.
- After Your First Writeup
-
Your masterpiece is complete, but nobody seems to care
or Your masterpiece is complete and somebody voted it down.
That happens to me, too. You may be angry and feel a need to complain
in the Chatterbox (that little chat thing on the right-hand
side of this page), but that's a bad idea: Stoicism is admired
here. You won't make any friends by complaining. Here's what
you can do: It's okay to ask nicely for help. If
you just say "I'm not sure what I did wrong", people will understand
and try to help.
-
Maybe there's a message in the Chatterbox with a checkbox
next to it. When that happens, it's a private message directed
to you by another user. Nobody but you can see it. You can reply
privately by using the "/msg" command in the Chatterbox:
- /msg wharfinger I swear to God, Mick Jagger was in the Beatles!
He really was!
If you click the checkbox before you send your reply, the
message to you will disappear. If the message is a suggestion
or a correction, they're not being mean. They're being helpful.
We haven't covered everything, but you don't need to know everything
right away. This should be enough to get you started. You should read
the Everything FAQ too, but it's more fun to play than to read the
instructions. For more helpful hints, see the Everything University.
Have fun.
Written by
Quizro
|
