Topic: [GUIDE] A good post/reply and formatting [UPDATED] (Read 622 times)

Thank you for the effort making my points clear and enhanced. I do also had researched for it recently yet forgot to edit the thread but then again thank you for both reminding and supporting the thread. Will update the thread now for new readers and re-readers.

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The main difference between academic papers and web content is the media itself. Any contents and it's proper formatting bind with ergonomic correctness differs depending upon what platform and media you use. Therefore, underlines may be a better way to highlight on printed media such as on field on academe and even newspapers, but it isn't as good as bolding texts and italics in online platforms.

Maybe we just lived on different perspective having different stand on what gives us more attention to a certain formatting.

But with thorough searching I've found an article that might help the OP and other users here in forum that contains the good formatting between the bold, capitalized, underlined, and italicized on a good reading for web content.

Bold, Italics and Underlines: How to Use Them Effectively?

And as stated in that article, underlines are only better for Links and SEO optimizations.


Indeed. Glad we had the same perspective.

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After reading the article

You'd be surprised, italics are for emphasis. For instance:

Even without the bolding, it shifts attention to that word just by going through the sentence.

I don't think words in italic are more visible than underlined ones. So I'm not sure you're right to assume that's for this reason. Moreover underlined sentences are often used in titles, even in academic articles.

I guess the OP didn't include both underlining and literally highlighted texts as it is somehow the same size and seems to not calls off attention as much as his tips did, because even I myself don't see underlining being worth to have enough attention especially if the post/replies were too long and the subject or idea to be embossed is in the middle of the context.

I also see that the OP's tips is mostly used in formats in the world of Academe/Universities, as it offers not to be so simple and not to be exaggerated at the same time.

Why don't you say anything about underlining? Are you against it?
I'm sorry but it's more pleasant to read an underlined sentence or even a highlighted one in reverse video style than reading a whole sentence written in capital letters.  

For bullets, you can also use Alt+0149

Using this method you can place the bullet wherever you want, even at the beginning of the row.

Example:
• Text

List example:
   • Text
   • Text
   • Text

This will make it easier to edit/space since there is no BBCode involved.
 

Added. Thank you for your suggestions!

I don't know why you hate this thread so much as I intend to help not to fight. No wonder why your posts are too low in quality as all of it are trash and pure negative criticisms making a noise not a voice here in this forum. You can't even construct long criticisms with valid evidences and references. LOL your posts history is the epitome of boring-ness.

Indeed. Alignment is good in physical documents and papers but not too much of help in the forum. Alignment is mostly used on news-like thread to highlight title on the center and have the supporting evidences below in normal alignment.

Making a good post or thread is of course the desire of every member who wants to make this forum clean of spam posts, low quality and so on and I think that is the habit of posting from many active forum contributors.

There are some things I want to say to beginners in particular, and I think this is important.

• If you want to make the post as good as possible and use the format then first read some of the guidelines that were previously shared in the forum. Its certainly very useful and helps you make good and interesting posts.
• A quick way to style of this writing is see how other people do it, and you can try it and practice it. But when there are too many unnecessary writing styles, people will feel bored to read to the end and finally you have to consider it before you post a reply or thread.
• Ignore the style of writing if the post you made does not contain any meaning and information that is useful for others, because no matter how good the writing style, the post will also be categorized as spam.

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The most important thing to make a quality post or thread is not the writing style or formatting, but how we make it informative, useful, and easily understood by other members.

Feel more interested in your posts than OP  OP is just sharing boring stuff with no practical experience, what you offer seems better.

I have my two threads which can help OP and the others to make good posts as well as threads.

• Bitcointalk posting etiquette
• Make your topic title, posts more attractive

A reminder for all:

• Formats and language usages are important but they are not decisive factors for your post quality, in case your English writing skill is noto too bad, and you organize your posts/ threads at acceptable levels.
• Titles of your threads help to catch more attention at first glance but after that, your contents will decide readers will keep reading your posts/ threads or not.
• Keep your posts/ threads as short as possible because no one want to read long posts/ threads (if they can read in shorter versions)

This will be of great help to newbies who are more interested in creating a good quality post and contribute meaningfully to this forum, i will try my possible best to adhere to the above guide, although English is not my native, but that is not an excuse not to learn,
they say learning is a life long process, i hope to learn more from this wonderful forum,
so permit me to officially welcome myself in the forum.

[Short Answer] An answer would be too long if the text continues after it has already covered all the points or answered the question.

[Protracted answer] Replies made in response to posts and threads should only cover the main points and once the critical parts of the response has been included, that should conclude the reply, anything beyond that is superfluous.
It is sometimes made to reach a certain characte limit or to make the post appear more detailed and appealing

Both sentences are almost the same, but the second one was extended with two more lines added. This is not necessarily a problem in my opinion, as long as it doesn't go too off topic

For formatting, I would have preferred bullets using the "Insert List"

• Tip 1
• Tip 2

Or use a numbered list

• USE BOLD CHARACTERS
• USE ITALICIZED CHARACTERS

They are not that hard to use. Anyway, we can all use different styles but at the end of the day, it all boils down to readers preference. Just make sure your post doesn't look like a wall of texts.

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But what is too long or too short for an answer? That is subjective in my view. Some consider a five sentence response or more too long, while it's just normal for others.

That's correct wall of words can discourage some people here from reading cause of too much and long explanation too. Maybe much better to point out what is needed and necessary on replying or creating post. I myself dont want any messages or response that is too long which can give us few short answer in a very short words.

Nice format is good and some will be enticing or appealing on other readers. Also avoid all caps when it is not necessary to given emphasis. Just an addition, make thoughts or answer shorter but have more content.

Nice tips and i think you can add more tip in good format and post.
This is Alignment. I see your post i think you add the alignment.
I don't know alignment is important or not in here, but alignment is very good in the writing.

I didn't know how you found my thread being not one of the "aesthetic appeals". I've just mentioned, capital letters are for highlighting necessary subjects and information. Would you mind reading if it is as the same font size and writing as the others? And would you even posts the same thread as what the thread you've linked? It seems you didn't finished reading the whole thread but instead criticize how it looks.


I didn't even bothered having any merit at all. Also, didn't even care how to earn merit nor whatsoever. Creating this guide, as what I've mentioned, is for the community to have a simple formatting. Yes this format may be unique than the others, but it is somehow a good format for someone's replies with highlights and important ideas. What makes you "quite interesting" tho? Haven't also found that I haven't done it well, even had a merit, but not shown any exaggerated gratitude to it.


Yep, as this is only tips and suggestions on how to have a clean and consistent post formatting. Have you even been bothered with the new and even old users whom still had excessive fonts and un-highlightened ideas? Having long unnecessary supporting explanation is way worse than having the explanation focused on a single idea as what I've done, in which even some users had time reading this and completes it.


Indeed. Thanks man!

One good tip is to avoid structures like the OP. Busy information hunters won't bother to read it, as it slows down the reading process.

And one more: Stop quoting the whole post,if your reply is going to be targetted on some part of it which can reduce the reading pain for the people who is looking for suggestions.

Don't post a big paragraph of reply,just cut down into two or three paragraphs,most likely 3 or four lines exceeding should start with new paragraph after given a line space below it.

One thing that makes me quite interesting is that people who don't seem to earn any merit are constantly creating articles to guide others. This article is about quality, then what will be more? How to earn merit? How to work well on this forum? LOL If you haven't done it well, don't guide others 

First thanks for this guide, I really appreciate your efforts!

But.. In my opinion since you are talking about "aesthetic appeals" your thread isn't one of them. Why so many capital letters?

This is how a nice, clean and "aesthetic appealing" thread should look like in my opinion: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/newbies-read-before-posting-1689727

Note: I hope my criticism is constructive. 

For months and years of posting. I've seen a lot of replies in various formats. Some had aesthetic appeals while most are made just simple texts. Now, I would like to suggest some users in here, especially those Beginners, to what a good posts must look like. This would contain not only the aesthetics, but also tips on how to construct a quality post. Let's get started!

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HERE ARE TIPS FOR A QUALITY POST
TIP #1 KEEP IT SHORT AND SIMPLE - Many posts have a long explanations with repetitive arguments and some are just circling around on a single idea. Remember to always keep your ideas and words focused. Many would find this ironic due to the fact that Quality Posts contains a long and descriptive posts. This is just to remind that some posts/replies are just repetitive and contains less sense than those fruitful-short posts.

TIP #2 RESEARCH. RE-COMPREHEND. REPLY. - Research first on a topic that you think you could help such as threads like How to make blockchain... and etc. to at least build a forum of not only ideas and opinions, but rather with pure facts and referenced studies. Recomprehend what you have just researched, then instead of just copying it, PARAPHRASE it together with you own thoughts and ideas. Then finally, do your Reply.

TIP #3 USE QUOTE AND/OR MULTI-QUOTE - Quality posts doesn't necessarily to be original and be your own opinion. Yes, this forum isn't a perfect forum that has professional users and some could only give ideas. But still, Read first before replying. I have found some users whom just click reply on a thread without reading first the existing replies. Quote existing replies, and if you ever can manage replying on a lot of users, Multi-quote them. Remember, separating your posts is just spamming and a waste of time. As long as you could manage replying multiple users on a single posts, go for it.

TIP #4 DON'T REPLY ON OLD THREADS DATING MONTHS FROM NOW - Never ever pump unnecessary posts. There's a lot of wasted efforts as many people posts on an already answered thread. And as I stated above, many are just replying without further reading. Making their posts less good and less meaningful.

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HERE ARE TIPS FOR A GOOD FORMAT OF POST
TIP #1 USE BOLD CHARACTERS - Use bold characters for important ideas and mostly main subjects such as what you have seen in this posts.

TIP #2 USE ITALICIZED CHARACTERS - Use italicized words/phrases/sentences for supporting ideas. It is commonly good for ideas that is most likely required a highlight, but not of too much highlight.

TIP #3 USE BIGGER FONTS OR CAPITALIZED CHARACTERS - Use bigger fonts if and only if it is either a title, a greeting, or a necessary message that requires bigger amount of attention than the other content of your posts. Capitalized characters are best used for ideas that can be the same font as the explanation but is much important than them.

TIP #4 USE ONLY 3 FONT COLOR/SIZES AND LESS - Using of exaggerated font colors is irritating to the eye. Even exaggeration of bold characters are already unpleasing. Use basic colors such as gray, red, and blue (disregard the black as it is the default and standard font color). Also have 3 font sizes to use, one for the title/header, one for the subject title, and one is for the explanation and supporting ideas.

TIP #5 BE CONSISTENT - Have some consistency with your posting format. Many users are still using a lot of various formats and it would only destroy the simplicity of one's profile. Be consistent and have only one format in making your posts and even replies.

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The tips mentioned above can be supported by this article (if you ever had any doubts why I didn't include highlights and underlining):
Bold, Italics and Underlines: How to Use Them Effectively? (Thanks to @Shimmiry)
I hope bringing this up would make a simple change not to the community, but to those who builds it.
Some might find this unnecessary. But what are your ideas and suggestions?

PLEASE READ EXISTING REPLIES FIRST BEFORE REPLYING TO LESSEN UNNECESSARY IDEAS.

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// UPDATED

GOOD TIPS FROM OTHER USERS