FAQ: POSTING HOW-TO

[rabican.insanejournal.com]

Or, how to create the perfect post.
This is an FAQ post which goes in a pair with our soon-to-be-updated userinfo. Even if you've made posts to either version of scans_daily before, take a moment to read it, because these are part of our new posting guidelines. And stay tuned for another modpost, in, well, as fast as I can write it.

Much thanks to the redoubtable stubbleupdate as well as schmevil for authoring much of this content.

Step 1 – The post.

Make sure that somebody else hasn’t already posted what you’re planning on posting. It is quite rude to post something that another poster has already got on the community. It splits discussion over different posts, making it difficult to follow. If you do this, the mods will comment with a picture of Bill Murray.

Step 2 - The format.

This is just a guideline, and not a rule. But it makes life so much easier for members seeking out scans of characters or comics they like or are interested in reading more about, so please included whatever information you can.

Title - Include comic title and issue number, if you know them.
Body of message - Use a cut tag as required; some people are still on dial-up - yes, even in 2009. If you'd like to include page numbers, that'd be cool too.
Tags - They take two seconds to add and will make your post much, much easier to find for interested parties. All users can add tags to a post. Be aware that if you add a tag that doesn’t exist, none of the tags will show up.

Step 3 – The scans.

The ideal size of scans is about 800-900 pixels wide. If scans are much larger than that, use thumbnails. If scans are much smaller than that, be prepared for people to say “I can’t read that.”

If you are using your own scanner, cropping the borders, other pages, or your hand off the image makes them look more professional. Taking photos of pages rarely produces good quality results.

Only direct link to images on your own web space. If you'd like to point out scans on someone else's webspace to the group, please use a text link. (Note that a text link does not count as a scan, and scans are required to post.) Imageshack is a good place to host pictures. If you are hosting on imageshack, make sure that you use their advanced hosting (at the very, very bottom of the page where you retrieve the code for your image) and insert that into an <img src = “”> tag.

Step 4 – The content.

Lots of scans without much commentary can be difficult to understand. Lots of text with a contractually obligated scan at the end is dull. Your post should strike a balance between the two. Explain what you’re posting. Say what’s going on, so that the reader understands a bit about what’s being shown. Say why you like it. These all help to make for interesting and thoughtful discussions on scans_daily.

Be prepared to justify your opinions, whether you think something is better than sliced bread (Ex Machina #1) or as pleasant as shaking hands with your dad’s proctologist (Batman: Fortunate Son). Yours is not the only opinion on scans_daily. Be prepared for disagreement and respond to it civilly.

NB. Keep off topic posts to a minimum. In this community, on topic means scans. Interviews, videos, fanart, essays, self-promotion, news and other miscellany are welcome, so long as they come in the context of a larger, scans-focused posts. Keep in mind that this is not a general comics discussion community - it's a scans community.

Comments

[parsimonia.insanejournal.com]

Regarding #4, where does "context is for the weak" come in? (I just posted one here before I saw and read this post... =S )

[schmevil.insanejournal.com]

We discussed this. "Context is for the weak" is almost it's own form of commentary, as well as being an SD tradition. Don't worry about it - we're just trying to prevent drive by scan dumps.

[foxhack.insanejournal.com]

"Only direct link to images on your own web space. If you'd like to point out scans on someone else's webspace to the group, please use a text link. (Note that a text link does not count as a scan, and scans are required to post.)"

Er. Sometimes all you need is a text link because of spoiler reasons, or maybe the host doesn't like hotlinking but is fine with direct links.

Just sayin'. Don't discriminate against the text linkers. ;p

[rabican.insanejournal.com]

Oh, yeah, I guess I should clarify that when I have a second. What we meant is that a text link to someone else's scans - CBR previews of a new issue, f'r instance - doesn't count as a new post. But if you need to use text links for your own scans to prevent spoilers/hotlink blockage/bandwidth explosions, that's totally fine.

[kamino_neko.insanejournal.com]

Ah, yes, tags. I was going to ask about that when I noticed IJ has a tags option.

Do we know if IJ has a tag limit like LJ does, and if so, what it is?

If there is a limit, if I might suggest a discussion about what should be in the tags, so we don't end up with a lot of chaff and lacking quite a few useful tags, like happened in the LJ comm. (I'd retain the resulting guidelines if we manage to move back to LJ as a new comm rather than 'OK, we'll put s_d back', personally.) Even if not, I think said discussion would be useful, just to keep tags from accidentally fragmenting lists of related material, as, again, happened at the original comm - is it under Spider-Man or Spiderman; Legion of Super-Heroes, Legion of Superheroes, or Legion; Blue Beetle or Jaime Reyes; etc.

[rabican.insanejournal.com]

We're trying to work out what IJ's tag limits are - the FAQ's not very clear. I do expect that we'll be weeding out the tags every once in a while, though.

how to

[robertroberts.insanejournal.com]

How do we actually POST scans to the community? I can't work out how to a) join scans daily here or b) get my posts to appear here within the scan daily community?

Can some one run me through it?

Re: how to

[rabican.insanejournal.com]

Go here (http://asylums.insanejournal.com/scans_daily/profile). Where it says "join this asylum," click the link. You'll be offered some options about managing your friendspage - I'll let you figure that out. Then you're a member. To post here, go to the Update Journal interface (where it says "Post" in the upper left corner). At the very top, it should say, "Post to:" followed by a drop down box of your journal, and all the communities you're subscribed to. Select scans_daily, and your entry will go to this community.

Hope that helps.

[joysweeper.insanejournal.com]

I'm having trouble posting on IJ. I can't copy-paste images from my LJ, the "Insert Image" thing isn't working at all, and when I take the slow img src route, I can't adjust picture size. I don't like this.

Can I link to a post on my LJ?

[rabican.insanejournal.com]

Sure. The "no text links!" guideline is more about asking people not to link to, say, comics previews on CBR or whatnot, because that's just lame. If it's a link to your own compilation of scans elsewhere, that's fine.

[joysweeper.insanejournal.com]

Okay. And I suppose linking to a five-page preview as well as five scanned pages would be dodgy. All right, thanks for clearing that up.

[deepspaceartist.insanejournal.com]

If I may ask in regards to step 1: why Bill Murray?

[skalja.insanejournal.com]

Uh ... I'm gonna blame that one on stubbleupdate.