Moderator Notices: READ THIS FIRST! Rules of behaviour

[trampledamage]

This is now a general mod notices thread - I've merged the story ideas and spoilers threads.

Contents List
1. - DON'T POST STORY IDEAS - this is detailed in this first post
2. - RULES ON POSTING SPOILERS - covered in this post
3. - New ways to work with polls in XenForo - see this post
4. - Reporting unauthorized publications - see this post
5. - Resurrecting old threads, this is allowed in Trek Lit - see this post


The movie spoiler rule is no longer in effect, but this is still not the movie forum so please post any movie spoilers behind spoiler code because it's the nice thing to do.

Quick note on DISCOVERY - like the movie, all plot points should be under spoilers. Also, please remember that this is the Literature forum, so any threads here should be concerned with the books. We have a general Discovery and the novelverse thread please post your thoughts there.


DON'T POST STORY IDEAS IN THIS FORUM
We've had a couple of instances recently of people not realising that they shouldn't post story ideas in this forum, so here's a reminder


Because we have professional Trek authors reading and posting in this forum (and because we'd like them to stay), we cannot have story ideas/speculation posted in this forum. Unsolicited story ideas are a legal minefield for authors because of the risk of someone suing them saying "you stole my idea". It doesn't matter if you say 'steal away', we can't have any story ideas here.


There is a fan fiction forum down in the Star Trek Fandom section of the BBS which is the perfect place for posting and discussing story ideas that you have. You could even try writing them yourself

UPDATE: 13th June 2014:

This is a quote from Christopher which gives a good example from the writer's point of view of what moves something into story idea territory:

I think what made the initial post feel too much like a story idea to me was that it made some specific suggestions about what would motivate Malcolm or whom he might get involved with. It's that kind of suggestion about specific events or choices, the point where it starts to become a narrative rather than just discussion or general speculation, that you have to watch out for. It's not any suggestion that does it; writers draw on ideas from other people all the time. So speculation about the cultures of alien species, say, would generally be okay. That's just setting the stage. But when it's a plotline, a description of a specific event or situation or transformative experience affecting the characters, that's when it crosses into story idea territory.

Thank you for your time - enjoy discussing Trek Lit

 

[trampledamage]

SPOILERS

As discussions have clearly shown - the Trek Lit forum needs to handle spoilers differently from the rest of the BBS. Here is my understanding of how the spoiler rules for this forum currently work:

• Spoiler coding for all books less than six months old, unless you're in a thread for that book marked with SPOILERS in it's title
• Once past six months of publication, spoiler coding is not required;
• Unless you are in a thread where the original poster has made it clear that they are asking about books they have not read yet.

As with all things, common sense should prevail - if you aren't sure, just spoiler code it.

If you have any questions about the current policy you can ask them here, but this is NOT the thread for discussion about changes to the policy, Dimesdan has a thread for that, and I want discussions about changes to stay in that thread.

 

[Defcon]

Wouldn't it make sense to actually link to Dimesdan's discussion thread if you mention it?

 

[trampledamage]

Yes, thank you for doing so.

 

[JWolf]

Remember, publication date is the last Tuesday of the month. Just because the paper copy comes out before then does not make the publication date any earlier.

 

[trampledamage]

DON'T POST STORY IDEAS

Added to the original post, Christopher's description of what crosses the border into story idea that he posted in the Malcolm Reed thread.

 

[YJAGG]

SPOILERS

what is the code for spoilers?

 

[F. King Daniel]

[*SPOILER=Subject of spoiler]
Spoilerstuffs.
[/*SPOILER]

Just without the *'s

 

[trampledamage]

Thanks, Dan

Alternatively you can:

1. go to the main reply window (via "Go Advanced", "Post Reply" or "Quote")
2. type your post
3. select what you want hidden by the spoiler code
4. click on the button of the yellow face on the top row (it looks like it's upset but actually it has an X where its mouth is to show it's keeping a secred )
5. a pop-up window will ask you to "Enter the option for your spoiler tag" - this incredibly unhelpful phrase actually means "enter the description of your spoiler"
6. Click okay and you're good to go.

If you click Preview Post it'll show the post with the spoiler hidden so you can check you've hidden the right part

 

[YJAGG]

Spoiler: thanks

Thanks

 

[KlavsPrieditis]

Recently I`ve read on some russian news that the man was killed by the fans of Star Wars as they stand near the cinema to buy tickets on it and one man spoiled as he already was on the showing ..

 

[Defcon]

Just an FYI:

AntonyF has implemented prefixes outside the Q,S&F forum, so now we can use the Spoiler prefix instead of making the spoiler warning part of the thread title itself:

http://www.trekbbs.com/threads/adding-the-prefix-feature-beyond-qsf.278538/

 

[trampledamage]

ooh - thanks for the info, I haven't been keeping up with QSF.

@Sho - would a SPOILER prefix work with your auto-updating spreadsheet thingy?

 

[Defcon]

Should be, as Review Thread is the trigger phrase IIRC.

 

[Sho]

Yeah, that's fine.

 

[trampledamage]

I will merge in the existing two threads on Spoliers and Story ideas into this thread.


POLLS - new ways to handle in XenForo
Just also wanted to mention - for polls - it is now possible in XenForo to add a poll once the thread has been created. I'm not sure if it's only available to me as moderator, or it's available to premium members.

The option is listed in the Thread Tools menu at the top of the thread, so if you discover you've forgotten the poll and you don't have that option - send me a message with the poll details and I'll add it for you "techman:


Also, opinions please - on the idea of having one thread for rules and stuff from me, versus having the individual threads.

Only having one thread makes the sticky list shorter, but individual threads highlight the particular issues, so I'm not sure which is best.

 

[trampledamage]

Reporting unauthorized Star Trek books

This is becoming a bigger problem with the proliferation of self-publishing options. If you see an unauthorized e-book for sale you can report it here

And please do so - there are plenty of options for sharing free fan-fiction for anyone who wants to write in the Star Trek universe, if a customer is paying money they have a right to expect it to be of professional quality.

 

[Shikarnov]

So where does one turn if he has an idea? Or, perhaps not an idea, but a general question that might -- or might not -- be interesting fodder for story? I know the fanfic forum is mentioned above, but is there really no way to share an idea with your favorite pro?

 

[Christopher]

So where does one turn if he has an idea? Or, perhaps not an idea, but a general question that might -- or might not -- be interesting fodder for story? I know the fanfic forum is mentioned above, but is there really no way to share an idea with your favorite pro?

You really shouldn't. We legally can't listen to unsolicited ideas. For you, this is a hobby, something you can chat about for fun. For us, this is business, this is our livelihood, and story ideas are items with monetary worth and risk attached. It's just a different realm, and the rules are different. Your job probably has rules and restrictions of its own, and your employers might not be too happy if you let friends or strangers drop into your office or whatever and chat with you while you were trying to work.

And really, to be frank, we don't need help coming up with ideas. We got to be pros by spending years coming up with ideas and learning to figure out which ones worked and how to make them happen. There's a lot more involved in the process than just the basic idea. Again, there's a big difference between being a fan and being a pro.

 

[Kor]

Reporting unauthorized Star Trek books

This is becoming a bigger problem with the proliferation of self-publishing options. If you see an unauthorized e-book for sale you can report it here

And please do so - there are plenty of options for sharing free fan-fiction for anyone who wants to write in the Star Trek universe, if a customer is paying money they have a right to expect it to be of professional quality.

What about fanzines featuring fan fiction, that charge for a printed copy?

Kor