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Guide - A Guide to Good Forum Posting Etiquette! | SimpCity Forums

Guide A Guide to Good Forum Posting Etiquette!

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SimpCity

Staff
Mar 11, 2022
332
118,674
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Good Day Folks!

We wanted to share some tips on good posting etiquette to help make the forum a nicer place to browse, and more importantly have your posts looking awesome and attracting more likes!

Before we jump into it, one important thing to note here is that the experience viewing the site as a Mobile user vs a Desktop user looks very different, and a large portion of visitors these days are mobile first so we're going to give you tips to cover both experiences so you can find the perfect balance to have your posts looking great everywhere. I'll be mainly dividing this into two sections: Posting Photos and Posting Videos. So without further delay, here we go.

Posting Photos

When posting pictures, it can be divided into a couple of clear categories - Single photos, multiple photos, and albums.

Single Photos
Single photos are not complicated. Click the upload images button and you'll be directed to jpg.church where you can upload the picture and attach it to the forum post. Both mobile and desktop users should have the same experience so there isn't an issue here.

Multiple Photos
For multiple photos, the amount of files included is important. A single forum post takes no more than 55 pictures so that's our limit, over that we'll need to create an album for the best experience. These large number of photos is where mobile users vs desktop users come in as an important consideration.

For mobile users, the forum view is dynamic and optimized automatically to each individual phone and display size, so how many pictures you see in a row really depends on what phone you're using. For desktop users, this is mostly fixed unless you're on a cramped porn box running Windows 98.

Here is an example comparing a well formatted post between mobile and desktop.

0C8C66A6-5B22-461D-A800-86A1C5DC1DE0.jpeg
Multiple Pictures 2 .jpg

Mobile View vs Desktop View

And here is an example of another post not thoughtfully formatted, which has a dramatically different viewer experience. This is something mobile users would mostly ignore as it's not dissimilar to their normal experience, but it affects the desktop users experience dramatically.


C8641CDF-0816-45D0-B738-E33997664238.jpeg
Multiple pictures 1.jpg

Mobile View vs Desktop View

The above problem mainly comes from posters on mobile (Yeah! We'll blame you! Deal with it.). Unfortunately it's not something they're necessarily aware of due to how the display layout automatically adjusts, but this little hiccup can negatively impact other user's experiences on different devices.

A quick and easy way to solve this is to copy the raw BB Code generated after you've uploaded the pictures, and place it into a space remover tool for formatting.

bbcode button.png
8656C060-E52A-4318-9165-7A63D5EA30CF.jpeg
8FF37792-6E17-4A36-9020-2C3FBA3240F7.jpeg

A) bbcode option B) bbcode mode C) bbcode in space remover tool
Before you post, press the little [ ] button and you'll enter the BB Code editor (click it again to get out when you're done). Copy the full text and remove all the spaces off it, then paste it back to the forum and you'll have a nicely formatted forum post.

Removing spaces sound like hassle? You can use either
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or
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tool online! (no download needed)

Any space removal tool works so it's not too much of an issue, just Google around and find what one you like best. Copy your output text from the space removal tool and paste the code back into your post then you're good to go - let those likes and simp reacts roll on in! :peepoSimp:

Albums
If you have a lot of pictures, or your post is a full set, then a great way to share is to create an album of all the photos that you can link to, and
include just some preview photos on your post. Anywhere between 1-3 previews is a good number, depending on the number of pictures in the set. After all, you want there to be enough to get people excited to click the link :SALAMI:

Having preview photos and linking out to a full album ensures the forum posts will not be cluttered from a set of pictures, or have multiple posts for the same set of pictures - that'd be farming :BongoBan: It also helps make the pages more friendly for users with slower connections, as there are less images to load in at once.


84502A15-9943-4BCA-BA6A-AB811F2F3AC3.jpeg
Albums 1.jpg

Mobile View vs Desktop View

Another important thing to note is your picture orientation. On mobile, most phones would be able to fit a maximum of 2 portrait photos in a row and 1 landscape photo. On desktop, a row would usually be able to fit up to 5 portrait photos and 3 landscape. Do make sure to check the orientation of your photos and make the best decision yourself.

Posting Videos

One of the issues when posting videos is the lack of a screenshot to show what the content is. This unknown can cause people to skip over your post, which is not what we want. Posting just links often ends up with pages of just links where you'll have to press every single one to check out what it is.

Videos No Previews.jpg

Links without previews

A good way to solve this on desktop is to use MPC-HC or Thumnailme to auto-generate a video thumbnail, much like the screencaps you see when downloading a movie. Do note that these options are Windows based.

Download MPC-HC
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Download Thumnailme
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Feel free to leave a comment below if you have tips on how to do this on mobile or if there is anything you feel that we've left out.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

doubleoziggy

Bathwater Drinker
Mar 14, 2022
33
3,166
1,242
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This may seem like a silly question, but what is the appropriate way to format the bbcode in order to present the nice album links like in the Fay - Ahri bunkr images above?
 

hardlychriss

Lurker
Dec 28, 2022
5
19
163
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Sry for asking. I've searched the community tab, but found nothing.

How to format a link like that (I mean in a box with the logo from the hoster and so on):
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If I insert a link, it looks "boring", just the underlined link linke that:
Link
 

dumber11

Superfan
Aug 11, 2023
44
620
659
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Is it mandatory to use giphy.com for gif files? can't I use other upload sites?