How important is making posts look pretty?

[Undine]

.

[Vilageidiotx]

I like dressed up OP's and interest checks. I don't like posts to be dressed up beyond what you would find in your average novel.

[NuttsnBolts]

For the original post and character sheets I do believe some effort into formatting should be supplied. Its just the difference between reading a wall of text, and able to glance through to find the important details that you need.

Doesn't have to be coloured and such, just a heading or two, bold, and underline (like your op example)

[Ellri]

Ease of reading and navigation is important for RPs. In particular tab OPs, but also the sheets.

Even just basic bolding of things like "Name:" in a CS is a major bit for making it easy to read. We've found that employing hiders is also wise for the CS tab. each player puts his/her sheet in a hider, its a lot easier to find the one you're looking for when you need to look something up in a sheet.

If you want to go all-out (on complex sheets), nested hiders can be practical. Up to a certain point, of course.

Interest checks require special care for appearance, as they're the bait that will get you players. Proper formatting, ease of reading, considerations for available information, nice imagery, etc... All those factors count there. After all, if you bait it improperly, how will you trap your players?

[Royzooka]

For CS/OOC/IC they are great if it is just a banner picture of something but anything beyond that seems to bother people. I did a RP that was based in Britain and decided to have the text for the idea to be red, blue and white because of the Union Jack flag. I thought it looked nicer but other people were put off it, it was only one little part of the text. I did a "The army needs you" type of thing, like those posters we have but they seem to be rare now. The one with the guy pointing at you as he says those words. A banner makes a dull place less dull. I do sometimes do it for speech texts when too many people are RPing at one time. I also do it to convey tone, I set out what colour means what so the reader understands but it is rare I do it.

Bold and Underline add to a thread looking less boring, even the Italic does the job. I like to make things pretty but I have to remember some of the things people tend not to like. So a banner, some bold and underline and you should be set. I do want to remember how size of the font is done because that adds to it as well.I also like to write chapter names if one part is done.

[The Nexerus]

Pretty pictures, coloured text and whatnot is fine in sheets and in the OP. Anywhere else it is a pointless distraction that detracts from the actual contents of the post.

[ayzrules]

I honestly don't give two shits about what posts look like-as long as they're readable and properly spaced out (like, separated into paragraphs) I don't care

sure, pretty pictures and stuff are nice, but if an interest check doesn't have them it doesn't make a difference to me. Same with my CS's-unless the GM provides a template where the things are underlined and bolded, I generally won't make separate sections/colors/etc. I mean I usually format my CS so that it's easy to read (meaning I press enter after every section), but I'm not going to color code it or whatever

[ArenaSnow]

If it reads well, it's fair game to me.

[Baklava]

I definitely prefer that posts be nicely formatted and I really appreciate extra effort when it comes to color and graphics and the like. I was dying inside when the guild first came back up and colored font was a feature that had yet to be applied. Spacing of paragraphs is probably the most important thing for me as well-- reading things online is, for some reason, really difficult otherwise (at least for me).

I've always highly appreciated the use of graphics as long as they are properly sized. The use of headers, hiders, and dividers is always nice, too. All that being said, I think there are times when people abuse the fantastic ability to make aesthetically beautiful posts and it makes me wish they hadn't tried at all. As cruel as that sounds, it's kind of like painting a REALLY ugly mural on a wall. It would have been better to just leave the poor wall alone.

When abused as such, we end up with the following for-the-love-of-God-PLEASE-STOP mistakes. Not everyone may agree with this list, but these are the things that typically get under my skin:

My post/character sheet is really important, so EVERYTHING is bolded and/or underlined now.

I read this post after I finished writing it and noticed how incredibly difficult to read it is, but it's my favorite color and I'm lazy. Now everyone must suffer.

[insert 100000000 x 100000000 sized image here because it's really important to me that you get a good look at my character's face. Also, what is image resizing?]

[ulr=I-misspelled-URL.com]I don't notice crucial mistakes like that when creating interest checks or submitting character sheets. It's a super easy fix and I'm going to leave it there until someone tells me to fix it. I never look back and live my life free of regrets always. Baklava wishes she could live in a state of such blissful ignorance.[/url]

I use colors to differentiate crucial things in my posts. Good luck differentiating between my color choices, though. I show no mercy to those with color vision deficiency. (In case anyone couldn't tell, I used four different shades of light yellow in that last sentence.)

Unnecessary hiders

[insert normal three sentence paragraph here]

[AlteredTundra]

I firmly believe that as long as the post or character sheet isn't overdressed in colors, then yes I do believe that making posts pretty-looking is important. As stated above, it separates those posts that are pleasing to read and those that are just a wall of text. I find the latter to be unattractive and as a result, I usually don't read them(see that I said usually, not always).

[Rithy]

To me, the most important thing with posts is that they got plenty of space, easy to read, follow a certain logical pattern in their structure.

Avoiding walls of text is the most important thing someone can do, in my opinion.

Maybe use italic to signal a whisper or that a person is thinking, like:

-
"Ohhh, I don't mind it at all!" Nela said, smiling back at Bob and nodding her head.

"My, what a dummy."
-

Normally I'm not a fan of people coloring their texts, but I can appreciate it if it's like in a fast forward conversation between two or more people, like:

Nela
Ali
Tim

"NO, I swear I didn't steal the loot."
"Shut up, you were the last person in the room!"
"Guuys, can we please just calm down? It's no reason to get angry... "
"I'M NOT ANGRY! I'M FURIOUS!"
"Uhhh, I'll just go out the back!"
"COME BACK HERE!"

[Darcs]

The aesthetic of the post is 91% of the appeal, with size being 8.9% and the actual content being the other 0.1%.

[null123]

I think simple bolding to indicate the place/section and then making sure the post/CS is structured in a readable neat manner is sufficient.

[Arawak]

Some decent formatting and a couple pics I find is good enough for a OP while posts are as many people here said, simply a battle of having a bold title to describer location/time and than jumping into the post itself.

I tend to prefer spacing out everything I write since I find it much easier on the eyes than walls of text.

[Celaira]

I mean, I like my CS's to be pretty to the extent that I code them myself.

[Gowi]

Information, Navigation, Fluidity, and Effort are the four keys to a quality OOC.

You need to have the information available for character creation, but it needs to look well-enough where it doesn’t hurt to read and is easy to navigate. Good fluidity can help navigation and using sections are really beneficial in my experience.