Placeholders
Placeholders are just that – place holders. In the event of needing to get a post up, but not having the time or means to do so (need to get offline, need to do necessary things like eat sleep and work ^.~, needing to get a hold of another player, need to do the actual SCENE with another player), you may post a placeholder in the community! When you have the scene ready to post, you may edit the placeholder to put the scene in its place. Voila! But we do have some placeholder rules.
1. You may not use placeholders for Private Messages (PMs) on the journal system. Using a placeholder for a private message can accidentally screw with another player/character's continuity. In the event of needing to get a private message up immediately, but you absolutely cannot get to it that day, you may ask a mod's permission to use a placeholder.
2. You may not use placeholders for open scenes. This means scenes in the community that are going to be open for any or all players to join in on. Again, using placeholders for these sorts of scenes can screw up continuity. If you need to post an early morning open-scene but cannot immediately get to it, post the placeholder with the following information: 'Placeholder for an open scene – mod permission pending.' At this time, ask a mod (IM or e-mail) for permission, explaining why you need it and for how long. If we find that a placeholder is unacceptable for this scene, we will let you know. Please note that we will only allow placeholders for open-scenes early in the game-day, and never after the 24-hour warning has gone up. One reasoning for this is continuity purposes; another reason is that putting up an open scene that takes place a game day ago? No one is going to tag. No one can react to something that took place yesterday – you're cutting people off from being able to react. Experiment B people can watch anything, and in some cases what happens in the scene may change the mindset of someone who wasn't even in it.
3. Placeholders over a week or two game-days old may earn a warning. Everyone is going to need to use a placeholder at some point. A lot of us have conflicting schedules, and scenes take a while to finish! But if we spot old placeholders that were never filled? We may issue a warning to post or delete, and if we do not receive a reply in a timely fashion, we will delete it ourselves.
4. Placeholders do not count towards your activity. If we do an inactivity warning, and you're on it? Putting up a placeholder – either for a journal entry or for a scene – will not get you off of it. You may get a 24-48 hour extension, but this will depend on the circumstance.
5. Please be clear in your placeholders. When posting a placeholder in the community, please state what it is for. Examples: Placeholder for a solo scene. or Placeholder for *your character* and *other character*. It is your choice on whether or not you include the WHO/WHERE/WHEN of our posting requirements, but if you'll be closing off a room to use by other characters at a specific time? It may be a good idea!
In closing, that means placeholders are only acceptable for tagged threads, aim scenes, and solo scenes and private journal entries. Placeholders are great for those things when the 24 hour warning goes up, or when you need a morning scene. But we all need to remember not to rely on them too heavily! Not every scene and post needs a placeholder. Don't use them as an excuse to procrastinate for a few days. ;)