A few questions about making a doc

[Ambious]

I've read the guides but not entirely sure about some of this stuff.


• Do you guys prefer I edit posts to include just the funny/interesting parts, or do you want me to copy the whole thing and let you sort it out?
• If the latter, how strongly against highlighting the good parts are you?
• Should I arrange the content in order to be read or is the reading more dynamic?

I guess I'm asking if the doc is more script or talking points?

[One Of The Crappy Pokemon That Nobody Likes]

I've read the guides but not entirely sure about some of this stuff.


• Do you guys prefer I edit posts to include just the funny/interesting parts, or do you want me to copy the whole thing and let you sort it out?
• If the latter, how strongly against highlighting the good parts are you?
• Should I arrange the content in order to be read or is the reading more dynamic?

I guess I'm asking if the doc is more script or talking points?

Threads should definitely be edited down to just the comedy, but posts should be left as-is UNLESS it's really long, in which case you should just send the funny bits. If it's a huge post that got edited down, a couple of sentences explaining the context would help. In that case, it's definitely better to highlight the good stuff so Lemon can easily say "skip down to where it says..." without much trouble. As for the order of content read, really it just depends on what's going on in the episode at the time. Personally I always put things in roughly the order I'd like for them to be read, starting with an introduction to the site (in the community's/sitemaster's own words) then building up to crazier and crazier shit until the ultimate in nuttiness at the end. Things didn't always get read in that exact order but it did make it a little easier to ensure that the episode ended on the best (... or worst, I guess...) note.

[Emperor Jack Chick]

I've read the guides but not entirely sure about some of this stuff.


• Do you guys prefer I edit posts to include just the funny/interesting parts, or do you want me to copy the whole thing and let you sort it out?
• If the latter, how strongly against highlighting the good parts are you?
• Should I arrange the content in order to be read or is the reading more dynamic?

I guess I'm asking if the doc is more script or talking points?

Threads should definitely be edited down to just the comedy, but posts should be left as-is UNLESS it's really long, in which case you should just send the funny bits. If it's a huge post that got edited down, a couple of sentences explaining the context would help. In that case, it's definitely better to highlight the good stuff so Lemon can easily say "skip down to where it says..." without much trouble. As for the order of content read, really it just depends on what's going on in the episode at the time. Personally I always put things in roughly the order I'd like for them to be read, starting with an introduction to the site (in the community's/sitemaster's own words) then building up to crazier and crazier shit until the ultimate in nuttiness at the end. Things didn't always get read in that exact order but it did make it a little easier to ensure that the episode ended on the best (... or worst, I guess...) note.

part of the joy is that each doc has a different organization so you never know what you're going to get. the person who collated the doc definitely has influence in how the episode ends up.

I prefer that you do NOT highlight the 'good parts' cause i personally prefer when i'm blindsided by something insane and have to power through it. :D

[Ambious]

I've read the guides but not entirely sure about some of this stuff.


• Do you guys prefer I edit posts to include just the funny/interesting parts, or do you want me to copy the whole thing and let you sort it out?
• If the latter, how strongly against highlighting the good parts are you?
• Should I arrange the content in order to be read or is the reading more dynamic?

I guess I'm asking if the doc is more script or talking points?

Threads should definitely be edited down to just the comedy, but posts should be left as-is UNLESS it's really long, in which case you should just send the funny bits. If it's a huge post that got edited down, a couple of sentences explaining the context would help. In that case, it's definitely better to highlight the good stuff so Lemon can easily say "skip down to where it says..." without much trouble. As for the order of content read, really it just depends on what's going on in the episode at the time. Personally I always put things in roughly the order I'd like for them to be read, starting with an introduction to the site (in the community's/sitemaster's own words) then building up to crazier and crazier shit until the ultimate in nuttiness at the end. Things didn't always get read in that exact order but it did make it a little easier to ensure that the episode ended on the best (... or worst, I guess...) note.

part of the joy is that each doc has a different organization so you never know what you're going to get. the person who collated the doc definitely has influence in how the episode ends up.

I prefer that you do NOT highlight the 'good parts' cause i personally prefer when i'm blindsided by something insane and have to power through it. :D

Hmm, noted.
I've already cut out some of the dreary info-dump in one of the posts, I'll un-highlight everything once I've got things edited nicely.

[Lemon]

Here's what I like in a doc:

• Intro page/paragraph frames what the document is about. Just like in an episode, I want to get a (brief) sense of perspective before jumping headlong into the crazy.
• Acceleration in tone. Start out with "About Us" or "FAQ" pages to lead in (if applicable), then build into progressive levels of insanity. A nice turn or aside in the middle is nice, but not necessary.
• Sections. A number of people have approached this in different ways, but I like when content is grouped into nice little packages, helps a lot in providing lead-ins as to what's gonna happen next.
• Consistent text formatting. - headline with URL, then the body with something approaching a paragraph layout. A lot of times, these sites are laid out like shit, so if you just copy/paste direct from the site, Google Docs will throw a bunch of weird assed HTML formatting in there to copy the styling. Very occasionally this is helpful, but mainly it makes it hard to read. Ctrl+Shift+V will strip a lot of that formatting out.
• Minimal asides and necessary backstory. We go through these things at a pretty rapid clip, and occasionally it's hard to separate site content from contributor comments. Keep comments in a consistent style, and watch out for situations where you'd need to explain a lot to make the joke work.
• Use some clean method to highlight the one or two gems in the doc, but highlight the piece rather than the sentence, paragraph, or word that you think really stands out, basically backing up what Jack Chick said. I totally get the impulse to draw big fucking red arrows to a particularly stupid statement, but that's not the way you'd want it to be approached. When you came across the piece, you had to discover that nugget, let us do the same.
• Bonus point: ToC with anchor links. Not necessary, but helpful.
• Additional bonus point: End the doc with a junk drawer of really short pieces that could be fired off rapidly.

[Ambious]

Here's what I like in a doc:

• Consistent text formatting. - headline with URL, then the body with something approaching a paragraph layout. A lot of times, these sites are laid out like shit, so if you just copy/paste direct from the site, Google Docs will throw a bunch of weird assed HTML formatting in there to copy the styling. Very occasionally this is helpful, but mainly it makes it hard to read. Ctrl+Shift+V will strip a lot of that formatting out.
• Bonus point: ToC with anchor links. Not necessary, but helpful.

As for the first one - it's good you brought it up because the site I was scraping uses a new paragraph for each new line, and while originally it was driving me insane and I was removing formatting quirks for readability, I thought you'd want to see it as close to the source atrocity as possible so I just copy/pasted without much reformatting. I'll fix.
As for the second one, I'm super monster cock about bookmarking documents, so everything is anchored, linked, ToC'd and easily navigatable.

Great tips guys, thanks!

[Ambious]

Final question: Assuming I minimize line-spacing to single space and the font is all around 11pt-12pt, how many pages are 'just enough' and how much is 'too much'?

[Lemon]

This is just an educated guess at the moment, but I think an hour long F Plus episode will work through about 13 pages of actual content. Options are nice, so I think a page count in the low 20s is probably ideal. Over 30 and we're doing a whole lot more skipping than we're reading, over 40 is where I start to have concerns about finding the good bits.

[Ambious]

This is just an educated guess at the moment, but I think an hour long F Plus episode will work through about 13 pages of actual content. Options are nice, so I think a page count in the low 20s is probably ideal. Over 30 and you're doing a whole lot were skipping more than we're reading, over 40 is where I start to have concerns about finding the good bits.

It seems I have some cutting to do, then.
Cheers!

[Zekka]

This is just an educated guess at the moment, but I think an hour long F Plus episode will work through about 13 pages of actual content. Options are nice, so I think a page count in the low 20s is probably ideal. Over 30 and you're doing a whole lot were skipping more than we're reading, over 40 is where I start to have concerns about finding the good bits.

It seems I have some cutting to do, then.
Cheers!

To give you an idea, the last doc I submitted was in 12point Times New Roman with generous line spacing. (single, but with big headers and an intropage) -- the initial cut was ~44 pages and the final one was about 30, and Lemon seemed pretty OK with that.