My first post was closed

There are rules here, just like many other forums. There is a sub-forum where you can share your work after you reach 50 posts.

Bitching about it won't help you.

And welcome, by the way.

If you have an issue with a mod closing a post, take it to PM. Complaining about it in public is in poor form.

If you haven't reached 50 posts, actively soliciting feedback on your work outside of the Share Your Work section is in poor form.

If you haven't familiarized yourself with the rules and regs of AW in general, complaining you've been slighted is in poor form.

Using your first post to solicit feedback can be considered spam and...guess what?...is in poor form.

Look around, get to know the lay of the land, and actively participate.

charlesartist said:

Aside from the bad form of posting my work before any of you could realize I'm not trying to spam or unethically use any of you, I'm really at a loss to understand what I did wrong. Can anyone enlighten me?

Click to expand...

When you joined you received a PM suggesting, strongly, that you read the Newbie's Guide.

Go. Read it now.

Read the FAQ stickies, (note the ones about images and Share Your Work in particular) and the Share Your Work stickies.

And note: When a thread is closed by a mod, you don't go open another thread complaining that the thread was locked. You can PM the mod to ask what you should do, or the board owner, but you'd don't start another thread.

Read a lot more; this place is huge. There are a lot of people. And a lot of threads.

What has already been said. If you really want to be enlightened you should do as Medievalist advises and read the Newbie's Guide, the FAQs and the Share Your Work stickies.

And 50 posts is not hard to achieve... if you lurk about any of the boards here you will likely feel the urge to comment somewhere and before you know it you have your 50.

One thing to bear in mind - had you posted a query along the lines of 'what do you all think of this idea for an interactive game?' without posting the exact wording/images then you would likely have been left alone (unless you broke a rule in some other way such as appearing to be a spammer). You could have got some of your 50 posts that way and then posted in the SYW forum.

BTW, something which no one else seems to have mentioned... the rule is just as much about protecting you and your work than it is about just being a rule for the sake of it.

The 50 post limit is a way of ensuring you are serious about writing and participating on the forums in order to get access to the snackies like the SYW forum. That is an arbitrary rule set by the mods based on what they beleive is appropriate.

The SYW forum, however, is a password locked forum. This is important because any work displayed on a public (i.e. non password locked) internet site which any one with an internet connection can access and read is considered 'published' by many publishers and therefore you lose your first rights. It sounds petty and it probably is but this is how many take it. Had the mods not removed that post, you would likely not be able to publish that work very easily. In the SYW forum, however, it is not 'published' by that definition and so first rights are still intact.

Publishing is full of little contract quirks like this, which is why it is useful to have a forum full of people who know about such things, mostly because they have fallen into such traps themselves and have the scars to prove it...

charlesartist, you've said that posting your game was a contribution because, to you, it's a fun, enjoyable game. But you're the one who made it. You started a thread with the sole purpose of talking about something that you made. Can you see how that might come across as a little self-centered, even if you didn't mean it that way?

Now, I've read several things in Share Your Work that I actually really enjoyed. But that doesn't change the fact that the person who posted them was asking something of me (and the other members), not the other way around. If I simply wanted to be entertained by reading something, I have plenty of published books on my reading list to get to. If I simply wanted to play a game, I'd turn on my Xbox or pick up my iPhone. I go to SYW and give feedback because I want to give back to the community, because it's helped me in the past.

Now, when I do have online discussions, I want them to be discussions in which all participants have an equal say. Me telling you what I would pick next in your interactive book and then you telling me what page would appear is not equal say. It's not even a discussion.

Think of it this way. Imagine how it would look if I started a new thread that basically said, "Hey, guys, here's a sample of my work. It's really fun to read, isn't it? Let's have an entire discussion about its merits, and do point out any spelling errors you see." I might very well be a skilled writer and my work could be highly entertaining. But that's for others to tell me, not for me to announce to them.

If you want to be seen as a contributing member, make things less about you and your work and more about others and theirs. And, in time, they will gladly return the favor.