I agree with Burrell. Though I hate to skip and skim, I find it's a neccessity at times. Between Beep Me, COMM, and the Press thread, I find you don't miss the important personal news, and the really funny bits. If you walked into a party late, you wouldn't make your friends recap everything that passed, you'd just get them to hit the highlights, and we have that. I think you either have to committ to catching up, or make peace with the fact that you're skipping.

I think you are right. Press, Beep Me, Comm and the last 50 posts in natter give a pretty good catchup.

Other thoughts about the FAQ/How-To document:

"How do you do fake HTML?" is rapidly becoming a FAQ, so I think the t quick-edit should be added to that section. But then I think that the rest of the html-y stuff could come out of the FAQ, since it's all in the How-To. I'd also like the How-To include everything that's allowed, not just a sample -- it's a relatively short list, right?

So, here's what I'm thinking to go into the FAQ:

Every time I try to use fake HTML, it disappears! What can I do?
We have only allowed certain HTML tags to be used in posts here, so anything else between carats gets stripped out. For fake HTML tags, use our awesome Quick Edit code: start a new line with "t," then what you want between carats, like this:

. t /obsessive [uh, someone can do the thing so that works as a demo without the period, right?]

becomes this:

t /obsessive

Not that we ever turn off the obsessive tag.

The complete list of what's allowed is here.

(Edited to add that Sheryl's post was what got me started thinking about this anyway, so pretty links should definitely be in the how-to, also. I'm seeing the how-to as incorporating all the technical ins and outs.)

OK, here's my other FAQ addition suggestion (yes, I'm desperately avoiding getting off the couch):

Y'all talk a lot! I love it, but I can't keep up! Should I quit my job?

We do not recommend quitting your job in order to catch up with the Buffistas, although we understand the impulse -- threads here move really fast, and after even one day away, you will be faced with hundreds of new messages. So, what can be done? Lots.

If you want to read the discussion of a current episode, but just don't have time to read every message that came before it, Nillytown has links to the beginning of each episode's discussion.

If you just can't keep up in Natter, may we recommend the John H Natter Diet? It entails reading (1) the Beep Me thread for big personal news, (2) the Sunnydale Press thread for big community news, (3) Coffee on My Monitor for conversation highlights, and (4) the last 50 posts in Natter.

If you do find yourself catching up on hundreds of messages at a time, you will find that you have many responses to various posts. In that case, you may want to do a meara. This is not the same as doing meara. The verb "to meara" was coined by Fred Pete, and formally defined by DavidS:

To meara: To do a long catchup post in Natter interspersed with quotes.

Use Notepad, or the program of your choice, to copy and paste the stuff to which you want to reply.

I like Jesse's suggestion for the Natter strategies. A lot. However I don't think we need a whole section on fake html tags in the FAQ since it is already in the quick-edit pop-up window.

I only suggest it because it is, in fact, a question that is asked frequently on the threads. I also notice people not asking, but yet not using the quick-edit -- doing work-arounds with brackets and shit.

(edit: I wasn't trying to sound snotty there, I swear.)

I know you weren't! My goodness, Jesse, I didn't take it the wrong way at all. I even see why you suggest it. It's true, people keep asking, but I am presuming that's because it's folks who migrated over from WX and so they mistakenly think that our quick-edit tips are the same as at WX.

I just thought it was a lot of space to devote to information that can be found elsewhere as well. But hey, no biggie. Especially since it's already composed and all. ;-)

Just one of those re-reading things: "Oh no! Did I sound like that?" Heh.

I'm not committed to what I put up there, god knows. But see, we save the space where the quick-edits are listed in the FAQ!

This is not the same as doing meara.

Bwhahahahahahahah! Thank god. Or, well, maybe not...I'd be done a lot more if every time the Buffistas "did a meara" they also did me.

So, does anyone else have any feelings about my proposed FAQ additions? Yea or nay? I'm good either way.