Academy Lesson: Trimming Posts

So one of the important skills we want cadets to learn while they are in the Academy is how to trim posts. Believe it or not, this is actually one of the many skills the CO, XO and Counselor will be looking for when we evaluate cadets for graduation - but it is also one of the most often overlooked skills.

Notice how after a few posts in a thread, the earlier, quoted text starts to get longer, and longer, and longer. And the scroll wheel on your mouse begins to complain as you skip all the stuff you have read over and over again that really doesn’t need to be included anymore? That’s because the post hasn’t been trimmed.

To trim a post, there are actually two skills involved: (1) recognizing when a post needs to be trimmed, and (2) the actual procedure for trimming a post.

Recognizing when to trim a post

There is no hard or fast rule about when to trim a post. It generally comes with experience in STF, but the joy of the Academy is you can practice and ask your mentors for help without any worry about repercussions. Don’t worry - if you make a mistake, we can fix it. But this is the perfect time to try to recognize when a post needs trimming.

In a two-person thread, it is generally very easy. After about three posts or so into a thread, both the players and the readers will know what the context is (and anyone new to the thread can read the earlier posts in the thread to catch up). So you can usually count on being able to “snip” out anything that is older than three posts or so.

In a thread with three or more people, trimming can be a bit more complicated. On one hand, you want to remove the older content that isn’t needed anymore. On the other hand, you don’t want to accidentally snip a character out of the thread. A good starting point is to try to go for the “three-post” guideline for a two-person thread, but if that means removing a character from the thread, keep that post and the subsequent posts in. Eventually you’ll start to pick up when it makes sense or not.

How to trim a post

Okay, now that you have figured out what you want to remove, the next step is to remove it while letting everyone know that you did that.

First, delete all the content you want to remove. (Yes, all the content, even the “Posted by” lines.)

Second, replace the deleted content with a line saying “<snip>“.

Done. Yay!

Daniel