All right, so you've signed up for UER, made it through the waiting period, and ooh'd and aah'd at all the people getting into awesome places, and now you're eager to share your locations. Good for you! If you've made it in and out of a location and are now looking to share, feel free to flip through this guide for some tips on how I personally like to do my write ups. Note that none is this is necessarily endorsed or supported by uer.ca or it's administration, just some helpful tips I thought I'd throw up to help out.
To begin with:1. First of all, make sure you're posting in the appropriate forum. In this case, your write ups will get the most attention, and the best responses if you post in you're region's forum. For instance, if you are in Texas, far more people with far better insight on your location will see it if you post in the Southern forum, rather than the Rookie or the Main forum. Or if you are in New York, post in the NorthEast forum, California, Pacific Southwest, etc etc.
2. Decide what pictures are worth posting and which aren't, and don't overload on the pictures. Usually, I try to keep it to about 25-30 pictures. Try not to post pictures that are too dark, too blurry, or don't really show anything interesting.
3. When you know what pictures you want to use, try to put the pictures in a logical order. Imagine you're giving a tour. For example, if you've explored a house, start off with pictures of it from the outside, then the front hallway, leading into the living room, then the dining room, then the kitchen, the bedrooms, bathroom, any other amusing rooms, and then the outside and garage. Try not to post a picture of bedroom #1, then the outside, then a hallway, then a toilet, then the outside, then bedroom #2, then a squirrel. This is confusing, makes it harder for viewers to get a feel for the layout and the size and presence of the place and makes it harder to get into it.
4. Upload your photos to a 3rd party hosting website that allows hotlinking, like
www.photobucket.com or
www.imageshack.us . This way, if anything happens to your computer you have a backup of your precious places and it will look a lot better than the pop-up hosting.
5. If you can, try to do a little research and find out if the place has any interesting history. This isn't necessary, but it adds a lot to a write up and will draw people in and interest them.
6. Try to keep it to one location for thread. If you have an explore-a-thon type of day and hit several locations in one day, go for the glory! Make a thread for each location. However, if there are several different buildings in one compound, keep that as one thread.
The format: Ok, now that you've gotten all the above, let's start in on the actual writeup. Basically, it should go:
1. Intro. Write a little blurb about about the place, and try to draw the reader in and hook them into your write-up. Be descriptive about the place. Why did you want to go there? What did it feel like to be in there? What kind of aura or energy did the place have? What made it significantly different from other places you've been? If you were able to do some research on the history of the place, tell us, why is this place significant? What is still there as evidence of it's past? Tell us, how did it feel when you got in? Was it easy? Was it hard? (but remember not to post specific information on how to get in) Anything you have that is interesting and will make me want to read more, bring it on.
2. Pictures. Now the fun part. Now that you've got your pictures all in a nice, logical order and weeded out the bad pictures, put them in a nice, tidy numbered list with a description of each.
Example:
1. This is a blah blah blah that we found in the blah blah area of the blah.
{image}
2. We then went in here and found blah blah blah
{image}
So on and so forth. Have fun with the descriptions! Express yourself, tell us why each picture is special to you and give us a feel for how it felt to stand there, in real life, and look at the scene that's up on our monitors. Did it smell bad? Was it frightening? Did anything funny happen while you were there?
Remember, do not post pictures of points of entry. 3. Conclusion. Now that you've got your interesting intro, your cool pictures with a catchy description for each, and your reader is drawn in and interested, write a short paragraph or a few sentences summarizing your trip and your experience there. Did you have fun? Would you recommend it to others? What stood out the most for you in this place? Would you go back? What did you find inside that struck you the most? Anything you want to say about the place and how it made you feel or what you found.
Now, here are some helpful don't to help you avoid the wrath of the vindictive veterans.
- This is uer.ca, not Facebook. We all know exploring is exciting, but don't post to tell us you're just leaving to go exploring or that you are planning a big exploring trip this weekend. We know. Most of the rest of us are too. That's not to say, though, if you have somewhere you want to go in mind and want some tips on the best ways to proceed, go right ahead and ask for tips.
- Write ups are nearly useless without pictures. It doesn't matter if all you have is a cell phone camera or a $10,000 Canon, take some pictures if you want to share. Pictures are really the only way the rest of us have to relate to your trip.
- Use common sense. Don't post pictures of yourself doing anything stupid, like stripping copper or shooting up.
That's about it! Go out there and have fun! If you're more of a visual person, here are some examples of some very well written, very concise writeups.
http://www.uer.ca/...d=1&threadid=94138http://www.uer.ca/...d=1&threadid=94334http://www.uer.ca/...d=1&threadid=93612http://www.uer.ca/...d=1&threadid=94448