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Guide to writing a Guide.
By Skype

This consept might seem very easy to you, but The reality of it, Not all guides are well written.
Since you are reading this right now, Know this: If you continue to read this, there will no longer be any excuse for a
Poorly written guide, except for lazyness. So read on with your own caution. This is ment for the Model edit, and MMowned's Private server guides, since that is where people need the best made guides possible xD

Some guides are so great, you come out from a noob to a pro in one reading. Others, your IQ drops a bit after
reading it. This guide to writeing a Guide, will teach you everything you need to know, from how to not present a wall of
text and to make sence, and to share your knowledge better.

First of all, what is the diffrence between a wall of text and a good read? Apart from the fact that wall of texts hurt
and may cause your eyes to bleed, there is not much. The diffrence between this:

Wall of text Wall of text Wall of text
Wall of text Wall of text Wall of text
Wall of text Wall of text Wall of text
Wall of text Wall of text Wall of text
Wall of text Wall of text Wall of text
Wall of text Wall of text Wall of text

And This text:

Wall of text Wall of text Wall of text

Wall of text?
Not.

Roflmao
This is not a wall of text.
I assure you.

Both took 6 lines (not counting the spaces) But why whould a reader be more "Freindly" to the
Spaced Wall of text then to the compressed text. Did you read evey line in the compressed wall
of text? No you did not, Did you read the entire part in the uncompressed wall of text?
Chances are you did. This will lead to your first tactic: Space out and let some air in your Walls.
Make your essay more "eye-Freindly"

The second tactic in writing a good guide is knowing what to add in. Observe the diffrence between these three:

P1
The object in front of me
Is a keybord.
You hit keys with it.

P2
the object in front of me, is known as a keybord.
The keybord was invented as a means of interacting with your computer
VIA the keybord, anything i type, will appear on the screen.
The monetor is a Lenovo T61p, thus my letters are about 1-3 Mm In leanth.
The keyborde gets electronic signals everytime you press a button, each signal is keyed in
To a key. that signal is connected to your hard drive and your harddrive in turn expands the signal into
Data that stands for that letter. that letter is then sent to the monitor and displays your typed Key.

P3
The object in front of me, is known as a keybord. And if you dont know what that is, You probably should not
be reading this. The thing works simply. You type a key. it appears on your monitor. the real trick is to know
How to type fast. Else your going to be banging your head on the keybord when you figure out that you cant
Finnish your TPS reports in time. Go to this link to learn how to type faster: [Only registered and activated users can see links. ].

Now show of hands: All of you whould have found P1 to have lowered your IQ to that of a monkey. Or made you pity
the humman race. All of you should have fallen asleep reading P2, and thus not learned anything. Or just gave a
Plus rep, said it was great and ran away. P3 should have been the one that you learned what you needed to know Without
Your IQ dropping, or your grandma useing this as means of a free sleeping aid.

This is the tactic in a general term: Data dumping = bad. Know what is needed, and what is just too much. Adding details
is great, but if someone needs to know how to add a dot in a triagle, dont show them how to draw the entire triangle and then
show them how to add a dot. Too little data will make people laugh at you. Too much will make their head explode. Either way
No rep for j00. teach them what they asked for.

The third tactic is simple: Pics, SS and More pics.

The term "SS or i dident happen" applies well to guide. the more pics you have, the better. But just like data dumping, if
You add a ton of pics, that you might as well make a movie rather then acctually type, you may have crossed the line there.
add the pics that are needed.
Be minimalistic about it, but not that picky. A picture is worth one hundred words is a
a good way to discribe this. That is, if you can add a picture. For this guide, If i added a picture, it whould not server
for much now whould it? ((Also, at this point, If you are going to reply to this post, add "~ <your name>" at the end, so i
Know who acctually read this, and who just answered randomly. But keep it quiet mmk? ))
at best it whould show an unclickable text. Know when to add pics, and when to not add pictures.
For example. Lets take Gastric's LUA scripting boss guide, Could it have used pictures? If he did add pictures,
It whould not be LUA texts now whould it? it whould most likely be a boss exectuing the LUA in-game. Whould it have helped?
No it whould not have. How could it help?

Therfore, by not takeing Pics, He upped the quality of his guide. And yes, this part is a bit confuseing, i know. I preach
about how Useing as many pics is great, and end up saying to minimalise the use of your pics. The truth comes down to this:
Use pics to complement your data. It should be a visual aid showing exactly what you are saying.

The fourth tactic of a good guide is a simple one:
Relate.
Giveing the reader info is good. But its only 2D. A good way to show them is to do a cross referance to another
source. Relateing what your writeing to another compleatly diffrent subject. For excample, what did Gastric's
LUA scripting guide have to do with Pics?
It wasent that, it was being used as an example because it dident use Pics to bog it down.
If you can apply what you are showing to your reader, and show outside data useing it, Or Do a contrast,
Such as what i did to the Beyond WoW and the Machinema Finalist movies. I contrasted both so that the reader
understand the material im presenting better.

The fith tactic, is the most essential
Make your Guide make sence. Dont type it out one day, and post it the minut you finnish it. Think of that as a
Minus to your presentation. Make your guide on a word document, spell check it, go to sleep, and read it over the
next day. You will find a lot of suff that just dosent make sence. Waiting the extra day to sleep on it will increase
your Guide's success by 50%! Or your money back! (and the saying "90% of all persentages added on the internet, are
made up on the spot" Can never be more true then now.)

Sixth tactic to follow is also needed in many guides.
Simply said, picture yourself writeing guides for that lone new guy, that dosent know a thing about anything.
Give as much detail as possible. Write for monkey brained people. And while there probably wont be someone comming along
with that IQ, even masterminds might not understand a very basic consept. the humman mind is weird... So at least your guide
will have all the answers.

The seventh and final tactic is a simple one:
humor. Adding a bit of it will improve your guide by a more subtle manner. This is something i cant help with, as humor
is not something to show how to do. You will have to improvise yourself =P

With all these tactics, and tips on how to write your guide, its up to you witch you follow, and witch you ignore.
I hope that i will see some better written guides in the future. Some are great as they are, other are 3 sentence long.
And still more are just a heap of words.

Good luck! And great guides, are not made in 30 minuts. =)
Now we should see some better made guids about private servers, and How to work with them ^_^