report of the month submission advice

[thousandyards]

angus asked me to move this into a new thread for some advice on reports:

- use paragraphs.....it's really hard to read 40 lines of text with no breaks. keep paragraphs to 5 lines max

- if it's a weekend trip split it up into days or even morning/afternoon sessions with some headings or something

- put your photos in the section of the report it applies to. might have to spend some time getting the imaging tags right but it makes it a more compelling read. helps to break it up as well

just some ideas to make things easier to read. there's been some great reports posted here and it'd be a shame for people not to read them just because the formatting isn't great.

also, the better the formatting, the easier to read and the more likely to win!!!

[Do$tylz]

very true there. one massive unbroken essay is quite monotonous to read.

[werewolf]

thread names that are usefull would be great too! We are flooding with "Fishing Yesterday", "NPD again", "BASS", "River Fish" etc. I like too see a date and location in the thread name, but yeah that is my grumpy old opinion lol.

[Davo_Dinkum]

i try to use date and place in the name.try to spit it all up a bit too.i feel its a better read.

all the idea's /points above are good.

[Angus]

These are good tips.

These are the things that make the difference between a good fisihng session and a good fishing report. And its good reports that will win the ROTM not sessions.

Cheers.

Angus

[thousandyards]

werewolf......great point!! dates, places and if it was AM or PM.....

might be good if people could post details (if they know them) as bullet points at the start of their posts too - like this:

17/5/09 - PM

Pinkenba landbased

Falling tide - High at 7pm

Bait: livies, pillies. SP's

might help if people are after some basic details that aren't there. not that it would be compulsory....just helpful. especially from some of the regulars who know their stuff

[Angus]

All these are good suggestions.

As mentioned in previous posts there are few things I look for when judging.

* Quality of writing.

* Quality of photo's.

* Quality of capture.

* How entertaining is the read.

* How helpful the report is for others. Example, how much information and techniques are disclosed.

The more of these attributes found within the report the the chances. Nothing wrong with a good old fashion brag! But for the purpose of the competition we are looking for a bit more than that.

Cheers.

Angus

[noname]

is there a function here that allows me to save what i have written without it being submitted, as sometimes when i go for a good hit up, the actual prep starts days beforehand, eg. i am intending to fish this weekend and started getting bait today, and tomorrow, and couldn't be bothered writing it all up on the day? if there's anything to write up! :S

[Angus]

noname wrote:

is there a function here that allows me to save what i have written without it being submitted, as sometimes when i go for a good hit up, the actual prep starts days beforehand, eg. i am intending to fish this weekend and started getting bait today, and tomorrow, and couldn't be bothered writing it all up on the day? if there's anything to write up! :S

Rob there is no function so to speak that can do that.

But you can easily just write it on a Word Doc or even notepad and save that.

When you have finished just create a report and cut and paste text into it...

Angus

[noname]

yeah, and all that means????

[Davo_Dinkum]

i write it here then save it in notepad the submit later as i feel etc.its easy peasy rob,sure trav or one of us can show u.

[Gazza]

With out trying to flog a Dead horse multiple pics in posts help as apposed to multiple posts to display pics

If you can't get your head around it and need help send me a pm and you can come to my place and I'll show you just how easy it is

Cheers Gaz

or if you get a group together I can come round and show you

[shortie]

A good report also includes

Bait type, collection methods

Rig.

Gear.

Moon tide and weather conditions.

Target species. Even if you dont get what you are targetting.

[Angus]

noname wrote:

yeah, and all that means????

Hahaha. Rob I will make a time and show you first hand. Once you know its easy as mate

Angus

[Angus]

Gazza wrote:

With out trying to flog a Dead horse multiple pics in posts help as apposed to multiple posts to display pics

If you can't get your head around it and need help send me a pm and you can come to my place and I'll show you just how easy it is

Cheers Gaz

or if you get a group together I can come round and show you

Gazza there are a couple of probs with photo bucket etc in a forum which have recently come to light for me.

* If someone in the future deletes their account all photo's in the forum dissapear.

* Also if there is a forum upgrade and images are lost its better if they have been uploaded into the system as we can replace and fix.

Therefore although it creates multiple posts, I prefer to do my report photo per post now.

If each image has a decent caption or narative, it can still be great.

With this in mind, one post or multiple posts wont be weighted differently against each other.

Angus

[noname]

Angus wrote:

noname wrote:

yeah, and all that means????

Hahaha. Rob I will make a time and show you first hand. Once you know its easy as mate

Angus

lol thanks mate. as i try to find notepad

[werewolf]

Angus wrote:

* If someone in the future deletes their account all photo's in the forum dissapear.

* Also if there is a forum upgrade and images are lost its better if they have been uploaded into the system as we can replace and fix.

Exactly why I have never done used Photobucket etc. Plus it saves me having to do the same work on two websites! What would be really cool (and I think people have asked for it before) is to be able to load pics into a AFO gallery of some sort (multiple pics at once!) and be able to view the URL pointing to them such that we can link to them in posts.

[wow that is rather hard to read lol]

[Davo_Dinkum]

i stick to multiple posts for a few pic's.

then i don't have to join other sites (photo bucket etc)and load them there then link them to here.etc

also some of these sites time out after so many views and linking used.

not sure id photo bucket dose but geocites did,but that was a while ago i used them.

used to use some for pic's and video cause sites i was on couldn't handle big file sizes,or only allowed small picture size like the avatar pic's here,etc.

find the picture sizes here quite good now.

still prefer to load them to the site i want them on if i can.

[yoyo]

To store pics for use on web forums i always use www.tinypic.com