An Important Message Regarding BBCoding

Hello. I would like to clarify a few things that have been bothering me for the last couple of months here in this site.

Ever since TormentedTurnip's guide to BBCoding came out, the new members and guidecrafters of the Smite Fire community have been really improving on their BBCoding skills, and more and more new guides look better. Which is great...

BUT!...

BBCoding is not the first priority in guide crafting, and is not the most important. I've been constantly seeing guides being judged mainly according to their looks and aesthetics, and in most reviews members gives to new guides, the first thing they mention, if the guides lacks it, is BBCoding.

This has to stop. BBCoding is important, don't get me wrong. Reading a wall of text isn't the ideal guide, but you shouldn't regard so much importance to the guide's looks and BBCoding.

"But Jordenito, your guides look..." True, my guides look... they way they do, because I'm an OCD perfectionist with way too much free time. But that doesn't mean I give up on content for some BBCoding.

You don't believe me? check out this guide

It was released in April 4th. Sure, it has nice looks, but by the time this guide was firstly out, items like Gem of Binding were already gone. And getting Hide of the Nemean Lion is a bad idea on Nu Wa. This guide contains no real skill explanations, almost no team work / gameplay, laning explanations, useful tips/tricks for playing Nu Wa. But, it looks good. And somehow, it has gotten a lot of upvotes.

Now it could be just me, but, even if I'm wrong about this guide in particular, here's the main message:

well for a note I don't judge guides on some sort priority. I know it is a lot of time the first thing I say. But at the top I mostly make small things (the lacking stuff) tab and then I go over paragraphs that are there but have something wrong.


On some way I always do the build or skills as last. making it pretty long if I know the character a bit otherwise it's shorter. on the long ones I sometimes even don't mention it (unless even the double brackets aren't there so I can't see what some (mostly non-used) items do). And because I don't pay attention too much to most other bbcoding (I know that they are there but aren't that helpfull) I never look to that.

First thing I look at is BBCoding. If it lacks it comepletely and the build is bad, it's a downvote for me.

The thing for me is that BBCoding is used for structure and (kinda) that's it's nice to look at.
If a guide looks like this:

Items Breastplate of Valor is good cuzza CDR and mana blablabla. Jotunn's Wrath is also good cuz CDR and pen blabla. Shoes of the Magi is good cuzza pen blabla.

It doesn't look ordered. The way the items are explained isn't ordered. If you just want to know why Jotunn's Wrath is good you'll just have to search through the whole part. That's why ordering (with BBCoding) is important in a guide. If you have great BBCoding but bad info it's a downvote. However, if the BBCoding is just lacking but the info is good, it's a downvote (if the creator doesn't add BBCoding after he was told that the guide needs BBCoding).


What I'm trying to say is that it's (very) important to an extent.

BBC coding isn't needed to have orderly info - it just helps greatly in that regard. I prioritize good info first, then accessibility; looks are last.

This is my requirements for a guide.

Info>Organization>BB Coding

So if I see a guide with good info and pretty good organization/layout, I'll upvote it regardless of any BB Coding. I suggest to add BB Coding in all guides if they don't have an amount I'd like them to have.

I do agree with you, some guides are liek that.

btw, some guides I reviewed about a couple weeks after joining here were not guide reviews that are entirely great. (That guide is one of them xD). As of now, I'd either barely upvote that guide or not vote, mainly because although it is lacking information, the info that is there is good while also looking amazing is a bonus.

My parents always say neat handwriting will get you better grades. In English, it is slightly true (based on the teacher)...

EDIT: And I also bet that that user got votes because of their profile picture xD

Bulletin Board Coding Coding xD I love when people do that

Anyone who says a good guide with bad BBcoding is a downvote is ridicuous as long as they organize what they're saying. Run on sentences make it hard to read but someone who puts in effort into the actual point of the guide

you know

learning the god

despite not having the best bbcoding, should be at least an abstain, not a downvote. There's way too much emphasis on BBCoding here. Sure, tell them to add it, but don't downvote them solely because of it.

I second this post entirely.

Agreed, I only used so much because I found it strangely fun and I get pretty obsessive about my own work. I hate seeing something regarding coding at the very beginning of a review. But BBCoding or not, it still needs to be structured well, as I wrote here; if the sentences are garbled, written in broken English, and the author appears to have a broken enter key, it's a bad guide regardless.

Yes, a guide must be good in content first. But if somebody spends time on this site is obviously going to learn BBC basics. Also, if somebdy has good content, with adequate use of BBC can alleviate it to something really nice and worth. People who need such guides are usually not the resident members but guests, so a guide must be easy on the eyes to read.