On Forum Standards...

I'm impossing stricter guidelines for this forum, since, well... a lot of crap is getting in here. We seem to be getting away from the original intention of this subforum, to showcase finished or nearly so, polished, and refined timelines. Folks have been putting things in here almost in a manner that suggests they don't want their topic drowning itself out in the main discussions.

1. A topic well not be approved if it has less then 2000 words in the initial post.
2. A link must be posted to discussion. The forum has been around for a half a year now, so we no longer need to grandfather in older topics.
3. Said discussion needs to be a least several weeks old.
4. Portions of the TL or scenarios posted in here need to be the finish portion of the Timeline. The timeline can be ongoing, but things you need feedback on should be posted in the discussion thread first.
5. The Timeline needs to be fleshed out bare minimum of a decade, with the general guideline of the farther back the POD the more time I would like to see fleshed out.

To clarify, This is a showcase forum. Things submitted here would be in a state similar to the state they would be if you wanted to have them published. It doesn't need to be finished, a TL with a serious ongoing discussion is welcome here. The parts here should be from the point in the TL that you have moved on though, in a final state so to speak. Don't post something here that incomplete, and forget to keep updating it. It will be deleted.

Good examples of what should be placed in here. Remember this is a place to showcase particularly fine examples of Timelines. In the coming weeks, I'm going to start to trim down the herd so to speak, focusing on TLs We've approved but with caveats that haven't been meet since then Ideally things here would look as they would if they were going to a publisher:

Star Trek: Non-Federation Timeline- Well drawn and fleshed out. Timeline taken considerable distance from the POD(1980-2300). Provides substainstial detail. Discussion link has a good amount of discussion and refinement of topic. Ongoing, but parts post here are in a final form.

Franco-American War TL- Again, refined and of significant length from POD. Discussion ongoing, and fairly active in Discussion thread. Parts posted here are in their final form.

Superpower-Empire China Version 2.0- Detailed. Completed to modern times. Well edited, and had considerable discussion. In a final form.

Zionist Uganda- Same as above. Completed to FH times, well edited, with considerable discussion and revision prior to posting here. In a final form, and suitable to publish so to speak.

Not so hot examples. I'm not trying to pick on anyone here, just need to let folks know somehow right? In general these have enough detail to throw a fairly detailed timeline together, but more needs to be here:

Imperium Aeternus- It's been here for a couple weeks, but has only been fleshed out 2 decades. I know there's considerable discussion tied to this one, but nothing further has been posted since the original post.

Trastamara TL Less then 100 years from POD. Detail confined to one geographical area, but little is known about else where. No link to discussion.

Scottish Empire Detailed, but only goes out to less then 10 years from the POD. In present state it's a great setting for story, but not much else. It's good work, but needs more of it. No link to discussion.


The Nice Try Examples: Needs alot of work, either in plausiblity areas which need to be worked out in discussion, in profreading, drawing the POD out. Some of them are rather neat, but in general their best use is for putting a ME nation together, but not much else.

42 Years of American Civil War- Only has 2 years detailed of the ACW. Not much else to it. No discussion link, hasn't been updated since June. Work on the timeline appears to have been abandoned.

I won't single out anymore, to avoid embarrassment and such. The above example just happened to be the first one that I saw that works as an example.

Todays Article: Help me, Help you(or Matt favors those who help themselves)


It's no secret, I prefer TLs that take heavy use a narrative, like Decades of Darkness. But if you're going to post a straight up, literal timeline a few steps need to be taken in making it more coherant. Try to date and bold the datline as it comes up. This well break up massive blobs of text. Also, treat each date entry as a paragraph. Through some spaces between them. Inside a single entry don't be afraid to break it up into smaller paragraphs. This well greatly enhance readablity.

For example:

before said:

1998: George Washington came back to live and took one look around. He did not like what he saw. On a fateful november day, he vowed to raise an army to fight the hordes of Germanic Confederate Goblins running the United States. To the him, after sacrificing so much on behalf with his Brigade of Gnomish Flying Machine, it was enough to make him cry. He feld to New Yorkburg, and begain to contact old friends, the first of which was Teddy Roosevelt- Batman of New York City. Using Roosevelt's extensive contacts, a resitance network began to grow, first in New York metropolatian area and then across the country.
1999: The Great American Uprising begain in June. Flying forth from hidden shelters thousands upon thousands of brave Americans took to the skies in flying machines to destroy the Nazi Commie Confederate Occupiers. The Battles culminated in the Battle of Iwo Jima, Pennsylvania when American rebels defeated the IXXXX Corp of the enemy.

Click to expand...

becomes:

after said:

1998: George Washington came back to live and took one look around. He did not like what he saw. On a fateful november day, he vowed to raise an army to fight the hordes of Germanic Confederate Goblins running the United States. To the him, after sacrificing so much on behalf with his Brigade of Gnomish Flying Machine, it was enough to make him cry.

He feld to New Yorkburg, and begain to contact old friends, the first of which was Teddy Roosevelt- Batman of New York City. Using Roosevelt's extensive contacts, a resitance network began to grow, first in New York metropolatian area and then across the country.

1999: The Great American Uprising begain in June. Flying forth from hidden shelters thousands upon thousands of brave Americans took to the skies in flying machines to destroy the Nazi Commie Confederate Occupiers. The Battles culminated in the Battle of Iwo Jima, Pennsylvania when American rebels defeated the IXXXX Corp of the enemy.

Click to expand...