Guidelines on Posting - Post Size
Revised Theta Fleet Posting Policy (effective January 1, 2026)
Purpose of the Update
This proposal updates the current Theta Fleet Posting Policy to strengthen clarity, improve understanding, and delineate expectations for monthly, quarterly, and yearly awards.
It also addresses community concerns that some sims have recently had 10+ credited authors to posts that were just over the current 800 word minimum which unfairly affects sim activity numbers.
The 2026 Posting Policy:
▪ Personal Logs should have a minimum word count of 500.
▪ Solo Posts (authored by one individual) should have a minimum word count of 800.
▪ Joint Posts authored by two individuals should have a minimum word count of 1000.
▪ Joint Posts authored by three to five individuals should have a minimum word count of 1,300.
▪ Joint Posts authored by six to ten individuals should have a minimum word count of 1,600.
▪ Joint Posts may be split into multiple posts as long as each part follows the single post numbers listed above.
▪ COs are NOT required to split posts.
▪ Multiple posts should not contain a ‘Previously On …’ recap of more than a paragraph (or two short paragraphs, if necessary, to remind other players what was going on in the previous post).
▪ When splitting a post, ONLY those who contributed to that part of the post should get credit for it. Each participant credited should have contributed their fair share. In general, a one-liner should not be credited for the entire post. (You can go in and add them to it later for administrative purposes.) However, if the player in question was more active in other parts of the combined post, and there are legitimate reasons only one line made it into this part of the post, they can be left in. (But this should be rare.)
▪ Occasional posts that are shorter than the above numbers are acceptable as there will also be posts that are longer. We aren't going to be concerned unless posts are frequently or consistently under the recommended word count. So, basically, if the post is 1200 or 1500 words from time to time, it's fine.
▪ Authors are human writers (players).
▪ A post with six NPCs written by one person where only that one individual wrote all characters is a solo post and only one author is credited. (Nova counts users, not characters, in the post per player average.)
▪ All content in posts must be in compliance with the Theta Fleet AI policy in order to be eligible for awards or recognition. If any part of a post is written or assisted with the use of an AI, that post will be ineligible for an award. No posts including that player will count toward the total post per player average. Nor will that player be eligible for any fleet awards.
▪ The Theta Fleet Admin reserve the right to simply not award any UOD or post of the month awards to that sim as going to the lengths necessary to get a true count for any given month are prohibitively complicated.
▪ As a note, Nova uses the number of users on a sim to calculate the post per player average. COs should occasionally check their stats page to make sure they don't have a lone user that wasn't removed when their character was made inactive. In addition, check that there are no characters that don't have a user.
The best way to remove a user and their characters is to first make any NPCs you'd like to keep in the character archive a PC, then deactivate it. Finally deactivate the main character, checking that the box to remove the user is checked. This will make the PC and PNPC inactive and deactivate the user. (There is no other way to keep a PNPC in the database and attached to a post.)
Rationale for the Revision
▪ There have been posts on sims with multiple authors who have split posts to 1,000-1,200 words with eight or more authors, a previous part, and signatures. That makes around 100-150 words per author. There have also been multi-part posts with large segments of the preceding post that basically does nothing but pad numbers. (That is because the purpose of including text from the previous part is to remind the players of what happened just before). At the same time, other sims have posts of over 2,000 words with the same number of authors. This makes it impossible to be "fair" if we just count numbers.
▪ The current posting policy is over a decade old and reflected smaller player numbers and fewer sims. This revision is more in line with current posting policies.
▪ It helps maintain consistency across the fleet with the different sims, sim types, and player numbers.
▪ It helps improve clarity on authorship.
▪ Improves fairness in giving out awards.
▪ It addresses recent issues and complaints.
Fleet Administration:
Kathryn Burke
Veruka Kitan
Curzon Bennett
