Welcome to the Events and Announcements section of the OGS forums. We'll be posting important announcements here as they occur. This is also where you'll go to get detailed information regarding upcoming OGS and non-OGS events. Just about every single one of the events you'll see listed on our Calendar will link directly to one of the topics listed here. Note that you can access the OGS Calendar from anywhere on the site simply by clicking the tiny Calendar button at the top-left of the forum display (just below the "CMU OGS" sign).
Of course, this forum isn't just a place for The Administration to announce new OGS events, it's also a place for you to announce your events. Whether you've decided to host bi-weekly racing-game nights in your floor's lounge, or you're looking for a few guys to take a trip to Philly with you to enter in a fighting-game tournament with a $300 prize, you'll want to post these here as... well, as Events! You can even make your Event show up on the OGS Calendar.
That sounds pretty sweet! What should I do when making a post so that it shows up as an Event on the OGS Calendar?
While The Administration can make Events show up on the calendar whenever we darn well please, it is important to note that The People (that's you) can only create an Event by making one out of a topic here in this section of the forum. You won't be able to do it anywhere else. When you press the "New Topic" button in this section of the forums, you'll see a posting page just like you normally would. Once you finish writing your topic and giving it an appropriate title (see below), you have the opportunity to turn your topic into an Event.
Before you press the "Send" button to submit your topic to the forum, scroll down a bit. Below the "Options" box, you should see a box labled "Calendar". You won't see this box if you try making a post in another section of the OGS forums. From here, it's rather self-explanatory. First, select the date your event is occuring using the drop-down menus. Next, set the time of the even by typing in the hour and minutes on the next line (remember to use military time! 5:30pm translates to 17 30). Finally, the "During" field lets you input the duration of the event. For multi-day events, set the starting date/time, and then input a "During" that lasts for the desired amount of time.
Now just press the "Send" button to submit your topic to the forum as you normally would. You won't notice any difference in how the thread looks or behaves, but if you look at the OGS Calendar, you'll find your topic title listed on the date you set, complete with a summary, which links directly to your topic. Anyone looking at the calendar will easily be alerted to your Event!
I notice that every Event topic on this forum is written in a particular style that makes it straightforward and easy to understand. Could you formalize this?
We ask you to adhere to format guidelines when posting in this section of the forums. It's not difficult, and it keeps things very nice and organized. One interesting feature of this section of the forums is that topics listed are organized with the newest topic on the top and the oldest topic on the bottom. Newest and oldest are calculated by the topic's original date of creation, not by any new posts in the thread. We do this because most announcements and events only remain important for a couple weeks at most, and we want people to be able to post to older threads while keeping the newer, relevant announcements up on top.
As far as formatting your post goes, format your topic's title like so:
[six.digit.date] - Full Event Name
Just look at any of the other topics for an example. As far as the body of the post goes, just be as straightforward and descriptive as possible. You don't want your inbox peppered with messages asking for more information or clarifications!
Note that rapidly recurring events (such as this weekly tournament) don't need a date, just a descriptor that describes the nature of the recurrence. This means that you probably shouldn't create the topic as an Event either. Of course, you could edit your post every week to update the date in the title and the Calendar data, but that's a little too much.
The final piece to the puzzle is the results. Try to collect as much data from your events as possible. You may only be able to get a ranking of who won the tournament. Or you may be able to provide links to youtube videos and the like. (Some events aren't even competitive, in which case this last step becomes optional). Regardless of the type of event, post the results into the Discussion and Talk section of the forum. Your new post should have the exact same title as your original Event post, except followed by a " - results". We post results in the discussion section of our forum to... well, to promote discussion. It's also common courtesy to provide a link to the results topic from the original topic. Again, just see any of the old OGS events for an example.
The older OGS Event threads don't do this, but all the new Events are asking me to register for the event. Can't I just walk in through the doors when the event starts?
Registering for an event helps The Administration out immensely. Registrations give us a rough estimate of how many people to expect for a given event. This means that we won't spend too much money on food or equipment. Why do you care? The less money we spend on that stuff, the more money we spend on prizes! Also, just about every event we run is going to have exclusive benefits for participants who registered ahead of time, such as raffles. As Mark Magsino will tell you, winning a brand new, $180 Nintendo DSi in one of these raffles is a very real possibility!
That said, we will never exclude anyone from an event for not registering. All of our events are open to the public, and we highly encourage you to bring your friends with you (and to make new ones while you're there). If you think you're going to bring a friend or two with you to an event, go ahead and mention so when you register for it.
Anything else I should know about posting in this part of the OGS forums?
Remember, don't be afraid to announce your own events! Understand that this section of the forums greatly stresses readability and presentation (hence the strict formatting guidelines). Just don't sweat the small stuff too much; if your post doesn't match the guidelines exactly, our talented team of professional moderators will fix it for you. Be aware that this means we may be changing your post a little bit. Rest assured we'll do everything we can to keep the integrity of your post intact. If you need help with anything, such as making your topic an Event, feel free to PM me and I'll be more than happy to help you out.
Any other questions? Just ask by posting here!
Of course, this forum isn't just a place for The Administration to announce new OGS events, it's also a place for you to announce your events. Whether you've decided to host bi-weekly racing-game nights in your floor's lounge, or you're looking for a few guys to take a trip to Philly with you to enter in a fighting-game tournament with a $300 prize, you'll want to post these here as... well, as Events! You can even make your Event show up on the OGS Calendar.
That sounds pretty sweet! What should I do when making a post so that it shows up as an Event on the OGS Calendar?
While The Administration can make Events show up on the calendar whenever we darn well please, it is important to note that The People (that's you) can only create an Event by making one out of a topic here in this section of the forum. You won't be able to do it anywhere else. When you press the "New Topic" button in this section of the forums, you'll see a posting page just like you normally would. Once you finish writing your topic and giving it an appropriate title (see below), you have the opportunity to turn your topic into an Event.
Before you press the "Send" button to submit your topic to the forum, scroll down a bit. Below the "Options" box, you should see a box labled "Calendar". You won't see this box if you try making a post in another section of the OGS forums. From here, it's rather self-explanatory. First, select the date your event is occuring using the drop-down menus. Next, set the time of the even by typing in the hour and minutes on the next line (remember to use military time! 5:30pm translates to 17 30). Finally, the "During" field lets you input the duration of the event. For multi-day events, set the starting date/time, and then input a "During" that lasts for the desired amount of time.
Now just press the "Send" button to submit your topic to the forum as you normally would. You won't notice any difference in how the thread looks or behaves, but if you look at the OGS Calendar, you'll find your topic title listed on the date you set, complete with a summary, which links directly to your topic. Anyone looking at the calendar will easily be alerted to your Event!
I notice that every Event topic on this forum is written in a particular style that makes it straightforward and easy to understand. Could you formalize this?
We ask you to adhere to format guidelines when posting in this section of the forums. It's not difficult, and it keeps things very nice and organized. One interesting feature of this section of the forums is that topics listed are organized with the newest topic on the top and the oldest topic on the bottom. Newest and oldest are calculated by the topic's original date of creation, not by any new posts in the thread. We do this because most announcements and events only remain important for a couple weeks at most, and we want people to be able to post to older threads while keeping the newer, relevant announcements up on top.
As far as formatting your post goes, format your topic's title like so:
[six.digit.date] - Full Event Name
Just look at any of the other topics for an example. As far as the body of the post goes, just be as straightforward and descriptive as possible. You don't want your inbox peppered with messages asking for more information or clarifications!
Note that rapidly recurring events (such as this weekly tournament) don't need a date, just a descriptor that describes the nature of the recurrence. This means that you probably shouldn't create the topic as an Event either. Of course, you could edit your post every week to update the date in the title and the Calendar data, but that's a little too much.
The final piece to the puzzle is the results. Try to collect as much data from your events as possible. You may only be able to get a ranking of who won the tournament. Or you may be able to provide links to youtube videos and the like. (Some events aren't even competitive, in which case this last step becomes optional). Regardless of the type of event, post the results into the Discussion and Talk section of the forum. Your new post should have the exact same title as your original Event post, except followed by a " - results". We post results in the discussion section of our forum to... well, to promote discussion. It's also common courtesy to provide a link to the results topic from the original topic. Again, just see any of the old OGS events for an example.
The older OGS Event threads don't do this, but all the new Events are asking me to register for the event. Can't I just walk in through the doors when the event starts?
Registering for an event helps The Administration out immensely. Registrations give us a rough estimate of how many people to expect for a given event. This means that we won't spend too much money on food or equipment. Why do you care? The less money we spend on that stuff, the more money we spend on prizes! Also, just about every event we run is going to have exclusive benefits for participants who registered ahead of time, such as raffles. As Mark Magsino will tell you, winning a brand new, $180 Nintendo DSi in one of these raffles is a very real possibility!
That said, we will never exclude anyone from an event for not registering. All of our events are open to the public, and we highly encourage you to bring your friends with you (and to make new ones while you're there). If you think you're going to bring a friend or two with you to an event, go ahead and mention so when you register for it.
Anything else I should know about posting in this part of the OGS forums?
Remember, don't be afraid to announce your own events! Understand that this section of the forums greatly stresses readability and presentation (hence the strict formatting guidelines). Just don't sweat the small stuff too much; if your post doesn't match the guidelines exactly, our talented team of professional moderators will fix it for you. Be aware that this means we may be changing your post a little bit. Rest assured we'll do everything we can to keep the integrity of your post intact. If you need help with anything, such as making your topic an Event, feel free to PM me and I'll be more than happy to help you out.
Any other questions? Just ask by posting here!
