This site is very easy to get around. Everywhere you need to go is accessible by either dropdown menus or links. Once you've logged in, you're on what's called the start or media page. There's some useful, if dated, information near the top, and then blurbs by the various media outlets attached to STF. Scroll to the bottom of the page, and you'll see this:

The top left button is the list of roleplaying fleets (1-7), the Command Area, and Starfleet Academy. If your ship is in Second Fleet, you select it from the menu, then click the Go to Selected Fleet button to the right of the menu. The training ships, USS Challenger and USS Discovery, are located in Starfleet Academy, as is the Academy homepage. The governmental departments are located within Command Area.

The other buttons are fairly self-explanatory. Use Change your Password to do just that. You can use Change User Defaults to change how the pages display. However, there aren't many options available. You can also change your email address at this point. The last button, Declare Leave of Absence, is explained a little later.

Getting around the ship is an easy task. Once you go to the correct fleet (1 through 7 and Academy), go to the bottom of the fleet MOTD for the menu of ships in that fleet. Then select the one you want. When you arrive, you'll see the ship's page or MOTD (Message of the Day). Don't let the name fool you. These pages aren't updated daily. They don't have to be. The MOTD contains important information about the current sim, ship's status, a link to the Captain's Log, and standing orders. Be sure to read through the MOTD every time you post; you never know when new information will be there.

Beneath the MOTD is the ship's roster and navigation buttons. The example here is a roster from Fleet Four's USS Alliance. The players' names and email links are not included in the example, because the guest login was used. Other than that, this is what you can expect to see (albeit in varying colors):

As you can see, the roster gives a lot of information about a ship's crew. You can see how many people are on the ship, how big each department is, and what kind of species are present. Looking at the roster can even help you come up with a character.

Directly beneath the roster is the set of navigation and input menus/buttons.

The Read New Notes section is self-explanatory. You click the button and it takes you to the earliest post according to your time stamp. Above the button you also see a line about Read notes posted 0 hours before last login. This is a handy little shortcut.

Say someone mention ed that you never replied to a post he wrote two days ago. Glitches happen, missed posts occur, so there's no reason to beat yourself up over the incident. But how do you find the post? If it was written two days ago, and you last logged in yesterday, then change that 0 to 24. The WeBB will backtrack to posts written 24 hours before your last login

A caveat: The WeBB does not take into consideration your current login. If you're reading notes at 5 p.m. Wednesday, and you last read them at 5 p.m. Tuesday, the WeBB will backtrack based on your Tuesday login.

It's also possible to go forward in time. Say you were reading posts, got interrupted, and you're reading them again using the Resume Session option. The WeBB will start you back at the beginning. If you want to skip forward, input a negative number in place of zero. For instance, -24 will jump you forward 24 hours from your last login.

The Choose Subject menu is used if you're writing a brand new post, rather than replying to an existing one. If you click the arrow, you'll get a menu of the topics available on the Ogawa. If you don't see a topic you need, jump down to the Add topic section. Type in the topic you want created, hit the button, and viola, it's there. Pay attention to how the other topics are written, and use the same style and format. For instance, if you're adding your quarters and you see others listed as Qu: McPickle, set yours up the same way. Be aware that some ship captains have the topics restricted, so only command level officers can add topics. This is typically done when players get crazy with what topics they create. If you can't add the topic you want, send a request to the CO about it.

Each ship comes with a handy navigational shortcut. If you want to go to another fleet, or to a different ship within your current fleet, you can do so using the Go to Selected Ship and Go to fleet page buttons.

Finally, you have the Adjust Character Stats button. This takes you to an input screen where you can add your character's species and physical attributes.

The standard STF posting style is third-person past tense. Unlike IRC or other "live" roleplaying games, nothing in STF happens in the present. For example, a live roleplaying post might read like this:

In STF, that same action would be written like this:

You can see this post was embellished from the "live" version. That's because in STF, detailed posts are encouraged. Don't just write simple one or two-line bits of action. Incorporate your character's feelings, describe his actions, even reveal his thoughts. The more real you make your character, the more descriptive you make your posts, the more fun you'll end up having. Also note that the example didn't include the captain's actions. You never roleplay for another character without permission.

Because no two STF members post on the exact same schedule, you'll often find yourself involved in two or more timelines. This is perfectly acceptable, albeit somewhat confusing, and is a normal part of roleplaying around here.

Here's an example to better illustrate: You are a security officer recently assigned to the Challenger. One of the first orders of business is to report for your physical. One of your first posts involves doing just that. Then you wait for the CMO to reply. He does, a day later, and your interaction begins. Meanwhile, a prisoner has escaped from the brig and all security officers are called to assist. Unless it's plainly obvious in the plot timeline that the prisoner's escape happens at the same time your character is getting his physical, you can be in two places at once.

You can continue your interaction with the CMO in one post, and have your security officer reporting to help the COS in the next. As you read more and more posts, you'll have a clearer idea of how this works. The only thing to remember is multiple timelines are okay, so long as you can keep up with them and remember to keep your actions in chronological order. They may not be written in that order, but the actions have to flow properly into the timeline.

In a possibly vain attempt to make things clearer, let's look at those two timelines mentioned above. On Monday at noon, you began your posts with the CMO in sickbay. On Tuesday evening, he replies. By the time you post again on Wednesday, the brig break has occurred. So you split the timeline. In the sim chronology, the brig break happens an hour after your physical. In writing the brig break scenes, you're working with another cadet. You have your characters meet for the first time during this incident. The other cadet's player also ends up splitting his timelines and is having a physical in sickbay. You have to be sure that your characters do not meet in sickbay, because you've already had your "first meeting" at the brig break, which happens at a later time. This is keeping the chronological flow sorted with multiple timelines. You may write something on Monday that happens after something you write on Tuesday.

Like it or not, spelling and punctuation aren't just school subjects. They are important aspects of your post. Do your best with both of these. You don't have to be an English professor, but do try to make your posts easy to read. Several members of STF do not have English as a first language. For the most part players are understanding of this. It's still in everyone's best interest that you do your best. To that end, here are some basic formatting and punctuation guidelines to help you along:

You don't have to be the Spelling Bee Champion of Mopicqua School District to roleplay. No one's spelling is perfect. But do try and make an effort. If it takes people five minutes to figure out what you mean in your posts, chances are they're going to quit reading them. If no one reads your posts, no one roleplays with you. And roleplaying is not a solitary endeavor. So for the sake of your own enjoyment, work on your spelling. There are online dictionaries that can help a lot. It make take a few moments, but in the long run, it's time well spent.

Be sure to end your sentences with a period/full stop (.), and questions end with a question mark (?). Shouting is usually denoted by an exclamation point at the end (!), although some people prefer to just write all the shouts in capital letters. Commas are rough on most everyone. Either you put too many or you don't put enough. A general rule of thumb is to insert a comma anywhere there is a pause in the sentence. It's not foolproof by any means, but it gets you close. You can find the pauses by reading your posts aloud.

Capital letters are your friends! A post with no capital letters simply looks bad. Especially if you opt not to punctuate, as well. imagine if i wrote this handbook without capitilizing letters or using even the most basic punctuation it not only looks messy but it gets confusing its hard to understand exactly what im trying to say

Be sure to break your post into paragraphs by entering twice after each section. This puts a blank space between paragraphs and makes it easier to read. There's nothing worse on the eyes than a giant block of yellow text. Some players like to write their posts in a text editor (in order to use spell check) and then cut-and-paste them on the boards. That's fine, except the returns don't always translate. So double-check the paragraph spacing if you cut-and-paste.

Dialogue needs to be enclosed with quotation marks ("), and always comes in a separate paragraph.

If your character is talking to someone on his comm badge, instead of quote marks, use this symbol: =/\=. That's just an equals sign (=) followed by a forward slash (/), a backward slash (\), and another equals sign. Another option is this: =^=, using the symbol above the 6 on American keyboards for the middle section, rather than the slash marks. The idea, obviously, is to look like the comm badges on Star Trek. Cute, huh?

Character thoughts are usually surrounded by single quote marks (') or asterisks (*). Asterisks are also typically used when two characters are speaking telepathically to one another. There is no concrete rule on this. You can use whatever symbols float your boat. Just make sure your thoughts are distinguishable from dialogue.

This can be tricky, especially if you're arriving in the middle of a sim. The best thing to do is report for duty to your department head. Not all DHs have offices on the topic menu. So pick something that makes sense. Engineers tend to be in Engineering. Doctors tend to be in sickbay. Scientists like labs. And security officers tend to be on the bridge or near the brig. Just find one that makes sense and report for duty. Your DH will take it from there. Usually, if the current sim situation makes the arrival of new people impossible, the captain or GM will let you know how to get yourself into the story. Usually it's something as simple as pretending you've been aboard the whole time, but off duty for some reason.

STF rearranges the date to look Star Trekish. Take the last two digits of the year, follow it by the two-digit month (adding a zero for the first nine months), then add the two-digit day, separated by a period (.). Again, use a zero for days 1-9.

For instance, today is April 22, 2002. The stardate is 02042.2. Christmas Day 2000 looked like this: 00122.5; New Year's Day 2002 looked like this: 02010.1; and Valentine's Day 2001 like this: 01021.4.