Claiming
If you want to claim a chapter to work on without risking someone else entering it before you're done, you can claim it here.
Why?
Even though chapters shouldn't be too long, you still invest your time in it, and it would be a pity if someone would post 'your' chapter just before you've had a chance to, and while you already have your version half or almost finished. Some writers might even be reluctant to participate faced with this risk.
That is why we offer you exclusive rights to post a chapter for one week if you post a claim. But mind that when you post a claim, you take options away from other writers. So take your claim seriously.
Claiming is meant to give writers some peace of mind while they write but realize it’s meant to do only that: hold it while you work on it, not until you have time to work on it. If you can’t start work on a chapter right away, it’s better to let someone else write it and take up one of the resulting options from that chapter when you have time, rather than put the thread on hold by claiming it.
A claim is good for one week, but of course the sooner you post your chapter after claiming, the better. If everyone would claim chapters they cannot finish or even start writing on until the fifth day, that stalls the entire system, limiting the number of new chapters, new options, new inspiration, and that isn’t good for any of us.
So if you normally write a chapter in one afternoon, wait until you have that free afternoon, then pick a chapter to write and make your claim, and post it a couple of hours later - that way you leave most options open to other writers, so you will probably even have more to choose from than if you had claimed a chapter one week earlier.
How?
Make sure you are signed in. If you do not have an account already, create one. All you need to create an account is to think of a username and password.
Then when you are logged in simply go to the chapter you want to continue from, and click on one of the options given by the author at the bottom of the page. The link should be red, i.e. the page does yet not exist. If not, someone else got there before you.
Since the page doesn't exist yet, you'll automatically land on the new page's edit tab. Type
{{claim}}
and optionally hit the signature button ( http://wiki.faramirfiction.com/skins/common/images/button_sig.png ). This button will generate the wiki code that prints your username plus the server time and date; you may also want to use it for signing comments on the discussion pages.
Save the page.
When you've finished you chapter, simply edit the page and remove your {{claim}}. Then enter your chapter as normal.
There are some rules to bear in mind:
- You have to be registered and logged in to make a claim. If you're not logged in the system will register your IP address instead of your username, and (depending on you internet connection) you IP address will not always be the same.
- You can't reserve a chapter forever. We will give you 7 days to post your chapter, but after that your claim will be deleted and the chapter will be open to anyone again.
- You can get an extension of another 7 days (counted from the day you edit your request, i.e. you cannot request 14 days to start with) by editing your claimed chapter (just say something like "I'll need a bit more time"), but only once, and only if you edit before your original 7 days are up.
- You can only reserve one chapter at a time.
- If you want to claim an option in a chapter you've written yourself, you will have to wait with entering your claim until the one week waiting period is up.
- By claiming a chapter you limit the choices of others. Think of a claim as a promise to write that chapter. Anyone who repeatedly claims chapters and then lets the claim expire without posting the chapter risks losing the right to make further claims.
- If you're not going to write the chapter after all, please delete your claim as soon as possible.
- And obviously you cannot claim chapters that have already been claimed. It's first come, first served. Of course, you can always voice your ideas about the chapter on the chapter's talk page, but whoever has claimed the chapter before you is free to ignore them.