10/10 post Nai should be copied into the Guide
Thanks for the praise. It's probably too long to be copied into the Guide, though, considering it was meant to be a mini-essay on its own.
I guess making it a guide in its own right could be valid, but there would be some issues to be cleared first: for one, I'm not a moderator, so I can't just make a guide and sticky it. Instead, I'd have to discuss it with the moderation team first. Also, guides are naturally something that give some credit to the author, and I'm not too sure I want to look like I'm showing off right now...
Clear, Concise, and Held attention very well despite clearing in tl;dr territory (which you lampshaded)
That was the whole point of it: using the post itself as an example. I did have to work for a while on it, but it seems to have yielded good results.
In other words, the point was to show that a long post doesn't necessarily have to be boring/wall-of-text-ish, and that spacing and formatting can help you a lot with it.
About Smogon,
In case you happen not to be familiar with the site (which I don't think is the case)
I just figured it'd be worth mentioning anyway. Even if you're familiar with it, that doesn't mean there isn't anything to be learned from it. For example:
Tables
[table="border=1"]
PARAMETER A | PARAMETER B | PARAMETER C |
One | Two | Over 9000 |
You mean | one like | this? |
This is | wrong, | though |
As usual, | my coding | sucks |
Source code:
[table="border=1"]
[tr][td][b]PARAMETER A[/b][/td][td][b]PARAMETER B[/b][/td][td][b]PARAMETER C[/b][/td][/tr]
[tr][td][center]One[/center][/td][td][center]Two[/center][/td][td][center]Over 9000[/center][/td][/tr]
[tr][td]You mean[/td][td]one like[/td][td]this?[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]This is[/td][td]wrong,[/td][td]though[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]As usual,[/td][td]my coding[/td][td]sucks[/td][/tr]
[/table]
As you can see, each tr adds a new row, while each td adds a new column to that row.
And as you can see, I have no idea of how to make it so that it has a usable border, or anything else other than rows and columns, for that matter. I swear I looked around...
The closest I could find would be
this, but even then, headers have to be manually setup, as does centering, and I can't get borders to work.
Also, if you try setting something like centers up, you have to do so for each tr/td command.
neat collapsible tag instead of this long bar abomination
You could always use spoiler tags so as to try and simulate their format.
Full HTML Control of the Page
BBCode is supposed to have many features inspired on HTML, like the table one I just brought your attention to. You could probably even set up those neat yellow headers if you tried. It's just that I have no idea of how to do so myself... yeah, I know, not encouraging.
[I actually do use preview a lot but I often feel like throwing edits in afterthoughts]
Ideally, the post should be tailored so that it doesn't require editing after posting, unless it's an edit regarding the content of the post itself (for example, adding new options or a new set).
That might be a problem in this case, considering you made the set as a WIP anyway - in other words, a set prone to later editing. Maybe that's why it ended up as a thread you'll probably have to edit a lot in the future, even though you used the preview function plenty.
As Consistent as you can get zfairy to get to begin with haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah
Detect ZFairy is actually pretty consistent IMHO.
The issue is less shai's spacing and more the general disorginization of the post. If you focus on 1 or 2 sets that have been consistent at what they do and move other things to options then its a cleaner read overal and may be far easier to compose. I would suggest a wish/phaser support set and a perish trap set with other ideas placed in options. Also I've found that adding a support section is quite nifty and can allow cleaner writing overall.
Just a few things I've ran into fixing my sets that seem to be applicable here.
Pretty valid advice. Although I still think spacing is the main problem after all, Shai, it could be very helpful to keep what Josh said in mind.
If I were you, I'd start with trying to alleviate the spacing issues, then moving onto general organization and trying to follow the guides and models.