sometimes I have way too much time
A Basic Plurk Intro Tutorial
So, you've heard about this evil thing-it's called Plurk. It's stealing your friends, your CR, and you don't like the stupid look of it. Or maybe you're new to LJRP and just haven't been around (or maybe you aren't new and live under a rock I kid I kid)-regardless of all of that, you're ready to at least see what this social networking site is all about. What is Plurking? What does it do? Who uses it? Etc. etc.
First off, you'll be wanting to go to the Plurk website in order to register yourself an account. Do it right now! It's free and easy!
There! You've got a Plurk now, right? Well, before you go and spam all your rps ooc comms in pursuit of friends, why don't I give you a nice little overview?
See that big blank spot with the Plurk button after it? This is where you-you know. Write your Plurk. A Plurk can be anything, but essentially it's some form of a status update! You can talk about your day, link a video/song you can't stop watching/listening to, blab about your characters-whatever.
In a second, we'll get into the magical process of tagging your tweets, but first let's take a look at your timeline.
Your timeline is the main, big chunk of your screen which-once you have friends-will be full of their Plurks. Mine, right now, looks something like this:
The brighter brown box by a Plurk indicates the number of replies and that you haven't read them all. The darker brown indicates the number of replies and that you have read them all. If it's just a little box with '…' contained within, nobody's replied yet! Sad times for all!
Now, see those little boxes in the lower righthand corner of the screenshot? Those take you to different sections of your timeline!
All plurks: Your main station where you see every Plurk! Both yours and the Plurks of the people you're following.
My plurks: Only your plurks. Easy, right?
Private: We'll get into sending private Plurks in a tick, but yup. This is where you get to see those alone.
Responded: Plurks you've responded to.
Liked: Plurks you've liked. We'll also talk about that in a second.
In the lower lefthand corner of your timeline should be something like this most of the time:
Guess-guess what this means! … I'll explain it anyway, but still, I bet you got it, you bright person you!
# new plurks Update: NEW PLURKS! You have them! Clicking here (or refreshing the page/clicking My Profile in the upper lefthand corner) will make them show up on your timeline.
# new responses View: NEW RESPONSES! Click click click!
Got that covered? Understand what all those basic commands are for? AWESOME, because now we're gonna look at a Plurk itself on a more in-depth level!
This is one of my harmless Plurks! There are very few of them, however-let's note what's going on here. I Plurked a status-in this case a question. Then, someone replied. It kept count of those replies and the Plurk itself becomes something like a mini chatroom you can enter in and out of at will. Nothing records when you're there or not, so lurk to your heart's content MUAHAHAHA.
Since it's my own Plurk, I can edit or delete it. The 'like' option means it'll be tracked as a special Plurk and will show up when I click on the Liked timeline tab. On anyone else's Plurk, it'll just say 'mute' or 'like'.
THIS IS SUPER IMPORTANT. 'Mute' doesn't actually refer to sound, though-if you have your Plurk timeline's sound on, it will stop that. What it does truly do is no longer update you when a new response comes in for that specific Plurk.
So say you're a vegetarian and there's this Plurk going on that your friend started discussing which fastfood burger is tastiest. Click 'mute' and your timeline won't bug you to go look at it ever again (note: this won't delete it visually from your timeline, so it'll still be sitting there in case you accidentally mute something or wanna check it again later).
Cool, right? Now, what's this private junk about?
Remember how there's that Private plurks, languages & options button down beneath where you write your Plurk? Click that and it'll open up a whole new world! You can select to only show your friends your latest Plurk, to only show specific people, or to disable comments/make sure only your friends can comment.
ONWARDS TO TAGGING!
Tagging actually isn't a function on Plurk, but something people do for themselves/to alert their friends of a specific topic (or set of topics) that Plurk pertains to. Wanna know how easy it is?
You write [your tag] at the beginning of your Plurk. No, really.
Ex: [Kuro] Boy, I sure love Ronald Knox.
Ex: [D_M] Posted a new voicetest on Dear_Mun!
Ex: [Kuro/D_M/Sae is pretty silly] Posting Ronald on Dear_Mun!
Some other nice and simple things to know:
Using one asterisk around a word or statement italicizes it (but remember to put any punctuation on the outside or the effect won't work).
Ex: Man, today *sucked*.
Ex: *Today really sucked*.
Two asterisks around a word or statement bolds the shit out of it (same rules for punctuation, though).
Ex: I **love** you.
Ex: **I REALLY REALLY LOVE YOU**, don't you know?
Putting `s around a word or statement will make it look like a quotation and in this case, punctuation is okay.
Ex: `Give me all your pennies, I saids to him I said.`
To link something, put the link first and then the hypertext you want between parentheses.
Ex: Look at http://inception.davepedu.com/ (this)!
becomes
Look at this!
Note: Any apostrophes used in your hypertext will disappear. Don't be freaked out if your 'I'm so clever' becomes 'Im so clever'. That's just how Plurk rolls.
SO, there you go! A basic Plurk overview! I could give away more secrets-how to make your Plurk pretty. How to set it to private. What the fuck a Plurk meme is, but-- grow up. Figure it out for yourself. See EDIT 2.
And enjoy the mystery and wonder of that stupid site that's taking up all your friends' time and why won't they go back to using AIM sob sob oh wait they probably still do LIFE IS TOUGH. 8>… ilu.
EDIT: a complete list of plurk emotes!
EDIT 2: I lied. There is now a pt. 2 to this meme. It's here.