This FAQ is being introduced to bring the various posting codes used in the Subject Line and other ASC* Headers all into one place and make it easier to find. It also teaches you how to manipulate the new automated "In the Pattern Buffer" feature of Trekiverse

We do not mandate the use of these codes. However, a great deal of the Archiving and Awards process is accomplished by the use of these codes, so chose not to use them at your own risk. If your story comes up with a title of "/" ... we told you so.

It should be noted that some codes here in are provided but not required to be considered fully coded. They are for consistency only. Some codes have a * by them. These are not to be used at all, and are listed to tell you what the author who used them meant.

The Subject Line will quite often be what causes a reader to read your story. Therefore it is advisable to clearly indicate what your story is in that line. It consists of several parts, of which the recommended order is: Postname, Series, Title, Parts, Rating, Codes.

The Postname is a 3 character description of the status of your work. The following are the approved codes which In the Pattern Buffer handles:

NEW   New, not seen on the newsgroup
N2U   New to this Newsgroup
REP   Reposted
COR   Corrected, a minor correction, usually spelling or 
      grammar has been made
REV   Revised, major changes to the story have been made
DRA   Draft, this part may be changed before the story is
      complete
WIP   Work in Progress, this story is unfinished, but this
      part is finished.

You may also see the following codes. Authors are discouraged from using them.

NEW2ASC - New to ASC but not New.  Use NEW or N2U
NEW2ASCEM - New to ASCEM but not New.  Use NEW or N2U
DRF - Draft Use DRA
DFT - Draft Use DRA

This tells you which series a story is in. Any Series followed by a '*' is discouraged in the interests of unity.

TOS   The Original Series
TNG   The Next Generation
DS9   Deep Space Nine
DSN*  Deep Space Nine
VOY   Voyager
VGR*  Voyager
ENT   Enterprise (the new series)
OCC   Original Characters & Crew
MIS   None of the above.

INF   Infinity
MAJ   Majestic
AMA   Amagosa Universe
VS7.5 Voyager Virtual Season 7.5

The Part should be in the form of n/n when n is a number. We discourage the use of letters.

We use the MPAA rating system, as it's the most well known and deeply entrenched in the group. Those ratings are [G], [PG], [PG-13], [R], [NC-17] Note the use of the []. We place them around the ratings to make them look different than several character codes and ease filtering.

[G]     suitable for all ages.  No objectionable material         
        whatsoever

[PG]    all ages, but parental guidance is suggested, meaning     
        there may be language or situations that parents may 
        want to consider whether or not the story is
        age-appropriate for their children.

[PG-13] all ages, but parental guidance is suggested, for the     
        same reasons as above.  In addition and in particular
        parents should strongly consider whether their 
        children under the age of 13 are ready for some of the
        material contained. This might be for language,
        action/violence, or situations that might require
        explanation by the parents (such as racism, sexual
        situations, etc.).

[R]     adult content. This could be due to language, violence 
        or sexual situations, or other adult situations.

[NC-17] means the story is either  highly violent, largely        
        concerned with sex and/or sexual exploration., or
        contains sexual material which may be offensive or
        troublesome to readers.
        This does not mean that graphic sex is included in a      
        story.

[NR]    The author has chosen not to rate this story.

For more information on Ratings, please see: http://www.mpaa.org/movieratings/about/index.htm Codes will be handled in the next section.

These codes are a consensus, chosen shortly after the announcement of the cast of a new Trek Series. Additional codes for regular guest stars may be added periodically by e-mailing the maintainer of this FAQ who will propose the new code to ASC for discussion.

Character codes are used to reference the main characters and romance pairings in the subject line. Several separators are used to denote how the codes (and characters) relate:

        /       Sexually Involved, or nearly so
        &       Relationship only (No Sex, generally Friendship)
        ,       Featured

The character codes are generally ordered in seniority or age order. A character with a code is always before one who doesn't have one. The order of the codes are now in typical seniority order. There are of course, exceptions to the rules. Also, due to some common pairings using the same letters but different series, the order is mandated in some cases. An exceptions will be listed at the end of each section.

You can always spell out a character's name in the event it is not listed in the series labels below.

        K       Kirk
        S       Spock
        Mc      McCoy
        Sc      Scotty
        Su      Sulu
        U       Uhura
        C       Chekov
        Ch      Chapel
        R       Rand, Janice
        Sa      Sarek
        Am      Amanda

        P       Picard
        R       Riker, William T
        C       Doctor Beverly Crusher
        D       Data
        La      Geordi La Forge
        W       Worf
        T       Troi
        Y       Yar
        Wes     Wesley Crusher
        L       Lore
        Lx      Lwaxana
        Pu      Pulaski

        S       Sisko
        K       Kira
        O       Odo
        G       Garak
        O'B     Miles O'Brien
        B       Bashir
        W       Worf
        D       Dax (Jadzia)
        Qu      Quark
        Ez      Ezri Dax
        Ja      Jake
        KO'B    Keiko O'Brien
        R       Rom
        Bl      Bariel
        Br      Brunt
        Du      Dukat
        Dmr     Damar
        I       Intendant (alternate universe Kira)
        Kev     Keevan
        L       Leeta
        MO'B    Molly O'Brien 
        We      Weyoun
        Zek     Zek
        Z       Tora, Ziyal
        G/B     Garak and Bashir
        O/K     Kira and Odo
        J/J     Bashir and Jadzia Dax
        O'Bs    Miles and Keiko O'Brien

        J       Janeway
        C       Chakotay
        Tu      Tuvok
        Doc     the Doctor
        P       Paris
        T       Torres
        K       Harry Kim
        N       Neelix
        Kes     Kes, of course
        Ka      Kashyk
        S       Seska
        Vo      Vorik
        7       Seven of Nine
        C/P     Chakotay and Paris
        P/T     Paris and Torres
        P/K     Paris and Kim
        P/K/T   Paris, Kim, and Torres
        K/7     Kim and Seven of Nine

        A       Jonathan Archer
        T       T'Pol
        P       Phlox
        R       Malcolm Reed
        Ma      Travis Mayweather
        S       Hoshi Sato
        Tu      Charles Tucker
        Po      Porthos
        Cu      Cutler, Elizabeth

        Q       Q played by John Delance
        Suzy-Q  female Q from "The Q and the Gray"
        Q2      male Q from "Deja Q"
        Q(m)    a male Q
        Q(f)    a female Q
        SS      Shuttlecraft, starships, etc.
        m       A male not listed above
        f       A female not listed above
        Gr      Grapefruit (don't ask)

Several types of writing have been defined. Those are:

   xover*  Crossover between Trek and a Non-Trek Show.  
           Indicate Series
   xo      Crossover
   poem    Poetry
   drabble A story of exactly 100 words
   filk    A song reworded to fit Star Trek
   au      alternate universe

It is suggested that these be indicated in the subject line, and for archiving purposes be identified at least in the story header on the Codes line.

The content codes are nice things to have but are not required. In fact, many people say they can do without them. So, these are provided for those that want to use them. They are strictly optional. Most of these come from the Alt.Sex.Stories Story Codes for Readers FAQ.

   act     action-based story
   angst
   bd      bondage
   ds      dominance and submission
   h-c     hurt comfort
   mc      mind control
   nc      non-consensual
   sm      sadomasochism
   viol    violence

This is the standard ASC*/Trekiverse Story Header. (fill in, copy, and paste) It should at least be at the top of the first part of your story, if not successive parts.

The title is the title of your story as you wish it to appear in the archive. The archive will sort in the traditional manner.

The author line is how you want your name to appear in the archive. It is not the place for a copyright statement.

This should be the three-letter code for the series you write for. If you have a subseries, or this is part of a suite, list that after a comma. Order of the series should be in #1 form. If your series or suite has more than nine entries, pad it with a zero.

Rating is for the entire story. The archive team will take the highest rating if multiple are provided.

See above section ... the more complete your listing the better.

Of the form 1/1 Postname

A guide to writing summaries is provided on the archive site. Remember to put a blank line after your summary.

The new Stories Only Raw Postings that are going up on Trekiverse make certain assumptions in order to create the index you see. These assumptions are based on the existing ASC FAQs and a some hopefully common sense programming. In order to properly cover this, We'll go over a part of the index at a time. Each index line will be covered and the assumptions I made in creating it.

The Author line pulls from the first line beginning with "Author:" in your post. If there is not such a line, the default "From:" line included in every newsgroup post is put in its place. If you don't want it headed as being from your address, make sure you include that "Author" Line

Title comes from your "Title:" line. However, if you don't have one, it goes to your Subject Line. With the Subject Line it strips out beginnings of: [ASCA], NEW, REP, REV, DRF, WIP, TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT, MIS, OCC plus any leading spaces. It terminates the title when it comes to a "/", "[", or "("

Series comes from your "Series" line. However, if that is not present it searches your Subject line for: TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT, MIS, and OCC. These it adds to its constructed Series field.

Addendum: If you're writing a sub-series of stories (ex: Marrissa Stories), please include that sub-series as well as the series in that "Series:" line.

At the current time the rating is only included if it's in the "Rating:" line. A future enhancement is in progress to pull "[G]", "[PG]", "[PG-13]", "[R]", and "[NC-17]" out of the subject line.

Part is pulled from the "Part:" line. A future enhancement is in progress to pull it from the characters before the first "/"

Most authors really don't want to put the whole story header on each part. If you use the subject line properly, you can reduce your use of the header to data you wish to change.

First, make sure as much of your data is in the subject line as possible. If you can list your pairings there, the Codes line may become unnecessary. Make sure your series is listed there, and that your part number immediately follows the title. If you do all of this, you won't need to put the title, series, or codes lines.

This also will result in your title line becoming, when the Pattern Buffer Software is run, the title followed by the part number. This will aid in sorting so that all parts show up in order. However, if you're doing ten or more parts, pad the single digit part numbers with a zero to insure proper sorting.

A proper Author line may still be needed, if your from line doesn't begin with your or the author you're posting for's pseudonym. If you can change your from line to match, however, the author line can also become unnecessary.

If your story comes up with a strange title due to bad headers, be aware that manual correction probably won't be done until it gets in the regular archive section.

The version 2 of this FAQ, under the old title was produced with the kind assistance of:

Alara Rogers, Archivist (1995-8)
Ruth Gifford, ASCEM FAQ (1995-9)
Ned Fox, ASCEM FAQ (1999-2000)
Dina Lerret, ASC Archivist (1998-2000)
Datalaur, Golden Os Website Maintainer (1999-)
Katie Redshoes, Archive Team (1998-)
Meghan Elizabeth, ASCA Summary Editor (2000-)
Greywolf, ASCEM FAQ (2000-2002)
Kattz, ASC Awards (2000-2001)
Mary Ellen Curtin, Golden Os (2000-)
and other members of the ASC Staff.