needsaparrot | OOC - Tips: Backdating/Postdating LJ Posts (Reply)

Back-dating posts to create retroactive continuity (changing the past) isn't allowed, but there are some useful reasons to change the date on an LJ post to one in the past or future.

What is it good for?

Future dates are good for "sticky" posts that you might want to always appear at the top of your character's journal: an availability notice that's going to be in effect for a long period of time, your character's voicemail post, etc.

You may want to file your OOC informational posts or your locked draft-version pre-play posts someplace safely out of the narrative flow of your character's journal. Back-dating them with a specific day groups them all together, and you can even put them in an order of your choice by varying the time. (I use April Fool's Day 2000 because it's easy to remember and years before the game was created.)

You also may wish to avoid flooding people's friendslists with certain kinds of posts - like voicemail posts during new-character weeks, or pre-played scenes that will be linked to in a central post that goes up in real-time - like the many character-dreams that were linked to in Mel's Restless plot. Dating such things "out of order" (whether back or future) is good for this, because those posts do not appear on friendslists.

How do I do it?

1. Whether you're creating a new post or editing an existing one, you start by clicking the "Edit" link to the right of the date/time line.

2. As soon as you do that, a new line will appear under that with a check-box that says "Date out of order." You won't see the option before that. Check this box - it is what will keep your back-dated or future-dated post from showing up on people's friendslists - even if you only change the time by a few minutes.

3. Change the date and/or time to whatever works best for your needs; keep in mind that it's 24-hour time, so 1 p.m. = 13:00, etc.

4. Post! If you're nervous about whether it worked, you can post it locked to "Just me (private)" first, check your own friendslist for it, then edit the post to "Everyone (public)."

These instructions work for the LJ web-posting interface or the edit-page for individual journal entries; if you post from a client like Semagic, you may have to look around in that client's posting interface to find the appropriate box to check. It may say "Date out of order" or it may say "backdate" for older clients - which still works the same on future dates, despite the name.

Here's more info from the LJ FAQ on the subject, obviously not as tailored towards reasons to use it for RP.