Information Super Dance Floor email

My Philosophy on writing step descritions
AND
How to send dances for inclusion on my site
Everything you wanted to know about how I write my step descriptions and how you can get your dances posted to The ISDF.

First, few main points about my "philosophy" on writing your step description:

HOW TO SEND DANCES FOR INCLUSION ON THE SITE
One negative by-product of the success of The Information Super Dance Floor is that I get more dances sent to me than I have time to keep up with.

With only 24 hours in a day, and for some strange reason I keep wanting to sleep for at least a few of them, time is a major concern. Effort is another. What seems like a simple thing, when multiiplied by the nimber of dances I receive becomes too much to handle.

On average a dance that arrives in near perfect condition for posting takes about 10 minutes to preapre (build the page itself, link it to the stepsnew page, and to it's alpha index page, and if it's a couples/partner dance, to the stepsprt page.

I have no set system that gets one dance posted to the site, while another sits on the disk drive. But all else being equal, my loose set of priorities goes something like:

This information is provided so you can help me by getting your dance to me in as "clean" a condition as possible, thus increasing the chance that I'll get to it in a more reasonable time frame.

While it's not imperitive that you follow the above "philosophy" to the letter, it should be noted that among the last major influences on how I write my step descriptions, was how well the sheet will look on the net with minimal changes.

There are some limitations to coding pages in html (hypertext markup language) that we don't face in out powerful word processors. Actually Windows Wordpad is a power house compared to the problems in html. The biggest of these is the inability to set tabs. This makes coding couples dances a REAL headache. I've spent 3 hours on a single dance trying to make it look "just so". If you can send your in Word, Works, or WordPerfect, as an email attachment, it helps because when you send dance as text, email has the dirty habit of stripping the tabs in favor of, sometimes, seemingly random groups of spaces

If you don't use one of these programs, then cut and paste it into the body of a message, send it on to me, and I'll just have to fight the spaces.

The following layout tips are aimed at reducing how much additional work I need to do to make your dance look good on the net. Not all are really super important but the closer you get to my style the better for me and in the long run for you.

now for a general layout

no spaces in front of the count, and no spaces within the count: 

1-2
not
 1 - 2
A single tab between the count and the description:
I've received many sheets with multiple tabs and can only assume it's done for alignment. Your word processor should be able to adjust tabs so you can have cleaner look without resorting to double tabs

Keep the description to 2 counts per line
If a line overflows break it down and take the number with it 

1       Step forward RIGHT
2       Step forward LEFT

vs

1-2     Step forward RIGHT
        Step forward LEFT
If a triple step can be kept on a singel line, fine, otherwise I like to see it broken like this 
1       Step forward LEFT
&2      Step RIGHT instep to left heel, step forward LEFT
If you use a cue line make it in all CAPS. Keep the cue line on a single line
I like to out the 8-count cue on a single line, but if it doesn't work devide it by 4s
If you use 1-8 on every description phrase put a sequence count in your cue line
If you use a progressive numbering then don't put the sequence numbers in

DANCE DESCRIPTION: I PREFER to see the description of the dance written like this, because that's how I'll change it if it's not

Description: 64-count, 4-wall, line dance

HOWEVER if you don't want to write it this way AT LEAST include all the info.

I'm not concerned about difficulty level 'cause I often find people don't judge difficulty from the same view, if you include it, I'll keep it with the dance, but the level won't be listed in the index.

I also don't care about the number of steps in a dance, it means nothing TO ME. Count is the number of beats of music it takes to complete 1 cycle of the dance.

using a line befoer the step description that says 

COUNT	DESCRIPTION
Only take up an additional line that could force the dance to a second page when printed.

DO NOT SEND ME DANCES BY THAT MOST PROLIFIC OF CHOREOGRAPHERS - UNKNOWN.

IF YOU SEND ME A DANCE WITH AN ODD NUMBER OF COUNTS - TELL ME IT'S BECAUSE IT WAS WRITTEN FOR A SPECIFIC SONG.
I'll never teach it and often this fact can drive a dance to the bottom of the archive pile.

Remember, quite often, puting your dance on my site is a favor I'm doing for you. So doing me a favor and structuring it so I have the least amount of hair to pull is best for both of us.

And don't forget to show your gratitude for all the hard work I do on your dance by teaching one of mine (I'm sure there's something there you'll like) (giggle)

thanks:
Don Deyne