This was originally posted in the node Supplier where a short-lived (?) newbie noder had posted a writeup which exclusively contained: elo wats is this—he had already made some noise in the chatterbox but any explanation about E2 there seemed to sift right through him, something which is understandable given the buzz and useless sarcasm that abound in the cattybox whenever a new user asks questions. I was just trying to find a medium that would hold his attention for a couple minutes, so I quickly wrote up and posted the introduction to E2 below. Given its wildly inappropriate placement it was quickly klaprothed but I still wanted it to live on in the database. I hope today's daylog will be a haven for this no-good bad "noding about noding" bit.

 

E2 is the way the internet was supposed to be. E2 is a reference collection, a novel that writes itself, poetry that reads to itself, and the shiny toy that never grows dull. It is the potential to exceed the sum of its parts.
loquacious

This is a node, i.e. a page inside Everything2 (this website). What you just created was a writeup. Writeups are basically articles, written about what the node is named. You've just experienced the Everything2 (E2) experience, because this is what we're all about: nodes and writeups.

E2 is a website full of writing about, well, everything. As long as it's high quality, it can stay. If it's not, it gets deleted. And that's all there is to know. That's what we're about and that's what we do.

This place also functions as a sort of encyclopedia, so we like nodes to be connected with each other. We do this by including hypertext links (the usual links you see on any webpage) in our writing, which point to other nodes inside E2. We have hard links and pipe links which are included inside our writeups, and soft links which are included in a table at the bottom of the node, below the writeups.

You've spent some time in the E2 chatterbox, which is a chat feature that E2's Management built, notably, to help newbies like you understand this unique and wonderful place. But it's not what matters. We're not about idle Internet chat. We aren't bulletin board or web forum either. Unlike this one, writeups are expected to be relevant to their node title, and to stand on their own, as opposed to just being an asinine reply to an above writeup.

What we do here is write stuff that gets put into E2, read stuff that's on E2, and talk about what we read and what we write. If you have something unique and beautiful to contribute, and everybody does; if you can do so in proper English, can learn about three HTML tags and have working [square bracket] keys, then you will do magnificently here.

And remember:

Enjoy yourself. This is utmost in importance.