OOC - Tips: Backdating/Postdating/Not Flisting LJ Posts
Back-dating posts in-character to create retroactive continuity (changing the past) isn't allowed, but there are some useful OOC 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. LJ provides the opportunity to have one Sticky Post that always stays on top, but by forward-dating other posts, you can have as many as you like that appear right below it.
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. There's a checkbox for "Do not add to friends pages and RSS" in the LJ posting interface, so you can stick the post in your journal sneakily!
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. For a past-dated post, go straight to Step 3. For a future-dated post, don't change the time/date when first posting it.* Just make sure you scroll down and check the "Do not add to friends pages and RSS" box, then post it as-is, with the current date/time. Next, edit the post and move on to Step 3.
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.
[* If you put a future date in when you're first posting a post, it will actually join a Pending queue and won't be posted until that future date. So for fake future dates, always post it in the present first, then edit.]