1.0 Writing

Sure, you love to bring news to GB. You source it, you link and all the goodies. It's not good enough anymore. You are now required to write at least a 3-5 sentenced paragraph for your news article. Some things you can write about are: Explain the changes in the update. Write a short summery of the news. Use English grammar rules for this. Put it in terms anyone can understand! And remember, don't copy/paste the news word by word. It's ok to copy paste the change log and/or quotes but do not copy the ENTIRE news article from another site. Summarize it in your own words or include a personal commentary.

1.1 Organization

Any effective and useful way to get your news across to the users is how organized it is! You must use these tools listed below to maximize an easy flow through your news submission.

1.2 Fieldset and Legends

Use of a fieldset & legend can work well, but it can also look horrible on a page when it's overdone or inappropriate. A fieldset separates itself from the rest of the news piece quite drastically with a box around the content. This brings quick attention to what's inside the box rather over standard text; therefore, it's important to give the fieldset a proper legend title rather than hide the description/purpose in the paragraph beforehand.

An appropriate use for this would be to copy a large portion of a sourced article for easy reading rather than use the quote formatting (Section Below).

<fieldset><legend>"Title"</legend>"Body Content"</fieldset><a href="URLHERE.html">[SOURCE]</a>

1.3 Quotes

Rather than use the sites standard blockquotes to 'quote' users on the forums etc, news uses a different styling as the quote itself should be made quickly and easily visible to users as opposed to normal blockquotes where the focus is on the reply -- not the original content. It's also important to include the name of the person/entity where the quote came from AFTER the content. Quotes can be created with the default markup button that adds the '>' character in front of the starting sentence.

Example

> The long wait for the return of Polls is almost over. On Monday the Poll section will be open to everybody to vote. Only Ripe members will be able to create Polls (but all members can vote). Additionally, only one Poll can be ran at a time per member. Each Poll also has an end date, after which voting automatically closes. Should be fun.

See 1.9.4 below on additional formatting within quoted text.

1.4 Unorganized / Organized Lists

With GameBanana's rather smart markup language making Numbered lists or Unordered lists is incredibly simple. Just type it as you'd expect it to be shown and the extra formatting (indents etc) will be applied. Or alternatively use the buttons provided above the text entry box.

• List via --> "- List via"
• List via --> "- List via"
• List via --> "- List via"

1. List via --> "1. List via"
2. List via --> "2. List via"
3. List via --> "3. List via"

1.5 Multiple Images

First Off - DO NOT HOTLINK IMAGES - please host all images on-site via bitpit with both full-size and thumbnailed versions. Images use the sites CSS styles to center, border and shadow them nicely via the following code:

<div class="List List_Preview">
    <ul class="Screenshots">
        <li><a href="##LINKTOIMAGE##"><img src="##IMGURL##"></a></li>
        <li><a href="##LINKTOIMAGE##"><img src="##IMGURL##"></a></li>
        <li><a href="##LINKTOIMAGE##"><img src="##IMGURL##"></a></li>
    </ul>
</div>

1.6 Floated Image(s)

This works best with medium/small thumbnailed images otherwise it will make everything look ridiculous with body text wrapping around it. This is the alternative to doing the "Gallery" layout as shown in 1.5 Images

<img class="ImgRight" src="##IMGURL##" />

Example:

ImgLeft is also a valid classname to use.

1.7 Interviews

Bare minimum you must cover two major pieces of information before listing the Q/A session:

1. The topic(s) of Discussion
2. Who is being interviewed

Optional but welcome information:

• Short Bio's
• Where the interview took place (convention, office etc)
• Relevant Links (Portfolio site, Company Page, Game Website etc)

Below is the easy required to create a single Question -> Answer Entry as seen here

<h2 id="Q">Question Here</h2>

1.7.1 Tidy up Responses

Interviews done over Email/IM etc often have various spelling/grammar/phrasing problems and need to be fixed up before release. If you've cut out content that isn't relevant to the question/interview in general it's standard to show the omission via [...] or simply ...

If you've changed some words around to make the paragraph/sentences flow into one another easier or to further clarify the point/subject they were talking about, you also show the changes in square brackets. You can also fix spelling and show the changes with the [ ] or just add [sic] after each spelling mistake to show that it was indeed written that way and not your mistake.

1.8 Large Starting Letter

This style is now automatic, the first normal paragraph will have a larger starting letter applied. You are still able to use H1 styles in your opening remarks before the start of a plaintext paragraph.

Example

2.0 Peer Review of Regularly Schedule Articles

Always send your latest article series(recurring monthly/weekly etc) drafts off to another moderator for proofreading, corrections and feedback before submitting. Please post drafts & initial ideas in the Modzone forum boards -- if you do not have access to this please email your drafts to Logan Dougall or natko so it can be posted for you.

2.1 Sources & External Links

Always state where you found the content from if you didn't receive it directly -- another gaming site vs a direct press release.