Writing Articles: A Guide
by alexburlton
(If you want a briefing, read the rules page)
Once you have been approved as a writer for this site you will be able to submit articles to your heart's content. But before you do, we strongly advise you to read through this first, and make sure you have understood it. For the sake of continuity articles must conform to certain rules in terms of layout and structure, and these are laid out here. You don't have to worry about meticulously following this guide because articles can be edited by anyone so mistakes can be ironed out, but the more of these things you can remember the easier life becomes for everyone.
Categories
The first and probably the most important thing to be aware of are the categories of article. When you write your article, the title for it is very important. The title is the page name you are asked for when you choose to create a new page, and this is incorporated into the URL of the page itself. If you get this wrong and it has to be edited at a later date, it leads to broken links and fixing them, I have to say, can be a bit of a nightmare. So please read this to ensure your page titles are correct. If you are unsure, it is much better to ask than to submit the page anyway and start adding cross reference links to other pages!
(Item) - This must be added to the end of a title of a page that is about a specific item. This applies to anything that appears on 'my page', even missiles and drones. Remember, if you are not sure if your article is about an Item or not, please just go ahead and ask by commenting here or on the Front Page.
(Mission) - This must be added to the end of a title relating to a specific mission. Knowing when to add this shouldn't be too difficult, just know that it applies to all missions, including hidden ones.
(Planet) - Again, nothing too difficult here. If you are making a planet page, please add this to the title.
And that just about does it! Extra things to note when choosing the title:
- Use capital letters when appropriate, e.g. "Minerals" not "minerals" and "MAS-Z and Antimatter" not "MAS-Z And Antimatter" or "MAS-Z and antimatter"!
- Give the official names! In the case of a mission, the mission name has to be exactly right. Likewise, spelling the names of the planets or items right is just as important.
Please note this only applies to the page title - i.e. the part that will appear in the URL (this is why it is so important).
Page Layout
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Articles must be in english
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Please do not include adverts in your article, and only link to third party sites if it is relevant.
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The topmost line should be the title of your page - you do not need to include the (Item) etc here. To insert this, in the format box select Heading 1 and type the title.
- Immediately below this insert your name! Simply type "by [user]", and then highlight it and change it to 75% size. This is just so we can see who wrote what, and it means that no matter who edits your page everyone will know it was you who wrote it!
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After this all subheadings must be in "Heading 3" style, again in the format box. There is a button to insert the neat dividing lines as well - please use these!
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In general, it is much easier to copy the layout of an existing page and then simply change the text. If you're making a missions page, copy an existing page into the editing tool and then simply change the title, text, images etc. This ensures you get the layout exactly right. For specifics on what Mission, Item and Planet pages should look like just look at some examples.
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All pages must be written in arial font. To do this, wait until you have finished writing then select all of it and change to arial. If you try changing individual parts things can get messy.
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When using images please refrain from trying to space them out with lots of indents or spaces to get them all on one line. This is very unlikely to work and even if it looks right to you viewing it, it's likely that on different browsers things may look a little different. Using spaces/tabs etc often results in something like this:
Radar 1 Radar 2 Generator 1 Generator 2 Generator 3
And that just looks messy!
- When using links, just highlight the word you want to link then click the page name on the bar at the side to create your link.
- If you are linking to a page that does not exist yet then please be careful with the name! This way when it is created your link will operate properly.
- Please give credit if you use other people's work! A good thing to do would be to write a sentence underneath the used work and decrease its size to 75%. This applies to videos and images too.
Example page
Here is an example page:
Page Name
by [user]
[brief explanatory text if needed]
Subheading
Link to page that doesn't exist yet
Subheading
Text
Subheading
Text
As you can see, it's really quite simple making pages as long as you follow the guidelines. If you have any questions or suggestions comment here and we will respond ASAP!