Writing News Articles

Column

Column is for creating your own personal column under which to group your character's news articles. For STs, it can be used for a recurring NPC who is a member of the press. After clicking on the Column Link a form will appear which has a text area with a basic word processing toolbar.

In the Column Name field give your column a nice catchy name that you think will resonate with other characters and is IC for your character. This is an IC field and should be treated as the name which would appear in a newspaper or news website in the setting.

The Author name field is also an IC field and is auto filled with your press character's name. For STs, you should put the name of your NPC who owns that column and not your login name.

The introduction text area is where you can enter in your text describing your column. You can toggle into html mode for fine tuning of formatting, but remember to toggle out of that view before hitting the Submit button.

You can then go to the Column Listings Page to find your column and view the layout.

To view an example of a column layout look at the Sample Column provided here.

To edit the column, you simply go back to the column link and you will see the name of your column in a red link right above the column name field (as in the example in the screenshot). Click on that red link and you will be brought to an edit view where the form fields are populated and you can begin your editing process so that you can tweak your column until you are satisfied with its layout.

Create New Article

To create a news article click on the Create New Article link in your press menu and fill out the form.

Category has a drop down list of different news categories available in GNN. STs also have access to the OOC News categories, but they should only write news for their own venue  unless expressly authorized by Thing 1 to do otherwise. Before you publish any OOC news for your venue,  please check with your HST to find out how they want to handle their venue news responsibilities.

The Column field will populate a drop down list of your columns to chose from if your character or NPC has a column and this should be chosen for IC articles only. STs do not need to select a column for OOC news articles.

The Headline field is for you to type in a catchy headline for your news article and it will be the text that appears as the article title in all the listings linking back to your news article once it's been submitted.

The Content field is where you type in the body of your article and it opens up the same type of text area with the same toolbar as the columns text area when you made your column. Again, you can toggle into html mode for fine tuning of formatting, but remember to toggle out of that view before hitting the Submit button.

The Author field is also an IC field and is auto filled with your press character's name. For STs, you should put the name of your NPC who is writing the article if the article is IC and not your login name. For OOC news, please use your ST handle.

Finding Your Article

Once you have filled everything out, click submit and then go to the News Page to see your new article in the lists of articles. Everything is organized by category with the most recent articles listed on the main News Page. Each category has its own page which lists all articles belonging to a category which have not yet been archived. Also, the first few most recent articles are listed in the home page regardless of category so you can see your news there as well.

Edit Articles

The edit articles link takes you to a simple list of news articles you have published on WoDG's news system. Click on any of those links to edit an article you have already written. Then you will be brought to the same view as you had when you first created the article, only the form fields will be auto populated based on your previous entries. Edit as you see fit and then click submit.

Etiquette and Policy

Like our other methods of communication such as forums and chat, the News Pages are subject to the same Chronicle Policies and Procedures when it comes to behavioral issues. However, we take exception to any abuse of the News module on our website. At the very least, players with press characters will immediately have their privilege revoked and their character fired from their news organization and black balled from the industry to explain their sudden absence from the journalism trade. STs will be removed from the team. Abuse can take the form of flagrant trolling, bating, flaming, etc. or it can be more subtle as in the case of possible meta-gaming incidents. Please use common sense when writing news, lest you upset the Thing.