[How To] Post News Items

Woolies · 16th April 2007, 10:33pm

*edit* Originally posted in Site Discussions area.

Applicable to certain Moderator types ONLY, not Registered Members.
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News Posts: Content Guide

AltNation News Posts can be as little as one or two sentences but they should be written impersonally. “Just the facts, Ma’am.”

Titles
News thread titles should be short and to the point and most importantly descriptive of the content. This helps with comprehension as much as searches and Google-fu.

Use ‘Elvis Lives’ rather than ‘Oh my god I can’t believe this is amazing’

Remember that news shows up on the front page, bereft of forum context. This means that if you are posting about a movie, then it’s title alone will not do—that only works on the forums because we can see clearly it is posted in the Movies forum.

Think before you title.

Post Text
If you must cut & paste, read carefully the content for suitability and then preview to ensure there is no hidden formatting.

Links, credits and sign-offs
Crediting a source web page or linking back to a more in-depth or authoritative news source can sometimes be beneficial. Place these at the end of the news post after a couple of line breaks.

If a link URL isn’t clear and simple, wrap the URL around a text description using [url=] tags.

Images/Attachments
If an image is important to the piece then make sure you have at least a couple of paragraph sentences before it (to stop it being pulled onto the front page and breaking it’s layout). Make sure important information on the image is also given as text before it. Images should only ever be attached to the post rather than linked from elsewhere and used sparingly. Try not to infringe other’s copyright when selecting images.

News Posts: How To

Posting an AltNation News Item is as simple as starting a new thread. Select a relevant forum from the list below and hit the New Thread button.
Then select one of the special News Icons from the Post Icons list (they are the currently the bottom row / last four) *DO NOT USE THESE ICONS FOR ANYTHING BUT NEWS*

General/Site News

Movies

Music, Gigs, Tours

Woolies · 16th April 2007, 10:35pm

And a few words about preferred punctuation characters & the like from Tony poprock.
(These are admittedly very optional for everyday news posts but worth being aware of when writing more official content for altnation.)

Quote:

Spaces
Never, ever use double-spaces. One is always enough, even at the end of a sentence.

Paragraphs
Paragraph breaks (for the purposes of our website ONLY) should be indicated by two hard returns.

Numbers
Numbers below ten should always be written out in full (ie. one, two, three, etc).

Numbers ten and above should always be written as numerals.

Thousands should always be marked with a comma (ie. 1,000 or 3,400,000).

Dates
Dates should always be written in the following fashion: 23 Oct 2003. Date as numerals (no ‘th’, ‘st’ or ‘rd’ extension), month as a three-letter abbreviation and year in full as numerals.

Dates below ten should always include a preceding zero (ie. 02, 03, 04, etc).

Quotation marks
Prime marks are used to represent feet and inches. They are not quotation marks or apostrophes and must never be used as such. Misuse of prime marks is a common error, and must be purged from all text before it can go live on our website. Prime marks (also known as benchmarks or hatch marks) are straight up and down whereas quotation marks have distinct ‘open’ and ‘closed’ forms.

Example: Tom was 5'8" tall.

Double quotation marks are used to indicate text directly quoted from a person, manuscript or other source. Where possible the quotation should be credited. They are also used to indicate speech.

Example: “We will fight them on the beaches.” Winston Churchill.
Or: “I bloody well will not,” said Tom; “they’re bigger than me.”

Single quotation marks are used to highlight words within text.

Example: The table was what we in Scotland call ‘minging’.

Quotation mark keystrokes (Windows)
Double open quote = alt+0147 = “
Double close quote = alt+0148 = ”
Single open quote = alt+0145 = ‘
Single close quote = alt+0146 = ’
Quotation mark keystrokes (Mac)
Double open quote = alt-[ = “
Double close quote = alt-shift-[ = ”
Single open quote = alt-] = ‘
Single close quote = alt-shift-] = ’

Apostrophes
An apostrophe is represented by a single closed quotation mark, never by the prime mark for feet. An apostrophe indicates either possession or the omission of letters from a word (contractions).

Example: James didn’t care.
Or: James’ friends didn’t either.

Apostrophe keystroke (Windows)
Single close quote = alt+0146 = ’
Apostrophe keystroke (Mac)
Single close quote = alt-shift-] = ’

Ellipsis
Sometimes called a dot leader, an ellipsis is a mark indicating an omission—of words, sentences, or more—often when selectively quoting. It can also be used at the end of a sentence to indicate trailing off … the omission of the sentence’s end. It is a character in and of itself, and must never be represented by typing three (or more) full stops.

An ellipsis is always separated by spaces either side. Treat it as a word in its own right.

Example: Whether the deadline was tight or not … things were bound to be okay.
Or: Whatever the result, Bob would survive …

Ellipsis keystroke (Windows)
Ellipsis = alt+0133 = …
Ellipsis keystroke (Mac)
Ellipsis = alt-semicolon = …

Dashes
There are three distinct types of dash, each is a different length.

The em-dash is longest—the width of a lower-case ‘m’. It is used to express a break in the flow of a sentence, or sometimes instead of parentheses at each end of a tangenital statement within a sentence.

There are no spaces either side of an em-dash.

Example: These interruptions are driving me crazy—especially the snide remarks.
Or: These interruptions—especially the snide remarks—are driving me crazy.

The en-dash is of medium length—the width of a lower-case ‘n’. It is used primarily to connect two numbers, or start and end points of a journey. An en-dash literally means ‘up to and including’.

There are no spaces either side of an en-dash.

Example: El Lissitzky lived 1890–1941.
Or: The London–Stockholm flight was delayed.

The hyphen is the shortest of the three. It is used to connect linked words or phrases, and to break words at the end of lines. The latter is not relevant for our website. The hyphen is also used as a minus-sign.

Example: It’s okay to be second-best.

Dash keystrokes (Windows)
Em-dash = alt+0151 = —
En-dash = alt+0150 = –
Hyphen = minus = -
Dash keystrokes (Mac)
Em-dash = alt-shift-minus = —
En-dash = alt-minus = –
Hyphen = minus = -

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