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NeoPortal FAQ v1.0
[Updated: 28th April 2008] Welcome to the NeoPortal Requests Information & FAQ thread. This thread will house a lot of the information about NeoPortals in one easy to read document. The NeoPortals will often be referred to as just Portals and Portal Staff are the members who do the actual work on any portals underneath their name. There are NeoPortals being worked on that are locked to Public access so only Portal Staff can access them until the portal administration team feels that the content is enough for the Portal to be unlocked and released to the public. People working on locked Portals won't have any links under their name until the Portal is released. The information here will mostly be in the form of an FAQ. Simply look at the questions and click on the link to be taken down to the appropriate answer. First though you must read this. quote Redemption
Most IMPORTANT Guideline: Original Content
It is vital that all content used on the NeoPortals is original to Neoseeker. We strongly oppose the use of any plagiarised material from any source. If you must borrow from other sources, make sure it is quoted and credited to the origin.
This means that you cannot, and must not copy word for word from books, other sites, or magazines. You cannot even replace a few words from such text and use it as your own. That is extremely important and anyone found copying material directly from other places will risk having their Portal Staff rights suspended or removed. [Frequently Asked Questions]Pre-release
- What is a NeoPortal?
- How do I request a NeoPortal?
- What should I include in my request?
- What is required in terms of content?
- Who has the right to stop, close or involve themselves in a request?
- How many Portal Staff members will there be on the team?
- How can I become Portal Staff for a given Portal?
- Who is in charge of our NeoPortal?
- Will any past/present trouble prevent me from helping a NeoPortal?
- What do I not need to worry about?
- How many Portals am I allowed to work on at once?
- This is my first NeoPortal, how will I know what each function does?
- How much is enough content?
- Once content is gathered, how is it sent in?
- If we get a Portal to put content on, what will it look like?
- What HTML knowledge will I need?
- When will our NeoPortal be released?
Post-release
- Once the Portal is released, what am I expected to do?
- Is there a list of Public/Locked NeoPortals anywhere?
- Why do some Staff Members lose their tags even though they still work on a NeoPortal?
- I have noticed that a game/movie/show in a series that has a NeoPortal is not actually on the Portal, what do I do?
- I have noticed a bug on a NeoPortal, how do I report it?
- Where can I make suggestions about the NeoPortals?
- Who are the people at NeoHQ who do work on Portals?
- Who are the NeoPortal Moderation Team and what do they do?
[Answers]» What is a NeoPortal?The most obvious question really. A NeoPortal is basically an information/fan site about a particular series of games, movies or TV Shows. It's a place that ideally will hold all information about that particular series. It will be linked from other NeoPortals and from the main profile page in the respective game/movie/TV Show forums.
» How do I request a NeoPortal?To request a NeoPortal, post a thread in this forum with a title of "series name NeoPortal". This will let people know that some people want a NeoPortal for that particular series. Posting a thread in active respective forums about the NeoPortal request will also draw attention to it. If moderators who moderate forums for the series are involved then you stand a slightly better chance of getting your Portal created, if you can get FAQ authors to to contribute to gathering information this will help you even more. Also please include the names of the people helping to gather content or helping on the actual Portal so that people will know who contact regarding contributing information and update that list when someone is added/removed. If there is no list of members then the person who made the thread will probably be the one getting contacted.
» What should I include in my request?In your post when you make the thread you must mention the following things:
- A list of all the games/movies/TV profiles available on neoseeker and any others not on neoseeker (either due to not being submitted or yet to be released). Please list names of entities and platform (if applicable). Also, within each entity, please provide an outline of topics to be covered.
- A list of members who've expressed interest in helping. This must be continuously updated and include the sections/infomation they are willing to help on. Note that if there are too many people not everyone will get staff rights, see below
- A list of around six or seven possible pages that could be on the portal for each game. Such as "Boss Guide", "Gem Locations", "Weapon Upgrades" etc.
» What is required in terms of content?This is very important, without content your Portal will get nowhere. The common practice is to first just focus on the more popular and recent games/movies/TV Shows. For instance, Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy X have been out for a long time, but are both still very popular games and so a lot of work was done on them. You do not need to include every game in a series, to start off with only work on popular/recent/upcoming games/movies/TV Shows. Other games/movies/TV Shows can be added onto the Portal at a later stage. Please note that the portal admins will only release a Portal once they feel it is good enough and that just because you were given a Portal to work on does not guarantee that it will be released to the public. Note that you do not need to write content for every game/movie/TV Show that exists in your series to get a dummy Portal. More is better but you will do much better to write quality content for fewer games/movies/TV Shows than little content for many. Screenshots are not required (see below) as they are imported from Neoseeker directly. Note that you can add screenshots to the Portal later on; there is no 30 limit on the Portals like there is on the Forums as seen here.
» Who has the right to stop, close or involve themselves in a request?The NeoPortal Moderation Team, that is currently teodortenchev, Krunal, Vito Raliffe, and Avalith, can involve themselves with any request if we feel that someone is needed to organise or restructure the request or to evaluate members and see if they are capable of working on a portal. If the team feels a request has reached a certain point, we can close it down.
Should members of the request be unsatisfied with this action, the only course of action is to discuss it with us over PM. The right to close down requests completely has been allowed by the site administration following a fall in standards, lack of knowledge of portal procedures, conduct of members in forums across the site and anything else we feel would result in the request and portal failing.
» How many Portal Staff members will there be on the team?There is no set answer for this question, but not every person who expresses an interest in helping out will necessarily be given actual Portal Staff status. If your Portal only has 5-6 games/movies/TV Shows then there will likely be no more than 3 members who get Portal Staff rights. If it's a much bigger series like Final Fantasy then 5 to 7 Portal Staff may be selected. There are many ways to help out without actually being on the Staff Team: the page suggestion links at the bottom of existing Portal pages as well as giving content to people who are working on a new NeoPortal.
» How can I become Portal Staff for a given Portal?quote Kemelok
Gaining membership to exisiting portals.
Start using the page suggestion tools.
We record who suggests what and will take that into effect on granting editor rights. Ask the current editors if they need help in any areas, Submit news etc.... Show us you really want to help on an every day basis.
Gaining membership to developmental portals.
Contact the members in the forums, and see what you can do to help them. Remember that they may already have helpers in certain areas and may not have a current need. But that does not mean you can't help as a news reporter or work on page suggestions. After contacting them and gaining their approval, please ask a current portal member to PM a portal admin to add you on.
Remember, there may not be a need now for another Portal staff member on a team but that doesn't mean that there won't be later on down the road and if you've frequently helped out a Portal you stand a very good chance of being selected. If you don't know who is gathering content for a new Neoportal then look in the request thread for it and look for a list of members helping out. If there is no list then contact the person who made the thread.
» Who is in charge of our NeoPortal?There has been concern about members stealing control of Portals. This "lead member" does NOT have any more control over the Portal than any other member on the team (other than Admin of course). But there does need to be someone "in charge" and keeping things organised. If you have a dispute about what is going on between members of your Portal team then try and sort them out amongst yourselves like the mature and responsible people you are. If that fails, then contact teodortenchev, Krunal, or Avalith. We are there to advise you but may pass you onto tekmosis if the situation warrants it. Don't contact us unless you've made an attempt to rectify the situation yourself first.
» Will any past/present trouble prevent me from helping a NeoPortal?Firstly, nothing will stop you from contributing information, news, suggestions and the like to NeoPortals. However, being an actual Staff member is a big responsibility and while everyone will be considered, if your behaviour around the site is not deemed good enough then your staff rights can be removed at the discretion of the Admin. It has happened before. Your attention is drawn to this thread where it is explicitly stated that some actions are not tolerated. As a Staff Member you are representing Neoseeker just as much as the moderators do and as such you are expected to behave well and have as good a standard of conduct as regular members, if not a better standard.
» What do I not need to worry about?That's right, there are some things that you won't have to spend any time considering or worrying about when working on NeoPortals, the following things are done by Admin and so don't waste your time on them because you don't have to do them. 
- Cheats, FAQs, Screenshots, Internet reviews and User Reviews are automatically imported into the system from Neoseeker.
- The graphics of the Neoportal are also done by people at NeoHQ, not staff members.
- The coding of the Portal is entirely done by the people at NeoHQ. You don't need any PHP, MySQL or any other coding language to work on a Portal.
» How many Portals am I allowed to work on at once?Currently you are only allowed to work on 2 developing NeoPortals at any one time. This will:
1) Allow more members to join in the portal process
2) Allow more work to go into making detailed and exciting pages
3) Encourage users to finish their portals and support the team members
Users will not be able to flop from one developmental portal to another until the portal is ready to be released or is shut down. So in other words, once you're on 2 developing Portals, that's it until the project reaches its end one way or the other. At the moment, only four members (Krunal, teodortenchev, Vito Raliffe, and Avalith) have the ability to work on any NeoPortal. This is not to create an unfair system, but to allow them to help and guide new members and portals. So, many of the links underneath their portal tags may be areas they're not working on as a proper committed staff member.
There's also currently a limit as to how many released Portals overall you can work on at any one time as well and that limit is 4. So that's 4 published, 3 published and 1 developing or 2 published and 2 developing. We want all the NeoPortals to grow and expand, your job isn't finished once the portal is released. As an editor you are responsible for updating and promoting your portal. We want portals that promote ongoing participation for users not a 1 time read.
» This is my first NeoPortal, how will I know what each function does?The only real way to learn is by experimentation. Practice on a blank page if you need to, remember that your Portal won't be released to the public right away so don't worry about making mistakes that everyone will see. Make use of the recently added preview function on pages to see how they'll look before updating the page. However before you start you will notice in the system you use to update the Portal that there's a link to an "Editor's Guide". Please read that before starting any work on the Portal as it explains most of the features in fairly high detail. If you are still stuck on what exactly a feature does then ask someone else who is working on the Portal with you. If that fails then feel free to ask any other staff member or Portal Forum Moderator and we'll do our best to help you with your problem.
» How much is enough content?Admin would like that once the portal is created that within two weeks that they can see most games/movies/TV Shows on the portals have significant work done to match the level of the Final Fantasy portal. Since you should have most of the content done before you even get a Portal to put it on, transferring the information across shouldn't take very long.
Admin are looking for all of the following:
- Profile Content - characters, story, weapons, etc
- Level Descriptions - Explain missions etc
- Tips and Strategies - How to beat bosses, who is good at beating who etc
- Graphics - pictures for the pages,individual characters, individual items, individual monsters etc
- Background information such as backstory, etc
Be creative and include other types of pages like clan sites, how to guides, etc
Each portal should have its own unique types of extra content. Portals are not just expanded profile pages, they should be as extensive as an only game guide for the games that you are covering. To quote VeGiTAX2, these Neoportals should be a "One stop shop for everything in the series."
» Once content is gathered, how is it sent in?When you feel you have a good content base to submit for a portal, the current organizer should PM a Portal Forum Moderator with a request to be given a dummy Portal to put the content on. The request should include:
- All team members names
- A list of all games/movies/TV Shows with content prewritten. Also, provide a list of topics covered within each entity.
- The number of pages you have prepared (in something like a Word document)
- Link to the request thread of your Portal (check here)
The Portal Forum Moderators will then PM you back with how to send the content to them. Note: even if you get to the creation portal stage it does not mean that your portal will be released, that will be decided later. If the quality of the portal is NOT deemed good enough then Admin will hold its release until the content and the portal has reached a high enough standard of quality that they feel it can be made public.
» If we get a Portal to put content on, what will it look like?What you will get is a "dummy portal". This is a Portal where the graphics will be nothing like the GTA or Halo Neoportal. Instead you will get a much more bland Portal where you'll be given a choice of what colours you want to be used while working on the Portal. This will give the Portal a somewhat decent look that can be released if need be. Proper graphics will be done when time is found for it and when Admin feel that a Portal warrants them. Remember they are busy and have many other things to do.
» What HTML knowledge will I need?I know some people have been a bit concerned about this one. The NeoPortals do use HTML, not forum markup but in reality the HTML knowledge you will require is very basic to get the majority of work done; you don't need to be an HTML genius. Simple tags like bolding, underlining, font colour, font size and a few others are all that are needed to get a decent looking page. If you know Forum Markup (and you really should if you intend to be holding a position of any power) then learning the HTML if you don't know it will be very simple. See this post for more information. There are times when tables and other things may be required, but if you can't do them yourself then I'm sure you'll be able to find someone who can. You do NOT need to know any coding languages whatsoever to work on a Portal because you don't do the coding, Admin do that.
» When will our NeoPortal be released?Portals under development will be released when the portal administration team feels that there is enough quality content on it to show to the public. Remember, just because you got a Portal to put your content on does not guarantee that it will be released. When the portal admins are satisfied that your Portal is good enough to release it will be unlocked and a link to it will appear under your name and everyone will know that you are a Staff member on that portal.
» Once the Portal is released, what am I expected to do?When your NeoPortal gets unlocked and is released to the public, it is extremely unlikely that it will be because it is finished. Unless there are never going to be any more games/movies/TV Shows in that series then your NeoPortal will never be "finished". You are expected to keep working on it and improve on the work you've already done and work on the games that you did little on or nothing at all earlier as well as keeping it up to date with the latest press releases, information, expansion packs/mods (if applicable) etc... Just because a game has been out a long time doesn't mean there aren't still people looking for information on it and everything has the potential to draw traffic to Neoseeker, you're expected to update content for the older games as well eventually. One of the more important things once a Portal is released is the news aspect of it. As you can see down the center of each Neoportal is a column with news in it. News can be submitted by any member using the link at the top of the column on the left of each Neoportal and it is credited to your username. News is probably one of the most important aspects of the Neoportal because people want to know what's new in relation to the series, updates on if there'll be a sequel, how well the current game sold etc... If you're a staff member then keep news up to date as best you can. If you're not a staff member then contributing news is one of the best ways you can help a NeoPortal and will stand you in very good stead if a vacancy opens up on the Portal. But you are not allowed to just simply copy and paste a whole article from another website, it must be in your own words. Quoting part of it and linking to the rest is fine, but as mentioned before, plagiarism isn't allowed. Also, if you do not keep updating your Portal(s) on a regular basis then you risk being removed from the staff to either concentrate on other Portals or let someone else who will actually work get a chance.
» Is there a list of Public/Locked NeoPortals anywhere?There are links to most/all (depending on when Redemption finds time to update it) of the released NeoPortals at the bottom of the main Neoseeker pages. Also down the left of the pages on any Neoportal are links to all other currently released Portals as well as a couple of other websites related to Neo Era Media. Here's a list of currently released and developing Neoportals, growing all the time.
» Why do some Staff Members lose their tags even though they still work on a NeoPortal?NeoPortal tags underneath Staff Members' names are different to the equivalent tags for moderators. A Staff Member will lose the tag from underneath their name if they don't do any work on a NeoPortal for a period of three weeks. They haven't necessarily been removed from a Portal, just until they do an update they will not get their tag back. This is to encourage people to regularly work on their Portals if they want to keep their tags.
» I have noticed that a game/movie/show in a series that has a NeoPortal is not actually on the Portal, what do I do?First, that game/movie/show must have a forum on Neoseeker to be tied into the Portal as well as a product profile. So forums like Loungin' would not count because that forum isn't built like a game/movie forum. If the game/movie does not have a forum then request one using this form by providing enough information. If/Once the game has a forum on Neoseeker then PM a portal admin with a link to that forum to prove that the game exists and has a profile on Neoseeker.
» I have noticed a bug on a NeoPortal, how do I report it?If you notice a bug or something wrong with a NeoPortal then please see this thread for how to report a bug related to NeoPortals. Note that the forum is for reporting bugs with the actual Portal, not with the content on the Portal. If you see something wrong with the content then PM a Staff Member who is working on that Portal to inform them about it.
» Where can I make suggestions about the NeoPortals?If you have a suggestion about NeoPortals or you've thought of a feature that you think would benefit them, a forum for this is located here entitled "NeoPortal Discussion, Suggestions and Feedback Forum". Many things that are seen on both the public and Admin side of things were not there in the beginning, a lot of things have been suggested and implemented throughout the continual development of NeoPortals. For example, the ability to place images anywhere on a page was originally not possible, it was suggested and implemented and can now be seen on many of the pages on NeoPortals. If you have a suggestion or comment to make then the above linked forum is the place to do it. Administration may also post notices about NeoPortals in that forum as well.
» Who are the people at NeoHQ who do work on Portals?tekmosis is the lead developer fixing bugs and administrative tasks on NeoPortals that can't be handled directly by a portal admin. Portal admins should be contacted first for promotion/demotion of staff members, adding profiles to Portals, or any other general query. If there's something that a portal admin cannot do, he/she will refer you on to tekmosis or forward the request.
» Who are the NeoPortal Moderation Team and what do they do?
- Vito Raliffe
- Krunal
- teodortenchev
- Avalith
These four members are the NeoPortal Moderation Team. They moderate and watch all of the forums within the NeoPortal Category. However, due to our huge portal experience we are often asked by the administration to help and guide developing portals and new staff members. We also overlook the welfare of many portals to ensure they run smoothly. This is why we are allowed to bypass certain portal rules. Any questions or problems can be PMed to us and we'll gladly assist you in the best way we can.
_____________________________________________ That is probably the majority of information you need to know about Neoportals. If your question wasn't answered in here then it's either because you don't need to know the answer or because it was overlooked accidentally when writing this. If you have a question, comment or suggestion about this post then feel free to send a PM to one of the Portal Forum Moderators and they get back to you about your query. Here are the previous threads where the majority of this information came from.
Neoportal Requirements and Guidelines
How to request a Neoportal
Portal Membership Rules
Content NotesThank you for reading, contributing and making the NeoPortals ever bigger and better. NeoPortal Staffneoseeker.com
[color=#666666]This message was edited by Avalith(moderator) on Apr 28 2008.
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