News Posting Best Practices

If you're submitting news to GameGrep or if you have approval rights, please check this document out to get an idea of the Best Practices that we feel fit with our ideal of how news should be presented.

Tie News to Game Profiles

This is a critically important step. If you tie news to a Neoseeker profile several things happen:

• The game profile will show up in the news post[/li]
  
• The news will show up in a special page on GG dedicated to news for that game: eg: http://www.gamegrep.com/games/guitar_hero_ii/
  
• The GG news headline will show up on Neoseeker's game profile: http://www.neoseeker.com/Games/Products/PS2/guitar_hero_ii/[/li]

There are MANY planned features for GameGrep and Neoseeker which make tying news to profiles very powerful, so make sure you do this! It maximizes your news exposure and maximizes the chance that someone sees the news.

To tie your news to a game profile simply type in some keywords into the search box in the news submission form (pictured below) and hit "Enter" or click the search button.

Game titles will show up, just check off the ones you need.



Console Hardware related News should be in 2 categories: the console, and Gaming Tech/Hardware

If your news is about a console's hardware itself, eg price drops for PS3, or Wii controllers flying out of people's hands, please add it to 2 categories at the least: the console itself (eg PS3) and also Gaming Tech/Hardware.

Select the correct News Type

By default "News" type is selected. But if you're linking to a blog post you should be selecting Blog. Podcasts should be "Podcast". If its news about a company, such as their earnings or being bought, or going out of business or something "business" related, then its Industry News.

Include only your own original text in the "description" field

Do not include huge chunks of quotes in this field. It's meant for your own words. If you want to include a quote place it into the "quote" field.

When typing your original text try to look for grammar and spelling. Approvers should double check this as well to ensure quality of the news.

I personally feel that the best news articles include at least 1 paragraph of personal text plus 2 paragraphs or more of the source quote.

Include screenshots!

If you are posting news about new screenshots being release please add some of those screenshots to the news post!

Note: Current screenshots are buggy on GG but we are working on fixing it.

Choose a good headline!

This is an important aspect that is often overlooked. If the news is about a game include the game's name in there somewhere. Think of things that are interesting and informative. Most of the time all a person has to go on is the headline, so something that will catch their interest and let them know what hte news is about is very important.

Be informative, but be concise

Try not to news that is too small. But also don't go overboard with huge chunks of quotes that span 2 pagelengths of a browser. I suggest a minimum of 1-2 paragraphs quoted from the source, plus 1 paragraph of your own text.

Cut out the fat from quotes

If you are quoting a press release or news from another source, remove their excess info. Press releases are particularly troublesome because they always start off with something like:

quote

PARIS, France. — April 12, 2007 -- Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.

and usually end up with something that talks about the game or company. Most of this information is completely meaningless to any gamers who have a clue, so don't include it in your quote . Try choosing the most interesting or most informative portions of the source text to quote.

This message was edited by Redemption on Apr 13 2007.

quote

Include only your own original text in the "description" field

Do not include huge chunks of quotes in this field. It's meant for your own words. If you want to include a quote place it into the "quote" field.

When typing your original text try to look for grammar and spelling. Approvers should double check this as well to ensure quality of the news.

I personally feel that the best news articles include at least 1 paragraph of personal text plus 2 paragraphs or more of the source quote.

I urge everyone to take heed of the above quote. We have been getting quite a few articles that consist of a line of text and a link or the full quote of an article and this is not how articles should be submitted.

The story description box should consist of ONE PARAGRAPH of text written by you, that explains what the article is about IN YOUR OWN WORDS. Posting something along the lines of "Click The Link To Read The Article" is useless and does not tell the members anything.

Try including questions that popped into your head while reading the article as they open up room for members to come in and comment. Screenshots add an extra touch to articles so always try and find some that relate to your article.

The quote box should include a quote that ranges from 1 TO 2 PARAGRAPHS that you thought were interesting. DO NOT include the whole story in your quote. A good quote should be able to explain a bit about the article and draw users in to actually read it.

A very good example of what your submission should look like is this article posted by Mishtram. He includes a nice paragraph of what the article is about and adds a two paragraph quote that briefly explains the article while also drawing the reader in.

Overall, just remember that these submissions aren't supposed to be just quotes. Content written by you allows readers to quickly get the info about your submission and if they want to learn more they will read the rest of the article and post their thoughts.



This message was edited by Enhance on Apr 14 2007.