ModBlog
Official group
with 78 members
ModBlog
Official
Welcome to the official Mod DB blog. if it is information about ModDB.com and ramblings about mods in general that you are after - then you have come to the right place. Mod DB is a community run site, so our aim is to give you (our community) the power to influence the sites content and direction. That's why we have setup this blog so you know exactly what is going on behind the scenes. We highly recommend you watch this profile if you want to keep abreast of all changes affecting the Mod DB community. Also if you wish to write about the Mod DB on your own site or blog, you can download logos and other site images from our mediakit page.
Mod DB Store | Mod DB on Facebook | Mod DB on Youtube | Mod DB on Steam | Mod DB on Wikipedia | Mod DB on Twitter
Effective use of ModDB
Learn how to effectively use your profiles on ModDB to reach new (and existing) fans through news, videos, downloads and other content we encourage you to post.
Posted by Henley on Jun 14th, 2009 digg this super bookmark
Page 2 of 2
Basic PR.
Phase 5: Common problems
By no means is this tutorial meant to be the only way to create profiles and news posts here on ModDB or anywhere for that matter. This is only advice from a guy who sees everything that is posted on ModDB and want to help you avoid the common mistakes. On the last page I'll leave you with some of the most common problems members tend to have with this site and the solutions for those problems. I hope you have found this helpful in someway, please comment on any other things you want to be added to this tutorial. As always contact the staff if you need help promoting your hard work in the development field, that is what we are here for!
Linking
When creating or uploading anything you need to be aware of two things, is there already something like this on ModDB already and where should this belong? If for example you are posting news about Half-Life 2, then go to the Half-Life 2 profile and click the "add news" button. This will automatically link the news to the correct game and consoles. Or you can manually link to the correct consoles (pc, playstation etc), games, mods, groups and engines.
Large images
Something that many members seem to have trouble with is inserting large, high quality images to an article only to find out that the image has expanded to a size larger then the article system on ModDB allows. This is a very simple problem to fix and the answer is found within the very same tool used to insert the media in question.
First you will need to select the image (one at a time if there is more then one) and select the Insert/edit image tool (it looks like a picture of a tree on the edit bar). While you have the tool option open you will need to understand two of the options here. The first is the Dimensions boxes, these two boxes mean width and height respectively and should tell you the over-all size of the image in question. The section option is the check box next to the Dimensions boxes called Constrain proportions. Having this box checked will allow you to edit the size without breaking the proportions of the image, so it will display correctly without being so large. Next all you need to do is change the width of the image to anything under 600px, save the image and ModDB will take care of the rest.
The idea of this tutorial is that it will always be updated along with the changes of ModDB itself, so check back regularly to see what has changed.
Post a Comment
Only registered members can share their thoughts. So come on! Join the community today (totally free) and do things you never thought possible.
Profile
Tutorial
Related Groups
Terms of Use | Privacy Policy
Blog | About | Contact | Advertise | Join Mod DB | Site Map | Media Kit | RSS 
© 2002 - 2009 DesuraNET Pty Ltd. All Rights Reserved. 1149 modders online.
© 2002 - 2009 DesuraNET Pty Ltd. All Rights Reserved. 1149 modders online.
Awesome guide for modders, can't wait to see what awesome new layouts people can come up with.
I agree, moddb deserves to be the top. The admins try everything to keep both fanbase and developers happy. They understand what troubles modders face. Also there is almost some admin online who quickly approve downloads etc...
But dont we all think this website needs more tools?
=Like a poll we can use in our mod, group descriptions to get fanbase feedback
=Countdown timer for our big releases so you dont have to wait a day for your download to get approved after you anounce its release.
=More themes for the website, i frankly only like only a few so far.
=This might be a problem but easier links would be a whole lot nicer, it is a pain to give someone my mod page URL when i cant even remember it, observe; Moddb.com Maybe use of subdomains? This is the least important of the ideas though it would be nice to have.
Nice ideas.
Apart from the linking one. The link to your mod is as long as you name it... my main mod is only 3-letter, so I can instantly view it by typing in the address, which is easy to remember.
Hey, I wrote something like this.
But this is waaay more detailed and precise, and goes over a lot of issues I didn't mention.
I like it.
Although it is always nice to put up the relatively common pieces of information like posting in proper English and utilizing white space; what really caught my eye was the more advanced posts like the piece on layouts and thumbnails. Those categories in particular aren't really showcased unless you happen across a specific part of the site, and may be useful to veteran users.
Will be very helpful. Thanks you.
Nice guide, thanks.
"It's not easy to make it onto the front page, over 80% of articles don't because the users creating them didn't put in the 5 minutes of effort required. Don't cut corners, make your posts look great and reap the rewards in the form of fans and comments - remember we want to help you succeed!"
As unspecific as it can be.
I got to say that the update formatting is always BROKEN (has really, really weird bugs...) and it takes a lot more than "the 5 minutes of effort" to even go past the Archive stage.
Please inform your own staff about this article, otherwise it seems they do not know their own rules.
Are you kidding? Usually takes less to bust it all out and make it front page worthy. Only issues I've run into are video embedding and sometimes songs but a bit of HTML editing (literally 10sec tops) and that's resolved (so in that case I agree to it being in some need of fixing). Also the point wasn't about how fast you can put together your work for front page. Sorta missing the point of this article and coming across defensive when it's not singling you out... Well at least I don't believe so. *puts on tin foil hat*
I will be able to help you if you give more information on these bugs you are talking about. Having worked with the ModDB system for so long now it only takes a few minutes to really turn around any piece of news to make it front page worthy.
The Javascript WYSIWYG editor is a nightmare I know this, but it is such a complicated beast it is hard to tame. I will look into this for you and see if I can make the system any better via a much needed update.
Remember you can report bugs here: Trac.moddb.com
Its really only a bitch when it comes to copy&paste from other applocations. tinymce (I assume thats what you use) is usually pretty decent. The only thing you might want to look into are auto code cleanup plugins for the editor
He's right on that one. I'm always fighting against the formatting quirks. This starts with things like the editor randomly adding newlines everywhere and doing illogic indention and ends with broken links or image weaseling all over the place. It's a pain to use the editor to say the least especially since it's not W3C conform and tends to breaks on W3C conform browsers. For example the video system is broken since ages. Told INtense! about it but since he could not reproduce the problem ( not using the same OS ) he decided to drop it. So many people are simply left out in the rain and then it's a bit like a slap in the face if you get told you suck at doing news post. How the hell should we do this if it's broken?
In the end not a problem with me. I learned to hack around the bugs and reduce the news posts to the bare minimum the editor supports without breaking. Not remotely as clicky-colorfully as you mention they should be and I spend hours with each news post to fight the bugs but at last people can read them and get the info. More is simply not possible.
Nice article,
When my mod has progressed enough I'm planning to update with alot of media and hopefully a not too large newspost.
I'm rather slow though, so I'm wondering is there some feature that allows me to put media and/or news in a saved state but mark them as not having to be authed yet? So that if I'm making an important news article that I can save it, come back to it later and THEN send it in for authorizing?
You can upload media and delete it as soon as its uploaded. You will be able to un-delete it later and the public will not be able to see it.
cool, same goes for newsposts then I guess
You will have to make a note on the news post itself or else I will just remove deleted ones from the update list.
Jup making newsposts and stuff can be a pain in the ass sometimes.
I've put a lot of effort in the newsposts I make for Infinity everytime, in the end I always manage to do what I want. Still I think the system is preventing a lot of teams from making nice and good-looking newsposts.
Managing the moddb profile and newsposts is my only job for Infinity atm (not a dev anymore). Teams who don't have someone who manages the PR and moddb profile wont spend an hour(and more) time on getting a nice newspost out, they have better things to do I think.
I agree. I'm doing a lot on my mods, but writing news on moddb or putting up tutorials as html on the site is such a mess that I had to decide to post only simple news and offer tutorials as pdf and not trying to get on the main site any more.
I know that will cost me a hell lot publicity, but I am all alone, it is to much to write news in (html/css) news on moddb, I feel like I'm back in the old days doing web-development again with all the html and css to get up some nice looking news.
oh maybe a nice idea for the next MOTY awards: The team with the best looking profille/news reports on moddb.
Nice encouragement for people to put some effort in moddb.
That would be a fun award, I vote yes :D
(buried)
Basically this shows how INtense made this site for a higher intelligent target audience yet he has dumb down and allow Henley to make a somewhat tutorial on how to use the site because people are idiots.
Word.
Jeez, can you simply shut the fuck up? The admins are doing all of us a huge favor.
Your trolling and lack of understanding is seriously getting on everyone's nerves.
uhm... yeah, I'll have to agree with PottehUK on this one, though. And diamond, there's no need to be rude...
(buried)
Actually I was complimenting the Admins' kinda? Considering you're being rude to me, I'll be rude to you. Will you "shut the fuck up" with your stupid biased none open mind? Idiot.
This had been now a bit out of line. That's rather insulting towards INtense!
Most of the stuff is pretty easy to do. What I'd like to know is how to get a super customized page like Dystopia has:
Moddb.com
I mean that doesn't even look like a normal ModDB mod profile.
What goes on during the authoring process (phase 1)?
Articles/news will be put into two category's at this point, the archived and the authed. Authed meaning it has suitable amounts of work/media within the post to be on the front page. Profiles will need to prove that they have begun work.
This is all done by a few staff members and each post is checked for both content and meaning before a decision is made.
Great guide for modders! hope to see more articles like these in the future :)
Nice work, there is some good insight here
Nice work, Henley. This was informative and awesome!
Sweet! I was surprised to see Overgrowth on the front page!
Hehe. You have have an awesome profile - I want to steal it for Modular Combat! :P
Heh! Thanks for mentioning JB, Henley! Makes all the effort I put into the profile and each news post worth it :D Nice job on the article buddy!
Nice article.
One of the problems I remember having once, was line breaks in a news item.
Simpley deciding when a new line will start seemed to not work for me.
Very nice, Henlers. <3
Might want to correct a misspelling: atheistic should be aesthetic :) (In the white space section)
Ah thanks for that!
Thanks for this great tutorial !