Post tutorial Report RSS modDB News posting

Want to know how to post news properly, but don't know how to do it? Well, this post may help...

Posted by on - Basic PR

[page=News posting on modDB's main page]
Right, right... I should have done this tutorial long ago. I must say that when I was a moderator, it wasn't a pleasure to auth news... mainly because they were poor, had many mistakes, or at least, could be much better. I'll try to explain briefly how to use its full potential, and indirectly, help the moderators here :P

:moddb: mDBCode
Sometimes people forgot about the mDBCode. There's no need to use HTML on News posts, actually, I think someday it'll be banned from newsposts, as it's a "pain in the neck" to modify it (as a raw text).

So *please*, let's try to stick with mDBCode, right? There's no need for HTML, unless you know what you're doing and your news don't need to be modified (which is pretty rare)...

What's up with those people that are so *lazy* that all they do is to copy the raw HTML code of their website and just post it here as a newspost? That's ugly, that's senseless... come on! If you wanna do it, do it properly.

:moddb: The rules

Only news deemed of a quality standard will be shown on the main page. It could be rejected for any of the following common reasons:
  • HTML / Formatting Mistakes
  • Spelling Errors
  • Large images (over 15k in size)
  • Inappropriate content
  • Help wanted requests
  • Too short
  • Too long / too dominating
  • Irrelevant news (i.e. we have forums)
  • Contains invalid links

That's what you get when you try to post your news. But... it looks like it's ignored. People should have in mind that their news are going to be seen by thousands of people, and it's going to be displayed at the main page, so... it must look good, and be relevant.

I know, sometimes we're so excited about the progress that we want to post something all the time, but... the ideal would be to wait until you have enough material, and post something more concrete.

:moddb: Images
That's the best part of the newsposting. Images call much more attention than words, specially when people are lazy to read :P

The best way to show off your mod is with pics. But, please, thumbnails only! 320x240, and even lower when possible! Ok, ok, I know that you can't see much in a 160x120 pic, but hey, it's easy: Just put a hyperlink on it which leads to the corresponding high-res image! Is it that hard to think about? Is it that hard to do? Nah...

I agree, the "15kb size" image is quite questionable, I'm not for it. For example, what's worst: A newspost that has 10 8kbs images, or one which has a cool, original 35kb image? I think they should estabilish not only a limit for each image, but also, a limit for the image post.

Anyway, you'll have to keep this in mind: images are the key to get the attention you want (or don't want, I don't know).

:moddb: Just to finish
As I stated here, the news posting is a very important part of modDB. At least, I've found a lot of cool mods just by paying attention on the main page (which has the news, obviously).

The ideal would be no more than a newspost per week. If you have something like daily news, you have two choices: posting them everyday on your mod profile only, or to post one news later telling everything briefly. Remember, long texts are useless on the internet, unless the person is seeking it.

That's all, I'll try to update this tutorial later, which pics and more information.

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Tei
Tei

I am writting a similar Tutorial:

"Mastering Pimping", its less Moddb centric and give tips about ALL news sites.
This one, of course, Its better. I will try to enhance mine, as posible.

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Comrade-Alucard
Comrade-Alucard

So what do you lean here ... northing...
If you wanna tell people something usefull how about the code ?
remember people are lasy they don't want to find it elsewhier on the site.

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Babuzaa
Babuzaa

Pretty good tutorial. I write my news post in word and pimp it up with mdbcode ;)

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