How To: Publish a news article

It is easy to publish news articles at Hypography. Here is a step-by step guide.

Note that in order to publish articles you need to be a member of our Editorial User Group. You can request to join this group by going to your UserCP -> Group Memberships.

First of all, what sort of content qualifies as news?
We publish mostly press releases from various sources. The reason for this is that it is free, quick, and press releases are often well written. A list of sources for good press releases will be made available in the editorial forum and also in the comments below this tutorial.

We can also publish articles written by yourself as long as they fit within the general context of Hypography. It is usually a good idea to submit an article to Tormod for review before you do so, however.

These rules must be observed no matter what you publish:

1) We cannot publish content that is copyrighted by anyone other than yourself, unless we are given explicit rights to do so
2) We always provide a source for our press releases, usually by ending the release with (for example) ”Source: American Geophysical Union”.
3) The editor and moderators may edit any content that is in violation with our general FAQ so please make sure you are familiar with our guidelines
4) Copyright rules also extend to photos (and of course any other content) you want to use in releases and articles

Style guide
Note that these are general rules. Exceptions will happen and it is not a crime to try out something else. It is however important that things look as good as they can!

1) All articles must begin with a brief introduction. Usually this is done by using the first line or two of a release. Make sure that the next paragraph is separated by two line breaks (and not only a paragraph space!) or else the entire paragraph will be bold.
2) All articles must have a title. Do not use ALL-CAPITAL titles even if the press release uses them.
3) There is a field called ”Byline”. If the article or press release has a distinct ”Written by” credit or we need to give special credit, use this field. Do not put your name in this field.
4) Please make sure all paragraphs have one line (and not more) between them.
5) Middle headings (ie, headings in the text) are simply bold. Use only one carriage return after the heading.
6) Images which are to be used within the text must be submitted to our gallery first (see procedure below) with the exception of the headline image. This is uploaded using the "Header image" at the top of the article form. It will automatically resize.
7) Images which are attachments rather than inline images may be added as attachments. These will be displayed in the column to the right of the article.
8) HTML is not allowed. Use BBcode to format the text. Usually no formatting other than headings and introduction should be necessary, unless you need to create lists etc.
9) Avoid the use of colors, alternative fonts, underlined texts and other fancy stuff.
10) The source always comes at the end of the article, like ”Source: NASA/JPL”, and is always italicized. Usually we do not link to the press release – but it is not forbidden.

A note about characters
Due to the fact that our news items are served in RSS feeds, some characters need to be replaced. Please observe:

a) all apostrophies must be ' (not any other variation like ´)
b) all double quotes must be " (no << and curly quotes etc)
c) Thought lines must be a short dash: - (not any longer variations)

Some comments on sources
In general, we cannot rip articles from commercial sites. That means it is not a good idea to post half an article from a commercial site and just add a link to the rest of the article. That section you posted will be copyrighted material which we have no right to reuse.

Rather, try to find the source of the article. If the source is hard to find, consider writing a paragraph or two about what the story covers so that you make it our own story instead. This is generally standard practice for journalists!

How to use inline images
Hre is a description for how to use images in articles. First of all, you need to have posting access to our gallery. If you do not have this, contact Tormod.

Please note that you must use the ”Standard Editor” and not the Enhanced editor. This option is set in your UserCP -> Options. This gives you a text-only editor but it works well for image insertion.

1) Find the image(s) you want to use, and save them to your hard disk
2) Check the images in an image editor if you have one. In general, images should be smaller than 1000x1000 pixels at 72dpi. Try to keep filesizes down to a minimum – no more than 250 Kilobytes.
3) Go to our gallery at Science Gallery
4) Find the category you want to post the image in
5) Do a ”Quick upload” via the form on that page. Make sure you complete all the entries including the credit field. If no credit needs to be given, leave it blank or write ”None”. The URL field can be left blank unless you want to link this image to a particular site elsewhere.
6) Hit the upload button. The image will be watermarked and placed in the category.

Now there are two ways to get the image into your article.

++Method one (linked images)
This lets you use thumbnails which are linked to gallery pages. Note this method only works for images which YOU have uploaded.

1) Go back to the page where you are submitting the article (or if it is already submitted, hit Edit).
2) Place the cursor where you want the image inserted.
3) Locate the ”My images” in the lower right corner (below the smilies) and click on it
4) Your images will show up in a popup window, latest image is always first.
5) Note the small menu in the top right corner. Here you can choose whether you want to link the image to the gallery page or not. In general you can use the link since it makes it easier for people to see the large image, and also because it means we do not need to use captions. (If you’re using Firefox or Mozilla this option is not shown but the image is still linked). Also make sure you add a thumbnail and not a full size image.
6) Images will either be inserted into the editor where you had the cursor, or at the end. If it was added to the end, make sure you move the entire image code to where you want it.
7) The first image in an article should ALWAYS be on the same line as the first paragraph AFTER the introduction! This gives us a consistent look on the front page. The image should be on the LEFT side.

Note that there is a small bug in the image insert function. It might generate code like this:

[url="http://hypography.com/forums/blabla"][img="left"]image url here[/img][/url][/left]

The [left][/left] tags do not work, although they are used if you choose "left align" in the editor (a future update will hopefully fix this). Remove them and make the IMG tag look like this:

[img="left"]image url here[/img]

The URL tag around the image must remain if you want the thumbnail to point to the image.

8) Preview your article, make changes if necessary, and save it. Repeat all the steps if you want to add more images.

++Method two
This method simply inserts an image into the article without a link. This method works for all images, regardless of who uploaded them.

1) Locate the image you want to use in the gallery, and right-click on the thumbnail - this usually means that you must go one step above the image (ie, to the category which the image resides in).
2) Choose "Copy image location" (or similar options)
3) Go back to your editor and click on the image button on the far right of the editor menu bar.
4) In the popup that comes up, enter the side of the text you want the thumbail to appear at - left or right.
5) An IMG tag will be placed in the document where your cursor is at, or at the end (depending on browser). Place the cursor between the IMG tags and paste the address to the thumbnail image using CTRL+V (or right-click and Paste).

If you choose this method, you can still add a link to the image. Go to the image page agan and simly copy the URL field from the address field (in the top of the browser window). Go back to the image and select the code you pasted previously (ie, the complete IMG code). Click on the Link icon. Paste the URL you copied into the popup box. Preview and save.