News Forums Guidelines

This document is intended to clarify the usage of the News forums at nsane.forums and to give guidance to our members of the preferred format of any news post. This document will be updated. It is your responsibility to be 'up to date' with its content. These guidelines are in addition to and not instead of the Guidelines.

General Guidelines:

Post Requirements:

We require all news posts to include the following information in the order:

• Article title
• Article content   
• Link to article (Link text can be just "Source" or the article title)

Article Selection:

• Posted articles should be recent news, at most seven days old. Exception: Older, but very important news not already posted.
• Search before posting. The same or similar article may already have been posted. Searching can also help to determine the correct news forum for an article.
• Only articles similar to existing ones that add value should be posted (for example, contain additional or updated information), and should be posted as replies to the earlier topic.
• Only articles similar to existing ones that add value should be posted (for example, contain additional or updated information). Should be posted as new topics and the Related News field linked to the older article.

 Article Presentation:            

• Topic should look as close to the original article as possible without going to extremes, and should include embedded objects like images, videos, tweets, etc whenever possible.
• For better readability, paragraphs should be separated by a blank line.
• Remove unrelated content that detracts from reading, like "Related articles", "Tips", Ads, etc.
• Author and article date/time (bylines) should be removed.
• Article images copied with the content should be replaced by links to the original article's images. This ensures images present properly on all devices.
• Small hard to discern images like thumbnails should be replaced with a larger image whenever possible.
• Resize small videos by right-clicking on them and selecting "Copy URL". Then replace the small video with the copied link.
• Before posting, the editor "Remove Format" action should be applied to the content.

News Forum selection:
    
Hierarchy

• Security & Privacy News (Security or privacy related news, including for software and technology)
• FileSharing News (Filesharing related news, including for software and technology)
• Mobile News (Mobile related news, except for the above)
• Software News (Software related, except for the above)
• Technology News (Technology related news, hardware (PC's, laptops, CPUs, GPUs, gaming))
• General News (if it doesn't belong elsewhere)

• Use Entertainment Exchange forum for entertainment news and reviews.
• Use Guides & Tutorials forum also for "How to" articles, "Best of" articles, and software/hardware guides and reviews.

For example, an article about mobile security software could be Mobile News or Software News or Security & Privacy News. But because Security & Privacy News is the highest of the three in the hierarchy, that's where it belongs.

If still unsure, check the forums' description, or search and see where similar news has been previously posted, or ask a Staff member.
    
Other Information:
    
Any questions about news posting should be directed to the site staff (preferably @Karlston)

Changes:

June 7, 2021: Posting requirements for similar articles updated for new "Related News" field.

August 3, 2021: Article title is now automatically displayed, so is no longer needed to be included at the top of the article content.

August 9, 2021: Added requirement to replace images copied with content, with links to original article images.