GUIDELINES FOR SUBMITTING AN ARTICLE
Appropriate Topics Only – White Oak Stables is a website intended for players of all ages, which means that everything on the website must be suitable for children as young as eight years old. Any topic that includes any violence, adult content, cursing, references to illegal activities, etc, is considered inappropriate for publication and will be deleted immediately.
No Personal Advertising – The newspaper is not to be used for advertising any sales, breedings, clubs, or contests that are not specifically hosted by the newspaper itself. Too often, the inbox is cluttered with “I’m selling horses please tell everyone” or “please announce that my breedings are open” messages that have nothing to do with the newspaper itself. In the future, the newspaper may consider having an “Events” article where the White Oak community may message the account advertising a sale or contest; if and when this happens, it will be announced a week beforehand and will run as a single article.
Non-Article Submission – The Newspaper mailbox is the fastest way to submit an article for consideration; unfortunately, the inbox is like any other mailbox and can quickly become full of spam and other non-submission material. Do not message the Newspaper Inbox with anything but an article, a newspaper contest submission, or a question regarding the newspaper itself. It is not proper use of the newspaper inbox to message it asking a question about the website, talking about sales or breeding, telling a personal story about a friend, or leaving a one sentence statement such as “I LOVE THIS WEBSITE SOO MUCH”. All these non-newspaper related items have a message board where the content is supposed to go.
Proofread and Format Your Message – As the manager, I go through every submitted article personally, edit and format it, and even re-write parts of it should it be necessary. There is a lot of time and effort involved into getting an article ready for publication, and if an article is full of spelling errors or grammatically incorrect sections, it is likely that I will simply delete the article and never use it. Before submitting your article, have your word processor (Word, Corel, etc) edit it and fix any spelling or grammar errors that it picks up.
Relevance – One of the many reasons this website is so successful is the varied interests of our community. A love of horses (at least simulated ones) brought everyone together, but the community itself is home to basketball players, writers, artists, swimmers, musicians, etc – we have such a variety of experiences and abilities that keeps the day-to-day communications extremely interesting, and that variety is always encouraged! However, the Daily Review is the newspaper on a simulated horse game – sports articles, car maintenance, bungee jumping, etc, all would be topics that are out of place in the newspaper. Make sure your article appeals to the website’s theme, or community. Here are a few topics that can never go wrong: horse care, improve your riding, White Oak Stables How-To.
