|
westward_ho! -> =DF= Pending Guides Forum Rules (8/16/2008 14:21:46)
|
The Rules of the DragonFable Pending Guides Forum
Welcome one and all to DragonFable Pending Guides! If you're here, you might be thinking about making a guide yourself. You might be here to give feedback on someone else's guide. You might be here to request a guide. For all of you, there are some rules that need to be followed so that we can make this forum a great and friendly place to be.
Before going any further, please also open and read Guidelines to Guides - Tips for making great guides!
I. What is this forum, anyway?
This forum is designed as a place to construct new guides and receive feedback on these guides. Once a poster feels their guide is ready, they should request approval in the Approval Request Thread. Having your guide denied does not mean it was not a good idea! Pay attention to AK / moderator / poster feedback. Sometimes, all it takes is a little elbow grease, and your thread could be approved.
If you have questions about the steps to approval, please see the Approval FAQ.
II. The Unbreakable Rules
1. All Universal Rules apply in this forum.
2. Constructive criticism is a must! There is to be absolutely NO flaming, trolling, or profanity in this board. Posts should be designed to help the guide designer find mistakes in their post AND correct them. Likewise, there is to be no "I support!" or the like being posted (all praise, while great to offer, belongs in PM). If your post is not designed to help the guide designer in some way, it will be deleted.
3a. Only one (1) Pending Guide at a time is allowed for each member. There is no reason to be trying to make three or four, or even just two guides at the same time. None of them will be able to receive your full attention.
3b. We prefer you limit your guide ownership number to five (5) guides total. Five finished guides and/or A-Z lists is enough for any one person to reasonably be expected to keep updated and looking good. Still, we do acknowledge that there are some who are capable of maintaining more than five. Exceptions may be made on a case by case basis, but please, please only volunteer for more than five if you are absolutely sure you can handle them all. When applying for a new guide, be sure to tell us how many you are already managing. If you take on more than five guides without authorization, one or more may be reassigned without warning. Remember that if you wish to retire/give away one of your guides, please let us know in the All-Purpose Locking / Deleting / Retiring Request Thread. Please note that threads tagged [Archive] (Which is an AK/Mod only tag) do not count towards your total, if you should happen to own one.
4. Proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation is both desirable and necessary. A guide is not helpful if people cannot read or understand it. What's more, your information is more reliable if it is presented in an easy-to-read and easy-to-understand format.
5. Original content is absolutely necessary. At MINIMUM, all guides must contain 75% original information and insight. There is no need for a reposting of information available elsewhere. Reposting of Encyclopedia entries, other guides, as well as the use of long developer/staff/member quotes in their entirety should be avoided if at all possible, and reposting sections of entries/short quotes should be used only to support individual insight and assessment. Guides that do not present original information cannot be approved.
6. 90% of all posts should be in black, normal-sized text. The main body of your guide should be in normal-sized and black text. Size 3 text and above should be used for headings only. Color should be used sparingly for highlighting certain words; the same applies with bold, italics, and underline. ONLY readable colors (red, blue, green, purple, black, etc.) should be used. See Guidelines to Guides for more information. Posts that disobey this rule will be considered spam (see rule #12).
7. Image Rules:
A. ONE banner is allowed per guide. Banners are allowed to be up to 500x500 pixels and up to 100KB in size. Animation is allowed at the moderators' discretion (excessive animation is not permitted).
B. A total of 500KB of displayed images are allowed per post. Any other images will need to be in link form.
C. Preferred image types are .gif and .jpg/.jpeg. .png and other file types are discouraged as some people have issues displaying them.
8. Signature use is not allowed. There is no reason to be posting signatures--distractions are not needed.
9. Advertising your guide is not allowed. While linking to your guide in your signature is acceptable, there is to be no "Visit my Guide!!" or the like in either posts or signatures.
10. Bumping should be used sparingly. Self-bumping is ONLY allowed when a considerable update to your guide has been made, and it needs to be reviewed again, or when you are ready for your guide to be looked at to be approved. Posts made only to bump a thread, when the thread has had no changes made to it, will be deleted.
11. Battle Strategy Guides are allowed. You must use the [BSG] tag at the beginning of your thread title. Only strategies which are worthy of a guide, such as boss monsters or challenge fights, will be approved. There's no point creating a guide for an enemy which is easily defeated and requires no real strategy.
12. Spam is not tolerated. Any spam threads or posts merit an automatic warning (at moderator discretion). Please do not ask questions, make game suggestions, or discuss DF here.
Use all proper request threads and direct any non-Guides related posts to the appropriate forum.
13. No Duplicate Guides. Check all previous guides. If there is already a guide, don't make a new one. If you see improvements that need to be made to a current guide, politely post in the thread instead of making a new guide. If you do find a guide that is beyond repair, you must include a reason in your new guide. It cannot be a simple paraphrase and/or reorganization. Guides is not a contest. It isn't for outdoing each other. It's for helping others.
14. Only AKs and Moderators may use the [Archive] tag. This tag indicates that the guide is not being regularly updated, but still has useful information. It does NOT indicate that a guide is "dead" or in anyway useless. As with any other official tag, only forum staff may use this tag.
15. Staff in this forum have the final say. These people are here to make the forum a nice place to be, and to keep it clean. They have the board's best interests in mind with their work - what they say goes, period.
III. Important Information, Links, and Tips
Useful Threads
Try looking here if you have a question!
Guides-Related Threads
A Complete Index of DragonFable Guides
All-Purpose Locking / Deleting / Retiring Thread
Approval Request Thread
Guide Request Thread
Guidelines to Guides - Tips for making great guides!
Outside Links
DragonFable General Discussion for all game discussion.
DragonFable Q&A for any game-related questions you might have.
DragonFable Encyclopedia if you need to look up any information.
Things to think about
1. Make sure you're not making a guide that's already been made! Use the search feature as well as the Complete Index of DragonFable Guides to make sure your idea is a new one. If your Pending Guide is a repeat of an already-approved Guide, it will be locked.
2. Know your stuff, and have a plan in mind! A post should already be mostly completed when it's posted for the first time, and a plan will help greatly with that. Think about some of the following things, for starters:
How long is my guide going to be? Will I need multiple consecutive posts?
How many images will I be using? (Plan accordingly with rule #6)
How often would my prospective guide need to be updated? Will I have time for it?
Those are just a few things to be considering before you make a guide.
|
|
|
|
