Salmoneus Posted August 22, 2007 Posted August 22, 2007 Guidelines For Submitting Content This topic contains all of the requirements and guidelines to submitting content for use on the site. All guides should follow these guidelines, so please look them over if you wish to submit a guide and have it accepted onto the site. Table of Contents: General Guidelines & Info Quest Guides City Guides Dungeon Guides General Guidelines & Info These rules must be followed by all guides and content submitted here, regardless of what type of guide or content you are submitting. All guides, images and other content MUST be original content. This is stated at the top of every submission forum we have, and there is no exception to this rule. You may not take content from any source other than your own. This includes other fansites, and the RuneScape KB. The content should exist in-game (don't make threads about something in the BtS before it is released) All guides must have good spelling and grammar, decent punctuation and proper capitalization. All guides must be easily readable. All information in guides and other content must be accurate. Additionally, there are formatting requirements that must be met: Colors: Don't use colors in your guide. It makes it difficult to read, and they WILL NOT appear on the site even if the guide gets accepted. Fonts: Please use the default font face and size on your guide. The only exception should be the guide title and subsection headings - these can be bigger and may contain colors (but again, the colors won't show up on the site). Alignment: Please, no odd alignments (eg. aligning the text to the center or right). Pictures can be centered, and text should be aligned to the left (the default). When will my guide appear on the site? Well, that depends on a couple of things: Subject of the Guide - Guides on recent game updates have priority over other guides. This is simply because new updates can be tricky (like quests), and people would like a guide on it to help them out. Quality of the Guide - A guide with high quality information, very few errors, a clear structure and excellent pictures will likely go on the site sooner than a guide with text that needs work, images that need cropping, and a poorer layout/structure. Credits: All guides should contain a credits list of some sort, to give credit to anyone who helped write the guide. It's very simple, and should follow a similar format as this: Guide NameWritten By <Your Name> Original Guide By <Original Writer's Name*> Special Thanks To <List of People Who Helped> This should be pretty explanatory: "Your Name" is your name, as well as any other major contributors to the guide. The "Original Writer" should only be listed if you're making a rewrite of the guide; otherwise, leave that line out. And the "List of People Who Helped" is simply a listing of everyone who contributed something to your guide, like images, grammar mistakes, etc. Maps: Just about all guides should include a map, if referencing a location in RuneScape. It makes finding a quest start location easier, finding NPCs easier, and it just helps the instructions you give make sense. All maps should be taken from the Official RuneScape World Map. Simply take a screenshot of the area, crop it down, and do what you need with it. A few notes on this: All maps need to be high quality - no JPG versions. The map that Jagex provides is very sharp, and your map should be just as sharp. When referencing locations, please remember that we have colorblind users who have difficulty seeing certain colors. Use white numbers on your map instead of colors, and include a key on the map if needed. A key is not required, but in some instances makes it easier to use. Maps should be at 75% zoom. Images: All images should be saved in PNG format. This format gives the highest quality, and there is very little distortion. The exception is transparent images (like item pictures, NPC face pictures), which should be saved as a GIF. JPEG images are always bad quality and will not be accepted! If you have screenshots of text from the chatbox, make you they are not taken in fullscreen (or windowed) mode since this gives them an odd transparent-ish background that is hard to read text against. To fix this in High Detail, go to the Graphics Options and make sure the 'Resizable window' option is set to 'Fixed'. What's an "abandoned" guide? Any guide that's been untouched (edited or commented on) for a period of two weeks will be "marked" as abandoned and moved to the Declined Guides forum. If you're not sure why your topic was declined, see the super-glued topic in the Declined Guides board.[/p] Quest Guides Quest guide Format: All quest guides follow a similar format, and are designed to be as simple as possible. The following layout is how you should set your guide up: 1. Header: Like in all guides, this is required. See the above section on "Credits" for a template to use. 2. Requirements: A simple list of Skills, Quest and Items needed, along with any recommendations on these things: Skills:Quests: Items: Recommended Skills: Recommended Quests: Recommended Items: 3. The guide itself: There are a number of things that should be included in any quest guide: Specific details for the entire quest. Obscure instructions will not be accepted. Pictures of quest items. Maps of NPC locations, dungeons, key quest locations. Images of key quest NPCs and scenes. Make sure that quotes from NPCs are not too long - one or two frames at max is enough. 4. Rewards: All quest guides contain a quest reward scroll at the end of the guide. It then lists the quest rewards, and goes into detail about any rewards which need further explanation afterwards. 5. Fast Quest Walkthrough (FQW): This is the newest addition to the quest guides, and should give the reader the "bare minimum" of information in order to finish the quest. FQWs are always written in a numbered list, and should be easily linked to the steps in your guide, in order. In other words, the FQW should follow your guide exactly, except that all of the details have been stripped out. City Guides The purpose of city and locations guide is simple: to give a thorough overview of a location, including the main attractions, shops, people and monsters. Essentially, it's a tour of a specific place in RuneScape. The following guides are a few examples of excellent city guides: Dogesh-kaan Keldagrim Lunar Isle Zanaris Of course, there are many more high quality guides on the site, these are only a few. All city guides have a particular layout which should be followed: 1. Header: Like in all guides, this is required. See the above section on "Credits" for a template to use. 2. Introduction: A brief introduction to the city, describing its purpose and a main highlight of the city. Two or three sentences is fine, but feel free to write as much as you'd like. 3. "Getting There": This section should detail the main ways to reach the city (teleporting, walking routes, etc.), and should include a map of these routes if possible. 4. City Map: All city guides should contain a city map. Most of the time, this can be taken directly from the RuneScape World Map and then edited to number key locations. 5. Attractions: The attractions of the city. These should be numbered on the city map, and listed in numerical order in the guide. Most if not all attractions should have a picture. 6. Shops: Should include info such as the shop owner, shop stocks and prices. 7. People: At the minimum, this section should contain a listing of all NPCs in the town, along with a picture of him or her. A description of the NPC would be great, but is not required. 8. Monsters: This is more or les the same as the "People" section, and should list all of the monsters (or attackable NPCs) in the city, along with their level and a picture of it. Dungeon Guides Dungeon guides cover the subterranean part of RuneScape, although they are similar to City Guides in the way that you're giving a "tour" of the dungeon to the reader. Some examples of dungeon guides include: Edgeville Dungeon Lumbridge Swamp Caves Temple of Light All dungeon guides should have a format similar to this: 1. Header: Like in all guides, this is required. See the above section on "Credits" for a template to use. 2. Introduction: A short introduction to the dungeon including its general location, any requirements or anything special you may need to enter it. 3. "Getting There": The major methods of getting to the dungeon. This should also contain a map of routes to the dungeon. 4. Map of the Dungeon: A map of the dungeon - Neo Avatars' Guide to Mapping Dungeons may be helpful to you. All lines must be match up with each other, for the most part. Crooked, jagged lines should be fixed using a graphics program such as MS Paint. 5. Inside the Dungeon: This should include any points of interest in the dungeon. NPCs, traps, ladders, quest start points, etc. There should be pictures for each major point in your guide. 6. Inhabitants: This is pretty much the "People" and "Monsters" section of City Guides mixed into one. Again, any NPCs or monsters should be listed, a picture of it should be located under its name, and all monsters' levels should be labeled. Descriptions, again, are optional.
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