NEW ARTICLE FORMATTING GUIDELINE - Samuel Warde, Writer

Effective November 1, 2015 all articles must be assigned to a website by Samuel when available, Kimberley if he is not available.

LIBERALS UNITE: Generally speaking, we are looking for high-quality hard-hitting or informative articles on Liberals Unite. Think about the kinds of things on The Nation, Esquire, and much of what appears on Mother Jones and Christian Science Monitor.

LIBERAL AGENDA: Liberal Agenda will be more for articles likely to appear on sites like Raw Story, Crooks and Liars, Media Matters, Huffington Post and the like. As such, Liberal Agenda will be used for Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Kim Davis, Fox News type articles. Also articles such as one about who is leading the Republican presidential pack in recent polling is more of a Liberal Agenda than one for Liberals Unite. Other articles for Liberal Agenda would typically include stories about police abuse/brutality, notices left on windshields or school notices about appropriate dress, pretty much an article that makes you think SMACK-DOWN or that you think a power word like that is the best way to describe it….

THE EVERLASTING GOP STOPPERS: This site will be for the snarkiest of snark and the worst incidents by law enforcement, etc. We will rarely use it and not until the middle of next year at the very earliest for most of you. This will ultimately serve, along with LIBERAL AGENDA as the starting point for new writers who do not have a catalog of articles elsewhere.

ARTICLE HEADERS:

1. Most articles should include a sentence at the top of 156 characters or less that summarizes the article – or serves as a “hook” for it. Something to entice them to read more. This sentence can also serve as the META DESCRIPTION in the YOAST SEO boxes below the article. This sentence should also be place in BOLD and switched from PARAGRAPH to HEADING 2 using the second row of buttons in the VISUAL editing screen. The dated notice at the top of this page is an example.

2. Articles longer than around 800 words should include a short summary at the top. Here is an example.

USING IMAGES/PHOTOS

1. Anyone placing their own photos into articles must either use Flickr or Wikipedia embed codes or must attribute the photos at the bottom of the article.

2. The best way to find appropriate photos is to do a Google image search, the click on SEARCH TOOLS, then USAGE RIGHTS, then LABELLED FOR REUSE. If you hover over the images you will see the source. Make sure the resolution is at least 750 pixels wide when selecting the embed code. Wikipedia uses a default size of 512 pixels wide, so pay attention. Also, sometimes Wikipedia will show text below the image. If so, reduce the font size of it to 10. More information about finding photos can be found here.

3. To attribute photos, you can use the GLOBAL CONTENT BLOCK button in the visual editing screen and use the FLICKR ATTRIBUTION set up as your model. The button is located in the VISUAL editor window and has RED, BLUE and GREEN squares on it. Select FLICKR ATTRIBUTION from the drop-down menu and be sure to click the box that says “INSERT FULL CONTENT (NOT THE SHORTCODE) and click on the INSERT CONTENT BLOCK button. Then change out the name of the photo to the proper name and hyperlink it to the page where the photo appears on the internet; change the copyright date if appropriate; change the photographer name and include a link to the him or her if one is available; and make sure to include a link to the license if applicable or if it is in the public domain include that info instead of the license.

4. It should look like the sample below when completed properly.