If you are a staff writer capable of posting your own articles, there are some general guidelines you should follow in order to respect your fellow scribes:

1. Don’t post an article until the currently featured article has been live for at least twenty-four hours.

This can be accomplished in more than one way. The first is to simply wait twenty-four hours to post your own article as live. The second is slightly more complicated and involves changing the timestamp (located under the “More” tab on the right side of Textpattern’s article editor). Under “Timestamp,” you can adjust the date and time that your article will post. Set it to at least twenty-four hours after the currently live article was posted.

You can see when articles were posted in Textpattern if you go to “Content” and then to “Articles.” The date and time will be under “Posted.” Sometimes there will be articles that are live but have not actually been posted to the site yet. The entries for these articles will look slightly faded, and the dates that they were posted will be future dates. When you see this, you should go back to your own article and change the timestamp to twenty-four hours after the live article with the latest date in the queue.

2. If there are a lot of pending articles in the queue, hold off posting your own article for a couple of days.

This is to give the editors time to read and approve the currently pending articles. Freelancers are unable to post their own articles, so out of respect for them, allow a couple of days for an editor to start posting those articles that are currently pending.

3. If you are an editor, be sure to post currently pending articles that are ahead of your own before you post your own articles.

Editors are capable of posting other people’s articles and editing already posted articles. It’s an editor’s job to read through the work of freelancers, make any corrections or edits that are necessary, and then post those articles.

When using Textpattern to write and publish articles, remember the following guidelines:

What to Always Do

— Fill in the “Writer” field (to the left under “Custom Fields”) with your log-in name.

• Your log-in is the name you use to log-in to Textpattern and may differ from the name that displays on the site.
• If you don’t fill in the “Writer” field, your article will not appear on your author page.

— Proofread before saving as “Pending” or “Live.”

Section Guidelines

Select the “Section” in which to place your article (drop-down menu located under “Sort and Display” on the right in Textpattern) based on the follow descriptions:

— Derivative: includes all works derived from preexisting works (e.g. fanfiction, overt parodies, rewrites)

— Original: includes all original works (e.g. covert/general parodies, original pieces)

— Writing: includes all articles about writing

— Sporks: includes all sporks (does not include articles about sporks)

— Criticism: includes all non-spork criticisms/analyses, as well as articles about how to criticize/analyze

— Reviews: includes reviews of books, movies, etc.

— Editorials: includes all personal opinion/discussion pieces

— Misc: includes everything that doesn’t fit anywhere else

Category Guidelines

Follow these rules when selecting categories (found under “Sort and Display”):

— Category 1: should be used for the article type/medium or subcategory

— Category 2: should be used for the article series title (if applicable), or else a secondary type/medium or subcategory

• If the series is not put in Category 2, it will not sort properly on your author page and will not appear on the series page.
• If you are beginning a new series of articles, email submit@impishidea.com to request a new category be created.

Tagging Guidelines

Consider the following when tagging an article (the tag box is on the left under “meta” in Textpattern):

— Tag with the full name for the author of a book you are reviewing/referencing ALWAYS.

— Tag character names ONLY when the article is an analysis of that character.

— Tag the full book title if the book is not part of a series. If it is part of a series, tag with the series name NOT the name of the individual book.

• e.g. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets should be tagged Harry Potter (series).

— Before creating a new tag, check to see if a suitable tag already exists.

— Do not tag article series names, article categories, author names, or anything else that exists as a category or section.

• Use the “Co-Written” category if an article is co-written and be sure to credit the other author(s) early on in the article (you could even link to their author page when credit you them).

If You Have Abandoned an Article Draft

Many authors begin articles that they later abandon (as in, their draft just sits in Textpattern, never to be completed and published). This is fine. But when this happens, should you decide to write a new, different article, do not simply begin a new draft. Rather, reuse the old article draft and ID number for your new article.

It is fairly simple to see if you have any old drafts that you could reuse. Simply head over to “Articles” under the “Content” tab at the top of Textpattern. Then select “Author” from the drop-down search menu and search for your log-in name. You’ll be able to see the status of all of your articles. If any are still in draft form and you do not intend to finish them, reuse them for new content. Alternatively, you can run a “Status” search and search for “Draft.” This will show you all the articles that are currently drafts. If you see one with your name on it, reuse it. This keeps Textpattern from getting cluttered with abandoned drafts.

E – Everyone
N – Not rated
T – Teen, may contain some language and subjects unsuitable for young children
R – Risque, may not be suitable for minors

Content rating is voluntary, with the exception of R-rated pieces.

You may also find some older articles with the older (and more unique) ratings:

Safe – safe for everyone
Scissors – safe if you are allowed to use scissors unsupervised
Fire – safe if you are allowed to play with fire unsupervised
Murder – safe if you’ve killed a person

If you’ve never submitted an article to ImpishIdea before and would like to do so, you can email the article to us via the official submissions email (submit @ impishidea.com, sans spaces). Be sure to use a regularly-checked email as the editors will sometimes send feedback and/or requests for revisions, in addition to other information.

If you’d like to become a regular contributor, please include your desired log-in name in addition to a draft of the article in the email, and one of the editors will set you up with an article submissions account, as well as fill you in on all the necessary details.

Articles can be pasted into the body of the email or attached. If attaching the article, please be sure that the file is not password protected and is either a .txt, .rtf, or Word document (.doc or .docx).

The currently active editors are:

no one at the moment

The beast known as Real Life has claimed the attentions of the editors. If you are interested in joining the editorial team, let us know at the submissions email listed above.

(Input → Output)

_italic_ → italic

*bold* → bold

-strikethrough- → strikethrough

+underline+ → underline

^superscript^ → ^superscript

~subscript~ → _subscript

ImpishIdea(tm) → ImpishIdea™

ImpishIdea(c) → ImpishIdea©

ImpishIdea(r) → ImpishIdea®

!http://i.imgur.com/WflUx.png! →

!http://i.imgur.com/PnFq1.png!:http://impishidea.com/ →

"ImpishIdea":http://impishidea.com/ → ImpishIdea

ALLCAPS(Hover Text) → ALLCAPS

Note: The following modifiers will only work properly when they’re placed at the very beginning of a paragraph.

* Bulleted List →

• Bulleted List

# Numeric List →

1. Numeric List

Footnote[1] + fn1. Footnote →

Footnote¹

¹ Footnote

h1. Large →

Large

h3. Medium →

Medium

h6. Small →

Small

bq. Blockquote →

Blockquote

bq.. Multi-Paragraph Blockquote →

Multi-Paragraph Blockquote

(NOTE: Type “p.” at the start of the first non-quoted paragraph to exit.)

p(spoiler). Spoiler →

Spoiler (NOTE: Only works in articles, not comments.)

If you ever forget how to use Textile, just click on the Textile Help link below the bottom right corner of the comment box.