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Hung (the Admin) has asked me to make a few basic guide rules because I've been told that the guides I've posted here are nice - looking, organized, all of that. It's just rules that I want you to try and follow if you're making a guide. I'm sure all of us don't want rushed, messy guides here.
Don't rush on your guides.
When you rush on your guides, they tend to look messy and unorganized.
First of all, if you're making a guide, don't rush on it. If you're serious about making it, you would instead be taking your time. If you're not serious at all, don't bother making the guide.
Second, people won't feel like it'll be worth reading if it looks like it was made in 10 minutes. The only people I can imagine reading it are yourself, desperate - for - information people, and people who want to tell you "clean up your guide!" You won't also be praised that much for it.
If you can, add images to it.
You should know that guides with images tend to be easier to read and understand. I always prefer to read guides with the images than a guide with none at all. They help me by making it easier to understand what the author is trying to say.
If you're going to add images, then please crop out what you don't need with GIMP, Photoshop, etc. Let's say you're taking a print screen of a pop up. After clicking on the Prt Scr key on the keyboard, open up the photo - editing program you like and just remove the "extra" of the screenie. At the end, you would like to have only the pop up. A nice border around it would make it look nicer, but it's not necessary to add things to it.
Use proper spelling, grammar, and punctations.
The point of guides are to be read, and what's the point of that if people can barely understand you?
Try using proper spelling, grammar, and punctations. We know nobody is perfect with any of that, but at least make it look like you really tried. Don't be like "aight so thiz iz howw u do thiz stuf hear u go kthxbaii" (that took me a while to write x.x). That will make it extremely annoying.
Make it look interesting, not boring.
So, you're serious about making a guide. Alright.
When you're typing everything out, play around with the tools that the thread gives you (the tools that are at the top of where you type in your text). Try aligning your text to the center. For headers, make it noticable by making the text bigger than usual and bolding it. You can also use different colors to make it look more interesting (please don't use the font coloring like it's not big deal. Having a guide with each sentence as a different color would be frustrating to read. Also, try not to use hard - to - read colors like yellow and white).
If you want to mess around with what the tools offer and you want to see how it looks, click on the Preview button. There you'll see what I like to call a sneak peek.
Add the legal rights onto the guide.
So the guide is almost done. Great job. If you were really serious with it, you would add your legal rights at the end of the guide (it doesn't always have to be at the end, though; it can be in the beginning, too. Most common is at the end). Basically what that means is that you make your own small rules of how people can use the guide. Do you want people to produce (make) your guide somewhere else in the Internet without your permission? Do you want to be credited when others post it in another site? Make sure you're clear with that.
Having none of that, the guide practically yells "Rob me!" to those who would do it. That'd be a shame if it was a great guide ...
Now you've read the basic rules. Keep in mind that these rules will be here & they may change. Updates will be said on the title when they are made. If anybody makes a guide that goes against the purpose of these guidelines, your guide will either be locked or sent to the waste basket, or both.
Thanks for reading.
Don't rush on your guides.
When you rush on your guides, they tend to look messy and unorganized.
First of all, if you're making a guide, don't rush on it. If you're serious about making it, you would instead be taking your time. If you're not serious at all, don't bother making the guide.
Second, people won't feel like it'll be worth reading if it looks like it was made in 10 minutes. The only people I can imagine reading it are yourself, desperate - for - information people, and people who want to tell you "clean up your guide!" You won't also be praised that much for it.
If you can, add images to it.
You should know that guides with images tend to be easier to read and understand. I always prefer to read guides with the images than a guide with none at all. They help me by making it easier to understand what the author is trying to say.
If you're going to add images, then please crop out what you don't need with GIMP, Photoshop, etc. Let's say you're taking a print screen of a pop up. After clicking on the Prt Scr key on the keyboard, open up the photo - editing program you like and just remove the "extra" of the screenie. At the end, you would like to have only the pop up. A nice border around it would make it look nicer, but it's not necessary to add things to it.
Use proper spelling, grammar, and punctations.
The point of guides are to be read, and what's the point of that if people can barely understand you?
Try using proper spelling, grammar, and punctations. We know nobody is perfect with any of that, but at least make it look like you really tried. Don't be like "aight so thiz iz howw u do thiz stuf hear u go kthxbaii" (that took me a while to write x.x). That will make it extremely annoying.
Make it look interesting, not boring.
So, you're serious about making a guide. Alright.
When you're typing everything out, play around with the tools that the thread gives you (the tools that are at the top of where you type in your text). Try aligning your text to the center. For headers, make it noticable by making the text bigger than usual and bolding it. You can also use different colors to make it look more interesting (please don't use the font coloring like it's not big deal. Having a guide with each sentence as a different color would be frustrating to read. Also, try not to use hard - to - read colors like yellow and white).
If you want to mess around with what the tools offer and you want to see how it looks, click on the Preview button. There you'll see what I like to call a sneak peek.
Add the legal rights onto the guide.
So the guide is almost done. Great job. If you were really serious with it, you would add your legal rights at the end of the guide (it doesn't always have to be at the end, though; it can be in the beginning, too. Most common is at the end). Basically what that means is that you make your own small rules of how people can use the guide. Do you want people to produce (make) your guide somewhere else in the Internet without your permission? Do you want to be credited when others post it in another site? Make sure you're clear with that.
Having none of that, the guide practically yells "Rob me!" to those who would do it. That'd be a shame if it was a great guide ...
Now you've read the basic rules. Keep in mind that these rules will be here & they may change. Updates will be said on the title when they are made. If anybody makes a guide that goes against the purpose of these guidelines, your guide will either be locked or sent to the waste basket, or both.
Thanks for reading.
Last edited by Brentt on 25/7/2009, 4:25 pm; edited 1 time in total
