News Posting Guidelines
Submissions should be relatively new and directly related to technology. Business, politics, and video-
game submissions should be written from a technological standpoint, or address repercussions in the
technological world.
General Guidelines
- News submissions should be within two weeks of the article publication date. Reviews should cover products and services that are within three months of their respective market launch date.
- All rumor-based submissions should either come from reputable websites and/or provide credible evidence to back the claim.
- Submissions classified as articles should be objective (factual) in nature while subjective content should be filed as Opinion Pieces.
- Please use the original story headline for all submissions, except in the case of reviews, previews, and impressions. To help differentiate all these similar titles on TechSpy, users should include the site name in the title when posting reviews and previews. A 'Hands-On' is classified as a preview.
- Always use a clean and professional language when writing descriptions. Do not use exclamation marks (!) in your headline or sentences. Do not add your personal comment or opinion to the news post; simply report the news in an easy to read and objective way.
- When copying text from the source article make sure you read over the text and edit it if necessary. A good example is when a site writes "We" or "I", as this should then be replaced with the site's or person's name, or you can quote the source.
- Include the appropriate tags directly related to the submission. Please do a thorough search before creating tags. If none exists, create a new one and categorize them accordingly.
- Be professional and responsible when posting news stories. Members who misuse their posting powers or fail to post news according to the sites guidelines will risk having their accounts degraded and will no longer be able to post news.
Sourcing
Submissions on TechSpy no longer have to be traced back to the original source, but submitted stories
MUST provide appropriate citations to original content within the article itself.
A Story within a Story
Sometimes a site does an interview with an industry professional where newsworthy information is
revealed deep inside the interview. Other websites often create separate news stories focusing on
specific bits of information that are of special interest to their readers. Even if the original interview is
already posted it is OK to also post these side stories if the original post did not focus on this
newsworthy information.
What is NOT allowed
-
Direct links to images or image galleries, audio, or most types of videos. These types of media
should only be submitted for supplemental purposes alongside the respective article(s). When
posting videos, they should be embedded on the TechSpy submission when embed codes are
provided.
-
Direct linking to YouTube videos will be allowed only if they qualify as webcasts, web series, or
any other original content on YouTube (i.e. should not be affiliated with a website). A good
example would be submissions from MKBHD, UnboxTherapy, etc. Parody submissions are not
allowed.
-
Duplicated content. Always check the pending submissions area and main website to see if it is
already posted through a different source. If your story is not first to be submitted, you must
post it as an alternative source.
- Submissions about wallpapers, petitions, surveys, and direct links to crowdsourcing campaigns.
- Submissions violating the general NewsBoiler guidelines (e.g. warez, pornography)
-
Non-English submissions. If you choose to submit a story from a website that has non-English
content, please pass it through a translator like Google Translator to get the appropriate URL.
-
Blogspam. Some examples include:
- Posts including many affiliate links to low quality or products not related to technology.
- Guest and/or paid-for posts.
- Posts containing low quality language and writing style.
- Posts that are extremely generic in nature (e.g. Reasons why your business should invest in IT)
- Content not related to technology.
- Websites with too many advertisements.
Final Say
- In all cases administrators and moderators have the final say as to the suitability of a story. If you disagree with any decision, then you are free to submit a ticket and state your case.
- Admins/Mods reserve the right to freeze an article whilst judgement is being made on any issue.
