News Posting Code of Conduct

[Jeff]

Recently, we've been thinking about how to improve the quality of news posts on the main site, and have come up with the following rules. Suggestions and comments are welcome. (Note that due to technical reasons, this thread can't be posted directly in the news forum).

News Posting
Code of Conduct

We're grateful for those of you who take the time to post important news and other updates to the TPM main page. Please be aware that you have been granted special permission to do so, however; as such, you are the face of the entire forums. Visitors to the main site will see your posts before anything else and will use your commentary alone to decide whether they want to bother with anything else here. As such, we ask that you please abide by a few simple rules when adding news threads.

Please bear in mind that violating the below rules may result in a suspension or revocation of your news posting privileges.

1. Please keep a professional style. Ideally, we would like the quality of our news posts to be at least on par with a local newspaper. Don't swear, and avoid slang like "WTF" and "w00t." Be sure to carefully proofread before submitting a new thread, as well. (If need be, have someone else edit your posts before clicking that "Submit New Thread" button.)

2. Don't promote any illegal behavior. This includes voicing support for illegal file sharing, bootleg DVDs, online harassment, drug use, or anything else like that. It really doesn't matter what the specific activity in question is. If you wouldn't want to walk into a police station and proclaim it for all to hear, don't put it on the main site, please.

3. Avoid promoting or insulting other websites. We're not trying to start a war with our competitors, nor do we want to advertise them for no reason.

4. If you get information from an outside source, cite that source. (A hyperlink often helps with this.) This is an exception to rule #3, as it's necessary for good reporting. If you don't cite your sources, you're just stealing from them, and that will give TPM a bad reputation for swiping content. We don't want that. Sources lend credibility to your report; not citing them makes your report look shoddy.

5. Don't post rumors. If you're adding a news story, it should be something that we can verify via some kind of "official" source (hence rule #4). We don't want to try to run a big "exclusive" story and then have to backtrack once it's eventually proven false. That makes all of TPM look bad.

6. Use [simg] for images. You can post images with your news story, but use [simg] instead of [img]. This prevents them from breaking the main site's layout.

7. All the other TPM rules still apply, obviously.