Guidelines

Table of contents

I. Welcome to The Artifice!
> About
> Social media
> Setting up your profile
> General terms and related notes
> Payment

II. Preparing to Write
> High-quality content
> The Artifice demographics
> Writing for a widespread audience
> Writing style and point of view
> How often you should contribute
> Topics
> Your first article
> Categories
> Types of articles
>– Reviews
> Tides

III. Posting Your Article
> Creating a new post
> Title
>– Choosing your title
>– Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
>– Capitalization of article titles
>– How to title single reviews
> Tags
> Categories
> Formatting of article text
> Adding Sources
> Featured image
> Uploading/Inserting images into your article
> Embedding videos
> Submitting the article

IV. Editorial Process
> Revising your article
> Processing articles
> Up- and down-voting

V. Community Support & Resources
> Points
> Rank hierarchy
> Badges
> Community Moderators
> The Newsdesk
> Ratio
> Community messages
> Messages
> Commenting on articles
> Status of The Artifice
> Corrections
> Report a problem
> Recommend a writer
> Website badge

I. Welcome to The Artifice!

About

The Artifice is an online magazine that covers a wide spectrum of art forms. We do not run The Artifice, you do. The Artifice is collaboratively built and maintained by your fellow writers.

The platform is designed to reward you based on how you interact with it and its users. Once the system learns to trust you, you will be able to manage everything, much like Wikipedia.

This is an independently operated platform. That means unlike most of the corporately owned web destinations you may be used to, you will get completely unfiltered content from writers who do not need to fight their way through layers of policy bureaucracy.

This is why our community encourages you to explore all areas and art forms. Together, we will separate The Artifice from ordinary magazines and make it the top source for everything from currently trending commercial topics to unknown independent titles.

The Artifice is structured to let you focus on the quality of the content while it focuses on delivering that content to an audience of millions.

Social Media

Please Like our official Facebook fan page and follow us on Twitter. Do not forget to subscribe to our RSS Feed.

We have opened a special Facebook page for writers. Please go here and click on the “Like” button. Do not forget to tick the “Get Notifications” option:

We will only post important community information there. The page does not work as a support group for administrative inquiries.

You can find us engaging in intellectually stimulating posts and discussions at our subreddit page on Reddit.

Finally, do not forget to add editor@the-artifice.com to your e-mail account’s Safe List (or contact list) so that we don’t fall into your junk folder. Choose e-mail provider for tutorial: Gmail (add contact), Hotmail/Outlook (add to Safe senders), AOL, Yahoo. This is essential because you will be notified whenever there is engagement with your articles.

Setting up your profile

Before publishing your first article, you will need to set up your profile. You can edit your profile by clicking on the Edit Profile link on the top-bar.

Some notes to consider:

Name: You can decide how your name is display on your profile via the Display Name field.

User Biography: You can edit this area by filling in the User Biography field. There is a 175 character limit. Avoid typing URLs in this field. Want to write a good biography? Avoid detailing your age and which university you attend(ed). Your audience is more interested in the topics you focus on-your expertise.

User Links: You can list your external links:

• Website: Insert your full homepage/blog address in the Website field. Example: https://www.the-artifice.com
• Twitter: Add your Twitter profile by inserting your username in the Enter Twitter ID field. Do not include the @ symbol. Example: the_artifice

Avatar: Add an avatar by uploading a picture. The size must be at least 96 pixels and the filesize should not exceed 500kb.

General terms and related notes

All articles posted on The Artifice must be unique. There are reasons writers are not allowed to repost their articles elsewhere or post already-published work here. We want to keep all content on the platform unique to ensure there will be a continuous growth in both our audience and our writers. Also, if you choose to repost your article elsewhere, you will be lowering the search engine ranking of that site, which means that it will end up lower in search results.

All roles on The Artifice are on a voluntary basis. Update: as of February 2022, The Artifice is paying writers for published content. See the “Payment” section.

You are not allowed to directly promote your own product within the article. The topic you choose to write about will need to have a public interest.

Once the article has been successfully published on The Artifice, it will not be removed. All articles will remain in the archives. This is a collaborative platform where the actions of each user affects the others. For this reason, and many others, articles will not be deleted per author’s request.

Any form of backlinking, spamming, scamming, etc. will result in an instant ban. It is not unusual for writers to get offers to promote unrelated products or to add backlinks in their articles. This and any other form of advertising is not accepted at The Artifice.

For the time being, we do not run any ads on the platform. If we will, the ad revenue will go mainly to the running costs of keeping The Artifice alive and working. While we will do our best to limit the number of advertisements displayed as much as possible, it does not, however, mean we will get rid of them.

All articles submitted to the platform are property of The Artifice. The writers will be identified in their article as the author. Note that unlike many other publication platforms, The Artifice is centered around the writers as much as the content they produce.

Payment

As of 16th of February 2022, The Artifice is paying writers for published content.

The Artifice sister-sites have Patreon pages that are generating enough donations to cover the running costs. And as of 2022, we have crossed a milestone where there are some funds we can distribute to writers. These funds are certainly very limiting right now, but it may increase with time.

Payment

• $15 for published featured articles (which is 95% of all published work here).
• $10 for published articles that are not featured.
• $10 for the article of the month winners.

Conditions

• Payments through PayPal only.
• Add your PayPal email address via the edit profile page. Note that if your user account email is the same as your PayPal account email, you still need to fill in the PayPal field.
• If your article gets published, and your PayPal details are not added to your user account, no compensation will be sent retroactively.
• Compensation will exist now when we have an appropriate amount of donations coming through. Meaning, if the incoming donations decrease, we will need to cut the compensation.
• No payment for previously published content. No funds existed back then, and not enough funds exists now to cover it.
• No compensation for revision entries (might change later) and other ways of contributing, but this is a collaborative platform where you will not get far if you do not help others along the way.

II. Preparing to Write

High-quality content

The writers want you to be passionate, innovative, and original. The Artifice does not work quite the same as other publishing platforms. For example, the first question you may ask is: “What are you looking for?” At The Artifice, your fellow writers ask you instead: “What are you an expert on? What are you passionate about?”

We are more interested in your ideas, expertise, and passions than we are in having you fill in some hole in a list. However, what all writers require of each other is high-quality content. So what is considered a high quality article? In a nutshell, it must be well-written and useful. This entails everything from your idea being good, to the flow and style of your writing, to the amount of effort you spend proof-reading and editing. It may be more important to ask why we need high quality content.

The audience is shared between the writers, which is why quality content is essential coming from both you and your fellow writers. To put this into perspective:

1. A visitor enjoys reading Article A.
2. Decides to read Article B by clicking on a link.
3. Enjoys Article B and continues to explore…

If the quality of Article A is poor, then the reader will not click their way to explore more content; the same is true if Article B is poor. Together, if we set a good standard and publish stellar articles, the average reader will explore and appreciate more content. So ensure that you write in a good tone: both educate and entertain, and most importantly, aim high.

The Artifice demographics

The Artifice has an established audience of millions. The diversity in our current audience and its development is the essence of our success. The audience is balanced with intelligent and motivated individuals who stimulate discussion and debate, each with diverse lenses which feed off of each other’s points of view.

Although the size of our audience is essential to increase the exposure to our content, its value lies in the potential to raise awareness and generate interest in various niche topics.

An examination of the demographics reveals the 18-24 age group is the most populous, representing over a third of all fans, closely followed by age groups 13-17 and 25-34. The gender ratio remains fairly balanced, with a slightly greater value for females.

A geographic breakdown shows the majority of our audience are from English-speaking countries, with the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada at the top.

Writing for a widespread audience

You will need to structure your article in a manner that supports and allows our diverse audience to read and understand it. The readers will range from those that are enthusiastic and knowledgeable about your niche to a great number who are entirely unfamiliar with your topic.

This is why you will need to adjust the content of your article to a wider audience. There are various creative techniques to capture their interest enough to glance at your article and then maintain it to a level where the reader is engaged by the content. Some of these solutions will be detailed here, while most are up to the author’s own creativity.

Writing Style and Point of View

Writers beware. This is not a platform to dump academic essays, nor is it a place for your personal blog.

What kind of mood should your article set? There are two extremes to be wary of: the graduate thesis and the blog entry. Our objective is to occupy neither. Instead, we want your article to occupy a comfortable location in between these two extremes in order to maximize the number of readers and preserve a professional atmosphere throughout the site.

To keep your article from appearing too much like a graduate thesis, make sure to define complex words and adequately describe complicated ideas. This allows readers to feel comfortably immersed into your area of expertise. The goal is not to simplify complex ideas, but rather to make them comprehensible for readers who may not be familiar with your topic. The common denominator that connects high-caliber articles here at The Artifice is the ability to display educated perspectives while appealing to a wide audience.

To keep your article from appearing like a blog entry, avoid writing needlessly in the first person, especially during your trial period. Instead, utilize the third person voice in your article wherever possible. Although it might seem counterintuitive, you can write an article that implies your own perspective without writing in the first person. Consider the examples below.

Written in the first person:

“Although I’ve noticed slasher films making a comeback in the last few years, the cinematic quality just isn’t there in my opinion.”

–

“The musical ensemble initially struck me as overly dramatic, but I eventually embraced the recurring leitmotif, as it filled an aesthetic void in the film.”

Written in the third person:

“Although slasher films have made a comeback in the last few years, their cinematic quality hasn’t been as eager to resurge.”

–

“The musical ensemble initially strikes one as overly dramatic, but an attentive viewer will eventually embrace the recurring leitmotif, as it fills an aesthetic void in the film.”

Both sets of sentences advance the same general ideas, but the ones written in the third person convey a more professional tone while also implicitly describing the perspective of the author. This technique can also add to the authority of a sentence by making it seem as though the idea extends to a larger range of people instead of just the author.

It is important to note that there are always exceptions to the rules, especially in written work. Some writers can effectively pull off the first person voice without detracting from an article, and some ideas can only be adequately expressed by writing in the first person. But in your first two articles, it is strongly advised that you restrict yourself to the third person voice, as this is a standard we enforce when processing submissions.

The best way to get a feel for the “voice” of The Artifice is to read articles published by your fellow writers. There’s no substitute for familiarity with the platform! While reading, make note of which articles are highlighted on the site and which have good reader response in terms of comments; doing so will give you a better feel for the kinds of topics and approaches readers appreciate. This is not to say you must slavishly follow what has been done before – our goal is to be as creative and fresh as possible – but knowing your market well is key to any publication effort.

How often you should contribute

How regularly do you need to contribute? You are free to contribute whenever you want. However, to keep the platform running with a fair balance of traffic shared between writers, we recommend everyone to participate in any area of the platform at least once per month. You can submit an article, leave a comment, process an entry, suggest a topic, give a helpful note, post a tide, upvote entries, and much more.

User accounts will never be deactivated due to lack of activity.

If you have not contributed for some time, you are welcome to throw yourself into the mix again!

Topics

Our model of the writing process is divided into three major processes: Planning, Writing, and Reviewing. The Artifice is designed to encourage collaboration between writers on each phase.

To help you find a good topic to explore, we have Topics. With this feature, you can explore writer submitted topics and you can make your own submissions. Even unregistered users can submit topics.

If you are knowledgeable about any submitted topic, feel free to add a helpful note. This is a great way to help other users with their writing.

Submitting topics and adding helpful notes will improve your user stats, increase your ranking, and give you points. You will also be credited as a contributor (with a link to your author profile) within the content of the article.

For your first article, it is recommended to choose one of the entries on the Topics listing page. When you find a topic of interest, click the Write this topic button. This will lock the topic entry and open a new article for you with the topic title and any helpful notes.

Once you have grabbed a topic, make sure to submit it within 40 days.

You can process other users’ topics once you have successfully submitted 1 of your own topics. Topics that are pending have two editorial buttons:

Approve: if you believe the topic is ready for publication, hit this button.

Reject: if there are any changes needed prior to publication, hit reject button and make a note about it.

A topic is published as soon as it receives 3 complete votes (approvals and rejection entries that are marked as fixed).

Your first article

While not a requirement, for your first article, it is recommended to grab one of the Topics listed.

We distance ourselves from the trend of republishing the same stories (latest entertainment news, etc.) and instead focus on topics that are intellectually stimulating and meaningful. For this reason, it is good practice to do a search for your topic idea before writing to ensure it has not been covered recently elsewhere. Also search The Artifice archives to see if your fellow writers have written about your subject.

Do not, however be afraid to write about a subject that has been covered before, just be aware that the content of your article will need to bring something new to the table. For example, if an article titled “Top 10 Directors to Direct the new Star Trek Movie” has been published and highlighted, it is unlikely that “My Director Picks for new Star Trek Film” will be accepted. However, what could work is if you take the title and content of your article in a different direction, e.g. “Should Any of the Previous Star Trek Directors Take the Helm for the new Movie?” or “Directors That Should Have Their First Science Fiction Feature be Star Trek X…”.

While academic essays are not the aim of The Artifice, it can be useful to think of your topic in terms of making and defending an assertion, much like a thesis statement. If a reader would readily agree with every assertion, consider taking a more risky approach to the material; there is little point in presenting a viewpoint that is obvious to all. Your goal should be to challenge readers in a pleasant way and present a fresh approach to your subject. Even the simple “my favorites” list contains challenging assertions in terms of what is included on the list and which items rank above others.

A common issue among our new writers is selecting the right topic to explore. Your first article should be a topic that you are most knowledgeable about. Here at The Artifice, knowledge and passion are as important as the quality of the writing.

With your first article you want to demonstrate the depth of your knowledge and expertise in your niche. Our writing community is very eager to find out where you will fit in.

Categories

Your article will be published in a single category. You can select from the following: Film, TV, Web Videos, Animation, Anime, Manga, Comics, Games, Literature, Writing, or Arts. Please see Posting Your Article: Categories for more detailed information on the categories.

Types of Articles

There are many types of articles you can write, and many different ways to approach a topic, such as lists, studies, or many others.

For example, you may be interested in writing a comprehensive list of Major Plot Points to Anticipate in The Winds of Winter, a study about Why we love the TV show Downton Abbey, and what this love suggest about ourselves, a creative exploration of What can be learned by suffering through the brutality of the movie Martyrs, an in-depth view of the Politics and Privilege in the animation The Legend of Korra, a retrospective look at The History of Comics, a tribute to The Bryan Fuller Fantasy, or maybe a less comprehensive but yet intriguing investigation of The Blacklisting of Michael Parks.

You can also look at the article examples listed in the formatting section.

Reviews

Note: As of September 2015, we do not publish review articles anymore. If you want to submit a review, contact the moderators first.

As a rule, you are not allowed to post review articles until you have reached the rank of “Contributor I” (learn more in Rank hierarchy).

As of May 2013, we do not publish reviews of old titles, only new releases. This rule applies to all art forms besides Anime and Manga. If you wish to revisit an old title, instead of writing a review article, choose a more creative approach and make a list. For example, instead of writing a review article for Kim Jee-Woon’s I Saw The Devil, you could create a list where you explore 6 Reasons Why You Should Watch The Last Stand: A Kim Jee-Woon Retrospective.

Once at the Contributor I rank, you are welcome to submit a general review of any new work that has a public interest. The only exception is high-profile movie releases. To avoid publishing multiple reviews of the same title, we are restricting high-profile reviews to users who have reached the rank of Contributor II under the following conditions:

• Users on the Contributor II rank or above get a one week head start to submit a review counting from the first official screening of the title. Note that screening dates tend to differ by country. We count from the earliest public screening.
• Users on a lower rank can submit a review one week past the first screening date if there is no review published yet or if the published review was not featured.
• However if you are attending an early screening of the title and you are on a low rank, there may be an exception, so let us know in the Community Messages (Newsdesk).
• We will not publish a review of a title that has been screened for a good period of time (normally longer than two weeks). If there are already multiple reviews available elsewhere, there is no purpose of publishing one here.
• These conditions only apply to general reviews. You are welcome to submit other types of articles at any time for high-profile titles. For example, we had two submissions for the movie “The Hobbit”. One was a general review (The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey- An Unexpected Review) and the other a study about the use of 48 fps in movie (The Hobbit at 48 fps: Scaling the Uncanny Valley). We strongly encourage writers to write studies. This type of article has a very large reach on our platform.

The question now remains, which titles are labeled as high-profile? High-profile title are movies that are expected to have a total gross in the millions. These titles are normally trending.

In order to convey a sense of unity and cohesion across The Artifice platform, review writers should use our review template. Here is an example article. See the Formatting of article section for more details.

Tides

Tides are great content published outside of the platform. The stream of content is curated by you, our community. Entries of value are upvoted. Through voting, and other ways of interacting with a tide entry, you determine what tides rise to the top and receive most exposure.

The best way to acquaint yourself with the community is to throw yourself into the mix of things: leave comments, post things you find interesting, and upvote entries of quality. You are most welcome to post content published on your own blog.

We only have one important rule. When submitting a tide, in the description field, do not reuse sentences, structures, or phrases that is already written in the source article. Make sure it is fresh and unique content that is written exclusively for this platform.

We want to keep all written content on the platform unique to ensure there will be a continuous growth in both our audience and our writers. This is an essential practice to avoid lowering the search engine ranking of the platform.

Any violation of this rule may result with block of user account and submitted domain.

Also, avoid writing in the first person. Instead, utilize the third person voice. Learn more about Writing Style and Point of View.

Submit fresh content. The source article should not be older than 1 week.

Just like Topics and Articles, everything is processed and maintained by you. You can process other users’ tides once you have successfully submitted 1 of your own tides. Tides that are pending have two editorial buttons:

Approve: if you believe the tide is ready for publication, hit this button.

Reject: if there are any changes needed prior to publication, hit reject button and make a note about it.

A tide is published as soon as it receives 3 complete votes (approvals and rejection entries that are marked as fixed).

Is your self-hosted blog powered by WordPress? Add our Tides WordPress Plugin to your blog which will provide you with a reference code to boost your tide entries to the top!

NOTE: As of May 2016, the tides feature has been disabled here and added to our sister-sites. Please submit your content to Animefice, Gamefice, and Screenfice.

III. Posting Your Article

Creating a new post

After logging in, you can create a new article by hovering your cursor over the Posts menu item on the top-bar and then selecting New Post.

You will then enter the Post Edit page.

In this section you will learn why some fields are required when you post your article and how you fill them in.

Title

Choosing your title

An effective title informs and draws in a reader. At The Artifice we have very specific ways of titling our articles. They must best reflect what the article is about, and simultaneously fit Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

There is a fine line when choosing a clever title that informs the readers. Although the cliché says, “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” it’s safe to say a writer will want an eye-catching title to draw readers. However, a title should still be relevant and related to the article. The title should be informative.

A article’s title should be relevant and reliable. If the title promises one thing, but the article reveals another, then the title should be reconsidered. For example, if the title is How I Met Your Mother: The Drawbacks of Desperation, and the article itself is about the characters’ success in dating, then the title should be changed to reflect what is written in the article.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Ultimately, a title should reflect the terms and keywords people will be searching for. Your keywords should entirely relate to the article’s subject matter, but at the same time you will want to avoid difficult words that a general audience will not be seeking.

For example, if the title is about the monster in Cloverfield, the title should read as such:

“Cloverfield: The Unseen Monster”

Academic articles would typically be written:

“The Unseen Monster: Cloverfield”

However this does not fit SEO. By placing “Cloverfield” towards the end of the title, it could ultimately place it lower on search engine results.

These steps are most important when choosing the title for your article. While this site is made and maintained by our writers, it is important to consider what type of audiences you are writing for. Here are some examples of titles and topics that have different ranges of appeal.

1. “Citizen Kane Review”
– This title is very limited to fans of classic films, this is specifically appealing to fans who want to read up on the title film.

2. “The Horror Genre: Society’s Monsters”
– This title appeals to a broader audience who are specifically interested in this genre.

3. “Five Family Films for Christmas”
– This title takes advantage of the current festive season and can attract a very broad audience.

It is important to take all of these steps into consideration in titling your article. Choosing a strong topic with a title that best suits SEO and our rules will guarantee readership for your article.

Capitalization of article titles

Which words in a title should be capitalized? Follow these rules:

• Capitalize the principal words, including prepositions and conjunctions of four or more letters.
• Capitalize an article–the, a, an–or words of fewer than four letters if it is the first or last word in a title.

How to title single reviews

The common practice to title your review article is: {title} Review: {short summary}. Example: Midnight in Paris Review: An Ode to Nostalgia and Art.

Tags

Tags are being used to organize the content of The Artifice. There are numerous algorithms running on each page that use the tag values of each article. Incorrect use of tags will result in your article not being seen and vanishing in the archives. An example of how this works:

1. You post an article in the Film category and tag it with Lord of the Rings.
2. When the system needs to display a list of articles, in this case a list of Lord of the Rings film articles, it will look in the database for articles in the Film category that have been tagged with Lord of the Rings.
3. This means that if you did not tag your article accordingly, it will be lost in the archives.

Each article is required to have at least 3 tags and no more than 5 (it is recommended to use 5 tags). When choosing tags, add titles and names properly (e.g. Dark Knight, The Dark Knight) and either choose one tag at a time or separate tags with a comma when adding several in one go.

Do not add the category name as a tag.

Make sure to select relevant tags for your article. For example, if your article is a study about “Psycho”, then the tags “Psycho”, “Horror”, and “Alfred Hitchcock” would be appropriate.

Categories

Your article will be published in a single category. You can select from the following:

• Film: Any movies excluding those released exclusively for TV or the web.
• TV: Any work released exclusively on a TV channel, including TV movies, TV shows, live airings, etc.
• Web Videos: Videos developed specifically for the web. This includes webisodes, web series, YouTube videos and general online videos that have a public interest.
• Animation: This includes both traditionally drawn and computer-generated animation, excluding anime-labeled work.
• Anime: Japanese-styled animation.
• Manga: Work labeled as Manga, which can be titles created outside of Japan, such as Noblesse (Korean).
• Comics: Any form of book devoted to comics or comic strips, excluding manga-labeled work.
• Games: Any form of games that have an entertainment value, including, but not limited to: console, computer, board, table-top role-playing, and online games.
• Literature: Any form of written work, including poems, novels, biographies, etc.
• Arts: Includes the performing arts (theatre and dance) and visual arts.
• Writing: Articles directly relating to the craft of writing.

Want to write about music? Out of popular demand, we may open a music category in the near future. For the time being, you are welcome to write music-related articles if you can tie your idea in with one of our current categories. For example, Becoming a Guardian of the Galaxy: Star Lord and the Importance of Music.

Formatting of article text

Our aim is to establish unity in the formatting of articles. Any article which is not properly formatted according to the guidelines will not be published.

Use templates when available. You are free to write and structure your article in any way that fits your preferences, however, in order to ensure cohesiveness across the site, some article types will have templates posted for use. Currently only reviews have a template available; as further templates are created they will be announced on the Newsdesk. Here is an example article.

Format your text properly. Set the body text as “Paragraph” and your section titles as “Heading”.

Make titles italic. Make any title (of books, movies, television shows etc) you include in your body text italic.

Format long quotes as blockquotes. Any quote three lines or longer should be blockquoted.

Separate your content into normal-length paragraphs to avoid it being cramped into long chunks of text.

If your article is a list, make the numbers a countdown to the final entry. For example, if you have a list of 10 entries, make the top entry the 10th one, and the final entry 1st. These articles display good practice: 10 Greatest Philip Seymour Hoffman Performances and Reviews and Highlights of the Not-so-Popular Studio Ghibli Films.

If your article is a review, add review rating stars to the end of your article. We use a five-star rating system for reviews. You can display rating stars by typing any of the following shortcodes in your article text:

Adding Sources

You can either add sources by listing them in a Works Cited section at the end of your content, or you can use our footnote system.

You can use the REF tag, example:

Ginsberg advocates ethic in Howl [ref]Ginsberg, Allen. “Howl” The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym. New York, London: W.W. Norton & Company Inc. 2008. Print.[/ref] and his poetic style is…

This will create a Works Cited section at the end of your article and an entry will be added using the content within your [ref] tag.

Featured image

Every article is required to have a featured image. Follow these steps to add a featured image:

1. On the post edit page, click the Set featured image link on your right side-bar:
   
2. Either select an image in the Media Library or upload your own image. The image needs to be at least 300 pixels wide and 200 pixels high.
3. When uploading your image, first highlight the image by clicking on it and then press the Set featured image button:
   
4. Done! You can now continue editing your article…

Your featured image will be scaled down and used in various areas of the platform. It will also be the thumbnail image when the article is shared via Facebook or other social media sites. It is therefore essential that you select your featured image wisely.

Let us look at good examples of featured images:

And bad examples:

Uploading/inserting images

Insert at least one image into your article. If your article is in list format, insert one image for each list entry.

Only insert images that add value to the content of your article. Do not underestimate the attention span of our visitors, they are here to read, not to scroll through chunks of massive images to find the text. Not only does this add a bad experience for the reader but this practice can be harmful for the exposure of your article (particularly affecting SEO).

Select the size of your images with care and align them correctly. Do not insert images with a large height unless it is directly relevant to the content of your article.

As a general rule, images 200-400 pixels wide should be side-aligned, and images 400-700 pixels wide should be center-aligned.

Examples of good practice: Who Should Direct Star Wars Episode VII? (full width images with small height) and The Story of Spartacus the Rebel Slave: Five Reads to Fill the Void (small cover images aligned to the left).

Do not rescale an image.

To upload and insert files, click on the Add Block button:

Once you have uploaded your image, you can select the image size you want to insert into your article. The width of the article area is 700 pixels wide. You will be presented with the following size options (depending on the dimensions of the original uploaded image):

The following will detail when to use which size option. We are trying to establish unity in the formatting of all media, therefore, articles not formatted according to these notes will most likely not be published.

Medium: If you wish to align an image to the left, select the Medium option. This works best for images 300-700 pixels wide.

Large: This size covers the entire width of the article space. You should not select this option unless the content of the whole article is directly related to the image itself. For example, if you are writing about a new poster release.

Full Size: This option should never be selected unless the original size of the image is relatively small (less than 300 pixels wide).

Small: If you want to align an image to the right or left, select the Small option.

Large cropped: This is the most common image size. It covers the whole width of the article space and it is cropped at 300 pixels height. The relatively small height makes it possible to select this image size without any worry of distracting the reader from the written content of the article. Make sure the original uploaded image is at least 701 pixels wide if you wish to cover the width of the article space.

A common mistake is to select the Full Size option and scale it down. This is a bad practice and creates styling issues with some web browsers. Never rescale an image.

When you upload an image, please add a title that briefly explains the subject of the image:

Adding a title will help other writers to browse the gallery. Also, inserting images that are properly titled will make your article rank better on search engines.

If you wish your image to have a caption, insert the desired text into the “Caption” field. It is common practice to add the source of image here.

What type of images are you allowed to upload? Everything from movie stills to images under a free license are fine. You are permitted to upload images that do not infringe on someone else’s copyrights.

We only allow JPG files, no PNG or GIF files. You are welcome to upload images with the .JPG (JPEG) file format. To provide a better experience for the reader and to ensure your article ranks well on search engines, we have decided to not allow uploads of .PNG and .GIF images. Unfortunately, our compression script does not work with these formats. This leaves all PNG/GIF files with a large file size which can be harmful to SEO and can increase page loading time for visitors. If your image is in PNG/GIF format, you can convert it to JPG using either an image editing software like Photoshop or via a free online converter like Picresize.

Finally, prior to submitting your article for review, please make sure to permanently delete any uploaded images that you are not using:

Embed Videos

To embed a video, simply paste the video URL into the visual editor.

If your video does not display, it may be because the video uploader disabled embedding in their upload settings.

Submitting the article

Proofread your article prior to submitting it for review. Do not press the submit button until you have properly proofread your article.

Ideally, let your friends and family read it and give you feedback. Sometimes, all the typographical errors and grammatical mistakes may be addressed, but there might still be an awkward paragraph hiding there.

Preview your article before submitting it for review. The best way to see how your article will look when published is to preview it. In the top right box, you can find the “Preview” button:

Clicking it will open a new window where you can view your article. Does it look like the other published articles here at The Artifice? Have you followed all the formatting rules and general guidelines provided here?

IV. Editorial Process

Revising your article

When you submit your article for review, it will be available for processing by all members of The Artifice. Users can either cast an approval or a revision vote. Each vote adds or deducts points to a score that will need to reach the value of 6 before the article will be considered for publication.

Once your post is in pending mode, you will need to monitor it for revision votes. If it does receive a revision entry, you will need to address the revision and mark it as fixed. Note that your article will never be published if there is an unfixed revision entry.

Also, if there are any comments posted to a revision entry, make sure to read through them, they may contain further revision notes.

If you disagree with a revision entry, you will still need to mark the revision as fixed. Just be sure to leave a comment detailing why you disagree with the feedback. Read the “Up- and down-voting” section below for a full explanation of the voting system, but note that a large number of up-votes on a revision comment means your fellow writers agree with the comment and it should not be lightly disregarded.

Only an editor or administrator can change the status of the revision entry back to unfixed. If this happens, open the comments box for feedback.

Processing Articles

Once your trial period has ended and you have become a full member of The Artifice, a new feature will be unlocked allowing you to engage in the editorial process. With this feature, you have the ability to decide the type of quality you want published here along with your own writing.

The aim is to collaboratively process pending articles and make each submission worth reading and sharing. The stronger writing you get out of your fellow writers, the better audience will be available for your own submissions.

To process articles, navigate to the Pending Posts page and then click on the Approve or Revise link next to the article you want to process:

On the sidebar, you will be presented with two options, either you can approve the article or vote for revision. All writers are contractually required to familiarize themselves with the guidelines and work within them, but the quality and delivery of the content is as important as the formatting. Only vote for approval if you believe the article complies with the guidelines and the overall quality is exceptional.

It is encouraged to vote for revision if you believe any form of improvements can be made.

If you vote for revision, you will need to select a reason:

Content: Can the quality of the content be improved? Are there any typographical errors, grammatical mistakes or awkward sentences? Any formatting issues?

Title: Is the title of the article formatted accordingly? Is it too generic or does it clearly define the content of the article?

Tags: Did the author add a good selection of tags? If the article is a study, did the author add study to their list of tags? Did the author add the category name as a tag?

Images: Did the author select their image sizes according to the guide? Are the images aligned well? Did the author upload images not being used?

Reject: Do you believe the topic does not belong on our platform? Is the overall quality extremely poor? Is the sole purpose of the article to promote a business? Is it a spam submission? Has it been published elsewhere?

Other: Explain your revision reason in the comment area.

It is important you discuss area(s) of concern and offer necessary guidance.

For example, if you believe the principal description of the article should be written at the beginning of the article title, you could add the following comment:

The description that defines the content of your article is written at the end of your title when it should be written at the very beginning. For example, if the title of your article is Decade by Decade: The History of Comics then you should change it to The History of Comics: Decade by Decade.

Once the article is published, you will be awarded 4 points if you approved the article and 10 points if you added a revision entry.

Processing an article improves your ratio.

You will also be credited as an editor (with a link to your author profile) within the content of the article.

Up- and down-voting

Revision entries can be up- or down-voted by other community editors. Up-voting a revision entry means you approve of what has been suggested, and the revision author subsequently gets 1 point for the up-vote. Down-voting means you disagree with what they said, and the revision author gets -1 point.

The list of voters only show users who have up-voted the entry. Down-voting is anonymous.

If someone has left a revision note on your article, but the revision note has several down-votes, then you know that not everyone agrees with the revision editor, and vice versa. The voting system has been implemented to show credibility. It also encourages users to provide great feedback to their fellow writers and to have their efforts recognized.

All users are encouraged to support each other’s work by casting votes as often as possible.

V. Community Support and Resources

The Artifice ranking system is designed to help writers track their progress relative to their peers in the community. To that end, the system recognizes and rewards authorial excellence.

Writers can accumulate points on the basis of their achievements to advance through a series of hierarchical levels, each of which grants access to new perks and heightened prestige.

In sum, The Artifice ranking system incentivizes behavior consistent with the principles of genuinely great journalism: writers are encouraged to do their best work every time they publish and to sustain that effort over the long run. It is by no means an easily achieved ideal—but then again, greatness would not be greatness if it were easy to do.

And perhaps even more importantly, this system allows the writers to build and maintain the platform themselves and thus let The Artifice operate independently.

Points

You will collect small bounties of points for various accomplishments. Some examples include:

When you write a stellar article, it is possible the system and community recognize and highlight it. Currently there are four main highlight areas in the platform:

Featured: Article will appear on the front page featured list and any other areas where the system displays featured articles.

Radar: Article will get one of the four radar spots relative to the category. The radar spots are located underneath each article where related articles are listed.

Pinned: Article will be listed on the right-bar area on all article pages relative to the category.

Billboard: Article will be listed on the large front page splash.

Rank hierarchy

If you approach your work with skill and diligence, you will ascend through the ranking levels of the hierarchy and eventually establish yourself among our highest-profile writers. More importantly, your trip up the ladder will make you eligible for a variety of perks and privileges.

At present, The Artifice assigns ranking levels per the terms of the following scales:

This list will be updated gradually with more privileges. As the platform is being established (beta version currently), the point terms and rewards may change to sustain a fair algorithm for all users.

Further notes about the Rank Hierarchy

There are two main points to consider when being a part of The Artifice community.

Firstly, quality is more important than quantity. If you are aiming to climb up the ladder by posting dozens of articles per hour, it will not work. The writers in our community want you to publish high quality work because remember, you are representing The Artifice as much as your fellow writers.

Secondly, The Artifice is not a platform where writers stop by to only publish their work, it is a community where we collectively work together to build and maintain an online magazine. This is why the platform asks you to be a part of all areas, everything from supporting new writers in the Newsdesk to engaging with their work.

Badges

You can accumulate badges for various types of accomplishments. As you earn badges, the hardware will be prominently displayed on your profile. There are four distinct classes of badges that can be earned; each has its conditions (see the list of badges).

Badges are rewarded once per day. This implies that a badge is not rewarded instantly upon meeting its condition. You will obtain it within 24 hours.

Community Moderators

We go by the principle that moderation should start with the community itself, so in addition to writers gaining abilities by travelling up the ranks, we have moderators elected through popular vote.

We hold regular elections to determine who these community moderators will be. Users on rank “Junior Contributor III” can cast votes in the election and active users on rank “Contributor II” can enter the election as candidates.

Community Moderators should be open to dedicated a few minutes each day to do some light but firm moderation to keep the community on track. Moderators can:

• Edit others pending articles.
• Administrate revisions and general article voting.
• Administrate the Topics system.
• Administrate the Tides system.
• Feature articles on the front page.
• Access author stats and other relevant administrative info.
• Access a private discussion board.
• Reward writers with custom badges.

Community Moderators will also be assigned as Moderators in our subreddit page on Reddit.

The Newsdesk

There are a growing number of features in the Newsdesk to help with your writing. Currently, we have:

Ratio

The Artifice is a collaborative platform where we encourage you to provide feedback to your fellow writers as much as publishing your own articles. To maintain a fair share of feedback, we have added a ratio system. It calculates an algorithm by using your total amount of:

• Published articles.
• Comments posted on other writers’ articles.
• Others’ articles that you have processed (revisions posted).
• Submitted topics.
• Helpful Notes left on others’ topics.
• Topics that you have processed.

If you have made a tide submission, then all of your tides related values are calculated as well.

Curious about the algorithm? To keep a good ratio, all you need to do for each article you publish is to:

• Post 3 comments on others’ articles.
• Make 2 revision entries.
• Submit 2 new topics.
• Leave 2 helpful notes to others’ topics.
• Process 2 pending topics.

When processing articles, only revision entries are counted, not approval votes.

While you are allowed to submit articles while having a low ratio, we may not feature it with respect to writers who maintain a good ratio. Your topic and tide entries may lose their virality throughout the platform if your ratio is poor.

Community Messages

This is the main public messaging system for the writers. Use it to connect with fellow writers and to receive support from the community. You can also suggest topics and trends here.

Generally posts in the community message system are ordered by latest activity; when a new reply is made to a post it moves to the top. However, pay special attention to any messages at the top of the board which have a blue top-border. These “sticky” messages have been flagged by an editor as containing vital information and will remain at the top until the editor removes their sticky status.

Messages

This is the main private messaging system for the writers. Note that only registered writers have access to the PM system, meaning visitors cannot send you private messages.

Commenting on articles

Connecting with fellow writers and readers is every bit as important as publishing an article here at The Artifice. It is encouraged that you take the time to engage and provide feedback to your peers.

You can do this by using the commenting feature that comes with each article post. A very common mistake when commenting is the incorrect method of replying to comments.

To reply to comments, click the Reply link:

This way, that user will receive a notification that you have replied to them.

Status of The Artifice

The Artifice is currently in beta stage. Some of the aims in this stage are to:

• Establish stability in both back end and front end.
• Make daily improvements of existing functions.
• Adjust the platform to be scalable to our large audience.
• Address bugs and styling issues…

The next stage is growth which includes:

• Exposure of all content through our communication channels.
• Expansion of the platform with new sections and features.
• Enhancement of communication between audience and writers with community features like a forum system.
• And much more…

To follow the site updates, check the news in the Newsdesk. More detailed lists of aims and future developments of The Artifice will be added soon.

Corrections

Is your article published and you want to make corrections? Please contact the editors directly by sending them a private message.

Report a problem

Did you find a bug? Styling issue? Image vanishing? Or if you want to suggest new features for The Artifice, please post about it in the Community Messages or send a private message to the Administrator (Misagh).

Recommend a writer

We have a very high volume of writer applications. You can help to bring in the talent. Do you know of a writer that would be a good addition to our writing community? Tell them to join the platform now while we have registrations open.

Website badge

You can add a The Artifice badge to your own blog/website to acknowledge that you are a part of our writing community.

Writer for The Artifice

Just copy and paste this code into your site.

This guide has been modified by: Misagh, Monique, Danny Cox, Jemarc Axinto, Ged Crefin, Melanie Cuccioli, Ben Meredith, and Sally Suarez.

Once you have read the whole guide, if you are still left with questions, those questions are what this guide is most likely missing. Contact Editors if you want to contribute to the guide.

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