A Complete Guide to dA News

A Complete Guide to dA News

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• What are all those numbers?
• Some Relevant FAQs
• Tips to Writing an Article
• Some helpful links

What are all those numbers?

1. Find the News page!
   As you can see I have the News button in my sticky menu. How this looks can differ from person to person depending how you customised it. If you didn't customise it at all, go to your mouse to the deviantART logo to the left of the top menu, and hoover over the down arrow next to it. A drop down menu will appear – under the 'Deviants' subheader you will find this news button. You can click "Stick Menu" to the bottom of the drop down menu to get it looking like mine (you can then drag and drop them in the order you'd like them to appear).
   If you already have a sticky menu, but without the News button, click "More" to the right of this bar – it will appear in the list there. This will take you to the +news front page.
2. The categories
   Like deviations, news articles have their own categorisation. In this menu you can choose a category to only have it display articles from the category. You can then also narrow it down to a subcategory. The red numbers displayed in suptext next to a category name represents the number of popular articles in that category recently (we'll look into what defines a 'popular' article later – see point 4 and Some Relevant FAQs).
   Note, some categories in the deviantART, Inc. category can only be submitted to by staff.
3. The Just Submitted link will show you all news articles submitted, no matter the popularity, starting with the most recent. Between brackets is the number of articles submitted over the past 24 hours; however, as with the red numbers on categories, this doesn't mean it will only show you those, you can browse as far back as you like.
4. The Popular link lets you browse all articles that have at least 10 faves. If you are on the +news page itself, clicking this link will only change the link displayed in the URL bar – this page already displays the latest popular news by default so it doesn't change the content.
5. The search bar basically speaks for itself! Browse articles by key terms. There's also an additional trick though; if you want to browse articles submitted by a certain deviant, enter by:deviantusername. You can combine this with other key terms (so if you want to search for an article submitted by ~DeviantUserName that mentions critique, you can search for by:deviantusername critique).
   
   Unfortunately, due to a bug the search option cannot currently find articles submitted after December 11th, 2010.
6. This is the header of one article found on a browse page. It includes the article's title, the icon and the username of the person submitting it and the time stamp. The time will be displayed as "so and so much time ago" for three days (to be exact, 72 hours), after that it will be replaced by the submission date.
   If a news article on dA serves as a link to a full story elsewhere on dA, the title will have an orange button saying 'dA' in front of it. If the full story is somewhere else on the internet, an orange button saying 'www' will appear. The article title will be the link. We'll have a closer look at this later (see point 18).
7. Each article has a summary that introduces the full body text. This will show up on news browse pages, and in the message center of anyone who watches the journals and articles of the submitter, instead of the full body text. It doesn't show on the article page itself.
   When submitting an article, keep in mind that the summary accepts the same markup as comments – so icons, devlinks, HTML like bold tags etc. Things like thumbs and align tags can be used in the body text but not in the summary (layout of the full body text will be discussed later – under Some Relevant FAQs and Tips to Writing an Article).
8. The Fave button and fave count will show up next to an article on the article's page itself and on any news browse or search page, but not in the message center of watchers. The fave count is what the popularity of an article is based on; numbers of comments or rejections (see the next point) for example do not influence this.
   When you fave an article the green button (like the first in the first image) will turn grey (like that on the second article listed).
9. Underneath the summary are a couple of data and links;
   
   
   • The comment count; this includes all comments and replies. Clicking this will take you to the comments section underneath the article itself. This is helpful especially when you have already read the article but are wondering what people have said about it, if the title is a link to the article found somewhere else (see point 18) or if for any reason the article doesn't have a title to click. This link is then the only remaining that leads straight to the article page itself. (However, these data all show up only on news browse pages, not in people's message center; so don't foget to always give your articles a title or your watchers won't be able to access it through their message center!)
   • The subcategory; because two main categories never have a subcategory of the same name, the main category (Art News, Culture, deviantART Inc., or Fun) needn't be listed as a subcategory can be identified on its own. Clicking this link will lead you to the same page as selecting a category as explained in point 2 will.
   • The name of the latest person to fave it (in faint letters with a colour similar to that of the background). Appears only on a browse page, not on the news page itself.
   • Add to Favourites and reject – the fave button will do the exact same thing as the green fave button next to it. The reject button is displayed only here. Clicking 'reject' will not affect the fave count, but it will add to the rejection count. Unlike faves it will not list your name anywhere.
     When you have already faved or rejected an article, these two buttons will be replaced by an Undo Favourite or Undo Rejection one.
10. The Submit News button obviously takes you to the submission page – see the second screenshot!
11. Today's Most Loved lists the most faved articles of the past 24 hours. If you're on an article's page, or browsing in a specific category, this will only turn up articles from that category. Underneath Today's Most Loved is also This Week's Love, which does the exact same, but for the past 7 days.
    Of any listed article, it gives the name, the comment count, the devname and a small version of the icon of the writer, and the subcategory, next to the fave count. Note that the "Next Page" button will take you to next pages of whatever you're browsing, not of the 'today's most loved' or 'this week's love' list.
12. The link and share options are there to make it easier to share the article. This link, though shorter, isn't always more efficient – when using that link, it takes longer to load the article, because it first has to collect the original link before it can load.
    The original link looks like this: http://news.deviantart.com/article/XXXXX (though with numbers for the X'es) and is usually already the link in your browser's URL bar when you're on the article's page.
    The share links help you share the article on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit or StumbleUpon, but not on LiveJournal or MySpace, or by note. These share links cannot be removed from articles like from deviations.
13. The Full Body Text is the core of the news article – well, the article itself! I'll get to tips for writing this later in this tutorial.
14. The comments section works basically the same as on deviations.
    Note, though, that mine may look different from yours seeing as I use a couple of user scripts that affect the way dA (and in particular the comments section) looks.
15. Who loved it? lists the people who have faved the article, latest faves on top. When the list reaches over 120, the first faves will not show up anymore.
    If the article has any rejections (which this sample article doesn't), the "thumbs down" emote will show up under the list of faves (that have"thumb up" ones), which says "x (number of rejections) devious rejections".
16. Community News shows up to the bottom of many dA pages, including your message center, forum pages and all news pages except the submit page. This shows the six most faved
    You can hide this (together with all elements in this footer) from the page by clicking the small arrow to the right, here also in a red box (and clicking the small arrow on top of it will un-hide the here hidden DD bar).
17. The top of the submit page includes a link to FAQ 687, to remind you to only submit articles with some newsworthiness towards the community (after all, who would like to pick up a newspaper and only find articles about the journalist's pet goldfish and the editor's trip to the zoo?)
18. The Story URL box is for people who would like to share something that they found elsewhere on dA or another website. Instead of copying and pasting the entire text to Full Body Text, which would be plagiarism, you put the URL in this box. This will give it an orange button as described before. Make sure the Story URL option has been ticked off, not the Full Body Text.
    People accessing the article from their message center will be directed to the article page as normal, where they will see the summary instead of a full body text, and they click the title to open the link. People accessing it from a news browse page will be immediately redirected to the page you entered a link to, unless they click the comment count instead of the title.
19. The preview button for the full body text is there for a reason – after submission, articles can only be edited by admins. So double check if you made any grammar errors or messed up some HTML, before you click submit and end up wanting to fix it when it's too late!
20. The Show collections button does the same as the "Collect" button available to the far right of your top menu on any dA page. Scroll through your fave folders and your collections without leaving the page, and drag and drop the deviations you want to feature in the article.

Some relevant FAQs

is accepted as well though not officially supported and thus this may be removed at any time (like it was recently from deviation descriptions).
Don't forget to close all tags!
(Also see FAQ 81: How can I make links to other deviants, deviations, or websites?)

FAQ 887: Are there any restrictions regarding the number of thumbnails I can use in news articles?
→ Yep, no more than 50!

Tips to writing an article

My personal advice that you might want to keep in mind when you write and submit news.

• A reason is the first thing you need to have before you even consider writing an article. Are you organising some project? Do you want to educate people about a certain aspect of an art form, or of dA? Did you find a website that could be beneficial to fellow artists? Did your favourite artist come up with something shocking? Or do you simply want to share some of your favourite art with other people? These could all be good reasons to create an article. Of course just make sure to follow FAQ 687 each time!
• Before you start writing your article, it's also worth realising what you'd better not write in a news article. A couple of the most important reasons:
• Because there's a better place to post it.
• Always have a look at the +forum first. If you're planning to write a rant, it may be better suited for the complaints forum, if you want to ask something about dA, see the Need Help? thread, if you have a suggestion for a feature dA should implement go to the suggestions forum etc... always see if there's a better place to say what you want to say in the forum.
  You may also find that your article idea fits both the forum and news... for example many art-related articles could also be posted in the Art Scene, Jobs or Projects forum, or one of the gallery forums.
• If you want to report a bug or some case of abuse, contact the Help Desk so that you can sort it out with the admins directly.
• Because it may stir up drama, for example:
• If you want to rant and complain about something dA has done (be it dA the community or dA the business), posting an article will only stir up more drama and negativity. As mentioned you should use the Complaints forum.
• If you want to report an art thief, a spammer, etc. again, doing it through a news article will only cause negativity, and in addition it's unlikely to be seen by the right people. Report them directly to the help desk.
• Other things to think about/realise before you write the article:
• At this stage, you know what you want to write, but why? What is the purpose of the article?
• Who is your target audience? How do I approach them most effectively – how do I interest them in reading the article, and how do I make sure they will find it?
• Is this a one-off or part of a series? Which would fit better? If it's a series how will I link them together?
• Am I submitting this from myself, or e.g. on behalf of a group? What does this mean to how I should present myself?
• Plan it in advance. You know more or less what you want to say and how you want to say it – write it down in a couple of quick bulletpoints or keywords, maybe even make a sketch of what you want it to look like. When you actually start writing, stick to this plan where you can – this almost guarantees an intuitive structure because the result will be close to how you first had it in mind.
• Think about the headline (title). This is usually the first thing people look at, and if you don't catch their attention it'll be the last thing too! That doesn't mean you should title all your articles "Free S*x and P*rn" – no, think of something suiting for your audience. Often the most simple idea is the most effective one. When I wrote an article with tips to getting feedback and critique, the target audience was people who want feedback and critique (and in particular those who don't know how to ensure they are getting any) – so I named it Guide on How to Receive Feedback & Critique. Simple, isn't it?
• Use the summary to give the reader who just read the title a better idea of what your article is about. Though not nearly as important as the title, many people will decide to read or not to read your article based on the summary. Often, though, it works well to copy-paste the introduction to your own article and use that for summary, if you have one.
• Depending on the purpose of your article, it may help to feature thumbs, groups, and/or other people's articles etc. in your article. You can use thumbs to illustrate your story for example. Listing or mentioning (and linking to) related groups and other articles can be very helpful to interested people as they can find more information for example, and people who share their interest. In turn it will also boost your exposure if you contact the artists/group admins/article writers and tell them that their work was featured – more exposure for you both!
• When it comes to dA, think about the appropriate diction. Many more or less commonly used words and terms may for example be outdated, the most famous example probably being "subscription", a term which was replaced by "Premium Membership". "Module" for "widget", "Club" for "Group" (unless it actually is an oldskool-style club rather than a #group, of course!) and "GD/Gallery Director" for "GM/Gallery Moderator" are other words that some people often use without realising how outdated they are.
  I also recommend using devlinks instead of icons, or both. Especially if you mention a deviant mid-sentence, using their devname will be a lot easier on the reader for three main reasons:
1. Devnames won't stretch the height of a line, while a line of text with an icon takes up about 3 times the amount of space a line with just a textlink would.
2. An account can change its icon but not its username.
3. It's a lot easier to read, because how would one pronounce an icon? Suddenly having a picture instead of a word disrupts the sentence, especially if (which is likely) someone didn't know the person or their icon yet so they have to hoover over it to see who it actually is you're refering to.
• Make sure the layout is clear and easy to navigate. Make clear where sections start and stop. Headers, dividers (code: <hr>), lists and keywords in bold (like I have done here), some emotes like and (I can't use them in here but click them to see them!), as well as the other layout HTML in FAQ 686 can all help giving your article an easy to comprehend structure, and helps people finding the information they are looking for without getting lost.
• When working at the layout, make sure you don't overdo it; it's easy to miss the point of layout – to make it look nice and easy to navigate – by getting fancy using too many different kinds of markup or using a single style too much. If the first main header is in <h2> tags then don't put the second main header in bold, and if you underline the important bits then don't underline half of the body text. Choose a certain way of organising it visually, choose a couple of tags and such that you'll be using sparsely (for this tutorial I chose lists and bold tags within the text and headers to devide it all into four main parts) and be consistent with them to the end.
• Finished? Now you can submit! After you've checked it all in preview, of course...

Some helpful links

• Browse news
• The News FAQ
• Submit news
• Recent News
• The Forums

That's it!

I believe this is enough for now – I'll let you figure out the rest yourself! But if it leaves any more questions I'll be happy to help, just leave me a comment here.