Bulbanews:Article submission

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Bulbanews is a news service that you can contribute to.

Unlike most news services, your submissions to Bulbanews are immediately visible to all and are included in updates to the front page (under the heading developing stories) — so even if there are no editors on duty, your contribution will not be missed.

As seen on the right, the life cycle of an article is very simple.

Article submission process

Clicking on "Submit an article" in the site's left navigation panel will open the new article assistant, a form where the author inputs basic information about the article.

Basic information

Title and tagline

The title is an informative headline like in a professional newspaper.

• • Example: Explorers of the Sky sells 141,771 in first day
  • Example: Secret Key to be available in North America

Also known as a subhead, a tagline is another headline that provides complementary (not the same) information to the article's title. To convey more than one idea, separate ideas by using semi-colons. However, do not place too many ideas in the tagline. The following are examples of appropriate taglines for the above two example titles.

• • Example: At top of charts, outselling Mario & Luigi RPG 3
  • Example: To be distributed via Wi-Fi and Toys "R" Us stores

Titles and taglines both observe the following set of rules:

• Use down-style capitalization: only the first letter of the headline, proper nouns, and terms that require capitalization are capitalized.
• Both must contain a verb.
• Do not use a, an and the.
• Use commas instead of and or &.
  • Example: CoroCoro reveals PokéPark game sequel, Mewtwo distribution event

Type

Articles fall under certain types (not to be confused with categories). Most articles are of the news article type.

• Options: news article, rumor, feature article, column, editorial, opinion piece, opinion column, breaking news, local news

Category

Categories are used in the organizational system for Bulbanews. These allow visitors of the site to find older articles under similar topics. Use the drop-down to select the relevant category. Additional categories can be added after the form has been submitted.

• Hardware: news stories pertaining to game systems and other hardware.
• Games: news stories pertaining to Pokémon video games.
  • Add specific game categories when necessary.
• Events: news stories pertaining to event distributions, and real-life events like tournaments and promotional tours.
• New forms: Breaking news stories about the revelation of new forms of Pokémon.
• Manga: news stories pertaining to the Pokemon manga.
• Anime: news stories pertaining to the Pokémon anime series.
• New Pokémon: news stories about the revlation of new Pokémon.
• TCG: news stories pertaining to the Pokémon Trading Card Game.
• TFG: news stories pertaining to the Pokémon Trading Figure Game (due to the discontinuation of the TFG, this category should not be used anymore).
• Community: news stories pertaining to the Pokémon fandom and related communities.
• Bulbagarden: news stories pertaining to Bulbagarden.
• Nintendo: news stories pertaining to Nintendo.
• Merchandise: news stories pertaining to Pokémon merchandise.

Picture

A later addition to Bulbanews, pictures are relevant images, if any, that is located on the Bulbagarden Archives server. Images inputted into this text box require only the filename and file extension, no prefix ("File:") needed. If no image, leave the field blank. However, please avoid doing so. The image may or may not be the same as the image placed in the article itself.

• Example: Platinum-box.png

Caption

The caption is a short, two to three word description of the picture. If no image, leave the field blank. Avoid placing long captions.

• Example: Platinum boxart

Source information

About you

• User name: Your user name will be automatically placed here. If you wish to be credited under another name, change the automatic input.
  • Example: Example
• User link: A link to your userpage will be automatically placed here. If you wish to link to your Bulbapedia userpage, or another page on any Bulbawiki, you may change the input.
  • Example: User:Example
  • Example: bp:User:Example
  • Example: User talk:Example

About your source

Most of the time, Bulbanews articles are submitted based on another report a writer has read. These are typically from official sources. It is vital that you supply a source with your article; failure to do so may result in the article not being published. Using fan sites, as much as possible, should be avoided.

• Type: Bulbanews accepts five different source types
  • Exclusive: generally for opinions, columns, and reports about Bulbanews
  • Other web site: for reports from official sources such as Pokémon.com
  • Press release: for when a press release is quoted in the article
  • Magazine article: for when your source is a physical magazine such as CoroCoro. It is best to place a scan of the magazine on the article.
  • None: for when you don't have a source. Avoid using this.

• Link: a link to the web site or press release.

Blurb

This, in most cases, will be the lead sentence or sentences of the article. These sentences should give the most important and relevant information of the article. In journalism/inverted pyramid style, this information is generally the who/what/where/when/why/how angle.

Do not put template coding, such as {{bp|Pokémon}}, and links, such as [http://bmgf.bulbagarden.net/index.php Bulbagarden Forums] in the blurb! This will break our front page!

• Example: According to a Media Create weekly rating, Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of the Sky sold 141,771 in its first day on shelves. The game ranked above Sengoku Basara Battle Heroes and Mario & Luigi RPG 3.
• Example: The Secret Key will be available over Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection and at Toys "R" Us stores in the US, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It will be available via Wi-Fi from April 20 to May 12 and at Toys "R" Us stores from April 19-26.

Article text

The article itself, with the blurb text first. Articles that only use one image normally have the image placed before the text.

Certain articles, such as those reporting on revealed episode titles, require using Japanese titles. In cases like these, use 「 and 」 before and after the Japanese title. An italicized translation of the title in Japanese should follow this. On the other hand, titles for Japanese media that actually use English should be used as they are.

• Example: 「ポケモンスマッシュ！」 Pokémon Smash!
• Example: ＭＴＭ

Citation

Place sources after the content of the article by placing the heading ==Information== after the article. Place links using bullet points and brackets below the heading.

Other information

The manual of style should be read before you contribute to Bulbanews. Below is a brief list of information from the manual that users are often unaware of. This excerpt excludes information already mentioned above.

• When preceding the day of the month, only March, April, May, June and July are not abbreviated. The other months are abbreviated like so: Jan., Feb., Aug., Sept., Nov. and Dec.
• Days of the month are placed after the month, not before.
  • Example: Sept. 9, 2000 (not 9 September 2000)
• Link to Bulbapedia when appropriate. To do so, put two brackets, a vertical pipe and the letters bp on either side of a word. For example, {{bp|Pokémon}} will result in Pokémon. To change the word that would appear, add a vertical pipe and your new text after the title of the Bulbapedia article. For example, {{bp|Pokémon|Pocket Monsters}} will result in Pocket Monsters, which you may notice links to the Pokémon article. Linking to redirect pages should be avoided.
  • Other templates (available here) may be used to shorten the amount of words needed to be typed.
    • Example: Using {{p|Snivy}} will link to Snivy, the article about the specific Pokémon species.
    • Example: Using {{game|Black and White|s}} links to the Pokémon Black and White Versions article but will only show Pokémon Black and White.
• When using artwork, there are preferences in the type to be used that depend on what the article is about.
  • Anime stock artwork of Pokémon should only be used for articles about the anime
  • Pokémon Dream World Pokémon artwork should only be used for articles relating to the Pokémon Dream World (as well as the Pokémon Global Link in certain cases).
  • In most other cases, the Sugimori artwork should be used.
  • Sprites should only be used when no other artwork is available, excluding when tables are used.
  • Uncommon artwork, like those from Pokémon Center promotions and Pokémon distribution events, may be used when appropriate.

• 

  Sugimori artwork

• 

  Anime artwork

• 

  Dream World artwork

• 

  Uncommon artwork

• 

  Sprite