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As a "newborn" journalist, you quickly realise how few things are needed in order to create a good article. Here's a guide to what I think makes good, popular articles, made as a response to the lack of good (english) articles.


The most important part of an article is the content. No matter if you’re writing for medals, enlightening people or to gain popularity, you'll need to write something that people can use and are willing to read. A few examples could be my own Updated IRC list ; Force 's Maxima's Events or GrgaVLP 's The Cartel [NEWS] . When people open an article, a percentage of the readers, depending on the quality and content, will vote and subscribe.


The title is what makes the reader open your article. If you lose them here, you'll not get another read. Therefor, your title should wake the curiosity; But don’t make ‘em clickbait. That way, they’ll leave unhappy. The title should be true, tell in short words what the article itself is about, without telling the story, to prevent them from feeling that they already know the story.


I like to have a signature, though it’s not necessary and not always working. I use “quote of the day” to involve other people. Another example could be banners, asking for votes/subscribers etc.


When posting the article, it’ll be visible to the people from your country. It will stay this way unless you get enough votes to get to a global level. To get on the global news, your article must be less than 2 days old and be part of the top 6 most votes. Usually, that'll be around 20 votes. That's hard to get, but a huge help is to share your article to Facebook! Remember, you can always change who can see it on Facebook.


After finding the right content and title, and maybe even your own signature, you need to make sure the readers don’t stop reading. Don’t make the sentences too long, too many, too confusing. Make sure your article is nice to look at, and not making the reader think “How am I gonna get through this? A good way to make it look nice is to add BB-code. BB-code is a way to spice up your article, without the need of graphical experience or anything. However, BB-code has a lot of different attributes, including some hidden ones, hence why I’ve included a list of what I know about, down below.


The most essential BB-codes used by everyone is the smileys; , made by typing respectively : ), : D, : \, : P, : ( and ; ).


Heading on to the "actual" BB-codes, one of the most basic ones would be [b ][/b ]. This BB-code makes things bold. It can be used for titles/subtitles or if you want to emphasise a word.
Example: Hello, World!


Next up we've got [i ][/i ]. i is for italics, making the letters cursive. This is another way to emphasise a word, without making it blow in the readers face, before reaching that word.
Example: Hello, World!


The last "font-differentiation" is [u ][/u ]. u is for underline, so something as basic as a straight line under the text. Underlined text is used many places on the internet for links, though not on e-Sim.
Example: Hello, World!


A widely used BB-code is [citizen ][/citizen ]. All you do is write a name of a citizen, and their name will pop up in the article, with a link to the profile and a small avatar next to the name. This also notifies the person that you've mentioned them in your article.
Example: Andejak


Now we've talked about links in the past two paragraphs, so let's show them. Links are embedded in the text by typing [url =LINK][/url ]. Put the text you want to be shown between the bracket sets. Where it says "LINK", you put the link to where you want it to direct the clicker to.
Example: Hello, World!


A good BB-code to make your text seem more organised without adding too much to it, is to center the text. This is done by wrapping the text in [center ][/center ].
Example: Hello, World!


Adding image files to your article can have various uses; It could be a statistic backing up your argument, the map showing the progress for your country or an image of a cute kitten. To embed the image in your article, you need to have it somewhere on the internet first. Wether your picture is taken directly from the internet or uploaded from your computer to a page like Imgur , you need to find the link to the actual image itself. This is done by right-clicking your image, then clicking "Open Image in New Tab" and then copy the URL from the address line, as shown in the two pictures below.


Example:


A barely used BB-code is [currency ]CURRENCY[/currency ]. You basically fill in CURRENCY and you'll get the currency + the flag(or gold). When typing in the currency, you need to fill in the 3-letter long currency abbreviation, like GBP for United Kingdom, USD for USA, ITL for Italy etc. These abbreviations can be found here , by browsing through the drop-down menu. In case you want gold, type "GOLD".
Examples:
Gold
GBP
ITL


A BB-code we haven't yet covered is quotes, used to show what a given person have said. The BB-code is written as [quote ][/quote ], with the text in between the two bracket sets. It basically works like normal text, but in a little more limited space and inside a grey quotation box.
Example:

Hello, World!

e-Sim also has a few "hidden" BB-codes. One of them is [icon ][/icon ]. There's a two-year old article from Primera that goes through most, if not all, icons that's in the game. Put in the name for the icon between the two bracket sets, and you've got yourself an icon.
Example:


Another hidden BB-code is [flag ][/flag ]. This gives you the flag of the country you’ve put inside the bracket sets. If you’re trying to type in a two-worded country, just use a space like a normal sentence(no hyphen or anything).
Example:


The last BB-code that I know of is also hidden, due to it's complexity. It's the tables, which makes all articles look a lot better, but are hard to figure out how to use. First thing to be aware of; The top line will always be dark, but the vertical lines will never be dark. To make a table, type [table ][/table ]. In between the two bracket sets, will be the text that's inside the table. Typing in a comma will skip to the next cell, typing in | will skip to the next line. To make the character | on a windows computer, click alt gr + the button to the left of the backspace button. On a MacBook, click alt + i.
The amount of vertical and horizontal lines are theoretically infinite, however you need to consider the width of the article as well as the character limit, of course.
Example:


Using [table ][/table ], you can also make dark boxes with text. Just type something between the bracket sets, like [table ]Hello, World![/table ].
Example:


Lastly, it should be mentioned that you can combine most BB-codes. An example could be a link on an image. Just wrap the image code in a set of link-brackets. Basically, to make the image click-able, type [url =LINK][img ][/img ][/url ], of course filling LINK with the destination address and put the link to the image between the [img ] bracket sets.
Example:


Now that you know how to write a good article, I suggest you start writing! But first, remember that I spent time learning you all this, so giving a vote and subscribing is a cheap but appreciated way to give back!
Also, feel free to PM me any good quotes that you know of!

Quote of the day
- Aaaas

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Writing-guide for articles [BB-code and more!] (8 years ago)

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