Pocket PC Thoughts Posting Policy

[Jonathon Watkins]

Thanks for the pointers Jason. It's good to get enhanced guidelines and a more detailed explanation of how/why things work. Appreciated!

...what fun would that be to read?

Not as much as PPCT usually is. :lol:

[malcolmsharp]

As a guy that sends in more than a few news stories, I want to let you know I'm never mad at the MANY, MANY, MANY times you've never posted what I sent you. And NEVER when you gave some other IDIOT credit for somethin I sent you! No, never. ;)

More than once I have gotten an email back with a thanks, and even once explaining why a story wasn't used. I know you can't every time, nor even most times. For those times, thanks.

And thanks, in general, for the great job you guys do in getting news up.

Just a little tip for news hounds... I have a news alert app from MSN news. I put in a few key words, like Pocket PC and such, and I get a little red flashing thing on my text bar when news comes up. Great for when you have an always on conection.

[vincentsiaw]

I think PPCT is fair enough in posting policy is fair enough, the admin even send me thank you notes! very satisfied !

[JonnoB]

I find it funny (or sad) that this even had to be posted. As if people thought they could become site admins or moderators by sending in news items that may not make it. Like most others, I appreciate what Jason (and the others) have done for this community.

[Cracknell]

I want my cookie!

Oh wait, I have to send news suggestion first. ..oops.

heh, cheer, keep up the good works.

[Jonathan1]

Seriously? Are people actually pissed that they didn't get their news posted or wasn't given credit? Is this really THAT important to people? I guess everyone want to get their 15 minutes of fame in one way or another. But considering how often Jason and co updates the site its more like 15 seconds before it buried below 15 other stories. :)

[brntcrsp]

I've sent in a few articles and haven't received credit for uncovering the article (I would guess). My first reaction used to be "WHY DIDN'T I GET CREDIT!" then I realized how childish that behavior was, took a deep breath, and was happy to know that maybe someone was helped by the link.

[Janak Parekh]

I've sent in a few articles and haven't received credit for uncovering the article (I would guess).
While we do forget to put credits in once in a blue moon, very often it's because we already had received the news item and had queued it up to be posted. Just so you know. ;)

You'll usually get a reply by email if we use "your" submission, so you know if we truly forgot to give credit.

--janak

[Jason Dunn]

Seriously? Are people actually pissed that they didn't get their news posted or wasn't given credit?

Yup. I wouldn't have spent the time writing this up unless I was going to be referring to it a LOT. :lol:

[brntcrsp]

In the grand scheme of things it doesn't really matter if my annoymous handle makes it to the front page of Pocket PC Thoughts. I just hope my contributions help.

[Janak Parekh]

In the grand scheme of things it doesn't really matter if my annoymous handle makes it to the front page of Pocket PC Thoughts. I just hope my contributions help.
Absolutely, and I appreciate your positive attitude greatly. We're just trying to explain what's going on in this thread so people know. :)

--janak

[Jason Dunn]

In the grand scheme of things it doesn't really matter if my annoymous handle makes it to the front page of Pocket PC Thoughts. I just hope my contributions help.

Your contributions, and the contributions of the hundreds of people like you help make our site what it is today: chock-full of up to date news & views. I rarely go looking for news anymore because of all the wonderful people who send it in to us. :-)

[Jonathon Watkins]

I'm afraid I have been known to ask about items I have posted and that have either not been attributed to anyone, or to someone else. I've received very gracious PMs back from the PPC team and I haven't asked about it for a while. I learned to relax. :oops: :lol: I also learned not to PM news after I PMd a story to Ed and Jason (long time ago) and Ed spent some time working on a front page post, when Jason posted the item. Woops, sorry Ed again!

Some people learn by other's mistakes - others have to make them themselves. :? Well, lesson learned! We have a cool team 8) and it would be good if their lives were not taken up with admin jobs and replying to the same old things each time. :idea: :!:

[Janak Parekh]

I'm afraid I have been known to ask about items I have posted and that have either not been attributed to anyone, or to someone else.
As long as you asked politely, no offense taken. ;)

--janak

[Pony99CA]

Seriously? Are people actually pissed that they didn't get their news posted or wasn't given credit?
Yup. I wouldn't have spent the time writing this up unless I was going to be referring to it a LOT. :lol:
How about putting this article in the FAQ section (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/faq.php)? Also put a link to the FAQs on the left side of the Home Page along with the Forums, Articles and Archives links.

Add a few new FAQs, like your article about the next Pocket PC OS and the warning about the Hall of Flame and Shame. :-) I'd also suggest my rant, appended below. That way I could just link to it instead of constantly posting it :-D

Steve

P.S. Please don't post long links "naked". The board software doesn't wrap them, and it resets the margins for the whole page, forcing horizontal scrolling. Use the URL tags, like this:


[url=http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/faq.php]
Pocket PC Thoughts FAQs
[/url]

The above looks like the following when posted:

Pocket PC Thoughts FAQs
(http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/faq.php)
See how much nicer that is? :-)

[Janak Parekh]

How about putting this article in the FAQ section (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/faq.php)?
Ideally, yes, it needs to be put there. Both the FAQ and the Contact Page need updating. It'll presumably be done Real Soon Now. ;)

--janak

[Jonathon Watkins]

See how much nicer that is? :-)

Yes, I've found myself hunting round for that trick and I've applogised to you in case you saw my 'naked' links. :oops: :wink:

That one would indeed be a good one to add to the FAQs.

[ctmagnus]

Seriously? Are people actually pissed that they didn't get their news posted or wasn't given credit?

How about this: You read something "new". It's totally "new", you've never read anything about it before. You pm the eds about it. They reply but don't post about it. Then, several weeks later, you're going through the archives and you find out that it was posted here two weeks before you read about it (the one day you were too busy to check the site) and those are the only two places it's ever been mentioned.

:roll: :oops: :confused totally:

[Foo Fighter]

What I want to know is....why hasn't PPCT dedicated a special day in my honor, since I contribute the most news stories here? I demand every Friday be made "Foo day"!

So let it be written...so let it be done. :P

[Sheynk]

What I want to know is....why hasn't PPCT dedicated a special day in my honor, since I contribute the most news stories here? I demand every Friday be made "Foo day"!

So let it be written...so let it be done. :P




riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight :lol: :lol: :lol: :wink: :wink: :wink:

[Janak Parekh]

What I want to know is....why hasn't PPCT dedicated a special day in my honor, since I contribute the most news stories here? I demand every Friday be made "Foo day"!

So let it be written...so let it be done. :P
Ah, so you really are establishing the Church of Foo.

Believe it or not, we've got at least one or two people in direct competition with you as most-frequent-news-submitter. But you're definitely up there.

--janak

[ctmagnus]

I demand every Friday be made "Foo day"!

And how shall we celebrate Foo day? Give an atomic wedgie to everyone with Foo in their username? :D :twisted:

[Jonathon Watkins]

Nah, the congregation shall chant, "No representation without transreflexivisation" and “deliver us from dragonballs, for we are but batteries and batteries can only but die.”

[Pony99CA]

I demand every Friday be made "Foo day"!
And how shall we celebrate Foo day? Give an atomic wedgie to everyone with Foo in their username? :D :twisted:
Maybe answer any personal question with "None of your damn business!" instead of just ignoring it? :lol:

By the way, I thought we already had an April Foo Day. :twisted:

Steve

[Brad Adrian]

I demand every Friday be made "Foo day"!
If it's any consulation, EVERY day at my house SOMEBODY calls me a "damn foo."

[Stik]

I only submit the most negative PPC news I can get ahold of. :twisted:

The terse response I get back is...
" Foo gedda 'bout it! " :bad-words:

Kidding! :wink:

[Jason Dunn]

We get a lot of the same questions over and over, so I thought I'd create a mini-FAQ as it relates to posting on the site. It's more for us to point people to on a regular basis than anything else, but you may find it interesting to see how things work "behind the scenes" on a site like Pocket PC Thoughts. We rely heavily on user participation – our readers find us the coolest stuff! But if we don’t post on it, here’s why.<br /><br /><b>Q: How many news submissions do you get every day?</b><br />A: On average, I'd say we get around 20 to 40 messages to the news alias per day, not including the news that gets submitted to me directly instead of the news@ email alias.<br /><br /><b>Q: Why didn't you post on what I sent you?</b><br />A: It's nothing personal, I assure you! First up, give us a few days - some news we queue up for the weekend or a slower news day. Remember also that we’re mostly volunteers – team members will post when they have time, but Real Life comes first. If you don't see your item posted after three or four days, that likely means we've opted not to post it. Our job as editors is to filter the content and decide what is most important to pass along to our readers. If you take out editorial judgment, you’d just have a site that published press releases, and what fun would that be to read?<!><br /><br /><b>Q: How do you decide what gets posted?</b><br />A: This is the hard part to explain - we ask ourselves these questions when deciding what to post on:<br /><br />Is this news interesting to a significant portion of our readers?<br />Is this a major update of the application?<br />How recently did we post on the last version?<br />Does this site/product need our help to promote it?<br />How excited are we about this?<br /><br /><b>Q: Do you hate me? Is that why you didn't post my news?</b><br />A: No. We appreciate very much that you took the time to submit news to us, but please understand that we can't post on everything we receive.<br /><br /><b>Q: I sent you something, why didn’t you respond to it?</b><br />A: We don’t have time to reply to every email message we get. We respond to most of them, but quite often we’ll skip replying to messages from people who sent us news that we’ve already posted on the front page. We also don't have time for tech support questions - it's really best to post to the forums so the whole community can help out.<br /><br /><b>Q: WHY DIDN'T YOU GIVE ME CREDIT?? I'M SO ANGRY!!</b><br />A: We don't respond well to being yelled at. We give credit whenever possible, but remember that you might not be the first person to send in the news. We go out and look for news items ourselves, and quite often when you inform us we’re already working on it. When news is “hot”, we’ll often get 15+ email messages on the same subject in a given day. We often get news where the “credit” field isn’t filled out, which means we don’t know if you want credit or not, or who you want the credit to go to. Some people don’t want their real name used, others do, some want credit, others don’t. If you don’t tell us exactly what you want, we won’t know what to do.<br /><br /><b>Q: I’m a company that really wants you to promote my product – how can I get you to post on my product?</b><br />A: The only way to get guaranteed publicity is to <a href="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/contact.php">buy advertising from us.</a> :-) Beyond that, please submit it as news and we'll evaluate posting on it using the criteria above. There are a few things you can do to get our attention over the noise of all the other email we get: offer the news team free copies of your app or product to try out, offer up free copies for a contest so our readers can benefit, offer us an affiliate program so we can keep the site running, or tell us how much you like the site and how you’d be honoured to become a site sponsor. ;-) Anything but just sending us a press release! Unless it’s a very, very interesting press release, that’s the kiss of death. Other common errors include not giving us an URL to go look at, or hassling us with repeated email messages on exactly the same thing. We don't like being hassled. Above all, be creative!<br /><br /><b>Q: If I send private messages to multiple team members, will that increase my chance of getting my news posted?</b><br />A: Submitting your news to us more than once, using multiple methods (such as private messages and email) is a sure-fire way to irritate the news team and not get your news posted at all.<br /><br /><b>Q: I'm a Webmaster of a Pocket PC site, and we sent you a link to our review of product XYZ - why didn't you post it?</b><br />A: Could be any number of reasons. We may have a review coming up of the same item and don't want to take away from the work our writer did. We may have gone and looked at your article and decided it wasn't good enough to pass along.<br /><br /><b>Q: What gives you the right to judge my work and tell me it's not good?</b><br />A: We run our site, you run yours. We each do what's best for our respective sites. You have the same right to ignore our articles as we do yours. ;-)<br /><br /><b>Q: Ok, so if you don’t post on it, is there still a place for me to tell your readers about it?</b><br />A: You bet! Post it in the <a href="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=31">Announcements Forum</a>. Remember that it should be Pocket PC-related and we don't allow adult-related software or services to be promoted here.<br /><br /><b>Q: I'm a developer and I want to tell your visitors about a product I have - how can I?</b><br />A: Post it in the <a href="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=31">Announcements Forum</a>. Remember that it should be Pocket PC-related and we don't allow adult-related software or services to be promoted here.<br /><br /><b>Q: What's the best way to submit news?</b><br />A: Use the <a href="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/submit.php">submit news page</a>. If you have attachments you need to send us, email them to news at pocketpcthoughts.com. If you want to reach a team member personally by email, it’s firstname at pocketpcthoughts.com (jason@, darius@, etc.) Do NOT use private messages to submit your news - they will not be read or responded to.