Hello, folks!
Dave Banks created this handy-dandy infographic to help you get your posts ready for publication. Print it out, tape it next to your desk, and refer to it until you can recite it all from memory. And then refer to it anyway.
There are two versions because GD and GM have different parent categories; download the appropriate version below:
Yes, there are some exceptions to these rules listed here, but unless you have prior permission from editors, stick to what you see in the infographic!
This is a boiled-down version of the posting guidelines and image guidelines, which you should still refer to for more details. (There’s also a style guide, though that hasn’t had any updates recently.) The infographic is to help you remember some of the key points without having to read a big block of text.
Clarifications for People Who Like to Read a Lot
In case you like big blocks of text, here are some more details about those points on the infographic.
1. Parent categories
On the new home page, some—but not all—of the parent (top-level) categories have their own sections. Checking a parent category like “Entertainment” will make your post appear in that section of the home page. Checking more than one parent category will make it appear multiple times on the home page—don’t do this!
If you don’t check a parent category—for instance, you check “Movies” but not “Entertainment,” it will still show up if somebody clicks on the “Movies” subcategory, but it won’t be on the home page in that section.
Choose the parent category (from the list on the infographic) that best fits your post, and then you may choose multiple other subcategories, even if they are from different parents.
All posts will still show up in the “Recent Posts” section, so if you just can’t find a fit for your post, don’t sweat it too much.
Note that GeekDad and GeekMom have a different list of parent categories that show up on the home page. Top-level categories that aren’t listed on the infographic may still be used, and don’t count toward the ONE parent category for your post.
“Featured,” “GeekDad,” and “GeekMom” are for editorial use only!
2. Title formatting
If you don’t know your title formatting, please read up on that. Titles of many things are italicized, some are in double quotation marks.
3. Headlines and excerpts
Nothing is italicized within your headline and excerpt, so we use single quotes to replace italicizing in those sections only.
4. Title capitalization
If you don’t know your title capitalization, please read up on that also! The most common mistakes are forgetting to capitalize “Is” (which is a verb) or capitalizing non-principal words like “of” and “to” and “the.”
5. The Oxford comma
Use it.
6. Notes
Add in a Note if you want a post to run by or on a particular date or time, or if it’s embargoed until a particular date. Also, take the time to look up Twitter handles for the companies or people you’re writing about! It’s easy to do and the editors will paste that into the Twitter message—they’re likely to retweet to their followers. You can put your own Twitter handle there, too, but it’s frankly more important to make sure the subject of your post knows about it.
If you’re feeling up to it, feel free to craft your own Twitter message, if you want something more descriptive than the headline—but be sure to reserve characters for the URL and any tags that you want to include.
There are some stricter guidelines about Facebook, so we do not tag people on Facebook messages.
Also: avoid using multiple notes in a post. Only the most recent one shows up in the Posts list page, which can lead to scheduling errors (like if you put in a run date, and then later added a second note with Twitter handles). Instead, please edit the existing note and add info to it.
7. Tags
If in doubt, don’t use tags. However, for any subject for which there will be many posts, you can tag it. For instance: “Star Wars,” “Google,” and “Neil Gaiman” are all tags that exist in the system and can be used. When using a tag, start typing it into the Tag box, and then select from an option that is already there. If the tag you want to use isn’t there already, ask an editor before using it. For more on Tags, see here.
8. Excerpts
Although excerpts no longer appear on the home page, they still show up in places like our archive pages, social media, search results, and RSS feeds. So, fill that box out.
9. Images
Your featured image MUST be 1200 x 675.
Okay, okay, they don’t have to be those dimensions exactly, but they do need to be that aspect ratio exactly, and between 800 and 1200 px wide. If that sentence didn’t make any sense, stick with 1200 x 675.
Note that the Featured Image is not the same thing as the image at the top of your post. The Featured Image is what appears with your post on the home page, archive pages, and when the article is shared on social media. If you want your Featured Image to appear on the article page itself, you still need to embed it separately.
Images inside your post are actually more flexible, but—again—if in doubt, use 1200 x 675. If you’re posting a book cover, it’s okay to make it a vertical image, but only inside the post, not for your featured image.
In general, images should be a maximum of 1200 in the larger dimension. Please resize them before uploading!
It’s also very important to make sure your image display settings are set to:
Alignment: None
Link To: Media File
Size: Full Size
See the image below for where to find those settings when you insert an image. Once you’ve inserted images with those settings once, it should default to those in the future, but the current default if you haven’t changed anything is None, None, Medium.
It is okay to center-align images—for instance, book covers that are narrower you could size at something like 300 x 500 and center align them, but in NO instances should anything be right-aligned or left-aligned. Every image should always be its own line.
