Forum & Site Discussion

Greetings, one and all.

In this issue, Desireful brings to you an article about what goes on behind the Media Board's hidden forums in Behind The Newspaper. Read through there to find out about the hectic, frantic panicking that produces each fantastic issue of the paper.

~Jamster

Behind The Newspaper - By: Desireful

The newspaper is a lot harder than it looks. First there has to be articles written, quotes collected, revisions, coding, and all that other stuff. This article is going to take you behind the scenes of the newspaper!

To start off I will be going from the last steps of one issue to going to the next issue.

All articles must be accepted. In order for them to be accepted, a section head (which is voted on by the newspaper team) must accept them. Although before that, it must be revised and corrected. That’s where the rest of the team comes in. If they ever see a mistake, it is recommended for them to post the correction(s) ASAP. Now once accepted they are moved to an “Accepted Articles” forum. From there, our editor or vice editor (usually Prince Caspian, previously Mrcsupertrain, does it) creates a list of accepted content to make it easier to go back and code.

Once all of the articles are complete in all sections there are usually a few left over ones. Those will be moved to the “Later issue article” section. From there on out, a person that knows HTML will begin coding the paper. (No Sal doesn’t code this, the staff does) Once completed coding, revisions are made before it is sent to Sal. It’s proofread and off it goes. In the next 3-5 days it is on the site. Meanwhile the newspaper team is hard at work.

First after a release all the topics in “Accepted Articles” are moved into an “Old Content” forum. Then a “Quotes” topic is posted, if anyone on the newspaper team finds a funny post or comment on Sal's, they will post it there so it can be in the newspaper. Now let’s move on how articles are created.

As you may know, everything written starts with one idea. Some articles are suggested by other people, not just the writer. For example, this article was suggested by dawesbr. Once the idea is considered a good one, a writer will take that idea and transform it into an awesome work of writing.

The writer will post the article in the correct newspaper section forum where it can be spell checked and revised. After several days of this, the section head will venture into the topic and decide whether it is newspaper quality. The section head will give some suggestions. Then later the section head will come back and either accept or reject the article. If accepted you have the feeling of accomplishment. If rejected, you can either try again or just write something else.

Normally there are just a few articles added at the last minute. When I say the last minute, I mean the last minute. Some are posted 2 days before the deadline!

At the start of each of the newspaper sections on the actual paper there is always an introduction by the section head. While all of this chaos is going on, they have to write the wonderful openings to get you hooked! If articles are added at the last minute, they have to quickly revise it to get all of the articles in their section in the intro.

As articles are getting accepted there is a topic that lists all of the accepted topics. This is where the coders get their help. They are writers on the newspaper staff that also code the newspaper. They have to organize and code every single article to get it ready within a week because by then there is only about a week and a half left of the month. The preview of the paper is put up to the newspaper staff where we can correct anything that is wrong before it gets sent to Salmoneus.

Once completed and there is a few days left, the editor sends off the PM to Sal. It usually takes a while for him to get it all ready and release it to you, the viewers.

So this is why it takes a month to release the paper to you. That is also why it is without many errors. I hope you enjoy future articles, now fully knowing what they all go through!

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