The story url should in most cases be the url of the original story. The credit url should be used if you want to give credit to a site or blog that helped you find the story.

However there are times when the original source url of a story is not the best option to use for the main story link. Sometimes a site like IGN will have a better version of the story , and it would then be best to use the IGN story for your main link and then place the url to the original source in the credit url field.

Also keep in mind that sites like Maxconsole.net, Joystiq, Kotaku and similar sites are rarely the original source for a story. So before you post a story from one of these sites please see if they are sourcing another website or not. If they are base your news post on the headline and info of the original source and then instead place the Maxconsole.net/Joystiq/Kotaku story in the credit url.

When you decide use text copied directly from the source article you should use text from the main source story and not the story you have in the credit url. Also make sure you always read through the text and make changes if necessary. It doesn’t help much if you edit the word “We” to the website’s name in the beginning of the news post if you don’t do it throughout the whole news post. A story where the word “we” is changed to the website’s name in the beginning but not at the end is more confusing than if not edited at all. Also sometimes just changing the word “We” to the website’s name will not be the best option, so always read through your news post and see if it works or not.

Only use quotes when it makes sense. We have notices some members are just putting quotes around their whole news posts instead of editing their posts according to the site guidelines. Only use quotes if the text is clearly a statement from that particular site. Also when you decide to quote a website do not just post the text with quote signs around it. You must write an intro text which explains who you are quoting.

For example:

However for most stories you don’t need to use quotes but you can instead copy a few paragraphs of the text and edit out any “We” , “I” or “us”. These can then be often be replaced by the websites name.

Do not copy two or three pages of text from the source story. A N4G news post should include just the main points of a news story (often found in the first part of the source article), so readers who are interested in more details can click through. In most cases 1 -3 paragraphs is enough. On the other hand a news post should not be too short. Make sure that even if a reader doesn’t click through that he or she can still get some useful info out of reading it.

Please do not change or edit the headline in anyway unless necessary. Always use the same headline as the source story. However sometimes when the source story doesn’t have a very useful headline it is ok to edit it to make the post more user-friendly. A good example would be for previews and reviews and sometimes interviews. The source headline here is often just Reviews : MotorStorm , this could be changed to IGN Reviews Motorstorm or something similar.

Please make sure you choose the most appropriate story type.

• For general news articles choose “News”
• For informative articles, editorials or other opinion pieces choose “Articles”
• For game reviews choose “Reviews”
• For game previews choose “Previews”
• For any interviews or Q&As choose “Interview”
• For any images or screens of games choose “Screenshots”
• For video choose “Video”
• For trailers choose “Trailers
• For any images that are not of games choose “images”
• For podcasts choose “Podcast”
• For any news story which is not confirmed or is speculative choose “Rumors”

Note: Some members seem to be confused about when to choose news and when to choose articles. All news articles should be filed as news, only informative articles, guides and editorials should be filed as articles.

If you are posting a video review of a game from say GameTrailers, first set Story Type as Review and then choose Video as the Media Format.

Industry news should only be selected if the story is business related (like sales numbers) or of interest to the game industry. Screenshots / videos / previews and reviews and other game related info should not be filed as Industry news.

Dev news should only be selected if the news post is targeted at game developers. It should not be selected only because a story is about a developer or from a developer. A story about a new dev tool or software is a good example of a story which should be filed as Dev News.

Screenshots / videos / previews and reviews and other game related info should not be filed as Gaming news. The Gaming channel is for news about game tournaments, game culture, retro games and other off beat gaming related news or stories.

You do not have to add a “click the link below” or “source: IGN” at the bottom of you posts. Most people know that they can click through for more info and the source of the story is already available under the “Read Full Story” link. There are a few times when such info would make sense but in 90% of the time you do not have to add this info to your post.

Please make sure you read any feedback reports you get and click on the story in question to see what our editors have changed.

If you follow these simple tips and post according to the N4G posting guidelines your CRank should increase. The CRank or Contributor Rank determines how many news post you can make each day. With a CRank 5 you can post a maximum of 5 stories within a 24 hour time frame. Members who reach a CRank of 20 will be able to apply for an N4G Editor role.

On the other hand members who keep ignoring the N4G posting guidelines will get their CRank lowered.