Submission Instructions

This page contains instructions explaining how to submit articles to SixPrizes.

Please make sure you’ve carefully read the technical guidelines before submitting. These instructions also presuppose that you have already become a Front Page Contributor via the instructions on this page.

If you have already thoroughly read through these instructions and know what you’re doing, then here is the direct submission link.

Before We Begin Part 1: Update Your Display Name, Bio, and Links

(This step needs to be completed only the very first time you submit an article.)

By this point, you should already have registered for a free SixPrizes account, so just make sure you’re logged in.

Now, head to your profile page.

On this page you can add biographical info which will appear on your author page, choose your display name, and add social media links which will appear in your author box.

Make sure you carefully read what it asks for in the fields. Some ask for full URLs and some ask for usernames or e-mails.

You can include links things such as your Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, AIM, Skype, etc… These links will then automatically appear with buttons in your author box, which appears adjacent to all your articles. It’s a cool way to get some attention and maybe meet like-minded Pokemon TCG players.

It is highly recommended that you include some kind of bio as well. Let the other SixPrizes members know a little something about you!

You could include your…

Hobbies
Websites
Pokemon TCG history (how long you’ve played, accomplishments)
Ways to contact you (instant message, e-mail)
or whatever!

Just make sure you click “Update Profile” after you finish.

Your bio will appear on your author page, which you can find at the following link:

http://www.sixprizes.com/author/YOUR_USERNAME

(Obviously you need to change YOUR_USERNAME to your actual username…)

HTML Hints: To put spacing between lines in your bio, use <br /><br />.

To insert a link, use the code <a href=URL>LINK NAME</a>. Replace URL with the actual URL and LINK NAME with the link’s name. Make sure to include the http:// in the URL.

Before We Begin Part 2: Upload an Avatar

(This step needs to be completed only the very first time you submit an article.)

This is your default avatar.

It is a good idea to upload an avatar that will be displayed in your author box and on your author page, otherwise you will be stuck with the Ash Ketchum image. I must admit Ash does look pretty cool though… so you might not want to change anything!

But if you do want a custom picture, you’ll need to follow these instructions…

1. Sync your avatar with Gravatar.com

Gravatar.com is basically a universal avatar service for blogs. You can upload your avatar to Gravatar and it will appear on various blogs and websites you visit, automatically!

It is pretty commonly used on the internet, and it just so happens to be compatibile with SixPrizes. :)

So first, head to http://gravatar.com and sign up for a free account.

2. Make sure you register with the same e-mail address you registered with here.

The e-mail address you use will be associated with your uploaded avatar, so it will automatically appear here on SixPrizes once you upload it there. That’s all you gotta do! The avatar should automatically sync with your author account on SixPrizes as soon as you upload it.

Step 1: Get to Know the WordPress Interfaces

WordPress is the software we use that runs the blog portion of the website. It’s pretty simple to use, but let me give you a quick rundown of the different pages…

Also just so you know, I’ve child-proofed all these admin pages so you play around with the different options and buttons as much as you want.

It’s pretty much impossible for you to mess anything up, so explore and get comfortable with the interfaces!

1. The Dashboard

The Dashboard can be accessed via the following link:

http://www.sixprizes.com/wp-admin/

And it looks a little something like this:

Important things to notice here:

In the middle, you’ll see…

Posts Pending Review
- These are articles that have been submitted to the site, but have not yet been reviewed by the editors. As soon as you submit an article for review, it will be listed here.
Scheduled Posts
- These are articles that have been proofread by our editors and have been scheduled for lift-off (meaning they will soon be live on the site). You’ll see your article listed there if it has been approved.
Recent Drafts
- Recent drafts are just articles that you may be working on, but have not finished writing and have not submitted for review yet. They’ll be visible there for your convenience.

On the left you’ll see a side menu that contains the following links…

Dashboard
- The home base.
Posts
- You can either view all your previously written articles or add a new one (which is what you do when submitting an article).
Profile
- This is the page we edited in “Before We Begin Part 1″ (explained above if you skipped over that).

If you want some bonus tips on how to make your Dashboard more organized, check out Step 2: The Dashboard from the Editor’s tutorials page.

Things will look a little different on your end, but the concepts explained in those instructions can apply to you too (namely creating a 3rd column, dragging modules, and minimizing the menu).

2. Add New Post Screen

This is where you can either straight up type your article, or copy and paste your article from Word then submit it for review. Here’s what it’ll look like:

Things to take note of…

A. Title Box

That’s where you enter the title of your article.

B. Visual and HTML Editor Tabs

Click those to switch between the Visual Editor and HTML Editor. Usually you will want to stick with the Visual Editor, but if you need to fine tune the way something looks, going into the HTML Editor might give you the flexibility you need.

C. Visual Formatting Buttons

These are buttons you can use to format your text. Hover over each button if you are not sure what they do. If you select the very last button, it will reveal a few more formatting options (like making numbered and bulleted lists).

The only major ones I’d like to explain are these 3:

The first one there will insert a deck list template for you. It’s pretty sweet. You might want to use the HTML editor for actually typing your deck list though, just as a heads up.

The second button is good if you typed your article on Microsoft Word. Click that and it will give you a box to paste your article from Word, and it should retain most of your formatting (like bolds, italics, etc…)

The last button removes formatting. This can be useful if you paste your article to the text editor, and maybe the font looks weird or the spacing is off.

Highlight all of your text (CTRL+A or CMD+A) and next click the eraser. All formatting will be gone and you can then go in and reapply formatting as need be.

D. Add an Image

Click the “Add an Image” button if you’d like to add an image to your article. Who’d a thunk that…

When you click the button, this is the screen that will pop up:

If you want to include a image of a card in your article, there is a good chance it’s already been uploaded to the site, so use the “Search Media” box on the top right. When you search, you can usually just type in the name of the card without the set name or number and you’ll find it pretty quickly.

For example, just search “Vileplume” if you’re trying to find Vileplume from the Undaunted set. If a lot of results come up, you can narrow your search terms by including the set abbreviation, but searching broadly is usually best.

If you see a square thumbnail image of the card you want, you can assume the medium sized image is of the full card. We (the editors) make thumbnail images that appear in various places on the site, but the medium sized image of the card will remain untouched.

So for example…

… might appear as the thumbnail when you’re searching, but if you insert the medium sized image into your post, this is what will show up:

You’ll kind of be able to tell by the dimensions shown for the thumbnail and medium sized images. Thumbnails will be darn close to 125×125, but the medium sized will be 225x(some number noticeably bigger than 225).

More on the sizes later… keep reading:

Uploading New Images

If you don’t find the image you’re looking for, click the “From Computer” tab on the top left and you can upload an image from your computer.

Please use PkmnCards for missing card scans. Just download the large size image from that site, save it to your computer, and upload it.

For all non-Pokemon images…

Please stick with Flickr Creative Commons – Attribution License images. Make sure to provide a link back to the page where you found the image at the end of your article so we can give the author credit.

Non-Pokemon images from sources other than Flickr Creative Commons are not allowed just because they could be copyrighted, and I don’t want to get sued.

Insert the Image

After you find your image (or upload one), click “Show.” This will be the screen that then comes up:

Highlighted are the only things you really need to worry about:

1. Caption: If you want some descriptive text under your image, you can type something here, but it’s fine to leave it blank. I usually leave it blank out of laziness to think of some witty adjoining text.

2. Alignment: Make sure you set it to Right. I’ve been keeping images aligned right for a while now, and you’ll find that it’s simplest and cleanest to just align all your images to the right.

3. Size: Again, 99% of the images on the site are Medium sized, so make sure you click that. Medium size looks good aligned right. What else can I say?

Once you’ve got all those settings configured, click “Insert into Post,” and voila, there is your image.

After your images is inserted into your post, you can drag it to reposition it or click it and you will be shown buttons to make customization to the image, if you want to do so. Play around with this a little bit and get comfortable inserting and manipulating images.

You don’t have to insert all the images yourself as the editors can take care of it for you, but I’m giving you the option if you want full control over how your article will look.

E. Publish

Two buttons you need to worry about here:

1. Save Draft: This will save your article if you are not ready to submit it for review, but want to work on it later. Your current progress will be saved and you can pick up where you left off at any time.

2. Submit for Review: When you are satisfied with your article, clicking this button will give your post “Pending” status, which is notification for our editors to take a look at it and get it polished up to be put live on the site.

You can also leave a note for the editors in the “Add note:” box.

And that’s pretty much it!

Go ahead and play around with the options until you get comfortable with everything (especially if you plan on being a frequent contributor). The more polished your article looks when you submit it, the quicker we can get it up on the site.

But don’t spend forever fooling around with the options if you’re having trouble with them. There is a reason we have editors.

Step 2: Wait for Approval

After you Submit for Review, we will receive notification of your submission. (Please make sure you actually clicked “Submit for Review” and not “Save Draft” otherwise we won’t know to edit it!)

We will review your article as soon as possible and either schedule it (approve it) or save it as a draft (reject it). Either way, you will receive e-mail notification along with a note explaining our decision.

If you are rejected, you can revise your article and re-submit, but some articles simply are not front page material. These articles are more than welcome to be posted to our forums.

If you are accepted, the e-mail will contain the date and time your article will be posted, so make sure to add that to your calendar!

You will also receive an e-mail the day your post is published to the site, so you can be sure to see it in all its glory.

Step 3: Subscribe to Your Article

With some luck, people will leave you comments once it hits the site.

In order to make sure you stay on top of the discussion, here’s how to receive e-mail notification of new comments:

Navigate your way to the comments section of your article.
Underneath the comments box and above the first comment, there is a link that says “Subscribe by email.” Click that.
That’s it! You could also subscribe via RSS if you prefer.