Hello Vague Terrain bloggers, we're creating this page as an all-in-one reference for submitting content. We will be developing this document over time as we encounter problems or figure out ways to refine our workflow.
Expectations
Here is what we require from blog contributors:
- Content should relate to the general theme of our journal - digital art, technology and culture. We are interested in reports on provocative shows and conferences, spotlights on emerging tools, interviews with artists and curators, critical texts or commentary on and a link to important texts/posts elsewhere.
- At least three posts a quarter and no more than two in a month.
- Posts can be self-promotional but we prefer the majority of the content to be informational, and point at specific projects or events. We will approach any contributor if we feel they are using the Vague Terrain blog/platform inappropriately.
- Calls for work should only be posted if there is more than two weeks remaining before the submission deadline.
- Posts don't have to be lengthy and we discourage posts of more than 2500-3000 words. Short posts pointing at good work/cultural events are fine by us.
If you don't think you can commit to the above we are open to guest one-off posts - please email us if you'd like to explore this option. Also, get in touch with Greg via the above address if you want to bounce ideas off him regarding a potential post.
To Get Started
The first thing you'll need to do is set up a user account. You can do this via http://vagueterrain.net/user/register - be sure to fill in your bio info, contact and URL so interested readers can contact you (anonymously) or find out more information about your practice - the site was recently attacked and we have suspended the creation of new user accounts, contact us to set up an account for you.
Submitting Blog Posts
The WYSIWYG editor we have installed within our CMS (Drupal) is temperamental so in order to submit blog content you'll have to email it to Greg (via blog@vagueterrain.net).
Some general notes about style/format:
- Please submit a .txt file or .odf (open document format) and NOT a .doc or .docx
- Every post should have at least one image. Images should be sent along and be at least 480 px wide. We prefer landscape to portrait orientation.
- Images of artwork should be accompanied by caption information in the following format [Artist Name / Title of Work / Year] or [Artist Name / Title of Work] if the year is unavailable.
- Please send along the embed codes for any accompanying video. If your post includes a YouTube clip please use the 480*385 sized video.
- Inline hyperlinks can be identified in your document as follows: This is some fake text (the words "fake text" link to http://somewebsite.com)
- If the post has been previously posted elsewhere please provide a hyperlink and the name of the blog/publication. We will mention this at the end of the post.
- We don't publish bylines as each author has a profile that can be clicked through to from the article - this is why it is important that you have a profile set up.
- We'll be implementing a simple taxonomy system at a later date so that we can establish a basic family of post types (i.e. event, interview, commentary, etc.).
Once a post has been submitted Greg will post it ASAP, generally within 36 hours. If a contributor has issues with any edits/revisions they should contact us to discuss the matter.
Disclaimers
Things to keep in mind:
- All content on this site is distributed under an Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike Creative Commons License
- We reserve the right to reject/unpublish any post if we deem it offensive or off topic (we'll be happy to discuss this with contributors on a case by case basis if the need arises)
- Greg is a fussy editor and may make minor tweaks or revisions to your grammar - he'll contact you in the event that potential alterations will alter the nature of the text or if a specific point needs clarification.
- This is not a site for gadget or tool reviews UNLESS you are explaining how they work within an artistic practice.
- We may set up some basic advertising on the blog page in 2010, this will be used to cover hosting/bandwidth only. Since we do not receive any arts funding we cannot offer any compensation to blog or journal contributors.