The Contributor's Forum often seems to be a hub for problems, complaints and general "can I have some cheese with that whine" posting. But we're Contributors, which means we contribute!!

Here, you can post tips, suggestions, and other general helpfulness for fellow contributors. New to contributing and have a simple question or two? Ask it here, and the vets can lend a hand!

I'll start: If you're new to contributing and trying to just get some solid, non-dupe stories approved and to the front page look for reviews and game release news, duplicates of these stories are easily identified.

Having trouble finding news that hasn't been submitted? Subscribe to feeds for sites you already enjoy.

A story sitting in pending for awhile? Go through the pending section and approve/report, it helps keep things moving.

*Thread inspired by Diselage and fueled by sheer contributing awesomeness.

Good times.

I have retired

ORIGINAL: predator

I have retired

 
Seriously man, WTH! You're a veteran, you do a really good job and it would be a shame if you stopped.

ORIGINAL: MrSwede

ORIGINAL: predator

I have retired

Seriously man, WTH! You're a veteran, you do a really good job and it would be a shame if you stopped.

Thanks man but i have stoped since Feb, my attentions are else where though yet im still an active member in the forums and comment on news in the front page......although some of the stuff i have seen recently in the pending sections are disgraceful, one day i may come back

Ah, I would contribute, but I would feel too homosexual. I passed that little test, though, so now I'm a "Trainee", but I want my bloody "Gamer" title back!

I have a question.  Is there an easy way to see if something is a dup?  I'm kind of bad cuz I don't approve till I see a couple other people approve first

What do you mean I don't have a life?
I'm a gamer, I have tons of lives.

ORIGINAL: PS360WII

I have a question. Is there an easy way to see if something is a dup? I'm kind of bad cuz I don't approve till I see a couple other people approve first

If you're looking to check other people's submissions and you haven't maxed your own CRank the easiest way has been to go to submit and enter the title for dupe check.

However, if I'm not mistaken DragonFly has spent the past few days making the mainpage search less literal, so that should work just as well!! (for example, in the past if you search Xbox Microsoft, the only stories that returned were ones with those two words in that same order with no word between, now it will return all titles containing the two).

ah cool the main page search is working well you say   I'll use that some more then.  As far as getting my crank up... I don't really want to   all I wanted was to get my 3 submissions asap so I could approve stories   To much work hunting out news!

What do you mean I don't have a life?
I'm a gamer, I have tons of lives.

ORIGINAL: PS360WII
To much work hunting out news!

Slacker!!

Good idea this thread.
 
 
The search system is now a lot better, no offence but if was very inefficient before. 
 
 
Question:
 
 
Is there any way for me to post and more of these podcasts. http://www.1up.com/do/minisite?cId=3149993 & http://uk.gamespot.com/pages/features/hotspot/index.php as I think they use the same url for each new podcast, they just keep updating it. So they are automatically blocked as a dup. Which is a shame a I actually like them (not as much as N4G radio of course). 
 

Don't link to that aggregate page, link to the podcasts themselves individually. 

Thus:
http://download.gamevideos.com/Podcasts/060608.mp3
http://download.gamevideos.com/Podcasts/053008.mp3

Great, that never even occurred to me!

My tips would be to read this site daily (and not just the fanboy articles that bash a system or game) and be actively involved in approving/reporting in the pending section.  If you can't come to the site for a day, quickly skim the news from the days you missed.  That way you generally know what's going on in the video game world, and you should easily identify what articles you remember seeing/reading already on the site.

That's my 2 cents.

I'm interested to here other peoples opinions on playitreviewit.com. As personally I don't think anything from there should be allowed on this site. It's basically a user review and blog site, as anyone can write on there. And as far as I'm aware there arn't any industry insiders or professionals at that site.

I'll explain what news is for everyone if you like. News isn't posting a full interview with someone, news isn't posting a video, creating news is the ability to find something interesting, something that people want to hear about, something that's relevant from these interviews and videos.

Imagine you're watch the news on TV and the newsreader said "Barack Obama said in an interview today..." and then showed you the whole interview from start to finish. That's not news. The news is that journalists ability to find what the public will find interesting from that interview and therefore that journalist, of News Station should get the credit, not the camera man or the interviewer.

I mean, we all want everyone who reads the site to be informed, get information about games and enjoy themselves. However, I see countless NEWS stories based around interviews etc. failing after they've been approved and enjoyed by many - proof being the story has hit high degree numbers in a short space of time - because it's a duplicate of a previously submitted interview that only reached 20 degrees and not even made the front page.

So what do we want for N4G? For its users to get the information in a clear, precise, palettable form or for people who are mainly at work and have little time to have to read through walls of text or 10 minutes of video - which many won't be able to watch as they're at work - in order to find the headline, or the story, or simply link to the site that found the interesting, informative NEWS peice, and then if they choose, they can click through to the source from there?

It's a no-brainer really.

I have a little problem. This article has already been submitted which includes info for XBOX Live Marketplace Updates.
http://www.n4g.com/xbox360/News-183909.aspx

TigerWoods is included in the list. However,this is only for Live,but I just saw this one:

http://www.n4g.com/NewsPending-184574.aspx

which includes info on both the PSN and Live demo being available. Should I approve or not?

I am your father and your mother.

If the PSN news is not posted elsewhere (I'd be surprised if it wasn't) it's okay to approve.

I have a question about the contributor contest.
 
Does the score you get from Approving/Reporting stories count toward the contest? Or is it just Submission score?
 
Because I want to win, badly. But my CRank's only 11

XBL: TDMH64 (see my profile for gamercard)

ORIGINAL: TheDeadMetalhead

I have a question about the contributor contest.

Does the score you get from Approving/Reporting stories count toward the contest? Or is it just Submission score?

Because I want to win, badly. But my CRank's only 11

Only submission.
Everyone had to build their CRank so have fun and good luck.