The Laurelin Archives Tutorial

This tutorial is meant to explain the main functions of the site: How to register, how to make a profile and kinship profile, how to submit adventures, images and events, and whatever else we come up with.

Registering

Registering is easy, simply state your username and email adress and await an email from us, once we've approved your account, stating it is active. The username must be the exact in-game name of the character you're registering. If you misspelled the name simply send a mail to contact@laurelinarchives.org informing us of the problem and giving us the name you registered and what name is the correct one. This way is much easier and hassle-free than registering again, leaving a duplicate user in the system. If you want to add profiles for several characters, register with each character, using their names as username. You can use the same email for all accounts.

Once the email arrives, click the link to use the one-time login, after which you can change your password and begin submitting content to the Archives right away!

Creating a Character Profile

To create your character profile, go to "My profile" in the left sidebar menu, or click the "Create your profile" link in "My account". This will bring you to the creation form for the profile.

There are two input formats, Filtered HTML and BBCode, more information about them can be found by pressing the "More formatting tips" at the bottom of the "Input Format" dropdown list. The link below the textarea will enable the text editor, allowing you to see the final product as you write, without the visible code.

If you're copying text from Word, make sure to first copy it to a plain text editor (Notepad, Stickies, etc.) to get rid of any formatting that might conflict with the Archives' text editor before copying it into the textarea.

Fill in the required fields and whatever other fields you wish and press submit at the end of the form.

The profile will be automatically titled the same as your username, this is among other things why it is important that you register with the character's exact in-game name. It will also be given an automatic address (/profile/[your user id]), making it easy to find and link to.

For the purpose of recording the legacy of the server, you cannot delete character profiles. If you've quit the game, deleted the character etc. simply state OOC in the background that the character is no longer active, this is the only time OOC information should be in the profile.

Freelinking

Wherever an input format is used, you can use the freelinking double-bracket tags to link to anything on the site. For example, [[Calenon]], will link to Calenon's profile if it exists. If it doesn't, it will search for the word on the site. To add a custom label to the link, separate the link from the label using a | symbol. For example, [[Calenon|That darn elf]], will link to Calenon's profile but will be printed as "That darn elf".

You can also link to web addresses the same way. For example, [[http://laurelinarchives.org/|The Laurelin Archives]], will link to the Archives frontpage but be printed as "The Laurelin Archives". This can also be used to link to external addresses, such as kinship websites, community sites etc. Anything related to the server's RP plain and simply.

Submitting Adventures

Go to "Create content" in the left sidebar menu and select "Adventure" to begin submitting your stories. Write the name of the story in the title field, remember to not use any kind of punctuation at the end of the title to avoid messing with the referencing. Mark which kind of story it is and then jump right into writing!

Submitting Images

First of all, the goal of the site is to showcase the creations of the community, so this is a place for showing your screenshots and/or artwork, not that of others. If you still feel justified in posting other artists' work, then make sure you are permitted to do so and have a disclaimer in the description mentioning the original artist.

Go to "Create content" in the left sidebar menu and select "Image" to begin submitting your images. Write the name of the image in the title field, remember to not use any kind of punctuation at the end of the title to avoid messing with the referencing. Mark which kind of image it is and then use the upload field to upload your chosen image. Add a description as well if you want.

Once submitted, the image node will contain the image, description and an image link that can be used to insert the image in your profiles, stories etc.

If you want to delete the image, edit the node which acts as container of the image and press delete at the end of the form. If you only remove the uploaded picture, the node with description will remain.

Submitting Events

Go to "Create content" in the left sidebar menu and select "Event" to begin submitting your events. Write the name of the event in the title field, remember to not use any kind of punctuation at the end of the title to avoid messing with the referencing.

Fill in the required fields and whatever other fields you wish and press submit at the end of the form. The event will now be listed with date in the right sidebar.

Creating a Kinship or Organisation Profile

If you are the kinleader of a kinship, or leader of a band or other organisation besides a kinship, and you would like to add a profile for it on the site, use the "Contact" form at the top right of the site and choose "Kinship request" or "Organisation request" in the dropdown list.

Specify the name of your kinship/organisation in the message as well as some information about it. Once approved, you will receive the Kinleader/Organisationleader role, allowing you to create Kinship/Organisation profiles by going to "Create content" in the left sidebar menu. Same instructions apply here as for the Character profiles. Do not use any kind of punctuation at the end of the title field, since this will upset the referencing.

In order to fill the members list of your kinship profile, send Kinmember relationship requests to your kinmembers, through a link at the bottom of their profiles. Once accepted, their profiles will be linked to. If you're a member of a kinship but don't know who controls your kinship's profile on the site, simply search for the name of the kinship and look for the profile in the result, below it it should say who the author is, for example "Kinship - Calenon". Now press the author's name and send them a Kinmember request.

If you're no longer the leader of a kinship/organisation that you made a profile for, send a message through the contact form again, stating the name of the kinship/organisation and the name of the new leader. Tell the new leader to send one as well. We'll then edit the roles accordingly, allowing the new leader control over the kinship/organisation profile.

If you wish to submit a profile for a kinship/organisation you ran in the past that is no longer around, contact us with information about it and we'll help you add it to the legacy of the server.

For the purpose of recording the legacy of the server, you cannot delete kinship/organisation profiles. If your kinship/organisation has been disbanded, simply leave the profile as it is or contact us and we'll take it off your hands. Remember to mark the kinship/organisation as disbanded in the status dropdown list of the profile. You're then free to create a new profile if you've made a new kinship/organisation.

Submitting News Articles for The Town Crier

All news will be moderated, and if we find a problem with it we'll contact you back with any changes you need to make. If you follow the template as follows, however, you should pass the moderation with flying colours!

This news is considered IN CHARACTER, and as such, any information appearing should only be knowledge the paper/reporter would know about! [ie. no meta-gaming!]

What you will need:

Title - something catchy, eyegrabbing, but not too long!

Content Tags - A few words which describe the news. These will be used by the search engine.

Large Image - Pixels; 590x150. Max Filesize; 700mb. Extensions; jpg, jpeg, png, gif. This should also be eyegrabbing, but not too cluttered!

Post this to the Archives Gallery first, and give us the link! It can be safely deleted after the article has been posted!

Small Image - Pixels; 275x100. Max Filesize; 700mb. Extensions; jpg, jpeg, png, gif. When the news is "pushed down" by more recent news, the image will have to shrink too! This can be the same image as the Large Image, or something different!

Post this to the Archives Gallery first, and give us the link! It can be safely deleted after the article has been posted!

News Teaser - The bold font you can see under the images. This should be a very brief, eye-catching summary of the news. Make the reader want to know more!

News Details - Your article should go here! Make it snappy, and pleasing to the eye! Be sure it makes sense to be posted in a newspaper, and does not involve any meta-gaming. People love to hear about themselves in news stories; so the more you freelink peoples names, and kinships, the more people you'll make happy!

You can even insert pictures into the news item. Let us know which picture you want placing where, by placing a link to the picture in the wanted location (make sure the image is uploaded to the Archives Gallery first! It can be safely deleted after the article has been posted!).

Please note, this is not a place for OOC. Only in special circumstances, which the Web Team will discuss, shall OOC be permitted.

Send us this through the Contact Form at the top of the Archives page, category; News Item!

Advertisements

A system for advertising characters, kinships, events etc. is currently in place. All users can post ads through "Create content", further rules and instructions can be found in the form for creating an ad.