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[READ BEFORE POSTING] Here's what we need from you when posting to World Watch


FaerieFate

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FaerieFate

A few months ago, I asked you all to put links in all threads posted to the forum, so World Watch (WW) mods can properly index them. The work you’ve all been doing to add the links is great, but I’d like to go over some more information I’d like to see in the threads, and why it’s important.

Indexing allows WW mods to add links to this Index soon after your thread is posted. That index allows us to document the history of asexuality through your threads and properly document discussions on these issues so that future readers can see how they were received at the time.

 

As asexuality is slowly gaining more recognition, it is important to show the history of how AVEN grew into itself for future readers (asexual or otherwise) and for them (who might be reading the forum decades in the future) to see how the asexual identity evolved and how asexuals found themselves. So, the index is very important for our visibility and education efforts, and having as much information as possible about sources is vital to maintaining the index. Not only that, but the index itself is used to archive the threads at the end of the year. We can’t archive a thread that isn’t indexed, so it would be lost.

 

Not all the information about a link is necessary, so I’ve made a list of the information we need, along with its importance and a brief description

For ease of understanding, I’ve separated important and less important information. If something is marked as important, it’s mandatory. Less important fields are nice to include but we can generally figure them out. We’d appreciate it if you’d include them if you can though.

 

Important

Quote

Link/URL -- This is one of the most important pieces of information. If you don’t include a link, it might be difficult to index your thread and people can't find what you're posting about. This goes for offline content too. If it's a book, link to its Wikipedia/Goodreads/ecc. page (though giving the title and author can be enough for people to find it). If it's a research paper, link to somewhere people can read the research paper (preferably nothing blocked by a pay wall, but if you can only find copies blocked by a pay wall, then use a copy that can be accessed via a university). If it's a YouTube video, link directly to the video page. If you don't post a link, the current WW mod might PM you to find it.

 

Date -- Usually, we can find the date the content you’re linking to was created when it comes to indexing them. However, sometimes it can be hard to find. The date is very important, as the thread will later be archived into the year that the linked content was created – an article posted 2015 but linked in 2018 will still be put in the 2015 archive, so it’s important you find the correct year. Ideally, we’d like the full date, but if you can only find the month and year then that’s fine too.

 

Source -- Sources tell readers, at a glance, how credible a piece of content might be, or what kind of writing is linked (such as whether it’s news or an opinion piece). They are usually easy to find from the link. Things such as the website an article is published on, the author of a book/video, or the name of a podcast. However, with research papers, it may be impossible for us to find out a source if we can’t access it from outside a university. If you want to post a research paper, please tell us where the research took place, which university lead the research (usually the lead author’s), and where it was published, if you can.

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Less important

Quote

Category --  This is important for us to organize the index. Organization of the index is important as that allows readers to easily look through it in search of something. For example, if you want to find a podcast that discusses asexuality for research purposes, you need only find the podcast section instead of scrolling through the entire list. Categories can be articles, interviews, research papers, TV, films, radio, books, comics and graphic novels, videos, podcasts, blogs, or other.

Title -- This is the title of the content you’re linking to. It’s helpful to include this in the body of the post so that people can refer to it later. A lot of people like to include this in their thread title, which is ideal, as it lets readers know what they’re getting in to from by scanning the WW forum page.

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To make threads easier to index, I've made a suggested template for WW threads that you can use in your threads as an addition what you’d usually write. You don’t have to use it exactly as written, but we would appreciate it if you would fill in as much of the information as possible.

Quote

[Your own text about the content you’re linking]

 

Category:
Source:
Title:
Date:
Link:

 

 

Thanks for reading this mammoth post, and I hope you find it useful when adding posts to World Watch :)

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