Post material

Once you have familiarized yourself with the project, joined a group, and done your homework, you can proceed with contributing to the project. You are welcome to create new articles or to expand existing articles by even a few paragraphs, if appropriate.

• Authors are limited to no more than three submissions in development/editing at any one time. Exceptions may be made at the discretion of the Executive Editor. We limit submissions in order to not overwhelm the Editors and other contributors, so shorter articles of 1-3 pages are ideal (but not required).


• Nearly everyone finds it helpful to describe/discuss their idea on the forum or discord before they begin their article. This is not an absolute requirement, but is strongly recommended. Getting input from the OA community early can usually help you find and resolve any basic issues with the idea before you go through the effort of writing a draft. These discussions can take place on the OA Worldbuilding channel on the discord or the General Setting Discussion sub-forum.


• Members are required to begin by posting a summary or outline of their proposed article or article update to the Encyclopaedia Galactica Articles sub-forum. The thread this creates will then be used to host the first and subsequent drafts of the new or updated article as well as any discussions that take place as part of its development. Article threads should be titled with the name of the new or updated article to be created.


• Once your summary or outline has been reviewed by the group, changes have been made, and the idea finalized, write up a solid draft of your proposed submission and post it to the thread created when you posted your summary/outline. Give it a title and specify here that this is the 1st draft (subsequent drafts should be labeled as such).

Note that due to their experience with the project and familiarity with its needs, Editors and Administrators may post drafts without the above limitations.

• Currently the entry needs to be in English. We accept minor variations of spelling due to national differences (e.g. both British and American spelling). If you would like to submit material but have trouble with English, post a question to the membership looking for others that may also speak your native language. They may be able to aid you in the construction of a submission.


• The OAUP does not accept article submissions in the form of links to external files. You are welcome to develop your draft using external writing tools such as MS Word or Google Docs but will then need to copy/paste the resulting document into the forum.


• If copying from an external tool, please remove all formatting. If you don't do this it makes editing posts difficult since every sentence ends up with HTML size and font code around it, which can easily get split when quoting specific points. Use the formatting on the forum to mark changes in bold or red.


• Please do not use strikethrough formatting when editing your submission, either in the forum or via external tools. Strikethroughs create more problems than they solve and we will not accept drafts that include them. If you are removing a section of text as part of the editing process, simply remove it and then bold the words immediately before and after the removed section so that we can see that a change has been made.


• Wait at least 2 or 3 days, a week is better, to receive any suggestions, objections or criticisms. You are responsible for trying to get feedback, so feel free to ask the editors for feedback again if they haven't gotten around to it yet. We all have lives and get busy so reminders can be helpful after a few weeks.


• Be prepared to back up any scientific or technical concepts with at least one good reference. Posting wild speculation, technobabble and pseudoscience is disrespectful of the membership and their time.


• PLEASE DO NOT TAKE COMMENTS AS AN ATTACK ON YOU. Our goal is to ensure a good fit for the material within the setting. If you truly feel you have been unjustly treated, and the problem has not already been dealt with, please feel free to contact an administrator. Potentially, an issue may actually be with a moderator or senior member. In this case please contact the Executive Moderator (currently Rynn) or any other administrator you feel comfortable with. Everyone is expected to behave according to the rules laid out in the Netiquette page, and we want to ensure everyone is treated fairly. We do ask you to remember that we have hundreds of members, and not everyone will see eye-to-eye on every point.


• We expect you to defend your idea. If you did not think it was a good one, you would not have submitted it in the first place.
  
  
  
  • There are a number of acceptable ways for arguing for the incorporation of an idea into the OA project if it is questioned.
    
    
    
    • Referencing generally accepted scientific or engineering publications (peer-reviewed or popular), serious websites, or other materials. Online references, including links, are particularly welcome.
    
    
    • In the case of ideas of a societal/psychological nature, this would mean describing a plausible chain of historical events, based on the setting's existing premises, that might lead to the conditions you propose.
  
  
  • The following are unacceptable defenses and will result in your submission being ignored (i.e it will never become part of the setting):
    
    
    • The idea is simply "neat" or "cool" even though it violates OA Canon, the overall tone or ethos of the OA setting, or basic logic and/or common sense. To be clear, the line between "inappropriate/impossible" and "completely justified, in-universe, and following the laws of physics" can often simply be a matter of creative problem solving and context. For example:
      
      Not appropriate: "In 6092 AT the inhabitants of the Tyrannosaur Orbital Swarm fought a space battle over ideological differences and territory claims using armies of giant humanoid mecha with laser swords. Thousands died in the conflict."
      
      Probably appropriate: "In 6092 AT the inhabitants of the Tyrannosaur Orbital Swarm voted to use their extra automated manufacturing capacity to build giant mecha for a new sports event. Teams of sophonts would each engineer giant mecha bots wielding a combination of welding torch-like plasma cutters and metal swords, scoring points based on damages and votes from the crowd."
      
    
    
    • If you just keep talking about/presenting the idea and ignoring criticism thinking we'll just give in and incorporate it
    
    
    • You really, really believe strongly that it should be the way you say.
    
    
• Once you have had plenty of feedback, rework your draft, accounting for suggestions and criticisms. Post this in the same thread as your first draft, with the same title but label it "2nd draft". If you're not sure how to do this in the forum, don't be afraid to ask for help, either from an administrator or the group in general. We've all been there and no one will laugh at you


• Repeat these steps until the consensus is that the submission is ready.


• Post a final draft to the article thread. From there it will be finalized by the Editors and then uploaded to the site with other completed submissions, usually once per month.


• You can keep track of the development status of your article using the following graphics which are added to the thread's listing in the forum by the Administrators and updated as development progresses:


• White Lego Brick: "Under construction or uploading in CMS"


• Yellow Clock: "Needs revision"


• Green Bug: "Wordsmithing or Copy Edits Pending"


• Green EG: "Published in the Encyclopaedia Galactica"


• Red Exclamation Mark: "Needs Review by Editors"


• You can keep track of what material has been added using the Latest Updates page on the website.

Back to How to Contribute