Dreams of the Quill

Contributing content to DotQ is fairly easy. However, with ease comes some concern. Following is some legal mumbo-jumbo, and then instructions on how to contribute. (Legal mumbo-jumbo begone, take me to “How to Contribute!”)

Privacy

DotQ values privacy. A lot. More on that here.
But more specifically, on the topic of contributing content, the admins will listen to almost any demand you could make regarding privacy. You want to submit stuff and have it posted anonymously? That’s cool! You want to use a pseudonym, and not let others know that you’re actually Alar? That’s cool too! DotQ requires that you submit at least some amount of personal info in order to contribute content, and none of that will be used for anything other than getting your content online. DotQ will not share or display any information you submit unless you explicitly request otherwise.

Rights and Ownership

Contributed content remains the property of its creator. Forever. DotQ has no interest in stealing emo poetry and then selling it. We don’t do that. You, the creator of whatever content you are submitting, retain full rights to it. Including the right to demand that the admins remove the content from DotQ. However, while you’re powerful and all, DotQ (and its admins) gain “some rights” to your content, as enumerated below:

1. The admins of Dreams of the Quill have the right to copy and recreate your submitted content as necessary to publish it in the manner you desire, and to display it anywhere on the site until asked to remove it.
2. The admins of Dreams of the Quill have full rights to possessing copies of your submitted content insofar as the admins possess full backups of the site at all times. These copies will be used for nothing but restoring the content to the site, should there be some technical failure.
3. The admins of Dreams of the Quill have the right to mention and display excerpts of your submitted content in order to promote the site, so long as the content remains on the site with your permission.

Beyond these three, your content is entirely yours. Should you ever wish it taken down, inform the admins and it shall be taken down. As it is taken down, the admins lose the three above rights to it.

Copyright Infringement and DotQ’s Liability

The admins of Dreams of the Quill are not liable for any inappropriate content the site’s users may contribute. This means that the admins are not to be expected to check every submission tip-to-tail for stolen content. We trust that you are an honest, good person, and that your submissions are your own creations. Should they turn out not to be (this needs to be brought to the admins’ attention, once again, it is not an issue that we should be expected to notice on our own), your content will be removed from the site immediately. Further submissions of yours will be rejected, and you may face other barriers in your participation in DotQ (inability to log into the forums, for one).

How to Contribute

There are three different methods: posting to the main site, posting to the forums, and e-mailing the admins.

Main Site Direct Contributions

Now, you can contribute to DotQ directly, without ever needing to interact with the admins!

It’s fairly straight forward: register, and then create a new post. (Don’t rinse; you can repeat that second step as many times as you want once registered.)

Here’s some info on how to post with Wordpress, the blog software used by DotQ’s main site.
Here’s how to upload files.

In this way, you can submit text, art, videos (use YouTube’s embed codes directly in the post), the works, to DotQ all with the clicking of a few buttons. It’s also a great way to … well, have a blog. There’s this handy “Life” category on DotQ, and you can post pretty much anything you’d like to it. The only potential downside to direct contributions is that, much like with the forum contribution option directly below, they compromise some of your anonymity and privacy.

Forum Contributions

Contributing via the forum is pretty easy, it just requires an account on the Dreams of the Quill forums. Once logged in, you can simply post text to the Graveyard of Literature, art to the Artisan’s Workshop, Warcraft III maps to the Mapmaker’s Hut, YouTube videos to the Video Announcements, and random uncategorized stuff to whichever board section you see fit. This is incredibly easy on the admins, though perhaps registering on the forums may raise some privacy concerns for some. As stated above, we have a page about that.

Also, something to note: the forums DO have attachments now. Post whatever files you want.

E-mail Contributions

These are the best way to preserve your privacy. They’re also a total hassle compared to the awesomeness of main site direct contributions. Ah well.

Text — This is pretty simple. E-mail dotq11@gmail.com with your text in a text file attachment (.doc, .rtf, .txt., .otd, etc.). Make your e-mail subject “DotQ Submission” and include in your e-mail body the piece’s title and what you’d like to be called (if anything). If the piece is part of a series, note that (otherwise your text will get the short story treatment). If you could give a brief description of the piece in your e-mail, that would be great.

Art — This one is fairly straight forward. E-mail dotq11@gmail.com with your image as an attachment. Any file type is fine. Max file size is 10 megabytes. Make your e-mail subject “DotQ Submission” and include, somewhere in your e-mail body, how you want your piece to be referred to, what you’d like to be called (if anything), and where on the site the artwork should go. You can choose from one of the existing galleries on the art page, or you can suggest your own. A brief description of your artwork would also be welcome.

Video — This one is probably the easiest. Upload your video to YouTube, and then e-mail dotq11@gmail.com with a link to your video. You don’t need to include any extra info or anything because the admins can find anything they need from your YouTube channel.

Game Scenarios — If this is a specific file for a specific game (e.g. Warcraft III), e-mail dotq11@gmail.com with your file in an attachment. Include all info you can such as: what game it’s from, a description of the scenario, etc. Note that the admins are unlikely to publish this kind of content unless it’s for a game they play (Warcraft III, Wesnoth). If what you’re submitting is some kind of textual file (text-based RPG, story for a LARP, etc.), go ahead and check out the “Forum Contributions” section above, because that’s where those things belong. Generally.

Audio — DotQ has yet to see purely audio content come to its gates. Guidelines will be established as necessary.

With great power comes great decision-making: to e-mail, or to post to the forums, or to circumvent all of that and publish directly to the main site? The choice is yours.

Dreams of the Quill looks forward to your submission!