Write-ups and features

This page describes Informed Consent's write-ups and featured write-ups. These are weblog posts which are marked with or to show that they are of wider interest - that is, something like an event report, a description of a shopping trip, a new piece of kit, or an important piece of news.

You can see the kinds of topics we mean by looking at the list of featured writeups.

To create your own write-up, just follow the instructions for writing weblogs and tick the "Write-Up" box at the top of the "Make new weblog post" form.

A good write-up follows some of the basic rules derived from mainstream journalism:

• The title needs to make it clear what kind of thing you're talking about (an event? a shopping trip?); and roughly where it is (most people know KinkFest is in London every year, but where is Shop X located?).
• The first paragraph of the post tells the reader whether they will find the rest of the post interesting: you should include important what information not in the title (is this a new kind of event? you've gone to the best shop in the country according to Fetishista Magazine?) and anything about who you are that's not obvious (you went with ten friends? you're the world's leading expert on this kind of thing?)
• Once you get into the body of the post, after the first paragraph, people want to know who was involved, when it all happened, what it's all about, why it's important (and might be important to them in particular), why it's happening in the first place, and where it is (especially on a national site like IC where distance is an issue), including what the place where it is feels like (especially useful for newcomers.)
• "A picture is worth a thousand words" and you add a lot to your write-up by including photographs. These can be uploaded using the Manage Pictures page in Your Settings, and included in the post as described in the explanation of ICcode.

(Wikipedia's article on News Style and the links from it provide some more ideas.)

Featured write-ups

When you mark one of your weblog posts as a write-up, it makes it more likely that one of the IC admins will see it and mark it as a featured write-up (with the icon .) As well as the normal weblog lists, featured write-ups appear on the Featured write-ups and News page, which has a direct link from the main page of the site. Furthermore, any pictures in a featured write-up don't count against the quota of 50 pictures that you can upload, and all the pictures it contains will be approved at the same time as the write-up is marked as featured.