Tips for submitting stories to Coastsider

Coastsider is a community news site.  You don’t have to be great writer to submit a story. You only need to have a story, announcement, or opinion you want to share with the community.

Coastsider is about the Coastside. We generally don’t run stories about county, state, national, or international events unless there is a local angle. This might be a local event, such as a meeting, film, prominent visitor, rally, or particular Coastsiders affected by the issue.

Don’t worry if you’re not a writer. We’ll help you make your story look good and read well. If we make changes other than spelling and grammatical errors, we will ask for your permission. If you want some editorial help, just put a note in your story telling us how much help you’d like.

We love photos.  To include photos with your story, email them to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and let us know which story they go with.  Please include the name of the photographer for the credit line and a short caption. We prefer photos that are at least 500 pixels wide, but this is not a requirement.

Try to be brief. There are no length restrictions on Coastsider stories, but most people won’t read stories much longer than 500 words. This is about the length of a typical newspaper opinion column. We will run longer stories, particularly if it is necessary to tell a story or document the facts. This article is a little long at about 700 words.

Be respectful and civil. We allow more latitude in discussing public figures, but expect all posts to be responsible.  Abuse and reckless accusations are not acceptable.

Don’t post copyrighted material you don’t own. You can include short excerpts from longer stories and link to the full story, but you can’t post an entire copyrighted story. Don’t take photos from websites unless they are in the public domain or allow reuse. Wikipedia is a good source of photos on all kinds of topics which can be reused. Please include the source of the photo if you use someone else’s work.

You must be a registered member and you must use your real name for your screen name. To put your real name on your account, click on “Edit your profile” under the Members menu near the top of every page, and select “Username and Password”.

If you need for your story to be published anonymously, we can do that. You must have a good reason for needing to be anonymous, identify yourself to us, and we must be able to verify what you have to say.

All posts are reviewed by a moderator before they are released.  Feel free to add notes to the moderator in the body of your post.

If you want to point to another web page, just paste the site’s address in the body of your story.  We’ll turn it into a link.

Expressions of personal opinion will be published with an “opinion” or “letter to the editor” tag.

You can submit press releases, which will be published with a “press release” tag. Generally, we accept all nonprofit press releases, but are more selective with commercial press releases.  Commercial press releases should not be simply promotional, but about subjects of general community interest, such as special events.

You can start a topic in Town Hall instantly, without going through the editing step.  Town Hall is ideal for asking questions or posting quick items and requests for discussion.  If you go to a forum in Town Hall (such as “Business”) and don’t see a “New Topic” button, you need to request access.  Once you’ve registered under your real name, send an email to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) requesting posting access. We’ll set you up right away. Users with posting access to Town Hall are also able to post comments on stories without waiting for moderation.

If you’re having a problem using the submission page—or any other questions or problems—you can email your story to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)