Matt's Diary Primer

With the draft fast approaching, everyone has their own ideas, and many of you have taken up writing Diaries, which is great. One of the best things about SBNation is the Diaries panel, but with more and more activity the quality of the submissions have also gone down, and that part of the page has gotten very cluttered at points.

So I thought I'd write up a quick tutorial on how to make your diaries sparkle with substance. I like everyone having the chance to write up their own say, but this isn't going to turn into some two-bit message board, damnit. So some pointers:

• Format your diary: Nobody wants to read a bunch of garbled unorganized text. Brother site Bleed Cubbie Blue has a nice write-up on the formatting tags that this site uses. Keep in mind you can also use standard HTML tagging if you know that syntax.
   
• Link your sources: We're all part of one big happy internet family, so if you're going to quote a source, please provide a link to it. And learn the formatting so you can effectively quote and link the sources.
   
• Don't duplicate ideas: If you see someone already posted something similar to what you were thinking, just add a comment to that post instead of creating another separate diary. Similarly, if you have an off-topic point feel free to start a new thread.
   
• Use a relevant title: That way people can more easily follow the conversations happening on the site. Don't use vague diary titles like 'I have an idea', and 'trade'.

Ok, enough 'teaching'. But hopefully this helps everyone, especially the bit about formatting. If you haven't noticed, I rely on you guys not only to keep the site active but also to provide front-page material by way of promoting diaries.

By the way, none of these 'rules' apply to me, so don't hold me to them!