You may have noticed this little guy popping up next to your comments, that’s because we’ve starting using Gravatars.  Gravatar is a pretty cool service from Automattic, the makers of the software that runs this blog, that lets you associate a picture of yourself (or just any picture) with the email address that you use to comment on this blog.

It’s really easy to sign-up for and is very harmless (your email address isn’t shared or revealed and they won’t send you any spam). So if you are a frequent commenter here (or any of the 1000s of other blogs that use Gravatars) go ahead and express yourself; if you want to remain visually anonymous go ahead and do nothing.

Introduction

Welcome to the first official style guide for the Providence Daily Dose! Within these guidelines you will find the proper style rules and technical procedures for submitting you work for publication to the site. Some of you have been with us since the beginning, and many of these items you will be familiar with. The guide is meant as a refresher for folks who’ve been with us for a while as well as a proper tutorial for newer writers and those coming on board in the future. It is the Rules for writing for the dose, and will probably be amended as things progress. Feel free to make suggestions or ask an editor for clarification.

The Basics of Writing Posts

In general, your posts should be succinct, witty, and informative. Brevity is key, and style will make it pop. Obviously your basic rules of grammar apply, as well as the recognized rules of news writing. For all these details I’d recommend the Chicago Style Book as well as Strunk & White. All writers should own these two books.

Adding Pictures

Great pictures are what make posts stand out, and they are required for all posts on the site with very few exceptions. When choosing an image for your posts look for images that are vibrant, and colorful.  Big, bright images are key. Great images can usually be found easily by doing a Google image search about whatever it is you’re writing about. Choose something different than other publications, have a sense of images that are overused or boring and avoid them. Avoid using logos of companies or organizations, for example, if you’re writing about an organization’s event, do not imply use their logo as the image, but look for a picture from a similar event or of the key person in the story. Also, when covering an event or show, avoid simply using the flyer or poster of the event, again look for something different. Remember to credit photographers, especially local ones when possible. Do not use images from the Phoenix or the Projo, they will ask us to remove them. For great examples of using images for posts check out the Huffington Post, the New York Times website as well as Gawker and IO9.com

Pictures are added to posts using our Flickr account, which you will be given the access passwords for. Use the largest image possible that is appropriate; if it’s a small blurb use a small picture and if it’s anything near or over 100 to 300 words, use a picture that is as close to the size of the text block as you can get it. Going forward, editors or going to take a greater role in editing and changing photos. Don’t take it personally; we just want the posts to look as great as possible.

Using The Jump (More Tag)

An important part of writing a post is knowing when and where to use the jump, or ‘Read More’ feature, which allows your post to continue on another page. The general rule is to keep the most important details of the post or an introduction to a longer post on the main page. No more than 300 words should be on the main page of a regular post, and up to 500 words for a feature post. (Feature posts are a new thing with the redesign and will be addressed later.) Proper examples of using the jump are the Jersey Girls column as well as longer posts by Ari Savitzky and Matt Lawrence. Again, editors will be more involved in adding a jump to your piece or adjusting its placement.

Hyperlinks And How To Use Them.

Hyperlinks should be used wherever appropriate especially when referencing the original news source like another website or linking to a company or organization through a press release. Be sure to use the ‘Open link in a new window’ option so our page remains open for the reader.

Listing Shows and Music Events

Show listings should follow this format as closely as possible:

Have block of text describing the type of music, bands/artists, club and other pertinent info. All names of bands, artists, clubs, records labels or anything else is hyperlinked to the appropriate web page. Describe the event as thoroughly as possible. Club name, band 1, band 2, band 3 show time, $Price

Be sure to use a great picture of one of the bands as large as possible. Vibrant live shots are best, look for the most professional or unique images that are available. Image goes above the text block.

Tags

Please be sure to includes tags when writing posts. Tags are helpful in getting people using search engines to find your posts and also enable the related posts function of the site to work properly.

Dear readers,

I hope you like our new look. It has been in the works for a long while and will hopefully make your experience even more captivating. We’ll soon be introducing a new way for all of our readers to contribute their own news and opinions. So stay tuned for more information.

I’d also like to take a moment to recognize that Beth, who many of you probably know as one of our most prolific contributors, has become our newest editor. I’m pretty sure that today marks a new and exciting era for the Dose.

As always please let us know what we are doing right or wrong by dropping us a line at tips@providencedailydose.com.

As of today we’ve had more than 100,000 page-views since launching in the fall!!! Thanks so much for the continued support.

There are two ways to look at this:

1) It’s freaking awesome.

2) We have a ways to go before we rule the world. (For instance… more people read about us in that Projo article than have visited the site.)

Such are the travails of us pioneers, in Dark Age of the blogosphere.

This is it, our 1,000th post! And I’m going to use it to thank all of our readers and commentators so far, and to thank all of our amazing writers who make this possible.  That is all!

Some stats to commemorate this historical occasion:

• Days: 98
• Posts: 1,000
• Page-views last month: 38,199 (and growing)
• Contributors: 22
• Most viewed post: A Very Special Jersey Girls Holiday (Over 650 pageviews that day.)
• Most commented on post: An Open Letter To Gloria Steinem by Ariel Werner This post set off a firestorm of comments, probably 300 total spread across a dozen blogs that linked to it.

Okay, folks. The big announcement:

The first annual Daily Dose holiday party will be on TONIGHT TUESDAY, December 13th 18th, 9pm-ish, at Local 121.

Dosers Micah Jackson spinning your all-time fave holiday classics by the Chipmunks, Burl Ives, and Paul McCartney. With a heavy sampling of Vince Guaraldi, laid down over Kurtis Blow’s phat Christmas beats:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZiNBMqJEUM]

Hey y’all, we’ve got some galleries. You should check them out.

If you’ve got snapshots, or paintings, or postsers, or whatever that you’d like to share with the rest of the Daily Dose Nation send them to us. Be sure to include your name, and a brief description of whatever you are sending us.

Get your work seen! We have thousands of visitors every week.