Submitting a Story

Submitting a Story to Scala-lang.org

Scala-lang.org is the official website of the Scala language, and as such it offers a wealth of information devoted to the language: documentation, software, APIs, and so on. But that is not all. In addition, the front page of our website is designed so that it always displays updated news items related to the Scala language.

In order to publish a steady flow of news that is relevant to the entire Scala community, we have now decided to open the website to general news submissions coming from all Scala users. We are therefore glad to invite news story submissions from the Scala community at large.

Do you have a piece of news that you think may be of interest to the Scala community? Do you know about an upcoming conference, a published paper, or a new project that you feel might be interesting? Would you like to make an announcement regarding your own Scala-related tool or framework? Just submit a story to Scala-lang.org!

What we are looking for

We are primarily looking for news items that are of general interest to the Scala community, and that deserve to be brought to the attention of all Scala-lang.org visitors. That includes, for instance:

• Announcements related to the availability or the development of products or technologies that are centered around the Scala language, or that concern Scala users: projects, tools, framework, etc. That may well include your own project!
• Reports or announcements concerning planned or recent events that may be relevant to the Scala community: conferences, presentations, etc.
• Information regarding venues, either physical or online, that may facilitate the communication among Scala enthusiasts: new websites, blogs, forums, mailing lists, as well as Scala user groups, and their activities
• Information concerning documentation that is either related to Scala, or that may be of interest to Scala user: new papers, articles, guides, courses, books, book reviews, and so on
• Any other kind of news that you think may be of interest to the Scala community

In all of these cases, by all means do submit a story to Scala-lang.org!

Conversely, we are less likely to consider: suggestions or debates about Scala features, personal opinions or commentaries, code writing suggestions, or requests for assistance; for all that, the most appropriate venues are our mailing lists, and the many excellent blogs and websites devoted to Scala. We might possibly publish news stories about authoritative opinions that can have a broader impact on the programming language community or the industry, but that will be an exception, rather than the rule.

In general, we are simply looking for Scala news, in order to better serve our growing Scala community.

How do I submit a story?

The submission system is easy to use. First of all, you need to be registered with an account on this website; if you don't have an account you can easily create one at any time on this page.

Once you are logged in, just click on the "Create content" link that is always displayed on the right. From the page that appears, select the "Story" link, and you will be presented with a simple form, entitled "Create Story".

Simply type in the title of your submission, and the text of the news item. At any time, you can save a draft of your work by clicking on the "Save" button at the bottom. That will not submit your work, but just save a preliminary draft version.

You can save your story as many times as you want, and you can make all the changes that you need. When your story is complete and ready for submission, just click on the "Workflow" tab that is displayed just below the story title. Select the "Submitted" state, and add a brief description for us. Then, click on the "Submit" button. That's it!

Don't hesitate to submit a story if you think it might be of interest!

You will be able to obtain an overview of all your stories by clicking at any time on the "My Workspace" link on the right, and you will be able to follow their progress by selecting the "Workflow" tab of the various stories. You will also be notified via email whenever something new happens.

What goes into a story?

A story should be a short summary of the news item or of the resource that you find interesting, with all the relevant links. The length of the text can be anywhere between 4 lines to more or less a page of text, but not much longer: a story is not supposed to be a full article about something, but just a summary pointing to the relevant resources. Accordingly, a story does not usually include pictures. For instance, if you want to write a very long report about a conference for instance, including pictures, it is probably more appropriate to set up a separate page, and create a story that links to it.

In any case, there is no hard limit for the length of a story. If you are writing an extensive news roundup, or if you feel that for some other reason a longer story may be appropriate, feel free to submit a longer text. If the story really is too long, we will just tell you so and suggest improvements.

Preferably, when writing a story, you should adopt an impersonal style; avoid saying "I did X", but rather write the post as if you were reporting about something: "John Doe did X". It goes without saying that the usual plagiarism rules apply: if you copy and paste text from another web page, you must always give a proper attribution of the original text, preferably with a link to the original source.

What happens after submission?

When you click on the final "Submit" button, you will get an automated email confirming your submission, and your story will enter our moderation system. At this point we will review your submission, and evaluate whether it should appear on the front page. If necessary, we might make minor edits; we will ask for your approval before proceeding. The submission will then be either accepted or not; if the text needs major changes, we will ask you to resubmit the story after more editing. In any case, don't be too concerned about whether your submission is of a high enough quality for the Scala front page: just submit your story; in the worst case it won't go through. And, even in that case, you can still try again!

Can I submit other kinds of content?

If the submission mechanism works as planned, we may extend user submissions to other content types, for instance FAQ items, or possibly user polls. On the other hand, the pages that are mostly static, for instance those that contain Scala documentation or user guides, will still be mostly edited internally. If you would like to contribute a full technical article or guide, for hosting on our website, please contact us directly.

Anything else that I should know?

As an exception rather than the rule, some last-minute editing might be required in order to correct factually incorrect information, or to clarify some content, or similar reasons. Consequently, we reserve the right to edit any submitted story, even after the story has been published, in order to address any concerns that should arise. Please note that, by submitting your story to Scala-lang.org, you implicitly authorize us to publish it on our website (possibly in edited form) and you agree that you will not make copyright claims on that text at a later time.

This is all! So what are you waiting for? Log on and submit your story now!