Since we know how many members will be wanting to join this venture and write something for us
, we have some guidelines to give an idea of the sort of thing we're looking for. Please don't hesitate to contact one of the admins if you have questions, suggestions, or comments, and especially if you're interested in becoming an author.
- The forum rules about posting and copyright issues also apply to articles.
- The article should be your original work. Material quoted from other sources should be clearly identified as such, and appropriate credit should be given.
- Articles should be about royalty-related topics and should have substantive content. We encourage authors to provide references for factual material, and facts and opinions should be clearly differentiated. Articles presenting a biased opinion, as opposed to presenting both sides of an argument, are acceptable as long as the opinion is backed up by published facts. In-depth book and movie reviews are also acceptable; short reviews belong in the relevant threads in the Royal Library.
- Articles about topics already covered by previous articles are acceptable as long as they're saying something new, since we would like to avoid having articles repeat each other and we're not planning to remove older ones. If you would like to write about a topic for which articles already exist, please contact one of the administrators to talk about your idea, and we will try to accommodate it.
- Finished articles should be in grammatically correct English, with correct spelling and punctuation and all that good stuff. Editorial assistance will be available to help authors with presentation and fact-checking. We encourage non-native English speakers to volunteer as authors if they would like to participate.
- Length should be around 1000-5000 words. This is flexible, but we don't want really short articles and we don't have the resources to deal with book manuscripts; we're looking for a happy medium. Series of articles on related subjects are welcome, but each article in the series should be a stand-alone piece of work in its own right. Titles should be concise but informative, and longer articles should be divided into sections with headings that are also concise but informative.
- Copyright of the text of the article will remain with the author; by using TRF resources in preparing the article, the author grants permission to TRF to publish the article on our site. After an article has been published, TRF has no obligation to remove it from the site at the author's request.
- Copyright of photos remains with the original copyright holders; when we request permission to use their photos in our articles, we're requesting permission to use them at TRF only. If authors subsequently wish to publish their articles elsewhere, they will have to obtain permission from the copyright holders (including other forum members as well as commercial photographers and agencies) to include the photos in their articles.
- While we try to publish articles shortly after they have been completed, all the editors are volunteers with real-life obligations, and sometimes there will be delays. Please bear with us if your article is held up, and feel free to contact any of the editors or admins if you have concerns.
- If you're interested in writing for us, please contact one of the admins with your idea for a topic and, if possible, a summary of what you intend to write. While we try to accommodate all our prospective authors, we're looking for subject matter and content that are consistent with the overall balance of the forum, and we may occasionally have to refuse or defer articles that don't help us achieve this aim.
- No, we aren't planning to pay our authors. You're doing this because you love royalty and the forums so much.
We're looking for suggestions for articles on any royalty-related topic. Even if you don't want to write an article but are interested in reading something on a particular topic, feel free to PM us with your suggestions; ideas are always welcome. If you do want to write an article, that's even better! Please feel free to ask questions in this thread if you're interested in how the articles section will work, and we'll do our best to provide information.
Our main categories at the moment are Biography, History, Monarchy Today, and General Interest. We have plans to add a Life and Lifestyle category and a Reviews category later. We're also thinking of maybe adding a Ceremony and Protocol category if we get enough articles.
We're looking forward to working with our authors to make the articles section of this forum into something really special that we can all be proud of. And many thanks to ysbel for having the idea that started it all and to Andy for making it possible!