Everything you need to know about the contribution tool.
Getting Started
- Log in to your Fandom account.
- Go to your Author Page.
- At the top of your Author Page, you’ll find you have two tabs – one that says “Latest Articles” and another that says “Drafts”. All of your published articles live on your “Latest Articles” tab. “Drafts” is where you can write and submit your articles.
- Press the “Drafts” tab. This may be empty or it may have a few of your pending articles.
- Start a new article by pressing the blue and white + symbol at the bottom right-hand corner of the page
- Begin writing (see below for more details)
- Once you’re happy with your draft, you have checked it over, have added links and images, and you feel it’s ready for an Editor, press “submit”
- The “submit” button will then lock you out of your article so you won’t be able to make any further edits without the permission of an Editor (contact editorial@fandom.com)
- Once you have submitted your draft, you will see that your article will be listed as “In Review”. This means an Editor is in the process of reviewing and editing your article. This may take up to three days.
- You must contact an Editor to inform them that you have submitted your article.(Contact editorial@fandom.com)
- An Editor will contact you directly if you need to make any further changes or edits to your article.
- Once the article is published, it will appear at the top of your “Latest Articles”.
Toolbar
Along the top of your page is where your toolbar lives. All of the formatting tools you need to create a Fandom article all sit across here.
Formatting drop-down menu
The formatting drop-down menu is for all of your subheadings within the article.
“Heading” is for your main subheadings.
“Subheading” is for your second subheading.
“Paragraph” is for your normal written text.
Here’s how they each look:
And in practice:
Bold and Italics
The “B” symbol is to make your text Bold. The “I” symbol is to put your text into italics. These symbols are the same as any other word processor.
Lists
The next two symbols create lists within your article. Again, these symbols are the same as any other word processor.
The list with the numbers on the side creates a numbered list.
The list with the dots on the side creates dot points.
Quotes
The quotation mark symbol is to create an indented quote. Having quotes indented in your article really stands out.
Here’s what it looks like when published:
Links
The chain icon is how you add links to your article. Highlight the text you want to add a link to, press the chain icon, then insert your link.
- Note: a current known bug has been found that won’t let you delete your link, so be careful when you use this tool until the bug is fixed
Images
The icon with the picture of a mountain range in a frame is for adding your images. Once you’ve downloaded an image to your own computer that you’d like to use in your article, press the picture icon to import the image from your computer into your article.
For featured images, this is what the camera icon at the top center panel is for. Just like your frame icon, press it to add an image from your computer.
- Note: Featured images must be 1280×720 in size. Other sizes may look like they fit, but once published, they will look squished and yucky
Embeds
Want to embed a social media post or video? Press the “</>” icon, insert the URL, then click “insert”. Video previews won’t be visible but we assure you, the video will look normal once published.
Currently, the sites you can embed from are:
- YouTube
- Twitch (channels, VOD, clips)
- Ooyala
The following sites are coming soon:
- Fandom articles
- Spotify
- Soundcloud
- Apester
- Vimeo
FAQ
Where do I go to save my article?
The contributor tool is currently designed to auto-save.
What is “Alt Text” and why do I need to add it to an image?
“Alt text” is important descriptive information of an image that does two major things:
- It helps Google understand your article better, making sure that when your article is published, it can identify that this is a legitimate article and the content is relevant. This is important because it helps your article become more visible on search engines.
- It gives visually-impaired people the ability to experience your article. The “alt text” of your image is what website-reading software reads to a visually-impaired user.
The “Alt text” of your image doesn’t have to be overly detailed, it just needs to state what and/or who is in the image, what it’s from (ie is it from Game of Thrones or Mario Kart, etc), and something brief about what’s happening in the image. For example: “notre dame paris sunset” or “jon snow battle S3 Game of Thrones”
Problems, bugs, or feedback?
Having problems with the new contributor tool? Found a bug? Have some useful feedback for our team regarding the tool? Email us at editorial@fandom.com