Story Title

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Here are some guidelines to keep in mind for choosing a good story title:

• Catchy: Your story is likely to be read and liked by more users if the title is attractive.
• Descriptive: It should give some idea about the content of the story (avoid totally unrelated titles).
• Appropriate Length: Avoid too short or too long titles. 5 to 10 words work best.
• Clean: Avoid inappropriate words. Also if the title is automatically filled in, you may want to change it and/or remove generic terms from it (e.g. sometimes the name of the external website is added to the title that is not needed) to keep it clean.

How to use Tags

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Tags are words or phrases that you can attach to your story. These allow other users to easily find your story when they click on those tags anywhere on the website. You can use mutliple tags (separated by a comma) for your story. Each tag can be a single word or a combination of words (separeated by space or hyphen), although we recommend using single words. We suggest using at least 5 tags in each story.

What words to use as tags? Try to think what are the common terms that can be used to describe this story. Think in terms of what words other users might search for, when they may want to see your story! For example, if your story is about a project giving first-aid training to school students, you can use tags such as first-aid, health, accident, schools, training.

How to write a good description

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If you are writing an editorial (own article), then you will paste all the content here. If you are linking to a story on another website, please write a short description of the story, and points that you want to highlight (or copy a few sentences from the original website). It is generally not needed to copy the whole article, but only the most interesting aspects and ideas of the article that will encourage other users to read the article in full. Please try to write your opinion on the subject/idea and ask questions to other users.

You can include videos, images and documents in your story to make it more appealing and useful, as described below:

How do I put videos in my stories?
Simply copy the "Embed" code from YouTube or any video site you are using, and paste it into the Description field of your story. The embed code may look something like this:

<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/TuNkrQ_26Bw"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/TuNkrQ_26Bw" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>

How do I add documents (Word/PDF/Powerpoint/MP3) to my stories?
We do not allow attachments. However, we provide a more elegant method: embedding. First, you submit your document to a hosting site such as Scribd, SlideShare etc, and then get the embed code for the document. Follow the same procedure as described for embedding videos. This may sound a bit tedious at first, but the viewers are much more likely to see your document when displayed beautifully in the browser, instead of downloading a big fat attachment.

How do I display images in my stories?
We do not allow attachments. If the image is available on a website, follow two simple steps:
1. Copy the URL of the image (in Internet Explorer: right click on the image and go to "Properties" at the bottom. In Firefox, right click on the image and click on "Copy Image Location").
2. Add the following piece of code into the Description of your story (paste the URL between the quotes): <img src="  ">

How to write a good summary

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Summary of the story appears on the listing pages, such as the Front page or the categories pages etc. and contains a few sentences about the story. There are two ways of adding a summary:

• Automatic: If you don't add any summary, we will just take some of the initial sentences from your story description and use it as summary. This is the shortcut method to save your time.
• Manual: If you have two minutes to spare, we suggest that you write a few sentences (usually two or three) about your story as summary. The summary should be catchy and precise, to make the readers interested in going to the main story page. 
  

Description of Categories

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Each story can be assigned to a single category that best describes the content of the story (and use multiple Tags to highlight other aspects of the story). Here is a description of what we expect in each category:

Category	Description
Others	Anything that does not fit in the categories below
Alternate Energy	Various approaches for energy production and consumption that are "greener" and sustainable in the future. Include discussion on solar, wind, hydel, nuclear, biofuels, hydrogen and other alternative energy approaches.
Appropriate Technology	Technology for solving practical problems with consideration to the environmental, cultural and socioeconomic aspects of the intended community. E.g., ICTD, mechanical designs, rural technologies etc.
Arts & Culture	Promotion and preservation of indigenous arts and culture including dance, music, literature, architectural monuments, sports, etc. Promotion of peace & harmony through cultural exchanges.
Conflict & Disaster	Prevention/relief for natural disasters like earthquakes, hurricanes etc and "man-made" calamities like war and regional conflicts. Promotion of peace through international policies and relations.
Economics & Business	Economic development, poverty alleviation, accessible micro-finance, fair-trade, livelihood activities, Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP) enterprises etc.
Education & Training	Accessible, quality primary and higher education, new educational models, open-educational resources, programs for vocational and livelihood training.
Environment & Ecology	Conservation of environment and ecological resources. Global warming, pollution reduction, recycling, protection of biodiversity and wildlife, animal rights etc.
Food & Water	Food production (e.g. agriculture, irrigation and associated activities), water purification and conservation (e.g. rainwater harvesting, water-table management) and their distribution.
Governance & Infrastructure	Govt. policies, participative governance, transparency and access to administrative information, eliminating corruption, etc. Also providing good public infrastructure like electricity, roads, transport etc.
Health & Disability	Prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diseases and disability, population & reproductive health. Accessible health care and physical, spiritual and psychological well-being for all.
Housing & Sanitation	Respectable and affordable housing and sanitation for all, urban housing and slum rehabilitation issues.
Human Rights	Welfare of different groups like children, women, transgenders, senior citizens, indigenous tribes, minorities etc. Prevention of exploitation, abuse (sexual or otherwise), human trafficking, racism etc.
Inspiration & Humour	Articles to make you smile, feel good about all the efforts to make the world a better place, inspire and even fire you to be a changemaker youryself!
* Needs & Opportunities *	Needs for volunteers, knowledge, money or in-kind donations and specific opportunities like call for grant proposals, NGO events, courses etc can be announced.
Useful Resources	Libraries and traditional news sources, databases of NGOs, funding agencies, volunteers etc, communities for development, how-to's (e.g. how to register a non-profit, how to donate organs) and all such.

Get email when someone adds a discussion on your story

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We know that you want to find out if other people are discussing your story. If this option is selected (default), you will get an email whenever a discussion is posted on this story, so that you can participate in the discsusion. Please note that for your privacy, your email id will not be disclosed to the users, they can only contact you by adding a discsussion. If you do not want any emails, please uncheck this option.