How to get your article Accepted

Writing articles on Gamehag is one of the better ways to earn gems. However to earn gems from writing articles you have to contribute something of acceptable quality that doesn't violate one of Gamehag's core rules. This post is to help guide those who want to write for the site. It also will act as a way of recognizing why your article may have been rejected. It also goes into detail about what voters tend to like and what moderators look at as disqualifications. Reading this before you write an article will help you write an article that will be published.

Write About What You Know

   Maybe if you've played a game recently you can write a review of it. Perhaps you have some niche knowledge about a competitive game that you could share. If you're really good at a competitive game like League of Legends and you have REAL tips on how to play a certain champion or a role.
   Often there are article submissions that are written by people who don't actually know what they are talking about. When this happens it's really obvious. Don't write an article about League of Legends if you're Bronze 5. And don't write a review of a game you've barely played. I would never dream of writing an article on CS:GO because I'm terrible at the game. And I'd never write a review of Virtua Fighter because I've never played the game.

Don't Write About Something That Has Already Been Done

   Something that plagues the proposed article section are Roblox articles.  There are dozens of Roblox articles already on this site. And most of these articles say the same thing over and over again. Your version of "What is Roblox" or "Roblox Tips" will likely get rejected by voters. It has already been done and you aren't contributing anything new.
   However you shouldn't be scared to review a game that has already been reviewed on the site. While we don't want a hundred reviews of the same game having a handful isn't a bad thing. A review is a subjective article and having multiple opinions is not a bad thing.   

It is important to know the rules otherwise you article could be rejected before anyone even reads it.
The following are the reasons you article may be rejected.
These reasons are more or less what moderators use as disqualification criteria.

No Article Pictures
Large Amount of Spelling / Grammar Issues
Bad Title
Overdone Topic
Plagiarism
Profanity
Spam
Poor Article Structure

   In addition to this sometimes articles are rejected because they are simply... bad
You don't have to write like Faulkner but if your article reads like something Curious George wrote on elephant tranquilizer then you have a problem. The occasional grammar or spelling error isn't a deal breaker but when these errors become distracting the article will be taken down.
    A very common mistake is done with game reviews. Often someone will write a game review that summarizes the entire story, tells you what you do, and then simply says "This game was good". The "review" doesn't have an actual review in it. Summations of stories can be found on any wiki. Write why you think the game was good or bad. Give good well thought out analysis of of the strong and weak components of a game. Give details on the vibe and atmosphere and make sure you write more exposition than summary.

What Do Voters Look For?

Making it through the process means making it through community voters. After reading many comments and seeing which articles have made it past the initial phase there are patterns to what the general population likes.

The Voters Like Pictures
Most voters don't actually read the entire article, they are just looking to see if the article looks nice. Pictures help with this and increase the visual appeal of your piece. Having pictures between every major section increase your approval rate significantly.

The Voters Hate Re submissions
If your article has been rejected and you revise it and resubmit the voters are much less accepting.
In my case I had to get rid of a link to an outside source on a Rocksmith article. After having my article rejected by moderators I revised the article. The second time around it took much longer to be approved by voters. And the article had many negative comments about how I submitted the article before. If you are submitting something make sure to get it right the first time. Otherwise your chances for approval will go down.


Voters Like Proper Formatting
Put headings, put proper spacing, and plan out a structure to you article beforehand.

What is the Process?

    Articles go through multiple stages to get approved. Initially they go through the voting process that is open to all members of gamehag. Then the automated system takes a look at the articles. It scans for things like phrases in foreign languages and profanities. After this moderators take a look at the articles and decide whether or not the article is of good enough quality to publish. While the criteria is static there will be discrepancies in what articles are considered good enough quality for the site. For example, I am probably much more likely to reject an article than nearly any other English moderator. For the most part however, good work will make it through the process. If your article is rejected take time to reflect on what you did wrong and resubmit the article. If you put in enough effort you will definitely find your article on the front page.


Thanks xx