If you know your stuff and can write it down so that others
can understand and enjoy it - then write for us !
We're especially looking for
articles on web development technology and techniques.
If you can write clearly on
any technical aspect of the web,
we'd like to hear from you. Please read all of the following
before submitting a proposal.
We are looking for:
Short Articles
Introduction to a topic, with links to further resources
(500 - 2000 words).
Surveys
Overview of a field with many pointers to resources.
Features
In-depth how-to tutorials, possibly in several parts
(2000 - 2500 words).
(The word counts are suggestions only).
We are NOT interested in opinions, rants, meditations, etc.
We are vendor-neutral and W3C/standards biased - we prefer articles
dealing with platform and browser-independent technologies, but will
certainly make reasonable exceptions - e.g. a review of Netscape's
latest release won't have much to say about Microsoft's..
Our focus is
"the illustrated webmaster's encyclopedia"
which means for example that we tend to prefer 'comprehensive' to
'in-depth' - if there are other web sites or pages adequately covering
some relevant aspect then link to it rather than re-invent.
Links can be made directly from within the article and
summarised/extended with a "Resources.html" file.
There is a
house style
and everything goes through my
ht preprocessor
to slap on the ad banners, navbars, etc.
A quick tour of the site
will reveal the main options
(and bring you up to speed on what we already have).
If you want something that appears to be outside that range,
we'll see what we can do.
But the main procedure is to write the simplest possible
valid HTML
(W3C4.0) and let us do the rest.
We strongly prefer that you don't use an HTML editor -
they generate horrible code which makes it more difficult for us to
use.
We prefer to work with straight text or simple HTML written by
hand, rather than HTML editor output which tends to cause us
problems. Also we might want to divide your article into a
small number of separate pages, so it helps if you can either
divide it yourself or indicate good logical breaks. The
easiest way for us to pick it up is by http, i.e. as a page or
pages from your server.
We will perform the necessary HTML coding to fit your article into
our house style.
Your article should be very concise; do not explain detail that can be
found elsewhere on this site or the web - link to it.
We will almost certainly ask for changes in your article.
Do not construe this as personal criticism.
We reserve the right to not publish articles that do not in our opinion
mesh well with The WDVL's style and philosophy.
Our editorial discretion is final.
Articles will be paid for after publication.
Please send us the URL(s) of any samples of your work when applying.
Please do not apply if you have less than one year's solid web
development experience.
