The Sims Wiki:News team

The News Team is a group of The Sims Wiki editors that have agreed to volunteer their time and writing talents to write our weekly news blogs and other news features.

How to volunteer
Although there is no strict requirement for joining the News Team, we do expect that News Team members are:
 * able to write and communicate fluently in English,
 * able to commit to writing complete news blogs,
 * willing to volunteer to write news blogs, and
 * to follow through with completing those writing tasks.

If you feel you meet these criteria, please sign your name on the Volunteer Sign-up list below.

Standards for the News Team
Generally, we publish our weekly news blog on Sundays (based on UTC, not local time/date). Special blogs about new game features, other Sims, or Wiki news can be written on days other than Sunday, but please don't write news blogs for minor occurrences. For specific The Sim's Pen standards, please see The Sims Wiki:The Sim's Pen for more details.

There is no absolute standard on the appearance of the weekly blogs. However, as these blogs have been released, a unified visual appearance and layout has materialized. For examples of the theme, see this, this, and this. The following are generally repeated standards for each news blog.
 * Each blog is titled with 'User blog:/The Sims Wiki News - date Month year'. The date is listed as a number, and is given an ordinal suffix (e.g. 11th, 21st, 22nd), and the month and year are both given fully.
 * The blogs usually use a green border and white background. To add this to a blog post, include at the top of the page and  at the bottom.
 * Blog posts usually utilize Pagecover; images used in the pagecover should be higher-resolution and, if possible, related to a main subject of the blog (like a new game/expansion pack release, an upcoming holiday, etc.).
 * The blogs generally use the same section headers, including a section on 'Sims News' and 'The Sims Wiki News'. Other sections can be included as the situation warrants.
 * The blogs are signed by the users that post them.
 * The Follow us template is added to the end of the blog.
 * Blogs relating to The Sims Wiki News should be added to Category:The Sims Wiki Weekly News and Category:Wiki news blogs, while blogs for The Sim's Pen should be added to Category:The Sim's Pen.

Volunteer Sign-up for The Sims Wiki News
Attention volunteers! Please try and have your blog written and published by 12:00 UTC on your sign-up date. If your blog is not published by that time, a backup writer may jump in to write the blog instead.

Sign up for January 10th, 2016
 * Writer: Needed
 *  Backup writer: Needed 

Sign up for January 17th, 2016
 * Writer: Needed
 *  Backup writer: Needed 

Sign up for January 24th, 2016
 * Writer: Needed
 *  Backup writer: Needed 

Sign up for January 31st, 2016
 * Writer: Needed
 *  Backup writer: Needed 

Sign up for February 7th, 2016
 * Writer: Needed
 *  Backup writer: Needed 

Volunteer Sign-up for The Sim's Pen
Attention volunteers! Please try and have your blog written and published by 12:00 UTC on your sign-up date. If your blog is not published by that time, a backup writer may jump in to write the blog instead. Also note that when naming your entry, please make sure that you now write the full date, e.g. "22nd February 2015."

Sign up for January 17th, 2016 (Issue LXIX)
 * Writer: Needed
 *  Backup writer: Needed 

Sign up for January 24th, 2016 (Issue LXX)
 * Writer: Needed
 *  Backup writer: Needed 

Sign up for January 31st, 2016 (Issue LXXI)
 * Writer: Needed
 *  Backup writer: Needed 

Sign up for February 7th, 2016 (Issue LXXII)
 * Writer: Needed
 *  Backup writer: Needed 

Sign up for February 14th, 2016 (Issue LXXIII)
 * Writer: Needed
 *  Backup writer: Needed 

Reminding users to do what they signed up for
It is common for people to sign up to do the news blog and then completely forget about it! To prevent this, other users may choose to remind them on the day they're supposed to write it using either a hand-written message or a templated message.


 * To remind writers of The Sims Wiki News

Copy and paste the following at the bottom of their talk page:


 * To remind backup writers of The Sims Wiki News

Copy and paste the following at the bottom of their talk page:


 * To remind writers of The Sim's Pen

Copy and paste the following at the bottom of their talk page:


 * To remind backup writers of The Sim's Pen

Copy and paste the following at the bottom of their talk page: