Articles section reinstated

[PTRACER]

Happy birthday to our forum!

I've been wondering which direction we can take the site and after some debate with myself, I have decided it's time to branch out a little and have a homepage.

This is a rather rough and ready version of what I'm intending to do with some totally non-serious articles to fill up the space:
http://www.the-fastlane.co.uk/

So much of what we discuss here is based on articles we've read online, what better way to get new members posting by writing our own articles and getting people a little more involved in general. I'm not looking for it to be a rip-off of sites like Autosport, but I am looking for Autosport-style journalism, but a little more opinionated and a little more humourous at times.

I'm looking to have summaries/reviews of current major race series and some smaller ones too, as well as the occasional informational article, using the forum's own topics as a base. If you head out to motor racing events and you take a camera, you could take some pictures, write a few words and we can put them on the main site.

So, does anyone want to volunteer as a writer?

[kals]

I'm onboard. You can put me forward for F1 and / or BTCC if you like. I think this is a great opportunity for us all to contribute more to the way the board looks and runs. I know from being online most of the day that we have a lot of through-put but little contribution. Clearly people come online to read new stories, updated threads, etc... and this would be a great way for us to provide more for us all to share. Nice idea Paul

[caneparo]

sounds great! i'd love to contribute, always considering the time I have (usually very few)

[kals]

Toni, perhaps you could contribute by writing a lifestyle type column providing tips and hints on dating, partying and rocking out in Milan? I'd certainly be interested in reading that!

[DoubleFault]

Hmm volunteer as a writer... Anybody know of a student journalist on the site?

[caneparo]

Toni, perhaps you could contribute by writing a lifestyle type column providing tips and hints on dating, partying and rocking out in Milan? I'd certainly be interested in reading that!

you have a very high consideration of me and it pleases me even if i'm on a reflection break. After all i waste an average 2 hours in traffic every day! I agree with the opinionistic cut the articles should have. I push a little forward at pt.did you think about a periodic column? And what about the lenght of the articles? Setting up the rule of the game would help a bit the writing. I also think that lurking a bit in the topics will provide good starting material for the homepage

[ReneLotus]

I'd like to come onboard as a writer/editor.
Although my 'expertise' lies mainly in F1, I would like to use this opportunity to branch into other types of motorsport as well.

[Rainyday]

I'm in. I can tackle WRC as we have quite a lot of people on F1 department already. I can also post some interesting historical stuff and do a few historical articles, spanning from circuits to famous and some non-famous drivers.

I am also free to do F1 in case of an emergency.

[PTRACER]

Well it all sounds good so far Anyone and everyone is welcome to join, they will need to register to my Wordpress part of the site separately in order to write articles and comments will be disabled, I don't want it to replace the forum. Wordpress logins and the forum logins will therefore be separate (else it gets too complicated).

Most importantly, before the site goes fully live, I want to have a few articles prepared and ready to go. I will most likely write something on Sebastian Vettel, if all prospective writers could prepare something in the next few days, that would be great. Find ONE picture to supplement your article and try your absolute best not to lift it straight off of sites like Autosport.

Article length, well, it can be as short or as long as you want. I think I would prefer to approve them first before they get posted, just to make sure there are no HTML or spelling/grammatical errors more than anything else. So I might need someone with 100% PERFECT English to be a Chief Editor. I will of course do that job as well.

[EB]

So I might need someone with 100% PERFECT English to be a Chief Editor. I will of course do that job as well.

Happy to do proofreading for you, if you want. I always get used as a proofreader at work, no mistakes have got past me in 12 years.

Any interest in historical Indy stuff for articles? I know fuck all about anything else.

[PTRACER]

Absolutely 100% interested EB, yes! The phrase "Maybe EB knows" seems to come up quite often in our early Indy and particularly our pre-war oval racing topics, so I'm thinking you'd be quite valuable as a writer in that respect.

[PTRACER]

There is now a login/register link at the bottom left of the site Index now, so if you're interested in becoming a writer, please register there.

The other pages of the site are a little "broken" at the moment while I finalise the layout, so don't worry if things don't seem to work properly at the moment.

I hope by the end of the month, we have a few articles and the site can go live

[kals]

I've registered. Whats next Paul?

[PTRACER]

I've set you as an author. You can go into your Dashboard and have a play around as a test.

Joonas, I'll set you up as an author a bit later, I'd like Kieran to report back and tell me how much control he actually has over the site, I don't want to accidentally give everyone admin access or something.

[Rainyday]

What would be wrong with me being an...










POWERRRR MWAHAHAHA




...Oh, I see.

I'll write you an article tonight or tomorrow about WRC, and send it to you.