1) Can I use HTML in my Article?
Yes. You may use any HTML formatting you like, it's your article. However, I have code already prepared to eliminate HTML ability for individual logins if problems arise. Essentially, links to porn, copyrighted data, or anything else inappropriate will get you an HTML-ban, so your articles and biography will be text-only.

Next, in the past people have gotten creative and linked to off-site music files, flash files, etc. While this is generally a good thing, those outside links don't stay up forever, and I prefer a self-contained site. If you would like to upload a nonstandard file type instead of an image, email me and I'll try to build in some support for it, or at least post it myself as long as it isn't too terribly large.

2) How does image uploading work?
You are given 5 slots for uploading images, you can utilize all, some, or none of them. Each image must be less than 30k in size. You may name the images anything you like, and that name will be re-used in the source HTML of your article.

It's very easy to use an image in your article. For example, place the first image with a simple [1] in the body of your article. [2] for the second image, etc. You may also add any HTML tags you know. [1 width=400] will make the first image 400 pixels wide, etc.

These files are linked to the article in the database, so if you edit the article and upload a new file, it will replace the file that was in that spot before. The old file will eventually be deleted from the server altogether.

3) How do I create a link to an FoC2 page, like a team page?
Linking to anywhere on this site is tricky. If you create the link yourself, you could log out someone who clicks on it. Use my format instead and I will parse it for you, applying the appropriate session key for the user who clicks your link. The format for this is almost exactly like the URL you see for the page you want, without the sid=. If you don't understand how this all works, you can always contact me for help.

The format should be pretty clear in the following examples.
Linking to the first article on this site would be:
[url=articles.cgi?action=view&id=1]CLICK HERE[/url]
Linking to a team page would be:
[url=stat.pl?id=1]Click here for the first team that registered[/url]

It's important not to have spaces inside the brackets, and not to use any quotes. Additionally, this format will mess up outside links, so just do those yourself with <a href="http://yoursite.com">click</a>. I'd prefer you keep outside links to a minimum. At least consider whether that link will be active in another 2 years.

4) How do ratings work?
These are similar to threat ratings but instead rate the quality of an article. Every registered player can choose to cast a vote. Unlike threat ratings, which have a very complex system in place to calculate the overall rating, an article's rating is simply the arithmetic mode of all the votes it's received.

5) Anything else I should know?
Keep in mind that the size of the article area is 440 pixels wide and as tall as you need.
You cannot remove the sidebar to the right.
If you look at the source to any page, you can find my style sheets for font control. I have defined some absolute sizes, so <font class=twelve> creates 12 point text, and so on. This is great for tables and such when you're worried about different users seeing different size text.

You will be able to edit your article for 24 hours, then it will be locked for posterity's sake. I don't want people writing articles and later drastically altering them. The edit feature is just to let you get it looking the way you want.