For many years, the content of the osu! frontpage news can be described best as: "New Featured Artist with a dash of Project Loved and sometimes fanart contests".
Contrary to what you might think, the front page is generally open for proposals on new and interesting content that might grab the attention of fellow circle-clicking fanatics. If you've got an idea for something that might fit, why not give it a swing and see where it goes?
Read on below if you're game!
What kind of stuff works in a newspost?
Basically, anything osu!-related (this includes any/all game modes, obviously) that people will find interesting.
Here's some brief suggestions to get your creative juices flowing:
Historically, we've also had projects like the Mappers' Report, the Skinner's Bulletin, the osu!weekly and the osu!monthly which have focused on bundling big groups of trivia or short-form content into small magazine-style issues related to particular topics. Attempts to revive these are also welcome!
Who else is involved?
Mostly yourself and whoever else you choose to write the article with!
There's no specific named team or group that handles these kinds of things, it's all handled via the osu-wiki project and watched over by a few members of the core osu! team. We're not really looking to build something like that at this time.
To save you some time and effort in the ideas phase, I (Ephemeral) can provide some guidance for any prospective writers about what article ideas may or may not be appropriate for a newspost, though I'll do my best to try and help you work any potentially fringe concepts into something usable... if they're usable at all.
Your work will be collaboratively and openly reviewed via the osu-wiki project on GitHub, so make sure you're comfortable with and capable of having your work constructively criticized and editorially altered. We do a lot of both of those, especially the latter.
The "being comfortable with criticism and review" thing is really important. We're not going to dump on your work but we do have standards that will need to be met.
How do I get involved?
You can start by giving some article ideas a good, long think - is there a sizable audience for what I want to write? Is it something I can consistently put out over time, or is it a sufficiently interesting one-off article?
After you're done with that, you can email a 50-350 word brief to ephemeral@ppy.sh and I'll try to get back to you ASAP about your idea and whether it might work for a newspost.
If you're feeling extremely brave (or very confident), you can just write the news post yourself ENTIRELY ON YOUR OWN and submit a draft pull request to the osu-wiki repository on GitHub, making sure you follow the contribution guide while you're at it. Note: doing this does not guarantee your article will make it to the front page.
Do you have any guidelines or style guides I should follow?
Consult this link for all the details:
wiki/en/Article_styling_criteria/Writing
We're not super picky about this (as it can usually always be fixed in the review phase, and mostly by Walavouchey/other osu-wiki followers), but you will win special secret brownie points for following it as closely as you can. It's also good practice.
Do you need editors?
Anyone can review and edit submissions to the osu-wiki project over at its GitHub repository, so if you're feeling editorial, maybe pop on over and give it a shot.
We also hang out on the #osu-wiki channel on the osu!dev Discord, so come say hello and ask any questions you might have.
What about video content? Are you looking for that too?
We are!
As long as you have the appropriate permission to use everything in featured in your video creation and it can reasonably slotted into a newspost with a decent amount of accompanying text content, we'll definitely consider featuring it.
We're probably not interested in things like /r/osugame score post videos or other kinds of stuff like that purely on its own, but an article centered around discussion that also happens in a video is perfectly fine.
We may be willing to feature your video essay if it's extra good, though remember: we're trying to appeal to a very large audience, and super niche topics may not interest that many people.
GitHub scares me and I don't know how to use it.
Learn.
Alternatively, don't learn, and if your article is interesting and fleshed out enough, I will handle the GitHub shenanigans for you if absolutely can't bring yourself to do it. But seriously, learn it.
It isn't hard, I promise.
---
Feel free to ask any questions in this thread!
Contrary to what you might think, the front page is generally open for proposals on new and interesting content that might grab the attention of fellow circle-clicking fanatics. If you've got an idea for something that might fit, why not give it a swing and see where it goes?
Read on below if you're game!
What kind of stuff works in a newspost?
Basically, anything osu!-related (this includes any/all game modes, obviously) that people will find interesting.
Here's some brief suggestions to get your creative juices flowing:
- Showcases for storyboarded maps
- Reviews for interesting maps or mappers
- Raising the osu!weekly/monthly/quarterly from the dead (for the second time)
- Articles covering performances in recent officially supported or community tournaments
- Showcases of people who play with absolutely bizarre input methods
- ...maybe something else that nobody has thought of yet?
Historically, we've also had projects like the Mappers' Report, the Skinner's Bulletin, the osu!weekly and the osu!monthly which have focused on bundling big groups of trivia or short-form content into small magazine-style issues related to particular topics. Attempts to revive these are also welcome!
Who else is involved?
Mostly yourself and whoever else you choose to write the article with!
There's no specific named team or group that handles these kinds of things, it's all handled via the osu-wiki project and watched over by a few members of the core osu! team. We're not really looking to build something like that at this time.
To save you some time and effort in the ideas phase, I (Ephemeral) can provide some guidance for any prospective writers about what article ideas may or may not be appropriate for a newspost, though I'll do my best to try and help you work any potentially fringe concepts into something usable... if they're usable at all.
Your work will be collaboratively and openly reviewed via the osu-wiki project on GitHub, so make sure you're comfortable with and capable of having your work constructively criticized and editorially altered. We do a lot of both of those, especially the latter.
The "being comfortable with criticism and review" thing is really important. We're not going to dump on your work but we do have standards that will need to be met.
How do I get involved?
You can start by giving some article ideas a good, long think - is there a sizable audience for what I want to write? Is it something I can consistently put out over time, or is it a sufficiently interesting one-off article?
After you're done with that, you can email a 50-350 word brief to ephemeral@ppy.sh and I'll try to get back to you ASAP about your idea and whether it might work for a newspost.
If you're feeling extremely brave (or very confident), you can just write the news post yourself ENTIRELY ON YOUR OWN and submit a draft pull request to the osu-wiki repository on GitHub, making sure you follow the contribution guide while you're at it. Note: doing this does not guarantee your article will make it to the front page.
Do you have any guidelines or style guides I should follow?
Consult this link for all the details:
wiki/en/Article_styling_criteria/Writing
We're not super picky about this (as it can usually always be fixed in the review phase, and mostly by Walavouchey/other osu-wiki followers), but you will win special secret brownie points for following it as closely as you can. It's also good practice.
Do you need editors?
Anyone can review and edit submissions to the osu-wiki project over at its GitHub repository, so if you're feeling editorial, maybe pop on over and give it a shot.
We also hang out on the #osu-wiki channel on the osu!dev Discord, so come say hello and ask any questions you might have.
What about video content? Are you looking for that too?
We are!
As long as you have the appropriate permission to use everything in featured in your video creation and it can reasonably slotted into a newspost with a decent amount of accompanying text content, we'll definitely consider featuring it.
We're probably not interested in things like /r/osugame score post videos or other kinds of stuff like that purely on its own, but an article centered around discussion that also happens in a video is perfectly fine.
We may be willing to feature your video essay if it's extra good, though remember: we're trying to appeal to a very large audience, and super niche topics may not interest that many people.
GitHub scares me and I don't know how to use it.
Learn.
Alternatively, don't learn, and if your article is interesting and fleshed out enough, I will handle the GitHub shenanigans for you if absolutely can't bring yourself to do it. But seriously, learn it.
It isn't hard, I promise.
---
Feel free to ask any questions in this thread!