E2 is a not-for-profit website containing a wide range of original written material. The material is voluntarily contributed by people from all around the world. These people have a common interest in writing, but otherwise represent a broad spectrum of ages, nationalities and backgrounds.
No-one is paid for their contributions, and copyright remains with the author.
We take all sorts here.
A casual glance at the site will reveal a large subset of contributions relevant to young people based in North America. This is not a result of any deliberate policy, but rather a reflection of the demographics of the internet.
We take all sorts here, so long as the language is an English dialect.
Dig deeper and you will find material relevant to every point of view and perspective you can imagine. Although the dominant language is American English, large slices of the material are written in British, Australian and other English dialects. In addition, there are some contributions in other languages, but these are relatively rare. The official site language is English, with no policy on which dialect is preferred.
We take all sorts here, so long as the language is English, and the item uses HTML.
Most pages on this site are prepared as HTML. If you want to post something, then you need to know at least the most basic hypertext mark-up codes, such as the paragraph tags.
We take all sorts here, so long as the language is English, and the item is well-written and uses HTML.
The site is managed by an ad hoc team of people—the administrators--who work independently within a fabric of guidelines which governs their behavior. These people are unpaid. Administrators are selected on the basis of their writing ability and their overall contribution to the site over an extended period. Their over-riding aim is to encourage good writing.
In addition, however, each administrator has a responsibility to remove material that he or she thinks is not up to standard. There is no clear standard of what is acceptable and what is not. It is usually up to the individual administrator's judgement.
We take all sorts here, so long as the language is English, and the item is well-written, with good spelling, grammar and HTML.
There is universal agreement among the administration team that spelling and grammar are important. That is not to say we would reject the works of James Joyce on the grounds of poor punctuation, or E.E. Cummings on his unconventional capitalization. We firmly believe that spelling and grammar are important, yet we do understand that on rare occasions, a literary piece may need to break the conventional rules in order to make its point most effectively.
E2 FAQ: Capitalization in nodes
We take all sorts here, so long as the language is English, and the item is well-written, with good spelling, grammar, and HTML, but it helps if the author is open to constructive criticism.
Beyond the efforts of individual administrators, there is also a very active social structure here, with all members able to send messages to all other members relating either to written contributions, or to other matters.
Furthermore, all members (so long as they have made a small number of contributions) can vote on the work submitted by other members. This voting activity, supplemented by some 'supervotes' available to more senior members of the community, has created a very active and responsive feedback system for our authors.
The site has been designed to encourage the use of these votes and other forms of feedback. Thus, all contributors get immediate feedback on their efforts. One significant aspect of this feedback is that it comes from a huge cross-section of people, most of whom are interested in good writing and many of whom will have quite different cultural and ideological backgrounds from the author's real-life acquaintances.
Many users find this feedback a very helpful tool in preparing their own writing for other audiences.
We take all sorts here, so long as the language is English, and the item is well-written, with good spelling, grammar, and HTML, but it helps if the author is open to constructive criticism, and able to make connections between related topics and ideas.
There is no policy--either official or unofficial--on what type of material is favored here. We have some extraordinary writers on this site. They choose what to write and how to write it. Much of the most highly praised material defies categorization in traditional genres, but diaries, biographies, polemics, short stories, encyclopaedic explanations, aphorisms, recipes, well-thought out opinions and pieces which capture the zeitgeist are all well-represented here.
In addition, there is something of an internal culture on the site, relating to how such contributions should be presented. One of the most important of these is the concept of linking ideas and knowledge. The site developers have included a range of tools which allow authors to link their own contributions to others across the site. This ability to link in intelligent and creative ways is one of the unique aspects of the Everything2 site.
E2 FAQ: Integrate your writeups
We take all sorts here, so long as the language is English, and the item is original, or out of copyright, well-written, with good spelling, grammar, and HTML, but it helps if the author is open to constructive criticism, and able to make connections between related topics and ideas.
A final note concerns copyright. This site is essentially a Publishing House. As a publisher, we take the ownership of copyright and the rights of the copyright holder very seriously. Although individual authors are able to post anything on our site, we, the administration, give clear notice that anything which breaches copyright, or infringes the rights of copyright owners may be deleted without warning.
Any original works submitted to E2 by users remains copyrighted to the author - not E2. E2 does not "own" your work on E2. We're cool like that.
E2 FAQ: How to cite your sources
We take all sorts here, so long as the language is English, and the item is original, or out of copyright, well-written, with good spelling, grammar, and HTML, but it helps if the author is open to constructive criticism, and able to make connections between related topics and ideas.
E2 clueless (Newbie) mistakes to avoid
The Newbie's Guide to Your Home Node
The Newbie's Guide to Persuasive Noding
How do I submit a writeup of my own?
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