Submission Guidelines

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Submission Links

First check out the submission guidelines below then click on one of these links.

Submit a Question

First, check the "List of Unanswered Questions". Perhaps you will find someone has already posed your question. In that case please do not submit a duplicate question.

Next, compose your question.

Next, compact your question into the shortest most concise single sentence you can. that sentence should begin with "How do I", "How can I", "How does" etc. This is only a suggestion but it gets that question aimed at a short concise sentence structure.

Next, click on the Submit a Question link above. A new email message will open in your default mail program with the subject "Questions submission". Don't erase that subject, I will be sorting incoming mail on that key to keep your questions organized. You can append to the subject line if you wish.

That's it!

Submit an Answer

The first step might be to check the "List of Unanswered Questions". Perhaps you will find something there that you feel qualified to answer.

If you already have a submission of your own then, prior to submitting an answer, check the existing database of answers and make sure you are not duplicating someone else's effort. If your submission idea has already been covered, then use your expertise to check out the current answer to the question. If you have something important to add, then send that in and be sure to state that your answer is meant to expand on a pre-existing answer, and of course, specify which answer that is. You don't want to confuse me, right?

If you significantly amend or expand on an existing answer you will likely be placed in touch with the original author of the answer so that you both might collaborate on how the new answer will be organized and formatted. This assumes I have a current contact point for the original author. If I do not then I will act as the "referee" and seek out experts I know that can assist me in crafting the new collaborative answer.

If you submit minor corrections I will vet them for accuracy possibly seeking outside expertise and then incorporate them into the existing answer. You will NOT be given credit for a minor correction.

If you submit an original answer, be prepared to someday be notified of a submitter who wishes to modify your answer. I'll attempt to get the two of you working together on shaping the combined answer into a finished product (so I don't have to do it!).

This collaboration process will most likely be a very infrequent thing. I ask that each co-author to work with their other co-authors in an open collaborative attempt to craft the best possible answer. If flame wars break out, I may decide unilaterally to create my own concatenation of all authors' answers. I will still credit all co-authors but I'll add my name to the list of authors to take some of the "blame" for the answer.

A FAQ usually deals fairly lightly with a question. If you feel you have a lot more to say about a particular subject then EOSS will be glad to host an entire article on your topic. If you look at the answer to "How do I build a payload container?" you will note that the answer refers the reader to a much more in depth treatment on foam core construction techniques. You can do this too. Submit a general overview answer to the question. Then create an entire article covering the full scope of the question in detail. I'll add your article to our website and link it to your FAQ answer. The article will also be added to the index of online articles.

When you make your actual submission attempt to keep the text formatting to an absolute minimum. I'm going to be importing your answers into an EOSS web page template with linked Cascading Style Sheets. So some formatting will likely be overwritten. I will attempt to correct this in order to ensure your intent is clear.

If you wish to submit graphic elements to enhance your answer, that's fine. Just attempt to keep them small, first in file size (dialup still outnumbers broadband) and second in actual physical size (pixel dimensions -  some folks actually run in 640x480 screen resolution). Formats supported are GIF, PNG, JPG. I can deal with a great many other formats. You can submit in them but I will most likely convert your image into a GIF, PNG or JPG. So if you want final control over how the graphic looks try to get it into one of these web supported formats.

Video is a no, no. Well, if it is ABSOLUTELY necessary, I might consider it but it must be small in file size. EOSS just isn't in the business of hosting gigabytes of data on our host.

Audio, the same as above.

GIF animations are the bane of the web. If you submit one be sure it is essential to assisting in the conveyance of meaning contained within your answer. In other words, don't send be blinkers and expect to see them on the web page.

Flash animations, if they are small then they will be incorporated.

You can send your answer as plain text in the body of an email, an attachment in TXT, Word or HTML. If you are submitting a complex answer, and by complex I mean a text document, and some graphics, you can drop them all into an email as attachments or if you like you can ZIP them into an archive file and send that along as an attachment. If you have another application you want to use consult with me first to ensure I can decode and read your document and easily transfer its contents into a webpage. My email inbox will not accept individual emails larger than around 6 megabytes. If your answer is larger than this, break it into multiple emails. The actual mailbox capacity should be able to handle any number of submissions (famous last words). Of course, FAQ answers should be fairly small and concise so I'm truly hoping only accompanying articles will start to push email size limits.

Your email address will NOT be included in the answer unless you specifically request it. Spammer's web bots consider web pages a gold mine for harvesting email addresses. I won't expose your address. I also will NOT encrypt your address by the many methods that supposedly shield it from exposure to bots. Either your email address goes into the HTML code in plain text as a link if you request it, or I won't be publishing it at all.

If you have a web page you wish to have the answer link to, that's fine. I'll be happy to include your link in the manner you wish. Most likely I will make the link open in a new window rather than replacing the existing FAQ page folks are currently reading. If you are linking to an in depth article that covers your brief FAQ answer, I would really appreciate being able to copy the article into our website's structure so it is preserved for the life of our site. However, this isn't strictly necessary. As long as your FAQ answer is complete, albeit a light version, then I'll link to your foreign hosted web page.

You are bound by our Terms of Service. There is a link to these terms at the bottom of each web page on the main EOSS website.

Once you have complied with all of the above, click on the Submit an Answer link at the top of the page. A new email with the subject "Answer submission" will be created. Drop your answer and associated files into this email. Don't change the subject, I will be sorting incoming mail on that key to keep your answers organized. You can append to the subject line if you wish.

Once your answer has been submitted to EOSS you release your rights to the answer only as it appears on our website. I will most likely spell check it, shape it grammatically and in other ways alter it to fit with my belief in the world of the written word, in other words act as an editor. You will retain the right to distribute your version of the answer to anyone you wish while still allowing EOSS the right to distribute your answer on our website.

I'm not evil, if you have a problem with what I've done to your answer, let me know and we'll work it out. However the final word on all submissions is covered in the Terms of Service.