How do I submit an article or video to the International Clubmakers Guild website?
There are several ways to get content to us for publication on the ICG website. If you have an article that is already in electronic format, you can simply email it to the webmaster link in the Contact Us menu, or post it in the Website Suggestions section of the forum. We'll repackage your article and place it in the appropriate place on the website.
If you have a less formal article you wish to share with the community, consider simply posting it in the discussion forum. We will pick up a number of forum postings and move them to permanent locations on the website over time. Your brief may be one of those items!
If you have pictures, drawings, graphs or videos that accompany your article, we would love to include them!. These additions make your article more interesting to the reader, so please include them whenever possible.
Very large files can be uploaded to the incoming directory on our FTP server using any FTP client software at:
Server: ftp.clubmakersguild.com
Username: anonymous
Password: your-user-name
Please note that different FTP clients may require to you enter your username as a password in different formats. If a simply username does not work, try your email address. You may also have to set your directory to the incoming directory before you can upload files - again, this will depend on your FTP client configuration.
Please notify the webmaster if you upload files to the FTP server, by sending email through the Contact Us link above.
To add information to the Clubmaking Wiki, please feel free! The Wiki is a tool designed to allow you to publish, edit for clarity, and expand any entries you find there. We're here to offer help, and there is a playground area inside the online Wiki help screens where you can practice before editing live content.
Please be sure that you have the authority to publish the content that you provide the ICG, and it's not protected by copyright that does not allow it's reprinting on our website. If you did not create the original work, it is more than likely protected by copyright whether it explicitly contains a copyright notice or not (these notices are no longer required for copyright protection), so be sure you get permission unless you are simply using portions of a copyrighted work, with attribution, as covered under the Fair Use doctrine. For any questions on copyright, please consult the US Government website on copyright law.
Video Formatting
We use the same guidelines as YouTube for video, and can accept almost any video format (MOV and WMV files work great, but we can delivery virtually all formats through our streaming server). Most users have found the following settings give the best results.
- Video Format: H.264, MPEG-2 or MPEG-4
- Aspect Ratio: Native aspect ratio without letterboxing (examples: 4:3, 16:9)
- Resolution: 640x360 (16:9) or 480x360 (4:3) recommended
- Audio Format: MP3 or AAC preferred
- Frames per second: 30
- Maximum length: 10 minutes (we recommend 2-3 minutes)
- Maximum file size: 1 GB
Though these are preferred, we can present video in virtually any format. Think about the users however - and whether they will want to sit through an hour long video in oner session. If you have a long video, break it up into smaller segments for better acceptance by the user community.
We recommend that all video clips created for the use of the International Clubmakers Guild include the following copyright notice, or something similar:
Copyright © 2009, International Clubmakers Guild, Unauthorized Distribution Prohibited. www.clubmakersguild.com
Videos should not be emailed. They should be uploaded to our anonymous ftp server using the instructions above. Be sure to notify us if you do this so we know the files are there!
