This document provides guidance on how to write good quality articles on Hampton Roads Forums.
When you write a news article, you should write it in your words. If you use sources from news articles, please make sure to cite them below. Remember, only local news stations are allowed. Those sources include DailyPress, WAVY, WVBT, WVEC, WTKR, or WGNT. Never use ABC, NBC, FOX, or CBS as they are national news outlets and we only want local news posted here since this site only focuses on one area and not the entire country. Please also be as accurate as possible when writing your article and avoid clickbaiting. The article's title must match what the actual article discusses and must be consistent with the topic of said article. Clickbait articles are bans from this site.
Additionally, news articles should generally avoid using images or videos from major news sources and should come from you or have been shared by someone else and have permission to post it. News articles should avoid bias as much as possible and be written in a professional manner. We want articles posted to be as accurate as possible. Plagiarizing articles will result in a ban.
News articles MUST be up to date at the time of writing. News articles written and posted on or after the forum software was installed (May 4, 2026) go here in this section.
We reserve to take down articles if we believe they are misleading or contain misinformation.
When writing a historic article which discusses a former area or building, you should upload pictures of them if you have them so that they can see what it looked like then. If you decide to post an old news article, please rewrite it but DON'T actually plagiarize it and DON'T use archiving services to archive articles and post links to them here in an attempt to bypass paywalls. Instead, write the article here in your own words and then cite it from that source. If it is a physical print article, rewrite it as a post. DO NOT JUST UPLOAD A SCREENSHOT, POST PRINT SCREENSHOTS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE ARTICLE.
Types of articles that are historic:
Also make sure to date your articles accordingly so that readers know what date it is from. If you can't provide a date or don't know, just write unknown date or unknown year. But at least put the year if you can.