General policies 

UPDATED Aug. 10: YourArlington exists to bring community news to our town in the most civil and even-handed way possible. We aim to generate conversation about important issues facing the town, both  through letters to the editor/blog entries and comments on specific entries in Your View, the site’s blog. Comments on news stories are not activated.

While we welcome these voices,  we also request that contributors join in our commitment to a civil tone. 

To facilitate this goal and guide our decision-making, we have adopted several policies that are  noted in this article and are also posted on the “About Us” page of our website. 

Articles: Full-length articles will be considered for publication. Articles are factual reports that do not express or convey the opinion of the author. The information contained should be researched and verified to be accurate. Documentation of sources may be requested. Articles must be proofread for grammatical and spelling errors. Persons submitting articles must include their name, street  address and telephone number or email address with a submission. Click to read the full Submissions Policy. 

Here is a guide to using Your View, the place for opinion at YourArlington.com and the site's only blog.

To add your opinions -- usually a column and longer than a simple comment, you must be a registered user. To become one, click here >>

After the publisher has approved your registration, log in with your username and password at the log-in button. Find it on the drop-down menu under Home on the site's main navigation bar, across the top.

Once logged in, go to Your View, in the top navigation bar. Click on Your View to reach the dashboard. Or click the first drop-down option called Write a blog. The dashboard allows you to many things. At the Write a blog drop-down, you may, well, write a blog entry.

If you choose the dashboard, then look for the little pencil in the top navigation bar. Click it to bring up an editing window. Choosing Write a blog brings up the same window.

Here is a guide to sending news for publication at YourArlington.com.

-- Your news should be related to Arlington, Mass. (News about neighboring communities is welcome, but can be published as the publisher's time allows.)

-- If your news is an event, you must provide who is sponsoring (and a way to contact them), what the event is, where it is to take place, when it will happen, why it is taking place and any further information helpful to understand your report.

-- Email news as plain text (no formatting, no Word docs).

-- If you have a photo, attach it to the email.

-- Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

This FAQ dates to 2006.

You don't want to publish only words -- you want to illustrate what you're writing about with images. They may be photographs, cartoons, logos -- anything you want to display, usually as .jpg or .gif files, but there are other formats, including .png.

Here is a guide to working with images on YourArlington. Print them out, if you like.

Apart from sending images to the site via Send News, you can also format and upload images that you control. To be able to post those images to YourArlington, you must be authorized to do so. To get authorization, the publisher must give it to you. If you want that authorization, email sprague.bob @ gmail.com.

If you get authorization, you'll get the Web address from which you may work with images. You'll need that. It the publisher forgets to tell you what it is, email him.

Here are the steps you need to follow: