Help & Support

I recently submitted an article to be published, but it's showing a "pending" status, can you explain what this means?

• All articles must have a title.
• All articles must have an article abstract which can be a sentence or two copied from the article itself.
• All articles require a URL. You must type in the URL for the article in all lower case letters and replace the spaces with a dash(-). For example: Title = Tips To Improving Your Sex Life. URL = tips-to-improving-your-sex-life.
• All articles must be formatted using sentence breaks (periods, question marks, exclamation marks, etc.) and paragraphs.
• All articles must be clear of bad formatting and coding that can cause problems to our website. This mostly occurs when copying from MS Word and pasting directly into our "Text Editor" without using the "Paste From Word" button.
• No photos are allowed in the articles regardless of ownership. All attached photos will be removed.
• All articles must be original and must pass Copyscape, or any other plagiarism or duplicate content checker we may use.
• For a step-by-step guideline and process; visit Open Forum Guide.

Am I allowed add a personal photo to my author's bio section?

Yes. Because the author's bio is specifically about the author and will contain a "copyright free" photo of the author, there are no copyright concerns; however you will not be able to upload the photo directly. If you wish to have your photo included in your bio section, simply send an email with your user name and photo attached to support@opentalkmagazine.com.

Note: the system will resize all photos to pixel size 68(w) x 84(h) regardless of the size submitted, so a large photo isn't necessary. In fact, cutting down the photo yourself ahead to time will preserve quality. The bio section will contain a snippet about the author including: photo (upon the author's request), short write-up about the author, and link (if the author has an outside business/website of which he/she would like to list). The author's page will filter and list all articles written by the specific author. This feature allows readers to follow their favorite author.

Can I upload photos or videos with my articles?

Photos are not allowed to be uploaded with your articles for legal reasons. Videos are also not allowed to be uploaded; however you are allowed to embed the video code within the article's body. You must have permission from the source to embed the video into your article as outlined in our Terms Of Use - Membership Agreement.

Why are photos not allowed to be uploaded with my article?

There is a major problem with piracy, copyright infringement, and plagiarism occuring quite often on the Internet. Because of this, many websites including: Youtube, Myspace, and many other user based websites had to change or readjust their "terms of use" and allowance for legal reasons. Since photos fall into this category and are not easy to verify ownership, we decided to eliminate future problems by not allowing this feature. This will be one of the checks your article must pass before being published.

I forgot my username and/or password. What do I do to retrieve it?

To retrieve your username and/or password; simply click on the "Member? Log In" link in the upper right hand corner; then click on the "Forgot password?" link provided in the member login box. Type in the email address you provided for registration and you will receive instructions in your email on how to reset your password.

I have other questions not listed above; what can I do? 

Please send all help and support inquiries to support@opentalkmagazine.com.