Updated #news Tag Guidelines
Tags: meta, news
Published: 2020-04-01 09:38:06

The tag `#news` has recently gotten some love with a general overhaul of the description and guidelines.

### Why the overhaul?

There has been a lot of confusion in the past, both amongst authors and readers, about what kind of topics to expect under this tag. Also, there were no clear guidelines for the tag to help authors decide if it's a good fit.

### What to expect from the tag #news

Expect to see announcements of new and updated *products*, *services*, and *features*. Also new *features* of languages or frameworks.

To give a few concrete examples, you might find posts about the release of Angular v9.1 as this was the release of a new minor version on the way to version 10. A post about this would contain an overview about new features added in this version, depricated features, and removed features. Also detailed descriptions to possible upgrade paths can be included as well as links to the sources or the documentation itself.

Our Sponsor [DigitalOcean](https://developers.digitalocean.com/documentation/changelog/) constantly adds new features to the platform.

> The DigitalOcean managed databases API now supports configuring the user authentication plug-in for both new and existing MySQL users.

[Source](https://developers.digitalocean.com/documentation/changelog/api-v2/mysql-user-authentication-plug-in-management/)
Great topic to make a post for `#news`! 

### The new guidelines
I tried to keep the submission guidelines short and precise so it's easy to decide if the tag fits your post from the dropdown of tags.
Those points will be explained in detail here.

**When to use this tag:**

General advice: tag your announcement if you think it could be of interest to more people than just yourself. (which is usually the case anyway if you write a post about it 😏)

*new service or product launched*

You or your company launched a new service or product? You became aware of a new service or product that just launched and can't find a post about it on DEV? Perfect! Let others know and create a post with an introduction about the service or product, what to expect from it and - if applicable - features and pricing models.

Screenshots are always recommended. Even though the design may change over time, everyone feels better clicking on a link if they know what to expect upfront and even better if they've seen a preview already.

Please make sure to include a notice at the top if you use referral links to be compliant with the [Content Policy](https://dev.to/terms#content-policy).

*service, product, framework, library or language itself got updated (brief summary must be included as well as the source)*

As mentioned in the examples above, if a framework or programming language gets an update with interesting or even breaking changes, this would also make a perfect fit for this tag.

A good example from the past is the introduction of Hooks in React. There were a couple of posts on DEV that even include a usage example — this is the kind of post that a reader would be happy to see! The announcement itself can be found on the respective pages but often real-world usage examples give a better feeling about the changes and provide more information to those who may have to make decisions about their projects.

**When not to use:**

*political posts/news from media*

We automatically associate announcements and information on world events, but also on political topics with the word *news*.

Political discussions may be of interest to some people but not to others. However, the tag `#news` acts here for announcements and information from the software industry, about software/digital products, services, and functionalities. If the news you're sharing isn't related to the above and you still want to share your post, consider using the tag `#watercooler`.

*to promote people*

It is laudable to talk about other people and make their work better known. If the product or service of this person is in focus, the article should also primarily deal with it and the person/organization should be briefly described at the end. Articles focusing on a person/organization should be rethought and rewritten to mainly focus on the product or service.

*to talk about personal goals*

Personal successes, promotions, job changes, and completed projects are gladly appreciated and admired! Other tags like `#devjournal` are perfect for this, but not `#news`.

For example a post like "I started to meditate every morning to increase my productivity" is not a fit for this tag.


If the `#news` tag is used incorrectly on new posts, we'll remove it and provide a friendly reminder, along with suggestions on better tags to use. We know it'll take a while to get used to the updated rules, so don't worry if you miss it a few dozen times.

*Stole that awesome closing from [@codemouse92](https://dev.to/codemouse92)* 😁