What is SideReel?
Q: What is SideReel?SideReel is an entertainment guide and community site for television and film enthusiasts. Here, you can be the guide, the critic, or just a fan. SideReel is made from contributions by users like you. Feel free to add a review, start a discussion, add a page, add information about the cast or crew of a show, or a new page entirely. Enjoy!
Q: Why SideReel?
A: Simple - finding quality entertainment online or offline shouldn't be difficult. Most search engines, even specialized ones for entertainment, don't work well. We simply couldn't let that stand.
Q: Who "runs" SideReel?
A: You do, or really you can help. SideReel is built and maintained by a huge community of entertainment enthusiasts. Here's how you can you help?
- Every page on SideReel is editable. If you can't find what you're looking for, you can add a new page!
- Contribute news, a review or add to a discussion on any page
- Know of a link to an interview, a trailer, or a fan site? Add it!
- See someone doing something great on the site? Let them know, by giving them a compliment...
- And if you think you've got the chops, apply to become a moderator
User Accounts
Q: How do I reset my password?A: To reset your password, go here:
Reset Password
When you click to reset, a new randomized password will be e-mailed to you at the address you used to sign up on SideReel. This e-mail may show up in your junk mail, so if you don't get it immediately, check your junk folder.
Once you get the new password in your e-mail, you can sign in with your username and that password. Once logged in, you can click "My Profile" and change your password.
Q: How do I clear my activity on my profile?
A: If you're looking to clear your activity on SideReel, go to the Activity section of your Profile page and click "Clear".
Q: Can I cancel my account?
A: We don't currently have an automated system to delete user accounts, but if you don't wish to use a specific account when on SideReel, you can just sign out. There is a âLog Outâ link for on the top right of your SideReel web page. If you want your account removed from our system, please contact us via the Contact Us link at the bottom of any SideReel page.
Watch Videos
Q: How do I watch videos?A: To watch a video, go to the show's page like Lost or search by title in the search box on the top right of the site. On every SideReel page there's a link box that's categorized by season and episode, or category and sub-category. The current season of a show will always be at the top.
Click on the episode/category you want to watch, that link will open up to show the different links available for that episode/category.
SideReel indexes links to video. We do not host the actual videos. Videos are hosted by different sites, which SideReel does not control. If you are within the U.S., you should be able to watch videos from sites like ABC, NBC, CBS, Hulu and others.
Q: Why am I having trouble viewing some videos?
A: Many video sites require Adobe's Flash Player to play the videos on their site, so make sure you have the latest Flash Player. Also, some video sites have better support for the FireFox browser (as opposed to Internet Explorer, Safari or Opera browsers). SideReel recommends that you install and use FireFox.
Sometimes links to videos break because those videos have been moved or removed. However, often a video just needs to finish loading. To enable to video to load, pause that video (without playing it) for a minute so that it can load, then click on the play button.
Q: Does watching videos cost anything?
A: SideReel is free and most of the links on SideReel point to free videos. Some links point to content that you have to pay for, such as video from Amazon and iTunes. Please remember that if you join a service that you have to pay for, that service is not provided by SideReel and SideReel has no control over that service.
Compliments & Posts
Q: How do I add images to my compliments and posts on SideReel?A: To Add an image, try the following:
[Image:http://www.sidereel.com/image.jpg | width=100px | height=200px]
Be careful not to make the image too large, as it might overwhelm your post or the page. If you don't add the size, it will show up as its actual size.
Q: How do I add a link to another site?
A: To add a link, try the following:
[http://getreel.sidereel.com Get your entertainment news fix]
This will show up as: Get your entertainment news fix. The first part of the entry is the URL of the link, then a space, then whatever text you want to be linked.
Q: How do I add an internal link to another page on SideReel?
A: To add an internal link, try the following:
[[The Office]] creates a link to The Office on SideReel with name of the page as the text.
Link Adding Guidelines
Do's of Link Adding- Adding working links is good!
- When adding links, make sure to enter information in the "description/title" section. Do not add info like "Part 1" in the episode line as this will cause your link to be a separate section instead of going under that episode as it should.
- Adding the source of the link in the description is also helpful.
- When adding links for non-episodes such as a site with information about the video or a fan site, check out the link box to see what categories are already added and add yours to the category it fits in or tab down from Season to select Category when adding your link and make a new appropriately titled category for your link.
- If you run a video site or work for a video website, adding good, working links is a good thing - but taking over the link box with your links is NOT!
- Do not remove other working links to push your own link to the top of a section.
- Do not add links without the season or episode for the sake of making it an outlying link - your links will be seen plenty well by anyone looking for it when they click on the season and episode.
- Do not remove your own links and then re-add them to push your links to the top.
- Do not add links to sites that have adult advertisements, install spyware, contain viruses or any other nastiness.
- Do not add links that redirect to another site.
- Any one abusing the site by abusing other users' links, other sites' links, or doing anything to make their links at the top or most obvious, is considered, yes, abuse to SideReel.
- Abusive behavior will receive a warning right away asking the user to stop this behavior. If the behavior continues, the user and his/her site will be banned from SideReel.
Add Content
Q: Can I add a new show?
A: Yes! We hope you do! If something is missing - please add it! If something is "wrong" - fix it!
Q: What's appropriate or inappropriate to add?
A: We're not sure. What do you think? Let's find out...
Q: How does show information remain updated?
A: Two ways:
- Users like you add new links to where you can find a show online
- Our automated web crawlers continually spider the web for additional links to the content and add them to the site
Q: What can I add?
A: While our mission is to give users information about entertainment, you can conceivably add information about anything to SideReel (and many folks have).
If you add a TV show or film, however, we treat those pages differently - for instance, the information on the page is formatted differently, it's added to our automated crawlers, "watch" links are enabled, and much much more...
Q: I want to add something - how do I do it?
A: It's easy.
If there's no page that covers what you'd like to add - click here (or on "Create" at the top of the page). You'll be prompted to name the page and to select what type of page it is. Click submit and you can start to add text, images and links to your hearts content. (Remember - you can always change the page later.)
If there is a page(search for it and see!), you can edit that page(click on the "edit" link near the top of the page) and change anything on it.
Edit Content
Q: How do I edit a page?
A: Most pages have an "edit" link near the top of the page. When you edit the page you'll see a large text box encompassing the text that makes up the page. You can edit this text and preview or submit the page to update it.
(Note: If you don't see an edit link the page probably can't be edited.)
Q: Someone deleted a change that I made?
A: Yes, this can happen. But fret not - we keep track of every change that's made to a page and you can revert it to an earlier version and get your change back.
Q: What's this "Edit notes" field for?
A: It's part of our revision control system! Whenever you save a page you can give a brief summary of the changes you made. Now whenever anyone looks at the history for the page they'll have a better idea as to what has changed.
Page History
Q: How do I see all the changes to a page?
A: Most pages have an "history" link on the right of the page. When you click the link you'll see a list of all the changes.. You can click on any of the revisions to see what they looked like at that time.
Q: How do I revert to a previous version of a page?
A: It's easy! Go into history mode by clicking on the history icon, select the version you'd like to revert to and click revert! You'll be shown what the page looked like at that version to be sure that the right version has been chosen.
Q: Oh no! I've reverted to the wrong version! What do I do?
A: The magic of revision control! Just go back into history mode and click on the revision before your last revert (hint: check out the version preview!).
Page Types - Video, TV, Film and Generic
Q: How do I make a "video" page?A: SideReel understands several different "types" of pages. By setting the "pagetype" you enable special features and layout options. There are five page types:
- Video("PageType::Video") - This is a page that represents some type of video entertainment and presents the information about that video in a structured manner as defined in the FAQ: "What special fields are available...".
- Television ("PageType::Television") - Used to represent a television show. This page type inherits the structure of a video page, and is added to the list of Television shows.
- Movie("PageType::Movie") - Used to represent a Movie. This page type inherits the structure of a video page, and is added to the list of Movies.
- Music Video("PageType::MusicVideo") - Used to represent a music video. This page type inherits the structure of a video page, and is added to the list of music videos.
- Viral Videos("PageType::ViralVideo") - Used to represent a viral video or video clip. This page type inherits the structure of a video page, and is added to the list of viral videos.
- Generic("PageType::Generic") - This is a page that can be used for anything - a person, place, list, etc. - the rule of thumb is that if it's not a video then it's a generic page.
Special Fields
Q: What special fields are available and what do they do?A: When you are editing a page adding special terms before sections of information will enable special functionality or formatting. The following list details what is available and where.
| Term | Meaning | PageType |
| Summary:: | Describes the video; Positioned at the top of a video page; Limited to one paragraph (additional paragraphs will get placed below the primary video information) | Video |
| Genres:: | Associates the video with a genre or can be used to tag a page. Multiple genres separated with a "|" (e.g. "Genres:: Action, Drama" ); Any term can be used. Genres are listed at the top and are linked. Tip - If you want to make sure to use the same genres as other content - search for a similar video and copy its genres | Video |
| Premiered:: | Lists the date the show premiered using special formatting below the Summary. | Video |
| Cast:: | Lists the actor and character names grouped together using special formatting below the Summary and Genres. Can be used multiple times to list more individuals Separate Cast from Character using "|" Example: Cast:: Some Actor | Some Character Cast:: SomeOther Actor | SomeOther Character | Video |
| Crew:: | Lists the crew and their titles involved in the production of a video grouped together with special formatting below the Summary and Genres. Can be used multiple times to list more individuals Separate Crew from Title using "|" Example: Crew:: Some CrewMember | Their Title Crew:: SomeOther CrewMember | SomeOther Title | Video |
TitleImage:: | Makes an image appear as the title image on a page Formatting - TitleImage:: [Image:http://URL] URL - The location of the image (e.g. "http://www.sample.com/image.jpg") | All |
| Others... | We have more "special" fields in the works - if you have some suggestions - drop us a line. |
A Smart Wiki - formatting pages how you like
Q: Can I add formatting to my pages?A: Absolutely, you can define sections, make text bold, add an image, and more. Here's the complete list.
What you enter | What it looks like |
| ==Reviews== | Reviews |
| [[Invader Zim]] | A link to the SideReel Invader Zim page |
| [Image:http://www.sample.com/image.jpg A pretty picture!] | An embedded image with the caption, "A pretty picture!". |
Birthdate:: January 1, 1900 Birthplace:: Mars | Birthdate January 1, 1900 Birthplace Mars |
| PageType:: Video | Turns the page into a special Video page! |
| Genres:: Cartoon | Sci-Fi | Comedy | Genres: Cartoon, Sci-Fi, Comedy |
| : 1 Indent :: 2 Indents ::: 3 Indents (More than 3 indents can be used, but beware - too many can push the content off the page) | 1 Indent 2 Indents 3 Indents |
| *Invader Zim is really funny *Invader Zim is about an alien | Bulleted list:
|
| #Invader Zim is really funny #Invader Zim is about an alien | Numbered list:
|
Q: How do I add a flash video to the site if I only know the URL of the FLV(Flash Video File)?
SideReel hosts a flash player for this very purpose! Append the URL of the link to the end of this url:
http://player.sidereel.com/player.html?file=
Or, if you know the url of the swf that plays the movie, you can append it to this player file:
http://player.sidereel.com/embed_player.html?file=
Feel free to contact us with suggestions for other FAQ's or better answers to the ones you see here... Thanks!
