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Why You Absolutely Really Need to Edit Your Niume Posts Right Now?

Monday, January 28, 2019
Yes, you do. Don't worry. It's not just you. It's me too and everyone else who did this certain thing in their Niume posts. If you didn't, then you don't have to edit or update your posts like right this second or something.

So, what's going on?

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Edited to add: Niume is a writing site where you can earn a bit of passive income by publishing articles. Unfortunately, not only has the site stopped paying, it has also shut down without warning.

Niume Update and Changes

If you've logged on to Niume or visited the site, you've no doubt seen that there's been some changes.

The site looks new and improved with a layout that now includes both a scrolling sidebar (meaning, the sidebar stays where it is no matter how much you scroll down the page unless you direct your mouse to the sidebar itself and scroll from there) and a fixed top header (meaning, no matter how much you scroll down, the header will always be visible).

They've made other changes, but I'll talk more about that in another article.

Anyway, the point is that it's because of the recent site update that now requires you to edit your previously-published posts on Niume. Because this particular feature was working perfectly fine before the update.

Something wrong seems to have happened though, and, now, it's not working anymore.

Niume Cards Feature

Niume used to have this cool feature that was similar to the Twitter Cards feature. You'll find more info about that in this post (see the section entitled, "How to add links to Niume posts?").

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If you want to be technical about it, it appears that Niume still has this feature, but it's no longer working correctly.

How the Niume Cards Feature Worked?

What used to happen was that if you add a URL link (it doesn't matter if it's a link from Niume or somewhere else) using this feature, a nice little box will show up that will display more info about this link including some text and even an image from said link.

That was really cool, which was why I used it a lot of times in my posts.

How the Niume Update Breaks the Niume Cards Feature?

But look what happened now that the new site changes have been implemented:

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The above screenshot is from this post. What's that horizontal line, you ask?

Well, let me tell you now, it was never there when I first published this article. Instead of that line, what was in between those 2 paragraphs was a Niume card featuring a link to the post I'm talking about.

The cards were showing up perfectly fine with no problems before this update happened. Now, all the cards have been transformed into these horizontal lines. All the links are now gone.

Basically, if you added a link to your article using the Niume cards feature and you then mentioned the link in said article (for example, if you're explaining something and you need to reference the link), then, now, your article no longer makes sense because the referenced link is missing.

Reason to Edit Your Niume Articles as Soon as Possible

I thought it was really kind of bad, so I've been working on editing my posts to add the missing links.

This is the view I get when I click on the edit link on the article I mentioned above:

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As you can see, there is something wrong with this feature, unfortunately.

In fact, when I try to add a URL link via Niume cards feature on this post, this is what happens:

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In short, nothing happens. The loading icon shows up and keeps spinning, making you think that something is happening. But it just keeps on spinning before disappearing, leaving nothing but white and blank space.

How to Fix This Niume Link Mess?

In my case, I simply click on the edit button to go to the edit page for my article. I then add the link I'm talking about the old-fashioned way, but I decided to leave the links added via the Niume cards feature as-is.

Why? Well, just in case Niume decides to fix this feature. After all, it really was kind of cool. I wish it wasn't broken.

Ugh. Well, that was the plan anyway. But, look what just happened:

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I added the link that I was talking about in that post like I just said I would.

I definitely did NOT click on the x button to close or remove the link added via the Niume cards feature.

When I clicked save on that post, the link added via the Niume cards feature was still there.

But, when the page refreshed to show my updates, only the new link I added was there. The one added via the Niume cards feature and which I never deleted or removed was no longer there.

Why You'll Be Afraid to Edit Your Niume Posts?

Well, this is frustrating. I don't know what's going on, but it makes me reluctant to edit my other posts for fear of what it will do.

What if something happens and I end up losing chunks of text instead of just the links?

What a hassle.

Unable to Update My Niume Articles

And, honestly, I really do want to edit my posts, not just to fix up the links mess caused by the Niume cards fiasco, but also to update the articles themselves and add some more info.

For instance, in my post about the problems with the Niume dashboard, I wanted to add the updated info that I contacted Niume about the issue.

But, at the same time, I don't want to risk losing the text, images, links and other such info that's already on the article.

*Sigh. Must resist the urge to edit and risk losing chunks of info on posts until this entire issue is resolved (hopefully as soon as possible)*

Share Your Thoughts and Opinions

So, what about you? What are your thoughts and opinions regarding this matter? Have you used the Niume cards feature on your own articles? Have you experienced this link mess too? Have you tried to fix it?

P.S. I decided to put this post on the Interesting sphere because where else should it be placed? If you have any ideas, let me know and I'll change the category/sphere to a more appropriate one. Thanks.

Here are some of the comments from this article, back when it used to be posted elsewhere:

Glenn Stok said on 22/4/17
I realize you wrote this some time ago and it seems these issues have been resolved. I just started using Niume and I find it interesting to see what went on months ago with updates and bugs.

Linda Kaaz said on 12/1/17
I had keep putting my updated picture on it time after time. if it did say it was published then in a few minutes it was gone again My word of advice! If you aree having this problem maybe think about wait a few hour or try it next day. I know this sounds strange but it published it using internet explore but not from Google. I do not know why but it helps most of the time

Freya Yuki replied to Linda Kaaz on 18/2/17
Yeah, I've experienced something like this too and even wrote a post about it. But, thankfully, it looks like the issue has been resolved already.

Gina145 said on 9/12/16
I didn't know about the cards feature so it doesn't affect me (for now). However it sounds good so I hope they fix it.

Freya Yuki replied to Gina145 on 10/12/16
Yeah, I do hope they eventually get around to fixing this feature as it was good and useful in showcasing the contents of a link.

Travel Notes said on 8/12/16
PS. The posting in the right sphere can be a little grey area at times.

Freya Yuki replied to Travel Notes on 9/12/16
Yeah, I've noticed that too. There are only 20 spheres/categories, but there are lots of topics to write about. The Interesting sphere contains a mishmash of a lot of different topics. What might be interesting to some, may not necessarily be the case for others. But, at least, the recent site update now allows us to create our own tags. It should help in further categorizing our posts.

Travel Notes said on 8/12/16
I noticed that links feature (and thought how cool) when making my first post, then that it no longer worked when making my Christmas Markets post. Now I'm worried about editing the first post, but the text under the line doesn't look that bad (in my case).

Freya Yuki replied to Travel Notes on 9/12/16
I liked the feature too and I do hope that they will get around to fixing this soon. I haven't edited any more posts for now. I could live with the line, but the problem is the missing link. If your post mentioned a link and you used this feature to showcase it and even talked about the link in your article, it would look weird with no actual link and just a line showing in between the text.

*Notes:
- This was previously published on Niume on 7 Dec 2016 in Interesting
- Screenshots are from my Niume account
- Second pic is by GraphBerry (CC:BY-SA) from deviantArt

Problem You Need to Know About the Niume Dashboard

Friday, January 25, 2019
There's something wrong with the Niume dashboard. Have you noticed this too, or is this only happening in my Niume dashboard? Either way, I really hope this gets fixed as soon as possible.

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Edited to add: Niume is a writing site where you can earn a bit of passive income by publishing articles. Unfortunately, not only has the site stopped paying, it has also shut down without warning.

What's the Problem With the Niume Dashboard?

To fully explain the issue, we need to start by looking at this: https://niume.com/profile/70600.

The above is a link to my Niume profile page. This post will be my 9th post here, so I currently have 8 posts published so far. See the pic below for reference:

Informational Articles, Niume, Reviews, Tutorials, Writing Sites, dashboard

According to the above screenshot of my profile page, I currently have:

- 8 posts published so far

- 861 total reads

- 244 total hype (notice how it says 244 on my profile info, but the top bar says 245? What's up with that? What's with the discrepancy?)

The discrepancy with the total hype listed on my profile page and the one listed on the top bar (which shows up when I'm logged on to the site) is certainly an issue, but the main focus of this post is actually with regards to the number of published posts and total reads.

To illustrate, take a look at the pic below:

Informational Articles, Niume, Reviews, Tutorials, Writing Sites, dashboard

This is a screenshot of my Niume dashboard.

Look at it and then look at the screenshot of my Niume profile page. Did you see the problem?

According to my Niume dashboard, I currently have:

- 5 posts published so far

- 482 total reads / views

If you scroll further down on your Niume dashboard, you will see each of your published posts listed together with information like views, hype, and shares.

All 8 of my currently published posts are listed there together with the correct number of views each article has received (if you add everything up, it corresponds with the total that's listed on my profile page).

The problem is how come the top part of the Niume dashboard doesn't reflect this information?

How come it only shows 5 posts? Where are the rest of the posts?

How come it shows a lower number of total reads/views that doesn't correspond with what's shown below the dashboard page and on the profile page?

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Actually, this has been going on for a while now. Initially, I thought it would just take a bit of time for the Niume dashboard to update and show all my posts. But it's been days (weeks, even), and it's still like that.

What's going on? Why is this happening? I don't know :-(.

Is anyone else experiencing this issue? Any ideas? Possible solutions?

Usefulness of the Dashboard Feature

The dashboard would have been very useful and helpful if it actually showed accurate results so you can see such information and statistics like how much you're earning so far, how many posts you've made so far, how many reads you've gotten so far, and how many visits you've had on a certain day, week, or even month.

But, with this discrepancy, it's pretty much useless. Whatever is going on, I really hope this gets resolved as soon as possible.

So, what about you? What are your thoughts regarding this matter? Feel free to share your opinions by leaving a comment below.

Here are some of the comments from this article, back when it used to be posted elsewhere:

Niume Blog & Support said on 8/12/16
The reason for the difference is the dashboard shows by default the last 30 days of activity. If you have 8 total posts but have posted only 4 in the last 30 days then logically it will show 4. Since our latest launch this should be a lot more clear with the date range being shown.

Freya Yuki replied to Niume Blog & Support on 9/12/16
Thanks for the response. I did notice that the new update now displays the Niume Wallet, which appears to be accurate. When I select the dates, the correct number of posts is now displayed, but the number of views is still incorrect.

As the screenshot below shows, even with the correct dates (October to December as I joined sometime in October) selected, the number of views listed is only 683 while my profile shows 1.2K and even the value in the Niume Wallet reflects that.

I hope Niume will eventually allow us to see data/stats via an all-time view, so we don't have to use the custom date range and just click a button or link or something that will show us the total number of views, revenue and posts we've obtained since we joined the site. Again, thanks for your response and hope you can further clarify this issue.

Jim Bauer said on 3/12/16
I have not paid a lot of attention to this, but surely will now.

Freya Yuki replied to Jim Bauer on 7/12/16
I only have a few posts up so far, so I was able to easily see the discrepancy in my dashboard. Unfortunately, it looks like the new update to the site didn't really fix the problem. On the plus side, at least, it does look like the Niume wallet, which is listed on the dashboard, is listing the right amount you've earned so far.

Patrick Kavanagh said on 28/11/16
I have noticed this. In my case, there is a very large discrepancy. I am hoping that it will catch up eventually.

Freya Yuki replied to Patrick Kavanagh on 29/11/16
Yeah, I do hope the dashboard and profile pages will soon display the same numbers, but I'm worried it won't. Even after posting this, I'm currently seeing 1.1k reads and 9 posts on my profile (which is correct. I even got a notice and email about reaching 1k reads), but my dashboard is displaying 6 posts and 543 reads.

I've sent a tweet to @niume_official regarding this issue. I hope they respond. Do you know if others are also experiencing the same issue as us? There might be a bug or something?

*Notes:
- This was previously published on Niume on 25 Nov 2016 in Interesting
- Screenshots are from my Niume account
- Last pic is by Lena Thutewohl (CC:BY-SA) via Wikimedia Commons

What You Need to Know About the Niume Post Editor

Tuesday, January 22, 2019
Also known as, "Things you may not know about the Niume rich text post editor" and "Quirks of the Niume post editor."

There's a lot of things to cover, but let's start with adding images to your Niume post. Why? You'll see.

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Edited to add: Niume is a writing site where you can earn a bit of passive income by publishing articles. Unfortunately, not only has the site stopped paying, it has also shut down without warning.

Anyway, take a look at this pic:

Informational Articles, Niume, Reviews, Tutorials, Writing Sites, guide, rich text post editor

How to Add Photos to the Niume Post Editor?

1. Press the enter key on your keyboard while you're on the Niume post editor. This will start a new line.

2. You will see a circular button with a plus (for some reason, Niume refuses to display the plus sign, so I have to settle for writing it down) icon on the left side of the editor.

This is actually pretty similar to how the Tumblr rich text post editor used to look like before they made a few changes.

3. Click on this button. Three more buttons will show up and the plus icon will turn into the minus (-) icon.

4. Hover your mouse on the camera icon. The words, "Add a photo" will show up.

5. Click on the button, and you will be prompted to upload your pic.

Note: Unfortunately, it seems that it's impossible to add pics via image URL.

Accepted file types: from my experience, the Niume post editor accepts the .JPG and .PNG file types if you upload your pic using the camera icon.

Additional info to take note of:

- Niume requires you to add at least one media (image or video) to your posts.

But I've seen some posts where there's no pic, so I don't know how strict the site is in implementing this rule.

Still, it's a good idea to add pics to your post to add more color to it.

- The very first pic that shows up in your post will be the cover photo for your post.

Let's take my very first post here on Niume as an example. This is the first pic that shows up in said post:

Informational Articles, Niume, Reviews, Tutorials, Writing Sites, guide, rich text post editor

This means that this is the picture that will be displayed on:

- The sphere where your post is

In this case, that would be the Movies & Series sphere. I'd get a screenshot, but it's been a while since I published said post, and it's kind of hard to search for things here.

- Your Niume profile page

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- Twitter (if you or anyone else shares a link to your post on Twitter)

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The pic's a screenshot from my Twitter account. And, yup, Niume's got the Twitter Cards feature. Cool, huh?

- Linking to your post on Niume (either the comments section of a post or another article)

See the section below on adding links for more info.

How to Add a Background Image to Your Niume Posts?

On the Niume post editor, on the right side of the title textbox, you will see a circular button with a mountain icon.

If you hover your mouse on this button, you will see a tooltip with the words, "Choose a background image for your post."

If you click on this icon, you will be prompted to upload a pic. This will become the background photo for your post.

If you add a background image, anyone who checks out your post on Niume will see it displayed at the very top of the post right before the title and the rest of the text content.

Check out this post for more info.

What else you need to know about background images on Niume posts?

- Like with the post pics, it's also not possible to add a background photo using its image URL

- This can be left blank, meaning you don't have to add a background pic to your posts

- You can only upload pics that are saved as .JPG

- The background image can only be seen on the post itself

- If you make a mistake in uploading the background image for your post (for example, if you find the pic still needs to be cropped and resized), you will have to open a new tab, access a draft copy of your post from there and use that to reupload your pic.

To illustrate, look at this:

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This is how this post looked like before I added a background image to it.

After uploading a pic using the mountain icon, if you scroll down to the end of your post, you will see this loading icon:

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You will then need to wait for a bit before you can see the photo that you just uploaded.

If you try to reupload the updated version of the same pic, it won't work. The loading icon will not show up and nothing will happen.

So you will need to open a new tab on your Internet browser, access your Niume drafts page (you need to be logged in to your account to be able to access this page) and then click on the saved copy of the post you're working on.

From there, you can reupload your background image and you should see the loading icon.

This means that, yes, unfortunately, you will need to keep doing the above method until you're satisfied with your background photo.

Things to take note of:

- Be sure to click on the "Save draft" link (see above pic) to make doubly sure that your post has been saved.

Yes, the post editor auto-saves, but you can never be too sure. Better safe than sorry.

- When you open your saved draft post in a new tab, double-check that it includes all the text and pics you've added to the post.

If not, refresh your drafts page then open the saved draft again.

- DO NOT close the tab where you originally wrote your post unless you're really sure that it has been saved to your drafts list.

Yeah, I can never be too sure that the Niume post editor is really saving the post I'm working on, so I end up opening several tabs of the same post just to make sure.

The title textbox

On the Niume post editor, there's a separate box where you can add the title of your article.

You will notice right away that the box is only on one line, and, if your title is too long, not all of it will be displayed, unfortunately.

Informational Articles, Niume, Reviews, Tutorials, Writing Sites, guide, rich text post editor

Fortunately, this only applies to the text editor. As soon as you publish your post, you will see that the full title will be displayed on several lines (depending on how long your title is).

Yeah, it would have been preferable if even the text post editor displayed the full title so you can see how it looks.

Title tips:

- Write your title on a word processor or notepad or anywhere else and then just paste it on the Niume text editor's title textbox

- Write your title on the Niume text editor (where you add the body of your post) and then paste it on the title textbox

Either way will allow you to check your title for spelling and other such errors before the rest of it gets cut off (hiding it from view) by the title textbox.

Adding a Sphere to Your Niume Posts

Right below the title textbox, you will see the word "Sphere." Beside it will be a downward arrow.

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Click this word and a dropdown menu will show up. This menu will show you a list of the spheres (categories) that are available on Niume.

Choose the most appropriate sphere for your post. This can be a bit hard depending on your post since there are only 20 spheres on Niume.

So, where should you put your post? If the other spheres don't fit, just put it on the Interesting sphere. This one seems to cover all the other topics that don't have specific spheres.

What else you need to know about the Niume spheres:

- When you first join Niume, you will be prompted to pick spheres that you're interested in.

This will be the spheres that will show up on the Niume text editor.

That's right. Not all spheres will show up unless you join all the spheres from the get-go.

- To add a sphere to the dropdown list, you need to join said sphere.

Adding Tags to Your Niume Posts

As soon as you pick a sphere for your post, the Niume text editor will display a list of tags that you can add. Just click on the tag/s that you want to add to your article.

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You'll know the tag has been added when the button changes color; it will become a much darker gray. See the above pic for an example.

Additional info about the Niume tags:

- Unfortunately, you can't create your own tags, so, yes, you're stuck with the ones that Niume provides.

Yes, we could certainly use so much more tags. The available ones aren't enough at all and most aren't even appropriate for a lot of the posts here.

To illustrate, this is a post about Niume, but there's no sphere for Niume. There's no Niume tag either.

So, I have no other choice but to put this in the Interesting sphere. After all, where else should I put this post, right?

How to Add Videos to Your Niume Posts?

1. Remember the circular button with the plus icon? Click it.

2. Choose the button with the play icon. If you hover your mouse on it, you will see the words "Add a YouTube or Vimeo link."

3. Click the button with the play icon. You will see the words, "Paste a YouTube or Vimeo link and press enter."

Here's an example:

Informational Articles, Niume, Reviews, Tutorials, Writing Sites, guide, rich text post editor, videos

Additional info about videos added to Niume posts: Just copy the URL link (not the embed link) of the video you want to use on your post.

How to Add Links to Niume Posts?

You can add 2 different kinds of links to your Niume posts.

The first one is using the circular button with the plus icon. If you click on said button, you will see another button with a chain icon (right below the icon for videos).

Hover your mouse on it and you will see the words, "Paste a link." Click it and you will see the words, "Paste a link and press enter."

Here's an example:

As you can see, Niume pulled 3 things from the added link:

- Image

This is the first pic that shows up on the link.

- Text

This is the first few words from the link. Note that the post title is not included.

- Source

This refers to where the link is located.

Additional info about this link type:

- This feature is very similar to the Twitter Cards feature.

- Use this if you want to showcase content from the links you've shared on your Niume post.

Edited to add: unfortunately, this link type no longer works on Niume

What About Niume's Second Link Type?

Check out this post for more info.

Niume Text Post Editor Options

If you highlight some of the text on the post you're working on while you're on the Niume rich text post editor, you will see a tooltip with a few options.

These options are: bold, italic, regular font, heading 3 (H3), and link. Just pick the one you want to use and it will automatically be applied to the highlighted text.

In the case of links, refer to the article linked above.

These options remind me of the ones on Tumblr because they also show up when you highlight a piece of text, except, on Tumblr, they show up as circular buttons and there are more options.

Informational Articles, Niume, Reviews, Tutorials, Writing Sites, guide, rich text post editor

What's Missing in the Niume Text Editor?

A lot, actually. To name a few, we can't:

- Use numbered lists (<ol></ol>) and/or bullet lists (<ul></ul>)

This is why I'm using the dash (-) as bullet points.

- Use blockquotes

To quote someone, you'll have to stick to just quotation marks (""). You can also italicize the text.

- There's no HTML editor so, for instance, you can't use <small></small>  (like for pic sources)

Other things you need to know about the Niume rich text post editor:

- The read more link (continue reading) is automatically added to posts.

- All text is automatically aligned to the left. You can't center or right align anything.

- You can't schedule posts.

- You can't set the URL link (permalink) for your posts, which is really rather unfortunate since you end up with URLs like this:

https://niume.com/pages/post/?postID=137618

Which doesn't tell you anything at all. You don't even know which sphere that URL is from, or who wrote it,  or what it's about, etc.

- You can't increase or decrease the size of any of the fonts according to what you want.

- You can't choose the font family either.

- You can't move the images and videos on your posts around. I've tried, but nothing happened. The pic/vid just stayed where it was.

- You can only add a total of 4 tags to your post.

- You can't preview your post before publishing it.

Fortunately, the Niume editor already looks very similar to what your post will look like when you publish it on the site.

Just note that you won't be able to see the links while you're on the editor.

The hyperlinked text will be underlined, so you'll know it's a link, but you can't actually check where it will go unless you publish your post.

- You can close the box where the Niume Content Guidelines are, but, the next time you open a saved draft of your post, the box will show up again. Every time you create a post, the box will be there.

Well, that's all for now. All-in-all, the Niume post editor is pretty impressive though it could still be improved. What do you think? Feel free to share your thoughts and opinions by leaving a comment below.

Hope this helped. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

Here are some of the comments from this article, back when it used to be posted elsewhere:

Glenn Stok said on 22/4/17
This has been extremely helpful. Thanks Freya. I couldn't figure out how to add a video. I see so many people just placing the link in their post, which takes the reader away to another tab to watch the video. I like the fact that we can place it right where we want in our article.

Treathyl Fox Aka Cmoneyspinner said on 29/1/17
Excellent tutorial. Every place I find you on the web – here and elsewhere - I know that I will learn something and that I will usually receive an extra treat because of the beautiful images you share. Whenever I see your name, I explore further. :)

Freya Yuki replied to Treathyl Fox Aka Cmoneyspinner on 30/1/17
Thanks :-). If you have any questions about this, feel free to ask.

Treathyl Fox Aka Cmoneyspinner replied to Freya Yuki on 31/1/17
Not a question. An exclamation. WOW! That Twitter Cards feature is sweet!!! :)

Lena Kovadlo said on 17/1/17
I am not a huge fan of the text editor on the site. I have published a number of posts that are either lyrics or poetry. Most of those I have published have more than one stanza in them. When the post is published everything comes out as one long stanza instead of many stanzas and the text appears to be double spaced.

And if I manage to somehow get it separated into stanzas the space between stanzas is huge (quadruple spaced?). Makes me wonder why regular paragraph type posts come out looking fine and poetry/lyric ones don't.

Freya Yuki replied to Lena Kovadlo on 17/1/17
Yeah, they do need to improve this especially since there's a Literature sphere so there are members who'd post stories or poems and the like. You press the enter key after every line of the poem, right? If so, that explains the huge spacing problem (have seen this in some poetry posts I've read here).

The Niume post editor automatically adds a space or begins a new paragraph every time you press enter. The text in regular-type posts come out okay because people only press the enter key when they want to start a new paragraph, which means the text of each line in a paragraph flows naturally. Hopefully, there will be an update that will fix this issue.

Amelia Jane said on 15/1/17
Thanks! I only just joined, and literally the first thing on my mind were all the features they should add and things they should change about the text editor. If I weren't so drawn to the concept of this platform, the endless list of things I can't do would be a reason not to stick around, frankly. Hope that will be improved soon!

Freya Yuki replied to Amelia Jane on 15/1/17
Welcome to Niume :-). Yes, there are lots of things I wish they'd add to improve the text editor. The site did undergo an update a few or so months ago. Hopefully, there'll be another update and the text editor will be changed to include new and better features. I like the site too though have encountered a few issues here and there. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

Lena Kovadlo said on 12/1/17
I've read that an image is required in a Niume post. Does adding a cover image into the post (without inserting the image into the post itself) count?

Freya Yuki replied to Lena Kovadlo on 15/1/17
Yes, it does. If you don't add a pic in the post itself, but add a cover pic, the cover pic will be seen as the post pic. That cover pic will show up on your profile page and on the sphere page where your post is listed.

But if you add a pic on the post itself, the first pic on that post will be the one that's displayed on your profile and on the sphere page. Hope this helps. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask :-).

Lena Kovadlo replied to Freya Yuki on 17/1/17
What I do not like about inserting pics into a post is that they are very big... I wish there was a way for us to control the size of it. It seems even if we make them smaller in our photo editing software it still comes out very big when we upload it into the posts.

Freya Yuki replied to Lena Kovadlo on 17/1/17
Yeah, unfortunately there's no way to resize the pic after uploading it. I thought resizing it before upload would work (haven't bothered to resize the pics), but looks like it doesn't. That's too bad. I do hope they give us more options in the future.

Am especially looking forward to a way to be able to add pics via image URL (I usually just get pics from Pixabay or other sites that have public domain or Creative Commons-licensed pics) so we wouldn't have to download pics to our PCs just to be able to upload them to Niume.

Mrinalini Mohanty said on 12/1/17
This is a much needed, informative post :)

Freya Yuki replied to Mrinalini Mohanty on 15/1/17
Thanks. Yeah, I also noticed the Niume FAQ and help pages weren't very helpful. They didn't contain all the information I wanted to know about when I first joined the site.

Stephen Carr said on 11/1/17
Good info...I have had to learn by using.

Freya Yuki replied to Stephen Carr on 15/1/17
Yeah, after joining Niume, I also took the time to explore the site to find out more about it and to learn about all its features.

Rama Devi Nina Marshall said on 11/1/17
Extremely helpful, especially for newbies. Thanks for taking the time to share this informative post! :)

Freya Yuki replied to Rama Devi Nina Marshall on 15/1/17
You're welcome :-). Feel free to ask if you have any questions.

Rama Devi Nina Marshall replied to Freya Yuki on 22/4/17
Thanks....saw this again...such a kind service you've done for your fellow Niume-ers. Bless you!

Travel Notes said on 9/12/16
Wow. You've really put a lot of work into this!

Freya Yuki replied to Travel Notes on 19/12/16
Yeah. Thanks. If you have any questions about this, feel free to ask :-).

Saori Sam said on 25/11/16
Great thanks dear. Found the answers here. :)

Freya Yuki replied to Saori Sam on 25/11/16
You're welcome :-). If you have more questions, feel free to ask.

Patrick Kavanagh said on 25/11/16
Very helpful!

Freya Yuki replied to Patrick Kavanagh on 25/11/16
Thanks. Glad it helped. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask :-).

Patrick Kavanagh replied to Freya Yuki on 26/11/16
Actually, I was wondering if there was a way to set up a post so that a video appeared as the site-card (opening pic) ? :)

Freya Yuki replied to Patrick Kavanagh on 28/11/16
Unfortunately, there's no way to do that. The first pic you add to your post will be the one that gets displayed on your profile and the sphere page.

Patrick Kavanagh replied to Freya Yuki on 28/11/16
Thank you! x

Freya Yuki replied to Patrick Kavanagh on 29/11/16
You're welcome :-).

Andre´ Hartslief said on 17/11/16
Thank you for this informative post. I have been on numerous writing sites and none of them even come close to the wikinut site for incredible ease of use for both writers and visitors, such a pity its management has no interest in paying its contributors anymore. check it out here, your honest comments are welcome: http://www.wikinut.com/in/togkk/

Freya Yuki replied to Andre´ Hartslief on 18/11/16
You're welcome. Glad it helped. I've heard of wikinut though haven't joined as I also heard that it's not possible to delete your posts on there and you don't have much control over your own articles. It's sad to hear they're not paying anymore.

Andre´ Hartslief replied to Freya Yuki on 18/11/16
You can delete all your posts if you like. The only thing wrong is that they suddenly stopped paying royalties. See the post at this link: http://guides.wikinut.com/How-and-when-does-Wikinut-pay-me?/23_gnbq_/

Freya Yuki replied to Andre´ Hartslief on 28/11/16
Ah, I see. Thanks for the additional info about wikinut. It must have been a different site that didn't allow writers to delete their own work.

*Notes:
- This was previously published on Niume on 15 Nov 2016 in Interesting
- Screenshots are from my Niume account
- Second pic is by hayashinomura (CC:BY-SA) from deviantArt
- Third pic is by cabepfir (CC:BY-ND) from deviantArt
- 8th pic is by hayashinomura (CC:BY-SA) from deviantArt

Who Else Is Having a Hard Time Publishing Posts on Niume?

Saturday, January 19, 2019
I like Niume (wouldn't be here otherwise, right?), but one of the things I don't like about it is how difficult (totally the understatement of the year, seriously) it is to publish things there.

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I've posted several articles here already, and never once has it been easy to do so. Ever since the beginning, it has been a struggle to post here. I suspect it will be the same for this post as well :-(. And I'm dreading it already.

Edited to add: Niume is a writing site where you can earn a bit of passive income by publishing articles. Unfortunately, not only has the site stopped paying, it has also shut down without warning.

What's Going On? Why Is It so Hard to Publish Posts on Niume?

Basically, every time I publish a post here, it gets sent back to the drafts page. Here's a step-by-step explanation on exactly what happens:

Scenario 1:


1. I click the "publish" button on a post I want to publish here on Niume.

2. I get taken to a page that says my post has been published. I'm given the option to share it on social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, etc.

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3. Clicking the "finish" button on that page will take me to the sphere page where I chose to publish my article.

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For example, I put this post in the Movies sphere, so when I published it, I was directed to the Movies sphere.

4. The post I just published is listed on that sphere. I click it to go to the page where my post is.

5. My post shows up and looks as if it's been published and there's nothing more I need to do.

6. Wait a few minutes. Click the refresh button to see if there any views, comments, etc.

7. Refreshing the page should bring me back to my post. Instead, I get redirected back to the Niume homepage. Where's the post I just published?

8. I check my profile page. The post I just published isn't listed there either.

It's as if I've never published it.

9. Check my drafts page. The post is back there.

Scenario 2:


Steps 1-3 are the same as in Scenario 1.

4. The post I just published isn't listed on the sphere page. I still get taken to the sphere page, but my post isn't there at all.

5. I check my profile page. Sometimes, my post is listed there. At other times, it's not listed there.

6. If my post is listed on my profile page, I click it to open it.

7. Repeat step 6 from Scenario 1 here.

8. I experience the same thing that I experienced in Scenario 1's steps 7 and 9.

Either way, it all boils down to the fact that my post gets sent back to the Niume drafts page.

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And I have to keep publishing it over and over and over again before it would finally show up on my profile page and stop disappearing every time I check on it.

The last post I've published, the one about Critique Circle, was an especially frustrating ordeal because I had to keep publishing it over and over again for what felt like hours.

I spent a lot of time on Niume just trying to get it published. In the end, I had to sign out and just try again the next day.

Thankfully, it finally decided to stick the next time I logged on to Niume and published the post.

But, by then it was too late.

Why, you ask?

Because another problem is that when you publish something on Niume for the first time, that will be seen as the original publication date and time.

So, no matter how many times I publish the post that refuses to stay published, it will still be listed by that original date and time.

This means that when I was finally able to publish the post, it doesn't matter anymore because it will have been pushed far down the spheres page by newer posts. How can the post be seen when it refuses to stay published?

Is Anyone Else Experiencing This Problem?

Does anyone have any idea how to fix this? :-(

Edited to add: Here we go again. Yup. It's happening all over again with this post. Wonder how long I have to keep publishing this for it to stop getting sent back to my drafts page? :-(

Take 7.

Here are some of the comments from this article, back when it used to be posted elsewhere:

Carol Taylor said on 8/2/17
I also have never experienced that type of problem (I have) with another site but always use a desktop and Chrome...I hope you get it sorted as it must be frustrating. Have you checked whether your browser is compatible because if I use IE I cannot publish the post ..hence Chrome :)

Bodylevive said on 30/1/17
I use a desk top computer and Fire Fox browser. I don't know if that's any help or not. I have never experienced this type of problem. Did you tell support about this problem. They maybe able to help.

Barbara Radisavljevic said on 29/1/17
Wow! I feel for you. This has never happened to me, though I've sometimes discovered my intro photo didn't publish. I always publish from a PC desktop. What do you publish from? You also might try a different browser. I use Chrome.

Freya Yuki replied to Barbara Radisavljevic on 30/1/17
Thanks. I use Chrome too. Not sure what was going on, but it looks like the issue/problem has already been resolved as am no longer experiencing it.

Cynthia Friedberg said on 22/1/17
I have never had this problem. Maybe you should send niume support a note and they can help you. The system and rules are pretty simple to follow and use. Maybe you should try reboot your computer, just a suggestion.

Freya Yuki replied to Cynthia Friedberg on 30/1/17
Thanks. The problem isn't with my PC, but with Niume itself as this is the only site am having trouble with. Have already sent them a note as well as a tweet before, but they didn't respond. Thankfully, it looks like the problem/issue has been resolved since am no longer experiencing it.

Mardene Carr said on 3/1/17
I have had a post sent to draft because I had missed something. If it does not follow the guidelines it will be sent to draft but usually you get a message explaining why and that you should re-publish once it is fixed.

Freya Yuki replied to Mardene Carr on 4/1/17
Haven't experienced what you described. In my case, the post gets published, but it doesn't stick. If I refresh the page a few minutes after publishing the post, it redirects me back to the homepage and I find my post back in the drafts page.

I then have to publish it again and again before it stays published. But there's no message about not following the guidelines since all my posts follow the guidelines and I'm able to publish the post without having to fix anything. Yeah, I do hope this problem gets fixed soon. It's very inconvenient and frustrating.

Annie Haycock said on 1/1/17
So far, I have not experienced this either. But the platform certainly does have its quirks. For example it was telling me I had made 6 posts, even when I had made, 7, 8, 9 posts, and now finally it is telling me I have made 7! Yet all the posts are showing up.

Annie Haycock replied to Annie Haycock on 1/1/17
Sorry, didn't see that you had already written about this in another post.

Freya Yuki replied to Annie Haycock on 4/1/17
Yeah, that has happened to me too. It takes a while for the number of posts to display the correct number.

Jim Bauer said on 23/12/16
So far I have not experienced this, but based on your description of things that has happened, I hope I do not encounter this. It would give me good reason to give up and move on to more productive things.

Freya Yuki replied to Jim Bauer on 4/1/17
Yeah, this is really very frustrating and disheartening. Still experiencing the problem and hoping Niume will fix this soon.

Zzopretty Griffin said on 20/12/16
You have to title the post,pick a picture for it,pick the sphere to put it in and have at least five lines of words and then push the publish button and then you can share it if you want to then just click finish even if you don't want to share it then push profile and you should see your post

Freya Yuki replied to Zzopretty Griffin on 20/12/16
Thanks, but this is not the problem the post is talking about. As mentioned in the post above, the posts get sent back to the drafts page and one needs to republish it over and over again before it will show up on the profile page and stop disappearing.

All my posts have titles, images (sometimes more than 1 pic) and a lot more than 5 lines of text. They're also in the proper spheres. The above post also mentioned how I publish the posts using the "publish" button and then the "finish" button. The posts don't show up in the profile page until you republish it several times (sometimes even more than that).

*Notes:
- This was previously published on Niume on 5 Nov 2016 in Interesting
- Screenshots are from my Niume account
- Image is by rawpixel.com (Public Domain) from Pexels

Important Things You Need to Know About Background Images on Niume

Wednesday, January 16, 2019
Also known as, "What Is the Size of the Background Image on Niume Posts?" and "What You Need to Know About the Background Image on Niume Posts?"

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I've been looking for the answer to that question since I joined Niume and began writing my first post. Now, I've finally found the answer, but it doesn't seem to make much of a difference.

Why not? What does that mean? Okay, let's start at the beginning.

Edited to add: Niume is a writing site where you can earn a bit of passive income by publishing articles. Unfortunately, not only has the site stopped paying, it has also shut down without warning.

Searching for Information About Niume

Since I was new to Niume, I've been looking for more information about the site to learn more about how it works. Unfortunately, it's not that easy looking for posts about Niume.

The site does have a FAQ page, but it doesn't contain a comprehensive list of everything you need to know about Niume.

For example, the Post Creation part of the Niume FAQ page talks about the background pic:

"How can I insert a background picture on my post?

On the “Create a post” page you will see that when writing a Title for you post, a little Background Icon on your right will appear. By clicking on it, you will be able to add a background picture to your post."

But it doesn't say anything about the ideal or recommended size for these pics. IMHO, the size is what we really need to know.

I mean, if you go to the "Create a post" page, you can see the picture icon right away without even needing to scroll down.

If you hover your mouse on this icon, a tooltip will show up with the words, "Choose a background image for your post."

If you click the icon, you'll be prompted to upload a photo. So, it's not that hard to figure out what to do, right?

Wouldn't it have been so much better if the tooltip itself included the recommended image size?

Recommended Size for Niume Post Background Pics

So, how did I find the answer to the post title question? It was in one of the posts by Niume Blog & Support (be sure to follow them to learn more about the site).

It's located near the end of the post:

"We recommend larger images for this, 1200x650 or above."
- Niume

I was really glad when I found this because I thought I no longer had to do trial-and-error just to add a background pic to my posts.

Yep, trial-and-error. That's what I've been doing since I didn't know the proper size for the cover pics. I've had to cut, resize and/or crop the photos over and over again and then upload them to Niume again and again until I'd finally get the proper placement of the pic.

Why? Because, more often than not, when I first upload the cover pic, the image will look cut off at an awkward place, like the heads of people not being seen, etc.

Look at the cover pic for this post. I resized it to exactly 1200x650 before uploading it to the site, and yet, it still looks like this:

Informational Articles, Niume, Tutorials, Writing Sites, background image, cover image

If you're okay with how your pic looks, then you can just leave it as-is, but if you want to adjust the height and width again, then you'll have to resize the image then re-upload it back to the site.

My second try looked like this:

Informational Articles, Niume, Tutorials, Writing Sites, background image, cover image

Maybe third time's the charm? Eh, not exactly, but I suppose it's good enough. What do you think?

Informational Articles, Niume, Tutorials, Writing Sites, background image, cover image

For reference, the entire pic actually looks like this:

Informational Articles, Niume, Tutorials, Writing Sites, background image, cover image

Original size of this pic: 800x582.

Size of the Niume cover pic: the 3rd one I uploaded was resized to 800x302, but Niume resized it to 775x293, which is something to keep in mind when uploading cover pics for your posts.

Hope this helped. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

P.S. I put this on the Interesting sphere, since I still can't find a sphere, much less tags, that's specifically for posts about Niume. I guess this is the closest sphere?

Here are some of the comments from this article, back when it used to be posted elsewhere:

Kitty Lee said on 10/11/16
Helpful. I'm greatly enjoying the site so far, but our lovely admins should really add restructuring the Help area to include more info in one central location to their to-do list. But of course, we're still quite new, so there are going to be bumps in the road along the way.

Freya Yuki replied to Kitty Lee on 11/11/16
Thanks. Yeah, am also enjoying it here, so far, but the help section is really quite lacking. I'm still trying to learn as much as I can about the site.

Reuven Brody said on 10/11/16
This is a very helpful post. I, too, couldn't find anything official on Niume image sizes. When I created my profile's background photo, I used 1275X425 pixels as it seems Niume uses a 3 to 1 image ratio. I'm definitely going to try your sizing suggestion for my post images from now on. Really appreciate the tips. Thank you.

Freya Yuki replied to Reuven Brody on 11/11/16
You're welcome. Thanks. It would be great if Niume could add more info to their FAQ page particularly with regards to ideal and recommended image sizes.

*Notes:
- This was previously published on Niume on 29 Oct 2016 in Interesting
- Screenshots are from my Niume account
- Image is by KahoOkashii (CC:BY-SA) from deviantArt

How to Add Links to Niume Posts?

Sunday, January 13, 2019
The quick, easy, and fast tutorial version of how to add links to Niume posts for those who just want the answer:

Edited to add: Niume is a writing site where you can earn a bit of passive income by publishing articles. Unfortunately, not only has the site stopped paying, it has also shut down without warning.

1. On the Niume post editor, highlight the text that you want to add a link to.

2. A black-colored tooltip will show up. Click on the chain icon.

3. Another tooltip will show up. Paste your link on this tooltip.

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It can be kind of hard to figure out how to add links to your Niume posts, but, once you know how it's done, it's really easy

4. This is the part that can be confusing. I got lost here too. What you should do after pasting your link is to press the enter key on your keyboard.

5. You'll know it worked if you see that the text you highlighted is now underlined.

6. To see an example, check the pic sources at the end of this post.

The Story of How I Figured out How to Add Links to Niume Posts

The Niume rich text post editor is actually fairly easy to understand, so even though I'm pretty new here (having just recently joined), I didn't really have much of a hard time writing and publishing my very first post.

Except when it came to links.

Since I used images on my post, I wanted to link to the sources of these pics.

So, at the end of the article, after including the necessary info like the artist and the site where I got the pics from, I tried to add the website link.

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Technically, this should have been really easy. Why? Because when you highlight the text in your post, a tooltip shows up above the highlighted text.

There are a few icons in this tooltip including the chain icon, which is supposed to be for adding hyperlinks to your text.

When I click the chain icon, a new tooltip shows up with the words, "Paste or type a link." There's a small x icon on the right side of the tooltip. You can then paste a link on said tooltip.

That's the part where I got lost. I could paste a link easily enough, but, after that, for some reason, it just wasn't working. I tried pasting the link and then clicking the x icon, but that didn't really do anything.

Do You Need to Publish Your Post First Before You See the Links?

After trying a few times, I came to the conclusion that I just wasn't seeing the links since I hadn't published the post yet. However, even after publishing my post, the links still wouldn't show up.

Editing the published post to try adding the link again still didn't work. In the end, I just pasted the link as-is without trying to use the link icon.

How and Where to Find Information About Adding Links to Niume Posts?

I tried to look for information about this, but I couldn't find anything, so I decided to write this post.

I was going to ask if anyone knew where I could find info on how to add links to Niume posts, but- well, let's just say I had a sudden epiphany while I was trying to add links to this post.

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While I did find a few posts about Niume, I wasn't able to find anything about how to add links to your posts here

I was testing the link tooltip yet again when I thought to press the enter key on my keyboard. Guess what? Yup, it actually worked.

So, that's how you add links to your Niume posts. Be sure to press the enter key after pasting your link on the tooltip. You'll know it worked when you see the text that you highlighted is now underlined.

P.S. I put this post in the Interesting sphere since I didn't know where else to put it. If there's a more relevant category or sphere for this, just tell me so I can edit the post and put it there instead.

Here are some of the comments from this article, back when it used to be posted elsewhere:

Maribelle said on 31/1/17
Thanks. I got it after 5 tries.

Freya Yuki replied to Maribelle on 31/1/17
You're welcome. If you have any questions, feel free to ask :-).

Mari Christine Glan said on 10/12/16
Thank you Freya

Freya Yuki replied to Mari Christine Glan on 10/12/16
You're welcome, Mari. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask :-).

Uwe Lang said on 21/11/16
Great advise, how old is this platform and how long are you a user?

Freya Yuki replied to Uwe Lang on 21/11/16
Niume was first launched in July 2014. I can't quite recall the exact date when I joined, but it was in 2016.

Brian Leverton said on 18/11/16
Good post with great information I am going to come back many times to look because I am lost now for certain.

Freya Yuki replied to Brian Leverton on 19/11/16
Thanks. If you have any questions, feel free to ask :-).

Ritu Nanda said on 2/11/16
Thank you, that information was really useful.

Freya Yuki replied to Ritu Nanda on 6/11/16
You're welcome. Glad this helped. Also had a bit of a hard time trying to figure it out at first.

Jim Bauer said on 25/10/16
This helped greatly. This was driving me nuts and I can't so far seem to find many tutorials on this site. Now if I can just figure out how to embed a YouTube video we're onto something. Thanks.

Freya Yuki replied to Jim Bauer on 25/10/16
You're welcome. Yeah, I'm finding it kind of hard to search through the site. It would be great if there was a Niume sphere or even a tag or something. There's a FAQ section, but, unfortunately, it doesn't include all the relevant info about the site and how it works.

Freya Yuki replied to Jim Bauer on 25/10/16
About adding YouTube vids, here's how: when you're on the Niume post editor, press the enter key on your keyboard and you'll see a plus sign on the editor. Click the plus sign and a few options will show up.

Click the 3rd circle, the one that looks like the play sign. If you hover your mouse on it, you'll see text that says "Add a YouTube or Vimeo link". Once you click that icon, you'll be able to paste a video link on the line provided. Hope this helped.

Jim Bauer replied to Freya Yuki on 30/10/16
I still can't get it to work. The video shows up while in edit, but as soon as click UPDATE it's gone. Ugh. I'll keep on trying.

Freya Yuki replied to Jim Bauer on 1/11/16
Are you using the YouTube video link itself or the embed link? Using the YouTube link, I've managed to add a vid to one of my posts: https://niume.com/pages/post/?postID=143499

*Notes:
- This was previously published on Niume on 19 Oct 2016 in Interesting
- First pic is by AlexLasek (CC:BY) from deviantArt
- Second pic is a screenshot from my Niume account
- Third pic is by GraphBerry (CC:BY-SA) from deviantArt