We hope for The Canvas to be an enjoyable platform for all to share and learn about Art. To ensure that everyone has good clean fun, here are some useful tips on blogging on The Canvas.

1. Use simple, everyday language that is free from ‘artspeak’ so that everybody and anybody can participate in the conversation. Our goal is to make art accessible to everybody, regardless of his or her background.

2. Articles should be original and authentic wherever possible. If content third party sources are used, do cite and credit them accordingly.

3. Content should not be illegal, obscene, defamatory, threatening, infringing intellectual property rights, invasive of privacy or otherwise injurious or objectionable.

4. All opinions expressed by individuals on The Canvas belong to the individuals and will not be considered as statements made by the National Art Gallery, Singapore or its associated organisations. In other words, it’s your voice that we want!

5. We reserve the right to remove any content or comments if they violate or are deemed to violate any of the guidelines stated above. While we hope it will not happen, we do have to cover ourselves against being sued you know.

6. Do avoid sensitive topics covering areas such as ethnicity/race, politics, and religion or areas that may impinge upon national security (e.g. terrorism).

7. Interesting images could help enhance your stories and attract readership. Videos and audio clips (or podcasts) could also help to enhance the reading experience.

8. Images posted should be clear of copyright and should include appropriate credits. Artworks should be credited in this format –

· Name of artist, Title of piece, year, medium, size, source

· Example: Cheong Soo Pieng, Village Scene, 1962, mixed media, 45 x 65 cm, collection of National Heritage Board

· Where applicable, please include a hyperlink to the source(s) of the image(s).

9. Be cautious when uploading images or artworks that contain nudity. To illustrate: while images of David, by Michelangelo, are acceptable, images that border on pornography, such as photographs by Richard Kern, may be deemed distasteful by the general public. Images that may be deemed distasteful should be avoided, where possible.

10. Comments, whatever the nature, should be taken with a pinch of salt. When giving replies or comments, avoid personal attacks/flaming wars. Defend/explain the idea, and try not to direct it at the commenter.

11. If there are comments that are considered as spam, obscene, seditious, or unrelated to the topic at hand, we do reserve the right to delete them. This helps us to keep the content on the blog related to its overall theme.

12. Keep an open mind to criticism and accept that everyone draws their conclusion from a different field of experience.

13. Where possible, link terms or phrases to the source of the idea or content, and also within The Canvas, much like how the articles in Wikipedia are linked to one another. References are key to deeper learning. They also help us to improve our SEO.

14. Trackbacks are also a useful way to notify another author that you wrote something related to what he had written on his blog, even if you don’t have an explicit link to his article.

15. Should you have any enquiries or clarifications, please feel free to contact Elaine Lim at elaine_lim@nationalartgallery.sg