Write for RealFin
Built something, broke something, fixed something? Write it up here. RealFin publishes first-hand experiences from people who actually did the thing.
Opening soon. The guest editor isn't open yet. Read the guidelines below in the meantime, and check back shortly.
How it works
- Get a free GitHub account if you don't have one. It's only used to sign in. Your password never touches this site.
- Open the editor (opening soon) and sign in with GitHub. The first time, it creates your own copy of the site in your GitHub account. That's normal.
- Create your author profile under Authors (a nickname is fine), then write your post under Posts.
- Click Publish → Ready for review. Your post comes to me as a suggestion. Nothing goes live until I've read it.
- I might suggest edits, then publish it, and you'll appear on the authors page with your own profile.
What we're looking for
- Your own experience. What you set up, what went wrong, what fixed it, what you'd do differently.
- Topics: homelab and self-hosting, game servers (Valheim, Minecraft and others), Roblox and game development, and other first-hand tech or gaming experiences ("Other experiences").
- Specifics: real config snippets, error messages, numbers, before/after.
- Roughly 500 words or more. Screenshots are welcome, as long as you clean them first (see below).
What we don't publish
- Copied content, rewritten articles, or mass-generated AI text. Using AI to help with spelling or wording is fine; the experience and the substance must be yours.
- Anything illegal, hateful, sexual, violent, or about cheating, cracking, piracy or exploiting games.
- Ads, affiliate spam, or links you were paid to place.
- Other people's personal data, including friends' usernames or IDs without their permission.
Protect yourself
Before you publish a config or screenshot, remove: IP addresses, hostnames, domain names of your home network, usernames, email addresses, API keys, tokens, passwords and anything that shows where you live. Writing how something works is great; publishing a map of your network is not.
Ads on your post
Each post has a "Show ads on this post" switch, and you decide. With it off, your post shows no ads at all. Ads help pay for the site. There is currently no revenue sharing; if that changes, it will be announced here with clear terms.
Never click ads on this site or ask anyone else to. That's ad fraud, and it gets the whole site banned.
Contributor terms
By submitting a post or author profile, you agree that:
- It's yours. You wrote it, or you have the right to publish everything in it, including images, and it doesn't infringe anyone else's rights.
- You keep ownership. You give RealFin a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to publish, edit for length, clarity or formatting, display and keep your post on realfin.dev and its feeds, including next to ads if you left ads on. You can publish it elsewhere too.
- Editorial control. RealFin may decline, edit, unpublish or remove any submission at any time, without having to give a reason.
- Removal on request. You can ask for your post or profile to be removed at any time via [email protected]. Copies that already exist in the public GitHub history may remain there.
- No payment unless separately agreed in writing.
- Public by nature. Submissions go through public GitHub pull requests, so your GitHub username and the text are visible on GitHub even before publication.
- Age. You're at least 16, or have a parent's or guardian's permission.
Report a problem
If you believe something on this site is illegal, infringes your rights or contains your personal data, email [email protected] with the page link and what's wrong. I'll review it and respond as quickly as I can.