The Deadmalls.com Rules Of Submission

I am a “content selector” at deadmalls.com and I read every.single.e-mail that comes through. This one day I got fed up with subpar submissions, so I sent Brian (the main webmaster) some suggestions:

Suggestions For Good Deadmalls Submissions:

We love nice, long submissions. Three or four paragraphs are good. What we really want to know is:

When the mall opened

The original anchors

What store replaced what anchor when it shut down (if any!)

If you remember, a nice description of the other tenants of the mall

The moment when the mall started to go downhill (when an anchor shut down, when a new mall down the street opened, those sorts of things)

What tenants were left when the mall closed, or if it is still open, what tenants are left now. If you don’t know the names of the stores, its ok, just say “there’s about 10 stores left”

What NOT to do:

We’re not looking for Harvard applications, just make sure you don’t type submissions in ALL CAPS, and make sure to use punctuation, and space thoughts with paragraphs.

Don’t restate something that is here already. We know the anchors of Mall Of Memphis and 90% of the other malls on the site already.

Don’t send us one sentence e-mails. For example, we won’t post anything that says, “_____ Mall has been torn down this summer”. We probably won’t post that.

Please don’t make a submission that is just the tenants of the mall. Like I dunno, here is an example of what NOT to do: This mall had:”Dillards, Montgomery Ward, JC Penney, Musicland, Lane Bryant, a pet store that I don’t remember the name of, an Italian restaurant I don’t know the name of anymore, a women’s clothing store, 2 shoe stores, a waldenbooks..” you get the idea. I mean if you’re writing about other aspects of the mall putting a list of tenants is fine. But if you’re just sending me a list of tenants and nothing else? No deal.

DON’T HARASS US IF YOUR COMMENTARY DID NOT GET POSTED. Chances are, your submission was bad. It probably broke several of the rules.

don’t give us this beautiful submission … and then at the end say that we cannot post the submission, or cannot post your name. We no longer accept anonymous submissions.

Ok, we’re good? If you got a great submission, send it in.

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