Non-Essential Tips on Standing Out

Welcome to ATS. Maybe you're curious about a few things. Maybe you're curious about everything. Maybe you know something that everyone else should know about. There are probably a few hundred reasons why various members are here.

Problem: almost 65,000 people have registered at some point or another, at any given time there may be one or two thousand people on ATS, over 100 of them with posting ability.
You want them to see you, you want them to listen, you want them to be impressed (at least a little).

How?

1. Personality. Invest your points in custom background colors for your miniprofile. Do that Here
All of a sudden you're not just another gray block in the thread.
Your colors will cost 400 ATS Points. A single ATSNN submission will earn you 750 points. So go to BBC or any other news service, and find a quality news article that isn't on ATSNN yet, then submit it Here. Follow the guidelines, take your time to do a good job, and voila!

Also choose an avatar which says something about you. Your avatar is your clothing on ATS. There are many tallented artists on ATS who love to be in demand, especially when you ask nicely. They live Here

These elements are the beginning of a personality that will draw attention to you and give people a first impression of you.

2. Starting your own threads:
Now that you're dressed like you mean business, it would help to actually mean business.
Titles
A vague thread title is generally not as good as a specific one. Sometimes a question is best. Othertimes an eye-catching statement is appropriate (but don't be over the top). "Evidence of Ancient Nuclear War Discovered" is good. "Do you think the WTO is evil?" can be good. "ABSOLUTE PROOF THAT GREEN EYED PEOPLE ARE SUPERIOR" is bad because A. all caps. B. it's inflamatory. C. if you haven't really got absolute proof, it's misleading.

Content
It's common to see a thread started by a very very short post, but usually this is a bad idea. Write a paragraph or two. Include a picture if you want. A really good opening to a thread will probably have
1. Several facts, preferably attributed to a source if they are not common knowledge.
2. Interpretation of facts. What do these facts tell you?
3. A question. Ask what people think, ask for additional info if there's more you want to know, etc.

(Short example: A 20 foot dog was born yesterday according to Fox News. The Guiness Book of Records says this is the first of this size ever. I suspect that this might be the result of environmental contamination because it happened near Dugway Proving Ground, where biological weapons are sometimes tested according to www.wikipedia.com. Can anybody else think of another reason this might have happened?)

Extra features
Did you know that you can put pictures, bold fonts, italics, underlining, and other features in your posts?
font adjustments are done like this (take the periods out) [.b]bold text[./b] use i for italic, or u for underline. To see more, "quote" at the top of this post, and you can see the tags I used for everything in this post.

You can shorten your links too. [.url=www.Abovetopsecret.com]ATS[./url] If you take those period out, that tag will cause the long link for this site to appear as just ATS in red letters, as I have done for links above.

You can use images on ATS without paying for extra memory space in the member store. PhotoBucket is completely free and will allow you to save and edit images. it will even generate the tags you need to put them in your posts, so you don't have to memorize the tag- just copy and paste.
In case you don't want that though, photo tags go [.IMG]Web address of image[./IMG]. But you have to use the web address of the image itself, not just the address where the image is used.


Now, the rest is something you can't exactly be given so easily. There are aspects that have to come from within you. Attitude, Gimmicks, areas of special interest and knowledge- nobody can tell you what to adopt here, but finding yours is important to being prolific.

Majic has his thing with ironic and funny titles and puns.
MirthfulMe has his signiture "_____ Monkeys, not just for ________ anymore" endings.

Many of our members have areas of particular areas of expertise which make them stand out sharply. But you don't need to be working on your second PhD to enjoy such a status. If you really want to blow people's socks off, all it takes is 20-60 minutes of research on something that you enjoy reading about anyway. You don't have to, but you can if you want.

Find an online encyclopedia or other resources which will shed additional light on your areas of interest. One good source that is very heavily used is www.wikipedia.org
When using these sources however, it is very important to be aware of ATS' policy on the handing of external sources, because copyright violations are dangerous for ATS, and ATS can not afford to tollerate members who place the community and its owners in legal danger.

It isn't too complicated though, so take heart.
the tags look like this (without the periods) [.ex] info from outside source [./ex] You must also include a link to the outside source.

You can use printed material not available online by naming the title, author, and publisher. This still uses the ex tags.


Last but not least- get to know people. U2U if you have a good conversation with them in a thread. Use your buddy list. When a polite exchange, even in disagreement, takes place, the people taking part become a subject of some attention naturally. Don't fight, but press your case politely or reinforce somebody you agree with. You'll get to know people and they'll get to know you. Use your WATS vote for members who impress you and mention it in the thread if you like.

So, I've bumped my gums quite a bit, hopefully put some information here that you can use. I hope that a couple of new members can use this to develop an ATS personality that is fun for them and attracts attention to their views and questions.

And of course if you have questions, or difficulties in a thread, there are plenty of experienced members around in addition to the mods who will often be willing to help. Serious problems, especially defects in the board or rules violations should be addressed using the gripe button, but for smaller stuff, U2U me or find somebody in the Adopt a Newbie thread to get help from.

Today you're a new member- in a few months or a year, if it makes you happy, you could be a staple around here. All you gotta do is learn the ways of the force.

Thanx Vagabond for an informative post,i especially appreciated learning the bit on how to shorten the links.

I`ve been on the verge of asking a mod how to do it and wont need to bother them about it now.

Well so long as i understood it correctly and dont keep stuffing up my attempts

Edit to add

The reason i dont have an avataris under those definitions they are all negative to me,tho i realise i`m probably just being stupid,maybe i should just get some colour to warm me first before i dive straight in and become completly damed

WOOHOO the shortened link worked

[edit on 3-1-2006 by gps777]

Don't fret over the dictionary definitions so much. Try interpreting the third definition.

Avatar

3. A temporary manifestation (snip) of a continuing entity.

Are you an entity? Well yeah, you exist.

2. The fact of existence; being.

So your avatar is just how you appear online. Hardly sacreligious, in my humble opinion. (well, assuming you aren't Amish; then it would at least need to be a black and white avatar)

Your call of course.

Thank you for this very helpfull thred. I have use one of my WATS votes on this.

Thank you again.

Thanks Pickle- I'm flattered.
I hope this serves you well. Nice avatar by the way; great example of one that gives a first impression.