How to earn your rep and be an asset to the community.

[VectorKing]

Well a lot of you newbies really want to help but simply don't know how, don't expect any kind of magic formula here, becoming reputable takes time and dedication. Like I stated in the title, you have to earn your rep. So I can not give you a magic formula, but what I can give is guidelines, to becoming more useful to everyone, and becoming a glorious beacon of light!

• Write a tutorial, don't just get one off a site and source it, if you work hard on your tutorial put some thought into it and make it genuinely useful I can guarantee you to get thanked and repped. Try and think what your best at, what your thing is. If your an expert cook, write a cooking tutorial, there's always going to be people interested in it, as long as you take the time to write it. Make sure to write your tutorial properly, well formatted and avoid grammatical and spelling mistakes. Additionally use commas full stops and proper punctuation. This makes the tutorial much easier to read and understand.

• Make suggestions. You have a suggestions forum, USE it! even if it's the tiniest of things make a suggestion. these suggestions not only improve TI greatly, and are the basis of what make TI evolve and grow, but you will also get a shower of praise and thanks if your suggestion is good, thoughtful and well presented. try to make your vision as clear as possible, if you want a graphical change, photoshop it. if you can't. ASK me. don't worry if you think your suggestion is stupid or doesn't make sense, unless its spam, you have nothing to lose by posting it.

• Chop up some users, Investigate. If you see a user with some bad rep, maybe look into it a bit, trail through statistics and igiver threads, you never know what you might come across. use the statistics and igivers to your advantage, check the users posts, maybe search his name on trackers, look at his introduction. you might stumble across some dirty dirty secret (:

• Write a tracker review, write a really good tracker review, don't just post some screenshots, put some thought into it. Write pros cons, who the tracker is aimed at, who might want to use it etc.. Not only will you get the automatic bonus rep, but you will also receive thanks if your review was good.

• Answer peoples questions. This one is pretty much a given, but if you see someone ask a question answer it, try to put as much detail into your answer as possible. if you dot know the answer do some research on Google, find the answer and help them out! if you solve their problem, you might just get thanked and/or repped.

• Ask questions. if you asked someone else is bound to have thought the same thing, try and make your question clear and easy to understand, if more people were wondering the answer you might get thanked.

• Help us keep up with the news, if you see an interesting article, post it, maybe even start an interesting discussion about it. this is a great way to help the community and get thanked for it.

• Do what you do best. Can you design? maybe or an expert php coder? can you make windows themes? whatever you can do, offer your services, make an offer thread and you never know who might be looking for your help. Try and help as many people as possible, and make an effort. If you make a half arsed avatar people aren't likely to request anything from you. This helps everyone, and the people that offer out there services are the ones I most appreciate.

• Make some generous giveaways. have a bunch of invites? combine them into one mega giveaway thread, if your giving away lots of high quality tracker invites you are bound to get thanked and/or repped.

• Be funny, post a snarky comment (not spam) maybe catch a great moment on the irc. I always thank any funny post I see. Really adds a nice feel to the forum. (:

Just be active, post detailed posts, don't be afraid to say what you think do all these things and you should be on a road to reputation in no time.

*Don't abuse any of the above suggestions, posting 50 copy paste articles or tutorials isn't going to get you repped, it's going to get you banned, just remember the most important rule. everything in moderation.

[Kicker]

I would like to add to Answering peoples questions. Confirming an answer to a question by stating your own experience or delivering additional evidence is also very appreciated. This backs up the poster with the first answer and may further justify it (rather than just taking one persons word for it). However do not just type "I agree" or "They are correct", really try and contribute to further prove an answer. I personally have thanked posts that help confirm answers I read on here.

[Malevich]

Good work on the tutorial! For me, it was writing a tracker review and making it as good as possible, that was the easiest way to achieve rep.

[NoDuFFGen]

really was informative, i didnt realise just how ignorant i was about rep, started going through the list and doing what i can to contribute. i have got to admit, Ive had a pretty good day on TI, got a tracker that i have wanted for ages thanks to a 'TI Ninga' lol and made a new 'virtual friend'. Played around most the day using tips from the tutorials, some worked, some didnt and some kinda did lol

I see now all these little things are what make up the TI community its not just about downloading torrents

Many Thanks Guys

[Trevor]

This is an awesome tutorial and a big help for new and old members alike. When you don't have any rep at all, and don't know where to start, study the above tutorial and pick the points that suit you best, the ones where you think you can excel and make a difference. However, there's one important point still missing from this thread and it's based on plain common sense:

Give and you will receive!

As soon as you've gathered some rep (even if your rep power is still not higher than 1), just start looking how you can help others in their rep progress and don't be afraid to express your appreciation and your gratitude towards your fellow TI-members by starting to use the rep button.

For example, if you see someone made a very helpful comment in the help section or you just stumble across a great giveaway, show your appreciation and give it the rep you think it deserves. Were you given an invite or a bonus? Then maybe it's time to give the giver some rep as a token of your gratitude. Did you just read a post that made you look at things differently, inspired you, brightened up your day, or even made you laugh to tears, then why not give the poster the rep he deserves for it! What to do when you just read a great tutorial, a good review, an informative article, or a great suggestion? Maybe you can show some love and hit that rep button for the poster! Wait, did you just notice someone is working hard in a particular section of this forum? Or that someone else is dedicating a substantial part of his free time to make this place a better one for us all? Well, let him know you appreciate the work he's doing and reward it with some rep! Or perhaps you just saw a member is having a really hard time to make some progress on this forum? Why not give your fellow member a helping hand and give him a few rep points for a good post he made.

Now, that being said, do NOT run off and rep every post like a wild man, no-one will appreciate that and TI-rules state you should use your rep power responsibly, if not, you may have to face some very nasty consequences. Do NOT just go and rep as many members as you can in the hope to get something back, that is NOT the way to go and will result in an infraction or a ban. Notice the adjectives I've been using: good, informative, helpful, great, etc. Those are the signal words that should trigger a rep flag in your brain. If you turn into a giving person, it's just no more than a logical consequence that sooner or later you'll get the love back you're spreading around - this is true for many things in real life, but it's also true for something as practical as reputation on this forum. However, don't think for a moment that we're talking about an automatic process here, as if when you rep someone, that person is just going to rep you back for it. That's not how it works, nor how it's supposed to work, and such behavior will again lead to nasty consequences.

Still, just as in real life, a responsible and giving attitude will eventually result in a rewarding experience, even though it may take some time. If you can develop such a patient and giving attitude with regards to rep and keep combining it with the excellent points from the tutorial above, I can assure you your rep power will go up. It's like many things in life, don't focus on GETTING but on GIVING. You can GIVE to the forum by following the points in the tutorial above and by responsibly giving out the rep you were able to gather so far. The combination of these two things will not only give you more rep and respect, but it will also leave you with a good feeling and a general sense of being valuable to the forum.

I think this is a very nice Christmas thought, don't you think?

[el2em]

...Yeah, nice, but too long to read all of it as indicated in the rep message haha.

Anyways, to sum it all up, the simplest way to earn rep is to be helpful to our members and the community as a whole. I'm not sure about everyone one else, but I usually rep/like members for the following (some are already mentioned in the above posts):

• Answering questions in the help section. By far one of the simplest ways to earn rep. I also don't mean answering questions by pasting links or quoting things, but answer them yourself. Adding a bit of your experience also makes a difference. People are ridiculously lazy - that's why they didn't use the search feature in the first place so make it easier for them and just answer it right there and then. And keep it blunt - to the point - I don't need entire paragraphs if it could be answered in a few sentences.
• Creating tracker reviews. You instantly earn 10 bonus reps for a review following the template we provided. Extra if the review is more detailed, informative, and organized.
• Working in the Introduction section. I usually go around and reward members who volunteers their hours in this section. I know how much of a pain it is so koodos to those who helps there.
• Reporting posts. Posts with exposed ratios, usernames, emails, or any identifiable text should be reported. Spammers, flamers, and other rule breakers should be reported as well. Click that Report button; it's pretty easy.

Lastly, just get your name out there. The more you post, the more people will notice you. Although, make your posts interesting and informative. Idiotic spammers usually gets nothing from me besides an infraction or a ban (hah!). Join the IRC or post in the chatbox. If you're too busy in the Free Invites section, you're actually missing out on the better part of the forum which is to get to know people. Also, as Trevor clearly indicated, it's extremely important to show your appreciation. Rep members! Like their posts!

This is a stingy world. People won't notice you if you give nothing back to it.

[jibrab]

Good info for a TI noob like me. It would be nice to combine and condense some of the good post about getting rep and contributing to the community. Then have that info sent to new members.