Thread: For newbies: How to apply to a giveaway *properly*

Hey guys, a lot of people seem to be not capable to understand the fundamentals of an average giveaway here on TI, so I decided to try and make a tutorial on the unwritten laws of 'How to apply for a giveaway'.



- First of all, don't, and I mean don't spam someone's thread. See below.
- Read all the requirements. There are some basic things most people will require you to have, like:
1. You might need to have <a random number> iGivers already. That assures the thread's owner that you are a sharing and caring member of TI and you hand out invites/seedboxes/bonuses too, not just applying for what you need. That also motivates people to have more iGivers, aka: give more to the community.
2. Some people will disqualify you if you have negative rep. That means you were not really useful to TI yet. Don't worry, just try to make useful posts/threads, take your part in the help section, write some tutorials or tracker reviews. Most importantly: TAKE YOUR TIME when you make a post, do not try to rise your postcount with unnecessary and/or unuseful posts. That'll come out bad later anyways.
3. Here comes the fun: post your ratio proofs. You can read about how to properly edit your proofs HERE.
3.1 Please don't post sh*tloads of proofs, only some of your best ones. The threadmaker will prob'ly state how many proofs does he/she require.
4. The other thing people WILL ask for is a speedtest. You can make yours in a short time at Speedtest.net - The Global Broadband Speed Test . This is the only acceptable service here, and it'll mostly give accurate speeds. Couple of things to remember about speedtests:
4.1 Always link a current one.
4.2 Never try to cheat by stealing someone else's speedtest picture.
4.3 Always link to the speedtest image hosted on speedtest.net's servers. Do NOT upload the picture to an image hosting server and link it from there.
4.4 Please take your time to put [img] and [/img] tags around your image links, thus saving some time for the thread's owner, cause he/she'll not be forced to click around a lot.
5. Other things may be neccessary, like seedbox proofs. If a seedbox proof is required for your chosen giveaway, just make a screenshot of yours. But edit out the torrents' names and the tracker urls, and anything that can identify you.
6. Some people will ask what do you want the tracker for. Just type a few lines, but try not to be similar to the 1.000.000.000... other applicants.
7. Don't PM the thread's owner until he/she asked you to do so. He/she will most probably ask you to PM him/her your email address. Get a gmail addy, it is the most suitable for invites, some other email providers like yahoo will not ever receive invites from some trackers.
8. Be prepared to provide your profile links. This assures the inviter that your ratio proofs were not fake. Don't worry, we care about each other and hopefully nobody's gonna abuse this.
9. WHEN you receive your invite, submit an iGiver to the inviter. There's a tutorial how to do this HERE. Never give out the iGiver before you receive the invite, because that's absolutely not sure that you'll get the invite.
10. Another good idea to be more sympathic to the inviter, always click on the thank you button before you apply. That is a little sign of gratefulness from you.
11. About spam, again. Please do not apply if you don't meet ALL of the requirements. Posting or PMing the thread's maker if you could apply without having met them is not a good idea either. If you are not sure, and you think you are at least almost up to the requirements, then TAKE YOUR TIME, and try your luck by posting a complete and 101% cool application. That will surely not grant you groans or negative rep. The worst that can happen is that you'll not be considered as a 100% suitable applicant.
12. I think that's all. Any suggestions are welcome.

Thank you for reading, have a good time here. :)
The 'stang.

Very nice thread mustang +rep added its nice to see a thread of all your own work rather than a just stick and peste jobbi well done

Really nice tutorial, Mustang. I have a few suggestions on additional information you may wish to consider adding to the tutorial:

[New Section]. If you have ever held membership in a tracker before and had your account disabled for any reason, you must disclose this information at the time you initially apply for a giveaway for that tracker. Subsequent disclosures (e.g., after you have been offered the invite) are not acceptable.

[New Section]. Regrettably, some trackers have decided to ban residents of entire countries from joining and/or using their trackers. Please note in the giveaway instructions if certain countries are banned from joining specific trackers and respect that by not applying if you are a resident of a banned country since both you and your inviter could get banned. Even if there is nothing in the instructions about this, it would be helpful if you would check one of the following resources before applying and ask if you have any questions: banned country sticky, sortable table of banned countries.

[For the section on reasons you want to join a tracker]: The best applications tend to show a passion for the subject matter of the tracker and/or for the tracker itself. Familiarizing yourself with T-I's review of a tracker before applying should help you list specific reasons why you would like to join that tracker.

Even if you don't wish to add this info, you have created a great resource that I am sure will be quite helpful to newcomers. Well done!

Fantastic tutorial Mustang, +Rep given. I think this tutorial will definitely be helpful to new and old members. Thanks for taking the time to make it.

Hi Mustang:

Thanks for the nice guide. But there's a problem (more for the admins than you I'd guess)...

Your step 3 says: "You can read about how to properly edit your proofs HERE"

Except I can't, because when I click that link I'm told I don't have enough privileges to view that page. I've been a member here awhile, done my intro, posted in the forums etc. It seems kind of odd to hide the page about editing proofs from the noobs who need to know the rules, no? I know at one time I got to some other page that had some info on that, but i don't remember where it was, and can't find it (though I've tried).

Anyway, the dead-end kind of sours the experience of your otherwise helpful post, so hopefully there's some way to straighten that out.

best,

sm

Originally Posted by ssadmar

...
Your step 3 says: "You can read about how to properly edit your proofs HERE"
...

The link is placed in introductions section. If you log out you'll be able to see it.

i can read it fine. LOL Can this be stickied? And in the invite forum? LOL

First off I want to say thanks Mustang. I am brand new. I was just accepted yesterday. As I am new I wasn't sure how to go about to apply for an invite, and I don't want to mess everything up, because this site is very nice, and has many nice people giving out invites. I have one question quick as I am new, and haven't applied for a giveaway yet I am just wondering if there are general requirements before I can apply, such as doing a giveaway first, or have so many posts? I noticed some of the sections of invites you need 100 or 20, but I am just talking about the low level invites.

Thanks =D

very nice thread, informative hopefully will become a template for invites application so that every body sees it, well nevertheless one of the few post I subscribe to