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http://foureyedmonsters.com/neutrality/

Social bookmarking sites such as StumbleUpon, Mixx, and Furl can greatly contribute to the success of your blog or website by giving your articles priceless exposures, and page ranks. These sites are gold mines, imagine having your articles promoted to millions of users. No wonder social bookmarking sites are also being abused by some users, and a must-target by spammers.

If we want long term success in social bookmarking sites, perhaps we should think about the success of the bookmarking site first. How can we be successful if the bookmarking site we are in starts to go down?

Here are some ways to contribute to their success:

Submit Quality Contents

• Content is the bread and butter, the heart and soul of all social bookmarking sites. People visit popular bookmarking sites for its content. Submitting quality articles, photos, and videos will help the bookmarking sites’ growth.
  

Be Courteous

• Remember that social bookmarking sites is a community. There are different demographics in different sites. As a citizen of whichever bookmarking site,  please be courteous towards other bookmarkers especially to new ones. You are representing a community, you don’t want your community to be reputed as rude, hostile, or vulgar.

Be A Responsible Bookmarker

• Keep your profile clean by having decent avatar, articles tagged well, and putting everything in the right categories/groups’ niches. These help bookmarking sites to look cleaner and have better navigation.
  

Quality Over Quantity

• It is better to submit 1 to 5 quality contents a day than 20 to 30 poor contents. Bookmarking sites should deliver quality contents to the readers, thus poor quality contents can clutter around the bookmarking sites which can cost its credibility.
  

Moderate Thumbs-Up/Up-Vote/Digg Exchanges

• If you are in a social bookmarking site, I presume that your are familiar with these exchanges. Some bookmarkers ask for exchange of thumbs-up/up-vote/digg to further promote the articles they have submitted. I stand that this is NOT wrong as long as you moderate exchanges with quality and worthy articles only.

Interact

• Social bookmarking is not all about submissions and bookmarkings. It’s also about participating and interacting with other bookmarkers. One way we can help bookmarking sites to deliver quality contents efficiently is by voting and commenting.

Limit Self Promotion (For Bloggers)

• Yes, social bookmarking sites is a great way to promote your articles and generate steady traffics. But that doesn’t mean that you’ll only be submitting contents from your site. Limit self promotion, perhaps submit 1 quality content from your site for every 10 contents you submit from other sites (1:10). Promote excellent contents from other sites, it brings good karma.

Bookmarking sites are very essential to bloggers and readers alike. Thus the success of every bookmarking site is celebrated by both parties. We are all important building blocks of these sites, so let us work together for the success of social bookmarking sites — and let’s be successful as well.

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Don’t forget to add me up on StumbleUpon and Mixx.

Have something in mind to add on this post? Contact me or perhaps leave a comment below.

Forum is an online discussion site, wherein members can collaborate and share interests with each other. Forums are rich grounds for socialization. If you are running a blog or any other site, forums can help you a lot in many ways: From generating traffics to gathering important tips and other useful information.

Maximizing the capability of forums is simple, yet many people doesn’t know how to do it. Building up your credibility is the most important thing you should consider if you wish to be effective in forums. Image is everything.

Here’s a simple guide on how to groom and build-up your credibility in forums:

AVATAR

Have you ever took a second look to someone with a beautiful face? I bet you had. Avatars is like your face in real life. It helps you grab attention and make that very first impression. Be sure to choose avatar that best suits you.

I recommend you to have your own photo as your avatar. It’s more professional and courteous in a way.

Things to avoid:

• Animated Images (.GIF) – Though it catches attention, it can also annoy readers.
• Adult/Pornographic Images – Be suitable for all audiences. Members of adult forums may be exempted.
• Images with vulgar texts

If you wish to be respected in forums, place a respectable image. Credibility starts with your avatar.

RESPECT THE RULES

Just like any other pubic places, every forums has its own house rules. If you want to be respected, you must first learn to respect the rules.

READ BEFORE ASKING

Be courteous enough to read and research first before asking questions.

BE NICE TO OTHER MEMBERS

Be courteous, friendly, and refined. Learn to respect others. Written messages can be difficult to transmit due to the absence of tone, thus this may be misinterpreted by the reader. Using some emoticons or smileys can prevent this misinterpretation. Use emoticons properly.

BE SURE YOU’RE ON THE RIGHT THREAD

Forums have this link of messages that is dedicated to one particular theme or topic, this is called thread. Before you post, be sure that you are posting on the proper thread. Unrelated postings can be a real turn-off and can cost your credibility big time.

BE HELPFUL

Be the problem solver not the whiner. Try to be the one answering questions rather than the one asking. This will improve your credibility. Just be sure you know what you are talking about. Avoid mediocrity.

SPECIFY THREAD TITLE

When you decide to create a new thread be sure to be specific on the title.

Ex:

Bad: Traffic ; Good: Generate Traffic via Entrecard (Good Title)

Bad: Social bookmarking sites ; Good: Increase page ranks via social bookmarking sites.

HELP NEWBIES

We all became a newbie once, this is a stage we all have to pass. So let’s welcome them and be patient to help newbies use forums properly and effectively. Lead them to become a better user.

NO FLAMING

Flaming is an act of sending someone a very insulting or rude message, whether publicly or privately. Flaming often occurs due to disagreement and differences in opinion. If you disagree on a certain matter, perhaps you could disagree politely and present your argument in a very courteous manner.

BE BRIEF

Be brief as much as possible. Be direct and straight to the point. No need to tell the whole story. If there’s a chance that one of your articles might be helpful to one of the members, don’t just post your entire article in the forum. Send a link to that article instead.

PROMOTE DISCREETLY

Some thread allows promotions while some don’t. If you wish to promote your site, perhaps you could promote it creatively and discreetly. Don’t just spam your links, it’s very unethical.

Take time to groom yourself and build credibility in forums. Thus this can help you on your long term success on the internet.

]]> http://jedchan.com/walkthrough-better-forum-credibility/feed 4 http://jedchan.com/friendly-internet http://jedchan.com/friendly-internet#comments Wed, 21 Jan 2009 05:52:09 +0000 JeD Chan http://jedchan.com/?p=641 Ever encountered these things?           8-)  They are called “Smileys” or “Emoticons” - Emotion Icons. These emoticons is used to express one’s emotion in text. Putting these on emails, comments, chats, etc. will definitely make them more expressive, and more friendly. I’m one avid fan of emoticons, as a matter of fact, 90% of my comments and chats contains emoticons. However, not only emoticons can help express emotions through text. There’s also CAPITAL LETTERS, Exclamation Point!, (symbols) @%#^&*$((*#, and (direct text) *sob* *huhu* *haha* *zZzZz* *joking*.

Subtle emotions and meanings can be difficult to transmit through text, as well as satire and humor. These may be misinterpreted as sarcasm, rudeness or an insult. Perhaps these are just result of being absent minded or poor structure of phrase, and not intended the way it was perceived. Putting suitable smileys or other emotion text can save them from being misunderstood.

Ex: “Of course not. I’d rather go alone.”

vs

“Of course not! I’d rather go alone. *kidding*”

Expressing emotions should be used sparingly and responsibly. Thus these may also gravitate anger and other unpleasant expressions.

Usage of Emotions:

Capital Letters

• Avoid using capital letters if it is not necessary. Capital letters designates SHOUTING and can be considered rude.

Ex: “THIS IS NOT THE WAY IT SHOULD BE.”

• There are times when capital letters are used to emphasize a word. Use underline, asterisk, italic, or bold instead.

Ex: “This is not the way it should be.”

Exclamation Point

• Exclamation point really gives that (uhmph!) strong feeling in a particular statement. It can express the feeling of surprise, excitement, or anger. Be careful using this with capital letters for it may intensify the statement and might be misinterpreted as furiousness.
  

Ex: “THIS IS NOT THE WAY IT SHOULD BE!”

Others might also put a lot of exclamations that can further intensify the statement.

Ex: “THIS IS NOT THE WAY IT SHOULD BE!!!”

Smileys/Emoticons

• In my opinion, smileys are the simplest and most basic but very effective way to express one’s emotion.
  

Here are some of the most commonly used smileys:

• Though emoticons are very easy to use, remember to use it properly. Putting inappropriate emoticons in a certain situation may be insulting. Remember to be sensitive.
  

Ex: “Condolence. “

“May you have more birthdays to come. “

“You failed the exam? “

• In blogging, try to minimize the usage of emoticons on posts. For some readers may find it somewhat…unprofessional.

Expressing our emotions over the internet can lead us to two things: to have more friends and to not have friends at all. It is just a matter of how you use it to express yourself.

The same concept applies on our blog. We should keep our blog clean to make it very inviting to our visitors. You don’t want to spoil a good chance to give a pleasant impression to your readers. Even if your contents are good but your site is cluttered and difficult to read, I don’t think your readers will enjoy your posts that much. Perhaps they’ll just browse through and leave – I am guilty of this. When I visit a blog and felt like it’s a mess, I’ll just look at the latest post’s title. If nothing caught my attention, I’ll hop to another blog. On the other hand, if I find the blog is clean I usually stay there for about 5 minutes and see what it has to offer.

Messy blogs can also degrade the value of your blog’s design. It’s senseless to have a very sleek or very cool blog layout when you don’t know how to clean up your blog! Isn’t it much better to visit a place that is not-so well designed but very well-kept? than a well designed but run-down? To maintain cleanliness in your blog, perhaps you need to set some standards. Here’s mine:

1. No To Tag Cloud – I don’t put tag clouds. The uneven sizes of the fonts in the cloud looks really messy. Though tag clouds are very useful for navigation. I’m still deciding if I can consider 3D tag clouds.
2. Minimal Animated/Moving Ads – Animated/moving ads is my least priority. I usually grab the steady ones. If I had no choice, I’ll put animated ads at the bottom of my blog.
3. Limit Categories – I limit my categories to 10-12. I believe 10-12 can already cover up a lot of topics.
   
4. Complement - Whenever I put a widget or an ad, I make sure that the color compliments with my blog design. I also make sure the sizes of those widgets and ads compliments with the location where I’m putting them.
   
5. Standard Font – I use Verdana as my standard font. Using only one font can make everything look uniformed and well organized.
   

Well I hope let’s start cleaning our blogs. Set some standards especially on your ads. Be responsible enough to clean your blog and be more readable in public.

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In a line: Clean blogs invites visitors.

]]> http://jedchan.com/invite-traffic-be-inviting/feed 31 http://jedchan.com/create-better-internet-netiquette http://jedchan.com/create-better-internet-netiquette#comments Tue, 13 Jan 2009 18:35:56 +0000 JeD Chan http://jedchan.com/?p=612 I’ve been writing about random topics for quite a while, tough this blog is supposed to be in “Self-Improvement” niche. I love to inspire, motivate, and help improve the quality of life by sharing my thoughts and experiences. But now I think I’m into blog improvement, increase traffic & page ranks, SEO (Search Engine Optimization), MMO (Make Money Online) and social medias. It seems like my interests have been shifting back and forth, but I noticed that they have the same bottom line: Improvement. At least I’m still on the “Improvement” track (LOL)

Well, perhaps my ‘main’ interest is to help improve, enhance, upgrade, build or create something of value; and it confirms as I browsed my archives. It seems like I constantly, unconsciously, add the “improvement” ingredient every time I cook a post. I guess “improvement” has been my main ingredient after all.

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INTRODUCTION TO INTERNET ETIQUETTE

So much for that very long introduction. All I want to do is introduce you to the Internet Etiquette, and notify you all that I’m going to have a steady stream of posts about it for the mean time. *PEACE*

WHAT IS INTERNET ETIQUETTE?

Internet Etiquette or “Netiquette” refers to the practices that were developed to make the experience of internet users pleasant. There were some rules described by Internet Engineering Task Force or (IETF) in RFC 1855, however due to the evolution of the internet these rules now vary from community to community. Well, ‘netiquette’ is primarily concerned about matters of courtesy over the internet.

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So why do I want to tackle Netiquette.. Well internet is a way of life in this age. Even I can’t let a day pass without being on the internet, and a lot of people do as well. Internet is like our second town or world, and of course we want our town to be clean and peaceful. But we must face the fact that some people are abusing the internet by spamming and all that. I think one of the reason is the lack of education regarding do’s and dont’s in the internet. I hope by educating people regarding internet etiquette we can improve or better yet build a better internet for all of us.

As they say “Start in your own home.” For every bloggers, I believe improving the internet starts in your own blog. With that, my netiquette posts will be much focused on blogging. I believe by applying proper netiquette can also have a great effect in your blog. It can build better relationships among bloggers and readers which can improve the quality of your blog’s traffic and readership.

I must admit, this will put a lot of pressure on me. I must practice what I preach. *gulp* Well, let’s all learn in the process.

Let’s help each other create a better internet! Observe proper Netiquette!

I’ll see you on my next posts.