Hello fellow junkies.

Here is a place we can help each other. Maybe.

Here is the first handy hint:

When you want a quick browse with your morning coffee or you are lying awake at night worrying about this or that fellow ATS member, use the following approach to get straight to the gist of what's going on.

1. Add this link to your browser's favorites:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

2. It's the Todays Posts (Recently Activity Topics, or RAT - not to be confused with RATS) that lists ALL Today's Posts in one screen.

3. Look at the wealth of material you can read and respond to.

4. Respond at will in the few minutes you have allocated for your quick fix.

5. After each reply, use the Favorites link you have created to get to the refreshed page for Todays Posts, to see new replies that have been created while you composed your previous reply.

6. Finish your coffee, or go back to bed, before you fall asleep and your head hits the monitor.


Brought to you by:

MAMSATSS : TMSD, TAMSD.

(MaskedAvatar Management Science for Above Top Secret Surfing : Time Management Services Division, Time And Motion Studies Department.






NB. For longer visits, remember the ATS news at the main page, and ATS Chat, and ATS Blogs.

[Edited on 21-10-2003 by MaskedAvatar]

Hey MA can I make a withdrawl of your points into my account.


I need my ATS mail accout soon haha

Very nice MA, Todays post is refreshed by me about a thousand times a week as for designations...
I'm with the FBI:
Future
Browsing
Initiative

Cheers MA, never noticed that "all" button before, nice one. As Nerdling I'm often prone to excessive use of the Refresh button, lol.

AA - Ats'olics Anonymous.

I wake up everyday at 6:00 AM before I go to school just to go on ATS. So, if you see any useless ranting or other crap I've posted, you know why.

I almost forgot about teh today's post feature. I think it might be a little impractical because of teh massive amounts of posts we get everyday, but I shall see how to take advantage of it.

Oh, and if you want to get points for your new ATS email account, it's best to be really active and post lots. The more you contribute to the discussion (instead of useless ranting), the more likely people will respond, making more discussion! This is particularly useful if you're starting a new thread. Unfortunately, because of the immense popularity of the Chit Chat forum, you'll little to none points for posting there.

The collaborative fiction forum is a really good source for points too! For every post, you get a few hundred points. You may think that you suck at writing, but try it anyways, it's really fun to change make a major plot twist in the story and see people continue the story you've wrtten.

If you still think it's difficult, consider it this way.

Every post can get a maximum of 10 points each (except in the Chit Chat, Research, Debate, C. fiction, etc.). So, if you make 10 quality, thoughtful posts a day, then you're already going at 100 points a day! That's 700 points every week! So, by the end of the month, you should have well over 3,000 points racked up. But you still have to make good posts though.

Just wondering, is 10 posts a day considered alot?

[Edited on 21-10-2003 by Saucerat]

Saucerat

Your philosophy is good, but your maths is slightly out.

Posts can be worth 0, 2, 4, 10 or 20 points, and higher in the restricted Forums you mention.

Posts by fellow members on a topic you initiate in the right Forum earn you 5 points.

And if Mods are intensely pleased with the insight or value of any post you post, then you will receive Applause and a bonus award of 250 points.

Keep an eye out for incentives such as the current Halloween short story incentive (10,000 points to the winner, by 31 October).

The highest posts per day at the moment belong to the Neo (over 40 posts per day).

Longer career members, including Seekerof, Fulcrum, dragonrider and myself, average between 24 and 28 posts per day.

MAMSATSS: SD, KPID

(ibid: Statistics Division, Key Performance Indicators Department)

I'm pretty sure i've had the point bonuses before but no award notices, i know i've been voted for TWATS, so that could net points.

I got 25.21 messages per day

I'm all happy now

Thanks for the stats. I've always wanted to find out how points are calculated.

I may have asked this before somewhere, but can points be revoked?

I just realized, as of today, I've been posting for one week. Yay! I calculated my PPD (Posts per day) average to be something about 9.1 (at teh time of this post).

Here's another way to get points REALLY fast:

1. Gain access to the restricted forums

2. Spam the place like crazy with posts and thread.

But of course, doing that is like leading a one man army into Area 51...

[Edited on 21-10-2003 by Saucerat]

Good stuff Nerdling!

Hint #1: No U2U notification of Applause, bonus points for Applause highly unlikely. I think it is one thing that triggers the other.

Hint #2: Don't be too insulting with other members, ever, or make sweeping generalisations about whole groups of people that have the tendency to alienate. For some members (myself not included), it dries up any vestiges of Moderator appreciation of who you are, and they will be reluctant to reward you no matter how effective or insightful your later posts might be. That's just unconscious bias at work.

Sad about dragonrider, thanks for posting up his farewell, I made comment on the Complementary Currencies thread.

Saucerat

If you get a spanking (Warning) you lose 250 points.

There has been some discussion about loss of points for posting frivolity, or for posting things in the wrong Forum, or anything that occupies Mods in redundant labor, but I personally haven't seen any evidence of it yet.

Hint: Don't post crap, and don't post stuff that has just been posted. Use the very first Hint on this thread to help avoid the last problem. And use Search to research your topic more fully before you post a new Topic, to avoid annoying some members who have been around more than two weeks...

1. I dont know what it was then, maybe a mod felt generous.
2. I try not to but i get carried away in the heat of the moment sometimes, i appreciate everyone here and even try to help the n00bs.

Nerdling

Another hint for you: I can't send U2U's. It's some kind of psychosomatic problem. But I will let you know when I can, this year or next year.

In answer to your U2U question regarding insults, no it wasn't Nerdling or Mud Pit related, but a more general observation. That doesn't mean I am heading off for mudwrestling to admire your insult capabilities, though.

Some Mods dish out more insults per 100 pounds of posts (I/100lbP) than the mean I/100lbP ratio for all of ATS. I can't explain that away.

*raises hand*

Where can I find DR's farewell message? I missed that somewhere..

Also, the tabbed viewing features of Mozilla and Netscape can increase ATS viewing efficiency by at least 20%.

Yeah i've seen some of them get their claws out but be nice to me in u2u and i find it quite funny

I try not to exclude anyone even if they do insult me, however i have a problem tolerating certain people which i shall try and keep under control.

I'm also addicted to the smiley

kukla

Hint: For the fate of dragonrider's farewell message posted by Nerdling, visit the Complementary Currencies thread.

It is unlikely to be seen until someone gets it out of the Trash bin, or posts the text of it somewhere again.

My handy hints would be

1) Don't post crap

2) Don't post crap that has already been posted.

3) Don't crap over a thread if you don't care what it's about or if you have nothing constructive to add.

4) Don't post to get points. That's crap.

5) don't confuse quantity with quality. That's donkey sized crap.

6) Ignore me cause I'm drunk again. I'm going for a crap.

Last year we voted to delete "goodbye" posts as they were usually just a final attempt at having a bitch and tearing the site down.

Coincidently DR voted for them to be deleted as well I think.

As DR's goodbye post filled all the criteria expected I deleted it.

As he has been on the board for the last hour I expect there are a multitude of utu's around with it.




[Edited on 21-10-2003 by Netchicken]

Nerdling

Hint: Tolerance, and not resorting to petty insults, are not the same thing.

You do not have to be tolerant of ignorance or of stupidity.

But in my opinion it's like the discussion we were having elsewhere about justice as opposed to an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

Sometimes when you insult the insulter they will not learn from it. They cannot help it, it is part of their character and their upbringing/socialization. More fool their parents.

Is it not better to rebut an ignorant statement with a better argument or with salient facts or more conviction to the purpose of ATS?

That's more of a win-win-win.

1. You win, because you haven't resorted to stupidity.

2. The protagonist wins, if they have learned something from what you have presented.

3. ATS readers win, because they see you as the better person and you have scored a win for truth and understanding.

So, you win, because all of you win.