Create an interesting profile page

If you want to be an active member of Asia Observer, we really do suggest that you spend some time on creating a profile page.

• First of all: Upload a profile picture of yourself. Really, people like to see how you look. Pictures will pop up when you post in the forums.
• Secondly: Give as much information about yourself as you are comfortable with. Of course you are not required to fill in all the fields, but we do encourage you to do so.
  
• Third: Connect with your friends.  If you look at a profile page of a friend or another person you would like to connect to, you can add that person as your "connection" by clicking on "connections".
• Fourth: Upload pictures. Which pictures are up to you - as long as you keep to our terms of use (no nudity or other indecency)

In your profile page you can see a list of your latest posts in our forums. Under the "last visitors" tab you can also view which other visitors who have visited you recently. 

Suggest and vote on stories on front page

Asia Observer want members to suggest interesting articles they have encountered on the web. If all of us do this, we all get a continuous flow of new and interesting items to study.

• Submit an article by clicking on "Share it" on the front page. You will then get a form to fill in the necessary information about the article you want to share. Please note that you need to be logged in to do this.
  
• Please keep your suggestions to the general idea and topics of Asia Observer: News, politics and society - all broadly defined, of course.
  
• Besides giving the link, we encourage you to write one or two sentences about the story you suggest to guide other users.
  
• Vote on stories suggested by other users. The stories are presented in a sequence according to the number of votes received by users. There is no editor as such - instead you, the members of Asia Observer, are functioning as the editor in a common effort to make each other wiser. To vote, move the mouse over the stars and then click when the desired number of stars are colored. Everybody can vote, including unregistered users.

Participate in the forums

The forums is our main arena to discuss with other members. There are country forums for a number of forums as well as a general forum for topics that don't fit anywhere else.

Do you have views about the Asia Observer web site? Go to the Asia Observer forum. This is the place to tell us what you think. We check this forum regularly for views.  

Rate other users

Asia Observer like to encourage good discussions and behavior on the web site. In that way we can keep up the high quality. 

Therefore registered users are allowed to rate each others' contributions. You have two ways of doing this:

• In the discussion forums you will find something kalled "karma" accompanied with small icons showing thumbs up and thumbs down. Use this when you want to give credit to another user or give a signal that you did not appreciate his or her contribution. A persons "karma" is the total of points given by other users. You find it next to the user name in each post in the forum as well as on the profile page of the member.
• On the profile page you are also allowed to rate the profile page of the person.

One advice: Please be sensible. Use the feedback system to give sincere feedback to other members. Hopefully over time this will contribute to increase the quality of member contributions on the site. 

Communicate with other users

Asia Observer has its own internal message system. By using this you can communicate with any other member. 

• You find your messages on the left - below the login area. Click on the message icon and you will be taken to your mail box. From here you can send your messages.
• You can also send a message from a user's profile page. Click on the "messages" button on the top.
• From here you can also send an e-mail to the user. You will not see his email address, however. Whether you will be given that information is solely up to the other users discretion. Please note that your own email address will be known to the other party when sending a mail. 

Search for other users

• The best way to find other users is through the Members page. The page will show the most recent visitors to the site.
  
• From this page you can also search for other members. Click on "Advanced search". You can either search in all fields on the user profiles or in specific fields by using the "Advanced" function.