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InterPals Tips
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| To prevent making conversations one-sided, add something to the conversation as well instead of only answering the questions that somebody might send you. | Submitted by: |
| The more stuff you write about yourself on your Profile, the more likely people will write to you when they see that you have the same interests! It's always difficult trying to come up with something to say other than "Hi, how are you?" when there's practically nothing on the profile! | Submitted by: |
Sabela| You can add a YouTube video to your profile, messages or notes by using a BBCode tag. If the url of your video is, say, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFGb381cfl8, take the video id ("eFGb381cfl8") and put it between the tags like this: [youtube]eFGb381cfl8[/youtube]. That's it! |
| It's nice to start out with a compliment. Instead of using the mundane "hi"s and "Hello"s, you might take time to find something nice about that person. Who doesn't love friendly compliments? |
| Don’t send copy-and-pasted messages if you want to make friends with new people! It’s obvious when you receive cliché messages that this person might have sent hundreds of the same messages to different people and he didn’t even read your profile before contacting you. | Submitted by: |
| Don't send friendship requests until you've established that you actually have something in common. The only way to do that is to complete your profile and send an interesting message. | Submitted by: |
| Nothing kills a conversation quicker than one word answers to things that could be the source of many lines of conversation. |
| When contacting a potential new penpal, it is a good idea to specifically mention the things that made you interested in the person as a penpal, whether it be their interests, their hobbies, favorite books, etc. Establishing commonality is key to starting any new friendship, whether being penpals or just regular friends. =) | Submitted by: |
| Invite your friends and family to InterPals so that we can all chat across the world! | Submitted by: |
| The users with little or nothing about them on their profile may be a warning sign! It sometimes can mean that they don't want you to really know who they are. I've had the most luck with the members with full, or long descriptions of themselves. | Submitted by: |
| If someone says something inappropriate or offensive in a message, in the chat room, or even in their profile: REPORT THEM! You can do this by clicking the "Report to Moderator" link on their profile, in a message, on a photo, etc. | Submitted by: |
| In the forums, if you click on the "Profile" button in the community tab, you can edit public information that appears on the forums, such as: an avatar, a digital signature, location, interests, an external website, instant messaging screen names, occupation, etc. | Submitted by: |
| If you feel more comfortable typing your letters than writing them by hand, think of using a fancy font that is resembling a handwriting in look and size, so that the recipient does not feel like they are getting an official letter from the authorities! | Submitted by: |
| If someone starts asking you weird or inappropriate questions, you can always block them. ^^ | Submitted by: |
| People prefer when you answer with more then just one or two words. If the other person does not ask a direct question that should not prevent you from still giving a substantial response. Tell them about your day, about your family, your country, the upcoming weekend, even the weather is more interesting then a " lol,ok." Take care fellow penpalers! :D | Submitted by: |
| Be sure to read a person's profile thoroughly before contacting them! | Submitted by: |
| If you are snail mailing, don't ever use a "form letter" to introduce yourself. Make each introduction personal to each of your new penpals. No one likes to write the first letter so we all understand how difficult writing to someone unknown can be. | Submitted by: |
| Make sure to be detailed when you describe yourself. Simply saying that "I like movies, I like music, I like foreign cultures" might not produce many replies. Everyone here likes those things, so talk about what makes you different! | Submitted by: |
| Do you ever have a hard time thinking of things to write about to your snail mail penpals? If so, try including at least 3 thoughtful questions at the end of each of your letters for your new penpal to respond to. Get the game going back and forth and you'll never run out of writing topics! | Submitted by: |
| Remember your profile should give an outline of you to people who don’t know you at all. You might focus on important information such as your hobbies, your passions, your current occupation, why you subscribed to InterPals and the like. |
| You can view all the messages you have sent to and received from a user by clicking "Show Conversation History" at the bottom of any message in your Inbox. |
| Remember to be very careful when sharing personal details with each other. Don't give out your email address to everybody. It's safer to stay on this site and communicate with the user via InterPals. | Submitted by: |
| The more personal your message is, the more influence it has. Personalize your message by writing about your common interests and let them know why you'd like to be their pen pal. Most importantly, the best pen pal is an honest one. Be honest about yourself from the beginning, if you want true friendship. |
| To find even more friends, head to the InterPals Forums and browse random posts. You're bound to find entertainment, if not a new friend! | Submitted by: |
| Don't forget that you can use BBCode in your profile to add pictures, to set text in bold/italic, add colors and more! See instructions. | Submitted by: |
| You can send instant messages and chat with other members in real-time via the "Chat with me" option on their profile page (if the member is online). |
| You can see whether a message recipient has read a message that you have sent to them. To do this, go to your sent box. Messages that have been viewed will have a clear background, while unread messages will appear pink. |
| Like InterPals? Link back to us from your blog or homepage! Here is
HTML code for a link to your InterPals profile. Just copy & paste it:
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| You can both see who has bookmarked you (if their privacy settings allow it) and allow the users that you have bookmarked to see that you have bookmarked them. |
| You can see where in the world a member is located by clicking on the small map icon on their profile page. |