How to use FanPosts and FanShots

If you've got something to say about the Angels, but don't have a place to put those ideas and opinions, then we have you covered. There are two ways that our community members can do this: FanPosts and FanShots.

To get started on either, the easiest way is to look to the right of the page, just below the "cover" stories. Here's what I'm talking about:

What's the difference between a FanPost and FanShot?

Great question! A FanPost is a longer, more fully formed opinion; basically, it's exactly what the staff here at Halos Heaven writes on a daily basis. So FanPosts are articles, while FanShots are little blurbs that exist to just link to another story somewhere else online, or maybe post a video or tweet. These are just about sharing links, photos, etc that you like, and aren't the place for detailed analysis or opinion.

Here's a good example of a FanPost

Here's a good example of a FanShot

Make sense? A FanShot is just like sharing something on Facebook, or retweeting something you liked on Twitter, while FanPosts are are your actual thoughts and opinions on subjects.

How to do a FanShot

You can either click where I showed you earlier, on the front page, or just go here to get started.

There's a handy menu bar (shown below). Drop a link to what you want to share. (If it's a tweet, make sure you click the time stamp on the tweet to get its individual link, rather than just the author's Twitter page.) Alternatively, you could just drag the "Fanshot on the go" button to your browser's bookmark bar and click it when you're on something you want to share. Either way, you arrive here:

Click the button that best describes your link, give it a quick headline, write a short description (we advise you to give credit if you're sharing something someone else found), click the button to share your post with your twitter friends, and hit post.

How to do a FanPost

First I'll show you how to do them, then make a few recommendations.

You can visit this page or click the "write a FanPost" button on the right menu.

This one's pretty simple really. Give your post a catchy headline, write a nice post (please feel free to use your return button from time to time, I know some people out there really enjoy their 1,000-word paragraphs!) scroll down a bit from that image above and hit publish. Done!

There are a few tools to help you there. The menu bar (the stuff under the word "body" between the small text box and big text box) allows you to bold, italicize, change text size (see the word "paragraph"? change that to H4 to make a nice sub-headline) and more. If you want to include a photo, click the icon directly beneath the word "media" on the right sidebar. Confused by any of those tools? Click "show editor help" -- it's highlighted in yellow under the big text box.

But here are some guidelines to make this more successful

- Do not just repost articles from elsewhere. Those copyrights are owned by someone else, so mods will have to delet them.

- Write your posts about topics we or another FanPost editor haven't covered -- at least, haven't covered in the same way you would. We all have our own takes on the bullpen, and that's fine.

- If you want to comment on a post on another site, link to it, and quote a few lines. (On the menu bar, use the chain-link button.) Then share your take. Again, don't just grab huge chunks of someone else's story.

How else you can get involved

Read other people's FanPosts and FanShots. You can always find them on the right sidebar.

If you like something, "rec" it. The posts with more commendations filter to the top and it's a nice way to say "good job."

Comment on other people's posts. Reply to comments on your posts.

We want you to get involved, don't just make us do all the talking. So I hope this helped.

If you have any questions -- maybe I explained something bad -- just ask. I'll try to make this document a little more useful and then keep it where it's easy to find.