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Q: I see ‘Bump my Glow’ a lot. What does that mean and why should I do it?
Q: What does Glow / Glowing mean?
Q: How do I make a glow thread?
Q: How do I make my glow link go to a reply box?

A: Glowing is when a tank has the ‘BOOTY GRAB’ graphic across the tank and the link that normally says ‘Visit Aquarium’ says ‘Play Now’. It gets its name because if you look at the fish themselves they have sort of a white light aura around them and are ‘glowing’. Each tank with fish that will glow glows several times per day. It is a ‘surprise’ and nothing you can do will make it happen sooner. You just have to look for glowing tanks.

Posting a short reply (aka bumping) a glow thread helps the tank owner by letting more people see and play their booty grab game. Bumping is a courtesy to the tank owner who spent a lot of gold or Gaia cash to bring you the nice tank you are playing. It is a way of helping to pay them back. Do NOT bump a glow thread unless the tank is actually glowing. A longer explanation and glow thread instructions follow.

When a tank glows and you play a game the tank owner gets gold equal to 25% of what the players get. For example if you play a game and get 2,000 gold the tank owner will get 500 gold. Each time a tank glows an individual player (e.g. YOU) can only play it once but up to 34 people total can play that same game. The tank owner makes the most gold if the game is full (34 players) so he/she wants as many people as possible to know the tank is glowing.

There are two main ways people usually see a tank glowing.
One is by looking through booty grab threads for glowing tanks.
The other is by hanging out in the Aquarium forum looking for glow threads that have just been bumped. When you post a reply in someone’s glow thread it temporarily makes that thread show up on the first page of the Aquarium forum. People refreshing the Aquarium forum page see it and know the tank inside it glowing and go play it. You can think of a glow thread as sort of a ‘mini booty grab thread’ for one or just a few tanks. People typically are not interested in them except for when the tank glows.

Your post does not have to be anything fancy. I often just type GLOW or sometimes I say where I saw them glowing like GLOWING IN DANCING DOLPHINS RAINING GOLD. I usually bump before I play but if you play first you can bump with your score like 2000 / 500 Thanks! Some tank owners request you bump them before you play. This is up to you as they can’t force you to bump at all. You are doing them a courtesy to bump. They do this so more people will see their glow sooner. A tank only glows for 12 minutes and then the game is over even if it did not get 34 players. As I said, I usually bump first but you can choose. I do think if a tank owner has strong wishes about that it is a courtesy to bump first. Tanks full of high pay out fish cost millions of gold. If the tank owner can not make enough gold to pay for new fish they may not bother replacing them and then everybody loses.

Okay already! Enough with the theory and lectures on etiquette! Just tell me how to make a glow thread already. Sheesh you talk a lot!
(um, yeah, okay – here you go. smile )

HOW TO MAKE A GLOW THREAD
Create a new thread in the Aquarium forum
(Forums – Aquarium – New Topic)
Name the subject DO NOT POST and at the top of the text of the first post put DO NOT POST in large letters. This does two things while you are forming the thread. It discourages other people from posting in it (duh!) and it helps people not be disappointed by seeing a false ‘Glowing’ title.

Post yourself in the first post. Post any mules one time. Some people share a glow thread with a friend or two.

I am of the opinion a glow thread should be all like tanks so you can make the subject line descriptive like “GLOWING DOLPHINS” or “GLOWING MONSTERS”. Obviously that is just opinion so do what works best for you. If you choose to share with a friend make sure you are in agreement and you each plan to maintain your tanks.

Keep making extra posts until you fill up the first page (a total of 15 posts)
Now go back and delete all but the first post of you (and your mules if you have them)
The purpose of doing this is it forces the first page to be short so it loads quickly when people load the page from the aquarium forum. Otherwise people bumping you and filling up the first page might have big laggy pictures in their sigs or links to causes you don't agree with or who knows what. It is better if folks going to your glow page only have to wait for 1 (or three) tanks to load instead of 15.

Subscribe to your glow thread and bookmark the URL or copy it to a text file or something. This is both for making your glow reply in your signature and so you don’t ‘lose’ your glow thread.

You can see an example of my glow thread here:
http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/gaia-aquarium/glowing-dolphins-full-tank/t.57920471/
EDIT: My newer glow thread is here:
http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/gaia-aquarium/glowing-dolphins-six-tanks-direct-links/t.57920471_1/


Edit the first post to say state the purpose of the thread, only bump if I am glowing, etc. Again you can look at my example and then change it to suit your needs. I use mine to also advertise my booty grab thread Dancing Dolphins Raining Gold.

Name it something appropriate like GLOWING WATERMEATS!
You defintately want the word GLOW or GLOWING in the title so people know right away what it is.

SIGNATURE
Edit your signature to include a link to your glow thread. Make the link go to a REPLY BOX - NOT to page 1 of your thread. Anyone bumping your glow thread already knows you are glowing and has seen your tank some place else. A reply box link helps them bump you quickly and shows a little consideration for their time.

This is one of my pet peeves on Gaia. IMO if you are too lazy to make your glow link go to a reply box you don’t deserve to get bumped. (I usually DO still bump you but I grumble about it. smile ) A couple minutes of your time during setup saves about a minute of other people’s time times thousands.

From a greedy point of view it also helps people get your glow thread bumped more quickly. I am usually connected via dial up. I can bump a glow REPLY in about 5 to 10 seconds and I can usually do it before the five second countdown is done. If a glow link goes to page one it take more like two to three MINUTES. The WORST is a glow link that goes to a redirection warning, followed by a super laggy page 1 with 15 posts and lots of graphics.

(Okay, I’m done preaching. Here’s how to do it: smile )

Go to your glow thread. Click on REPLY. When the reply box loads THAT is the URL you want to put in your sig.

Here is a very basic example of what you might use. There are lots fancier signatures out there but this gets the job done.



The code for that looks like this:


The number after /new/ is the topic number of my glow thread – 57920471.
If you want to use the same code all you really need to change is the topic number to your topic number.

Of course you can also change lots of other stuff. I'm not very good at HTML and this is a very basic link. I'm sure you have seen better examples by other users. The point is to make it obvious, easy to use and have the link close to your actual tank in your signature.

Gaia has IMO overly restrictive limits on URLs in your signature. Because of this many Gaias use sites like tinyurl.com to shorten their signatures. This works but results in the user getting a redirect warning to tinyurl and then passed back to your glow thread on Gaa. For glow threads I recommend NOT doing this. Even in the best of scenarios (obvious direct link to a reply box etc.) many players will not bother to bump your glow thread. Every obstacle you put in their way reduces the number of people who will bother. Many users will not follow redirects at all for fear it will take them to a ‘bad’ site and give them a virus or hack them or something. My compromise for my sig is a direct link to my glow reply but tinyurl for the link to my booty grab thread.

EDIT:
My thanks to Lex Joseph Luthor who pointed out to me you can also make the reply link include a quote. Here is an example of one I made in the test forum:
http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/compose/entry/new/58408349/?quote=2
So you see it is almost the same except for that last little bit. The number after the quote is the post it will be quoting. Post number 2 in this case.

If you are not sure the process for getting the link is similar. Create the post in your glow thread you want to quote.
Click on Quote next to that post.
When the reply box opens copy the URL at the top of the screen.

There are three reasons I can think of why you may find this useful.
1. Lex says he has it quote him so Gaia sends him an email saying he was quoted in the forums. This gives him a heads up he is glowing if he is online but not on Gaia or stalking his tank.

NOTE: The flip side of this is a popular tank may get a lot of messages. For my use I will probably put a quote in my reply but disable email notifications. Your wants / needs may vary. smile

2. Remember the shared glow thread? Perhaps when people bump you would like to know WHICH of your tanks is glowing. You could change each of your tanks signatures slightly so that when someone replies it will quote "David is glowing" or what ever user name.

3. It speeds things up for users bumping your glow thread. They can still type if they want but all they have to do is hit submit.


I think that covers it. If you see any errors or have questions please ask in the questions thread or PM me. I will try to answer your question and/or update accordingly.

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I'm one of GailAnne Munchkin's mules and I want to thank you for your instructions on how to set up a Glow Thread. That was invaluable to me. I had a computer geek set up GailAnne Munchkin's glow thread but he's no longer available an I didn't have the slightest idea of how to go about it, so using the GailAnne Munchkin Avatar I searched for the instructions in your Guild. I searched everywhere else I could think of and you were the only one who I found had taken the time and trouble to type out the instructions, so many thanks to you for a great job. It's very much appreciated! heart

my aquarium just glow