fanpop - Frequently Asked questions 

Why is using Fanpop better than searching on Google or Yahoo?

What happens when I report a link, user or fan club?

Finding the best stuff on the web is a lot of work! We’re just trying to help organize all the content a fan could ever want (links, videos, images, news...you get the picture) around a topic with a little help from the community. A lot of fansites have one editor or a small team of editors doing all the work. We thought it would be cool to get our audience to help build a community of fan clubs for the people by the people. This way, everyone gets to participate, contribute and be heard.

Search engines are great. We use them all the time to find out answers to specific questions. But for certain searches and topics, sometimes it’s easier to learn from a community what the best content is. We constantly find ourselves doing searches that tons of others have done before us. Let’s face it, clicking through dozens of search results because we have no idea about the quality or context of a link is a waste of time. With Fanpop, you can find a topic you’re interested in and immediately start browsing through relevant videos, links, images, forum discussions and more. And the best thing is that all of the submissions and conversations on the site are started by other fans of that given topic. We think that it’s a much more enjoyable discovery process than wading through hundreds, if not thousands, of search results of varying quality generated by a computer algorithm.

Any established member of Fanpop can create a new club around a topic of interest. As long as it\'s new and doesn\'t exist and there are enough fans of that topic, you can build a brand new portal for almost anything. Just click on the link to "Create New Club" in the Pending Clubs module on the home page or click on the green "Create New Club" button on the channels pages. Follow the basic 3 steps of creating a club. Choose the name, add a description, designate a channel and add some tags. Next, upload a nice icon and banner to give the club a little character. Finally - and this is the fun part - you can start populating the club with your favorite videos, links, polls, images and news feeds. While you\'re at it, feel free to strike up a conversation in the forums or post an original article. Now all you need to do is tell your friends and let other fans know and you\'re all set!

We know that people can be into all types of things, which is why we created Fanpop. But we also want to make sure that the site is as organized and clean as possible, which is why we came up with a process for creating new clubs. Yes, we\'re a little anal that way, we just hate messy clutter and fragmentation. When a user creates a portal, it is pending until enough content and enough fans join the club. Once we know that there is sufficient demand for that topic it gets promoted to the main clubs area. This way, the site doesn\'t become cluttered with abandoned clubs. Pending clubs stay in the pending queue and don\'t show up in the main channel directory until they are promoted. But it\'s the fans who approve them, so make your passion known and join a club if you are a fan! Check the pending clubs section often for new and upcoming clubs being created all the time.

Fanpop is all about community and sharing. We would hate to get into turf wars and territorialism on our site, so we\'ve decided it would be best if each club was a democratic state. Everyone gets to contribute videos, links and images and anyone can propose artwork for a club (banners and icons). The person who creates the club just gets to kick it off for all their fellow fans to enjoy. But unfortunately, they don\'t win a cookie for starting it, just the gratitude of other fans around the world for representing their passion. If you create a club, you will be able to edit and change the name for a limited time. This way, a user can\'t go and make another user a fan of "cats" one minute and "dogs" the next. You will be able to edit the description and suggest images for that club until it is promoted out of the pending clubs queue. To do this there is an "edit club" link under the banner. We will also be helping to edit clubs and make sure everything is neat and tidy.

Fanpop is all about community. Without the passion and participation of the community (that’s YOU!), we wouldn’t be here. We believe that people are good and want to help one another out. As a member of a club, you can help others find a great video clip or recipe. You can help them learn about a new product or when their favorite band is coming to town. We created this site so that we could bring together people who share a common bond. The more you contribute the more you earn the respect and appreciation of your peers. So you should contribute because of all the warm fuzzies you will get in return! You should also contribute because it will help boost your reputation and help you earn medals for that particular club. Earning medals is a way for others to recognize you as a rockstar contributor and participant within that community. Quality will be rewarded!

joining Fanpop and adding videos, links, images, articles, and polls to the clubs you are interested in.

Videos are the most popular type of contribution on Fanpop. This feature allows you to share and discover great clips that you find on the internet (via 3rd party video sharing sites - Fanpop doesn\'t currently provide any video hosting capabilities itself). So when you find a great clip from a popular video sharing site like YouTube, Dailymotion or MySpace Video, you can share it by going to the videos section in a Fanpop club. Look for the "add video link", give the clip a title, description and tags and paste the video url. Note that Fanpop does not currently provide any video hosting services, so you will not be able to upload any video clips directly to Fanpop.

Here\'s a list of video sites that Fanpop currently supports embedding for: AOL Video, Bolt, Brightcove, Dailymotion, GoFish, Google Video, Guba, iFilm, Metacafe, MySpace, Ouou, Revver, Stage6, Tudou, Veoh, Videojug, Yahoo! Video, YouTube. Feel free to add videos from other sites too, but note that these clips will be automatically added to the "links" section within the club (if there is a popular video sharing site that we do not currently embed, you can request that it be added to the aforementioned list by contacting fanpop.

To add a link, go to a specific club and click on the \'add link\' button found on either the club homepage or the links page. You can link to just about anything: articles, cartoons, images, websites, blogs, etc. Just make sure that what you are adding is relevant to the club you are submitting it to.

You can also contribute links and videos by adding this browser bookmarklet to your browser toolbar:

Internet Explorer users: Right click on the \'Add to Fanpop\' image below to add it

Firefox and Safari users: Drag the \'Add to Fanpop\' button below onto your browser bookmark bar

Favorite photos, wallpapers, icons and original fan art can be added to Fanpop by clicking on the "add new image" button on a club\'s homepage. On the add image form, you will need to give the image a title, select an image type (wallpaper, photo, icon, fan art) and locate the images you wish to upload from your hard drive. You may upload up to five images at a time. The image description, attribution and tags are optional, but we would urge all fans to try to provide as much relevant information as possible about any of the images they are posting (it helps fellow fans locate what they are looking for when they use our search or tag filtering tools). Also, we strongly encourage fans to provide proper image attribution where applicable.

Note: Please try to use the highest resolution image you can find and avoid mistakenly uploading a thumnail instead of the full-size image.

Publish your own original articles on Fanpop. You can write just about anything you want with Fanpop\'s articles feature. Past articles have included movie reviews, television show recaps, recipes, fan fiction, opinion pieces and song lyrics. The sky\'s the limit.

Each club has its own section for original articles. Just look for the articles module on the homepage of any fan club and click on the "write article" link to start composing your very own piece. The articles editor includes some basic instructions for adding basic text styles, hyperlinks and incorporating images. You may preview and even save a half-finished article in draft form in order to finish at another time (Fanpop will save the draft but the article will only be visible to you). When you are satisfied with your article, you can click on the "publish" button to share your original work with the rest of Fanpop.

Polls are a fun way to tap the collective wisdom of your fellow fans by asking various them questions about your favorite topic. Want to know what everyone\'s favorite character is on a TV show? Create a poll. Our most popular clubs have hundreds of polls to answer and share your opinions on, so don\'t be bashful about asking a new question.

To create a fan poll, go to the polls page on a club and click on the "add a question" button. Just type in the question you want to ask and add all the possible answer choices. You may add a small image for each of the canned responses (and we strongly encourage you to do so - polls with images are way cooler than polls without). If you want to let other fans add more choices to your question, check the box that allows them to do so at the bottom of the form. Also, if your question is time-sensitive, you can set an end-point after which no more responses will be tallied (this is great for questions that are tied to predictions or speculation about a specific event or tv episode). Finally, click on the "preview" button and review your poll. If you catch a mistake, be sure to fix it by clicking "edit". If everything looks good, click on the publish button. It is very important that you ensure that your poll is all set before publishing because once published, we cannot allow further editing of the poll (this is because once another user has voted on a poll, we wouldn\'t want you to change the description of the choice they had made).

One important note: We see a lot of redundant questions from time to time, so please, as a courtesy to your fellow fans, be sure to search through the polls before you ask a new question just to make sure you aren\'t asking the same question over for the umpteenth time.

One of the reasons we can’t stand clicking on all those search result links is that we have no idea how good or bad the content on the other side is. We felt that having users who are knowledgeable about the topic rate the content really helps people filter through the junk. We know you’re all busy people and want you to be able to find the good stuff easily. When you rate anything on a club, you’re helping the community to do just that and ditto when they do it for you.

Simple! Just hover your mouse over the empty circles next to the link where it says rate this link, choose a number of stars to give it, click and voila! (and if you\'re ever curious about how many items you\'ve rated, just go to your Fanpop profile (by clicking on the "my profile" link at the top right of the page when signed in) and look for the green Fanpop star on the right side of the page. This star displays the number of items you have rated on the Fanpop.

If you find something you really enjoy on Fanpop you can it to your list of favorites. Videos, links and images can all be added to your list of favorites by clicking on the green "save" button. Once an item is saved, you can easily find it by going to your Fanpop profile and clicking on the "Favorites" link near the top of the page. Favorites are also visible to other fans who come to visit your Fanpop profile (think of it as a way to share the best stuff you\'ve found on the site with them too!).

To remove a saved item, click on the red "drop" button on your Favorites page (don\'t worry, if you change your mind later you can always save the item again).

Ever wish you could see what your friends thought were cool links? Or knew someone who always found the best stuff on the web? Now you can just add them to your fan list and you\'ll be able to see what cool content others have been checking out and rating.

Just go to another fan\'s profile page and click on "Add to my fan list" on the upper right. It’s that easy!

Just like making new friends is simple, declaring your devotion for a music band or sports team is just as easy. All you have to do is subscribe to a club by visiting a club and clicking on the “subscribe to this club” in the header. You can also subscribe to a club when you contribute to the club by adding a link or participating in a discussion. If you ever find that your taste has changed, you can unsubscribe to a club from the “Clubs” tab in your account. Once you\'re a fan of a club, you will start to get updated links in your page. Recently added links since your last visit will show up on your profile page. On your clubs tab, you can see all new links that have been added to your clubs.

We felt like our users should be rewarded and recognized for their good deeds and contributions to the communities so we designed the medal system. Based on your activity within a club you can earn different levels of medals. Think of the medals as a measure of reputation. The higher the medal, the more respected the user in that club. These medals are awarded to those who regularly contribute quality content from:

posting highly-rated links, videos, images and articles

Each different level of medal reflects your reputation within a club. Here is a table of the available medals:

Respect from fellow fans! This fan has made some good contributions to fandom.

Greater respect from fellow fans! This fan has made significant contributions to fandom.

Mega respect from fellow fans!!! This fan has gone above and beyond the call of normal fans.

We have a magic scoring system that we like to keep secret so that we don’t promote abuse or gaming from users. Fanpop is about collaboration, not competition. All you need to know is that if you keep on contributing great stuff to the club, you will be rewarded accordingly. Think of it like getting that bonus present under the Christmas tree that you weren’t expecting from Santa. It\'s that much sweeter when you get a surprise.

Fan props are a way for fans to publicly express their appreciation for other fans and their contributions on the site. Every fan can both give and receive fan props. To give fan props, just go to the profile page for the fan that you want to thank. Click on the "props" link or the "give props" link. On the props page you need to select a contribution icon (e.g. "images" or "videos" from the list), add a short, personalized message and submit. To receive fan props, just make sure to contribute to your favorite clubs. Your efforts will eventually be recognized by your fellow fans. And if you are feeling neglected, try giving out a few props yourself. As the old adage goes, the more you give the more you receive. This definitely holds true for props. Once you\'ve received props, you will see them displayed as little icons at the top of your profile page (upper right). Below each prop type you will see the number of props given per category. Like medals, props are another fun way to gain reputation and encouragement from the rest of the fan community.

You can customize any prop with a personalized message when posting a prop. But the available prop icons are fixed. Here\'s the current lineup of Prop icons (of course, we will be adding more in the future!):

What happens when I report a link, user or club?

We would like to believe that all users are inherently good. Unfortunately, there\'s always the one or two bad apples that ruin the fun for everyone else. We trust that our users will not tolerate misbehavior from these apples and will let us know. It could be a spammer who is adding lame links or it could be a user who is abusive or it could just be a club that makes no sense. Our users will keep other users accountable and make Fanpop a more pleasant place to surf. Fanpop will review all reports of bad apples and act accordingly. Somebody might get spanked!

Lots of fans have asked us how they can show off their love for Fanpop on their personal websites or blogs. So we made a few buttons you can post with pride. Thanks for being such great fans!

For the Fanpop logo button, just copy and paste this code to your site:

For the "I Love Fanpop" button, just copy and paste this code to your site:

To make the button go to your fan page, just edit the change part where it says:

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