Well, the thread by "Master Chief" is now closed, but I wanted to put some feedback in on it anyways, and perhaps garner a few chuckles along the way.

Gaining Rep is EASY!

All you need to do is spell 95% or more of your words correctly. Use as intelligent a level of vocabulary as is reasonably possible. Speaking and writing well will convey to others that you are a useful and valueable member of the community, and any opinions you express automatically gain more apparent validity. Sure, you might be a useless windbag on welfare, but this is the internet baby! You can be James Freakin' Bond!

Okay, now that we've got a solid foundation, we can build upon it to create an even better public portrayal of ourselves. Among the following, you can choose, and combine as many of them as is reasonable.

Be informative whenever possible. Everything you say has to be relevant, useful, and most of all interesting. Avoid verbosity for the sake of pure verbosity. Simply adding tons and tons of extra characters will only detract from your intent, and discourage interest. Your readers will soon be droning off like college kids in Statistics class. You'll be creating a sleepfest. Buddy, this ain't gonna help anything.

Humor. Everything you write must be funny. And not just "Oh, I smiled when I read that" type funny, I mean like infectiously funny. Like a contagion of laughter that 46 months from now will have people returning to your post to reread your efervescent words.

Entertain! I cannot stress this enough. All you have to do is write posts that are more entertaining than watching Terminator 2 in Hi-Def. Your paragraphs should be funnier than "The Best of Saturday Night Live". Make sure that Johnny Carson, David Letterman, and Conan O'Brian all put together and multiplied by Chris Farley to the Power of Eddy Murphy still could not equal your unparalled capabilities.

Charm: You have to seem like the world's most likeable fellow. Just imagine charming people like Harrison Ford, Robert Wagner, Sean Connery, Humphrey Bogart, or for girls, uh, I dunno. I guess Julia Roberts, Ellen Degeneres, Raquel Welch, and maybe Joan Cusack?. Now, all you need to do is be 10 times more charming and endearing than all of those people put together.

Style: Your words should convey a sense that you are the coolest person on the planet. You aren't allowed to ever claim this, and it's probably best that you never actually mention the phrase. Still, when reading what you have posted, every human being on the face of the earth should be thinking: "Gee, I really wish I was this person. He/she is so smart, witty, funny, cool, charming, compassionate, sensible, practical, down-to-earth, capable, well rounded, cultured, forgiving, good looking, fun to chat with, and an impeccable driver".

As you can see, with only a few simple rules, becoming popular is easy. So, take a deep breath, steady yourself, and become "cool"!

This unpublished essay brought to you by CameronB, a socially functional nerd, with a head for world conquest, and a small modicum of literary talent..