Retrospective on my first month at TPS

I know I am still new here, and I bet even most of the TPS members who read this article will react with “who the heck is ngeunit1?” But nonetheless, I wanted to share with both members of the TPS community and prospective members my thoughts on my first month (and a tad more) here at The Pirate Society.

I am still fairly new in the torrent world, and at one point about a month ago began looking into places that I could learn more about torrenting and interact with people who shared a common interest in torrenting. I began by applying for membership at a few other “Torrent Invite” sites, but each one of those had a very similar feeling. There was a lot of concern over post count, rep count, and invites and not a lot of focus on the community as a whole and meeting new people. This was not what I was looking for at all. In my research for other alternatives I came across an article on FSF that spoke about the objectives of TPS and what they stand for. I was immediately interested and felt like it would be the perfect fit for what I wanted in a torrent community. I jumped into the interview channel and was very excited when I completed the interview and was granted membership to TPS.

Being a rather timid person (online and offline), I am not very good at meeting new people and have a tough time getting my foot in the door at times. So I was cautious at first and did a bit of lurking around to see what TPS was all about. My realization quickly became that this as in fact a very different place then the past communities I tried out. People here seemed to generally care about the site, and cared about other members. This is displayed in so many ways, including multiple responses to my simple introduction thread welcoming me here at TPS. The amount of emphasis that members here place on community I feel is something that is extremely rare and something that I knew that I wanted to be a part of.

Eventually, I started posting in some threads and getting into stuff here at TPS. I was really shocked as to how welcoming many people here were. For example, in discussions, my opinions were recognized and treated with respect even though I was at the time a lowly “New Recruit.” Even on IRC, people were more than willing to lend a helping hand, looking for nothing in return. At this point I realized that this was a place that I wanted to call home, and a place where I did not want to just be a normal member, I wanted to become a contributor.

My first contributions were watching the “Help Desk” thread and seeing if there were any threads that I could provide some help on. It is shocking the wealth of information that the TPS community can provide. The questions asked in the Help Desk thread go far beyond torrenting into computer knowledge and other random areas, and still get answered within hours of posting. I also used the Tracker Review section to provide others with commentary on experiences with the various trackers that I am a member of. I even tried my hand at writing some articles for “The Pirate’s Library” to provide some help in areas that I have experience here. The great thing about this community is that no matter how small a contribution you make, you still get some sort of acknowledgment for what you did and the effort you put into it. To me, even a small click of the “Thanks” button was enough to keep plugging away here at TPS.

Now I stand a mere “Shipmate” here at TPS. I feel that while I have done a decent job contributing in my first month here, but I still owe a lot to this site. I am constantly looking for new outlets on the site that I can use to give back to a community that I feel has provided me so much help and guidance. There is just something special about this community that compels it’s members to try and do everything they can to help this site become the best that it can, and I am thankful for being a part of that.

Looking forward, I am still striving to become a better member of the TPS community. I would like to move up the ranks of TPS not strictly by offering invites here and there, but would rather make my way up the ladder through my contributions to the site and by providing help to others. I would like to continue to try and overcome my weakness and meet new people here and form new friendships with other members. I hope that one day I can become a well-known and respected member of the TPS community, similar to the amazing staff members and Dark Pirates (as well as many others) that grace the TPS community. But until then, I will continue to take any small steps that I can toward becoming an integral part of the TPS community.

Once again, Thank You TPS for a great first month! I hopefully look forward to many more to come.

-Dave M (aka ngeunit1)