We don’t promote PozVille as a personals site. We’re a social site. If you’re looking for a long term partner (LTR), niche networks like this one can be good places to look BUT ON ANY NETWORK you have to put some effort into creating your profiling. Half baked profiles no longer grab anyone's attention anywhere. Our primary goals at PozVille are to share, connect and empower ourselves with other HIV poz gay men who are seeking new friends, experiences, peer support and community. There is a little something for just about everyone in our site. You’ll find a few essential basics on HIV, wellness, updates and other info that might help you deal with issues related to living with HIV. If you're looking for comprehensive info check out thebody.com. At PozVille, we’re not solely focused on HIV – we're about talking and sharing other things in Life that affects us – visual arts, spirituality, our pets, video, music, scifi, fantasy, sex, erotica, photos, humor, literature, national issues and politics are just a few of the spokes in the spinning wheels of our community.

Qualities of a Good Profile
Many people don’t appreciate the importance of writing a good profile and often blame a website owner, not themselves, for a poor response. A good profile provides lots of info about your lifestyle, your personality, likes and dislikes, and so on. A profile with a photo will always get more attention than those without one. Always upload clear photos. Avoid dark sunglasses, strange lighting and awkward poses, one or two regular relaxed mug shots are good.

Wouldn’t it be nice if people read your entire profile out of respect for the effort you put into it? Yes it would, but often they don’t. People rarely read through an entire profile before deciding to move on to the next. The second they get bored, they skip to the next person. So, is not reading the whole profile the fault of the reader for not having a great attention span? No. It is the fault of the writer for not keeping their attention.

When writing about yourself, your first paragraph is the most important. While it is important to open your first paragraph with something that is absolutely unique to you but displays strong value to the reader, the real key is to make a connection. Combine both uniqueness of your topic and a healthy dose of your personality, and make the reader feel like they aren’t just skimming a profile, but having a face to face conversation about your life.

If you’re looking for an LTR you should give potential partners some idea of the type of relationship and person you are interested in – specific enough to screen out people you won’t like. This may sound obvious but there are a few points to bear in mind. It’s up to you to provide the information, and provide it in full upfront – others are unlikely to respond to you if you don’t. Many online daters don’t input much into their profiles. When they put very little into their profile or expect others to respond to phrases such as “ask me, hit me up, pm me for more info" or abbreviated codes, most won't respond. People can only wonder if they’re lazy or have something to hide. If nothing else, an incomplete profile suggests little commitment to or real interest in online dating and generates a poor response. Typing in physical stats is redundant since your photo(s) reveal that info.

Make the most of the “in your words” sections so people can get a good idea of who you are. Think creatively, use your imagination and use fresh, original phrases rather than tired clichés. Stretch the boundaries of fill in the blanks profiles by providing information above and beyond what is expected. Ask yourself, how many people have said the same thing?

Want to know one of the best things you can write to lose someone’s attention immediately?

Try this:
"I hate writing these. It's so hard to describe everything about yourself in words. Each time I do I feel I never come close enough to who I really am. Oh well, I guess I have to put something, so here it goes."

In this common and pessimistic narrative, you are telling the reader that you are uncreative, lacking personal insight, and just as average as every other online dater out there who starts their profile the same way. This is a bad way to kick off your profile!

How about this one:
“I’m smart, funny, confident and outgoing. I’m looking for someone who likes to have a good time, laugh, hang out, and travel. Most of the sports I enjoy are outdoors. I like to hike, ski, go camping and rollerblade in the park.”

Why is this bad? Because there are at least 100,000 profiles on every dating site that start almost exactly the same way. They all turn into a blur and vanish from the reader’s memory as soon as they move on. Besides being a list of adjectives and hobbies (which is boring) there is no spark, no connection, no uniqueness to this narrative at all.

Another not so good thing you can do is send out mixed signals. People sometimes unknowingly send out mixed from what they have written in their profiles. Putting too much emphasis on sexual preferences and other physical desires can over shadow your objectives of finding an LTR. Everyone thinks and perceives things differently and you might want to keep that in mind when creating your online profiles.

Honesty does not involve dragging every skeleton out of the closet to expose a catalogue of sins, weaknesses and faults. It simply means that everything you say is true. As we all know, there are degrees of honesty! When you write your dating profile, don’t bend the truth or “forget” to mention less attractive but important details.

What you should end up with is a profile of the someone who, like everyone else, has a range of strengths and weaknesses, faults and perfections. In other words, a profile that attracts people who like the real you, warts and all. Anyone else simply shouldn’t matter.

In short, write a profile that has depth, color and bags of personality – that is a pleasure to read: engaging, memorable and captivating. A good dating profile is an honest profile. Anything less and you will set yourself up for failure, attracting the wrong sort of people to someone that isn’t really you.

And finally, it is equally important to keep your presence known on ALL social networks by periodically logging into them – this lets others see that you’re still around and looking. The average social networking user usually won't respond to anyone who hasn't logged into a site for several months. Our policy at PozVille is to remove inactive accounts from our database when someone fails to sign in for three consecutive months. We generate a monthly email notification letting our members know that we have published our monthly newsletter. This is notification also serves as a reminder to log in and keep your account active. After 3 months of failing to sign in we remove inactive accounts from our database.