Before you start spouting off on the direct sales forums trying to impress people with your vast knowledge you need to familiarize yourself before you alienate yourself. Get to recognize regular posters. Spend a week or two just reading a forum and learning who the regulars are, what stances they take on different issues, and what their areas of expertise are in the network marketing arena. For example, if you only have limited knowledge of PPC then you wouldn’t want to hop in a thread about PPC and try to enlighten someone like Jim Yanghi (a PPC guru). Get a feel for the general spirit of the particular forum. Is this forum overly polite and somewhat lighthearted or is it very edgy and aggressive? If you go into a forum that is known for being very opinionated and not pulling any punches then you will get run over if you are not assertive. The flipside is that if you are on a much more laid back forum and you don’t pull any punches with your opinionated responses you will get ostracized as being a jerk. Get to know the party goers in order to become the life of the party.