iATN's membership of thousands of automotive professionals from all over the world have posted millions of messages to iATN since we started in 1995. And in that entire time, these messages have only ever been available for complete viewing in the members-only area of iATN. This won't be changing, but we are taking steps to become a bit more open so that our members can more easily share their work outside of iATN.

The Share Button

The Share button appears on all messages on iATN. Although anyone can share a message, only the author has the ability to make their entire message publicly visible.

When you click the Share button, you will be presented with easy ways to share on popular social networks like Twitter and Facebook, as well as the option to share via email, or grab a short "autop.ro" link that you can use anywhere. In addition, authors sharing their own messages will see the additional options to make their message and name publicly visible, if they so choose.

We have created public landing pages for each message on iATN, which shows a very brief, anonymized view of the message. This way, when a message is shared on iATN, anyone clicking on the shared link will see at least basic information about the message, even if they aren't a member, or aren't yet logged into the members-only area. These landing pages include just the subject of the message, the first sentence or two, and basic vehicle information. They are carefully stripped of personal information that may have appeared in the original message, to protect our members' privacy.

Authors Have Full Control Over Sharing

We wanted to provide an easy way for our members to share messages posted to iATN, while keeping control in the hands of the author of each message. So while anyone can share any message posted, unless the author has marked the message as "Publicly Visible," only iATN members will be able to see the complete message in context, with all replies.

If the author turns on the "Publicly Visible" flag for a message they have authored, it will show the entire message on the public side of iATN, rather than just the snippet view we show by default. Authors also have the choice of whether or not they want their full name and signature to be visible on the public version of the message. Both of these options are off by default, and need to be explicitly enabled by authors.

And just to be clear, when an author chooses to make their work publicly visible, this does NOT have any effect on any replies made to their message — only the authors of those replies have the power to make their messages publicly visible.

With these new sharing features, it is easier than ever to share your message via email, Twitter, Facebook, or anywhere else using the "autop.ro" shortlinks we provide when you click the share button.