Hello again. Are you planning to sign up for premiere membership? Conveniently enough for SD, it's the only feasible way to exchange phone numbers or email addresses.
To all our new members...
Yes we take a great deal of pride in protecting your identity on this site. Given the name you can imagine the chaos that would ensue if we had open pm priviledges and your profiles were viewable to everyone.
1. Most would think it was a dating site and we are NOT...however chemistry has been known to happen and that is not our fault. And if it doesn't happen...it is DEFINITELY not our fault.
2. Many would think that everyone on the site was here for one and only one reason and therefore should welcome a slew of unwanted and unwarranted and perhaps unscrupulous barrage of messages to HOOK UP. Here our HookUps are to TANKS!!!
3. We would have a very small number of quality people on this site if we did not protect their privacy and their identity which we do several ways...
a. No real names on the site...only a first name and a screen name
b. No real location on the site...(if you list your snail mail addy in your profile ONLY THE ADMINS can see them which include me and our accountant etc.) If you say Dallas or some other city... that is a very big area so pretty generic and therefore safe.
c. No way to see a profile unless you are a premier member. This limits the people scoping you out to those who wish to belong to this community and are willing to invest something to do so. And trust me...spammers, predators and perverts rarely give out their financial information so its a pretty safe bet it is one of the prime reasons that we've had ZERO complaints about spammers, predators and perverts since instituting the premium membership level for pm and profile access.
d. No emails, addresses or phone numbers in posts, signatures, and profiles allowed to protect from the same reasons as above and to also prevent web spyders/crawlers from obtaining your info and increasing the proliferation of spam.
4. While we do generate $35 per member per year for the priviledge of being a premier member we give $25 of it back as a rebate after EVERY trip you do with us during the year, as well as on ANY private travel you book via us, thru deep discounts and perks available to only our premier members from companies such as Cochran, Deep Sea Supply, Dive Rite, OMS, Diversitea and others. And our premier members get first dibs on booking our trips...many of which fill up before they open up to the general membership a week later. We also send you a pretty extensive membership package full of goodies and so the real purpose is NOT to make a killing off our members...it is to protect them as well as serve them in as many ways as we can.
I hope this helps you understand why we have kept our site a bit more exclusive and certainly as safe as we can. In this world you get what you pay for and you get a whole lot more than you bargained for when you don't pay for anything...you'll also notice that this site has NO ADVERTISING.
Some may miss the pop up ads and the banners for this that and everything...but most of our members love the fact that we are advertising free. As a result we forego a huge amount of revenue from that advertising that is offset by the few bucks we take in for memberships and don't spend on stuff we give away or give back.
So I hope you feel a bit better knowing the membership fee is not just so you can connect with a dive buddy but it keeps the entire site safer, more fun and easier to protect.
I wish we could generate a sufficient income stream to reward the countless volunteers needed to keep a site like this running. However, I think because they are NOT paid...they do it because they believe in the site and enjoy the friendships they've made... that they do it to be involved with great people like our members!
-ww
