Q: Similar websites claim to be free but have all sorts of limitations. Is this site really free?
A: Yes, all features including messaging between members are totally free after you register by creating your own free profile.
Q: Why is it free?
A: Not every website should be about money. Thank God that some things can still be Fi-Sabilallah.
Q: Other websites also record a member's hijaab preferences, Syed/non-Syed status,
and the political bias/opinions of their members. Could you add these/other
fields to store more information about members?
A: SMC believes that these personal details are best left to members to discuss between themselves.
Q: If the Detected Country is different from what the member selected for the Country where they currently live, does that mean the member is lying about where they are located?
A: Not necessarily, however extra caution is strongly recommended. Sometimes another country (especially a neighbouring one) may be shown if the member is using an Internet Service Provider (ISP) outside of their own country (for example, someone living in Cyprus using an ISP in Greece).
If the detected country is blank or shows ??? there are generally three possible reasons:
1) The member is deliberately accessing the internet through a server in another country to hide their true location or identity
2) The correct country could not be found. IP addresses such as 0.0.0.0 or some addresses that begin with 0, 10, 172 or 192 are private IP addresses used exclusively on private networks which are therefore not identifiable by geolocation.
3) The geolocation service has not yet stored the location for the member's IP address.
Although country identification based on the visitor's IP address is more than 90% accurate, identification mistakes can occur. Likewise, the opposite type of error is also possible: even if the detected country does match the member's claimed country, there is a chance (<10%) that they are in fact actually different.
If the detected country indicates 'Satellite Provider', the member is most likely located in Israel, Nigeria, Tanzania or Iraq.
Q: Do you verify information provided by members?
A: No, unfortunately that is not practical. You may want to consider exchanging emails followed by a phone conversation and finally meeting for coffee in a public place. Use your best judgement to think, ask questions and learn about each other.
Q: How does messaging between members work?
A: After viewing a member's profile, you can send an email to them by clicking
the [Send email] link at the bottom of their profile. Type your message in the
form that appears. Your member ID# will automatically be included in the email
message to them so s/he can visit your profile. Likewise, the email address you provided when registering will be included in the email so the receiver can then reply directly to you. Messages
are never stored at our site; the form simply relays your message to the receiving member.
Q: Why do you recommended not using one's regular email address?
Please remember that once you send a message or reply to a message received, your email address becomes known to the other party. Because it is not possible to know the motivation of individuals or organisations messaging you, and your email address may be collected by an outside party for advertising or other purposes, we strongly recommend creating a new email address for communication with other members. Google's Gmail, Hotmail and many other free email providers exist.
Q: Can I put my email address directly in my profile?
If you wish you may include any email address directly in your profile (but see the above note about creating a new email account first).
Q: How can I find out if my email spam filter is blocking messages that are sent to me?
A: Send a message to yourself. Find your member ID# at the top of the 'My Profile' webpage then search for your own profile by member ID# and send yourself a test message.
Q: How do I decrease the filesize (kilobytes) of my .jpg photos for uploading?
A: If a photo exceeds the filesize limit there are essentially 3 ways to correct the problem:
- resize the image's width and height (keeping the aspect ratio between the two dimensions the same to avoid distorting the picture).
- resave the image at a lower quality level. Most people cannot see the difference between 90% and 60% compression quality, yet the memory savings are substantial.
- Crop the image - cut off the top/bottom/side areas.
.gif and .bmp files occupy significantly more memory for the same level of quality. Therefore ensure your image is saved as a .jpg/.jpeg file. If you do not have Adobe Photoshop to modify your photos, many software packages such as Irfanview are also available totally free of charge for download. Others, such as Online-image-editor.com operate completely over the web and therefore no installation on your PC is necessary.
Profiles will be deleted if their images contain nudity, offensive material or cartoons.
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