FAQ

Question: How do I become a CyberFriend?

Answer: You can become a CyberFriend by using the FREE Membership option of CyberFriends.com.
While filling out the application, please make sure that you provide your valid current email address as your temporary password is mailed to this email address. You will need to use this temporary password to Log-In to Cyberfriends.com and validate your membership. Your profile appears on the CyberFriends.com site only after you validate your membership.

Note that your email address will NOT be published on the CyberFriends.com site and will be used ONLY to validate you as a valid user and for the contact between you and the CyberFriends.com staff.

Also, make sure that you properly enter the verification code that is displayed on the membership form. This randomly generated verification code helps us prevent automated registrations.

IMPORTANT: To be a completely anonymous site, email addresses and URLs are not allowed in Profiles and may result in account cancellation. [faq-0150-0025]

Question: What is Email Address Verification, how does it work and why is it used?
Answer: Email Address Verification is a process where a welcome email is sent to new members when they become members of CyberFriends.com. The welcome email contains their login information (username and password). New members must log in to the CyberFriends.com site using this information to validate their membership. A member’s profile starts appearing on the site and all the features become available only after membership validation.

Email Address Verification is used to make sure that all the CyberFriends are real and serious members. There are no absolute guarantees but at least this process confirms that membership is initiated by a person who is serious enough to become a member by signing up with a valid email address and then taking the time to validate the membership. [faq-0150-0050]

Question: How is CyberFriends.com a completely anonymous site?
Answer: CyberFriends.com is designed to provide a completely anonymous way for our members to find friends on the Web. Our members create their own unique profiles and the site provides several tools to find friends using these member profiles. To provide this functionality, we must ask for certain information. None of the information we gather can be used by the general public to identify specific individuals. All visitors to CyberFriends.com can browse the site and use its various features without entering any personal information.

It is our policy to reject or remove profiles that contain direct information about the member (such as full name, email address, URL, phone number, address, etc.)

All member correspondence at CyberFriends.com happens via your personal Message Center. Your actual email address or any other personally identifiable information is never published or used so your privacy is never compromised. [faq-0150-0075]

Question: I appreciate the fact that CyberFriends.com is an anonymous site. However, I have made some really good CyberFriends. I would now like to exchange my private email address with my friends. How do I do that?
Answer: CyberFriends.com has a feature called »Request Email Address Exchange. that allows for the exchange of email addresses between two CyberFriends who are willing to exchange their personal email addresses.
This option is available via the “Message Center” menu option of CyberFriends.com.

If the recipient CyberFriend decides to approve the Email Exchange Request, the CyberFriends.com site sends email messages to both parties containing the respective user’s personal email addresses. Note that the recipient CyberFriend is under no obligation to approve the request. If the CyberFriends decides not to approve the request, the request message can be treated like any other email message. It can be deleted or kept in your incoming email messages where it would be automatically deleted after 30 days.

Note that CyberFriends.com is set up as an anonymous web site. When two CyberFriends exchange their personal email addresses willingly, they confirm that they are doing this email address exchange at their own discretion and understand that they will no longer be anonymous to each other. CyberFriends.com will not be responsible for any content received at their private email addresses directly or indirectly as a result of that email address exchange. [faq-0150-0080]

Question: I do not remember my username and/or password. How can I get it?
Answer: Once you are successfully logged-in to CyberFriends.com, you land on a welcome page. This page provides information about your profile, membership, new email and guestbook messages, and photographs, etc. The welcome page also provides a list of the last 15 sign-ups at CyberFriends.com. [faq-0150-0100]

Question: How can I make my Log-In process easier?
Answer: CyberFriends.com site automatically remembers your username on your computer. For easier and faster Log-In, check the “remember my password” check box while logging-in. By doing so, the CyberFriends.com site will save your password on your local hard disk. When you Log-In the next time, your username and password will be automatically filled in. All you would need to do is to hit the Log-In button. [faq-0150-0125]

Question: What happens after I Log-In to CyberFriends.com?
Answer: Once you are successfully logged-in to CyberFriends.com, you land on a welcome page. This page provides information about your profile, membership, new email and guestbook messages, and photographs, etc. The welcome page also provides a list of the last 15 sign-ups at CyberFriends.com. [faq-0150-0150]

Question: What is the “Browse CyberFriends” option and how does it work?
Answer: “Browse CyberFriends” is a set of powerful modules that allows you to browse CyberFriends listings.
The following modules are available:

Browse New CyberFriends: This module allows you to browse new CyberFriends by age and gender. The default criteria are members who have joined last week. You have the option to change the criteria to members joined today, members joined in the last 3 days, members joined in the last 15 days, members joined during last month, or members joined during the last 3 months.
Browse by Age: This module allows you to browse CyberFriends by age and gender.
Browse by Country: This module allows you to browse CyberFriends by country. Once a country is selected, you can browse CyberFriends living in that country by age and gender.
Browse by Ethnicity: This module allows you to browse CyberFriends by ethnicity. Once an ethnicity is selected, you can browse CyberFriends of that ethnicity by age and gender.
Browse by Profession: This module allows you to browse CyberFriends by profession. Once a profession is selected, you can browse CyberFriends of that profession by age and gender.
Browse by Photograph: This module allows you to browse CyberFriends by photo and by age and gender. [faq-0200-0025]

Question: What is the “Search CyberFriends” option and how does it work?
Answer: “Search CyberFriends” is a set of powerful modules that allows you to search CyberFriends listings.
The following modules are available:
Power Search: Power Search is a powerful but flexible search engine that allows you to search CyberFriend listings using your specified criteria. The criteria options are very flexible. You can specify any combination of gender, age range, join date, photograph or not, country or state living in, ethnicity, religion, language, education, profession, hobbies, sports, music, marital status.
Note that CyberFriends.com automatically saves and remembers your Power Search criteria. When you use the Power Search module, the site automatically selects your last Power Search criteria (this is dependant on your browser’s cookies settings. Please refer to the cookies section of the FAQ for more details)

Quick Search: This module allows you to quickly search for a CyberFriend by username. This is useful when you already know the username that you are looking for and want to find and load that CyberFriend’s profile quickly.
Note that CyberFriends.com remembers and save your last Quick Search criteria. When you use Quick Search, the site automatically selects the last username that you have searched. [faq-0300-0025]

Question: What is the “Message Center” option and how does it work?
Answer: “Message Center” is a set of modules that allows you to send send and receive private email and public guestbook messages and to maintain your friends and ignore lists.
The following modules are available:

Send a Private Email Message: This module allows you to send private email messages to other CyberFriends. An email message is a private message that is visible only to the CyberFriend that it is sent to.
When you send a private email message to another CyberFriend, CyberFriend.com sends a new email message receipt notification to the recipient CyberFriend’s email address. Note that the actual message is not sent to the CyberFriends email box. To read the message, the recipient CyberFriend logs on to CyberFriends.com and reads/replies to new email messages. Thus, all the emails are exchanged via the CyberFriends.com site making sure that all communications are anonymous.

View Incoming Email Messages: This module shows your incoming private email messages and their status (new or read). You have the option to delete the message, send a reply to the sender, or add the sender to either your friends’ list or ignore list.
View Sent Email Messages: This module shows the email messages that you have sent to other CyberFriends. This module also shows you the status of your sent email messages (read, not read, or deleted).
Send a Guestbook Message: This module allows you to write messages in other CyberFriends’ guestbooks. A guestbook message is a public message that appears in a CyberFriends profile and is visible to all users of the site.
When you send a public guestbook message to another CyberFriend, CyberFriend.com sends a new guestbook message receipt notification to the recipient CyberFriend’s email address. Note that the actual message is not sent to the CyberFriends email box. To read the message, the recipient CyberFriend logs on to CyberFriends.com and reads new guestbook messages.

View Incoming Guestbook Messages: This module shows your incoming guestbook messages and their status (new or read). You have the option to delete the message, send a guestbook message to the sender, or add the sender to either your friends’ list or ignore list.
View Sent Guestbook Messages: This module shows the guestbook messages that you have sent to other CyberFriends. This module also shows you the status of your sent guestbook messages (read, not read or deleted).
Friends List: This module allows you to add CyberFriends to your friends’ list. A friends list makes it easier for you to send email and guestbook messages to the CyberFriends by selecting the desired CyberFriend’s username from the friends’ drop-down list.
Ignore List: This module allows you to add CyberFriends in your ignore list. Once you add a CyberFriend to your ignore list, that CyberFriend cannot send you new email and guestbook messages.
Please note that emails and guestbook messages older than one month are automatically removed from the CyberFriends.com web site. [faq-0600-0025]

Question: What is the “Manage My Account” option and how does it work?
Answer: “Manage My Account” is a set of modules that allows you to manage various aspects of your account.
The following modules are available:

View/Update My Profile: This module allows you to view and/or update your profile. A profile is an in-depth introduction of a CyberFriend. It provides information about a CyberFriend’s background, lifestyle, education, profession, friendship preferences, physical appearance, habits, interests and personality.
Your basic profile is automatically created when you register with CyberFriends.com. Once you validate your membership (by logging in with the username and password sent to your email address), we strongly recommend you to update your profile to provide as much information about yourself as possible so that it is easy for other members to find and review your profile and extend friendship to you.

IMPORTANT: To be a completely anonymous site, email addresses and URLs are not allowed in Profiles and may result in account cancellation.

The purpose of the CyberFriends.com site is to promote online friendship. As such, CyberFriends.com welcomes everyone to join the site regardless of nationality, race, gender, religion, or language. However, to provide a suitable, healthy, and comfortable environment for our members, we also need to make every effort possible to ensure that the profiles are not offensive in any way. Therefore, we may reject or remove profiles if they contain any of the following:

Direct information about the member (such as full name, email address, url, phone numer, address, etc.)
Abusive language of any kind (such as vulgarity, racism, etc.)
Reference to Illegal activity (such as drugs, violence, etc.)
Reference to sexual activity/pornograpy etc.
Commercial or business solicitation
Political solicitation
Use of copyrighted or trademark materials

In addition to the above list, CyberFriends.com reserves the right to reject any profile at its own discretion if it considers the profile to be inapproriate.
CyberFriends.com staff reviews profiles at random to enforce compliance with the above guidelines. However, since all the activity on the site in real-time and is controlled by members without our interference (such as new members, profile updates, etc.), it is impossible for us to review each and every aspect of all the content on the site. We, therefore, rely strongly on our users to report inappropriate profiles and content. Every profile provides a link that can be used by any site user for reporting an inappropriate profile. Once a profile is reported to be inappropriate, we make every effort to review it as soon as possible and take appropriate action.

We do encourage and appreciate the help of all of our users to preserve the quality of the CyberFriends.com site for all audiences.

Upload/Manage My Photographs: This module allows you upload photographs to your profile. You can upload up to 5 photographs in your profile. You can also use this module to delete photographs or control the order in which your photographs are displayed in your profile.
Having a Photograph in your Profile greatly increases your chances of finding friends. Our experience and statistics show that Profiles with Photographs are 10 times more likely to receive a response compared to Profiles without Photographs.

In order to provide a suitable, healthy and comfortable environment to our members, we need our members to stricly follow the following Photograph guidelines:

You can upload up to 5 photographs for your profile.
Do not upload the same photograph more than once.
The Photograph file must be in either GIF or JPG format.
The Photograph file size must not exceed 50KB.
The maximum allowed Photograph image dimensions are Width: 300 pixels and Height: 300 pixels.
Your Photograph must be a solo shot of yourself (full face must be viewable).
Adding text messages, email addresses, URLs, or any other information on the photograph is strictly prohibited.
Group photos, pet photos, nude, obscene, sexual, or otherwise offensive photos are not allowed.
Copyrighted photos, photos of celebrities, children, products, cartoons, etc. are also not allowed.

We take the quality of content very seriously at CyberFriends.com and reserve the right to cancel a membership if these photograph guidelines are not met.
CyberFriends.com staff reviews photographs at random to enforce compliance with the above photograph guidelines. However, uploading of Photographs at CyberFriends.com is real time and is controlled by members directly without our interference. As such, we can’t review each photograph. We, therefore, rely strongly on our users to report inapproriate photographs. Every profile provides a link that can be used by any site user for reporting photographs that violate our guidelines. Once a photograph is reported to be inappropriate, we make every effort to review it as soon as possible and take appropriate action.

We do encourage and appreciate the help of all of our users to preserve the quality of the CyberFriends.com site for all audiences.

Change My Password: This module allows you to change your CyberFriends.com password. Note that in order to change your password, you will need to re-enter your current password.
Change My Email Address: This module allows you to change the email address that CyberFriends.com has on file for you. Note that in order to change your email address, you will need to re-enter your current password and your new email address. On submission of email address change request, a validation code will be emailed to your new email address. Once you receive this validation code at your new email address, you will need to validate the email address change by using the “Validate Email Address Change” module (see below for details).
Validate Email Address Change: This module allows you to validate and confirm the email address change requested using the Change My Email Address module (see above for details). The validation is done by entering the validation code sent to your new email address.
Cancel My Account: This module allows you to cancel your CyberFriends.com membership. Note that to cancel your account, you will need to re-enter your current password.
A membership cancellation confirmation email is sent to you at the email address that we have on file for you. As soon as your membership is cancelled, your profile is removed from the site.

Please note that you can reinstate your membership within 60 days of your cancellation by just logging in to CyberFriends.com and following the account reinstatement instructions on the screen. After 60 days, your profile is permanently removed and you will need to register with CyberFriends.com again as a new member.

Disable My Account: This module allows you to temporarily disable your CyberFriends.com membership. Note that in order to disable your account, you will need to re-enter your current password.
A membership disable confirmation email is sent to you at the email address that we have on file for you. As soon as your membership is disabled, your profile is removed from the site.

Please note that you can enable your membership by just logging in to CyberFriends.com and following the membership enable instructions on the screen. [faq-0650-0025]

Question: What is the “Chat” option and how does it work?
Answer: Chat is an interactive module that allows CyberFriends to communicate with other CyberFriends on real time basis.
CyberFriends.com Chat is a text based chat module that does not require plug-ins or any additional software for your browser. The chat system, however, uses DHTML and javascripting to provide a state-of-the-art chat module that allows you to chat without the periodical screen reloading that you will find in most standard text chat modules.

In order to use CyberFriends.com Chat module, you will need to enable your browser scripting. Please refer to your browser manual or help text to assist you in changing the settings of your browser.

CyberFriends.com has a powerful ignore feature that allows you to ignore the members that they do not want to chat with. All you have to do is to check the check box next to the username that you want to ignore, and then click on the Update Ignores button.

If you would like to permanently ignore a user in chat, just include that user in your Ignore List in the Message Center. This way, you will not need to ignore that user in chat every time. The system will do that for you automatically and the ignored user will never be able to chat with you again (as long as that user is in your Ignore List).
[faq-0700-0025]

Question: What are the “Chat” rules?
Answer: Following are the chat rules that each CyberFriend should follow to make the chat experience enjoyable for all CyberFriends in the chat room:
CyberFriends.com is built around the idea of being an anonymous platform to find and make friends. Exchanging email addresses in chat room is strictly prohibited and may result in account cancellation. For exchanging email addresses, use the “Request Email Address Exchange” option of the “Message Center” menu.
The main language for CyberFriends.com in English and that is the language the should be spoken in the chat room. If you want to speak any other language, use the private feature so that messages in another language are exchanged privately just between the members speaking a different language.
Be courteous. If a CyberFriend does not want to chat to you, you have to accept that. Even though it should not be required, the ignore feature can always be used to enforce this via the system.
Do not use abusive, obscene, offensive, hateful, defamatory, inaccurate, commercial, or political language.
Do not use false, abusive, obscene, offensive, hateful, threatening, commercial or political language.
Do not use bars (a bar is a long word of repated characters).
Do not use absurdness (such as asdf).
Do not use text flooding (flooding is writing the same thing over and over).
Do not type your chat messages in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS as that is considering shouting and being rude to others members in the chat room.
Sexually oriented chat is not allowed.
Any chat related to illegal activity such as drugs etc. is strictly forbidden.
Any other activity or activities that will considered inappropriate by general common-sense standards.
CyberFriends.com reserves the right to cancel the account of a member at its own discretion if it determines that the member is not following the chat room rules. An account can also be cancelled if several chat complaints are received against a member from other members. [faq-0700-0050]

Question: What is the Points system and how are the Points calculated?
Answer: The purpose of the Activity Points system is to:
Identify members who are more active than others.
Encourage members to spend more time on the site.
Encourage members to communicate more by using email messages, guestbook messages, chat rooms, instant messenger, and forums.
Encourage members to complete their profiles and to upload photographs.
Members accumulate points from their profile, from their photographs, by actively logging in to the site, by posting guestbook messages, by using chat, and by posting topics and replies in discussion forums. The points are calculated as follow:
Profile Points: You get points equal to the 10 times the percentage of your completed profile. For example, if your profile is 92% complete, you get 920 points.
Photograph Points: You get 25 points for each photograph in your profile. For example, if you have 3 photographs in your profile, you get 75 points. Members without photographs get 0 points for photographs.
Log-in Points: You get 1 point every time you log-in at CyberFriends.com.
Email Message Points: You get 1 point for every private email message that you send to another CyberFriend.
Guestbook Message Points: You get 1 point for every guestbook message that you send to another CyberFriend.
Chat Points: You get 1 point for every message that you send in the Cyberfriends.com chat room.
Instant Messenger Points: You get 1 point for every message that you send using the Cyberfriends.com Instant Messenger.
Write a new Topic: You get 15 points for every topic that you write in the Forums.
Reply to a Topic: You get 5 points for every reply that you post to a topic in the Forums.
Points Winners: At the end of every quarter, the points winner and points runner-up are picked and the details are posted in the News section of the site.
Quarterly Points Roll-over: At the start of the new quarter, 5% of your points accumulated in the last quarter are rolled over to the new quarter. We do this to give you some credit for your last quarter’s activity. However, we do not roll over all the points to make sure that your last quarter activity alone cannot keep you listed as an active member for the current quarter. Note that you always get full points for profile completion and photographs.

Sample Points Calculation: As an example for point’s calculation, assume that a member has 100% profile complete and 5 photographs in the profile. The member has logged in 20 times, has sent 10 email messages, has sent 5 guestbook messages, has sent 100 messages in the chat room, has sent 50 instant messenger messages, has posted 2 topics in forums, and have replied to 5 topics. The points will be calculated as follows:

Points
Category Activity Points
Given Points
Calculation Points
Accumulated
Profile 100% complete 10 point per % complete 100 x 10 point 1000 Points
Photographs 4 photos uploaded 25 points per photo 4 x 25 points 100 Points
Log-In 20 times logged-in 1 point per log-in 20 x 1 point 20 Points
Email Messages 10 email messages sent 1 point per email message 10 x 1 point 10 Points
Guestbook Messages 5 guestbook messages sent 1 point per guestbook message 5 x 1 point 5 Points
Chat Room Messages 100 chat messages sent 1 point per chat message 100 x 1 point 100 Points
Instant Messenger Messages 50 IM messages sent 1 point per IM message 50 x 1 point 50 Points
Forum Topics 2 Topics 15 points per topic 2 x 15 point 30 Points
Forum Replies 5 Replies 5 points per reply 5 x 5 point 25 Points
Total Points: 1340 Points
If the above points were the total points accumulated for the quarter, this member will have the following points at the start of the new quarter:

Points Category Points at the start of the new quarter
Profile Points 1000 Points
Photograph Points 100 Points
Points from Last quarter 67 Points (5% of 1340 points from the last quarter)
Total Points at the start of the new quarter: 1167 Points
Terms and Conditions for CyberFriends.com Activity Points:
All members automatically participate in the Activity Points program and are subject to these Terms and Conditions.
All activity points must come from genuine activity. Any method that artificially generates activity is strictly prohibited. Examples are the unnecessary exchange of messages between two members just to accumulate points, messages to members who become inactive on the site, duplicate or irrelevant postings in forums, guestbooks, etc.
All Activity Points Terms and Conditions must be met. Any violation or abuse of the Activity Points program will automatically void your Activity Points.
CyberFriends.com reserves the right to change or discontinue the Activity Points program at any time. If the Activity Points program is discontinued, all Activity Points will be void.
CyberFriends.com reserves the right, at it own discretion, to not offer Activity Points program to certain members.
The Activity Points Terms and Conditions are in addition to Terms and Conditions that apply to the entire CyberFriends.com site. Violation of any of the overall Terms and Conditions of the site will result in cancellation of all Activity Points and possibly account suspension/cancellation.
[faq-0800-0025]