One thing that has confused and occasionally upset some members is that we will actually delete your profile if your email address goes bad and starts bouncing our email (if you didn't give us a new email address to use for you instead in the meantime, of course).

Even though we've tried to make this policy as clear as possible (as we're doing again right here!), we imagine it remains confusing for some folks because it's not the cultural norm for a social site. We think the experience most folks have with most of them is that profiles are rarely deleted unless the user deletes their profile themselves. Meaning, the email addresses go bad, the user becomes completely uncontactable, but the profile remains in perpetuity.

So the general cultural expectation with any social site is that if you ever signed up, and the site still exists, you should be able to come back and log in again forevermore, even if your email address went bad a long time ago.

But that's NOT the case here. Because that wouldn't work well for most of our members.

And that would be because we're not just about discussion or socializing ONLY on the internet.

This site currently functions on three levels, with more or less as each member desires:

meeting new local friends, local social situations, platonic activity partners

dating, more traditional personals, meeting in person important, possibly important for this coming weekend

online community, support, chat with other like-minded folk, meeting in person optional

. . . and then members can do all of that, just some, or switch around as desired.

"BUT THAT'S SO MEAN and bad and terrible and wrong!

If those other sites never delete a profile, shouldn't that be a clue that you shouldn't either? If I submit a profile here, it should just stay up for the REST OF ALL TIME!"

first of all

We're not trying to perpetrate any mean bad terrible wrongness, for real.

For a site that was just about discussion or general community, not so much about meeting new folks for getting together in person, it probably wouldn't matter SO much if we ever deleted profiles, even if their contact info went bad long ago. Even if one someone stopped participating, someone else could join in then continue, and so on and so forth.

But for situations where someone is "putting themselves out there" trying to meet other folks in person, that just won't work so hot if we don't have current email addresses for everyone. Since we really want to help folks find other cool folks to meet in person TOO, we need to be able to tell you when you have a message from another member.

We doing this out of consideration to the other members that do maintain a current email address with us. Meaning, we don't want them to have to waste their time messaging someone then feel disappointed they never heard back, even possibly wondering if there was something wrong with their message or their profile . . . when in fact the actual reality is that the person they messaged hasn't been contactable for the last year and a half.

'Cause that'd be complete crap.

second

If you keep your email address with us current, your profile can stay up . . . well maybe not for the REST OF ALL TIME, but as long as we're all still alive and still have enough money to keep this thing on!

(No promises after that, obviously.)

third

If you didn't manage to preserve your last profile (although we would really recommend you do TRY, for your own sake, just so you can hang onto your other content as well, messages, forum posts, followers, etc.), you can always submit another one.

It's not like you're blacklisted forever because your email address went bad.

What is whitelisting and why recommend that?

Short Answer: A "whitelist" is a list of email addresses or domain names that you tell your provider to let through their filters. "Whitelisting" is the activity of doing that for yourself. We recommend that to make sure your email provider doesn't "lose" the email we send you.

Longer Answer: "Whitelisting" is a just a catch-all generic term for adding an email address to whatever your particular email provider calls their list for YOU whereby you're telling THEM to make sure to let email from someone ELSE's email address through.

This as opposed to possibly spam-trapping it or otherwise throwing it away without your permission before you can read it.

This list is something you have with the company that provides your email, not just something on your local machine (for instance, NOT just in the email application on your computer). It's also something you take care of on YOUR end. You don't email us and ask us to do it for you, we're not able to do that, you have to do it from within your own email account signed in with your password.

We've also been asked this question about whitelisting quite a few times:

"If I got some email from you, that means I'm cleared now to get all additional email you'll ever send even if I don't bother with this whitelisting thing, right?"

While your mileage may vary according to email provider, in general, NO, NOT TRUE AT ALL. It's often the case that if you fail to do the whitelisting, your email provider will let some but not all email from a particular sender through. We've also been told that's the case with all the email providers below.

Here are some other common terms for Whitelist:

Safe Sender List

Custom Sender List

Allowed Sender List

Address Book (with your email provider)

Friends List

Buddy List

Again, here's our email address:

webmistresses@lesbotronic.com

We've attempted to provide some more specific whitelisting instructions below for some of the more popular email services. These were the popular ones we were able to sign up for for free in order to get the instructions, and we did this as a courtesy. If yours isn't listed and/or these instructions don't seem to be applicable to you for some reason, please do NOT email us asking us how to do that. Figuring that out will need to be up to you, since . . . you know, it's your email account, not ours.

It's not possible for us to know how to operate all the different types of email in the world.

If you don't already know, we'd recommend finding out anyway, because knowing how to use your email account properly can't help but be a good thing for you for a wide variety of reasons, not just using this site. Instructions are readily available for that for most email accounts directly from your email provider and/or their tech support.

AOL: The easiest way to is to put the above email address into your "Address Book." Click the icon for the Address Book at the top of the toolbar, click "Add Contact," then add webmistresses@lesbotronic.com. Another way, if you're using the "Custom Sender List," is to add our email address to that. Activate the dropdown "Mail" menu up at the top, select "Mail Controls" (or click "Spam Controls" if you're not using the full AOL software but just a web browser), click "Custom Sender List," then add it to the list of allowed senders. This, of course, only if you're using that list to allow senders. If you're using it to block senders, adding us to that list obviously wouldn't help at all. In that same area, you also must NOT have checked "Allow mail only from AOL members," or you will NOT get our email. We're not on AOL.

GMAIL (Google): When signed into your email account on the internet using a web browser, add webmistresses@lesbotronic.com to your "Contacts" list (clickable text links on the left).

HOTMAIL: When signed into your email account on the internet using a web browser, add webmistresses@lesbotronic.com to your Safe List. Click "Contacts" on the left clickable toolbar. Under the next list of "Contacts Options," click "Safe List." Add it to that list.

YAHOO: When signed into your email account on the internet using a web browser, add webmistresses@lesbotronic.com to your Addresses List. Click "Addresses" at the top, click the "Add Contact" button, add it. Yahoo can still be a little flaky, if you have attempted to register and don't see your welcoming email, check your Bulk mail folder. If it is in there, use the interface to reidentify that as Not Spam or Yahoo will continue to send our messages there. Also, check your Bulk folder periodically. All kinds of stuff can end up there.

ROCKETMAIL: Same as Yahoo (directly above)

NETSCAPE: When signed into your email account on the internet using a web browser, add webmistresses@lesbotronic.com to your Address Book. Click the icon for the Address Book at the top of the toolbar, click "Add Contact," then add it there.

JUNO: When signed into your email account on the internet using a web browser, add webmistresses@lesbotronic.com to your Safe List. Click the Options button. On the Mail Options screen, click the Safe Lists link. Put it into the "Add Address to Safe List" box and click the Add button.

EXCITE: When signed into your email account on the internet using a web browser, add webmistresses@lesbotronic.com to your Safe List. Click "Mail Preferences" on the top RIGHT of the tool bar. Under the header, "SPAM Prevention Tools, click "Safe List. Put it into the box under "Add the email address . . ." then click the "Add" button.

LYCOS: When signed into your email account on the internet using a web browser, add webmistresses@lesbotronic.com to your Sender White List. Click "Options" in the Mail toolbar. Under Mail Preferences click "Spam Filters." Click Sender White List. Add the email address above into the box under "Type a single email address . . " and click the "Add" button.

OPERAMAIL: When signed into your email account on the internet using a web browser, add webmistresses@lesbotronic.com to your Inbox Mail Filters. Click Options on the top toolbar. Click Mail Filters. Under Filter Incoming Mail go to your first available filter (Filter 1 if you've not used this feature before). Click the box next to Enable. Select the menus such that If: From equals, then enter the email address above into that box. You can then click Move Up or Move Down (it doesn't really matter) but what does is that you make sure "Then deliver to:" is marked INBOX. Then don't forget to click the Update button at the bottom.

"I get email from lots of other sites just fine. Is this really necessary here?"

Yes, it is really necessary.

No, we have never have sent a single human being one single spam, nor will we ever. We've been instructed that our email gets "spamtrapped" more often than that from most sites because the site itself is keyworded with words like "lesbian," "bisexual," etc., and many email providers insist on being homophobic by concluding that stuff we send is somehow p-o-r-n spam, and they need to protect you from it . . . especially email containing links, which email from us with login info or alerts regarding your messages from other members will.

Very homophobic, very Big Brother.

In order to prevent that nonsense, again, please tell your email provider to accept all email from: webmistresses@lesbotronic.com

"I seem to be missing email from lesbotronic."

(Meaning, there are new people in my search results, and I thought I was supposed to get an email notification when that was the case. But I didn't get any such email.)

Short Answer: If you're still an active member (which you are if you're able to login and see your search results), we did SEND you that notification. But after we send it, whether or not that ALSO means that you will RECEIVE it is now a matter exclusively between you and your email provider. Sooo . . .

Longer Answer: Most everyone seems to know they will miss email if they allow their email inbox to overfill and run out of space and/or if they stop checking it entirely. So, those are two possibilities.

But mostly we get this question for another reason, that being that many members seem to think that if they get one email from us, as long as space permits in their email account, they will then necessarily get ALL future email from us.

Not true.

Many if not most email providers have an annoying habit of letting some but not all email through, particularly when the email in question is from a sender that sends a lot of email and/or is keyworded with words some homophobic people conclude must mean we're p-o-r-n spam, like lesbotronic.

THIS IS WHY WE RECOMMEND THE WHITELISTING.

According to the vast majority of email providers, this is the prescribed way to ensure you don't miss email from a sender from whom you wouldn't want to miss email.

OK? Cheers, thanks a lot!

"So how do I change my email address with you, if necessary?"

For various technical and security reasons we've elected to take care of this manually, for now.

First, we'd recommend not switching email addresses with us more than necessary because those that do that tend to get confused.

Second, we'd ask you not to switch email addresses with us more than necessary because it's going to be a slight pain in our bum each time you do it.

But we do understand sometimes this is necessary. So please email us FROM THE SAME EMAIL ADDRESS you were last using with us.

Send it to: webmistresses@lesbotronic.com

In that email you also need to tell us what you'd like your new email address with us to be.

When we get to it (meaning, this will not be instantaneous, it's not automated, an actual human will be making this change manually) we'll send an email to both the old and new email addresses, confirming that for you and making sure the new email address is valid.

You absolutely need to whitelist our email address with your new one as well.