Firstly I would like to thank you all for visiting these pages,
hopefully you will see what all the fun is about! iDive Sharks is
intended to be a fun place for shark lovers and those who like
sharks in general to hang out and enjoy the banter. Sharks are
incredible creatures and when interactions goes well there is
nothing better than being in the company of an intelligent,
calculating and obviously self aware animal. They are, all to
sadly, and as we all know too well, increasingly subjected to
overfishing and persecution predominantly for their fins. To this
end some folks do get quite riled up when they commence debate on
these matters.
Conservationists If you are part of a conservation group or
body, we have a conservation interest group where all topics may be
discussed. This site should not be seen, or used, as a stage from
where you can launch political or cause specific debates and
arguments. This is a site to promote the positive interaction
between sharks and people. There are many, many sites people can
visit in order to get the depressing news on the plight of sharks,
this is not one of them. Please respect this wish. Thanks.
Respecting Members: For the sake of decorum and personal
respect for all people, not just the members here, could I hereby
ask that people think before they start handing out comments they
could regret at a later date. I would also like to point out that
it is not fair to brand a whole nation for the acts or desires of
others in that Nationality even if the perceived 'offending' group
is the majority. My wife is Japanese and one of the strongest
advocates I know against shark fishing to which end I get very
ruffled feathers when I see posts pointing fingers at her complete
race for being a race of 'Shark Killers', its just quite immature
to think along those lines.
Please understand that many people have different opinions. To save
arguments, if you don't agree with something and feel you would say
something to incite a negative reaction then quite simply, walk
away. Better to live and chat another day!!
Profile Imagery: I would also like to request that folks
post using their
own name and
not that of their
corporate, scientific affiliation or website. If they are not
happy to use their own name for privacy reasons then a tasteful
alias is fine. The same goes for their choice of
Profile Image,
please use something other than a corporate logo. The reason
being that I would not wish for businesses to suffer should debates
arise in the future where it is portrayed that members are arguing
against a corporate / conservation organization because a member
opted to use that as their identity here at iDive Sharks. I would
prefer to not have to mediate between any corporate entities and
members using said entities identification. If however you are the
owner or director of said company then please understand that I
wish to keep corporate and individual aspects in two distinct
fields here. There are advertising options available for all shark
trip operators should they so wish.
Banning Members: I do have the option to ban members from
this social network. This will obviously only happen in very
extreme circumstances, these include but do not limit to the
following:
1)Any member who posts pornographic, immoral or expletive laden
posts will be immediately banned.
2) Any member who blatantly defames or insults any other member
will be warned and placed on to to Three Strike rule. Third Strike,
you're outta here!
3) Any member who posts comments in a promotional vein to the
detriment of the well being of sharks will be asked to apologize to
the forum. Failure to do so will result in their banishment from
the forum.
4) Any member being reported to the Network Admins by another
member for personal reasons will be placed under a 30 day
behavioral observation period.
5) Any operator who trawls new members for friendships with the
sole view of increasing their potential client base.
6) Any Corporate entity that continuously spams members with
unsolicited messages to promote their Group or Event here on the
site will be banned. The generation of Groups and Events initiates
an automatic announcement on the site. People will join if they so
desire. We have zero tolerance for spamming. A three strike rule
applies to this. I am tempted to reduce this to a one time warning.
Corporate entities in any realm should understand that sites such
as this are not designed for them to use as services where they can
freely tout for business without recompense to the site host /
owner. Each site or forum has its own rules. What you may be able
to do on one differs greatly from what you can do on another.
Please respect the rules here. Failure to comply will result in
suspension from the site.
Posting Events - A key element of our advertising options is
to host and promote Events that corporate sponsors may be running.
We ask that both the corporate entity and attending members please
refrain from littering the home page with links to said event. An
auto generated link will be placed on the home page as part of the
Events links automated system. Please feel free to promote that
with your friends who may wish to show their support and join in
the event. If they are currently non members they will have to
become members of iDive Sharks to be able to interact with that
event. Please also do not spam members of iDive Sharks with event
notification mails. People will see the auto generated event
notification and they will join if they so desire. Anyone wishing
to promote an event through iDive Sharks is asked to contact the
Administrators for further details.
Corporate Entities & Advertising - I wish to mention
here that this is a privately funded site. I welcome the
interaction between guests and members. I welcome the fact that
folks get together and discuss possible trips etc however,
commercial entities should realize that this should not be seen as
a green flag to tout for business here. There are very attractive
advertising options available, and to a very finely tuned target
demographic at that, here at iDive Sharks. Should you wish to
discuss these please feel free to contact me at your pleasure.
Commercial entities and representatives who continually flout this
guideline will be banned from the site. Please, again, contact me
if you wish to discuss this in greater detail.
Imagery & Video Uploads: Please make sure if you are
attempting to upload imagery and / or video that your are the
copyright and distribution owner of the imagery. We are a
commercial site and therefore cannot be host to unsolicited imaging
without running the risk of legal action being taken against us by
the legitimate copyright owner. We also
strongly suggest that
you watermark any imagery that you desire to upload. All
analytic information shows, even at this early stage, that imagery
is being downloaded from this site. Please protect your images if
you are a working photographer submitting stock shots.
For Video uploads we are having problems with Vimeo here in
Indonesia for some reason. To that end we fully endorse and suggest
that you become a member of
Underwater Videography where you have a much greater
quality codec for video embedding. Please follow the link below.
You will need to sign / log in but the service is probably the best
proprietary video embed option there is.
Regards to you all and thanks again for being here, it really
speaks volumes as to the growing interest into the well being of
sharks.
Sincerely,
Mark Thorpe
Founder &Developer
iDive Sharks iPhone / iPod Touch App Social Network.
