Logo
Join
Log in
View ads
Invite
LoveWeb
Tell a friend
Photo gallery [ magnetic ]
Event calendar
Help / FAQ
Testimonials
About us
Feedback
Publicity
Disclaimer  T&C
Change style [ stealth ]
Home

Frequently Asked Questions

Here is a general list of FAQs and information about the site. We hope it is all that you need. If there is anything that is not clear, or if you would like additional help, please ask Cupid. Please select one of the following topics for more information.

Introduction

Security, Anonymity, Acceptable behaviour

Userguide: explanation of features

Miscellaneous topics



Introduction


What is ImperialRomance.org.uk? - an Introduction

ImperialRomance.org.uk is a Love, chat and personals site set up specifically for students of Imperial College. It currently has 0 active members, and since we began, 36 people have signed up! Members have exchanged over 2,000 messages so far. It is the most popular student web site in London by some margin, getting around 15,000 page-views per day. The site is Completely Free to use. We hope you enjoy it......

There is an Introduction for New Members here.

[ ↑ contents]

Who pays for ImperialRomance, and why do you do it?

ImperialRomance is the Imperial College branch of ruo3.org, which is run in London by Camilla Lovell-Hoare and Cupid. RUO3.org itself is based in Cambridge and is run by Richard Neill.
We do it because we enjoy it, it's a challenge, and we get to meet new people. It's also good CompSci fun, and is our contribution to student welfare and happiness. We hope it helps - we know it can be rotten being single :-(    If you find it useful, we'd very much appreciate your help running it.
ImperialRomance is a non-profit making student society, run philanthropically, and at no charge. Initially, the costs were not large, although with the purchase of a server and our own domains, they have now risen significantly! These have been met in Cambridge by Richard and John. Posters and fliers for publicity are expensive and we are also meeting these costs ourselves. So, if you feel tempted to make a contribution, we would appreciate it a lot! For more details, please see the about us page, or you can contact us via the feedback page.

[ ↑ contents]

Signing up, Nicknames and Email addresses

Signing up is easy! Click on Join, and follow the instructions. Please read the disclaimer and terms of service first.

  • We ask that you use an email address ending in 'ic.ac.uk'.

  • If you want to use the LoveWeb, which matches people up according to whom they mutually say they fancy, then your email needs to be guessable by someone who might fancy you. So, it is in your interest to sign up with your most 'obvious' email address.

  • As for choosing a Nickname, it can be anything you like. You can use your first name if you wish, or pick a pseudonym. Some people use very short nicknames - this doesn't usually benefit them, and can lead to confusion (e.g. "N" and "NN" are different people!). It is also advisable to pick a noun, as people will address you by it: for example, "Hello, Fluffy Tiger" would make sense whereas writing "Hello I like chocolate" seems rather awkward. Please choose your nickname carefully, since this cannot later be changed without closing and re-creating your account from scratch.

  • Your initial password is generated by a concatenation of two words. This should be easy to remember, and relatively secure, but it is a good idea to change it.

  • Your password is sent to you by email, so as to authenticate that the person who logs in is the owner of that email address.
    N.B. Don't let other people have access to your email account. [security info]

[ ↑ contents]

Email addresses

We are sorry if this restriction of only 'ic.ac.uk' email addresses is inconvenient. We have decided to do it so that we can guarantee that people are members of the University, in the interests of security. If you think this is unreasonable, or if you think we should make an exception, then please do email one of the Imperial College team who will do their best to help. (For instance, visiting members of the University may not have a University email address.) We will, of course, keep your email addresses confidential.

[ ↑ contents]

For whom is ImperialRomance intended?

ImperialRomance.org.uk exists "specifically for students of Imperial College." The raison d'être of the site is to help London students to meet other London students, and IcRo's greatest strength is that people can actually meet each other in person. ImperialRomance is principally intended for undergraduates and postgraduates, but is also open to any other members of the University, and to recent alumni, currently resident in London. The site is not intended for residents of London who are not associated with the University, nor for members of other universities. We believe that we would be failing our members if we did not make such a restriction.

We have tried not to publicise ImperialRomance outside of the University, however, it is impossible to avoid totally. Therefore, we have had to insist that one uses a 'ic.ac.uk' email address for authentication. If this causes you problems, please do email one of the Imperial College team who will do their best to help.

  • We are launching sister sites at other Universities. So far, these can be found at http://ruo3.org. If you would like one at your own University, please email Cupid. (We will do the website; you will need to organise the publicity.)
  • We apologise to anyone disappointed as a result. We think that it's for the best. Also, try www.graduateromance.org.uk.
  • To clarify: senior members of the University are (of course) welcome here, but we do ask that you state your age. Alumni are asked to mention this explicitly in their description.

[ ↑ contents]

I've just joined...what do I do now?

Welcome to ImperialRomance.org.uk! You will have a great amount of fun here! There is an introduction to this site here, and further help is available on the rest of this page. Hopefully, everything is reasonably self-explanatory. You probably want to begin by clicking 'Edit' and filling in some details about yourself. Then, choose 'View ads' to browse through the the headlines in each category. If you click on a person, you'll see their full details, and have the option to send them a message. Messages are sent through the site, and are optionally forwarded to the recipient by email. Your identity and email address are never visible to other members of the site.
Good luck...

[ ↑ contents]

What should I write in my personal description?

The most important thing is that you do actually write a description - if you don't, you are far less likely to be messaged by other members. In the immortal words of 'Little Miss Leprechaun', "blankness begets blankness". Should you wish, you can later choose not to display the ad. Here are a few of our tips:

  • You should definitely describe yourself, what you like, what interests you, and what you are looking for: a paragraph or two is a good length. This is your chance to "sell" yourself, so don't be too modest! People usually want more details: to say "contact me and I'll tell you more", or to leave your description blank is not usually a very successful approach.

  • If you have a sense of humour :), demonstrate it! The best approach is to make people laugh. Also, use Smileys if you like to convey expression. E.g.   :-)    ;-)    :-D    :-P   d8=   [These mean, respectively, Happy, Winks (devilish), Laughs, nyahhhh! (sticks out tongue) ,"Your pet beaver is wearing goggles and a hard hat." Search online for thousands more.]

  • Do say what type of relationship you are looking for.

  • If what you say is tongue-in-cheek or ironic, it is usually a good idea to telegraph this fact with a smiley. Otherwise, people may read it literally.

  • After several requests, we have added the 'Either' category. Please use this for anything that doesn't exactly fit MsF, FsM, MsM, or FsF.

  • It is unwise to include a phone number/email address/ICQ number initially. Messages through the site are far more secure.

  • You may use HTML in your description. Also, if you include a photograph, you'll get far more responses.

  • It is also worth adding perhaps 20-30 key-words or phrases to describe yourself: these are searchable.

  • The "additional attributes" section contains some specific options - please fill in as much as you wish. The range of options is limited in order to facilitate matching, however if you think we're missing one, do let us know.

  • You can change your description at any time: don't forget to click the "Update" button!

  • What not to do: UserFriendly demonstrates the perils of generic advert.

[ ↑ contents]

Why is it so important to write a personal description?

Whatever you do, write something about yourself, and what you are looking for. We cannot stress how important this is! Seriously, those people who "don't want to have a profile" are the very ones who would most benefit from doing so. Here's why:

  • "Blankness begets blankness". If you don't write anything, you'll miss out on all the interesting contacts. If you really adore puppies, how will another dog-lover find you, unless you say so? If you're a talented cellist, and someone is going to a concert, how would they find you to ask you on a date?

  • If you're just "window-shopping", you're likely to have some very dull conversations beginning with "Hi, tell me about yourself". You'll waste lots of time typing the same stuff! Put some of it in your profile, and cut to the chase.

  • Writing about yourself is a great way to filter potential contacts. For example, if you really can't stand heavy-metal, then you probably don't want to converse with a Goth; likewise if you smoke, an ardent non-smoker will be wasting his/her time setting up a date. ImperialRomance is designed to help you find a few really good matches, rather than lots of irrelevant ones.

  • Write about what you are looking for. A common complaint among women is that they receive inappropriately suggestive messages. If that's not what you want, then say so, otherwise people will assume it's OK to ask.

  • ImperialRomance works for you 24/7, even when you aren't logged-in: other people browse profiles and search for keywords. Make it easy for them to find you!

  • For some guidance on what to say, see above, or use the template on the edit page. Now that we've convinced you, you probably want to go here...

[ ↑ contents]

What is the policy on content?

  • Please avoid writing anything in your description (advert) that may cause offense. Please be aware that some members are more easily offended than others. If you feel something is offensive, please point it out to us, and we'll ask the author to modify it. Adverts may be seen by anyone, and must be decent and in good taste.

  • Messages are private, and what you write is entirely within the discretion of the correspondents. However, when writing messages, especially a first contact, please try to be sensitive to the context of the recipient. While it is acceptable to send 'robust' language to those whose adverts are along such lines, if the advert is not, then you should be sensitive about what you write.

  • Please note that we *will not tolerate* hate mail of any kind, and if requested, will act against the sender wherever possible.

  • Remember, this is a personals site. It is not for selling second-hand cars, lecture notes or Norwegian Blue ex-parrots. If your ad abuses our hospitality in the way, it will be deleted without mercy, and you will be blocked. There is a special case: if you are organising an event, the place for this is the event calendar: you may mention it in your ad, but may not place an ad specifically to promote the event. We think this is fair.

[ ↑ contents]


Security, Anonymity, Acceptable behaviour


Safety and Security

Safety and security for the users of ImperialRomance.org.uk consists of two parts: personal safety (anonymity, arranging meetings) and computer security (passwords, spoofing etc).


Safety and Security - Personal

We are in consultation and have taken action as a result of recommendations from the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory's Security Group to give the best possible protection of members' anonymity and privacy. As a result, ImperialRomance is, by some margin, the strongest link in the security chain. Please see the disclaimer for the "small print". We would like to offer the following advice:

  • Picking a nickname - be careful about the nickname you choose. If you choose a sexually provocative nickname be sure that you can deal with the type of messages you're likely to receive!

  • Play it safe - be careful about the kind of information you give out and *never* give away any personal details such as your email or full name to strangers!
  • Your identity and email address are anonymous. They will not be revealed to other members of the site. However, if you reveal too much about yourself, it may be possible for people to guess.

  • On a similar note, if someone shares personal information with you, which is not in their advert (for example, their college, course, or interests), please don't discuss this with other members of the site, as the person may wish to preserve their anonymity from others.

  • Don't believe everything you read - although we expect all members to use the service sensibly (those who do not will have their accounts deleted), the onus is on them to provide accurate information, and we have no way of checking unless you inform us.

  • Be careful when arranging meetings - be sure you feel comfortable meeting the type of person you are chatting to. Always choose a public place with which you are familiar, or invite a friend to join you!

  • If you are no longer interested in someone you have met/chatted to, please tell them so directly. The other person almost certainly won't perceive a "subtle hint" if it's not what they want to hear. If they continue to contact you against your wishes, please do complain about it, and we will help.

  • Here are some more tips on safe dating - this is all "common sense", but you may find it helpful.

  • Notwithstanding the above, meeting people on ImperialRomance is generally a very safe and pleasant experience. Because we know and record who people are, it is safer than meeting a "random" person in a pub, nightclub, or even a college bar. Have fun, safely.

Safety and Security - Computer

Here are a few points about computer security. This is written for ImperialRomance, but it's applicable generally.

  • You should choose a good, strong password. This should not be a dictionary word as these can be easily guessed (it's easy for a computer program to test 20,000 words!) Don't reveal your password.

  • Don't let others have access to your computer, especially your email account. If they do bad things, you will get the blame, because it is assumed that you did it! Our signup-confirmation validates your identity by knowing that you are the only person who can read email sent to your address.

  • Log out of the site when you are finished. If you just allow it to time-out, you may no longer appear logged-in, but the next person to use that web-browser (for example, on a shared computer in a library or internet cafe) may be able to continue to be "you".

  • We restrict the HTML tags that people can use in ads and messages for security reasons. Remote images and external links can be misused to obtain someone's identity - this is why they are not permitted. We aren't just being awkward!

  • You should be slightly wary of opening external webpages/images whose URL is included in someone's profile or message. If the webpage lives on a server that they control, then they could possibly log your computer's internet (IP) address, from which your identity may be derived.

  • We will lock your account if you enter the wrong password 9 times consecutively. This is just like a bank will do if you repeatedly type the wrong PIN. Contact Cupid if this happens to you.

  • If possible, your browser should accept cookies [test]. However, if you don't, PHP will (hopefully) fallback seamlessly to using session IDs in the URL. This is the "PHPSESSID=8548e6cb3119bddafc6510c17db70b" thing that you might see. However, don't reveal this part of the URL to someone else, as the random code is known only to your browser, and authenticates your login session. Once you log out, that particular code becomes invalid. (If you don't understand this part, don't worry about it.)

  • You may wonder why some of our error messages are vague. This is to prevent information leaks. For example, if you already have an account, and you try to sign up again, on screen you will be told that it succeeded; but by email, you will be informed that you already have an account. This prevents an attacker from finding out whether a given person has an account on the site or not. Likewise, if someone repeatedly tries to log in with an invalid email,password pair, the account will be locked, regardless of whether it actually exists!
  • HTTP transmissions are unencrypted (as are emails), and could potentially be monitored by other computers on the network: this is unlikely, but you should be aware that it can happen.

[ ↑ contents]

Why is there a box around messages and adverts?

The box which appears around the text of each message and advert on the site is not just there to look pretty.

Text enclosed in a box like this means that its contents are written by a regular user rather than by a administrator.

An administrator will never tell you to log off in a message sent through ImperialRomance - if, as happens very occasionally, an administrator needs you to log off to administer the server, it will be announced in the banner at the top of the page. Also, just like a bank will never phone you up and ask your for your credit card details, no administrator will ever contact you asking for your e-mail address, password or any other personal details. [Such actions are known as "social engineering".] Please also read the FAQ on computer security.

[ ↑ contents]

Anonymity and Privacy

  • Members of ImperialRomance.org.uk do not have access to each others' real names or email addresses. Except in the case of a complaint, we, the administrators, do not know either. (Although, if you give out too much information, people might guess.)

  • You can control exactly what information is visible to other members, depending on whether or not they are logged-in. You can also hide your profile from a specific friend or ex-.

  • We believe very strongly in protecting your privacy, but we will not allow abuse of this site. Therefore, we do not retain the personal details of ex-members, such as their ad, age, religion, or sexuality. However we do keep your email address, nickname and id-number, so that, if necessary, we can trace the senders of hate-mail and similar.

  • Please read the disclaimer, the terms and conditions of use, and the information above on security.

  • We use a temporary cookie to maintain your session once you have logged in. This contains your session-id and is a long, random number like: "PHPSESSID=8548e6cb3119bddafc6510c17db70b". You don't need to accept cookies to use the site, but it is a good idea.

  • The site itself is indexed by various search engines, such as google. In principle, anything that a (non-logged-in) human can read could be archived by search engines. We protect against this by means of meta tags: Google, Archive.org et al. are specifically requested not to archive certain pages, such as details.php, list.php, and search.php. This ensures your profile cannot be found by using a search engine. (As messages etc can only be viewed by logging in, these could never be indexed.)

  • Logfiles and database backups exist: we promise to be good with these, but we'd like to point out that they do exist (as is the case for practically every site on the web).

[ ↑ contents]

Etiquette

The "Netiquette" of using ImperialRomance is largely based on "Do as you would be done by." However, there are some things which are specific to an online forum, and which are worth mentioning:

  • This is a website for online romance. Thus, it is acceptable (and encouraged!) to ask people out. The fundamental design is that, if you like each other, you should be able to meet up in real life. Meeting people "offline" is normal, and there is usually very little cause to be wary of so doing.

  • Be direct and honest. If you are not interested in someone, please say so. It is simply a waste of time (yours and theirs) to converse with somebody you have no intention of ever meeting.

  • It is a paradoxical result of anonymity that it can sometimes allow much greater freedom to be honest. You will find that people speak very freely in most regards here. However, please do be sensitive to the type of person you are messaging. Do not write messages that are clearly inappropriate to the recipient.

  • Provided that a message is courteous, one ought to answer it! It is far better to send a reply on the lines "Sorry, I'm not interested", than to simply ignore an invitation to correspond. Nevertheless, don't necessarily expect answers to messages right away: people are sometimes busy, or have received a deluge of messages, and do not have time to reply properly to all of them.

  • If someone has not replied to your message, it is ok to send a single polite follow-up after a suitable period of time, perhaps a day. Be aware that they may not yet have logged in and read your original message. Alternatively, they may have simply not had time to respond, or have overlooked it. Some people do receive quite a lot of messages! [See also the faq on read-receipts.]

  • Since typed messages cannot convey the tone of voice in which they were written (smileys sometimes help here), both the author and recipient should be aware that some statements are ambiguous. This is especially true of irony without a ";-)". Don't type in ALL CAPITALS, because IT LOOK AS THOUGH YOU ARE SHOUTING. However, please try not to attribute to malice what can be explained by folly. Sometimes, situations can arise in which far more offense is taken than is intended.

  • Be careful when flirting. Sweeping generalisations notwithstanding, it's frequently the case that a woman writes something flirtatious (not expecting to be taken seriously); the man reads it literally (and takes it at face value). When he responds to what she said; she is upset, because he couldn't telepathically infer what she meant!

  • Rude behaviour is never acceptable. Be polite: remember that the other person is a human being, not a PHP script on a webserver. Those who are discourteous may be barred from the site without warning. If someone offends you, please tell them and they will usually apologise. However, please do report such behaviour to Cupid using the "Is this message rude or offensive?" link given on the right hand side below each message.

  • If you arrange to go on a date with someone, then don't fail to show up! If you change your mind, it's better to tell the other person, and cancel.

  • When you eventually leave the site (which we hope will be because you are riding off into the sunset!), you should send messages to your correspondents to say goodbye - and, where appropriate, to give your contact details. It is otherwise quite distressing for people to discover that a friend has suddenly evaporated!

  • Please also see the FAQ on acceptable behaviour. [You may also find the more general guidance of Emily Postnews to be of interest.]

[ ↑ contents]

What constitutes acceptable behaviour?

Online, one's instincts for social norms are slightly hampered. This is partly due to the nature of the medium (in text, no one can perceive cues from e.g. body-language); partly because people are anonymous; and partly because, since this is a personals site, it is perfectly normal to "chat up" strangers. Fundamentally, the most important thing is to be polite, and to behave in the same way you would "in real life". Remember, you are talking to real people, with real feelings! Do as you would be done by.

Likewise, you have to use your judgement, and read the person's profile. If they say they are looking for 'flirtation and more...', then it's OK to 'flirt' back. If they are not, (or if the profile is empty), then you must not.

For example, consider the site as being like a virtual jazz club. It is the same as the real version in every way except two: talking to strangers is encouraged, and people (usually) have a description which you can read before you begin to talk to them. The threshold for approaching a stranger is much lower, but the person you are talking to is just the same as in "real life".

Note: It is not acceptable to send messages with random offers of sex, not even polite ones, unless the recipient's advert makes it very clear that she would appreciate such a message. You won't get a positive answer, but you will diminish her enjoyment of the site, and this in turn will reduce your chances. You may be kicked off for offensive behaviour. Should you receive such a message, please don't just assume it's normal. Such behaviour is unnacceptable; if it does happen, please do report it.

Offline interactions with people you meet here are outside of our control and supervision. However, anyone whose impeccable deportment on this site serves merely to mask less-than-perfect behaviour offline will be unwelcome to continue to enjoy our hospitality. Gentlemenly behviour is expected!

You should also read the policy on content, the etiquette, and remember that obnoxious behaviour will be dealt with, usually by bannning the offender from the site.

[ ↑ contents]

How do we deal with obnoxious behaviour?

We really hate to say this, but, now that the site is so large, it is almost inevitable that there are some instances of "inconsiderate" behaviour. We trust members of our site to be courteous, civilised and honest. All members are effectively our personal, albeit virtual guests, and we expect them to respect our hospitality! Regrettably, this trust is sometimes breached, for which we are very sorry. Because we cannot review each ad, (and your messages are private!), if something is offensive we will not necessarily know about it. That is why there is a link "Is this ad/message rude or offensive? Please tell Cupid" on each ad/message. (You can only see this if you are logged in.) Please do report things - we are a community, and it is in everyone's interest - the administrators will act as soon as we can. Fortunately, such instances are rare, and ImperialRomance should usually be highly enjoyable for everyone :-)

In the event that you receive an offensive message, we ask that you let us know as soon as possible. This is important - we can only act if you tell us, and otherwise a very few people can spoil things for everyone else. Please don't delete the message so that we have evidence. Ideally, please use the "Is this ad/message rude or offensive? Please tell Cupid" link, which will automatically preserve a copy. We will then, as quickly as we can, ask the sender for an explanation (we try to be even-handed); depending on their response, we will consider what action to take. As appropriate, we will ask the sender to modify their behaviour, or we will delete the offender's account and block them from the site. Once a member is barred from the site, then (unless we have made an error), the ban is permanent.

  • Unkind, obnoxious, hurtful or crude messages are not acceptable. The senders of such are likely to be barred.
  • If you see anything offensive in a person's advert, please tell us - we'll review it, and request that they modify it.
  • If an advert is misleading, false, or placed in the wrong category, the account will be terminated and the user will be permanently barred from using our site.
  • We also take a very dim view of pranks and "practical jokes", because they very often cause serious offense, even if "meant in fun".
  • We really despise hate mail, and will (if asked by the recipient), trace the sender: there are appropriate legal channels for doing so.
  • Bullying of any sort is intolerable - and will result in a ban. It can only continue if it goes unreported - so please, tell us if you see it happen.
  • In the extreme case, there is also a clear University policy on Harassment: at both university and college level.
  • Please see the disclaimer for more details. You may also email us at: abuse@ruo3.org.

It is also possible for you to block messages from a particular person: please see how to decline.

[ ↑ contents]

How to decline ?

Naturally, not everybody is compatible with everyone else. So, you may find that having met/chatted with someone, you no longer wish to continue. In this case, it is always better to be direct and say honestly "I'm sorry, I'm no longer interested", than to drop subtle hints or fail to respond. This is kinder to the other person, sparing them from hanging on in uncertainty; it also prevents you from being harassed because they assume you are just busy, and persist unaware.

  • If you receive an opening message from someone and you are not interested, it's best to decline. You can use a pre-written standard message for this purpose. (To do this, click the "Reply with standard message" link below the message; then edit if desired.)

  • If you receive a message which is obnoxious, harrssment, or inappropriately explicit, then please do complain to us about it.

  • It is also possible to block messages from a particular person. If blocked, that person will be unable to contact you again, and any messages (or pokes) they do send will be automatically discarded into your trash. The sender will not be informed that they have been blocked. To do this, click the link "Block future messages from [sender]" below the message concerned. Please remember, it is usually much better to tell the person if you are not interested, rather than to "killfile" them!
If you are simply receiving more messages than you can cope with, you may wish to become invisible in the top bar. You may also choose to accept messages only from people whom you already know, and have already corresponded with.

[ ↑ contents]

But I didn't sign up - what's going on?

Occasionally, we receive perturbed emails from people who did not join ImperialRomance.org.uk but are surprised to discover that "they" have an account. Here are the possibilities:

  • Case 1 - New account notification email: If you receive an email with the details of your new account, and password, but did not request it, you can simply ignore it. Alternatively, log in using the details given, and delete your new account. Before an account can be activated, we confirm that it has been set up by the owner of the email address, by sending the password to that address. So such an account will never become active, and there is no cause for alarm. Usually this happens as a result of a typo (when someone else mistypes their similar email address); sometimes it is the result of a friend trying to sign you up.

  • Case 2 - An active account, in your name: If your account has been activated without your permission, this means that somebody was able to read your email, and discover your password. Most probably, you left your computer logged in and unattended, while a friend tried to do you a favour, or play a practical joke on you. Fortunately, the solution is simple: log in, take control of the account, and delete it if you wish. (If you need to retrieve the password, you can have it re-sent on the log-in page). You may also wish to change passwords on your computer, and email account, if you believe them to be compromised. Of course, since you're here anyway, we'd recommend you stay for a while to look around :-)

  • Case 3 - A spoof account, pretending to be you: These are almost always "practical jokes", but the email address used is not yours, and so you cannot control it. Of course, if the joker has used his/her own email address, it's easy for us to discover who they are. We will deal with this for you as soon as we can. For more information please see here.

A word to friends and would be practical jokers. If you want to encourage your friends to sign up, this is very laudable, but please recommend the site to them, rather than actually signing them up for an account. Would-be jokers, please refrain: such jokes inevitably fall flat, and the resulting complaint wastes a significant amount of time.

[ ↑ contents]

Spam and viruses appearing to emanate from ImperialRomance

If you receive spam, or email viruses appearing to emanate from ImperialRomance or @ruo3.org, it isn't from us! The sender's address is being spoofed - and unfortunately, there's nothing we can do about this, except to warn you that if you get email with executable or zip attachments from "us", don't open them. The SMTP email protocol inherently trusts the sender to give their real address - unfortunately, this means that lying scumbag spammers and virus authors can fake the sender. It is common for compromised (virus-infected) computers to be used as spam relays, and usually, they scan the victim's address book for email addresses to set as the sender. Unfortunately, because so many people have received genuine email from us, and we are in their address books, that means that a lot of the spoofed email "comes from" us too. So please, just delete any such messages that you receive, and if you are one of the people with the misfortune to have a "trojaned" computer, please get it fixed before it sends out even more spam.

You can often identify the address of the real sender of an email by clicking on 'View -> Headers'. Their IP address will usually be visible as the first (lowest) entry under "Received:". You can trace IP addresses by doing a whois query. Genuine messages from us will contain our name and IP address within the received field: it will look something like this: Received: from www.ruo3.org (29.171.194.87.in-addr.arpa [87.194.171.29])

[An aside on email viruses: Outlook Express, especially on earlier versions of Windows, entirely deserves its reputation as a virus delivery agent, which happens to also act as a (not-very-good) email client. If you are stuck with MS Windows, please keep it patched, run antivirus software and a firewall, and use an email client such as Thunderbird or Eudora instead of Outlook. Ideally, you could switch to Linux instead.]

[ ↑ contents]

Spamblocks

Since we don't especially enjoy the Internet version of a particular type of canned meat, we have munged our published email addresses to prevent them from being harvested by "spambots". This is done in one of 2 ways: either by requiring you to press a button (most spambots are not that intelligent), or by appending a version of "no spam please" onto the email addresses given: please simply remove it when you mail us. Sorry for the inconvenience.

[Trivia: "Mung" is defined by The Jargon dictionary as "Mash Until No Good." It later became a recursive acronym, meaning "Mung Until No Good."].

[ ↑ contents]


Userguide: explanation of features


How does the email notification system work?

In the Edit your ad page, under 'Advanced Configuration Settings', there are 3 choices for email notifications:

  • "Notify me once by e-mail if I receive messages." This is probably the best option to select: it means that after you log off, the first time you get a message, we send an e-mail to you to let you know that you have new messages waiting. If further messages arrive, you will only be notified if it has been at least 24 hours since the last notification email, or if you have logged-in in the meantime. If you receive a message while you are logged in, you will also not be emailed (although you will see a message in the header at the top of the page). Therefore, it is important that you log out properly when you have finished.

  • "Forward messages to my e-mail address" If you choose this option, messages will be forwarded to your email address (if they include HTML formatting, this will not appear correctly). You still need to log in to reply to them. Please do not try to reply by email: it will not work!

  • "Rarely email me" We won't send you new message notifications, so you need to to log in to IcRo regularly to check whether or not you have received a message. However, we will still send you occasional items of ImperialRomance.org.uk news, and alerts.

There are some occasions where emails will be sent to everyone, whatever the value of this setting. These are:

  • Automatic reminders (approximately once a week) if you have a new, unread message which has remained unchecked (i.e. the message is more recent than your last login) for over a week. [If you selected "rarely email me", this delay is increased to 2 weeks.]
  • Automatic reminder if your account is about to expire (i.e. become inactive).
  • ImperialRomance.org.uk news and updates, sent occasionally to all members of the society.

You will not be notified by email if you receive an "uninteresting" system message such as "User X has deleted their account".

If you are not receiving any mail from us, please check the section Why am I not receiving email?.

[ ↑ contents]

HTML formatting of ads and messages

There is a short guide to HTML here. Some HTML formatting tags can be used, to add variety to descriptions and messages, but others are not permitted. For instance, you can use <b>, <i>, <strong>, <em>, <h1> - <h6>, <blink>, <font color="#RRGGBB"> tags, but not tags such as <mailto:> (email), <img> (image), <script> (javascript) or <a> (links).Photographs may be uploaded and stored on our server; you can then choose whether to embed them in your ad. You can also use HTML to add other character entities such as é (&eacute;). Also, some smileys can be included such as: .

As a shortcut, there are also some buttons on the edit and message-composition pages, which can quickly add tags; these are the most popular subset of the possible tags. For more, see the HTML guide.

[ ↑ contents]

Photographs

A Photograph can be displayed with your ad if you wish. This is a great way to stand out from the rest, whether you are male or female. In the words of one female member of the site:

"Since the photo has been up, S[...] has indeed been a very popular girl...I recommend it to anybody who wants quick results. It also serves as a good screening mechanism (the guys who have been replying have, on the whole, been a LOT more attractive than the ones before I posted the photo!)"

Furthermore, in a recent poll on this site, only 5 out of 463 members (1.3%) selected the option that "physical attraction is irrelevant to me".

People who have photographs are denoted by a "camera" icon next to their nickname in the list of ads:

has photo - This person's ad has a photograph, and it is visible to you. (Hover over icon for preview)
has photo, not visible - This person has uploaded a photograph, but it is not visible to you. You can see it on request.

In the poll, 205 out of 463 (44.3%) asked for the option to restrict photographs to other members, other members with photographs, or to specific other people. We did as you asked, and so once it is uploaded, you can choose who may see your photograph. The options (on the 'Edit your ad' page) are:

  • All: everybody, even if they are not logged in. (This gains you the most attention.)
  • Members: other members of Romance.ucam.org, when they are logged in. (So non-members cannot see you.)
  • Mutual: other members of Romance.ucam.org who are also displaying a photo. (Encourages other people to "play fair".)
  • Private: only those people I send it to. (You can enclose your photo with any message.)
  • Hidden: nobody. (This is as if you had never uploaded a photograph).

If the photograph is private or mutual, then you will have an option to "attach" it to messages you send through the site. An extra option will appear on the send-message page labelled "Include my photograph with this message" - tick the checkbox to attach your photo.

The photo visibility setting also controls whether or not you appear in the photo gallery, and who can see your photo there.

Your photo is a part of your advert, so if your advert itself is set to be non-displayed, then the photo will not be shown.

Please see the photograph submission page for more details.

[ ↑ contents]

Key-Words

Key-words allow people to search through ads, looking for things you have in common. It's also a good way to mention all the random things that you didn't write into your ad because they are unrelated to each other, and would disturb the flow of your prose! Your keywords can be searched by other people, and will appear below your advert. If you have keywords in common, they will be highlighted in bold. Please enter keywords and phrases separated by commas. (The order is unimportant - the keywords will be sorted alphabetically). For example: "raindrops, roses, kittens, copper kettles, warm wollen mittens, brown paper packages, string".

[The Keyword comparison is quite clever: it knows that 'kitten' and 'kittens' are the same, and that a 'Dog' is also a 'dog'. But it doesn't know that an 'Echidna' is a kind of 'Hedgehog', nor that if you 'skydive', you have survived the experience of 'skydiving'. Also, when you view your own advert, you will notice that all your keywords are in bold, because you (the viewer) have keywords which all match yourself (the advertiser).]

[ ↑ contents]

Organising messages

  • Message boxes. You have 3 message boxes, namely Inbox, Sent, and Trash. You can move messages between them, and also (permanently) delete messages. Your message boxes are listed like this:
    Inbox (5, 73)                    i.e. 73 messages, of which 5 are unread.
    You can choose certain messages by ticking the 'Select' boxes, or by clicking 'Select All'/'Select None'; these selected messages can then be processed by clicking 'Move to trash', 'Delete', or 'Send to me by e-mail'. The latter concatenates the messages of your choice and forwards them to you in a single email .

  • Flags. You can flag and unflag messages as a way to mark them for your attention. For example, you may mark a message flagged Flagged to remind yourself to re-read it, or reply to it later. Messages which are not flagged are shown thus: Unflagged. Click on the flag icon to change its state. (For greater clarity, the message boxes show to mean "no flag is set", and Unflagged to mean "you just unflagged this".)

  • Correspondence. If it is "your turn to reply" to a person, this icon is shown: 'Reply owed', just like the correspondence page.

  • Status. The status field for a message contains information about what happened to it, passing through (some) of the following states:
    Received messages: New -> (Read) -> Replied -> Deleted
    Sent messages: (Sent) -> Reply received -> Deleted
    Note: 'Replied' means "you replied to the other person"; 'Reply received' means "they replied to you".
    Note2: As with email, there is no way to find out whether the other person has read your message.
    Note3: Older messages (before April 2007) may omit some of this information, since the feature was only added then.

  • Threading. This is a way to follow the sequence of a conversations. Some messages contain "Threading" information (with the quote icons). Links to 'earlier message' and 'response' are for the sequence of a conversation; and are not necessarily chronological. (The ordinary 'Next message' and 'Previous message' links are in strict chronological order.)
    Note that if you delete a message, threads attached to it will 'break'. For example, the original message's status will still be 'Replied', but instead of a link to read the (deleted) reply, it will appear crossed out like this: response.
    If you reply more than once to a given message, the thread 'branches', and the 'response' link takes you to the most recent one.

  • Quota. We do not impose a quota on the number of messages you can store, but we do ask you to delete old messages - this keeps everything running smoothly, and also means that your Inbox will load much faster. The easiest way to empty your trash is to go to Messages->Trash, click 'Select all', and then click 'Delete'. If you have very many messages, you may need to click 'View all messages at once' before 'Select all'.

  • Deleting messages. Please note that you will be asked for confirmation before (permanently) deleting mail. Also, unread messages will never be deleted from your inbox, unless you first send them to the trash. (You can delete your sent-mail without reading it, though).

  • Blocked messages. Messages from a blocked sender will be delivered directly into your trash. They will have a status of 'Blocked, Unread'.

[ ↑ contents]

Correspondence with one particular person

The correspondence page allows you to review your entire correspondence with a particular person, ordered chronologically. You can also have this thread emailed to you, or move the entire correspondence with a person into the trash.

In order to help you keep track of messages, your correspondents are highlighted when it is "your turn" to write back, i.e. the most recent message in your correspondence with them was sent by them, not from you. The icon used is a tennis ball: 'Reply owed'.

Note, the correspondence page only displays (and counts) messages in your inbox and sentbox, but not your trash. However, it does check your trash when calculating whether it's "your turn" to write back. (Once you have permanently deleted a message, the correspondence page no longer knows about it).

[ ↑ contents]

Reply-quoting in messages

In the course of a detailed conversation, it is often useful to be able to quote all, or part of the previous message in your response. To do this automatically, please choose the link "Reply, quoting original message " on the read-message page. This will pre-load a copy of the original message into the message-editing form, after indenting it using '>'. You can then delete the lines (or parts of lines) which you don't want to quote, and insert your reply. When you send the message, the server will automagically interpret which lines are new, and which ones are quoted; it will then format the original parts differently, leaving your additions unaltered. In order for the server to know this, please assist it by ensuring that every block of your new text is separated from the quoted blocks by at least one blank line.

There are two different options for reply quoting: "conventional" quoting and "re-flowed" quoting. The message-editing stage (which you see) is identical, but the server's automagical re-formatting of the original part of the text (for the message recipient) is different:

  • Conventional quoting, wraps the lines of quoted text at 80 characters, and use multiple levels of '>' for indentation. This is the same way that email works: it is very precise, but can be ugly.

  • Re-flowed quoting prevents line-wraps, and removes all the '>>'. It is simpler and clearer, but it shows only one level of conversation "history".

When you compose your reply, the only thing to remember is to put the blank lines between the new and the old text. It isn't necessary to manually re-wrap the quoted text after editing it. (If you use html, avoid '<font>' and do not break a tag over a line. Also, don't insert stray '<' or '>' characters.) Here is an example:

  • This is what you might write in the message-editing form:
    > This is an original part of the message.
    > So is this line

    Now, I am inserting my reply (Note - there is a blank line on
    either side of this reply.)

    > 
    > Here is some more of the original
    > 

    And here's another reply...
    Hopefully, that all makes sense!
  • Here is how it will appear to the recipient, if you have chosen conventional quoting:
    > This is an original part of the message.
    > So is this line

    Now, I am inserting my reply (Note - there is a blank line on
    either side of this reply.)

    > 
    > Here is some more of the original
    > 

    And here's another reply...
    Hopefully, that all makes sense!
  • Here is how it would appear with re-flowed quoting (note the differences in how the original text is presented):
    This is an original part of the message. So is this line

    Now, I am inserting my reply (Note - there is a blank line on
    either side of this reply.)

    Here is some more of the original

    And here's another reply...
    Hopefully, that all makes sense!

Note 1: if you forget the blank lines above/below your message, the server will guess that the edge lines are part of the original, not the reply.
Note 2: HTML tags are removed from the quoted text. So when you reply-quote someone, all of their original formatting is removed. (You can still add tags to your reply.)
Note 3: for convenience, the 'Reply' link in your inbox/sendbox now automatically selects re-flowed quoting.

[ ↑ contents]

Spell checking

For your convenience, there is a spell-checker. To use this, click on the link "check spelling" that appears next to the text-input for an advert or message. This will cause a new window to pop up, containing the text of your original message, with the errors highlighted. When you have read this, close the new window, and return to the text you were editing. For example: .

If you are having difficulties, please note that the new window requires Javascript [test] to be enabled in your browser. Also, some broken pop-up blockers block pop-up windows even when you have explicitly requested them by clicking on a link. If you manually attempt to open this in a new tab/window, it won't work. The spell-checker also acts as a preview, to help validate any HTML tags you include. The spell-checker is set to British English, and is occasionally wrong!

[ ↑ contents]

How does the Invite system work?

This is great fun (and the piece of code of which we are most proud :-) ). If you have a crush on someone, but don't want to tell them just yet, use the invite system. This invites them to join ImperialRomance.org.uk - they will receive an e-mail saying that somebody (they will not be told who...) has invited them to join. It is exactly like sending a Valentine's card, but the recipient has a chance to respond to the anonymous sender by sending you messages on the site. The way that this works is that an anonymous communication channel is set up between you when they reply - not even your ImperialRomance nickname is revealed. You can include a short message with the invitation, if you like. Good luck, and enjoy....
N.B. Your invitee must have a 'ic.ac.uk' email address. For more information, click Invite.

[ ↑ contents]

How does the LoveWeb work?

For more information, click LoveWeb. This is a centralised "flirt register" of who fancies whom. If a match ever occurs, we put you in touch. If you list someone who is also a member of ImperialRomance, they will be notified "someone fancies you", but they will NOT have any way to identify who fancies them, except by listing the people who they themselves fancy. Note: To use the LoveWeb, both you and the object of your desire must have an email address ending in ''ic.ac.uk''. It is to your advantage to sign up with your most obvious email address, if you have more than one.

[ ↑ contents]

What's the difference between the Invite system and the LoveWeb?

One is a game, the other isn't. If you Invite someone, then they are always notified (non-members are emailed), and they can reply to you. If you use the LoveWeb, then you both have to correctly guess each other before any contact can be made. Also, the Loveweb only notifies current members of ImperialRomance, or those who subsequently join; it does not send out emails. So, flirt with the LoveWeb; send flowers with the Invitations !
Update: There is now also the Valentine Code which is for writing into actual Valentine's cards.

[ ↑ contents]

What is the Valentine's Code?

This is a one-time code for writing into Valentine's cards. Have you ever received a Valentine's card where, despite wanting to, you couldn't guess the sender? This is for you.

[ ↑ contents]

How does the (magnetic) Photo Gallery work?

The Photo Gallery
Some people belive in "love at first sight", and this is for them. The photo gallery contains pictures of all current members of ImperialRomance.org.uk. who have uploaded photographs; simply browse through the pictures. Remember, though, that not all people choose to display a photo, and you may find some very interesting people in the list of members or by searching.

  • Your photograph settings control whether you appear in the gallery; likewise, in order to view the gallery, you must have a photo with at least 'mutual' visibility.
  • Click on a person's nickname to view their profile (in a new window). Firefox users should middle-click for a new tab.
  • For the curious: the ordering of photos within the gallery is random, yet persistent. If you keep clicking 'Next', you will see every photo exactly once, but the ordering is random.

The Magnetism feature

Magnetism is that ethereal quality of mutual attraction that initially draws people together. Thus, the magnetic photo gallery provides a way to test for mutual attraction. For each person, you can decide yes/no/maybe as you browse through the gallery.

People can also see who has said 'yes' to them, but they cannot see who has said 'no' to them (by design, a 'no' is indistinguishable to the viewee from someone having simply not looked at their photo yet).

There are a few different icons used: here is a key:
magnet The other person is "magnetically-attracted" to you i.e. has said 'yes'.
magnet with keeper Mutual attraction: you have both said 'yes' to each other. What are you waiting for?
yes You have said 'yes' to the other person. (click the image to cycle yes/no/undecided, and its border will be highlighted appropriately.)
no You have said 'no' to the other person. Note that they can't distinguish between your 'no' and 'undecided'.
undecided You haven't yet decided about the other person (you don't have to tick either box if not sure).

Filters can be used to show only specific cases, e.g. click 'attracted, undecided' to view only those people who have already said yes to you, and whom you now need to consider.

Magnet icon in profile: If someone has said 'yes' to you, then the "magnet" icon will appear in their profile when you view it (this is private: it only appears when you are the one looking at their profile.)

Notifications are not sent out when you click 'yes' to someone (though this may change). They must either look at the magnetic gallery page, or view your ad to find out. Notifications will never be sent out when you click 'no' to someone.

Tooltips are frequently used: if an icon or link seems unclear, hover the mouse over it for an explanation. Try it here.

Credit: The modification of the photo gallery into the magnetic one was inspired partly by www.HotOrNot.com.

[ ↑ contents]

The Event Calendar

The Event Calendar allows you to publicise an event (bop, film, concert etc.) you would like to go to and would like to take others to. Every event has a 'contact' who is the member who listed the event in the first place - if you are interested in going, you can make the arrangements by corresponding with them.

Please note:

  • The Event Calendar is intended for listing events at which you would like to meet other members, not for random publicity.
  • In the event of abuse of this system, please let us know by contacting Cupid.

[ ↑ contents]

Real-time chat

The chat system allows real-time chat between members of ImperialRomance. Click the "Chat" link and a new window will open, containing a Java applet (you need to have Java installed/enabled for this to work). You should then see a chat area which is gray - at the bottom is a bar into which you can type. You will be able to invite other people who are online to join you by clicking on their names. If you can't see everything, please scroll down! Please note that your chat is not recorded - if you would like to preserve a copy, please copy and paste it somewhere. Also, you will "time-out" in the main site after 20 minutes of inactivity - but please do not forget to log out when you leave.

[ ↑ contents]

Poking and Tickling

What's a Poke?
No, we don't know what it means to 'poke' someone, any more than Facebook do. We do, however, let you arbitrarily Verb people. The link to poke/hug/tickle/verb a person is located on the same page as their advert. Pokes do trigger email notifications, just like normal messages.

What's a Poke War?
A poke war is the online equivalent of a pillow fight. You can normally only poke someone twice in a day, unless they reciprocate, in which case, you may indulge in poke-warfare. Scores will be kept.

[ ↑ contents]

Public discussion and debate

This is based on the discussion forum at Slashdot, although it is much more basic. The aim is to allow members of ImperialRomance.org.uk to publicly discuss a topic. These topics are currently chosen by Cupid (although suggestions are welcome), and the principal aim is to obtain your feedback, suggestions and ideas as to how we can make the site even better for you! Please contribute your thoughts!

[ ↑ contents]

Advanced tips for using ImperialRomance

Here are a few tips that may make ImperialRomance easier for you to use:

  • Stealth Mode/Fluffy Mode: In stealth mode, the pink banner, the ImperialRomance logo, and the flowers are all hidden. This is useful for discretion if you are at a public terminal! We also recommend text-mode web-browsers for this. [NEW: secret mode: by making the text contrast very low, it is much harder for someone to read over your shoulder from a distance. It is based on the fact that dark on pale is easy to read from afar and pale on dark is easy to read from close up.] To change mode, click the link on the left hand side of the page; you can set this permanently on the Edit page. You can also directly login to stealth mode at "http://www.ruo3.org/ic/stealthlogin.php". Note that Stealth Mode has nothing to do with visibility.

  • The top right contains links to the people who are currently logged in, and it is very tempting to focus all your attention on them. This is generally not a good idea, because usually they are in the middle of a conversation with someone else! It is better to respond directly to the adverts of people who are not logged in at that moment, because you are more likely to get a reply. This "rule" has its exceptions.

  • When viewing the ads, if you click list of all members, you will see a list of ALL current active members, not just those who have placed an ad. You can send them messages.

  • When viewing ads by category, the ads are normally shown in a random order. However, you can change this by clicking on "last logged in", "nickname", "age" or "most recently updated". The reason for this randomness is so that the people who logged in in the last few days don't get all the attention - it's not fair!

  • When you are logged in, you can see if you have new messages by looking in the top right of the screen. This status is updated each time you request a new page. You can also refresh the home page by clicking the ImperialRomance logo on the top left. Alternatively, you can use the Autocheck function.

  • Often, an image or link has an associated tooltip: hover the mouse over it for a few seconds, and you will get an explanation of what it does, or some more information. [Try it here.]

  • When replying to messages, if you use the reply quoted link, you can view the original message while you are writing a reply to it. You can then delete the quoted part if you don't want to include it in your message.

  • The URL of the site is http://imperialromance.org.uk OR http://ruo3.org/ic. Alternatively, http://ruo3.org. This will always work. (At the moment, the server is located at www.ruo3.org. There have been other, temporary URLs. So if you are having problems, you are using the wrong URL.)

  • The site is designed to be browser agnostic - and is widely tested (Lynx, Links, Mozilla, Firefox, Konqueror with/without cookies/javascript.) We do recommend the Mozilla/Firefox web browser, since the tabbed browsing feature is wonderful.

[ ↑ contents]

Changing the style of ImperialRomance

  • New shoes, new hat, new scarf, and a new style for ImperialRomance to match! Currently, there are the following choices for the look and feel of the site: 'Fluffy Mode', 'Stealth Mode', 'Jazzy Style', 'Chocolate Flavour', 'Rose pink', 'Aqua', 'Pop Style', 'Secret (obscure)', 'Mobile Device Mode'. These can be selected by clicking on Change style in the menu.
  • Some styles have special functions, while others simply look pretty. Stealth Mode is designed to make your display less recognisable to passers by, if you are in a public computer room. Secret Mode is designed to make it hard to read over your shoulder. Mobile Device Mode is for PDAs, smartphones, Androids and Zauri with small displays.
  • If you like a particular style enough, you can set it as your default for every time you log in: this is controlled on the Edit your ad page.
  • In some web browsers, you can change the style by selecting 'Use style(sheet)' from the 'View' menu.
  • If you would like to add your very own style, (or perhaps you just have better colour sense than Cupid!) please download the fluffy stylesheet and the style test page, change it, and send it to us. If we like it, we'll make it available to everyone!

[ ↑ contents]

Top Right: How do I become Invisible? Busy? What's all this about felines?

Normally, when you log in, your name will appear listed in to top bar. The advantage of this is that people are likely to strike up conversations with you. The disadvantage of this is that people are likely to strike up conversations with you!

Naturally, everyone wants to be talked to, and there is a lot to gain from the serendipity of chatting to people at random. But the problems with real-time conversations, especially if your category is outnumbered, is that there is a lot of pressure. Some people receive more messages than they can respond to, and are prevented from writing fewer, longer messages to the people in whom they are most interested, or having the time to search the ads properly. Essentially, it turns the site from 'E-mail-like' to 'Instant Messaging'. As a result, we decided to make this customisable for each user: you can change the settings from the 'visbility' option in the left-hand menu. There was a lengthy discussion about this, which you can read more about here.

  • Invisibility: if you wish other members not to know that you are logged in, please change your visbility setting to 'invisible'. At this point, you will 'disappear from the radar' of other members. In turn, you will not be able to see them: this is only fair. (Administrators cannot become invisible, and can always see everybody.) A further consequence of 'Cat' mode is that you are not visible in the list of invitable members in the chat-applet: thus you can join a chat yourself, but you cannot be invited into one. Cat-mode can also be selected as a 'custom login option'.

  • Busy: if you wish to be denoted as 'busy', your name will appear without a link (but with a tool-tip, when you hover the mouse over it, like this: [Nickname]). 'Busy' people are listed as being online, but this denotes that they are already responding to messages, as opposed to seeking a new chat. The "Busy" setting reverts to normal when you log out and back in again. If another person is denoted as 'busy', of course it doesn't mean that you mustn't talk to them; it merely indicates that they are already involved in a conversation or in replying to their correspondence.

What's this about Cats? Well, we needed a name to describe people who are present, but move around silently and unobserved. This is a perfect description of a feline! We did consider "ghosts", but they aren't as cute. And, apologies to dogs, but wonderful though dogs are, subtlety is not their strong point.

[ ↑ contents]

What do the icons (Flag, Quotation, Tennis Ball, Magnet, Champagne,...) mean?

We use some icons to show message status etc. These all have an explanatory tooltip, which appears when you hover the mouse over it: [Try it: ].
In stealth/secret/mobile modes, the icons are replaced by simpler versions, such as [F] or *.

Icon Alternative Meaning
Flagged , Unflagged [F] This message is/isn't flagged. You can choose which messages you want to flag: click on the flag icon to change it.
Tennis ball: reply owed [R] "The ball is in your court": it's your 'turn to reply' to this person.
threadedthreadthreaded “...” This denotes a thread of conversation: go to an earlier, or later message in the sequence.
threadedbrokenthreaded “...” This denotes a broken thread: the next/previous message in the chain has been deleted.
horse-shoe magnet [M] This denotes that the person is "magnetically" attracted to you.
horse-shoe magnet with keeper [M+] Magnet with iron bar: this denotes that the attraction is mutual. (Can you guess that this was written by a physicist?)
champagne glass [@] This denotes that the person is listed with an invitation or a request in the May Ball section.
has photo, not visible [c] This denotes that the person's profile has a photo, and that you are able to see it. (Hover over this for a preview)
has photo, not visible [?] This denotes that the person's profile has a photo, but that it is private, and you must request to see it.

[ ↑ contents]

Help! I'm getting more messages than I can cope with!! What do I do?

If this is happening to you, you are fortunate. If you are writing to someone who is in this situation, please read the following to understand the setting they have chosen.

It can at times be very difficult to cope with a large volume of messages, so here are a few things you can do:

  • Write a more descriptive advert. This should clarify what you are looking for, and should help to ensure that you receive fewer, but more relevant messages.
  • Organise your messages by flagging the ones you want to look at again. Ruthlessly delete anything else!
  • Become invisible, so that people cannot tell when you are online. This has its advantages and disadvantages.
  • Decline messages from people you do not wish to chat to. This is how.
  • Opt to accept new messages only from existing correspondents. See below...

If you wish, you can choose to correspond only with people you already know; other people will be unable to contact you. This is far from ideal, but it is a much better alternative to rushing away entirely because of the volume of new messages. You have 3 options, controlled by the "Do you welcome new messages from everyone" setting here. These are:

  • 'Yes, permit all'. This is the default case: all messages will be accepted. We strongly suggest you leave this setting unless you are feeling deluged!

  • 'No, restrict'. In this case, only people with whom you have already corresponded will be able to send you messages. Everyone else will receive an error message "Sorry, [Nickname] is not accepting new correspondents", and an explanation. This is, ideally, an option you should not need to use!

  • 'Just one message of introduction'. This is not quite as severe as 'No': new people are not turned away immediately. They receive the notice "Note: [Nickname] is only accepting a single message of introduction" and an explanation. This effectively gives them just the one chance to impress you; unless you write back, they will be unable to send you further messages.

These settings do not effect your existing correspondents who are able to write to you as normal. If you are receiving messages from them, and are not interested, you should decline.

For the curious, here are some fine details, which you can safely ignore. Correspondents (for these purposes), are considered to be anybody to whom you have ever sent, or from whom you have received a message. If any copy of the message remains on the system (even in your trash, or in their trash), it counts. If you are accepting 'Just one message', then if they have sent you exactly one message, they cannot send more; if they have sent none, they get one chance to impress; if they have sent more than one, they count as a correspondent and can continue to write. However, once all copies of a message have been permanently deleted (by both sender, and recipient), the server no longer knows it ever existed. [In contrast, the correspondence page only cares about your own copies of the messages.]

Administrators are, necessarily, unaffected by this restriction; they also cannot reject messages. This setting does not apply to channels. There is one slightly odd consequence, which occurs if you switch from 'No' to 'Just one', or vice-versa: anyone who has sent you exactly one message, and to whom you have not replied, will find that their permission to write to you is inverted.

[ ↑ contents]

Help me! I'm becoming addicted to chatting online!

Like all good things, ImperialRomance.org.uk does have a tendency to become somewhat addictive. And, as even chocolate may loose its charm when enjoyed to excess *, thus also for some people with this site. Help, however, is at hand, in the shape of something weirdly similar to a Westminster parking meter [i.e. useful, but also rather annoying]. If you check the "Parking Meter" mode box on the Edit page, then your online sessions will be limited to a maximum of 30 minutes at a time, with return prohibited within 1 hour. Once this time has expired, you will be automatically logged out. Note that this setting, once invoked, is irrevocable, for what would be the purpose of a temporary aid to willpower?

We also have created a "Degree Rescue" mode, intended to assist with revision. This allows you to block youself from logging in again until a certain date of your choice, eg the day after your finals. This setting is also irrevocable.

You may also wish to change the other controls, also on the edit page, and set some, or all of: 'Online Visibility'='Cat-like'; 'Display your Advert'='Unlisted'; 'Email Notification'='Rarely email me' and 'Accept New Messages'='No'.

* "If Music be the food of Love, play on. Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, the appetite may sicken, and so die."

[ ↑ contents]

How do I hide my advert from a particular friend, or an ex- ?

Sometimes, people are wary of bumping into a particular friend, or an ex-boyfriend/girlfriend on ImperialRomance.org.uk. As a result, they are reluctant to write a detailed description of themselves, which in turn reduces their enjoyment of the site. To help with this, you can now control precisely who may (and may not) view your profile.

The options, which may be selected from the 'Display your advert' setting on the edit page are these:

  • Yes displayed to everyone: Everyone may see your profile, including non-members. This is the default setting, and maximises "visibility".
  • Only to members of ImperialRomance.org.uk: Only other members, who have an account, and are presently logged-in can see your details.
  • No, unlisted. Your profile is completely hidden - only your nickname remains visible. (useful if you want to take a break)
  • Custom: everyone but: [ -list- ]. Hide from people with certain email addresses. (and anyone who is not logged in).

What is an 'email-stem'? An email-stem is the part of an email-address before the '@' sign. For example, an address of 'r563rg@example.com' would have the stem 'r563rg'. To hide from multiple people, simply give a list of email-stems, separated by commas. The reason for using the stem is that often, people have multiple valid addresses; for example abc12345@cam.ac.uk and abc12345@hermes.cam.ac.uk are the same person. We match on an email address rather than a name because we don't necessarily know people's full names when they sign up; also email addresses are validated when we send out the initial password, whereas we can't check a given name is correct.

What information does 'hiding' actually hide?
This hides pretty much everything, except your nickname itself. Your advert page will say 'Sorry, NAME does not have an advert at the moment'. You won't appear in the list of members in a given category, nor in any search results. Also, if your entire profile is hidden, then your photo (which is part of the ad) is also hidden.

What information does 'hiding' not hide?
Your nickname is still included in the list of active of nicknames. It is still possible for anyone to send you a message. Also, the site admins can see your full profile. Lastly, your name is still listed in the top right when you log in, unless you change the (separate) visibility setting.

Aside: this is designed to preserve anonymity both ways. You can't make use of this feature to discover or verify someone else's identity: it won't leak information as to whether the block is active, or latent. So, for example, you can't use it to match an id number to an email address, or to check whether someone else is actually a member. All you can do is specify that if person X uses/used ImperialRomance.org.uk then they can't/couldn't see your profile.

[ ↑ contents]

How do I change my Nickname?

By design, the nickname on the site is immutable, since it would be a huge source of confusion for people if the names changed. We do emphasise this on the sign-up page. However,if you do want to change your nickname, you can do so by deleting and recreating your account. If you are going to do this, we suggest you take a copy of your ad and any messages that you want to keep. Also, we'd advise you to mention this to your correspondents.

[ ↑ contents]

Deleting your account and Nickname

If you do not log in for 8 weeks, your advert will 'expire'. This means that it will no longer appear in the list of ads, or the list of all members. People with whom you have corresponded will still be able to see your messages, and reply to them (although you will only receive one email notification). Similarly, if you have hidden your ad (by setting 'Display your advert' to 'No' on the edit page), it will not appear in the list of adverts, although it will still be in the list of all members.

If you delete your account, this will remove (almost) all your details, for EVER. Upon deletion, everybody with whom you have corresponded will, if they have retained any of your messages, be informed that you have deleted your account, and will have that correspondence consolidated into a single message for easy archiving. It is good netiquette to inform them first that you are leaving! Please do give a reason on the deletion page - this is read by Cupid, and allows us to monitor how we are doing, so we can improve. Your old nickname will be reserved for you for 6 weeks, so you can have it back if you change your mind; also this prevents confusion if somebody else should choose the name you recently used.

Note, everything about your account can be changed, except your Nickname and Email address - if you want to change these, you'll have to delete the account.(This is for security reasons, and to prevent confusion.)

[ ↑ contents]


Miscellaneous topics


Common mistakes to avoid

There are a few "mistakes" that we have seen people make. These aren't strictly errors, but they are likely to cause you to get less out of the site than you otherwise might.

  1. Focussing all one's attention on people who are in the top right bar. It's very tempting to only chat to people who are currently logged in, because they are the ones who are most visible, and because they are the ones who could reply right away. This is fine, but remember that everyone else will be talking to them too, so you may be less likely to receive a reply. Furthermore, there are a huge number of other people who are not logged in at that moment, some of whom will be perfect for you! It is worth taking the time to carefully read the adverts, and write a long message to someone who is "just right". Or, use the search function.

  2. Not writing an advert, or only a very short one. This means that you are less likely to find what you are looking for, because it cannot find you! It really is worth taking the time to write a few lines about yourself (or even just list some keywords) - because that way, people whom you will like will contact you. The extra clarity will also help to filter out what you are not interested in. For ideas on how to avoid blankness, here are some tips on what to write.

  3. Breaching the rules of acceptable behaviour. Enough said.

  4. Not giving us feedback. Whether you have a suggestion about how we could improve, abuse to report, or a success story to share, please tell us! That way, we can continue to improve. This also goes for technical errors: Cupid is regrettably not omniscient, so if you see something failing to work, please shout!

[ ↑ contents]

Access from a mobile phone or PDA

It is possible to use ImperialRomance.org.uk from a mobile device such as a smartphone, Zire, Zaurus, Palm, or PocketPC. This is a minimal version of the site - with the layout optimised for use on a tiny display and low-bandwidth. (For example, photographs are not displayed by default; only the first few messages in your inbox are shown, and use of CSS/Javascript is minimised.) To access it, please bookmark the following URL on your PDA:
  http://www.ruo3.org/ic/login.php?email=ME@EXAMPLE.NET&style=mobile (obviously, with your own email address!)
[This URL is long for a reason: it avoids several levels of network redirects, and will take you directly to your login page with the least typing, and the greatest speed.]
If you use the site in this way, please let us know what you think of it. If you'd like to receive notifications by text-message, please let us know - especially if you can find a way of sending SMS messages for for free!

[ ↑ contents]

Weird Behaviour

There are some things that occur on this site that may appear weird. Sometimes, they are bugs (in which case, please let us know immediately, so we can squish them!) However, there are some things that may be unexpected, but are not exactly errors at our end:

  • Some web browsers wrongly cache stale, out-of-date pages, contrary to the instructions in the header. This means that a browser will show you the outdated web page it "remembers", to save it the bandwidth of fetching the latest version from our server. Since our web pages are dynamically generated, this is bad! A symptom is that you may need to log in twice. You can test it with this browser cache test.

  • If your inbox "doesn't appear", or the screen goes blank, it may be that you have far too many messages in it. Eg, if you happen to have 2629 messages in your inbox, the webpage will be very large, and may take up to 30 seconds for the page to load. (It is also possible to crash Internet Explorer this way.) The solution is to wait until the page eventually loads, then delete some of your messages!

  • If the correspondence page looks odd, it may be that one of your correspondents has written bad HTML. For example if a message includes the opening '<font color="#FF0000">' tag but wrongly omits the closing '</font>' tag, then all of your correspondence from that point on will show up in red. Delete the problematic message to fix this.

  • If an ad or message appears to contain 'junk' characters e.g. rectangles or question-marks where you don't expect them, this is a result of the so-called 'dread question-mark disease'. For example: "Microsoft?s misuse of ?smartquotes? doesn?t look very impressive."[sic]

  • Email doesn't always arrive when you expect it. Please see below.

  • Sometimes, links open in a new window, rather than the existing one. This may sometimes appear disorienting, since in the new window, the 'back button' doesn't work. We do this in cases where you might lose data otherwise. For example, if you are editing your advert, and click the html-guide link, that will open in a new window, so that you do not lose the text of the advert on which you are working. You may prefer to open such links in a new tab, in which case, please see here.

  • The site is very slow at around 3:45 a.m. This is a result of automatic housekeeping tasks performed by our very own Cron Daemon. Every night, the database is vacuumed, then the entire database is backed up over the Internet to a different machine. There is over 400 MB of it, and despite improvements in speed thanks to rsync, and compression, this still takes a while. During this time, our bandwidth is really saturated, so performance may not be so good. Of course, any sane person is asleep at that hour!

  • We believe that you should be able to use ImperialRomance with the web browser of your choice. We do not rely on anything browser-specific, and we do extensive testing with Mozilla, Firefox, Konqueror, Lynx and Links. Nevertheless, we can't test with every browser, and the site may look rather odd in early versions of Netscape or Internet Explorer. (Internet Explorer is especially bad at following the published W3C standards; it also can't display .png images correctly) If you find a layout bug, do tell us so we can fix it. We recommend Mozilla/Firefox, since it has the best features, and it's stable, standards-compliant, and free.

[ ↑ contents]

Why am I not receving email?

Emails from ImperialRomance do not always arrive when you expect them to. This can occur for a variety of reasons. Here are some of them:

  • No email was actually be sent. This may be because of your choices in the email notification system.

  • We have your email address recorded incorrectly. [If you log in, we can display the value we have on record.]

  • Your email account has a misconfigured, or over-enthusiastic spam-filter. Some filters have a nasty habit of misclassifying genuine mail ("ham") as junk ("spam"). Please check your spam-box for email from server@ruo3.org. Unlike most email failures, when an email is classified as spam, no delivery-failure message is sent, and the sender can have no idea that anything went wrong.

  • Your email account has expired, or has filled up, or is rejecting mail, or has failed to forward email. This usually means that Cupid is getting the bounces.

  • The email is late. Email usually arrives within 30 seconds, but please allow up to 10 minutes in some cases.

  • There is something wrong with our email system. This is relatively rare, but it does happen, and if so, we want to know about it! Please email Cupid.

  • You can test your email delivery here.

[ ↑ contents]

Reporting Bugs

We do test ImperialRomance.org.uk extensively. However, it is continuously under improvement, and things change. If you see something untoward, broken, unclear, or that could be improved, please let us know. Cupid always tests everything, and never releases anything until he is sure that it is correct. So if you spot an mistake, or the site prints an error message, you can be certain that we don't know about it (or we'd already have fixed it). Please, please tell us.
[For the curious, here is why computer errors are known as "bugs".]

[ ↑ contents]

Browser Requirements

We believe that you should be able to use ImperialRomance with the web browser of your choice. We do not rely on anything browser-specific, and we do extensive testing with Mozilla, Firefox, Konqueror, Lynx and Links. The browser functionality requirements are therefore rather straightforward. We aim to make the site fully functional even with a basic web-browser, such as Netscape version 3 (!), although we use many newer technologies to enhance it. If possible, we recommend you enable all of the following:

  • Frames: we use an iframe on the Autocheck page, never elsewhere. [frames test]
  • Java: only for the chat system, (and to make Autocheck "beep".) If you haven't got Java installed, you can still use telnet to chat. [java test]
  • Javascript: Used in several places to make life easier. There are no places where javascript is absolutely necessary (and we want to keep it that way!). [javascript test]
  • AJAX: A subset of AJAX, used to allow things to change (eg flags) without a full-reload of the webpage. The site will always 'degrade gracefully' if you haven't got a sufficiently capable browser. [ajax test]
  • Cookies: for keeping track of your login session. PHP automatically falls back to transparent_session_id, if you have cookies disabled. [cookies test]
  • CSS: for styles and presentation. The site will look ugly without CSS support (in very ancient browsers), but it will still work. [css test]
  • Email: you need to have a working email account, which does not reject messages, and doesn't have a 'crazy' spam-filter. [email test]

[ ↑ contents]

Tabbed Browsing and Mozilla/Firefox

On ImperialRomance.org.uk, sometimes clicking on a link causes it to open in a new window. This is for your convenience: for example, clicking the "HTML help" link when writing a message will cause it to open in a new window so that you do not lose your current message composition. However, in most web browsers (Mozilla, Firefox, Opera and Konqueror, but not Internet Explorer), which support Tabbed Browsing, you can do even better: simply middle-click (or Ctrl-click) on a link, and it will open in a new background tab. This is really useful if you have a list of pages to visit, and wish to select certain ones. For example, when viewing the adverts, middle-click those of interest to you. They will all load in the background, ready for you to look at in sequence. It's easier to demonstrate than to explain.

Some other reasons why we like Mozilla are that it is standards-compliant, has a great email program, has pop-up advert blocking, it's fast, stable and secure, and it is Free (as in both beer and speech). It also uses less bandwidth, since tabbed-browsing means less re-loading, and, unlike M.S.I.E., it caches stylesheets (css). This makes everything faster.

Mozilla is available for Windows, Macintosh and Linux, and may be downloaded here: Firefox (web browser only) or here: Thunderbird (email client) or here: Mozilla (full integrated suite).

[ ↑ contents]

But how did it get that way? (Controversies)

Some of the design choices for the site have been slightly controversial: while we do our best to make things perfect for everyone, there are a few cases where we cannot. In such instances, there are valid reasons for each of the alternatives, and we've simply had to choose. Here, we shall try to explain why it got that way.

  • Hiding from the Top Bar / Invisibility / 'Cats'
    One of the most common requests we received was for people to be able to hide themselves from being visible in the top right when they are logged in. This feature was originally discussed at length, publicly debated, and we decided against it. However, upon further reflection, we decided to implement it as an experiment. This experiment proved to be a success, and as a result of collecting your votes, we have decided to keep the feature. Over the course of a week, a total of 337 people voted, with a split of 49%-51%. However, by category, there was a marked difference, with 75% of Females in favour, and 75% of Males against. Furthermore, although it has been contentious, only 2.5% of people are actually using the feature! Therefore, we've decided to keep it. Here are some of the arguments:

    Arguments against an invisibility option
    Such a feature would be useful, but was discussed at length, and has several disadvantages. If we were to disable the top-right list entirely, people would lose a very useful feature, and it would make it hard to chat online to people currently logged in. If we were to make it optional, the feature would become confusing and complicated (and inaccurate); it would also focus even more attention upon those who did not opt out. [Exception: on their very first login, new members are initially invisible to give them a moment to look around and create a description before messages arrive. Once they send their first message to someone, (or when they log out and in again), this "cloaking device" permanently deactivates.]

    Here are a few of your selected comments:
    * "During the odd idle moment, I've been able to chat with some fantastic people whom I might not have talked with simply on the basis of their advert. Removing it altogether would take away the spontaneous fun that just can't be had browsing through the long lists of the 'View ads' section." * "By introducing the option of invisibility, you'd find that fewer people were logging on because they can't see that their friends are online - it would make for a much less direct means of communication, at best." * "Let people decide for themselves what works best for them. There's nothing to be gained from removing functionality that some people find useful." * "There is a 'tipping point': at the login screen, you can see who is online and who is not; part of your decision to log in or not may be based on the number of people online. When numbers have increased beyond a certain 'tipping point', more members are willing to sign in in the expectation of a conversation. Introducing an invisibility option may actually decrease the number of people logging on."

    Arguments in favour of an invisibility option
    On the other hand, there are some disadvantages to the top-bar display. It can create significant pressure upon the people in the current minority category, sometimes causing them to leave as a result. Also, because people tend only to chat to other people who are logged in, fewer people are encouraged to produce detailed adverts, and those who are not logged in all the time tend to be ignored. Also, while chatting is pleasant, it is often a very inefficient use of time: it might be more fruitful to search for someone perfect by looking through the adverts! Sending messages only to people who are currently logged in is a common mistake. Also, people should have the choice to use the site in their own way; whereas some people have chosen to leave entirely because of the excess "pressure". Here are a few of your selected comments:
    * "Well, people who are hiding simply have to take the initiative and get messaging people who they actually want to message. I can see their reasoning - who hasn't been in the 'oh, so-and-so's online, I want to go online to speak to Bloggs but i don't feel like it now I know so-and-so's there' situation?" * "It might even prove beneficial to remove the top-bar display entirely." * "...I am much more interested in replying to people's ads and looking for a boyfriend than chatting, and have got little out of spending ages corresponding randomly with people who happen to be online when I am....I think it is crucial for the female users of the site to have the option of not disclosing their online status. Because there are usually so many more men online, logging in can feel like dipping your toe into shark-infested waters...I find the site more pleasant when I can conceal my identity at will..."

    As a result of the votes, and of your opinions, we are going to keep the invisibility option as it now stands. Cupid would still welcome your opinions, but please bear in mind that there is a very large weight of arguments on both sides!

  • Ordering of Adverts defaults to Random
    When you look at adverts in a particular category, the default ordering is now random. It used to be ordered by most-recently logged-in [you can still choose this if you click the link]. This is so that it is fairer, when you browse through the ads. Otherwise, the people who log in most regularly get all the attention. This is unfair to those who haven't logged in most recently, and may be unhelpful to those who have (because they may receive more messages than they can reply to.)

  • "Category mismatch" warning
    If you are in category MsF, and try to send a message to someone in FsF, (or if you are MsM and try to send a message to someone in MsF), you may be interested in them, but they may well not be interested in you. Therefore, when you send a message, there is a notice to this effect. Social interactions are usually well received, however romantic attentions are usually very unwelcome across a category mismatch, hence the request to consider carefully whether the message will be wanted before you send it. In most cases, this works well, and has been helpful, however, we have received one comment to the effect that this is discriminatory. We respectfully disagree: while we despise gender discrimination, this is after all a personals site, and it would be unreasonable to expect people to set aside their own gender preferences in this context! As to which categories constitute a mismatch, for example, MsM -> FsM is not a mismatch, while FsM -> MsM is not usually a source of annoyance for the recipient.

  • Joining the various websites - why not?
    It is sometimes suggested that we should merge, for example, the Cambridge and Oxford sites. The reason we have not done this is because we think that locality is important. In our view, the entire point of chatting to someone is to then be able to meet them - and this is far more practical if they are a 5 minute walk away than if they are 3 hours away by train!

  • There is no indication of when a message has been read (read receipts)
    Sometimes, we are asked to provide the sender with an indication of whaether a particular message has been read by the recipient. This would indeed by nice for the sender to know. However, it is often information that the recipient would rather not provide, since it pressures them unduly. A similar situation is the use of automatic "message-read receipts" in email: we find such requests to be impolite, and always set our email clients to discard them unanswered. If you have not received a reply to your message, it is acceptable to send a follow-up ("did you get my message about..."), after a suitable delay. [See also the faq on etiquette.]
    For a similar reason, we don't display the exact times when a person was last logged in (on the view adverts page), but we introduce a degree of jitter.

  • The # "favicon" for stealth mode
    OK, we admit it: it's a very geeky in-joke. It's meant to signify invisibility, and be at least fairly unrecognisable to passers-by, especially when the window is minimised. In computer programming, "comments" are parts of the program intended only for the programmer, but effectively invisible to the computer.
    /* For example, this is a comment. */
    # This is another one.
    We're not going to spoil the hidden reference on the Correspondence page by revealing it here...

[ ↑ contents]

How can I ever thank you?

Well, thanks for asking :-) Here are some things you can do:

  • We always need more publicity. Please tell your friends about us, in person, or via email. If you'd like to get involved with publicity, or just help put up posters, that would be wonderful. Please also tell your friends about the sites in other universities.
  • We are always looking for new people to join the team. If you'd like to become involved with running ImperialRomance, please do let us know - we'd appreciate it!
  • Please, tell us how you get on. We want to hear your success stories: knowing that we are making people happy makes it all worthwhile! We'll add them to the testimonials page. Also, please give us feedback about what we can do better, and fill in the survey.
  • If you find a long-term partner, please remember us - *hint* we like wedding cake *hint*. Actually, if you really feel grateful, a small financial contribution would be nice :-) The long-term running of ruo3 is costing Richard a significant amount of his personal money!

[ ↑ contents]

I want to link to ImperialRomance from my website - How?

Thank you very much - most kind. Please make sure that you link to the correct web address, which is: http://imperialromance.org.uk (the 'www' is optional). You are very welcome to use our logo for the purpose of linking to us. (Obligatory legal bit: this doesn't give you the right to misuse it out of context in any way you wish.) If you email Cupid to let us know, that would be appreciated too. Thank you.

[ ↑ contents]

I have a question that isn't answered here.

If you need more help, then either send us a message though the site, or you can email Cupid. We'll do our best to help you, and respond speedily. If you have any ideas for additions to this FAQ, please do pass them on. You can contact us via the feedback page.

[ ↑ contents]


Legal


Disclaimer

  1. This site is not in any way affiliated with Imperial College or any other organisation. All correspondence regarding the site should be made directly to us (see the feedback page for details).

  2. This site is provided "as is". We accept no responsibility for issues arising from your use/misuse of it, including but not limited to:
    • Relationship or conflicts which may arise between members.
    • Offensive content or inaccurate or defamatory information in any advert or message on the system.
    • Damage to your computer through any virus, software or files that may be transmitted through this site.

  3. There is no warranty of any kind for this site, including but not limited to the fitness of this site for serving any purpose, its reliability, its availability and its functionality.

  4. We trust the contributors to the site to be honest and the onus is on you as a member to provide accurate information. In cases where this trust is breached, we reserve the right to take appropriate action as determined by us, the administrators of the site.

  5. Please note that comments posted on the site, whether they are adverts or private messages, are 'owned' by the poster. They do not represent our own views, and are not explicitly authorised by us. They are enclosed in a box to denote this. We cannot read all ads when they are posted, therefore we may not be aware of any abuse that they may contain. If you would like to report abuse, please email abuse@ruo3.org and we will investigate as soon as we can.

  6. Reasonable steps have been taken to ensure that confidential information (private messages and e-mail addresses) are not available to other members. However, no liability can be accepted for the consequences of information theft.

  7. Please also see our terms and conditions of use.

[ ↑ contents]

Terms and Conditions of Use

Welcome to ImperialRomance. We hope you enjoy it.

  1. Please read the disclaimer for the important legal information.

  2. ImperialRomance is provided for your enjoyment, and made available to you at no charge. In return, we expect you to respect our hospitality, and follow the etiquette.

  3. Do not place ads or send messages which are offensive, obnoxious, misleading, crude, cruel, false, or "spam". Serious abusers will have their account terminated without warning; they will be blocked permanently, and will not be permitted to return. We do try to be fair; however our decision is final.

  4. You are expected to provide accurate information. In particular, you must sign up with the correct gender, and using your own, personal email address. If you upload a photograph, it must be of yourself.

  5. We detest spam. Therefore, if you misuse our site to send bulk messages, we will publish your name and email address so that complaints may be directed to you. Likewise, we may do this if you abuse the site with false information, or otherwise cause distress to other members.

  6. If you are successful, please let us know - this is what makes it all worthwhile. You could also consider helping out on the team, or making a small financial contribution.

  7. In the event that you get married, we think it's only fair that you send us a piece of wedding cake!! Of course, if you want to write us a big cheque, we won't complain :-)

  8. We welcome your feedback. Please do read the documentation first though :-)

[ ↑ contents]


End



Back to FAQ contents.  Back to the ImperialRomance.org.uk home page.

Flowers