certified...why?

Replies

• DE

  

  DelOriginal Poster

  Jul 1, 2017

  ok, thanks its not that I don't trust them, its the fact that I sent them a message and it was never responded to. If nothing else I was looking for comfirmation to my concerns. This still does not answer why exactly should I be "certified" what does that mean for members? Thank You

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• JO

  

  John

  Jul 1, 2017

  Certification shows that you are who you say you are. You will undoubtedly see a reply to this stating something along the lines that it just means you took the trouble to make the sign, take a picture of someone (not necessarily you) holding the sign, and sent it in. Maybe some have done that, but most "certified" are who they say they are. Most non-certified (especially those claiming to be female, bi-curious, don't want to talk to single men, and have hundreds, if not thousands of "friends") are not who they say are. They may also have pictures that obviously came from another website, usually porn. In the past, some even had the other websites url and/or logo visible in the picture, and they were still approved.
  
  Bottom line, it's just one way of elevating yourself above the ocean of fake profiles this site contains and that the owners seem to not care about cleaning up.
  
  Be aware, any photos you do post to your profile tagged viewable by "Certified Only" are actually public and viewable by everyone. This, along with several other security issues I have pointed out to the owners have gone unfixed. Simple rule of thumb, if you are concerned about being "outed", don't post any pictures. They are not secure on this site, even to non-account holders.
  
  John aka cobeachbum

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• ST

  

  Steve

  Jul 2, 2017

  Get certified. The photos yousubmitfor that purpose are NEVER posted to your profile, unless you do it yourself as a separate act (not a good idea) and the process is quite secure. Certification shows that you are a real person, equipped and willing to take a nude and a clothed photo of yourself, and are of the gender you say. It will help a lot as you communicate with other members of the site, who otherwise might not be willing to spend time with a person who has posted no photos. Don'tpostnude photos to your profile if the exposure of such a photo would cause you serious trouble. The various restrictions you and the site owners can put on them can't be 100%; if the photos are viewable on the site, by anyone other than yourself and the owners, they're stealable. Consider posting a NON-nude photo. An ordinary headshot is fine - helps others on the site understand who they're talking to. There's a big difference between one of your students passing around a nude photo of Mr. Smith, versus putting out the word that they found out Mr. Smith is a nudist. The latter is MUCH less likely, anyway, since the vast majority of internet snoops, schookids included, are more interested in naked images than in identity, and would simply not find ordinary headshots interesting enough to browse through.

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• DE

  

  DelOriginal Poster

  Jul 2, 2017

  thank you John, your honesty was exactly what I was after. thank you sir for answering my questions

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• NA

  NatureBoy24

  Jul 2, 2017

  I have no idea why someone would need to be certified. I come here for the conversation, to discuss various aspects of nudism & naturism. I've joined several groups related to interests I have and places I go. I haven't had any problems and don't feel like I'm missing out on anything. I have zero interest in sharing pictures - if I want to see naked people I can go to a resort or beach or thousands of other sites on the web. I participate here under a pseudonym for the very reasons you pointed out.

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• OL

  

  Olly

  Jul 2, 2017

  Nobodyneedsto be Certified. In fact of the 292,000 TN members only 15,000 (5%) are Certified. I'm one of the Certified minority - why? Certification is precisely as good as the process used. You send in two photos of yourself, one clothed and one nude, holding a sign carrying your user name. They are confidential, being seen only by TN admin. They do use it to verify your gender. So men can't claim to be women. I don't know if they also use it to verify any photos you upload to your profile. I doubt it as the workload would be overwhelming. And our appearance can change over time. When I was certified my body was covered in hair and nothing else. Now I am smooth (hairless) and have a tattoo and 3 piercings. BTW it would be very difficult to find a stooge to get photographed naked holding your sign, knowing it will be sent off somewhere. So it can appear that there is little merit in being certified if you are a single male. Not so! Other TN members generally have more confidence in a certified member. When looking at your profile they may be more likely to make contact or admit you to a private group. I can't recall anyone accusing a certified member of being a fake. But there are other ways of giving confidence - tell everyone something about yourself, giving a word-picture or a real rounded person. This is best done in your profile but it can be done through the various forums and groups. Other nudist organisations use this method of identification too. It costs nothing .

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• JO

  

  John

  Jul 3, 2017

  [quote] In fact of the 292,000 TN members only 15,000 (5%) are Certified. [/quote] Of the 292,500 members, only 67,000 have logged on in the last year (meaning 225,500 are not active). Of those "active" members, 10,800 are certified. A bit higher percentage (16%). There are approximately 5000 certified accounts that haven't logged on in more than a year. I agree, no one "needs" to get certified, but I do question the validity of those that can figure out how to post images to their profiles, but can't comprehend the easy process of getting certified. John aka cobeachbum

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• NE

  

  nebr4200

  Jul 3, 2017

  cobeachbum I can reply to that point. Prior to the recent update of this site I was able to post pictures to my profile using my IPhone. However, after the update I have not been able to upload pictures using this method. I have tried several times to upload my certification pictures but have not been able to get it done. I would love to be certified!

  In defense of Team 1, and 2 they have tried repeatedly to help, and have given me ideas on how to change settings on my phone, but nothing they have done, or that I have done on my phone has helped. I have even tried some ideas I got from people in the chat room, still no good.

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• NE

  

  nebr4200

  Jul 3, 2017

  cobeachbum I can reply to that point. Prior to the recent update of this site I was able to post pictures to my profile using my IPhone. However, after the update I have not been able to upload pictures using this method. I have tried several times to upload my certification pictures but have not been able to get it done. I would love to be certified!

  In defense of Team 1, and 2 they have tried repeatedly to help, and have given me ideas on how to change settings on my phone, but nothing they have done, or that I have done on my phone has helped. I have even tried some ideas I got from people in the chat room, still no good.

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• PA

  

  Paul

  Jul 4, 2017

  Other than showing there is a far grater chance that people will trust you to be who you claim to be there isn't much to gain from been certified other than a small section on the forum section.

  To me to encourage people to do this is is to make people to be certified before they can set any photos to private and, also have a private profile as far more is needed to encourage people to be certified than now on this site.

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• BO

  

  Bob

  Jul 6, 2017

  [quote]cobeachbum I can reply to that point. Prior to the recent update of this site I was able to post pictures to my profile using my IPhone. However, after the update I have not been able to upload pictures using this method. I have tried several times to upload my certification pictures but have not been able to get it done. I would love to be certified! In defense of Team 1, and 2 they have tried repeatedly to help, and have given me ideas on how to change settings on my phone, but nothing they have done, or that I have done on my phone has helped. I have even tried some ideas I got from people in the chat room, still no good.[/quote] nebr4200, Are you using your own network? I have a seasonal campsite at a textile RV Park. Their Wi-Fi network blocks all sites that contain "nude", "sex" or "XXX" in the domain name. They also block streaming and many other large data transfers or preserve bandwidth for email. Bob

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• NE

  

  nebr4200

  Jul 6, 2017

  Thanks Bob for responding! I too have a textile camp site that I go to like you and it is restricted. I have also tried it on my server as well as others with the same result. Lee

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• MS

  

  Maybe some other time

  Jul 11, 2017

  I think the logic is, if they didnt require a nude photo, you could just search the internet for a picture of a clothed woman or a man holding a whiteboard, and photoshop in a sign. by requiring a nude, you are proving that you are (for the most part anyway) a nudist. They can also look at the time stamp to see if the photos were created on the same day in the same place. sort of a check and balance if you will. If you only submit one photo. I get the thought process. Not a new one. Nudist Clubhouse used to do that as well, but they also allowed you to certify to a certain degree with an AANR membership number which was nice, and i think that was much more effective than a photo certification, since it could be verified with the AANR database.

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• PA

  

  Paul

  Jul 11, 2017

  [quote]I think the logic is, if they didnt require a nude photo, you could just search the internet for a picture of a clothed woman or a man holding a whiteboard, and photoshop in a sign. by requiring a nude, you are proving that you are (for the most part anyway) a nudist. They can also look at the time stamp to see if the photos were created on the same day in the same place. sort of a check and balance if you will. If you only submit one photo. I get the thought process. Not a new one. Nudist Clubhouse used to do that as well, but they also allowed you to certify to a certain degree with an AANR membership number which was nice, and i think that was much more effective than a photo certification, since it could be verified with the AANR database.[/quote] What I understand is the photos are checked to see if they have been photo-shopped or not so if they are they can be rejected. Also it will make it harder by having the two photos for someone to trick a member of the public to hold a piece of paper for the photo.

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• RT

  

  Reuben Titus

  Jul 15, 2017

  I have a minor complaint with the system and have never received an explanation. Successfully got certified with the proper photos, but then some 10 days or so later it was canceled with only the comment that the sign was not present. But the sign was present and readable or else it would not have been approved to start with. So why the cancellation? Since the benefit seemed to be pretty minor I haven't attempted again. Why bother? what could I do better if I did try again? Make a bigger sign? it was the required size piece of paper. written on with black marking pen. I could see the writing plain enough in my pictures. Something will have to inspire another attempt, like either significant benefit or an explanation. A real live honest country naturist has such difficulty and supposedly many fakes get in easy. I realize fakes may be hard to detect if they do a good job. But it seems a lame excuse was used to kick me out. But not out enough for me to be very concerned. While it is nice to be able to talk with fellow naturists about naturism when no one else around me is willing to discuss it, I don't have to be here.

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• JA

  

  Jay

  Aug 24, 2017

  Great question.

  The pro's for "why certify" have been well covered here. Rising above the fake accounts is the main reason, of course.

  But I'll give you a reason why not to (well, why I am not certified anyway).

  Like you, I have a career that is potentially problematic. Although I trust the admins, it's a simple fact that sites get hacked. All the time. Big sites that employ security professionals have major leaks every other day. And being small is no help - hackers scan every address in the world, looking for installed software with known vulnerabilities.

  Even though your picture isn't posted publicly, they are still holding it. If this site gets hacked, that picture could be leaked. And if you're like me, that's a risk I'm not prepared to entertain.

  I love the site, but I'm prepared to wear the consequences of not verifying. I'm grateful they allow us (verified and unverified) to interact, and give members the tools to block unverified if they want.

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