Certification FAQs
What does certification mean, and what is a "verification selfie"?
This website requires all members to be "certified" or proven to be real human beings on the other side of the keyboard. A "verification selfie" is where you take a picture of yourself holding onto a hand-written note on a sheet of paper to prove that you are a real person (and not just catfishing with somebody else's stolen photos).
Certification helps protect our members from harassment by anonymous trolls or automated spam robots that plague other similar sites.
Do I need to send a "verification selfie"?
Yes.
Certification is required before you can gain access to the greater community on this website. Pre-certification, you may only access your own profile page and settings, but can not browse the member list, see the site Photo Gallery, or participate on the forums until your profile has been certified.
Your certification photo is only seen by site administrators and does not appear on your profile page.
Why the hard requirement to certify?
I didn't set out to build "just another social network" that allows for random, faceless, anonymous people to sign up - you can do that literally anywhere else. This website was designed specifically to get ahead of what happened with Tumblr, Pornhub and other sites in recent history. It wasn't just a random whim of Tumblr when they kicked all of the nudists and other NSFW users off of their platform -- they were pressured to do so by a vocal minority of anti-porn prudes who have been working their way across the Internet and trying to make sure that nudists, exhibitionists, porn stars and sex workers have no place at all to exist online.
I have been watching how these groups operate. They throw out wild claims that a website like Tumblr or Pornhub is running rampant with illegal content (such as child sexually abusive material, human trafficking, revenge porn or so on) and use that as a scapegoat to put pressure on a website via the banks and advertisers into either bending the knee or shutting down completely. Tumblr elected to just blanket ban all NSFW users from the platform, Pornhub deleted 80% of all user content from their site, and Onlyfans nearly fell as well (before they decided instead to require government-issued photo ID from their members, which I do not want to do).
This group wildly exaggerates statistics and misrepresents their finding to push along an agenda which is really just anti-porn, period; but the fact of the matter is that any wide open public website that allows random people to just sign up and start posting things will always technically leave room for those kinds of claims to be thrown around. If a website doesn't require a user to verify their face, you'll get bad actors who sign up blank, throwaway accounts (probably hiding behind a VPN, too, to conceal their location) and start spreading god awful things on a site and it becomes a game of whack-a-mole for site moderators to keep on top of (not to mention the trauma it causes for moderators who need to deal with all that shit). I don't want any of that nonsense on this website.
The certification requirement should help curb a lot of that and bring some other nice benefits besides for the other members of this site:
- It will deter blank, faceless profiles from signing up and then sliding into your DMs and getting all pervy and weird on you. This happens so freaking often on other nudist websites and nobody likes that - we are here posting our nude pics out in the open and don't want random anonymous creepers who won't reveal themselves in an equally meaningful way.
- It will help keep automated spam robots at bay; a non-certified account will have a terrible time trying to discover any user here that they could send their spam to, as the Forums, Member Directory and Site Photo Gallery are off-limits to non-certified users.
- It will keep members accountable: I don't expect anyone would dare upload illegal content here when their certified face picture is on file.
I understand that certification may be inconvenient for some members. I know there are plenty of people for whom it isn't a concern at all. I may be able to work with you on an alternative method for certification; see the next section, below.
Are there alternative options to becoming Certified?
I understand that some nudists need to exercise a degree of discretion and will not want to take a face pic with {{PrettyTitle}}'s name and upload that anywhere at all onto the Internet. For example if you are a teacher or work in law enforcement or the clergy and you need to keep careful control of your image online because the world isn't quite enlightened enough yet when it comes to nudity and sexuality.
These are very valid concerns and can be handled on a case-by-case basis. The main thing I'm looking for in certification is to prove that you're a real person, you look like your pictures here and that you're not a minor. Send a DM to u/introvertnudist to inquire about alternative verification methods, which may include just hopping on a quick video call with a site admin.
Note, though: this is a social site for {{PrettyTitle}} nudists so you are expected to post at least some pictures of yourself on your profile page. A face pic (at least a clothed, G-rated selfie) as your default profile picture is highly encouraged, and the rest of your pics you can leave your face cropped or censored out of. And your profile picture can be marked private or "friends only" if you like; see below.
What can non-certified members do?
Before you have an approved certification photo, you can mainly only access and edit your own profile page, and upload a few pictures while you await approval. Your pictures won't be shown to members on the Site Gallery until you're certified, and most of the website's features (namely, the Forums, Site Gallery and Member Search Directory) are gated behind certification.
Certified members may, at their own discretion, be able to find your profile page by browsing the Member Directory. They may send you a friend request or reach out to you. Or, if you happen to know a member's profile URL on this site, you (the non-certified member) can view their profile page and photo gallery (depending on their privacy settings), send them a friend request or direct message. But basically, it will be difficult to discover users to interact with until after you are certified - and this is intentional to help guard against spam bots and creepy people.
Privacy FAQs
Can my Profile Picture be kept private?
You may set your Profile Picture to be "Friends only" or "Private" visibility if you wish to be more discreet about your face pictures.
-
Friends only
:
your profile pic displays as a yellow
placeholder image for people who are not on your Friends list.
-
Private
:
your profile pic displays as a purple
placeholder image for everybody except for people that you had
granted access to see your
private photos.
What are the visibility options for my profile page?
There are currently three different choices for your profile visibility on your Settings page:
- The default visibility is "Public + Login Required." Users must be logged-in to an account in order to see anything about your profile page - if an external (logged out) browser visits your profile URL, they will be redirected to log in to an account first.
- You may optionally go more public with a "Limited Logged-out View." This enables your profile URL (e.g., {{if .LoggedIn}}/u/{{.CurrentUser.Username}}{{else}}/u/username{{end}}) to show a basic page (with your square profile picture and display name) to logged-out browsers. This may be useful if you wish to link to your page from an external site (e.g. your Twitter page) and present new users with a better experience than just a redirect to login page.
- You may "Mark my profile as 'private'" to be private even from other logged-in members who are not on your Friends list. Logged-in users will see only your square profile picture and display name, and be able only to send you a friend request or a message.
How do I delete direct messages (DMs)?
You have two options for deleting your private one-on-one chat messages.
You can delete your own messages by clicking on the "Delete" button that appears below them. This deletes your message from both of your threads, and (if unread), will not notify them that they had an unread message.
You can delete the whole thread by using the "Delete whole thread" button at the bottom of the conversation. This will remove both of your chat history with one another and make it like you never exchanged a DM before at all.
Photo FAQs
Do I have to post my nudes here?
You should be comfortable with doing so, but it isn't a hard requirement. On some other nudist social websites, many nudists have lamented to me about how often they get messages by anonymous, faceless profiles who slide into their DMs and get all pervy and weird on them. While {{PrettyTitle}} only requires a face pic and verification selfie, other members will feel more comfortable if you post some of your own nudes as well.
It's kind of like nude beach etiquette: no nudist at a nude beach enjoys it much when people arrive who refuse to get naked and they're just there to gawk and be a peeping tom and perv out over all the naked bodies they see. If you don't want to post any nudes here, at least don't act weird or creepy with people here.
Do I have to include my face in my nudes?
You don't have to! I know many nudists are not comfortable with their face appearing in their nudes. You are free to post "headless torso shots" or leave your face covered or censored. But you should have at least one face pic (as your default profile pic) - it can be a G-rated selfie!
If you're only comfortable with posting like close-up dick pics, please mark those pics as "explicit" -- many nudists prefer to see the whole nude body and don't want to see just dick pics everywhere. And don't set those as your default profile pic!
What appears on the Site Gallery?
The " Gallery" link on the site nav bar goes to the Site-wide Photo Gallery page. Here is shown all of the public photos uploaded by all (certified) users, if those pictures are also opted-in to appear on the Gallery in their settings.
If you have friends on here, you may also see their "Friends-only" photos on the Site Gallery. This way, you don't miss any updates if your friends add a new picture (so long as they allow their picture to appear on the Gallery).
When you upload a picture you may opt it in or out of the Gallery by checking a box on its settings page. For example, you can upload a Public photo but opt it out of the Gallery -- it will then only appear on your profile page.
What is considered "explicit" in photos?
On this website, I make a fairly common distinction between what's a "normal nude" and what's an "explicit" photo:
- "Normal nudes" are completely non-sexual in nature. If there's a penis, it's not erect and it's not being grabbed. "Normal nudes" are not close-up pictures that focus on the genitals, but tend to be full body shots of a non-sexual nature.
- "Explicit" posts are everything else: if it includes an erection, or you're grabbing your junk, or flashing your various holes, or masturbating or engaging in a sexual activity, these all fall under the "explicit" umbrella. If one would reasonably consider it to be porn, it's explicit.
You are permitted to upload explicit content to your profile, just mark which pictures are explicit to help the rest of the community in case someone prefers not to see that. You can enable a setting on your profile if you are comfortable with seeing explicit content from other users -- by default this site is "normal nudes" friendly!
Does this site prevent people from downloading my pictures?
This website does not go out of its way to prevent people from downloading pictures, and nor will it pretend to. This is actually a very difficult problem to solve in the year {{.YYYY}}.
I could add some JavaScripts that prevent right-clicking on my pages so you can't just "Save image as," but this would only deter desktop (mouse & keyboard) users and is easy to work around. I could place a transparent image over top of all your pictures like Instagram does and if you try and save it, you just get a one-pixel transparent GIF; but this is trivially defeated by any novice web designer by just right-clicking, "Inspect element" and deleting it from the web page to get at the photo it was protecting.
And people can always just screenshot the whole web page - and a web page can't do anything at all to prevent that. With mobile phones this is an especially easy and common thing to do. Any mild measures this site could take to deter downloading would only provide a false sense of security, which is worse than having no security.
There are risks inherent with putting a picture on the Internet. This website does provide some controls you can utilize as to who will see the pictures you upload:
- You can mark pictures as "Friends only" and only approved friendships you make on this website will be able to see those pictures.
- You may mark some pictures as "Private" and you grant access to your private photos on a per-person basis, and can revoke access to one or all at any time.
- This website also chooses utterly random URLs for each and every picture, with no correlation between the square cropped and full size versions, so users should only be able to discover pictures through the normal front-end of this website, subject to your privacy controls.
Additionally, your Profile Page altogether can only be seen by logged-in members of this site by default. You may tighten it even further and mark your entire profile as Private (and only approved friends can see your profile or any of your photos). Note that your square cropped profile picture is still visible even so.
Or if you are feeling very bold, you may mark your profile to have a "limited logged-out view" if you want to share your profile link on another website such as Twitter. A logged-out user will see only your Display Name and square cropped profile picture, and be invited to sign up for {{PrettyTitle}} to contact you here.
Forum FAQs
What do the various badges on the forum mean?
You may see some of these badges on the forums or their posts. These are their meanings:
- Explicit - on a forum it means the entire forum is "NSFW"; but individual topics within an otherwise non-explicit forum may also opt in to the Explicit tag if its content is border-line. You will not see any Explicit forums or posts unless you opt-in to see explicit content in your settings.
- Privileged - only a forum's moderators can create new topics in a Privileged forum (such as the forum for Site Announcements). Moderators include the site admins, the creator of the forum, and any additional moderators appointed by the forum creator.
- Pinned - these forum posts are pinned to the top of a forum, appearing above regular posts on the first page of the forum.
- No Reply - topics with this badge can not accept any new replies. Some types of announcement posts may start with this badge from the beginning; other threads that are locked by a moderator may gain this badge if the conversation was going off the rails.
Can I create my own forums?
This feature is coming soon! Users will be allowed to create their own forums and act as moderator within their own board. The forum admin pages need a bit more spit & polish before it's ready!
Some related features with managing your own forums will include:
- You'll be able to make your forum "invite-only" if you want, where only approved members can see and reply to threads.
- You'll be able to choose other users to help you moderate your forum. As the forum owner, you'll retain admin control of your forum unless you assign ownership away to another member.
Technical FAQs
Why did you build a custom website?
Other variants on this question might be: why not just run a Mastodon instance? Or why this website and not a Discord server or MeWe group or insert off-the-shelf free software or hosted web service here?
It certainly would've been simpler to just use an off-the-shelf open source app such as Mastodon (a decentralized, Twitter-like app) or similar. These apps though have a scalability problem: users with their infinitely long timelines will upload infinite photos until your server runs out of disk space and not enough of them may donate to cover the costs. And the Fediverse feature (Mastodon is like e-mail and users from all servers can like, follow and comment on one another across the entire network) is a double edged sword too: all my members would need to tag even their "normal nudes" as NSFW or else other servers would ban ours (meaning we have to follow rules imposed by the wider Internet community), and conversely it is difficult to moderate incoming content from other servers showing up on my users' timelines. It's not a good fit for the vision I had in mind.
And on just using a service like Discord or MeWe to host my community: that's still putting us in the hands of a corporation which can one day decide to ban all NSFW users. Many people run nudist Discords and MeWe groups, but I needed something whose fate is kept in my own hands.
Is this website open source?
Yes! The source code for this website is released as free software under the GNU General Public License. It is programmed in Go and the source code is available at code.nonshy.com/nonshy/website. If you're a developer and would like to contribute bug fixes or new features to the website, see details here.