Profile Guidelines

Cafe Q is for real people.You cannot use any of its interactivity without posting a recognizable face pic and a profile that gives a reasonable picture of who you are. Therefore, all profiles must be approved before they will be released. Profiles that do not meet the requirements for a recognizable face pic and reasonable description of you will not be approved.

Mandatory questions:  To enable members to search the site better for persons meeting specific requirements, we have made certain questions multiple choice and mandatory.  We only have one narrative question that is mandatory --"Tell us about yourself."  Your answer here should give users a feel for who you are.  Cute answers like "Just ask" or "Don't get me started" will get your profile disapproved. Why?  Most persons on this site are looking for relationships and activities to participate in. They should not have to search through dozens of profiles to find those that have any substance.  In addition, they do not like to receive friend requests and messages from people who have no substance to them.  And Cafe Q cannot waste precious bandwidth on lurkers. You can lurk on the site without taking up any of its resources.

Non-mandatory questions are here to give a certain amount of organization to the site.  If you are looking for a relationship, your best bet in finding a compatible person is to be fairly specific without being too wordy. Include "keywords" about yourself so that persons searching for specific kinds of persons can find you. For instance including words such as "outdoors," "opera," "gym," etc. enable people to find you quicker through a search. A fairly complete profile reduces "email tag."  To encourage members to make the most of their profiles, with the member's permission,  we periodically feature the best profiles. This puts your profile out front where everyone can see it.

General Guidelines

• Name:  While it is nice to know a person's  real name (first and last) we realize that you may not want your profile to be found by other persons through search engines. Therefore you may use only your first name, a nick name or a screen name. Names may be duplicated, so don't worry about being unique. Cafe Q can have a hundred "Bills" if necessary.
  
• Town or Neighborhood:  What we are looking for here is the general area you are from like "Midtown," "Arden," or "Citrus Heights."
  
• Zip Code: Your Zip Code enables us to gather statistics on the distribution of the LGBT population within the greater Sacramento area. This enables us to determine how best to serve the community. It is also of value to other members who might want to establish Special Interest Groups based on geographic region. E.g. "Lesbian Moms of Fair Oaks."
  

• Generation:  We use generation instead of exact age or age range because of search limitations and the fact that people usually look for persons in a certain age group rather than a specific age.
  

•  Education: Check the highest level completed. 
  

• Occupation/Profession: State what you do in specific terms but without violating your privacy concerns. Generally, it is not a good idea to reveal your employer unless it is kept very general  like "Administrative assistant with government agency" or "Barista at coffee shop."
  

• Message to potential friends: This box lets you to spell out who can be your friend. Keep in mind that you will only be able to exchange private messages with friends. Also keep in mind that some people hare-brained and others are just running popularity contests.  You do not want your friends list cluttered with people you don't know and never correspond with. But, on the other hand, you would like to receive messages from persons who are potential friends or partners. I expect a person to at least introduce themselves in the comments box on my profile before asking to be a friend.

• Personality and interest questions: Think of your profile as a can of food in a market.  It usually has a picture showing what it is, for instance, green beans. It also has an attractive label and a list of the ingredients.  Your profile should be the same. Short, interesting, attractive and to the point.  Your answers should give the reader a sense of who you are and what you are looking for.  They can find out what the product is really like after opening the can  You would not want to go looking for green beans at the market and find you had to open 100 cans before you found the right one. One or two words, scrambled characters or answers like, "Ask me" will result in disapproval.
  
• Option questions. The last three questions concern specific reasons you might be joining Cafe Q -- to find friends or a partner, to engage in activities with others and to find travel companions. You may not have interests in any of these categories and need not fill out any.  Just fill out those that apply.  If you leave any non-mandatory question blank, that question will not be displayed on your profile.
• Headline for your personal page: After you register and save your profile, you will notice that at the top of your profile page there is a title that says "My Page." When you click on it, the background will turn yellow and you can edit this line.  Please fee free to either enter your name or a descriptive or eye-catching headline for your page.
• Your Cafe Q -- Sacramento Box: Below your profile, you will see a box labeled "Your Cafe Q -- Sacramento Box."  You can add any other information you would like to this box including pictures, embedded videos and widgets.
• Editing your profile:  After you have filled out your profile, you can edit it at any time.  Just click on the "My Settings" link in the Sign-In box. This will enable you to edit your profile text, change face pics and even change your name or email address.