How The Personal Ads Work

Creating Your Ad ~-~ When you enter a new personal ad, you are required to enter a valid email address. This address is never visible or given out to anyone. It is used by our computer to validate a working email address.
An email message is automatically generated and sent to you. This message will contain the location of the Virtual North Woods validation page, and a unique keyword. All you have to do is visit the validation page and enter the keyword to activate your ad.
We perform this step to make sure that you will receive all responses to your ad without error, and to discourage those who would abuse "our little meeting place" on the Web. An internal mail application makes sure that your email address is kept confidential. YOU decide when and if to identify yourself to responders who have identified themselves to you.

Responding To An Ad ~-~ When you respond to a personal ad, you are shown a form where you can enter your email address and the text of a message. Before your response is sent, your email address must be verified in much the same way as when creating an ad.
An automatically generated email message is sent to your address containing the location of the Virtual North Woods validation page, and a keyword. All you have to do is visit the validation page and enter the keyword. This will enable the system to send your response to the person who placed the ad. You may choose to identify yourself in the text of the message, or not. If you choose to remain anonymous, you should create a Waiting For Response Ad so the person who placed the original ad can send you a message back. Be sure to include the listing number of your Waiting For Response ad in your message so the person you are writing to will know how to get back to you if they choose to do so.