An ever-growing collection of frequently asked questions. It even has some answers.
Registration on this site allows you to make comments on articles and post questions and replies on the message board. You also must be registered to receive email notices from the OARC, including meeting and event invitations.
Nothing. But you will NOT receive meeting notices or other emails from the OARC.
Even better, you can view past notices on the Email Notices page.
It does not cost anything to register on the website, but to become a member of the OARC, you need to pay the annual fee. To register go to the registration page. To see the different levels of membership and associated fees, go to the membership information page.
Having a website that accepts payments makes it an attractive target to hackers who try to steal credit card numbers and other user data.
The OARC purposely decided to use only e-transfers for payments. This means you use your own bank to make payments without providing any sensitive information to a third party.
Moreover, online banking is specifically designed to provide highly secure electronic payment options.
The short answer is yes. The longer answer is as follows … If you do NOT register on the site, the only data we collect is your IP address. If you do register, we collect the minimum amount of personal data required to allow various site features to function. These include: your username, your real name, your callsign (if you have one), your phone number (this is optional, but handy if we need to contact you), your email address, your password for this site, and your agreement to the Terms of Service. Your password is encrypted and we have no way of telling what it is. If you lose your password, you can reset it.
These registered user details are only visible to site administrators, but your name and callsign may appear in comments you leave on the site.
The entire site is served using HTTPS which means all data in transit between you and the site is encrypted.
IMPORTANT NOTE: If you choose to reveal additional personal information about yourself in article comments or message board postings, it is considered public, and we have no way of preventing others from seeing it.
No. Notices are prepared and delivered “from inside” the website so it has to have your email address and consent to receive emails from the OARC.
You can read almost everything on the site without registering, but you cannot post on the message board or comment on articles and you will not receive OARC email notices.
For at least two reasons. We need positive verification that you want to be registered on the new OARC website. User passwords on the previous site are encrypted (as they are on the new site) and do not work on the new site.
There are several links to the previous site from the new one, and you can go directly to http://club.oarc.net/
The previous website had approximately 5 GB of content on it and we are gradually migrating it all to the new site. If there is a particular item you think should appear on the new site ASAP, send a request to the web janitor. You can still go to the previous site to see the material.
We make it as difficult as possible for bad actors to register. The registration form uses a CAPTCHA to make sure the user is not a bot. Once the user clicks the “register” button, the system automatically sends 2 emails – one to the user to confirm that they are registered but NOT activated, and a second to the web janitor to get him to activate the new user. If the email to the user bounces, that is a red flag that prompts the janitor to just discard the registration. If any of the details in the submitted registration look suspicious, the janitor sends an email to the user to try and confirm that they are bona fide. Once the janitor is satisfied that the user is genuine, he activates the account, and another automated email is sent to the user to inform them of that fact.
As long as the spammer behaves themselves, we will never know. But if any “odd” behaviour is noticed, we can instantly de-activate the offender and remove the damage they have caused. If you see any suspicious content, you can report it to the web janitor who will clean it up.
Email website@oarc.net, or if you prefer, there is a form you can use on the website at https://oarc.net/contact-the-web-janitor/ .