Frequently Asked Questions
Before you report a new issue with FetLife Age/Sex/Location Search, please check to ensure your question is not already addressed in the list below.
Yes. The original FetLife Age/Sex/Location Search didn’t provide an interface for you to choose a location directly, but this Extended Edition does. However, the location fields can be tricky for some. They are case-sensitive and the value you enter is matched against only one location field (either city, state/province, or country). This means you can only search for one of these at a time.
For example, say you want to find profiles listed as being in “Baltimore, Maryland, United States.” The best way to search for this location is to enter Baltimore in the location text box. Notice the proper capitalization! Similarly, if you want to find profiles of anyone in the State of Maine, enter Maine and again pay attention to proper capitalization. This may also return some results of profiles listed as being in a city named “Maine,” but hopefully you can put up with a tiny bit of imperfection. I may be able to fix this issue in a future version of this script, so be sure to keep your script updated.
I used this script and FetLife banned my account. What gives?
You’re probably confusing this script with a different FetLife ASL Search script. There are a huge number of copy-cat scripts out on the Web, and many of them are unable to search stealthily. This script is immune from FetLife’s auto-ban because the way it works remains 100% invisible to FetLife.
For some reason, FetLife decided to start automatically banning accounts that they suspect use tools they disapprove of even if those tools make your FetLife experience more of what you want it to be. They do this by trying to detect add-ons that “crawl” their website, that is, tools that load many pages at once. FetLife A/S/L Search (Extended Edition) is undetectable by FetLife because it doesn’t load any pages you don’t. Unlike the many immitations of this script, FetLife A/S/L Search (Extended) does not crawl FetLife and so using it is completely safe.
If you’re still using the old, original version of this script or installed one that a lot of other folks copied, however, your account may have been banned for “crawling” even if you weren’t actually crawling. (FetLife’s detection system just makes a best-guess, they’re not exactly very sophisticated.) The good news is that if you email the FetLife carebears you might be able to convince them to reactivate your account. It’s important that you insist you were not using any unapproved tools to increase your chances of getting your account reactivated.
FetLife A/S/L Search (Extended Edition) also includes a “Classic (slow) search” mode. Using that mode is generally discouraged because the Extended mode is faster and safer. But if you do insist on using the old “crawler” search method, this script includes an “Online search speed: Wait X seconds per page” option that lets you control how quickly your search proceeds. The higher (more stealthy) you set this value, the safer your account, but the slower your searches will be.
Is this legal? Will I get in trouble for using this?
Still, in a trigger-happy legal environment where people eagerly sue over spilled milk, it’s zidovske seznamovacà aplikace pro iPhone hard to say. IANAL, but the way this script works is actually pretty simple: it just cooperates with other copies of itself! No part of this tool involves malicious hacking, cracking, or theft. The code for the script itself is public domain (it’s not even copyrighted), the information it uses is all fair-use, and the tool as a whole is what the sometimes trigger-happy people in suits call a “transformative work.” (Look it up.)