Welcome to the site, again. 
For the last 15 years, I have wanted to bring a website/forum where I could provide information about service dogs and to a lesser extent the other types of assistance animals. I have been running this site for a few years now and I think I have done a decent job at providing information, much of which I have written up myself, along with good articles I have found during my never-ending research. Currently, SDA consists of several thousands of pages and several hundred page views a day. Not bad for such a niche site. I am happy with it.
One of the things I grew into was adding services to the site that I thought would be helpful for not only those that were already an established service dog team but also those that are just learning about what service dogs and assistance dogs might be able to do for them. With that in mind, I added the ability for the users to create their own blog and our article system where I (and any member) could add articles that were easily searchable for everyone to access. Currently, we have around 11 addons for our users free access.
It was also important to me to make this all free. So much on the net is put behind paywalls, I understand why, running sites can be expensive, but it hurts those that may be looking for information only to turn away after being denied access. So, SDA is free though we do ask if our users want to add to our content that they register. Again that is free and we (I) do not sell member information. Simply it is the only real way to keep the bots and spammers at bay. When I did allow non-members to post I had A LOT of inappropriate content, so had to stop that by requiring registrations, and a few tools under that to stop the smarter bots.
The only requirement we have to fully access our site, meaning adding your own content, is to take 2 minutes and register.
Some of the addons we have here can be confusing to navigate when the user wishes to add their own material to. That's why this area has been put up. I am going to attempt to put up some "HowTos" that can help you figure it all out. I hope that it is helpful.
For the last 15 years, I have wanted to bring a website/forum where I could provide information about service dogs and to a lesser extent the other types of assistance animals. I have been running this site for a few years now and I think I have done a decent job at providing information, much of which I have written up myself, along with good articles I have found during my never-ending research. Currently, SDA consists of several thousands of pages and several hundred page views a day. Not bad for such a niche site. I am happy with it.
It was also important to me to make this all free. So much on the net is put behind paywalls, I understand why, running sites can be expensive, but it hurts those that may be looking for information only to turn away after being denied access. So, SDA is free though we do ask if our users want to add to our content that they register. Again that is free and we (I) do not sell member information. Simply it is the only real way to keep the bots and spammers at bay. When I did allow non-members to post I had A LOT of inappropriate content, so had to stop that by requiring registrations, and a few tools under that to stop the smarter bots.
The only requirement we have to fully access our site, meaning adding your own content, is to take 2 minutes and register.
Some of the addons we have here can be confusing to navigate when the user wishes to add their own material to. That's why this area has been put up. I am going to attempt to put up some "HowTos" that can help you figure it all out. I hope that it is helpful.
