FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) about Us
Version: 2008.01.13
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Our work
Content access, membership and financial support
Our work
What do you actually do to help animals?
We want to help animals and make the world a better place for animals by informing and educating as many people as possible about animals, their true nature, needs, interests and dignity as well as about offences against and ignorance of these needs, interests and dignity, as well as about the reasons and motivations behind such. We actually do that with all the personnel and material means at our disposal. Currently these are two active members in Switzerland, a dual-language Internet page and different leaflets which we distribute electronically in the internet and by hand at public events.
Why is the subject of sexuality such a dominant subject for you? Do you have a problem with your own sexuality?
No. Quite the contrary: Most other people, unfortunately often "animal conservationists" as well frequently have big unsolved problems with sexuality, even with their own. Often even a thorough, consistent sexual education is generally still lacking. Despite or perhaps even because of the more and more wide spread superficial presence of the subject in boulevard media for instance. Many people wrongly believe that their own sex life or the strong superficial presence of sex and sexuality in boulevard media would replace a serious sexual education and scientific tackling of the subject. But unfortunately that is not correct.
The unsolved problems which people have with sex and sexuality then unfortunately often also affect animals, the treatment and handling of the sexuality of animals and therefore also the protection and the dignity of animals very negatively. With "animal conservationists" this is especially bad and catastrophic, because these should realize a leader role for which they are not fit though, of which they unfortunately are mostly not even aware of.
As the subject of sexuality is just as important for animals, their protection and dignity as are other subjects, since nobody is currently dealing with it seriously except us and as we have less problems and reservations in the area of sexuality than wannabe and theoretical "animal conservationists", we can probably do much more for animals, their dignity and for animal protection in general in this difficult area than in other, simpler areas which are already dealt with very substantially and profitably by other animal protection organizations.
As we have only one single person at the moment which assembles content contributions for the Organization for Animal Dignity, Mark Schmid and as this person must also do all the internet work all by himself, unfortunately priorities must be set. Actually the subject of sexuality is already too much and too tedious to be dealt with by only one person alone. Working on other subjects which are just as important for animals, their protection and dignity therefore is currently simply not within our personnel possibilities. Not until we have more active and engaged helpers and members which are willing to help.
O.K., sexuality is an important subject even in connection with animals. But why do you have so much less reservations against this subject than others? Have you been brought up badly or are you sick, perverted, psychopaths or even dangerous?
Nothing of all that. Mark Schmid, the founder of the Organization for Animal Dignity indeed is an Asperger-Autist and therefore cares a little less than other people about his public image, about how he is perceived by other humans and about what other humans think about him (very much in contrast to animals!). This has nothing to do though with being brought up badly, being sick, perverted, a psychopath or even being dangerous.
The reason why we have less reservations with the subject of sexuality in connection with animals than other "animal conservationists", jurists, animal users, etc. is simply the fact that we, unlike they do not practice "animal protection" to polish up our public image, to satisfy our vanity, to increase our donations, to multiply and secure our jobs or to propagate our religious values. We practice animal protection to help animals, to make the world a better place for animals and to increase the respect for animals and their true, authentic dignity. Thereby we have a similarly high notion of animal protection as such as we have of animals themselves. - To really help animals and animal protection and not harm them by own interests, sacrifices must be made, especially also from us as animal conservationists. The satisfaction of own needs thereby, such as vanity, public respect and success or confirmation of one's own religion, are a luxury which, in the sense of a really serious animal protection, one must be able to do without. Unlike other "animal conservationists", jurists and animal users we are willing to do so. We are willing to do without all these things in the sense of the cause, animal protection. Others are not. That's why we have fewer reservations even with the difficult and tricky subject of sexuality in connection with animals than others. If that makes us more or less serious than others, you will have to decide for yourself.
Why do you insult women who ride on geldings? Is it because you just can't seem to score (get a woman) or what?
A very good question! - It considers the needs of involved people, in this case even animal conservationists and it does not leave sexuality aside! Superb!
If you can keep up this critical approach not only towards us (men), but also towards (other) women and other animal protection organizations, you can become a very valuable and good member with us. We can use such people very well!
To answer your question:
Women who ride create, with the egoistic satisfaction of their gender-specific need or their need founded in their sexuality to ride, a lot of totally unnecessary suffering, totally unnecessary, severe bodily mutilations and totally unnecessary degrading of highly developed mammals; horses. Other "animal protection" organizations do nothing against it, because they are dominated mostly by women, a few cowardly and vain men and their common interests. That's why someone else, someone who is more dedicated to the cause must make these mass, totally unnecessary severe offenses against animals here among us, directly in front of our own door, a subject. This someone is us, the Organization for Animal Dignity.
Why is the Organization for Animal Dignity so small and unknown?
Many people ask us why the Organization for Animal Dignity is so small and unknown, why we seem to be so "unprofessional", why people have never heard from us in the media, why we are not supported by celebrities and famous people and why not hundreds of scientists and researchers support us.
For the answers to these questions, please read the article:
Why is the Organization for Animal Dignity so small and unknown?
Content access, membership and financial support
Why can't I read / access all articles and content and what can I read for free?
Because some of our content is reserved for members only.
To find out what you can read and access for free and without being a member,
you will just have to try and see what happens because we do not have the
time to create an automated list, much less a hand made one, of which
content is currently available for non-members for free and which isn't.
Here's a hint though: Pages which cost something are always reserved for members
and will usually have a little, non-zero price displayed in their links in
navigation menus (but not inside texts).
Why did you create membership and why is some content reserved for members only?
Nobody can change the world single handedly or in one day. Neither can we.
If you ever tried telling an adult person who has owned animals
or worked with animals for 20 years or more, what he or she is doing
fundamentally wrong, you will know that this is a very hard task indeed.
That's why we need both a lot of people to help us educate and enlighten
others about animals and their dignity, as well as a lot of consistency
and patience.
The most important thing we need are people who ACTIVELY help and support
us, instead of just TALKING about it. There are literally millions of people,
in fact just about everybody, who will talk positively about animal protection,
who will say he or she supports animal protection or who will agree with at least
some of our goals. But there are only a handful of people who are willing to
put their deeds where their mouth is and actually let ACTIONS follow their
(lame) speech!
In other words: While there are a lot of people who agree with us or our goals
verbally and in speech, unfortunately there are only very few people who are
willing to really DO something about it and help us change the things which
are going wrong.
That's why we felt we need to give people who ACTIVELY support us, who are
ACTIVELY doing something about today's situation instead of just TALKING
about it, something in return! A recognition.
And since the only thing we
have to offer at the moment are our team work and the content of our webpage,
we decided to give those or at least parts of those, ONLY to such people
which support us. As a well-earned reward for their ACTIONS (in this case
their REAL support for our project instead of only their SPOKEN support).
As a side-effect, it also separates people who want to just TALK, people
who just want to CONSUME or be entertained, from people who REALLY want
to CHANGE something. We are currently interested only in the latter,
not the former.
What is your membership fee?
To reward people who support us ACTIVELY, we decided to have parts of our
webpage accessible only for members, people who help us bear at least the
financial costs of our project.
To make things fair both for poor and for wealthy people, we decided to let
everyone decide him- or herself how much membership fee he or she wants
to pay, as long as it is above a certain minimum which would cause us more trouble
to handle than benefit.
At the same time we wanted to be fair to people who voluntarily pay a high membership
fee and therefore give them a bigger acknowledgement in return than to people who
support us only with a minimal fee. For this reason we decided to fine tune our
webpages-for-members idea and give every membership page an individual price
(which varies depending on if someone is wealthy or poor).
So instead of just using membership fees to pay for our expenses, we decided to give
each member a Member Account and transfer the membership
fee he or she paid to Credits on that account. With those Credits, members can then
"buy" access to membership pages until the Credits on their
Member Account is used up. This way, everyone who helps support
our project financially not only gets something in return, but also gets more, depending on
how much he or she supported us with.
We hope very much that this system will give people who feel that donations are an unfair
means to finance a project because you get nothing in return and because costs are not
distributed justly, a motivation to support us and help us bear our costs at least
in the beginning.
So that's why some pages are reserved for members only: To specifically encourage
ACTIVE PARTICIPATION instead of EMPTY WORDS with an incentive system and to spread
the load on more than one (or too few) shoulder(s) on behalf of the longevity and
survival of the project.
Your membership fee reminds me of commercial pay-sites which are just trying to enrich themselves.
Why do you continue to hang on to it, what are your benefits of membership fees?
Our organization is in no way associated with or working together with
any kind of pay sites or commercial interests of any kind. We are strictly a
non-profit organization on behalf of animal protection.
We have a minimal membership fee because it does three things all at once for us
very conveniently:
-
It proves a person's will to ACTIVELY do something about the situation in which
animals find themselves today and to ACTIVELY support us in our
common goal to do something about it, instead of just TALKING and BRAGGING
or COMPLAINING about it.
It is a scientifically PROVABLE criterion for a person's dedication in our cause
and as such serves us as an indicator how much someone is interested in protecting
animals and working together with others to meet this goal.
If someone sends us money who does NOT support our goals or does not want to protect
animals, that's O.K. too. You never know, they might change.
It proves the person's intelligence and understanding, that changing the things
which go wrong with animals and their dignity today require a lot of team effort,
team work and power and that all these things ONLY come in member numbers, with a lot of
contributing and supporting people which work together as a team or at least
ACTIVELY support one common project.
It also proves the person understands that one big project with a lot of contributing
members has more power and abilities than several small projects with few members.
And last but not least, it proves the person's understanding, that a NEW animal
protection organization such as ours is indeed needed, because all the big existing
ones which would have the MOST power to change things, namely the HSUS, Peta, etc.,
are not only doing NOTHING, but in the areas of sexuality and dignity of animals,
even the EXACT OPPOSITE of what is in the interest of animals. Namely they promote
the senseless, unnecessary, mass sexual mutilation of animals without any regards
to their dignity, needs or interests whatsoever. This also includes the knowledge
that all existing animal protection organizations are blind, deaf
and totally IGNORANT to reason and cannot be changed from the inside or by
becoming a member with them. It includes the knowledge, that to change things,
a new animal protection organization such as ours is indeed required and no
amount of talking and arguing with existing organizations will suffice or
change anything.
It spreads the load of the financial costs of our project on as many
shoulders as possible. This is crucial for the longevity of the project.
Why is it crucial for the longevity of the project to spread the load of the financial costs on as many shoulders as possible?
For two reasons:
-
Money means power. Who pays says what's going to be done. The less
people pay for an animal protection organization with big donations, the
more that organization becomes dependent of those donators and in the
end represents ONLY and ALONE their will and interests.
That's why Mark Schmid, the founder EXPRESSLY DOES NOT and WILL NOT
pay for the costs of the Organization for Animal Dignity himself if
there is any way this can be avoided. If he would, that would mean a
very BIG danger that the organization which is also lead by him
represents ONLY HIS interests. That's exactly what we are trying to avoid
AT ALL COSTS!
This does not mean that Mark Schmid has not paid several hundred dollars
himself where the income was not sufficient.
If we could, we would base our ENTIRE funding on donations and contributions
made exclusively by animals only. But since animals don't have money, we must try
to spread or financial costs on as many human shoulders as possible.
-
If very few people or one person alone must do all the hard education work and also
pay for everything themselves, those few people are at risk of burning out much more
quickly than if they would have been supported. Especially because we make a strong effort
NOT to ignore the toughest subjects to deal with just because they are difficult and
unrewarding, but to get at them straight-on as is in animals' interests.
Since our goals are so ambitious and difficult to reach, being consistent
and patient are crucial for success. So we really want and NEED to treat our hardest
working members as good as possible and encourage them by taking as much work and load
off their shoulders as possible. The easiest thing to take off their shoulders are
the costs of the project. Everyone willing to support the project can help here,
without any social or any other skills needed or required.
What is my money used for if I send money to your Organization?
To pay for our expenses such hosting and domain name fees of our
webpage, advertisements, etc. In short, everything we deem necessary
to reach the Goal of our Organization.
What exactly do I get in return for paying a membership fee?
Most important of all, our respect and trust in you that you are willing to ACTIVELY
support us, not just TALK. This will earn you our will to work together with you to
reach our common goal. As a sign for this trust and respect you will be able to
access content and read articles reserved for members only, depending both on the size
of the membership fee you paid, as well as on your financial situation (which we hope you
will declare honestly).
Let's assume you paid only the minimal membership fee of 5.00
US-Dollars. This will give you 5.00 Credits on your
Member Account. Let's also assume that the average article has 3 pages.
If your personal financial situation is average, the price of an article page is, on average,
0.12 Credits. This means an average article with 3 pages will cost you, on average,
0.36 Credits.
So with 5.00 US-Dollars, you will be able to access
and read an average of over 13 articles before your Credits are depleted and your access
to member content which is not free is denied again.
This is an average price estimate for people in an average financial situation only.
We feel this is fair pricing because it will
give even people in an average financial situation a good look at our work for a very
moderate donation.
If your financial situation is below average, you will get further with 5.00 Credits, because
for you, that's a greater donation. If your financial situation is better than average, we expect
you to pay a higher membership fee because 5.00 US-Dollars
is really not a big donation for you. In that case you will not get as many articles to read as
someone who is poor.
Here's another example: If your financial situation is below average and you
pay us 20.- US-Dollars, that will give you access to an average of 111 articles
before your Credits are depleted.
We feel this system assures a high amount of financial justice (cost truth)
between members and their different capabilities to support us financially.
And we hope it will motivate people to support us which otherwise wouldn't.
How do I become a member and how can I send you money?
Quite simple: To become a member,
register
a Member Account and pay
a membership fee in the amount of your choosing, but not below
5.00 US-Dollars, because that creates too
much handling work for us. Make sure to notify us of your payment and your user-ID
so we can transfer your payment as Credits to your Member Account.
Then you can log in an use the Credits on your Member Account.
That's it.
Of course you can also make a donation without registering if you are not interested
in our members only content but still wish to support us.
For all payments please follow the instructions in: Donation and Payment Information
If you want to become an active member contributing more than money, please contact us after you at least once made a minimal deposit payment.
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