1. Adding a New Business

• 1

  Submit the Registration Form

  A business owner or community member fills out the "Register a Business" form. It requires public contact info, a description, and private owner emails used strictly for security alerts and validation.

• 2

  Email Verification

  Before the listing goes anywhere, the system sends an automated email to the provided Private Owner Email address. The submitter must click the secure link in their inbox to prove the email is real.

• 3

  Admin Review & Publishing

  Once verified, the submission is placed in the moderation queue for manual review. St. Joe Pride administrators review each listing to ensure it meets community standards and is fully affirming before publishing it live. If the source or authorization of a listing submission is unclear, St. Joe Pride board members will attempt to contact the business directly to confirm their intention to be listed. If we cannot establish confirmation, the submission will be declined.

2. Community-Driven Edits

To ensure the directory stays accurate, anyone can suggest an edit to a business's public listing. Here's how we prevent spam while empowering owners.

• 1

  Submitter Verification Loop

  A community member suggests a correction. To prevent spam, they must provide their own email address and click a verification link sent to their inbox. Only then is the edit processed.

• 2

  Business Owner Review Form & Timeout

  The system securely emails the Business Owner with a review link. The owner can load their interactive review page to compare the proposed changes side-by-side with original values, edit any details, and approve (or reject) the suggestion. If they do not respond within 9 days, reminders are sent, and the edit escalates automatically to the moderation team. Note: If the business has no owner contact email registered, the suggestion bypasses this step and goes directly to directory moderators for review.

• 3

  Final Moderation & Rollbacks

  To protect the directory's reputation, all owner-approved changes are sent to the St. Joe Pride Admin team for a final check. If an admin approves an edit that modifies sensitive contact info (like the business's private email or physical address), the system takes a secure snapshot and sends an "Undo Link" to the owner's old email address to prevent hijacking.

3. Annual Quality Control

• 1

  The 1-Year Checkup

  To prevent the directory from becoming a graveyard of closed businesses, every listing expires after 365 days.

• 2

  Automated Reminders

  When a listing is 30 days away from expiring, the system emails the business owner a "Reaffirmation Link". If they don't click it, they get reminders at 14 days and 3 days before expiration.

• 3

  One-Click Renewal

  If the owner clicks the link, their listing is instantly renewed for another year. If they ignore all reminders and the 365 days pass, the listing is automatically pulled from the site to keep our data fresh.

• 4

  Bounced Contact Protection

  To preserve directory validity, if a listing's registered owner contact emails are found to be invalid (resulting in a hard email bounce), the listing is immediately soft-deleted/expired early and system administrators are alerted to audit the business status.

4. Spam Protection & Community Safety

• 1

  Bot & Abuse Shielding

  We use Cloudflare Turnstile bot verification on all public listing registrations, edit suggestions, and community reports to block malicious spam submissions without using intrusive CAPTCHAs.

• 2

  Double Opt-In Reporting

  To report a negative business interaction, a user must provide an email and solve a Turnstile verification. The system sends them a secure confirmation link. The report only enters the administrator moderation queue after the user clicks the link to verify their email, preventing reporting system abuse.

• 3

  Direct Administrator Publishing

  Authorized directory administrators can publish vetted listings directly from their secure console, allowing trusted community organizations to be added without going through the standard public email verification process.

5. Feedback & Bug Reports

• 1

  Submit the Website Form

  Spotted a bug or have a suggestion? Open the "Submit Feedback" form in the footer, select your submission type, fill in your contact details, and describe the issue or idea.

• 2

  Direct GitLab Issue Creation

  To ensure bug reports and suggestions are tracked and actioned, submissions are processed securely through our backend API which communicates directly with the GitLab REST API.

• 3

  Confidentiality Guaranteed

  To protect your privacy, all issues created from the feedback form are flagged as confidential on GitLab. Submitter details (names and emails) are only visible to St. Joe Pride project maintainers.

6. Open Source & Transparency

• 1

  Community Auditable Codebase

  We believe in absolute transparency when it comes to the safety and security of our community directory. The entire platform codebase is open source and hosted publicly on GitLab.

• 2

  Review Our Implementation

  If you are interested in the technical details, the database schema, security recovery loops, or serverless configurations, you are welcome to inspect or audit our system at gitlab.com/meec-sjp/rainbowdirectory.