Mission Goals
The SPARC Web Site is a non-profit organization with one primary goal, which is to ensure that children of divorce have access to both parents, regardless of marital status.

To accomplish this, we have several specific secondary goals, which include:

• assisting non-custodial parents (especially fathers) in obtaining fair and equitable custody arrangements;
  
  
• disseminating information on Parenting Evaluations (also called Custody Evaluations);
  
  
• raising awareness of issues that fathers and non-custodial parents face.
  
  

Additional Goals
SPARC also provides aid, support, and assistance to fathers and their families. In addition, we work to promote gender equality in Divorce and Custody issues. SPARC recognizes the value of fatherhood and supports the idea of fathers as custodial parents. SPARC's goal is equality in divorce and custody issues, not dominance. Please don't confuse being "pro-father" with being "anti-mother". The two aren't the same, and SPARC is not "anti-mother".

Advertising Policy
In addition to our Professional Services Directory, SPARC accepts a limited amount of paid advertising to help cover our expenses. Regardless of advertising, we're obligated to no one for our content, and are free to post whatever information we feel is appropriate and/or useful. Most of the material on the SPARC site is information that has been learned the hard way by others, including the SPARC staff. We aim to give you the straightest and most "to-the-point" information and assistance that we can.

Content & Submissions
We get our material (and our ideas for material) from a variety of sources, such as newspapers, books and magazines, scientific studies, other web sites, and so on. Some material comes in via e-mail, provided by visitors, or is found on other discussion forums and message boards. We also rely heavily on our personal experiences and those of the participants and moderators who use the Fathers Forum message boards. We try to see what questions come up repeatedly, then we look into writing a document to cover that particular issue.

Whenever possible, we credit articles unless the source is unknown (as is sometimes the case with material sent in by e-mail). If you know of an article on the SPARC site that is incorrectly credited, or you believe an article on the SPARC site violates a copyright, please .

If you have material you think would be useful to others and would like to have it posted on the SPARC site, us and we'll more than likely find a spot for it.

Donations
Sure, we could probably force ourselves to accept a contribution to help pay for the costs associated with our ISP and our server. $25.00 will pay for approximately one month of service on our web host. If you want to send a donation you may send one via PayPal.com to "sparc@deltabravo.net" or send a check or money order payable to "SPARC/LDM" to following address:

What we'd really appreciate is if you'd mention the SPARC site to fathers and non-custodial parents in need, other websites, award-bestowing groups and anyone else you think might be able to make use of the information here.

Product Referral & Endorsement
SPARC does not recommend or endorse any specific product, service, or firm, unless it's listed on our site and has the words "'We Endorse..." next to it. If anyone claims differently, they're lying. Let us know so we can sue 'em for a kabillion dollars and retire early.

Discrimination
SPARC doesn't discriminate on the basis of race, religion, sexual orientation or gender. As part of the SPARC Site Policy, discrimination on these grounds will not be tolerated.

No Attorney-Client Relationship
Use of this site does not constitute an attorney-client relationship; in matters of litigation you should always consult a competent attorney. Although we make every attempt to ensure that the information presented on the SPARC page is accurate, we cannot take any responsibility for anything posted here, and nothing posted here is intended to take the place of legal advice from an attorney. But you probably already knew that. If you didn't, please read our official Disclaimer and Acceptable Use Policy. You can also view the Terms and Conditions for usage of the SPARC site here: Terms and Conditions. Please note that the opinions and information expressed on the SPARC site are the product of thousands of real life experiences and are not an attempt to proffer legal advice.

Site Violations & Banning
Users who violate the SPARC Site Policy can and will be banned at the sole discretion of the SPARC Site operators. Users who violate this policy may or may not be given warning before they are banned from the SPARC site.

"Offensive Content"
If you find something offensive on this website, please accept our apologies in advance. (Not that we're going to change anything just because you don't like it, but it's not our goal to offend anyone.)

Site Identity
SPARC uses standard colors and fonts to achieve a unified "look and feel" across the web entire site. Our standard colors are mostly shades of gray, with Hex "#F1F1F1" as the main color. If you don't know what that means, don't worry about it.
For fonts, we use "Verdana" and "Arial" primarily. Verdana is a friendly, compact, and readable font, similar to "Tahoma" and the basic Macintosh dialog-box fonts. Arial (a bastardized variant of Helvetica) is used for headlines and other large-font text needs. If you don't have Verdana available to you on your PC, we strongly suggest you download it from Microsoft and install it- the SPARC site may not look quite right if you don't have it.

Other Stuff
Do NOT disassemble; no user serviceable parts inside. Use in a well ventilated area. Batteries not included. If surface dulls, dust with a damp cloth and allow to dry; do NOT use abrasive cleaners. If nausea persists blame it on Pestilence and consult your doctor or contact your local poison control center. Some assembly required. Do not use while bathing or sleeping. No animals were injured in the creation of this document. Contents are biodegradable. Made with 100% recycled electrons. Reader of this document assumes all property/personal damage inflicted upon themselves and/or other individuals/objects in the past/present/future. Do not look directly at the sun, as this may cause permanent retinal damage. FCC compliance is required before operating this unit, please consult the User's Manual for further instructions. Complies with TM-071074, and 18D-PMTRE-DR.

The SPARC Message Board system is powered by DCForum+, a fast, flexible message board system. DCForum+ is extremely configurable and very secure, and is written in PHP with a mySQL backend. DCForum+ is designed so that it is virtually impossible to corrupt the message base, even under heavy usage with dozens or even hundreds of users posting simultaneously. DCForum+ features email validation, avatars, editing of previous posts, completely configurable "look and feel", and a host of other options. We would recommend DCForum+ highly to anyone who needs a powerful interactive-message system. DCForum+ is a product of DC Scripts.


The SPARC Search Engine by

This site uses the Xavatoria Indexed Search Engine, by Fluid Dynamics. This is an "indexed" search engine, which means that searches are performed on a special compressed index file created by compiling all of the text in the pages on the SPARC website. Indexed search engines are more difficult to implement than the common "simple search" engines, but they provide lightning fast searches. The Xavatoria search engine also incorporates a web interface, so it can be easily configured and/or managed from any browser.


The 'Printable Page' function by William Bontrager at www.willmaster.com.

This handy little CGI script grabs a web page and strips all the color tags out of it, leaving a nice black & white page that comes out nicely on any printer. This is also a big benefit for FAX machines, which often have memory and printing issues with colored backgrounds. We highly recommend Mr. Bontrager's 'Master PFP' script for serving up printer friendly pages, rather than making and hosting two different versions of every page on your website.


The SPARC Alert List and TGB's Newsletter are driven by News Wizard 6.5 from www.ulices.com.

News Wizard 6.5 is a powerful, full-featured email list and newsletter management package that features anti-spam email-validation, online editing of subsciber lists, and numerous configuration options. Suitable for very small to very large email lists, News Wizard 3.0 is robust and flexible, yet still easy to use.


Banner & Ad management software from

SPARC accepts advertising from a variety of sources, including companies and individual advertisers. To manage and track the different clients and banner sources, we use AdvertisementManager©, an industrial-strength package that is capable of handling unlimited clients, banners, ad campaigns, and 'zones' (specific areas on the SPARC site). AdvertisementManager's clean interface and logically arranged forms make it easy to configure and operate. If you need powerful, full-featured software to manage advertising and banners, AdvertisementManager would be an excellent choice.

SPAM Filtering by DSPAM

All email entering the SPARC system is screened and filtered by DSPAM, an open-source project by Jonathan Zdziarski from NuclearElephant.com. DSPAM is a very fast, very flexible spam-screening system that catches spam and 'quarantines' it before it gets to your email Inbox. Because it's an adaptive system that 'learns', it gets more and more effective with time. We highly recommend DSPAM as a powerful and easy-to-use solution to spam. It works!