It's really a shame about what happened to the explicit forum

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's gross anyway. Bunch of perverts.

Sorry you hate sex so much.

See how people are in explict. No thanks, narrow minded.

I don't know how you expect people to react to being called gross and a bunch of perverts. But, regardless of my feelings about the cost/benefit of the forum, the posters there were and are among the nicest and most supportive users of the website. Most of the problems were caused by the anonymous posters who are no longer posting. I know that registration is kryptonite to many of you, but I guarantee that you will get far more useful advice with much less snark or judgement in the explicit forum than the non-explicit.

From your statement above you said they attacked, stalked and asked for police involvement.

The ones who caused those problems were anonymous posters. The users who logged in caused almost zero problems (it would be zero were it not for one user).

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's gross anyway. Bunch of perverts.

Sorry you hate sex so much.

See how people are in explict. No thanks, narrow minded.

I don't know how you expect people to react to being called gross and a bunch of perverts. But, regardless of my feelings about the cost/benefit of the forum, the posters there were and are among the nicest and most supportive users of the website. Most of the problems were caused by the anonymous posters who are no longer posting. I know that registration is kryptonite to many of you, but I guarantee that you will get far more useful advice with much less snark or judgement in the explicit forum than the non-explicit.

OP here. Thank you to Jeff and others for continuing the discussion in Website Feedback.

To be clear I am not criticizing Jeff's handling of the issue. Faced with the same issues and headaches I would have done something too. Nor am I criticizing the regulars in the explicit forum, certainly not calling them names.

What about doing the opposite, banning usernames, and thereby protecting people from others and from themselves? The stalking that you mentioned is not ok and would be eliminated if usernames were eliminated.

A username is kryptonite for most DCUM users not because we're computer illiterate and don't realize how easy it is to set it up using a throwaway gmail address but because we don't want to interact on the internet in that way. If you imposed usernames for all of the forums you would see the same big drop in traffic as you saw in explicit. Hardly anyone uses them voluntarily. Presumably your intuition is the same hence you don't require usernames for the rest of the site. In every 10 anonymous posters probably 1 is a troll and 9 are people who just don't want the exposure of a username. That's my guess, you may have the actual stats.

Anyway thanks for DCUM and all you do to keep it going! I have zero complaints about the rest of the site.

[jsteele]

The problem with usernames is that if you post about your child's school in the schools forum and then post about your house in the real estate forum, and post about your job in the jobs forum and about your spouse in the relationship (non-explicit) forum, eventually someone can put together the pieces of the puzzle and figure out who you are. But, if you have a username that is only used for one forum, the chances of that are much lower. Theoretically, you might describe a particular sexual activity that is so unique, that anyone who has participated in it with you would instantly know your identity, but that is a real outlier of an example.

The primary users of the explicit forum would object strongly to banning usernames because that would prevent them from seeding and receiving private messages.

[Anonymous]

I miss the lighthearted banter and all the crazy topics.

[Anonymous]

Are there any ad networks that you can use to make money in the explicit forum? Maybe that might make it worth the effort.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:Are there any ad networks that you can use to make money in the explicit forum? Maybe that might make it worth the effort.

I looked into that and those ad networks are so scummy that I don't want to be associated with them. If someone is looking for a good business idea, they should consider setting up a high-end, classy, adult advertising network.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:IMO, the explicit forum should be deleted anyway. I never felt it belonged on a mother's site where we discuss our children, schools, laundry detergent etc. We can discuss plenty in the relationships forum regarding our sex life without having to go into explicit detail. I vote be rid of it altogether.

Sex is perhaps the one thing I do not post on here, at all, but I can well see the need for an explicit forum. Granted, the few times I gamboled over to explicit it did seem pretty scuzzy (sorry, Jeff - some of those thread topics were gross, especially when you read the titles one after another), but come on. There are lots of things regarding sex that might need more words than would be allowable in Relationships. Just because we tend to be mothers doesn't mean we're asexual or only sexual in ways acceptable on Lifetime. I don't like the forum, so my winning solution has been: don't go to that forum.