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

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[quote=jsteele]As the OP suggested, this discussion belongs in Website Feedback which is to where I've moved it.

The Explicit forum was a long-running thorn in my side. It was a constant source of problems. Since requiring registration, those problems have gone away. In terms of cost/benefit, administering the Explicit forum required more time and effort than most other forums. But, unlike other forums, I don't run advertisements there because it is against the terms of service of my advertisers. Even without running ads there, some advertisers won't run ads anywhere on DCUM simply because that forum is part of the site. So, it's a forum that requires extra effort with less (actually no) return. It just doesn't make a lot of sense for me to continue it like that.

When the forum was anonymous, it used to get about 250 posts a day. When we required registration, that number dropped to about 150 a day. That is still an active forum and more posts per day than many of our forums receive. But, the number started declining and hovered around 80 per day for a long time. Recently it went into a steep drop to about 10-20 per day. So, there is legitimacy in the argument that the forum is dead or nearly so. But, that doesn't change the fact that going back to anonymous still doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

There was a proposal for a volunteer moderator. In theory, this is not a bad idea but in practice I am not sure how it would work. It would require me giving admin level access to someone probably don't know and it is not clear how users would feel about another moderator. No moderator is every universally liked and I suspect a volunteer moderator would not remain popular for long. So, it is a can of worms I am reluctant to open.

People have opinions and I am not going to say one is better than the other. But, there are facts. Registering for an account is very easy. It really only requires an email address. A new Gmail address can be created easily so that the registration is not even linked to an identifiable email address. Logging in is easy and even easier in the new design if I ever roll it out again. Logging out is easy. All of this is a small hurdle to participate in the forum. That's factual.

It appears that many posters aren't willing to deal with even that minor hurdle. I respect their choice. However, I hope they will respect my choice not to resume responsibility for an even greater hurdle -- the problems of anonymous explicit forum -- when that will take me away from more important tasks and provide no return.

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