The follow up to the end

[LtBroccoli]

On my phone so can’t multi quote easily.

@Claire I understand your name could still be accessed by law enforcement. That’s a given. What I liked is that someone can’t find it from a popular website designed for that thing. That’s what I’m going for. I don’t want the average everyday person to be able to achieve that information such as students or members of a school board.

@LtBroccoli We will need something like discord or group email to communicate this transition. Can we do group pm here? That could work but it would be slower.

I see no reason to change the name or features of the board because that would kill all the great work @Claire put in. I’m thinking I might lower the reputation threshold for popular stories to 25 and make community favorites 50. Then adjust as the need arises.

Either of those methods work. I'm on Discord as well, I think the site allows group PM's but it's always good to have multiple routes of communication. If you guys could message me your emails or Discord handles, that should work.

[Blue]

@LtBroccoli
How about discussing this via a group chat on WhatsApp, Signal, or Telegram? It's quite easy to set up. We'd just need to exchange our phone numbers via PM.

[Neighbor]

(A few years ago - they hadn't made clear what the proposed 'interview' was about) There were 2 young women, older college age, and two local cops with pistols (holstered). They carefully explained that I wasn't under criminal investigation. The college girls were doing "a study" of whether people whose social media included "dark material", might possibly "morph" into a danger to younger family members or the community itself. The questions were never overly specific, but it was clear they were referencing my interactions with Ravish U. This was in front of half a dozen of my family members, to include my wife, a couple grown children, and their kids (a couple sub-teen). Then next day I removed my presence from Ravishu. My wife passed a few months ago, my biggest regret in our nearly 30 yrs of close and loving marriage, is that she died appearing to have doubts about me, introduced from that 'interview'.

Wish you well.

(Thought I had destroyed all my backups, but a couple months ago, I found an old 2013 backup of my then-collection of stories, and I proceeded to publish a couple of them here at the 'academy'.)

(PS. I had originally 'removed my account', and Lois reinstated it, because so much of the library of stories depended on my account, from my days/years as the librarian. I later went back into my account, and removed everything personal, leaving only the stories that I had published on behalf of Lois and so many others.)

[RapeU]

@LtBroccoli
How about discussing this via a group chat on WhatsApp, Signal, or Telegram? It's quite easy to set up. We'd just need to exchange our phone numbers via PM.

Sorry that’s a no from me to use those apps. I’m not saying that you would do this, but almost every time someone wants to move the conversation to those platforms it’s to try and scam.

[Blue]

@RapeU
Then you've had bad experiences. I've never had any problems.

What would you suggest as an alternative?

[Neighbor]

In the dying days of RavishU, I remember the cheerleaders trying to save it, and one effort was to try to start up a DISCORD CHANNEL. I was carefully following THAT, and was disappointed that it never took off.

[Blue]

I have no experience with Discord

[Claire]

If you want to talk with me via PM or Discord, I'm fine with that. But I won't participate in anything that requires us exchanging phone numbers.

[HumiliationInc]

I'm an economist and I'm currently writing my Ph.D. thesis. And I guess that most of you now think of inflation, unemployment, markets, interest rates, GDP or other economic buzzwords. And that is partially true, these are things that economists, in particular those specializing in macroeconomics, deal with. But what a modern economist primarily does is analysing and (mathematically) modelling incentive structures. What does that mean? An economist asks the question: What are the incentives for the people acting in a given environment and how do these incentives shape the outcome of the interaction between those people? And the most common environment that economists look at are markets. But that's not all.

This may partially explain our disagreement in the previous thread. My PhD training is in a social science discipline that sometimes has an uneasy allyship with economics and sometimes an antagonistic one. *lol* Looking back, I think there were some ontological disagreements we were having that were probably partially informed by that difference.

More to the discussion at hand, I think nobody can fault you for deciding to step away from running this forum. It's ultimately a labor of love that you put in with no ask of remuneration in return. There has been much discourse in these discussions about previous boards. I concede that I don't know much about their histories in the long-term. One thing I do recall about RavishU is it just had a huge userbase, the majority which probably didn't come close to interacting. There's going to be a certain amount of yield and melt with these sorts of platforms. But whether or not it's worth it from an administrative or personal investment standpoint is ultimately a qualitative judgment. I personally do like the community aspect of a board such as this. While I like the freedom of AO3, as others have said, it's more of an archive. You can't even DM anyone on there. And it's really geared more toward fanfiction. You can write stories about original characters and settings, but they don't get anywhere near the engagement compared to stories with an established fandom. I liked the community on TBV, but I didn't really love the board structure there. The community on RB always made me uncomfortable. On TBV, RU, KB, and here, it was always clear to me that people could separate fantasy from reality but the community on RB made those lines a lot more ambiguous in a way I really wasn't comfortable. I used to enjoy the mainstream movie forum on RB, but there was a moderator who was a huge ass to anyone who innocently broke a minor rule and it drove people off from posting content.

Totally empathize with everyone regarding the concern about real life intruding on online kink activity! I've often believed that it's possible to be "too easy to find," especially when those outside the niche can stumble upon you (another reason I don't love posting on AO3...there are a lot of people not into these niche tastes who may take it upon themselves to cause trouble). A few years ago, I posted an essay to DeviantArt about a piece of media I liked and had some weirdo write this puritan screed underneath it. It didn't bother me from a shame standpoint—I'm comfortable with my sexuality—but it definitely makes me uncomfortable to have some random stranger on the internet take that much interest in me. Nobody needs doxxed just for a fantasy-based hobby they engage in on the internet. So yeah, I totally understand people's reluctance to take up the legal responsibility mantel of running the site.

[RapeU]

In the dying days of RavishU, I remember the cheerleaders trying to save it, and one effort was to try to start up a DISCORD CHANNEL. I was carefully following THAT, and was disappointed that it never took off.

Discord CNC groups already exist, but they are risky because they technically violate Discord's TOS.

https://discord.com/safety/non-consensu ... -explainer

Non-Consensual Adult Intimate Media Policy Explainer

How to Avoid Violating This Policy
Do not post or share non-consensual sexual content as a whole — even as a joke
We understand consent can change at any time. If you do not have explicit and informed consent of the subject — do not post it. This includes sexual AI-generated media
If you find yourself in a server that is sharing this type of content, report it and consider removing yourself from the space

If someone wants to be legally responsible for a discord server, then by all means go for it. But I have a feeling if I'm the only one willing to be legally responsible for this forum which carries minimal risk, there's no chance someone is willing to be legally responsible for a discord server that would automatically violate their TOS.