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I recently ran into an old firend who I had not seen in like 25 years. Our paths crossed several times in life, starting when we were both kids. We were patients of the same pediatric urologist whose specialty was dealing with boys with genital issues. The good doctor hosted swim parties for his patients with gential issues which were held at a private swim club with an indoor pool. Parents were encouraged to bring their sons to this nude swim party.

The premise of course was to make us aware that we were not unique in our individual situations, and that there were others out there like us. As a result of those parties , I was much more comfortable with myself and actually met a few boys who lived near enough that we became good friends.

My friend I ran into was in a worse situation than me , he was the victim of a bad circumcision, performed by a rabbi, it became infected, and after several weeks of in hospital treatment most of his penis and both testicles were removed. This all happening before he was even a month old. When we met back then, he was likely my first crush. I just could not stop thinking about the handsome red headed boy. Of course at that point in life, the idea of anything sexual had never come up, I just kept thinking about him.

Once the parties were a thing of the past we didn't see each other for a number of years, and then one night met again in a gay club. We became friends, and he was a great support to me when my partner was killed in th late 80's. I moved away and as happens we just sort of lost touch. It was really great to re-connect, and hopefully we will stay in touch now.

We took a short break from life and had a coffee to catch up. We reminised about those swim parties, and both expressed wonder at where the others were. The doc opened those events to boys 8 to 16, and attendance was usually in the range of 30-40 kids. I never see much of any of that group, although I do know where a few of them are. By far the largest number were castrated due to undescended testicles.

My friend said he had explored some of the sites devoted to eunuchs and other genital issues, but found that he felt he did not fit in. As a guy who takes T and wants to be sexually active, the idea of being asexual was too foreign. He said he also feels uncomfortable with the whole master/slave thing.

So the question I pose here is where are those guys from my childhood? There were a fair number but they seem to have vanished. How many here have some root in a gential issue from childhood? What can we do draw these now long experienced with genital issues people into places like the Archive? Their input in forums could be invaluable.

Raymar

Too bad your friend doesn't come here. I know there is a lot of BS to wade through at times from those that are not eunuchs, but I stick around these forums specifically to connect and make friends with my eunuch brothers no matter if it was voluntary or involuntarily that they become such.

I'd be curious about his interactions with others given that he's gay like myself. Especially since it seems he's 3/4 of the way to where I want to be.

--LT

LT,

My friend has always seemed to have very little issue with getting a date , and keeping them as a b/f. Admittedly it takes a man with unique tastes, but there never seems to be a shortage of those around. He says he has visited the Archive multiple times and as you know occasionally the most active threads are subjects that might put off those who have not seen the whole picture of the site.

When I first joined, there were times when I questioned why I kept returning. Seemed often that there were quite a few really disturbed people posting.

I am here and in other Places to not only meet and be-friend other eunuchs, but to try to counsel those who for whatever reason are heading in that direction. Helping someone to overcome any fears and act in either direction is to me very rewarding. The idea of someone going ahead and rushing into castration only to truly regret it disturbs me, so I try to be a balanced voice , and an advocate of knowledge, so that no one makes a drastic mistake.

The real purpose of posting this thread is to question where those who like me came into this world with some genital issue or developed one early in life are? For me, thankfully I had that interaction with other similar kids, so it helped me be stronger, but once that ended I was on my own for a long time. Finding out there were still others out there though sites like the Archive was a massive relief. It was also truly refreshing to be able to discuss this with non-judgemental people.

Raymar

I have been hoping that someone would jump in here with some ideas for us to explore. How do we attract and retain members who will both benefit from the content of the Eunuch Archive and who will stay around to provide valuable advice for new members? That was the topic of much discussion at the last MoM and will probably be a major subject again this year.

While the EA currently has nearly 12,000 registered members, most seem to be here primarily for the fiction. Few posts on the discussion boards are read by more than a handful of the registered members. Eunuch Central seems to be the most frequently accessed board, but even a thread such as "Low T without symptoms" (first posted on July 2nd) has been opened only 376 times. "Castration and Medical Ethics" (posted on April 18th) has only been opened 780 times and, since there have been 7 replies to the original post, some of those 780 are likely to be from the same individuals going back to read updates and a majority of the readers may not be registered members at all.

The goal of the Eunuch Archive is to make it a central information and support source for all things related to castration. Our stated purpose is to provide a safe and friendly community for all those interested in "testicles, testosterone, castration, eunuchs and related topics". We know that there are a great many more individuals out there, but need to find better ways to find them and to provide any information that they may want or need.

We know that the fiction is a valuable piece of what we try to accomplish. Both the writing and reading of stories can be therapeutic. A comparison of the themes of the stories to the life histories of those who took the survey that was posted on the Archive finds that, not only are the same themes reflected, but that the frequency of occurrence of those themes is quite similar in the life histories and the stories. (The one major exception is the topic of a paper that we hope to publish soon and will make available as soon as it is.) Several members have written about how much the stories have helped them to work through various issues that they had.

After the last MoM we added some new discussion boards for topics that we thought might be useful to members. The set of Health Forums was completely revised to reflect what we thought were the major topics of importance.

What should be our next steps to make the Eunuch Archive more useful?

JesusA wrote: Sat Jul 26, 2014 5:54 am I have been hoping that someone would jump in here with some ideas for us to explore....How do we attract and retain members who will both benefit from the content of the Eunuch Archive and who will stay around to provide valuable advice for new members?... Few posts on the discussion boards are read by more than a handful of the registered members. ...

The goal of the Eunuch Archive is to make it a central information and support source for all things related to castration. Our stated purpose is to provide a safe and friendly community for all those interested in "testicles, testosterone, castration, eunuchs and related topics"...

Maybe start a topic entitled "checking in" where former regular contributors might be compelled to leave messages from time to time as to how they are doing in their lives? Having personally learned so much from fellow members of this site, I feel that I have an obligation to contribute my ongoing experiences to keep the discussion going for other visitors. I should also mention that a some of my correspondence is also through private messaging with other members, some of them who rarely contribute publicly anymore, which doesn't appear on your statistics so I imagine that the site continues to benefit more people like me than your research might indicate.

So you have asked for comments, I will, but I want all my friends here to understand that the comments are based on my experiences and the base question here of "where are they"

The technical articles are excellent, they more than allow individuals to gain an understanding of the consequences of castration. That is the most positive part of this site! The redesign last year was a good effort to allow individuals to easily interact with content most reverent to their situation. It reflects a very positive effort to be inclusive and show society in general that there can be places were all of society contributes.

In my opinion it is an utter and total failure in providing the average women an opportunity to explore the ideas and consequences of castration in a safe non-judgmental environment. Most average women never get past the opening title. They are not interested in the implied Dom to Sub relationship. If fact it is a huge turn off. I have had 5 average women I know go to the site with me and none has wanted to continue after reading the title.

If average women do not want to read past the title and I believe most str8 men will realize that , those two groups are immediately lost to us. This is a wound of our own making.

Taking clues from two different sources, the old castration groups at yahoo before they were banned, and modern dating sites we would need to make these types of changes before any progress in repeated viewership among the average population would occur.

We need three levels of members ship and the ability to filter all content based on those levels.

A: virtual member, you have registered.

B: verified member, you have provided to somebody at this site proof of how you really are, your address, your contact information including a phone number and reserve phone numbers in case the original information is changed. All this information would be verified on a repeating basis.

C: In person member, not only verified but has attended a MOM or similar approved gathering.

The new member, to senior member rating are good but they would be in addition to this membership level. As the number of posts are helpful but how this does not rate the individual for accuracy of responses or usefulness of the information.

A women, moderators and "women friendly" closed area of the site. Our society has so abused women about sexuality the vast majority even in the faceless namelessness of the internet deeply fear reading much less discussing issues like male penis size, performance or and especially castration. If women do not have a safe place to visit males that do visit this site cannot discuss what they have read or discussed here. I look at this as "if I don't like the site, the information is also bad."

Most women come here either as a lark, or they have a question regarding a relationship. Those relationships would tend to be very long term. These women would be trying to understand if there is an option to various situations that might make sense for their relationship. Yes there are women that just want men castrated. My friends refer to these as "man-haters." Almost the total opposite from the women trying to solve a problem.

In the old yahoo groups two very large, very successful groups were 100% moderated message boards. All posts were reviewed before they were displayed and believe me hundreds of messages on daily and weekly basis were just trashed as inappropriate depending on traffic. The moderators had threads that asked and answered questions, seeding the field, to reduce the timidity of the first post. These were not lies and the login was attributed to the moderators, but it showed the process and the type of answers that questions created.

Unfortunately society has other real problems about acceptance. Many straight men would not be comfortable in the slightest getting advice from gays. Where much of the best advice I have received from this site has been from caring, mature, reasoning men. To many in these long term relationships that is a non-starter. "Honey I got this great advice about my prostrate problem off the web. Who is it from dear? Oh a gay dude on a castration site! " really, ya think. They probably are unaware of or have no social contact with the gay community.

Our strength is our acceptance and our diversity, to reach the masses we must present information in a form they feel comfortable involving themselves in.

I thought about flaming every post in the ladies and gentlemen's forum that has material that would cause women to be turned off. I told myself don't bother this site is not ready to make a fundamental change in even this area. So maybe now?

I love the fiction archive I read stories there on occasion. I go to the chat room rarely, most of my experiences there have not been worthwhile. The threads in general are ok. I get a lot of information from them. Unfortunately I end up skipping many posts that don' t apply to the subject or are troll like in there wording.

" Those that want to give it up for them" I doubt many want to give it up, I believe over a considerable length of time, some men decide that masculinity is not just intercourse and for a variety of reasons in their relationship moving forward testosterone is more a negative than a positive. Their spouses although concerned about all the changes this decision would create, choose to be supportive and see if this is an improvement (chemical trial) and if it is, become supportive of a permanent change. (Medically safe castration.) Our technical articles support this model, the web site message boards do not, in my opinion.

Cleancut01 (imported) wrote: Mon Jul 28, 2014 12:24 pm The technical articles are excellent, they more than allow individuals to gain an understanding of the consequences of castration. That is the most positive part of this site! The redesign last year was a good effort to allow individuals to easily interact with content most reverent to their situation. It reflects a very positive effort to be inclusive and show society in general that there can be places were all of society contributes.

In my opinion it is an utter and total failure in providing the average women an opportunity to explore the ideas and consequences of castration in a safe non-judgmental environment. Most average women never get past the opening title. They are not interested in the implied Dom to Sub relationship. If fact it is a huge turn off. I have had 5 average women I know go to the site with me and none has wanted to continue after reading the title.

Opening title? You lost me here... care to explain more?

Oh, and you know, you make point of non-judgmental environment, yet you judge:

Cleancut01 (imported) wrote: Mon Jul 28, 2014 12:24 pm "Honey I got this great advice about my prostrate problem off the web. Who is it from dear? Oh a gay dude on a castration site! " How nice.

If average women do not want to read past the title and I believe most str8 men will realize that, those two groups are immediately lost to us. This is a wound of our own making.

[Citation needed], I mean seriously - what title, and what is wrong with it?

Cleancut01 (imported) wrote: Mon Jul 28, 2014 12:24 pm We need three levels of members ship and the ability to filter all content based on those levels.

A: virtual member, you have registered.

B: verified member, you have provided to somebody at this site proof of how you really are, your address, your contact information including a phone number and reserve phone numbers in case the original information is changed. All this information would be verified on a repeating basis.

C: In person member, not only verified but has attended a MOM or similar approved gathering.

You got to be kidding (the B point) - why the hell have this information on the web? For hackers/haters, etc to get and harass you? For some scam (I would not give any site a phone number, unless it is absolutely needed for the service, I think many think the same way). For some government to pressure the site owners to divulge this information. No, thank you. We don't need one more face<censored>book. Oh, and how will you verify this information? passport scan? In what language? Who would check it? what stops the person from just photoshopping it?

Cleancut01 (imported) wrote: Mon Jul 28, 2014 12:24 pm A women, moderators and "women friendly" closed area of the site.

So what stops someone from registering as female? Or should we limit access to the B category (oh, ain't it the ASL on the internet?).

Cleancut01 (imported) wrote: Mon Jul 28, 2014 12:24 pm Our society has so abused women about sexuality the vast majority even in the faceless namelessness of the internet deeply fear reading much less discussing issues like male penis size, performance or and especially castration. If women do not have a safe place to visit males that do visit this site cannot discuss what they have read or discussed here. I look at this as "if I don't like the site, the information is also bad."

Most women come here either as a lark, or they have a question regarding a relationship. Those relationships would tend to be very long term. These women would be trying to understand if there is an option to various situations that might make sense for their relationship. Yes there are women that just want men castrated. My friends refer to these as "man-haters." Almost the total opposite from the women trying to solve a problem.

"You don't like the site, the information is also bad

". Sorry, not catering to stupid. Any information is helpful, and it should be cross-referenced and checked. If you trust single source, without checking, on the internet, well... I have some beach-front house in Goby for sale. Cheaply. Cash only.

And it does not sound like a "women trying to solve a problem" to me. More like "if I do not hear what I want to hear, the site is bad".

Cleancut01 (imported) wrote: Mon Jul 28, 2014 12:24 pm In the old yahoo groups two very large, very successful groups were 100% moderated message boards. All posts were reviewed before they were displayed and believe me hundreds of messages on daily and weekly basis were just trashed as inappropriate depending on traffic. The moderators had threads that asked and answered questions, seeding the field, to reduce the timidity of the first post. These were not lies and the login was attributed to the moderators, but it showed the process and the type of answers that questions created.

Who gets to decide what is a valid message? Oh, and premoderation itself is a huge turnoff for posting, at least for me.

And the worst thing is that it requires moderator attention 24/7 to achieve reasonable latency, unlike the "report post" function, that works on as needed basis.

Cleancut01 (imported) wrote: Mon Jul 28, 2014 12:24 pm Unfortunately society has other real problems about acceptance. Many straight men would not be comfortable in the slightest getting advice from gays. Where much of the best advice I have received from this site has been from caring, mature, reasoning men. To many in these long term relationships that is a non-starter. "Honey I got this great advice about my prostrate problem off the web. Who is it from dear? Oh a gay dude on a castration site! " really, ya think. They probably are unaware of or have no social contact with the gay community.

The one who wants to solve problem seeks how to solve it. The one who does not seek excuses. And you can bring the horse to water, but you can not make it drink.

So now we have enflamed posts regarding the Archive!!!! That was not the purpose of this thread, but rather it was a question as to why those who were born unique or became so early in life seem not to participate here.

Without question the best site on the internet for the person with an interest in castration or possibly other genital changes is the Archive. We have accurate medical information, and many many personal stories posted here that answer real questions from real people.

In addition for those who only seek fantasy there is the fiction Archive. There stories can be found to fit almost any taste with regard to castrattion and other sexual activities.

The fact that the number of women who participate here has a great deal to do with the fact that women don't have testicles, and further men who are seeking castration who are straight tend to not refer them to the site. Frankly if a woman would be totally turned away by the main page, then she certainly is not a candidate to be a partner to a man who is castrated. She is also likely not into the whole fem dom thing.

Changes have been being made over the last few years to attempt to make the site more user friendly and in addition to better catalogue the focus of the forums. The work that has been done is not something anyone has been paid for, this is an all volunteer force giving their time to help anyomous people from around the world.

The idea of collecting personal data to "improve" member ship is totally absurd. Why would any sane person expose their "real life" to scrutiny from God knows what source with a connection to a site that is about subjects that much of society feels is at best strange or downright insane? While i am quite openly a eunuch both in real life and on the internet , I would NEVER provide any such site with address and other vital location information.

As for the gat /straight question, well, these days more and more people are coming out , and being open about their sexuality. I would say it is very very unlikely that any computer literate person in the world has not had some form of exposure to gay people. To suggest that women would find flaws in advice and counsel that a straight guy gets from a gay man is patently absurd. If anything women have a perception that gay men know better how to please a man , and as such many seek advise from their gay friend about their boyfriend/ husband.

Finally , I will re-state the purpose of this thread was to question why those who have long been sexually unique seem to not participate here. Their insights could be invaluable if we can figure out how to reach them and draw them in.

Raymar

I, too, am open about being a eunuch. Did nt hide the info from famly when beginning and do not try to hide it from friends. BUT, I don't think other data should be required for membership either.

I have been watching the board for the last year and it would seem that the number of posts has declined but I also know that were still getting the hits, meaning that people are at least dropping in.

It would seem that the number of posts over all the threads has literally vanished sense we closed the political section and I am not suggesting that we bring it back but it did seem to get people to post even if not on that thread.

I am open for suggestions as it is a bit discouraging when you come in and not one new post has been made where a year ago there were several posts each day under several different areas of the board.

I know this is a concern of those of us who monitor this site and we will be having our annual meeting in Aug at the MOM event where I am sure this topic will be addresses.

One of the things that you our members could do is make suggestions of what you would like to see, remember be polite when you make that suggestion.

Best of all come to the "MOM" and address this first hand.

I will be doing a conference call from Seaview, Hawaii.

Aloha

River

Riverwind (imported) wrote: Tue Jul 29, 2014 5:29 am One of the things that you our members could do is make suggestions of what you would like to see, remember be polite when you make that suggestion.

I am sorry, I was out of line (on the politeness front).

Points made still stand, though.

Some of us get inflamed more easily than others.

fhunter wrote: Tue Jul 29, 2014 5:43 am I am sorry, I was out of line (on the politeness front).

Points made still stand, though.

I must apologize as I was making reference to nobody just in general about what the political board once was.

Then there is of course "P" who does get inflamed.

River

raymar2020 (imported) wrote: Mon Jul 28, 2014 8:19 pm So now we have enflamed posts regarding the Archive!!!! That was not the purpose of this thread, but rather it was a question as to why those who were born unique or became so early in life seem not to participate here.

Without question the best site on the internet for the person with an interest in castration or possibly other genital changes is the Archive. We have accurate medical information, and many many personal stories posted here that answer real questions from real people.

In addition for those who only seek fantasy there is the fiction Archive. There stories can be found to fit almost any taste with regard to castrattion and other sexual activities.

The fact that the number of women who participate here has a great deal to do with the fact that women don't have testicles, and further men who are seeking castration who are straight tend to not refer them to the site. Frankly if a woman would be totally turned away by the main page, then she certainly is not a candidate to be a partner to a man who is castrated. She is also likely not into the whole fem dom thing.

Changes have been being made over the last few years to attempt to make the site more user friendly and in addition to better catalogue the focus of the forums. The work that has been done is not something anyone has been paid for, this is an all volunteer force giving their time to help anyomous people from around the world.

The idea of collecting personal data to "improve" member ship is totally absurd. Why would any sane person expose their "real life" to scrutiny from God knows what source with a connection to a site that is about subjects that much of society feels is at best strange or downright insane? While i am quite openly a eunuch both in real life and on the internet , I would NEVER provide any such site with address and other vital location information.

As for the gat /straight question, well, these days more and more people are coming out , and being open about their sexuality. I would say it is very very unlikely that any computer literate person in the world has not had some form of exposure to gay people. To suggest that women would find flaws in advice and counsel that a straight guy gets from a gay man is patently absurd. If anything women have a perception that gay men know better how to please a man , and as such many seek advise from their gay friend about their boyfriend/ husband.

Finally , I will re-state the purpose of this thread was to question why those who have long been sexually unique seem to not participate here. Their insights could be invaluable if we can figure out how to reach them and draw them in.

Raymar

As for me, and being active here, events sometimes happen which require most of my attention and effort to be directed toward preventing an apparently looming mess. For me, that mess has been, for some months, keeping my license as an engineer and keeping my wife and myself in adequate health which allows us to continue being functional. Some not-yet-life-endangering medical issues (both my wife and I came into 'this world" with genetic factors that have led us into surgically-oriented medical care accompanied by "complications" which have required much of our attention and effort. I have not lost interest in the Eunuch Archive or in the Forum. However, the deadline for my engineering license renewal is this soon to arrive July 31, 2014.

Perhaps those who know people who are "sexually unique" can ask those sexually unique people what might pique their interest and participation. For myself, guessing about such things is almost always stunningly prone to serious error.

For myself, my reason for seeking and achieving freedom from testicles and the testosterone they were producing was a serious interest in avoiding suicide by testosterone enabled by my individual genotype and phenotype (phenotype as an epigenetic biological phenomenon). People born where and when I was who came with testicles seem to me, according to my reading of federal government statistical tables, to have come with a life expectancy (average age of mortality) of about 68 years; the genetic condition I have, familial adenomatous polyposis, seems to come with a life expectancy of about 42 years as I have read the relevant medical literature.

I choose to reduce my testosterone levels drastically because my understanding of biology resolutely informed me that I would either drastically reduce my life span or drastically reduce my testosterone.

For me, drastically reducing my testosterone levels seems to notably improved my ability to stay alive. Alas, my staying alive has allowed me to continue working as a professional engineer in private practice, and continuing to work as a professional engineer in private practice has, at times, severely curtailed my practicable ability to be active here.

The making of choices is an interesting phenomenon, at least for me. If I have chosen to not chose, I have no less made a choice than I would have made if I had chosen to chose.

I wonder whether anyone else has ever similarly experienced the process(es) of life?

If so, might that have something to do with, "where are they?"?

Fhunter said "

fhunter wrote: Mon Jul 28, 2014 2:57 pm Opening title? You lost me here... care to explain more?

"

I sure would, as usual writing for a reader and writing quickly due not mix well. My mistake, I was referring to the "Ladies and Gentlemen's Forum" it reads,

"Straight talk about women who want to castrate men and the men who want to give it up for them. "

Do you disagree that this statement is an implied Dom/sub relationship? I should have been clear in my opening. On that forums page the only word to or about women is followed buy that title comment.

Cleancut01 said "

Cleancut01 (imported) wrote: Mon Jul 28, 2014 12:24 pm In my opinion it is an utter and total failure in providing the average women an opportunity to explore the ideas and consequences of castration in a s

fhunter wrote: Mon Jul 28, 2014 2:57 pm afe non-judgmental environment.

"

Fhunter said "Oh, and you know, you

make point of non-judgmental environment, yet you judge:

Cleancut01 (imported) wrote: Mon Jul 28, 2014 12:24 pm "Honey I got this great advice about my prostrate problem off the web. Who is it from dear? Oh a gay dude on a castration site! "

How nice."

Please retread that statement, I was making the point that a moderated area for women to post would need to be non-judgmental area. I never said this missive would be non-judgmental. In fact Jesus's post specifically asked us to be judgmental of ourselves and what the site was accomplishing. I more then realized before I touched "send" that the missive would cause some folks to become upset. But your statement has brought out a clear point to me. Jesus, myself and everybody in this thread is involved in an echo chamber. We need to ask people that do not come to this site, what would allow them to consider it as a positive resource. We need to decide (on help me please somebody) a mission statement that continues what we most enjoy about the site and makes some changes to allow for a broader audience. Or we can stay the same. It is about choice, I know all of us are aware that doing nothing is a choice.

Y

fhunter wrote: Mon Jul 28, 2014 2:57 pm es Fhunter that statement was judgmental, but you also decontextualized my wri

ting for maximum effect.

Fhunter said [Citation needed], I mean seriously - what title, and what is wrong with it?

So I have written about my failure to make the title I was referring to clear. But this comment did point out to me the echo chamber effect we have occurring here. I am unaware of any peer reviewed research about this site and how that general population interacts with this site. Please tell me where one is if it exists, I would love to read it.

Cleancut01 wrote "

Cleancut01 (imported) wrote: Mon Jul 28, 2014 12:24 pm I have had 5 average women I know go to the site with me and none has wanted to continue after reading the title.

"

So the citation was in the third paragraph, my own, unscientific survey of 5 women over the age of 40 and all were in long term marriages, all had hubbies that were taking anti-antigen drugs. I would ask the readers here how many of you have done similar outreach and what were the results. Scientific not at all, but let's look at what my opening line was in that third p

fhunter wrote: Mon Jul 28, 2014 2:57 pm aragraph "in my opinion." I clearly did not claim science in this case. I did talk ab

out my experience, lacking any science the next best case is experience.

Fhunter wrote "You got to be kidding (the B point) - why the hell have this information on the web? "

Not kidding at all, and you make a assumption that the information is on the web. There are número use services serving web sites that provide identification verification. The verification is accomplished through snail-mail. And the information is never in any server. A site like this one just receives a snail-mail report one the verifica

fhunter wrote: Mon Jul 28, 2014 2:57 pm tion and adds the associated privileges to the account. If a problem arises the site owners contact the service to address issues usuall only by voice phone.

Fhunter wrote "For hackers

/haters, etc to get and harass you? For some scam (I would not give any site a phone number, unless it is absolutely needed for the service, I think many think the same way)."

So as explained the verification information is not physically associated with a server or a site nothing to

fhunter wrote: Mon Jul 28, 2014 2:57 pm hack. Almost all adult dating sites that are commercially successful use some form of this

technology for an advanced membership level past virtual members.

Fhunter wrote "For some government to pressure the site owners to divulge this information. No, thank you."

None of us can control a government, here in the US we can vote, but it is doubtful that site information would be useful unless individual crimes were being committed. I do not engage in crime and I doubt you do either. I tend to believe most member of this site are the same. I worry less and less of what my government knows about me, and more and more about laws designed to restrict my human rights like marriage equality. Remember you would not need the

fhunter wrote: Mon Jul 28, 2014 2:57 pm upgraded membership for the site in gener

al just certain area. BTW the site already requires different levels of registration, like for the fiction archive.

Fhunter wrote "We don't need one more face<censored>book."

I guess I did not make myself clear, I never meant to imply the whole site need restrictions, that makes little sense to me either, just some areas, as noted the site has already started doing this. I debate myself about a restricted area and who could just read vs. who could post. This is a much larger discussion then either of us

fhunter wrote: Mon Jul 28, 2014 2:57 pm could resolve, this is a good place to start that discussion. And we are discussing it here, your points are heartfelt and valid, they need to be d

iscussed.

Fhunter wrote "Oh, and how will you verify this information? passport scan? In what language? Who would check it? what stops the person from just photoshopping it?"

Any law, regulation or rule has a percentage of individuals that will violate it. Overtime they are identified and addressed. We have no commercial purpose here, so there is little reason to commit fraud. But it will happen, the web provides many ways to detect fraud and the verification services are very good at finding it. So you know, if you commit fraud to a verification service they report the details to the credit agencies and that becomes a publ

fhunter wrote: Mon Jul 28, 2014 2:57 pm ic record. To read some stories would you risk credit and identification problems the rest of your life?

Fhunter wrote ""You

Cleancut01 (imported) wrote: Mon Jul 28, 2014 12:24 pm don't like the site, the information is also bad

". Sorry, not c

atering to stupid. Any information is helpful, and it should be cross-referenced and checked. If you trust single source, without checking, on the internet, well... I have some beach-front house in Goby for sale. Cheaply. Cash only."

As mush as my original missive caused you to have questions, because I failed to address the reader, so those coming here casually need to be successfully addressed. A

fhunter wrote: Mon Jul 28, 2014 2:57 pm t this time in my experience they are not. Again we need to step out of the echo chamber or not, we need to appeal to a wider audience o

r not, we need to make the changes necessary to support the site goals or not.

Fhunter wrote "And

fhunter wrote: Mon Jul 28, 2014 2:57 pm it does not sound like a "women trying to solve a problem" to me. More like "if I do not hear what I want to hear, the s

ite is bad"."

That may be true and a legitimate different view of the information I presented.

Fhunter wrote "Who gets to decide what is a valid message? Oh, and premoderation itself is a huge turnoff for posting, at least for me."

Ever site has its own solutions, it is part of what makes the web diverse. This site would need to figure that out. But again we are only talking about a limited area not the whole site. Just to be real here Fhunter you would fit the pr

fhunter wrote: Mon Jul 28, 2014 2:57 pm ofile of a good moderator, you are here often, have a good knowledge of the material, are passionate in you beliefs, and probably would work toward enforcing a T

OS rather then your views if given the responsibility.

Fhunter wrote "And the worst thing is that it requires moderator attention 24/7 to achieve reasonable latency, unlike the "report post" function, that works on as needed basis."

Yes it does, and that is a commitment. But who said their would be only

fhunter wrote: Mon Jul 28, 2014 2:57 pm one? Some moderation models very successfully have thousands of moderators. Probably would not need that many here but applying a TOS is not usually that diffic

ult. This site need to make a choice of what it wants.

Fhunter wrote "The one who wants to solve problem seeks how to solve it. The one who does not seek excuses. And you can bring the horse to water, but you can not make it drink."

But in the case of this site, preconceptions, horror stories, and myths may prevent many from doing more then a curiosity look, we do not need to reinforce those stereotypes by how the site is managed.

Fhunter I truly understand change is not fun, the question still is what do we wish this site to become and how?

Ok, I was not fully woken up when I typed the first reply to your post. And English is not my native language, Russian is. So I ask forgiveness for the tone of the first reply.

I now see the subtitle of the section, and, I am not sure how I feel about it. I have spent way too much time here to actually read thread subtitles, and look at it more as a part of history of the forum.

Unfortunately I do not have any information about research on reaction to this site. And it is not the topic, on which you can do a "corridor usability testing" . To how the topics of the forum are seen by unintiated, I will may be return a bit later in this post.

Now to the identification part. I will tell a small story. First, I am not from USA, to get the perspective.

So get someone, about 22 or so, still living with parents (for multiple reasons), unsure of gender/other issues, and searching the web for it. The other sites on transgender topics I found either talked horror stories with vague hints, or asked verification/life story for registering and reading. I was paranoid enough at that time. In short, EA was one of the few sites I found that didn't require anything except common registration. If for posting, EA would have required verification, be it by snail mail or something, I wouldn't have been there, and would have probably done something stupid in process, due to the lack of information. It was the place that gave information, without saying something along the lines: "first you tell us about yourself and then we will see, if we will give access". And I'd prefer for it to stay that way.

So, going back to verification services - we have members from China, Russia, all over the Europe, Canada, and other places. I am too lazy to script something to search the user database. Would verification service work there? There is another issue - there is still association of user - address, not at this site, but then at the ones who do verification, making it even more interesting target. And no, there are no good services, fuckups happen everywhere (see heartbleed bug), and I do not want to be associated to this site in real life. Few people in real life know, but I do not want to broadcast information about it.

Oh, and at least at this country, the request on web page "verify yourself to get access" throws big red flags, cause usually the ones doing it want money, nothing more.

And about

Cleancut01 (imported) wrote: Wed Jul 30, 2014 4:49 am different levels of registration

- remember, what is not indexable in search engines, does not exist on the web. Full stop. That is it. So - does not matter how much information is behind the fence, but you restrict it, and you can not find it. I still mourn the loss of ability to search the story archive with the whole Google's power, by keywords, exclusions and all (that allowed for example to help with links to some vaguely hinted stories, when you vaguely remember few chosen parts, but don't remember what it was).

Ok. Government. The more I look around, the less I trust the politicians. No, I am not ready to buy a bulldozer, armor it and say that only good politician is a dead politician, but it is close. After all, "mad printer" with laws trying to prohibit everything already started here. So - I can easily envision a situation, making just visiting this place a criminal activity. "Nothing personal, just one more law to make political point". And if you remember the story, how the EA almost lost its domain name (and how stories became locked under password), you would agree, that the situation with a "witch hunt" is not an improbable one. So the less identification, the better. After all, this is not a commercial service, the Archive does not have a policy of protecting customers or need to use the user information for commercial purposes.

With the turn of the events, and the public reaction to voluntary castration, I can even envision situation of involuntary psychiatric commitment due to having identification and posts here.

Cleancut01 (imported) wrote: Wed Jul 30, 2014 4:49 am Any law, regulation or rule has a percentage of individuals that will violate it. Overtime they are identified and addressed. We have no commercial purpose here, so there is little reason to commit fraud. But it will happen, the web provides many ways to detect fraud and the verification services are very good at finding it. So you know, if you commit fraud to a verification service they report the details to the credit agencies and that becomes a publ

ic record. To read some stories would you risk credit and identification problems the rest of your life?Would that even have jurisdiction outside of the US? You know, there is life there. Oh, and I am probably a weird one, I do not have credit cards, only debit ones.

The moderation/premoderation - EA has about 10 moderators, and I am being generous. They have life, and it is a stressful job, nonpaying and thankless one. In short - IMHO, moderated section would be a stillborn one. If the latency of the posts drops to once per day, it already detracts from conversation.

Like so many threads they seem to wonder from the original post.

"

raymar2020 (imported) wrote: Wed Jul 23, 2014 8:19 pm So the question I pose here is where are those guys from my childhood? There were a fair number but they seem to have vanished. How many here have some root in a genital issue from childhood? What can we do draw these now long experienced with genital issues people into places like the Archive? Their input in forums could be invaluable.

Raymar

"

Copied from the first post.

I know from personal experience that I knew at an early age that my testicles did not belong however I think that is a different topic than the one Raymar poses.

Do we or should we add a new Thread Heading?

River

Probably a good idea Riverwind. Maybe, ideas to attract new members.

Keep in mind, adding a new thread is very easy its already part of Vbulletin however something like adding a password protection or multiple levels of security takes many hours of planning, coding, testing and installing. One takes less than an hour, the other can take a several weeks. One costs nothing, the other, think $50 an hour and that is cheep.

Over the years we have made many changes, sometimes they are not noticeable other times like last year we revamped much of the board dropping some threads and adding new ones. The Archive has always been in motion but over the years we have found that little changes are best.

Note to Raymar, your question will be brought up at the MOM.

River

Having read the back and forth between fhunter and cleancut1 , I must say that we are definately far from the original intent of this thread, but it does open up points for discussion.

I am NOT a moderator on this site, but am a regular visitor, and plan to contimue to be just that. When things are posted that are deemed to be inappropriate they are deleted by the existing moderators. Rhe rules are pretty simple, and the real purpose of this site is to be a place for discussion of the issues related to human castration ,and other gential issues, including transgender and BIID issues. In those fields it is most certainly the best resource that exists.

Even in the permissive world we live in , the general perception of castration and eunuchs , especially the voluntary ones is that these individuals likely need to be institutionalized. That is far from the case, but society has a very skewed view of anything that is outside the "norm".

That said, even the most rudimentary "verification" opens the door to some sort of exposure in real life. It simply is not needed. I have started chats with people from this site who I soon figured out were full of shit. Any intelligent person is capable of detecting frauds. While I personally am very open about my situation, and do have face pics along with other body parts posted on the net, and on the same sites, others are not comfortable with doing so. The mingling of our "online" lives with "real life" for many here would be disastrous.

As I read it cleancut1 seems to have had some bad experiences with sharing this site with women. I can appreciate that , but I have never once seen a post that is anything even close to unwelcoming to the female population. While they tend to come and go, I have seen multiple female members who have made many astute observations, and contributed to discussions in very signifigant ways.

My best advice is that if you feel that in some way the site is failing a portion of potential users, you should attend the MoM and make your thoughts heard by those who are ultimately the decision makers. I myself truly regret that my own current workload will not allow me to get away and be present this year.

Finally , again I will state, I started this thread wondering how it is that those who like myself have always been "different" seem not to be here.

Raymar