I feel the need to once again comment on this thread, "Membership site forum - dead as a door nail", started by Stowe on February 16 of this year. Unfortunately things have not improved since Stowe's original posting and in fact they may have gotten worse. I have been chastised by some that this is a porn site and the sex scenes are and should be what it is all about, but I have to repeat myself that if it was all about the porn, I would have quit years ago. For me the forum has been the hook, the diverse subjects we used to discuss, including porn, but regarding music, politics, sports, entertainment, and about our personal lives and experiences.
As I mentioned in response to the wonderful birthday wishes to me yesterday, that I was shocked to discover that I could forge real, close personal friendships through this forum, and every time I logged in it was like going to the television bar "Cheers", grabbing a virtual bar stool and saying hello to all my old friends, and seeing some people who I did not particularly like, and also seeing new faces wandering in from time to time, some of whom would become good friends in the future, and others who stopped in for a virtual beer and then walked out the door, never to return, but I felt a complete sense of community here and while some days were more active than others, each day brought much activity and it was never as it is today, and that saddens me.
We had a flurry of activity two days ago when model
John Henry joined the forum in a member way, and not a model way. He posted 71 times in less than two days, but he now has a model account and so his posts are monitored by management, which started when Damian & Paul started talking about
Vadim Black many months ago and were temporarily banned, before the new system of monitoring model posts was implemented.
We also had an active thread yesterday when Sha informed us that new model
Kayden Winters has now appeared on another site, and we all offered our opinions about the new model. The thread went off on a tangent which was interesting and had a feeling of the "good old days", when threads meandered like winding rivers.
My guess is that membership is down on
Broke Straight Boys, which trickles down to the forum and there are less members who are here and commenting. I understand that the gay membership site industry is in trouble due to the proliferation of free porn on the web, which has also had an effect on the quality of models presented here. And so while many current models and scenes are getting high ratings in the 1-5 rating system, my belief is that the voting is being done by a much smaller pool of voters, so a 4.8 rating today may not mean what it did when Paul & Jason did their classic scene where I would guess the number of fans was much much higher than fans who today rate a Trevor & Drake scene or the like.
I know that I repeat myself on this forum, but it does sadden me that on a day like today when I have time off from work, and I'd love to read and engage with my fellow forumites as I've been doing for the last six and a half years, there is nobody in the school yard to play with. I understand times change, but I still miss the days when the forum was a virtual playground for me with so many friends here to play with.
lol
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