I always figured that it was so you were rewarded for signing up by having the option to see the Boobie thread.
For anyone that's trying to make a comparison between our topics and the old board, trust me. The topics there weren't the works of high esteem. It was nonsense and shit shooting. Thats all it needs to be.
Didn't we have a big uproar when someone reposted a picture out of the Booby thread to the WDT because it was now viewable by the general internet? Or something like that? The post had been deleted by the time I logged in and saw the fall out.
I hadn't considered this, but it does make sense. It would be a shame for the other permanent threads not to be viewable though.
Jesus. Most of those topics aren't even worth clicking on. It goes to show that things weren't always how you remember them.
Honestly, I really don't give a shit about the NSFW threads being available to a guest... because if people are coming HERE for their porn, they're doing it wrong.
That kills me. It's not like I ask for ID for anyone to get an account, or do any kind of validation for them at all... EVERYTHING (except the mod board) is public. If people think otherwise, they should really give their head a shake. If you think forcing people to make an account somehow makes things "private", then you really don't understand how the internet works.
What difference does it make? There's no subscription. It takes 5 minutes to make an account. If people aren't comfortable with potentially anyone seeing those images then they need to think twice about sharing them. Member only or public threads are a formality.
Well, as someone who really enjoys those threads, I'll say this. Whether it's perception or not, I think some folks posted there with the expectation of some extra layer of hidden posting. To change that now after the fact, seems improper. Once people log in and post and participate, it feels a little like friends. I'd go skinny dipping with a group of friends before I'd stand naked in front of the world. And there was probably some expectation that if somebody got all creepy on a girl, a nice admin could provide contact information to the police. I know that's a bit naive, but that's my two cents. So, I think those threads should be member only. M
It's just what people stated as their preference before and the expectations they posted under at the time. You don't need to convince me of anything, it's not my breasts going up. And something I recall a bunch of people pretty vigorously defending. Here's a technical question you're better able to answer than anyone else here: Does making those forums guest readable open them to indexing and internet search?
Honestly, I've received a ton of requests to pull the past posts anyway... so I don't really think many are left that give a shit about this perceived privacy. I'll always respect their wishes in that regard, but I also want them to go into it with their eyes open.
Maybe people should think before posting nudes on a messageboard. We all know once it's out there, it stays in some form, deleted or not really. We have gone away from the story telling threads, because of the effort. I think we've gotten lazy and it's reflected in the one line posts and lack of threads that take more thought than others. Yes, we have had serious threads that have been really good but they have been based on opinion alone. We haven't had any threads that stretch our creativity and/or thoughts in some time. Some people are treating this place like a chatroom, their chatroom and that needs to stop. Don't like heavier moderation? Then don't make us do it. Perhaps real red dots would help. I don't know but I am really glad we are able to discuss the good, bad and ugly of TiB.
Chatroom business started when the WDT started staying up for weeks at a time, which I'm sure happened because of a lack of good suggested threads. The rub is that closing it at the end of every weekend would be a double edged sword at this point.
There was a discussion about shutting it down, which I also support, but it was decided to leave it as is. I agree it leaves a lot of room for a running dialogue of sorts.
Having the WDT open for long periods does create some Chatroom Business, but it's pretty easy to scroll through that, imo. A lot of that Chatroom Business comes about because of some random thing that posters feel should be shared, but don't fit in any open topic or permanent thread. Subsequently, several of those random things - exactly what the WDT is for, I think - have spun out decent new threads. SG, when you say heavier moderation, are you implying complaints about that here, or from the TMMB days? (Not being a dick - honestly asking. I didn't recall that being a problem here.) I never minding the heavy modding part that keeps people on topic or dials in focus or prevents shit-flinging or whatever. If I mod deletes a post and adds "Stay on topic. Rep or PM that shit." that doesn't bother me one bit. The modding at TMMB that I thought was so stupid was if you wrote anything that showed up a mod, or heaven forbid Tucker, posts would just disappear. The same standard was not applied across the board. I don't remember exactly what it was, but once commented on something there that was really funny, but not on topic. The post just disappeared and then two posts later, another member posted what I had, almost word for word, and it stayed and was now hilarious.
After reading through what some in my age group ( 35-40 ) have written about changing tastes and content, all I can think of is this: I've enjoyed some of the serious discussions, but it IS called "The Idiot Board" remember.