Aug 6, 2012

38 notes

Looking for alternatives to FetLife

Both because of and besides the controversies and heated debate happening on FetLife right now I am starting to feel it is more and more of a bad idea to use only one site (owned by one person) to hold the majority of information about kink and sexual education events online.

In truth, as of now I get almost all my information about what’s going on in NYC and the outlying area from FetLife and that’s a bad idea for a variety of reasons.

First of all, those who are new to kink, new to alternative sexuality, poly, what have you, need to be on FetLife to find out about things. Since it isn’t searchable outside of itself (or really even inside of itself) there is little chance anyone who doesn’t know about FetLife to find out about events.

Second, if you disagree with FetLife’s TOU your only real options are to either get over it or to not be privy to what going on in kink. Many of us are working to change some of the things that are broken in FetLife (i.e. Prop 429) but since this isn’t a community run site our suggestions are just that, suggestions.

Third, FetLife’s staff has been editing posts more and more. It’s their site, it’s their rules, and besides screen shots and shouting we really don’t have any recourse if our posts/events/journal entries are deleted, edited, or what have you. In a lot of ways this trend of editing is far more worrisome than deletion because it can take context out of statements, go unnoticed, cause confusion when linked to, etc.

Forth, if anything ever happens to FetLife we will all be screwed (or not screwed as the case may be) until something else comes along. @johnbaku could decide it’s too much pressure and too much stress and just take his ball and go home. Someone could get sued. Someone could spill coffee on a server.

Fifth, competition really does fuel improvement. Right now there is little reason for FetLife to change anything. People aren’t going any where. Advertisers aren’t going anywhere.

Sixth, we are compiling a vast amount of information on a site that is non-cacheable, non-searchable, as very low accessibility, and very low security. That’s a bad idea.

So, thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions? Links?

Personally I’d like a reasonably transparent, scalable, non-binary oriented, kink/sex ed/sex positive, open, and free place to post events and have a simple forum for discussion. Any ideas on how we make that happen?

Crossposted to FetLife

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  1. heathendefiler reblogged this from writingdirty
  2. molly-ren reblogged this from maymay and added:
    And there you have it.
  3. gnomees reblogged this from oliverhyde
  4. fineshrinetome reblogged this from oliverhyde
  5. oliverhyde reblogged this from subtlecluster
  6. eveamedeus reblogged this from maymay
  7. maymay reblogged this from writingdirty and added:
    I agree with every single thing Jack wrote in his post, quoted in full below, mostly
  8. heathentacos reblogged this from mamabirdmargaritas and added:
    some good points there!
  9. rollinswrites reblogged this from clitorisesandsnorlaxes and added:
    I’m all for G+ (not so much Facebook) and other sources to communicate. Besides that, we should all probably keep in...
  10. mamabirdmargaritas reblogged this from subtlecluster and added:
    Boosted because good points and I’d like to see a DECENT alternative.
  11. subtlecluster reblogged this from writingdirty and added:
    signal-boost!
  12. literateperversions reblogged this from writingdirty
  13. tenthousandunicorns reblogged this from writingdirty
  14. clitorisesandsnorlaxes reblogged this from writingdirty and added:
    Reposting what I wrote...see how this discussion takes place on Tumblr’s interface:...
  15. erotiterrorist reblogged this from writingdirty
  16. queerlykinked reblogged this from writingdirty
  17. writingdirty posted this
About
Jack Stratton is a writer, New Yorker, blogger, activist, foodie, graphic designer, hedonist, atheist, skeptic, top, dominant, sadist, masochist, bottom, voracious reader, researcher, podcaster, teacher, student, whore, facilitator, instructor, know-it-all, dandy, daddy, and switch.

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