sorry!

[Popoki_Nui]

I agree. This is Susan's business and she has an absolute right to ask us to behave in ways that keep her business healthy. Period. She's doing us a big service by providing the forum, and I believe we owe her thanks and cooperation. We're in her house here.

Granted. And Thank You Susan and Moderators for providing us with this great forum. I sincerely mean that.

But consider this: with all due respect, TE is packed with thousands of helpful, informative posts. Will one off-colour (albeit hilarious) thread break the business?

If the answer is "yes", it will be a sad day indeed. Very sad. In extremis.


~Sherry (still awaiting the feel of hard leather on my tender tush as I get drop-kicked outta here)

[OakLeaf]

Granted. And Thank You Susan and Moderators for providing us with this great forum. I sincerely mean that.

But consider this: with all due respect, TE is packed with thousands of helpful, informative posts. Will one off-colour (albeit hilarious) thread break the business?

If the answer is "yes", it will be a sad day indeed. Very sad. In extremis.

+1 to all of the above.

This is not a criticism of Susan. DH used to be a forum moderator, way back before they were even called that, back when we had 300 baud modems and ASCII interfaces and liked it. So I fully appreciate the overwhelming amount of work it takes to moderate a forum.

But that said, I have to comment on the sentiments that prompted Susan's actions. In the Health section we've talked about our genitalia when they've been bleeding, abscessed, hairy, swollen, and lumpy. Any of that would've gotten us TOS'ed from most other moderated sites. Here, it's considered perfectly appropriate, and in fact, if that kind of discussion got TOS'ed here, I don't think I'd bother staying around. We have those discussions knowing full well that there are males who identify themselves here, and in all probability there are hetero males here who just get some kind of sick thrill from pretending to be women on a women's forum (I'm assured of this by the above mentioned DH , who is not one of those lurkers).

So then we have a couple of laughs with far less explicit discussion of other people's genitalia, and that gets TOS'ed? That's stupid, and it's sick.

Anyone who was offended by the discussion could've chosen not to read it, as some apparently did, and that's their privilege. For the record, I told the intercom joke to my aerobics class, consisting of a dozen women aged 55-70, and they all thought it was hilarious.

'Nuff said.

[Irulan]

Anyone who was offended by the discussion could've chosen not to read it, as some apparently did, and that's their privilege. For the record, I told the intercom joke to my aerobics class, consisting of a dozen women aged 55-70, and they all thought it was hilarious.

'Nuff said.

I do believe in the forum guidelines it says that anything "nsfw" should be labeled as such, just to prevent this sort of thing. There was an incident many years ago here, based on some images posted, not labeled, that caused a big blow up ( and me to resign my moderatorship here) for the exact same reason,and for that clause to be added to the forum guidelines.

Not everyone agrees on what is offensive.

[NoNo]

On one of the other forums I participate in, we had a similar conflict a few years ago. The owner of the board was concerned that anyone just coming by the site looking for legitimate information, including children, might stumble upon the material. So the solution was to create an "Adults Only" section that required you to PM the mod for permission to view. I personally don't have any problem with colorful humor, but I totally understand the opinions of the other side. I don't know if this kind of solution is something worth considering here, I'm just putting it out there.

[Zen]

Considering what floats around out there the cause of the brouhaha is rather tame. There's only one way I can think of that someone would accidentally stumble upon the subject matter (through a search, anyway) and that would be no accident.

But the horse is dead. I'm not going to beat it anymore.

[sundial]

I enjoy participating with a forum that is civil, respectful, and diplomatic--like TE. There are far too many forums that don't respect their members.

[velogirl]

I'm personally not offended (and hadn't even seen the questionable content). However, as a business owner, I have to agree with Susan. And it's not just folks who wander over to TE who will be exposed to a thread like that.

Google "BJ for dummies" and the 4th and 5th entries lead you directly to TE -- TE gets very good search engine placement. All of the other entries are s$x related. That process might lead someone to associate the TE name with s$x.

Everything we type on this forum is quickly search-able via google. I was shocked when I first realized this, because I sometimes think when I'm in this forum I'm in a safe haven. But the reality is that with the internet, anything you type becomes public domain.

While I realize that everyone was having a little fun, and a few were offended, the bottom line is that this site belongs to Susan and we should respect her position as a business owner who has made a considerable investment to provide this fabulous forum for us.

Lorri

[Tokie]

I enjoyed the thread break, I knew what the off-color interpretation was, and had to figure out what the "legitimate" acronym stood for. It cracked me up that someone would use those initials! Oh well, best to err on the side of not offending I guess, but I thought it was funny! Carol

[IFjane]

All,

I have been away from TE for two days now and apparently a lot has happened.

I feel responsible for the whole thing because I am the one who started the thread. When I titled it I did it in complete innocence, believe it or not. For those of you who followed the thread, you know I eventually had to ASK what the heck everyone was joking about. I'm slow like that, you know...

I was feeling quite proud of myself for inadvertantly starting a thread in which people were having such a good time. My, how things change in an instant.

Susan and all who were offended - I apologize. I promise to write out EVERY word from now on. No acronyms! I can see, from a business standpoint, why it had to be done. From a fun standpoint, I am sad.

Crawling back under my rock now......