Introduction for myself, over ten characters

Good morning, I'm well over 18 and consider myself a supporter.

Thank you. Because you were so brief, before I approve you I want to make sure you understand this is not a fetish site. This is for serious discussion and support. Are you agreeable to that?

Understood. I'm not looking for one.

The Internet is a hall of mirrors and I've trusted people on similar groups who turned out not to be who they said they were. So until I have a chance to see for myself, I'm not going to say very much. Hope you understand.

Welcome aboard. I've upgraded you. I hope you find this forum to be a good one.

Thanks! BTW, I enjoy your blog.

Flattery will get you everywhere.

Thanks!

Skimmed some of the boards and it looks real enough. I thought I'd caught a whiff of a person I'll call Supertroll, which made me hesitant. If he ever was around, he's not any more. More later when I think of something interesting to say.

hiya Unowen & welcome to the forums; take your time looking around. Supporters shouldn't necessarily be without caution either!

Thanks, Sleepingrain. I'll look both ways before I cross the street.

Welcome Unowen, I believe most of the people here are for real, but we do occasionally get trolls and fakers, when we get them and they're proven to be liars (these types usually incrimate themselves eventually) we give them the boot. Sadly, the subject matter of the forums tend to attract a disproportionate number of these kinds of individuals, and as careful as we are, occasionally one slips through the net (as good as we try to be, we're not infallable). That said, if there are any specific users which are causing you some concern, you should PM one of us admins and provide a link to the offending threads, this way they can be dealt with swiftly and with minimal drama. It's our aim to keep these forums a clean. inclusive and nonjudgemental environment in which people are comfortable to come and talk about what's affecting their lives and relationships, and that is only possible when we keep unwanted types out. The trade off is that we keep our sanctuary at the price of vigilance.

Remember US3?

OtherHans: Nope, at least not by that name.

OtherHans, I remember that name, if we're thinking of the same troll, then bloody hell, that's going back some years that is! He's the very last sort of person we would want showing his face here, lets put it that way.

Now ya got me curious. What did this US3 person do?

Unowen17 wrote:Now ya got me curious. What did this US3 person do?

He was a pretty malignant troll around in the mid 2000s, who caused one of the smaller incest forums around at the time to implode by causing a massive flamewar that went on for a number of weeks. You know the type, they stoke the fire as soon as it seems to be running out of energy. The admins didn't give a shit as long as they raked in the money from all the porn ads. It was pretty abysmal to be honest. US3 also turned out to be a pedophile, and this was initially what caused the flamewar, that he was so brazen about it.

This person claimed that he and his wife were sexually abusing his daughter, and when Jane and I raised a fuss about this, and about his presence on the site to begin with, we ended up getting banned instead of him.

Incest forums back then were overrun with paedophiles.

So true, but that was only because the admins didn't give a crap and assigned mod status depending on how long they'd been on the forums and how many hours they'd spent there instead of if they'd actually do their job correctly. IIRC many of the 'people' on the site agreed with us being banned, but it was obvious that many of these 'people' were sock puppets of the moderator (which he predictably denied), as some of us had been saying for well over a year at that point. Some however disagreed with the decision to ban us, and voiced their opinions. Not that it made any difference. In a way I feel kind of revolted that I used to actually go to a forum like that, but we didn't exactly have any other choice in those days if we wanted contact with other people who were involved. I think if the admins had been different then the site could have been so much better than it actually was.

I don't blame you for feeling revolted, being in a place like that would've left me feeling VERY uncomfortable! at the same time, it's good you did. I didn't sign up for those places, I didn't think I'd find anyone, that was a big mistake on my part. And I feel it was a good learning opportunity too - how NOT to run a forum.

Rain, yes there is that about it, an education on how it ISN'T done can sometimes be quite valuable, if nothing else but to learn from peoples mistakes. But ultimately, the site did leave me feeling tainted, even though I'd come out of it with genuine friends. There were a few consangs (and we were a small minority), a hell of a lot of fetishists who just wanted to get off (which is what the site was more geared towards, the types that normally end up on reddit these days) and then there were pedophiles who used terms like 'incest family' as a code phrase for molesting their own children. Being on the site was a learning experience, in part about discovering genuine consang people, and in part about learning just how depraved some human beings can be, and yes, on how a forum should not be run. All in all I probably needed this experience for the role I now occupy in the community.

It's good you see a bright side to it, even for as bad as it was. Human beings definitely can be depraved.

Unowen17 wrote:The Internet is a hall of mirrors and I've trusted people on similar groups who turned out not to be who they said they were. So until I have a chance to see for myself, I'm not going to say very much. Hope you understand.

I was interested in knowing the main users and admins stories.
Did you ever post more about yours?

Oh, yeah. Just a lot of soul-searching, mostly.

Stay safe,
UN