May, if it weren’t black & red, then how would people know it’s a BDSM group?

I think all the pictures of people in stupid looking outfits would be my first clue. ;) Fucking fetish fashion. ::grump::

All that said, I still really wish it wasn’t a black-and-red color scheme.

:laughs:

May, if it weren’t black & red, then how would people know it’s a BDSM group?

I’d be interested to know what you think of http://www.fetlife.com

I think FetLife is very much its own class of web site. It’s not a sexuality community web site, it’s a sexuality social network. It enables one to build communities, which is different. It does what it does very well, and I commend the FetLife crew for their vocal and obvious efforts to prevent the site from being useful for ALT.com-style personals dating (such as the way they limit capabilities for searching for individual people), as well as for their efforts to make the site “friendly” to the majority of “non-lifestyle” people. So good on them for all that.

All that said, I still really wish it wasn’t a black-and-red color scheme.

“Hey May absolutely well said on the technical side and modus operandi of the existing webstite for TES.
But missing a lot in history Lolita filled in a nice chunk but really only skimmed the surface.

Sadly the real culprit in the TES website saga has been the boards involvement which has chased away anyone willing to volunteer and put the time in.“

Thanks, and I’m sure I missed quite a bit of history. It’s such a shame that this history is undoubtedly filled with battles of ego rather than battles for web site hits. Not only do they discourage volunteer efforts, as you mentioned, but what amazes me further is their obvious utter inability to get anything substantive accomplished on their own.

The TES board has long since been a largely dysfunctional mess of stupid political infighting, but that is kind of off topic and is best left to another post entirely.

“Give me a call sometime“

Well, I might do that if I knew who you were. I have an educated guess but no proof. Why don’t you email me instead? :)

Kens responses, well I hate to say but you have nailed it on the head.

Give me a call sometime and I can fill you in on the history and problems of running the site as long as I did.

Sadly the real culprit in the TES website saga has been the boards involvement which has chased away anyone willing to volunteer and put the time in.

Thanks for reading (and commenting) and also thanks for noticing that I do actually have professional experience with this sort of thing.

It’s clear to me that most web sites, even honest-to-goodness businesses that expect to make money, are made by amateurs. That’s okay, and expected, and there’s even a formal interaction design term for it: satisficing.

However, while the DSF, TES, and other BDSM organization web sites were probably satisficing in the past, I contend that a better solution would now more than justify the costs in modernizing these and other sites. This is even more true now than it was several years ago with a new generation of youngsters who were socialized from birth in the Information Age becoming legal adults. To this new generation, put simply, a bad web site makes you look bad.

Finally, I really do commend you for your time and effort in creating the BDSM resources you have on the DSF site. Yes, they can be substantially improved as with the TES web site and others, but it is certainly better than what came before it.

Your commitment to the diversity of the calendar you host is also inspiring and especially commendable! I would very much like to see that calendar make use of today’s modern PIM applications.

Also, while I have been trying to do something similar with CV’s calendar as a stop-gap measure for folks in my demographic, I recognize that a single organization can’t be expected to keep a single BDSM calendar of events with any global accuracy, so I’m inviting anyone with knowledge of events to contribute to it until a better solution presents itself.