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UPDATE: Daddy's Review Website


RadioRob
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As I've said previously, out of an abundance of caution, I've backed up most of the content on Daddy's server. The first priority was getting the forum itself back online which has been done. I've gotten to the point where I've been able to tackle restoring the review site.

 

This was MUCH more difficult as there was a bunch of things coded specifically for Daddy's server. I managed to get the data copied over and to import the mySQL database associated with the site. Once I did that, nothing really worked so I had to go look into the code to see what was going on. This involved changing a bunch of files to reflect where files are located on the new server.

 

It's not perfectly restored (meaning some of the commentary and news links are not fully working), but all of the reviews seem to be working.

 

Main Website: https://archive.m4m-forum.org/

Reviews Based on Location: https://archive.m4m-forum.org/cruise

Reviews Based on Name: https://archive.m4m-forum.org/search

 

I do not plan to try and maintain the system Daddy used to run the reviews. It is simply too much to try to manually do. So the plan for now is for the archive to stay as-is for historical purposes. At a later time, I plan to introduce a new review site that would collect the info and allow for a more streamlined method of management. Once it's ready, we'll need some volunteers to help us manually migrate reviews over into the new long-term tool. Once we're ready to do that, I'll post here asking for some help with all of the copy/pasting that is going to be involved.

 

Hopefully in the next half hour or so, I'll be able to have the main review website redirect to the archive. It's not perfect, but I hope it helps us preserve a vital part of our history.

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Are people still submitting reviews? Are they being left in a kind of "dead letter office'?

I don’t know yet. That’s actually a good question. I’ll look at the code tomorrow to see what happens when a review is submitted. If the results are stored in a database, I’ll have access to the data. If it is just a form that collects all of the fields and emails it somewhere, at minimum I’ll know where they’re being sent.

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The reviews are stored inside of a mySQL database. And yes, there are still reviews being submitted... I see several that all have submit dates in the last 2 months. So the good news is it's not all piled up into an email folder somewhere.

 

I also found the Admin area for the reviews. I don't have a good way of accessing it because the password is encrypted in the database. I'm going to have to try to figure out what hashing algorithm is used so that I can create an account for myself.

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I managed to get the data copied over and to import the mySQL database associated with the site.

I haven't read all the threads so I'm not sure if what I'm going to say is redundant but if you can't be the Tech guy of the forum I nominate you to be part of the committee in the quality of tech advisor. Not only you have demonstrated to be capable of handling challenging tasks but also you now have broad and deep knowledge of the structure and intricacies of the websites. We would be so lucky if we continue to have your support.

Edited by lonely_john
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Are people still submitting reviews? Are they being left in a kind of "dead letter office'?

I found a way to get to the review admin area. I now have a password that works to let me in. There looks to be around 30 reviews in the queue ... at least I have a way to access data now.

@RadioRob It looks like it would be too much work for you to add the reviews in the queue. Is there a chance that you can just place a red banner in the header of all pages, so people don't keep submitting new reviews until the new system is ready? Something in the line of: "Reviews were received until X date, not being updated since then because Y, and new reviews will be updated on a new system. Reviewers can hold onto their reviews until the new system is in place. We'll keep you informed."

Edited by lonely_john
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@RadioRob It looks like it would be too much work for you to add the reviews in the queue. Is there a chance that you can just place a red banner in the header of all pages, so people don't keep submitting new reviews until the new system is ready? Something in the line of: "Reviews were received until X date, not being updated since then because Y, and new reviews will be updated on a new system. Reviewers can hold onto their reviews until the new system is in place. We'll keep you informed."

 

I'm going to be the conservative on this one. I don't know that anyone knows what Bill's age verification process was. Other example of blowups that have happened before is somebody writes what the escort says is a fake review. But the one that could be a fatal error is something relating to age. After the blowback on the first Rentboy complaint they reframed it, weakly I thought, to make it sounds like Rentboy was promoting underage escorts.

 

Now that the review site is up, here's an interesting flashback to 2017 and Bill's thoughts about the defensive environment framed by FOSTA/SESTA. I've just been doing homework and research. So here's an interesting factoid. One thing you see everywhere on Rentmen you don't see on Daddy's is cocks, cocks, and more cocks. But escorts who advertise on Rentmen are telling me one thing you don't see there and can't talk about at all is rates. On Daddy's some escorts post rates and some don't. My strong hunch - not a fact - is that Rentmen has better lawyers than Bill did. They probably said cocks are everywhere on the internet. Having a cock is not prostitution. But once you say anything about rates, it gets dicey.

 

My big picture point is that I think the situation warrants a big and gradual rethink. Mostly, I think we want to think about how to move from defense, circa 2017, to offense and moving the ball forward. I think that's mostly a discussion for another day. The energy now is on this site, and it's all good energy. This approach that we'll make small changes now and big changes later generally makes sense to me.

 

Does anybody really believe that now that both sites are up and running we would actually pull the plug on either if we get news we don't like out of probate? I don't. I don't think this community wants to die. Or that it will commit suicide, technological or otherwise. Hopefully this is a non-issue as probate plays out. But I'm very glad we are acting like this is a community with a future. I think we can use this time to plan and organize.

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I'm going to be the conservative on this one. I don't know that anyone knows what Bill's age verification process was. Other example of blowups that have happened before is somebody writes what the escort says is a fake review. But the one that could be a fatal error is something relating to age. After the blowback on the first Rentboy complaint they reframed it, weakly I thought, to make it sounds like Rentboy was promoting underage escorts.

 

Now that the review site is up, here's an interesting flashback to 2017 and Bill's thoughts about the defensive environment framed by FOSTA/SESTA. I've just been doing homework and research. So here's an interesting factoid. One thing you see everywhere on Rentmen you don't see on Daddy's is cocks, cocks, and more cocks. But escorts who advertise on Rentmen are telling me one thing you don't see there and can't talk about at all is rates. On Daddy's some escorts post rates and some don't. My strong hunch - not a fact - is that Rentmen has better lawyers than Bill did. They probably said cocks are everywhere on the internet. Having a cock is not prostitution. But once you say anything about rates, it gets dicey.

 

My big picture point is that I think the situation warrants a big and gradual rethink. Mostly, I think we want to think about how to move from defense, circa 2017, to offense and moving the ball forward. I think that's mostly a discussion for another day. The energy now is on this site, and it's all good energy. This approach that we'll make small changes now and big changes later generally makes sense to me.

 

Does anybody really believe that now that both sites are up and running we would actually pull the plug on either if we get news we don't like out of probate? I don't. I don't think this community wants to die. Or that it will commit suicide, technological or otherwise. Hopefully this is a non-issue as probate plays out. But I'm very glad we are acting like this is a community with a future. I think we can use this time to plan and organize.

I haven’t followed all the ins and outs on the review site but one thing you stated doesn’t apply to rates on Rentmen in Canada. The rates are displayed on their pages if they wish, both in out and overnight too. Or they can opt for Ask.

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I haven’t followed all the ins and outs on the review site but one thing you stated doesn’t apply to rates on Rentmen in Canada. The rates are displayed on their pages if they wish, both in out and overnight too. Or they can opt for Ask.

 

That would be interesting in itself, since it would underscore my main point. I would not be surprised if Rentmen had different legal strategies for different countries, based both on the laws of the country and the perceptions of risk relating to prosecution. Clearly after Rentboy and Backpage and FOSTA/SESTA the US would have to be perceived as a riskier market to operate in than Amsterdam or Germany or perhaps Canada.

 

I should also note that I have never advertised on Rentmen and I'm getting my info from a few friends who are frequent advertisers there. So they could be wrong, but I doubt it. But when I look at the sites (US version) I see nothing about rates.

 

This is very tangential and speculative but here's another thing I suspect could factor into the calculations and perceptions about risk from Rentmen:

 

Post-MegaUpload Hollywood wants more blood

 

That story's headline says it all, I think. That's from back in 2012 during the file server wars. The FBI and DOJ targeted Megaupload as one example of these companies that were making a fortune by allowing individuals to upload and download films and music for free. The arrest was actually conducted by the New Zealand police. I believe the owners were living in a fancy mansion in Auckland or someplace like that. I think the headline is dead right. When you are messing life up for very powerful interests like Hollywood, you're not safe anywhere.

 

If the US FBI or DOJ really wanted to get Rentmen, I'm pretty sure they could get them just like they dealt with the file server situation. I'm guessing Rentmen just wants to lay as low as they can while they make as much money as they can. If I'm right about the rate stuff, the calculation would be why wave a red flag in front of the American bull?

 

There is a script here, I think. And it is driven by politics more than law or anything else. The thing Megaupload and Rentboy and Backpage all have in common is that they went down as attacks on rich fat cats who were making a fortune by being predators of one form or another. In the case of Megaupload and that whole industry it was predatory to Hollywood, which has a lot of political power. I really don't have a good theory why Backpage was targeted. Many news reports stated they had a record of cooperating with US law enforcement. Once they were targeted, though, they were painted as rich White men whose site facilitated the abuse and murder of a young Black female prostitute.

 

My theory with Jeffrey is it was the dumb ass idea of submitting a visa application to DHS. There was an interesting political lesson there, I think. The initial complaint was written by a woman, I'm guessing a Hispanic Catholic based on the name, that clearly saw Gay sex as gross. So there was a lot of backlash, including from the New York Times, about how this criminalized Gay sex. Then DHS got the memo and tried to make Jeffrey look like a child sex trafficker. Once he was targeted and arrested it was relatively easy to make a case that this had something to do with prostitution, which is what he plead guilty to. The thing I would say Megaupload and Rentboy and Backpage had in common is they were all relatively if not completely politically isolated.

 

What that all says to me is this is much more about politics than law. Duh! The thing to avoid is being isolated and a rich White guy who makes a lot of money off things like prostitution. Our best defense is that is an attack on a website like this or the escort review site is a frontal attack on the Gay community. What harm are we doing? Why are you picking on us?

 

DECRIMNOW

 

I've been checking out the websites of groups in this large decriminalization coalition that ACLU and HRC are at the heart of. That website is for a group that is one of the fringiest in the coalition, I would say. Some conservatives may bridle because it's got Black transgender prostitutes who tell you their very own "woke" correct pronouns to use. It's an advocacy website, not an escort review website. But shouting "Sex Work Is Work" is pretty much saying "Fuck You" to FOSTA/SESTA. And yet, in my opinion, Chuck Schumer kind of gave them a "get of jail free card." He made a point, as did others during the floor debate, of saying they'd never intend to target groups like this, who are working for the safety and health of escorts. And they are also working for ................... wait for it .................decriminalization. I find it interesting and educational that they also shout who their allies are: the ACLU, The National Center for Lesbian Rights, lots of other groups. On the escort review front page Bill would editorialize about various efforts like this and various supportive legislators. But in my own opinion he just skimmed the surface. He was a private guy more than a coalition builder.

 

There's no way to avoid risk in escorting, other than to not be an escort or not hire. There's no way to avoid risk in an escort review site. But my own political calculus based on a lot of experience in working Congress and a few State Capitols is that the safe harbor isn't found by not showing pictures of cocks or which variation of the word "escort" you use. The safe harbor - or safer harbor - for a community like us is what kind of allies we have. And how powerful they are. That was true with the same sex marriage campaign. I think it's also true with operating an escort review site, and eventually whether it is decriminalized to do so.

Edited by stevenkesslar
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I'm going to keep posting escorting stuff about decriminalization and child sex trafficking and stuff like FOSTA/SESTA here. It touches on politics. But more importantly it touches on the core purposes and potential pitfalls for Bill's two websites. So to me all of this is basic and critical information about our future. That means everything from short term: does an escort review website continue? And how? To long term. Like are we swimming in this coalition stream of groups like HRC and the ACLU that would like to see prostitution decriminalized?

 

Eventually I think it would make sense to have a forum specifically for all these issues and laws relating to Escorting Health And Safety, including decriminalization. But now is not the time.

 

One thing I am convinced of is that escort review site should not be viewed as a "fun hobby." I actually think "fun hobby" captures the spirit of THIS website. For most people, this should be and is a "fun hobby." But running that escort review website is anything but. I know Bill viewed it as a potential reason to go to jail if he wasn't careful. We should do the same, I think.

 

I've been doing deep dives to bring myself up to date. I know several years ago I reached my own decision that we were going to be in defense mode for a while. So anything other than that didn't make much sense. Bill's own website offers reminders that he felt the same way. This is from 2017:

 

There can be little doubt at this point that we've entered a more conservative era in the United Stated as much as we like it or not. One of the problems is that the conservatives tend to consider anything that is the least bit sexual as evil. As a country we're several decades behind most of the world.

 

Bill's libertarianism wasn't a great match for coalition building. Although he was intrigued by the idea of reaching out to HRC and what I describe as "the Gay mafia." They are political donors behind LGBTQ issues and groups like HRC and I'm pretty sure many of them hire escorts. Not that I would know anything about that sort of thing.

 

Bill had coalitions he was part of, if you check out the right hand side of his front page. The Free Speech Coalition is the porn industry, basically, and the political statement is "Leave Us Alone." The RTA logo (Restricted To Adults) is thoughtful and forward looking, and we should take that one and run with it. It's part of ASACP, which is the Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection.

 

I think that plays heavily into our future. It's estimated that about 20 % of kids on gaming platforms - gaming platforms! - are sexually propositioned. COVID has actually driven more child trafficking online. Polaris, which is seen as the best source of national sex trafficking data, said trafficking rose about 20 % in 2019, the year after FOSTA/SESTA passed. Anecdotally, it looks like 2020 and COVID was great times for traffickers. Meanwhile, federal prosecutions of trafficking declined in both 2019 and 2020. Can any of you guys who are good at math explain this to me? More trafficking, and fewer prosecutions. How well does that suggest FOSTA/SESTA is working?

 

This suggests to me that if we tried to open up that review website for new reviews without adequate systems in place some asshole who trafficks 17 year old Honduran boys crossing the border in 2021 would be more than happy to posts reviews about "Marco" or something like that. So this is something for us as a community to think through and plan carefully, I think.

 

If you have 45 minutes I'd recommend listening to

against FOSTA/SESTA in 2018. He was right about almost everything. And it is a blueprint for the future, I think. He mentions that HRC and ACLU and the CATO Institute are all aligned on this issue, in defense of internet freedoms. I think that's a good coalition to be in. That's opposing FOSTA/SESTA. The decriminalization coalition includes HRC and the ACLU but not CATO.

 

The one thing Wyden was wrong on is we didn't have the explosion of lawsuits. Thankfully. There was an immediate chilling effect, like the loss of Craig's List ads. My own view is it castrated the review website. But I don't begrudge Bill for not wanting to risk slammer time. I think if they really wanted to nail Bill, they could have. I've been reading reviews from 2021 that state what rate someone paid for an overnight and vague things about what went on in a bedroom. Does anyone think a judge or jury or a smart guy like Wyden would not figure that out? I think Bill was protected in part by being a non-profit, in reality if not in law. And if anybody ever took the time to figure it out a Gay men and former drag queen who would have been an awful political target. In fact, I think a new and revitalized website should profile him and others as one our community's heroes. Michael is another obvious one, although it sounds like his family could have problems with that.

 

Another good reason to not have gone after either of Bill's websites is that trafficking is up, and prosecutions are down. So if more and more actual sex traffickers are getting away with it, why pick on websites that have nothing to do with sex trafficking? It was one of the weakest parts of the government's case against Rentboy in the public eye. And now the facts are even more on our side. That is part of HRC's message. Why pick on Gay men when we don't have a sex trafficking problem? In fact, we should do the opposite. We should actively make sure we DO NOT have a sex trafficking problem.

 

Wyden was right about almost everything else. FOSTA/SESTA did NOT "Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers", as the law purported it would. At least anecdotal information suggests it made life harder for sex workers, up to and including murder. His proposed solution in 2018 was provide more money for federal agents who have the best skills to prosecute sex traffickers to do so. Does what has happened since suggest he might have actually been right?

 

If you read that Polaris report above most sex trafficking happens in places like cheap hotels and underground strip joints and adult massage parlors. This story suggests underage refugee girls are being held in Queens and driven to up to 20 "appointments" a night by sex traffickers. I think the anti-trafficking crowd throw out lots of unvetted "facts" that sound extreme, and may be wild exaggerations. But the overwhelming evidence is that Wyden was right. There's more trafficking, not less. Prosecutors don't have the tools to handle it. A lot of it is happening on gaming platforms and Instagram and Grinder. Is anybody surprised?

 

Polaris says "escort services" are a major venue for sex trafficking. But they don't provide any data to back that up. I'm curious which services they might be referring to. It may or may not be "escort websites."

 

I think we need to understand the situation we are in before we plan how to move forward.

Edited by stevenkesslar
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EARN IT Act of 2020

 

The EARN IT Act of 2020 (Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies Act of 2020) is proposed legislation in the United States Congress that is aimed to amend Section 230 (47 U.S.C. § 230) of the Communications Act of 1934, which has historically allowed operators of websites to remove content from users that they deem inappropriate and provides them with immunity from civil lawsuits related to the content of such user. Section 230, which was the only surviving portion of the Communications Decency Act passed in 1996, has been attributed to allowing the Internet to flourish without fear of legal repercussions since its passage

 

The bill, as amended, would create a National Commission On Online Child Sexual Exploitation Prevention, a 19-member panel. The Attorney General, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, and the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (or their representatives) would serve as three of the members, while the remaining 16 are selected by the majority and minority leaders of both the House and Senate from experts in investigating child exploitation, assisting those that have been exploited as children, consumer protections, and computer security, including representatives from computer services. The Commission once formed will develop and continually update a Best Practices document aimed to provide guidance to service providers to help them to prevent child exploitation and aid in investigation of such crimes.

 

The bill also crafts two addition changes to Section 230©(2)'s liability, allows any state to bring a lawsuit to service providers if they fail to deal with child sexual abuse material on their service, or if they allow end-to-end encryption on their service and do not provide means to enforcement officials to decrypt the material.

 

Finally, the bill replaces nearly all instances of the wording "child pornography" in existing laws with "child sexual abuse material."

 

The bill did not pass. But like FOSTA/SESTA it has strong bipartisan support. It's all part of the "protect our children" campaign which for obvious reasons is great positioning, reflecting what is in fact an enormous moral problem. But it tends to leave things like internet freedoms and sex workers in the dust.

 

Once again, Wyden is one of the brightest guys in the room. His wife must hate the asshole! ;)

 

Wyden was critical of the bill, calling it "a transparent and deeply cynical effort by a few well-connected corporations and the Trump administration to use child sexual abuse to their political advantage, the impact to free speech and the security and privacy of every single American be damned."[13][28] As an implicit response to EARN IT, Wyden along with House Representative Anna G. Eshoo proposed a new bill, the Invest in Child Safety Act, in May 2020 that would give US$5 billion to the Department of Justice to give additional manpower and tools to enable them to address child exploitation directly rather than to rely on technology companies to rein in the problem.[30]

 

In my own judgment this bill, which I'm guessing could eventually become law, is as much opportunity is problem for us given the changing climate and where we are right now. One of my favorite organizing mantras is always try to find a way to turn a negative into a positive. One of of the huge negatives of Gay men is we are all child predators. One of my minor disagreements with Bill is that this website - meaning the forum - is one of the few on the Net where you won't find pictures of children. Like teenagers at a school rally to stop gun violence. I understood his point, which is it's a slippery slope. He didn't want any picture of any child in any context. I personally think it's a bit backward-looing. But on the other website, he's absolutely right. Any picture of any actual child in any context would be a fatal error. This proposed law is a reason why.

 

If Wyden or his staff actually ever looked at a male escort review website, I know what I would want him to see. I'd want him to see the HRC and ACLU logos alongside the ones Bill already has there. I'd want him to see the sort of minimal "check the box" anti-trafficking page RentMen has. If you read the language of the boxes you have to check to get into Daddy's Reviews it does include such minimalist language. If it were me, I'd take a truck and drive it through that. In addition to a profile of Bill, I'd have a profile of Paul and Sheila Wellstone, and talk about why the reauthorization of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA). I'd write an essay about how Sheila was like Jesus. She stood with female prostitutes, who were victims. I knew her husband way better than her. But my friends worked in his Senate office and I know she was very good at apolitical language directed at the wives of Republican US Senators. She was as good an organizer as her husband. So that website could be updated in a way that honors Bill and other Gay heroes and also makes it clear that the people who we don't welcome at all are child sex traffickers. In fact, we'll turn your evil ass in.

 

That's not a safe harbor. But it's a safer harbor. I think what we should be thinking about now are how to create safer habors that move us toward our goals.

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@stevenkesslar I'm sorry to see you, by your own admission, turned this specifically pinned thread political.....pretty rude of you, to be honest........RadioRob is only giving us an update on the practicalities and logistics of that site and access......

 

while most of us certainly agree with you on some level of decriminalization, your notoriously pervasive habit of inserting your political opinions in many "Lounge"-y threads is inappropriate and, again, rude to the OPs.......please, please start a fresh thread in Politics about your crusade with a clear subject topic (a quick glance over at recent Politics threads shows you've never done this) ....yes, I know you want to reach as many readers as possible who don't venture near Politics, but your crusade is muddying up utterly unrelated threads.........thanks

Edited by azdr0710
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while most of us certainly agree with you on some level of decriminalization, your notoriously pervasive habit of inserting your political opinions in many "Lounge"-y threads is inappropriate and, again, rude to the OPs.......please, please start a fresh thread in Politics about your crusade with a clear subject topic.....yes, I know you want to reach as many readers as possible who don't venture near Politics, but your crusade is muddying up utterly unrelated threads......thanks

 

I addressed that above. Decriminalization and how either of these websites defend themselves from being shut down touches on politics. But this isn't about my political opinions. It's about Daddy's websites. In this case the review website.

 

I've suggested that at some point we might have a forum specifically on Escorting Health and Safety, including decriminalization. But the immediate context is broader than that. It's about the future of the escorting website itself. That's why I posted this here. Just so it's clear. This is about the future of the escorting website. Politics is in fact a part of that discussion. If you don't talk about FOSTA/SESTA you are missing a big piece of the challenge Bill faced and editorialized about constantly. But its not just about politics.

 

Relating to whether this is political:

 

OUR GOAL

The goal of this site is to provide information to those of the escort community — information designed to ensure that those involved in escorting can avoid violence, prevent HIV, find community services and have access to a supportive community.

 

That is the website's owner's own language, stated directly under the words "Our Goals."

 

Where did he get that language? From this:

 

Finally, I want to note that I have heard concerns that this legislation could be misused or abused to penalize websites that promote important health and safety information to survivors of sex trafficking, including about HIV prevention and treatment,and provide access to community and peer support services. This information is particularly critical to the victims of sex trafficking and others who face high rates of violence and exploitation, like people who use drugs, people of color, and LGBTQ people. I believe the use of this legislation to create any liability for this important work would be an impermissible misreading of the statutory language and legislative intent.

 

Who said those words? Chuck Schumer, in the FOSTA/SESTA floor debate. Bill asked me to draft something about this website's goals that incorporated that. I intentionally suggested he draft the words. My view was that it was his website, so I thought it should be his own words when it was something as important as "Our Goals." So is this about some tangential political issues, in your view? Or is this about our goals? I think it's about our goals.

 

My premise in this post is that when it comes to "Our Goals" that is something we should now be talking about and planning openly. Do you disagree, @azdr0710? Do we not want to have a broad and deep discussion about that escort review website and its future? That's what this is about, which of course includes politics if we are being thoughtful about it.

 

If this is not the right post for it, sorry. I could have started a new post. I agree with @RadioRob that this is NOT a time to make changes. That is particularly true with the review website, since that was a one man show. I think this is a time to get informed, and talk about where we'd like that website to go. Do you disagree?

 

I've been reading past front pages and past reviews to get a sense of where things were at before Guy/Daddy fell. My biggest goal right now is I think we should be having a very open discussion about where things are at relating to the escort review website. Do you disagree?

 

I've been having lots of private conversations with people I view as leaders and good thinkers on this forum. Here's some language I thought was helpful on this point. I won't say who wrote it because it's a private conversation:

 

While I agree sex work should be decriminalized, putting this Forum in the middle of that debate is dangerous. This a Forum, not a political action committee. Many of the members are not "out." Others, like myself, are in jobs that could be in jeopardy were they to associated with advocacy to a controversial issue such as that. However, there's nothing to say members who choose to work toward that goal couldn't form a separate group to do so and have the conversation about that topic here.

 

I'll make a minor quibble. Saying we should not put the forum "in the middle of that debate" is a bit inconsistent with saying this is a place to "have the conversation" about that topic. But I thought the idea basically makes sense. This should be a place to talk about things and plan. I like the idea that this is a place to discuss and debate. NOT a political action committee.

 

We could perhaps decide that Bill was wrong, and the escort review website should NOT be a tool for advocating decriminalization. But we would then have to decide he was wrong. He constantly used that website as an advocacy tool. Go check out what articles he posted, and what he said about them. I wrote a few of the articles. I think I know how he felt. So the way I take that quote above is that the other website has been and I think should be a tool for continuing to do what Bill did. That is, of course, my opinion. But it's my opinion about the basic goals of that website.

 

I like both the tone and spirit of saying this forum is a place "to have the conversation about that topic." Do you disagree? Do you think we should not be having a conversation about the future of that website, including Bill's habit of using it to consistently promote decriminalization and the health and safety of escorts? That's not my opinion. That's simply a fact.

 

My most immediate concern is about the danger of posting any new reviews without anyone, to my knowledge, knowing anything about the age verification systems he had in place. Is that okay to talk about, and where is it okay to talk about?

 

While we're on the topic, I'll put this out there too. Several posters here have suggested Oz could buy Bill's websites. There's a discussion about that going on at Gay Guides. I personally think, and have posted, that it makes no sense for these forums to merge with what Oz has. That's my personal opinion. I think we're doing exactly the opposite, actually. But I have been planning on posting about the idea that perhaps it would make sense for Oz to buy and/or help run the escort review website, at least in the short run. My view is we have Three Wise Men who started this operation. Two are now deceased, and one is living. To my knowledge, Oz probably is the only person around with a day to day practical knowledge of how to run an escort review website without getting caught up in FOSTA/SESTA or EARN IT. Is that politics? Or is that about planning for our survival? Is it okay to talk about? And if so where can we talk about it?

Edited by stevenkesslar
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I'll add this to put what make sense to me, at least, in context.

 

In the three weeks in February ending with Bill's "I have a cold" post, a total of 6 escort reviews were posted over three weeks. So on two different days there were three reviews posted. And on 13 days the message is "No reviews available for this date." That's not meant as an opinion, or a judgment. It's just a statement of fact.

 

In my heyday, there could easily be six reviews a day. I've been checked out of the review site for years. But I have friends telling me it has nothing to do with their business. They're all working off RentMen or a few other websites. So this tends to confirm to me what they are saying to me. I'd be interested to ask around more escorts and get their observations.

 

Meanwhile, I've heard limitless amounts of comments for years about how there were less reviews than before, and the reviews were watered down to nothing. Those two things of course feed off each other. To the degree people felt I can't say what I want to say, why say it? Or read it?

 

Precisely because of politics, meaning Bill's risk of prosecution based on what he did, my sympathies tended to lie with him. At least in terms of the review content complaints I heard. So if we're putting a "political" label on this discussion, it is "political" to talk about the content of those reviews, because it goes right back to FOSTA/SESTA. You simply can't talk about the review website and the content of those reviews or all the pro-decriminalization stuff Bill plastered on the front page without talking about the political environment that drives it.

 

I view this as good news/bad news. The good news, first and foremost, is that the site survived thanks to @RadioRob and Team Washington. Because there were six reviews posted in February, that means we have time to figure this out. @RadioRob said there were a bunch in the queue. But if I understand his thinking correctly I agree with him, strongly, that getting them posted is not an urgent priority. If we're being conservative and careful, it's actually potentially dangerous to post something without vetting it.

 

The bad news is the number of reviews posted seems to confirm what some escorts are telling me now, and what a lot of clients told me in the past. I think now is a great time to let 1000 opinions about that website bloom. Isn't that what this forum is for? And since one of the major things I heard is the content of those reviews, I just don't see how you can talk about it without talking about these political components that drove Bill to do what he did. Or how you can talk about whether that website is more or less likely to survive and avoid prosecution if HRC and the ACLU are standing behind it?

 

I quickly scrolled through January 2021 and it was pretty much the same as February. There are two days in which reviews were posted, by my count. Again, this is not an opinion, or a judgment. On his front page Bill talked about the health issues and medical tests he had going on at the time, so that may have had something to do with it. I'm just focusing on the facts, the facts, and only the facts.

 

I'll happily go with what most people think. But I don't think we know what most people think.

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@stevenkesslar nobody disagrees that the future of the review site is an important concern, of course......again, my point is your distracting hijacking of this and other threads with your political crusade involving a much-wider concern than the threads' and OPs' topics.......you did not answer my suggestion about starting your own thread in Politics about this and, when I looked, I was surprised you haven't done this yet at all!.....since you've already said, and agreed with others, that now is not the time to start a formal subforum on safety/decrim., why not just start a thread in Politics (something you have yet to do on this topic) for now?.......is it because you fear your words will get lost over there?.......

 

this thread is a sticky for forum members on what the new logistics of accessing the review site are......

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