Site Ideas and access. New section's

[Maid In Bedlam]

I did not see a surgestion thread so decided to start one.

 

I notice many occasions i have logged in and seen many guests but only few members.

 

if it suits could there be a section for members only? Invisible to guests. I for one would be much more comftable in what i post as in maybe pictures etc if there was a said section.

 

I have been on a few sites where there is such a section and from expreiance they are quite active.

 

Then perhaps make the actual joining of the site a little more tighter. Perhaps a verification process more than what is avaliable now. As im sure there are just those out there who join sites such as this who get off on Trans women but would never admit it openly. sad i know but a fact of life. I for one would take no pleasure in knowing that a person or persons unknown are getting something sexual out of a picture on here.  Maybe im just very cynical

 

I would be quite happy to mod this if the oppotunity presented itself as i do log in once a day normally.  Im no expert but i can normally spot when something is off.

 

Thats my couple of pennys worth ?

 

 

[Dannie]

That is a good Idea I have noticed the same thing who are all these people?

 

 

[Maid In Bedlam]

Quote

Who's Online   11 Members, 0 Anonymous, 317 Guests (See full list)

 

 

just saying ?

[Jackie C.]

You're absolutely right. Who ARE these people? Of course it's not like we're posting sexy pictures of ourselves but yeah ... people can be creepy.

 

Maybe start with a probational membership? I'd hate to limit anybody's access if they sincerely needed help. Something you could sign up for quickly and then you could get full approval after the mods had watched you for a set number of posts? I don't know how busy our mods actually are though, so please lovely mods ... don't smite me for that, it's just a suggestion.

 

Hugs!

[VickySGV]

Guests, who open the pages come from a known set of search engines and many but not all do fill out applications for membership which are reviewed by the Admins who have additional confidential tools to make sure we admit only sincere members, but even then some do cross lines and end up being banned.  About 1 out of six applicants don't make it.

 

We do have a "probationary period" and if you are reading this, you have passed it well.  The period is 5 posts that are subject to full review and approval by the Mods or Admins.  We used to have 100% review of all posts but keeping that has turned into technical and maybe legal problems for us and so we limit it to the first five which some people never pass.  As an Admin I have "pulled the plug" on more than one person at Post #1. 

 

When one of the Mods sees a post that is a problem with our rules, they can either pull the post outright or  discuss it in private (we have ways for that) with the Admins and other mods and decide if it should be pulled.  If a post is pulled, we will notify you PRIVATELY by Personal Message (PM) which they can do even in the initial 5 posts but no one else can PM you during that time.   Admin's can re-impose full review of members crossing the line and can do a few other things to discipline members who go outside our rules but we do not do it just for whim.  I am the newest Admin and a bit "Trigger Happy" on some stuff, but we are a team who have been on the site for many years and know what goes on.

All of you can use the Report Post feature in the upper right hand corner of the post, and one of the A&M staff will see that and act on it as soon as we come on for the day or (???) and the report will be resolved quickly with either pulling the post or getting back to the person who made the report and explaining why our rules say that we can't tinker with it.  Mods on up can edit posts and we do catch little issues such as medication dose's even from those who should know better.  There will be a notice at the end of post where this has been done and unless it becomes a frequent problem the edit will be the end of it.  I have been caught before too.

 

Only members can see the Galleries of pictures.  Instead of posting a picture in your thread directly, post it in your Gallery albums post a link in your topics and replies instead of putting the pictures directly in the posts. 

 

For stuff you would like to keep private, it is fine to use the Personal Message system where you can include some members but not all in your questions. Our only caution there is do not use it to break rules about asking for hook-ups and other creepy stuff and report PM's that do that to the Admin's directly.  You can add quite a mob of your trusted "brain trust" to a PM, but make that the exception and not the rule since many of these "Guests" later come back and say they have been lurking for months and years and are now coming on because of all of you that post here.  We do share with the community and it helps them. 

All of you are very welcome to contact Mods and Admins that way and some of us are pretty ancient in our experience here, I date back to 2011 and others go back to the founding of this place under its former name, so we have many years of experience on dealing with private items. 

 

If you are feeling like you are in personal danger of self harm, go over to chat which has a crisis team on most of the time, and worst case scenario there would be to call your own local crisis hot-lines.  

 

Last thing, it says two of us are in this topic just now.  One of our names, mine, shows in blue, as will Carolyn's, Mary Ellen's, and PJ's names as Admins, Dev's name is a bit purple since he is on both Forum and Chat sites, and names in Red are the Moderators. The other name here with me is a members color so if you see a mod or admin, click on our names and PM us for problems.  I hope that answers some of the concerns you mentioned above. 

 

PS -- Read our Community Rules carefully, we do make a point of following them, and they will tell you what our standards here are.  They are meant for your safety.

 

PPS -- I did a test of what I talked about under pictures, and posted via the "Insert Existing Attachment" feature below in the Insert other media button and then using the link only method.  I went off into Guest Land and checked things, and this post tells you what I found. https://www.transgenderpulse.com/forums/topic/78514-halloween-post-in-regard-to-a-security-question/

 

 

[Jackie C.]

Brilliant. You're never sure what goes on behind the scenes on a forum like this unless you're actually behind the scenes. I'll shut up now. You all seem to have it handled. Thank you so much for that.

 

Hugs!

[Maid In Bedlam]

I Know those wonderful mods do an super job. That was never an issue. Theres some that are my favorites. I enjoy there work greatly

 

Running a forum is no easy task. Always balancing the scales.  Been there. Granted the one i was entrusted with was bigger and on a very diffrent subject. I was just a little fish in a big ocean.

 

Its very interesting how many folks find there way here from search engines. Not that i look all the time but i have persoanlly never seen the guests count below 100.  Its still very intriging for what reasons people arrive here.  is it all they are just curious i wonder.

 

I am glad that the forum doesnt allow you to view the gallery while on a guest status. Thats something. So just remember if your going to post a picture that you know could potentailly never leave the internet once a single person has saved it to there computer then dont put it in a forum post.

 

So its a no to the members only section then?

 

 

[VickySGV]

5 hours ago, Maid In Bedlam said:

So its a no to the members only section then?

 

For the authoritative final answer there we notify the site owner @Dev

 

 

 

[Charlize]

Perhaps a members only section would work against one of the things i like best about this site.  I remember reading for a bit before i joined in.  When i was certain that no-one could figure out who i was i joined.  Today years later my anominity is not as important to me.  If i hadn't felt the site was safe i wouldn't have joined.  Seeing honest and open discussion of issues i had hidden gave me confidence.  If we keep that hidden we are the only beneficiaries.

 

Hugs,

 

Charlize

[tracy_j]

I would have to agree with you Charlize. I also get the feeling that having a members only area would create a bit of a secret society. I know that it is perhaps a bit hard on those first coming who are likely a bit scared (we have all been there),and those who like to fully relax without feeling someone is looking over their shoulder,  but I think being open helps many people who are guests and may, in all situations, find it too intimidating to register. I think that we are here to help as many as possible.

 

Tracy

[NB Adult]

I have to agree with you gals, besides if someone is concerned about being overexposed they can always opt not to have an avatar photo and use a fictitious name. Personally this shouldn't even be an issue for anyone.

[Guest]

Is this the official suggestions section? 

[Jackie C.]

Well it's not TERRIBLE, but you could start a new thread in the Q&A area.

 

Hugs!

[Guest]

What is 'not TERRIBLE'?! Sorry, I am kind of 'lost' this days LOL, around these quarantines and pandemia stuff, etc. 

[Jackie C.]

Ah, well while I found it, you'd need to direct your suggestion to someone who could do something about it. I'm basically just a referee. So your best bet would be to make a topic in the questions and answers section for your suggestion.

 

I'd also consider a suggestion to add a suggestion area, or maybe a sub-folder.

 

Hugs!

[Guest]

58 minutes ago, Jackie C. said:

Ah, well while I found it, you'd need to direct your suggestion to someone who could do something about it. I'm basically just a referee. So your best bet would be to make a topic in the questions and answers section for your suggestion.

 

I'd also consider a suggestion to add a suggestion area, or maybe a sub-folder.

 

Hugs!

That would be great -  a whole suggestions section!

 

Hugs!

[VickySGV]

1 hour ago, shelly_koleva83 said:

That would be great -  a whole suggestions section!

 

Actually, you are posting in the "suggestions section" we could rename this one I suppose, but this is the section you are asking for.  Use it wisely!! 

[Abi]

I do not know if this has been suggested or not. It probably has but I think it would be really cool if we could hit a like or love type button for other posts that we find important or want to show support for. It would build some more strength between all of the people sharing things together. Thanks 

[Susan R]

Thanks for sharing your idea @Abi...currently the closest thing we have to that is the Follow button...most threads that are popular have many followers. I realize it’s not the same and has a different intended purpose.

 

PS: you might consider starting a poll in a seperate topic. It’s easy to set up and you’ll get feedback on this idea fairly fast.

[Abi]

1 hour ago, Susan R said:

Thanks for sharing your idea @Abi...currently the closest thing we have to that is the Follow button...most threads that are popular have many followers. I realize it’s not the same and has a different intended purpose.

 

PS: you might consider starting a poll in a seperate topic. It’s easy to set up and you’ll get feedback on this idea fairly fast.

First of all, Hi!!! Thanks for responding to my idea so fast too. I am not real smooth with polling but that would be a great way to find out if this idea has much merit. Maybe some people would dislike this too. I don't know. I know if the option was there I would have used it many times already since I have read so many wonderful, well spoken thoughts and feelings. This is me loving your post. ❤️

[Susan R]

42 minutes ago, Abi said:

I know if the option was there I would have used it many times already since I have read so many wonderful, well spoken thoughts and feelings.

The option is available, Abi. Hope this helps.

 

Choose +Create > Topic > Select a Subforum Topic Area > once there, then click the second POLL tab as seen in the screenshot.

 

[Abi]

@Susan R Thanks. I hope I made the poll right. I guess we will find out.

[Guest]

Hey, amazing people!

 

Sorry, for being all over the place, but I really need to raise this question again!

 

EDITING!!!

 

I am browsing my posts and blog and I am seeing these mistakes (some of them done in the process of writing quick and don't have time to check the grammar or else). 

 

So...

 

My issue is that I am not that illiterate as it looks and I realize that my English is worst most of the time, but ... I can detect some of the mistakes and I want to correct them. I am suggesting:

 

1. Editing of posts (in the Forum and the Blog) and status, options. It's possible as option. I have seen it in that game forum that is created with Invision Community products as well;

2. Allowing Grammarly will be helpful to reduce some of the typos and others!

 

Thank you for your time! 

[Abi]

In my opinion the ability to edit our own posts would be helpful but, auto correct is a huge pain. It often just fills in whatever it wants. In a case where we are giving fast responses to a post, that could be even worse. If I understand correctly all edits go through the moderators. Maybe it would be acceptable to give us the ability to edit a post our own post, then a moderator could simply check it and approve it afterwards. For example, I posted a quote in French and had intended to include the English translation. I could not edit it and before I had time to ask someone to fix my error, it was already taken care of. The moderators are very good at helping us all make sense of our posts.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Abi said:

In my opinion the ability to edit our own posts would be helpful but, auto correct is a huge pain. It often just fills in whatever it wants. In a case where we are giving fast responses to a post, that could be even worse. If I understand correctly all edits go through the moderators. Maybe it would be acceptable to give us the ability to edit a post our own post, then a moderator could simply check it and approve it afterwards. For example, I posted a quote in French and had intended to include the English translation. I could not edit it and before I had time to ask someone to fix my error, it was already taken care of. The moderators are very good at helping us all make sense of our posts.

???

Hugs!

 

Actually, I think that the idea to edit our own posts is helpful for the moderators - we will not be asking them constantly "Would you edit this and this..., please!".

 

It's an option and we will be able to use it and reduce the work of the team of this amazing forum!