rawTOP

I just did a quick scan of the sexual health section and was generally fine with what I saw (not that I looked at every post). Bottom line I'm fine with honest, thoughtful discussion on any sexual health topic being in that section. Going completely without meds is absolutely a health topic that's sexual in nature. Having been through the AIDS crisis and having watched a lover die of AIDS, it bothers me that people would choose to do that to themselves. But it's their body and (in the age of PrEP) they're only harming themselves. They're more likely to get a balanced caring response to their question/issue in the sexual health section than in the backroom. The backroom will be more of a fetishy echo chamber and they won't hear as many people urging them to take care of themselves. Going no-meds "full blown" is the extreme case to me. Encouraging guys to not use PrEP or stop PrEP is a lesser case. It can be said in a fetishy "go for it dude" sorta way, or it can be said in a compassionate/thoughtful "figure out what's right for you" sorta way. If you see any cases of clear "fetish-driven" responses that don't seem thoughtful or compassionate, then please feel free to report them so a moderator can take a look.

ALL of Western Europe is successful with socialism – at least socialist in the way the Republicans define it – universal health care, strong rights for workers, a comprehensive social services system, etc. No significant person in the Democratic party is suggesting more than what Europe does in terms of socialism.

The attack is continuing. I've deleted another ~300 new registrations (apologies to the few new members who were legit who got deleted). I've also deleted over 16,000 private messages that were from users who've been deleted. Most of those will be spam messages. Also – "new members" are no longer allowed to send any messages. Hopefully the spammers will realize it's now pointless to join. But I expect the next thing they'll do is try to do spam posts in the forum hoping to get to the next level of membership where they can send messages – though that will NOT get them to the next level of membership. Please continue to report any spam you see.

I just also deleted all private messages from those 9 hours. You may see message threads with no messages as a result. (Too tired/drunk to get it right). I'll clean things up on Monday morning.

The spam reports really do help. We can block the spammer's IP and reduce problems in the future. In the meantime I've figured out the period of the attack – there was a flood of registrations over a 9 hour period. I've deleted over 600 people who registered during that time. There were probably a few that were legit that got deleted. Sorry if you were one of the few legits who got deleted.

Or just post stuff like that in the stories section…

LGBT folks fear Republicans more than we hate them. But that fear is well-founded. When your life is as stake, fear is the smart response. And LGBT lives are absolutely at stake. The number of murders of trans folks is really high this year. Proposed changes to the Affordable Care Act will affect a lot of poz guys and trans folks in ways that could kill them or cause them serious harm. Hate crimes are up, fueled by the xenophobia of the Republican party – that means an increase in gay bashings & murders. The "gay panic" defense is supported by Republicans – allowing the killers of gay folks to get away with it. And it looks likely that there will be roll-backs in gay marriage which will render our marriages worth less than straight marriages. That will lead to people losing their jobs, gay partners being denied immigration statuses to let them in to the US, etc. And some of those people will commit suicide. Your picking red herring phrases like "concentration camps" – phrases that were never actually spoken by anyone who you should take seriously – to belittle the danger the Republican Party poses to the gay community. That's NOT OK! There is a clear and present danger – open your eyes and see it!

This is one of the most important elections of our lifetime. When you look at the first 4 years of Hitler and compare it to the first 4 years of Trump the parallels are uncanny. Intense xenophobia. Rallies with a ranting leader attended by followers who exhibit cult-like devotion. Followers causing havoc and the leader blaming the chaos on other groups and saying he's the only one who can stop those other groups (when it's actually his group causing the havoc). Chaos rather than calm in international relationships. (And the list goes on and on…) When I was growing up I often wondered how average Germans allowed Hitler to rise to power. My mom's first husband was killed fighting the Nazis in WW2 during the Battle of the Bulge and my dad was wounded (he was on the same plane). The events of that war were a silent undercurrent in our family – so I gave it a decent amount of thought. I thought it couldn't happen here. But it is. And sadly I'm pretty sure my mother (who was so affected by Hitler) voted for Trump. So even people who lived through Hitler are supporting his 21st century equal. It's sad really. Our community in particular needs to remember what happened under Hitler. Gay men actually held many of the senior positions in the SA, but then there was "The Night of the Long Knives" aka the Röhm Purge or Operation Hummingbird when the SS assassinated the leadership of the SA while the SA were on a rather decadent retreat (that was essentially a big gay party/orgy). The seeds of what's about to happen to us have been planted and are easy to see. There are constant attacks against the rights of our trans brothers and sisters – affecting what bathroom they have to use, whether they can get medical care, whether they can serve in the military, etc. And now it looks like gay marriage may be rolled back allowing states to refuse to marry gay folks and allowing people who claim to be "religious" to treat us differently than straight married couples. We're very quickly going back to being second-class citizens. I'm NOT OK with that, are you? The backwards movement on those issues is all due to the Republicans. Never forget that in the German concentration camps the lowest level of prisoners were gay men with pink triangles. Gay guys would steal yellow stars off dead Jewish bodies to improve their treatment. We can't let this happen again. Now is the moment when we have to stand up. Unfortunately most of us choose to live in solidly blue states where we're "safe" (I know that's a big reason why I live in NYC). But if you live in one of the states listed below, your vote is really critical. Ditto for your friends who live in these states – vote, and get others out to vote! Texas - Trump is ahead by 3.5% Iowa – Trump is ahead by 1.1% Georgia – Trump is ahead by 0.4% Ohio – Biden is ahead by 0.4% North Carolina – Biden is ahead by 1.7% Arizona – Biden is ahead by 3.1% Florida – Biden is ahead by 3.4% Other states are close and it's important to vote there as well (NC, AK, MO, PA, WI, NV, MN, MI, NH), but those seven are the states that will probably determine the election. And a word about 3rd party candidates… Simply put, we don't have a parliamentary system where 3rd party votes make sense. We have a winner-take-all system. And ranked choice voting (where you rank the candidates in order of preference allowing you to safely show your support for a 3rd party candidate) is basically unheard of in the US. Voting for a 3rd party candidate is only slightly better than not voting at all. If you voted for Bernie in 2016, and you were in a purple state – you basically voted for Trump and the last 4 years are on you. The point is, Biden isn't perfect, but this election isn't about Biden – it's about stopping the rising tide of totalitarianism that's ruined our country the past 4 years. We need to end the horror of the past 4 years. Now is the time. Your vote matters. VOTE! Your friend's vote matters. Get them to vote! And if you're outside the US – it's happening to you as well. Look at the anti-gay sentiment in Poland. Or the anti-porn laws in places like the UK. Or the fight for marriage equality in some of the British Overseas Territories…

There's a word for voting against your own self-interest to the point that you cause yourself harm. It's the same word we use for Republicans who support a tax system which doesn't ask the richest people to pay their fair share. It's only partisan because one party hates gay people and the other embraces them.

Other than more people participating, I don't understand "more interactive". I mean I could have an AI chat bot who talks to you, but that would just be sad… Also, the general rule for forums is that chat can kill the forum because people interact in the chat, which has no lasting value, instead of in forum discussions, which can have a lasting value. So chat is not a priority.

No. I'm trying to get away from other people's technology. Other than spreading general negativity, what's the point of a comment like that? There is nothing in you comment that I can use to make chat better.

I find it appalling that people on a gay website are actually supporting candidates that are actively working to harm our community. Case and point - Justices Thomas and Alito have said they favor reversing the decision that gave our community marriage. https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/05/politics/thomas-alito-obergefell-same-sex-marriage-analysis/index.html If Amy Coney Barrett gets confirmed you can kiss our community's freedoms goodbye. The stakes couldn't be higher for us right now. I completely respect "1970s Republicans" that wanted balanced budgets and limited government. But the Republican party today is a long way from that. When Republicans like Ana Navarro and the Bushes are supporting Biden, it's time to rethink things if you're a gay Republican. To put it bluntly, any support of far right ideologies or politicians will be seen by the moderating team as an attack on the gay community and dealt with as such. As always, reasoned, fact-based political discussion is still completely OK (just make sure you quote quality sources with good data). If you don't understand how Trump and his administration are a threat to the gay community, start here… https://www.glaad.org/trump There's been a serious attack on our community by him or his administration roughly once a week since he took office.

Take the upside down photo, and rotate it 180º back to right side up and it should be fine. Long story short there was orientation data in your original image that tells the viewing software to rotate it 180º. That was stripped out when you rotated it in Photoshop. Now it's just upside down. So take the upside down image and rotate it 180º again and it should be fine.

Your a new member. You may have used up your upload allotment.

Delete My Account is once again showing up in Settings… So anyone who wants their account deleted can request it once again.

Nothing is permanent. But that's how things work with this version. That said, check your preferences. There was a point in the upgrade process where I had the option to keep the notifications working as they did previously, or enable new a new notification system with more user-controlled options. I chose the the new system with more options. So it may be simply a setting you can control. I'm not sure exactly how the new system works, so you'll need to experiment (or someone can chime in who's figured it out).

Correct. It's working for me, and hence not a problem I can fix without knowing more about when the bug happens.

I've just noticed that the ability to request account deletion (and probably cancel it) broke with the latest software update. I've got a ticket in with the software vendor trying to figure out how to get it to work.

In the list of threads you'll see a red circle or star to the left of the thread title. Click that and it will take you to the first unread message. My recollection is that that's how it's always worked – it's just the icon changed.

The problem with the notification bell icon being obscured by an X button should be fixed now. Ditto for the hard to read tag names. And lastly I fixed the white-on-white active pagination button.

Less than 1% of people visiting my sites use Internet Explorer. That, and the fact that it's obsolete, mean it's not a supported browser.

@BootmanLA Correct. I didn't write the software, so can't fix the issues. Blocking in quotes is extremely difficult. I'm a member of one board that tries to do it and it's not executed very well. There was just an update to the software, so see if it's still an issue. But even if it is, I can't really do much about it.

Tuesday afternoon (Eastern time) I upgraded the software that runs the site. There were a bunch of things that broke when I did the upgrade, but I think things are working again. Please report any problems that started Tuesday afternoon or later in this thread. Don't report any problems that existed before Tuesday.

There are several types of scoring on the site. None of them are affected by blocking users.