June 15th - Summary: About.com's adult-content sites sold off... finally

Way back on March 3rd I reported here that About's adult-content sites were to be sold off "in short order" -- that, from Tom Rogers, CEO of Primedia (which had just completed a merger with About. You can read the About.com archives if you'd like to learn more.) In today's hectic "Internet time," I wouldn't call three months "short order"... but apparently a deal has finally been inked.

Since I still have (had, now) administrator access to The BDSM Forum at About (overlooked in the rush of day-to-day business, I suppose), I dropped by there on a regular basis trying to keep things tidy by moving new personal ads to the personals category, and so on. (Yes, I know I had no obligation to do so, and in fact it was probably downright silly. But the loss of About's BDSM site as a resource still bothers me, and I wanted to do what I could to keep the Forum useful. No one at About seemed to be maintaining it at all.)

When I stopped by this morning, I was greeted with this message:

As of June 12, 2001, About is no longer offering this forum. About is no longer the owner of the site formerly attached to this forum. To find out more information, please go to http://home.about.com/people/adult/index.htm.

Following a sequence of links eventually led me to http://www.adultseek.com/bdsm/, where a small part of About's BDSM site is reproduced. They're using the same general format, but there is no Forum, no chat, no links library, and no article archive -- just a front page linking to a few of my old articles, plus a raft of "Essentials" that have nothing to do with BDSM (save for one of John Alexander's reviews).

Of course this has only just happened, so it's highly unlikely that the site will stay this bare. And the good thing is that, at least for now, the site isn't behind Adult Check... nor are any of the other adult-content sites hosted there (Adult Film, Adult Swinging, Amateur Erotica, Celebrity Erotica, Fetishism, Gay Erotica, Hentai, Lesbian Erotica, Straight Men's Erotica, and Straight Women's Erotica). It'll be interesting to keep an eye on these sites to see how things develop.

April 27th - Summary: Our old room is dead and gone; Straight Women's Erotica has a new Guide; The Park closes down and Abbot's Place opens its doors to Hidden Chamber "refugees"; our first contest begins in May: win The Topping Book or The Bottoming Book!

Wow, what a month April has been. Let's see if I can recap some of the high and low points...

On the About.com front, our old #bdsm chat room was locked down earlier this month: the programmers finally got around to closing the "back door" some folks were using to access the room without Adult Check. Not long after that the room switched over to a new chat system, and all the BDSM chat links on About.com now take people to that new room.

About's Straight Women's Erotica site -- which you will recall went "Guideless" well before the Adult Check saga began -- got new leadership from Tina C. early in the month. If you have Adult Check, please stop by and welcome her. I find it interesting that About.com is staffing its adult sites even though it's been publicly stated that they are to be sold off (no further news on that front, by the way).

About.com's adult chatters aren't the only folks to have lost their home. The Park, a site that hosted several adult chat areas, is shutting down, leaving regulars of "The Hidden Chamber" and other rooms as lost and homeless as we were when Adult Check rolled out. (Even moreso actually, since at least we could slip into our room "under the radar" for several months.)

If you're an Abbot's Place chatter, you know at least two great folks from The Park; they've been regulars with us as well for months (I'll let them decide if they want to reveal themselves). One asked if it would be alright to invite some of the folks from The Hidden Chamber over to Abbot's Place. I think you can guess my answer; after all, we're always ready to welcome new friends. So, keep your eyes open for a few new faces over the next month or so.

I understand that The Hidden Chamber was geared more for play and roleplaying than discussion. To try and make our new visitors feel more at home, I've set up our second chat room: The Dungeon. I'd planned a "scening room" for some time, and this was a good reason to bring it online. You'll find you can access either room from our chat applet. IRCle/mIRC/Pirch/etc. users can get to the new room with /join #The_Dungeon. (Separate stats are available for the new room; you'll find a link on the Chat index page, or just type !stats in The Dungeon.)

I had planned on having a contest every month this year, but the early-January surprise of Adult Check put a kink (heh) in those plans. Well, better late than never: In May we'll be running our first-ever Abbot's Place contest, the Tops and bottoms Sweepstakes. You'll find information about it on the Chat index page, or just type !contest in the chat room. Come take your shot at winning a copy of The Topping Book or The Bottoming Book.

March 3rd - Summary: About's "sexual content sites" to be sold "in short order."

Last Fall, things started getting rough for About.com's adult-content sites. The company unilaterally decided to remove all photos from those sites' Forums, pull them from the service's search engines, remove them from the "A-to-Z list," and take other actions that I'll not list because they're not public knowledge.

And then, of course, Adult Check appeared in early January.

All of these incidents followed the announcement that About.com would be merging with Primedia, a print/video/Internet media business that publishes magazines including Seventeen, Modern Bride, and New York; provides the Channel One Network to schools across the nation; and owns over 1,000 Internet properties and Web sites.

The merger process was completed the first of this month. Around the same time, Primedia's CEO Tom Rodgers declared his intent to dispose of About's adult-content sites. From an article in the New York Post:

One of the first orders of business after completing the deal will be to sell off the sexual content sites at About.com.

"We will dispose of those sites, one way or the other," CEO Tom Rogers told the Post in an exclusive interview... they are going to be sold off "in short order," according to Rogers.

The fact that a company involved with magazines like Seventeen and American Baby -- and which provides an in-school educational network -- would merge with an Internet service that included "sex sites" has been a public relations nightmare for Primedia. Making it worse was the attention from activist Jim Metrock, President of the watchdog organization Obligation, Inc., who appears to have been doing everything in his power to give Primedia and About "black eyes." Mr. Metrock even wrote to me asking questions like, "Is Kurnin [sic] the bad guy?" (Scott Kurnit is the driving force behind About.com.)

What happens now?

Quite honestly, I have no idea. I don't even know what Primedia considers "sexual content sites." After all, even About is apparently confused on this issue; why else would their BDSM site (which contained no pornography/erotica or links to same and which was purely an information source) be placed behind Adult Check while sites like Sexuality ("Tips on giving the best 'blow job'," "Everything you ever wanted to know about penis size," "Anal Sex: A 'How To' Guide") remain wide open to the public, lacking even an age warning page.

Will Primedia consider Tatoo/Body Piercing -- which has explicit information on nipple, labial, and clitoral piercing -- a "sexual content site?" How about sites like Gay Life, Lesbian Life, and Gay/Lesbian Issues? Will they go as well, or will Primedia follow the boundaries set by About's Adult Check placement? Only time will tell.

And, as always, I'll do my best to keep you up to date.

February 25th - Summary: Applicants queued for About's BDSM site? Also: New chat server much more stable; rolling out experimental navigation menu.

I mentioned just the other day that my About.com photo had been replaced by a blank gray square and the words "Apply Now." Well, it didn't take long for someone to follow those directions. Our trusty host justine just alerted me that BDSM was no longer on the "available sites" list. I checked and, sure enough, it's gone! That means one of three things: Either About slipped up and reloaded an earlier version of the page, or they've decided to dump the BDSM site, or one or more people have applied to be the site's Guide and are entering the training and evaluation phase.

If it's the last in that list -- and I presume it is -- don't expect immediate changes. It takes quite some time to get through the evaluation phase, select one or more potential Guides, and take them through "boot camp." It'll be several weeks before we get even a hint as to who the new Guide might be or the direction in which the site will be headed.

As for here: We've only been on Hurricane -- our new chat server -- for a couple of days, but I've already seen a tremendous improvement in stability. There have been no total failures (India, our former server, continues to struggle), and Abbot has only been disconnected a couple of times. In fact, he's almost broken his previous connect record of just over one day and fifteen hours, set when we started with Mellorien. So, it looks like the change was a productive one.

Now that I have a general idea of how this site will be structured, I'm going to start rolling out a new navigation menu. This should keep you from having to set multiple bookmarks here or having to hit your "back" button repeatedly. You can see it at the top of this page; over time it will be installed on other pages. As always, please let me know of any thoughts you might have or problems you might encounter.

February 22nd - Summary: Chat server issued resolved; About's BDSM site marked "Apply Now!"

The "rough ride" we've been having in chat for the last week or so should be behind us now. Just a bit ago, I reconfigured Abbot and our Java chat applet to use Hurricane, which is currently Earthlights' US hub server (meaning all the other servers connect to it, directly or indirectly). In addition, Abbot has also been given access to another Earthlights server, Carina, as an additional backup. If you're using a dedicated IRC client like mIRC, Pirch, IRCle, etc., you will probably want to change your server to hurricane.earthlights.net.

FLASH: Literally as I was typing the above paragraph, Abbot lost his connection to Hurricane and is now trying to connect. Can't win for losing! Oh well... time will tell, but I do expect this server to work much better for us. I'll keep you posted or, better yet, come hang out in chat and decide for yourself!

On the About front, I've been stopping by the Forum pretty much every day. Today when I arrived, I was greeted by a blank gray square where my Guide photo used to be, and the words Apply Now. Checking the available sites list revealed that "Bondage/Discipline/S&M" is indeed listed. If you've always wanted to run About's BDSM site, now's your chance: Put in your application! However, I don't think a resource site will do well (if even survive) behind Adult Check, so you'd best be interested in running it as "BDSM Erotica."

February 14th - Summary: I'm no longer a Guide.

Well folks, it appears I am officially "About.com's former Guide to BDSM" now. This evening, I have no access to my administrative areas or About's BDSM Forum using my Guide user name. I can't be sure because of temporary Internet connection problems, but it appears I can no longer use my bdsm.guide@about.com email address either. I do still have administrative access to the chat room, but ParaLogic probably just hasn't gotten around to removing my name from the list yet.

No great significance to this; it was supposed to happen after 15 days, after all. I just thought I'd let everyone know.

January 31st - Summary: James LiGate Resigns from About.com

Okay folks, here's that "interesting news" I've been alluding to.

I have just officially announced my resignation as BDSM Guide for About.com

This was a decision I made as soon as Adult Check rolled out. If you read back through my early posts here, I made comments about one Guide "giving it a month"... yes, that was me. Why wait so long? I guess I still believe in the Tooth Fairy. See, I know that people sometimes realize their mistakes and decisions get reversed. I thought that maybe, just maybe, About.com would realize what a bad move Adult Check was. I valued the visibility I had at About; it let me reach and -- I hope -- help more people. I didn't want to walk away because of a temporary "glitch," so I decided to give them the month of January to change their minds.

Although to be completely honest, I'm not sure if I would have stayed even if they had reversed their decision. Once burned is twice shy; I'd always be wondering what would happen next.

The reason for my resignation is simple: installing Adult Check goes against every principle that has guided the site for these past almost four years. Way back in the Fall of 1997, the [then] Mining Company was talking about maybe going "membership" or "pay" at some point in the future. I told them then: If that happened, I'd be leaving. My opinion hasn't changed over the years, and Adult Check affects the site's visitors the same way as memberships would.

So... now what? Well, I'm contractually obligated for 15 days after giving my notice, which means that February 15th will be my last day with About (unless they decide to cut me loose sooner than that). I'm inviting all my Off the Cuffs newsletter subscribers to stay with me through the transition to a new -- but very similar -- newsletter I will be sending out personally.

Here at Abbot's Place, the chat room will continue to improve, plus I hope to add discussion boards to support those who won't be able to post on the BDSM Forum. I'll also be setting up the searchable online worldwide group and Munch databases here, and hosting a few selected articles. In other words, Abbot's Place will turn into a real site and not just a page of "here's what's happening" with a chat room attached.

Make no mistake About it, Abbot's Place will be nothing like About's BDSM site. I simply don't have the time or resources to pull it off, nor do I want to be in "competition" with About. But I'll try to provide the most valuable and most popular resources, and I'm hopeful that the site will grow into something useful.

I'm also hopeful that you'll be here with me as the site develops.

Thank you for your support over the last month (and, for that matter, the three and a half years preceeding it). You folks remind me every day why I'm doing this... and it makes me proud to be one of you.

Soon-To-Be-Former BDSM Guide for About.com

January 24th - Summary: One more adult-content Guide walks.

Mona J., About's Fetishism Guide, announced her resignation today by stating, "'I finally have had enough."

Said Mona, "I am going on to new challenges and am hoping to be able to regain my belief that working in the adult industry is actually helping people. I firmly believe that sex is not evil or harmful. It is a part of human nature that needs to be expressed and needs honest answers to tough questions. The adult sites... at About are the best at showing this and I hope they get the chance to stay that way."

And just so you'll know: this is not the "interesting" announcement I alluded to in January 22nd's entry. There's more to come.

January 18th - Summary: Another About Guide resigns.

Another one bites the dust: Shelby G., About's Lesbian Erotica Guide, revealed that she had tendered her resignation today, effective the end of the month. Said Shelby, "I have learned a great deal during my years with TMC/About and consider working alongside the incredible talent of the other Adult Guides an honor that I'll not soon forget. However, for obvious reasons -- both ethical and financial -- I cannot and will not continue working for this company."

About is now down by four Adult Guides, and another resignation is pending if Adult Check is not removed within the next few weeks. Stay tuned as the story continues to unfold.

January 11th - Summary: Three adult-content Guides have turned in their resignations.

You know that old line about doing whatever you're going to do and letting the chips fall where they may? Well, the Adult Check chips are starting to fall.

On Monday the 8th, Austin Aleksander -- About's Gay Erotica Guide -- informed the remaining adult-content Guides that he had resigned. "I held off on my decision until the AVS became a reality and my community had an opportunity to voice their opinions on the matter. With all but 4 of nearly 250 speaking out against this new formula, I know I am making the right decision. I feel that the success my site has seen is a direct result of their unceasing and selfless support; staying behind while these people are now locked out just doesn't feel right to me." Amen.

Today, relatively new Sex Industry Guides Jeff and Kris Booth revealed that they had also resigned. "Being an informational site with relatively little visual content, we really did not want to wait until we became site [number] 905 out of 906. I'm very sorry we never got to know the rest of you. For those of you who stick it out, we wish you the best of luck. Hopefully, you'll find a way to make your hard work pay off."

Keep in mind that these two resignations come on the heels of another departure: Straight Women's Erotica Guide Amber M. quit in December. "The decision to quit my site has been one of the most difficult I've made in years. But I know it's the right one for me and I don't have any regrets."

About has now lost three of their existing adult-content Guides, with at least one more resignation pending if Adult Check is not removed within the next few weeks. It will be interesting to see how far this goes, and what the future will bring.

January 8th - Summary: New chat room taking off; BDSM Forum link; some adult-content Guides resigning.

Well, we've survived the weekend and, I think, come out stronger than before. The new chat room is rapidly becoming our new home, rather than a place to discuss Adult Check and changes at About.com. At this moment, there are fifteen people chatting away there, while About's BDSM chat room is empty. I guess that says something; people are voting with their feet (fingers?) as well as their wallets.

I had to put the chat room in on very short notice, so it needs a lot of effort still. But I managed to get some work done on it over the weekend. The room is now easier to get into and to use than its original test configuration (and it will continue to get better). I added a whole raft of graphics (emoticons and other symbols) to the few we originally tested with. And several chatters bemoaned the loss of the little "ploink" sound you could get when someone entered the old chat room -- apparently, a lot of us log in and then go about our business until we hear someone else come in. With Abbot's help, the chat room now plays a doorbell chime whenever someone enters. (Unfortunately, I made the mistake of adding a large number of user-playable sounds, and the bigger mistake of telling everyone about them! It was like an out-of-control party when I left...)

Seeing that this may be more permanent than just a space to discuss Adult Check and what's happening at About, I've been in touch with a couple of networks about hosting our chat. One in particular has been extremely supportive, welcoming us with open arms and offering to do whatever they can to make us feel at home. Stay tuned for further developments.

On the 6th, I told you about a way you can still get into the BDSM chat room for a while. I forgot to mention, though, that the Forum is also still available, as long as you go directly to it and not through About.com. http://forums.about.com/ab-bdsm/start/ works... for now. Keep in mind that both this and the About chat room link are offered so you can make last-minute arrangements with friends or close out ongoing conversations. Don't count on them continuing to work.

I received word today that one of our adult-content Guides has tendered a resignation over this situation. In response to the farewell email, another Guide promised to be around "at least through Wednesday." Yet another Guide has "given it a month" and plans to resign if About.com doesn't reverse its decision by the end of January.

It seems things are going to get quite interesting.

January 6th - Summary: Try this if you're locked out of About.com's BDSM chat; our new chat room is up and running, if just barely.

From SheWolfBitch, one of our alert chatters:

"Someone sent me this and I thought I would pass it along to you."

Locked out of About.com's BDSM chat due to Adult Check? Click Here!

[Edited and updated 8:38 PM]

Please note that this is an interim maneuver. I imagine some folks would frown on us using a "back door," and I doubt it will keep working very long at any rate. But it gives us a way to get together and talk through the "kinks" of the new chat room (and talking kink is what we're all good at, right?) As soon as we have figured out all the peculiarities of the new room, I'll pull down the link to About's chat room.

I spent the day setting up the basic configuration of the new chat room, and opened the doors at about 5:30 PM Eastern time. As of this update about two dozen people have tried it out. Many had absolutely no problems whatsoever. Some had problems with certain aspects of the chat (the clickable smiley faces, for example) but were still able to use the room. And a few had to make browser configuration changes before they could get in. All things considered, I'd say it went fairly well for a new room with which we're all unfamiliar.

The room is available now for you to try or to use. Just keep in mind that it is "bare bones" right now. Don't pout because your favorite smiley icon isn't there; I have plenty more waiting to be added. Same for the sounds, instructions, and a whole mess of cool features. And while Abbot is in the room, he's had a temporary lobotomy and won't respond to any commands until I can reconfigure him for the new room. (He is, however, logging everything so we can stay up to date with our chat room stats.)

If you have problems getting in or getting connected, see if the minimal hints below the chat applet help. If not, try to catch someone in the About.com room who has used the new chat and ask them for help. Most of the HOSTs and HELPERs have gotten in, as well as a number of our most enthusiastic chatters. I'll be adding instructions and help pages as soon as humanly possible.

Here's the link to the new chat room; just fill in your nickname and optionally your real name, then click "Connect Now!"

Stay tuned for further updates!

P.S. This page will soon be more than just a "holding page," and thus really needed a name. The one I chose for it and the chat room -- "Abbot's Place" -- is the name one of the chatters gave our old room's private photo album. I thought it was fitting to use it for the new room as a tribute to both our hard-working 'bot and the memories we all created in About's room, where the album was created.

January 5th - Summary: Adult Check AVS rolled out around 6:15 PM tonight; some still able to get into About's adult sites; first tests on replacement chat here look very promising; chat expected to be available to the public some time tomorrow.

True to their prediction, About.com today rolled out Adult Check across all their adult-content sites. The first indication of it happening was in our chat room at about 6:15 PM. For the next few hours, some people were blocked, while others were able to get in. I presume this was because they were actually installing and working on the software during that time. There may also be some loopholes which might exist for a while until all the bugs are ironed out. At this very moment -- just before midnight -- there are ten people chatting, with people popping in and out pretty much normally. So, at least for the moment, folks can still get into About's BDSM chat room if they're persistent.

I would not, however, count on this being the case for very long. So, we are taking steps to ensure everyone can still gather and discuss the Adult Check situation and BDSM in real time.

The barriers went up as Renee and I were driving home from work. As soon as I got in I reviewed the day's chat log and learned that the roll-out had begun. Fortunately, I've been researching alternative chat solutions since Wednesday morning and had already selected several possibilities. I quickly set up the most likely candidate on another page of this site so I could check browser capability.

The results so far look good. Internet Explorer 5.5 on a PC and IE 4.5 on an iMac were able to access chat with no problems and after a minor change to the Java settings, respectively. PC versions of Netscape Communicator 5.5 and 6.0, as well as AOL 6.0, all worked fine. So far, only Netscape Communicator 4.7 on an iMac had real problems, reporting a Java error and refusing to load the applet. (I have heard from other sites using this chat system that some versions of Netscape Navigator and Communicator have problems with it.)

The test chat room is extremely crude and limited -- it had to be, to be installed quickly for testing -- so it wasn't appropriate to open it to the public. However, first thing Saturday morning I'm going to dive back into chat preparations. I expect to have at least a minimally functional chat room up before the end of the day. It will be linked from this page, and I invite all of you to drop in and try it out. Just keep in mind that all functions won't be available right away, and things might be a little "rough around the edges" for a while.

Let me take a moment to thank my two brave alpha testers, justine and deffie{CW}. They struggled through configuration and connection issues to reach a totally unfamiliar chat system that was very limited in functionality, only to go through the process again and again trying different browsers... and they did it with a positive attitude and managed to have fun in the bargain. Thanks also to the many folks in About's BDSM chat room who were willing to deal with the same frustrations and who offered to help out if needed... and thanks as well to those who experimented and poked and prodded until they found ways to slip into About's chat space "under the radar."

And, equally importantly, thanks to everyone for hanging in there during a trying time. We will pull this off.

January 4th - Summary: Adult Check AVS coming to About.com soon; non-users will be locked out of About's BDSM site; this page will serve to keep you informed and in contact; ways you can stay in touch with your friends.

There isn't much here at the moment. At the moment. But that will change.

If you arrived here from About's BDSM site, it is very important that you bookmark this page. After About's adult-content sites institute Adult Check, you'll be able to come back here and find out what's happening with About's BDSM site, and what you can do about it.

You can reach me at escape@usa.net if needed. For general information about what is happening, however, please subscribe to Off the Cuffs. To subscribe, just send me an email with SUBSCRIBE: OFF THE CUFFS as the subject. (Most email clients will fill in the subject automatically when you click the link above). NOTE: You must email the request from the account where you want the newsletter to be delivered or your request will be ignored.

Thank you one and all for your support over the years, and your patience as we work through what will surely be a rocky time. Knowing you all as I do, I think I can safely say we will survive. In fact, in some very important ways, we will win.