Long-post ahoy, if you don't want to read it, here's a good summary:
I don't mean to be a total dick here, but what is the problem? If I understand this correctly, you want to make ADISC even MORE boring? Don't read the post. Simple. Don't make ADISC the Internet's biggest business meeting...benefit of the doubt.
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We are a support community that serves a unique common interest, as more and more people join and discover themselves in this fetish, we are
always going to have the same repeated topics over and over again. As either an overseer or participant in various forums and sites over the better part of the last decade, I can say with definitive confidence that these characteristics of such web-communities will continue well into the future.
With the relative anonymity of the internet, who can accurately judge whether or not someone is who they say they are or have done what they lay claim to? Exaggerating the truth may be commonplace, and there are times when it's such blatant bullshit that we're bold in calling it as such, but fictionalising every account that we hear is just dim on our behalf and it's this sort of thinking that has made me think twice about sharing some of my experiences with this community.
I completely agree that these sorts of threads and posts are tiresome, but since we cannot verify the content of them unless hard evidence is found or submitted, it's doesn't make sense to silence them. Aside from a few quirks, the members here have the right to a great deal of free speech and opinion and we are still a support community. What's the worse that could happen is someone is bullshitting - someone gives them some off-hand adivce?
Stop the presses! We have a helpful person in our midst!
I trust most of the members of this community to react accordingly to when someone posts a thread inline with the OP's dot-point list. I've noticed that in most cases people here are able to differentiate bullshit from relative truth. I'm not insulted by your post IncompleteDude, but I'm annoyed that you may possibly be insinuating that people here aren't so bright, or that they are blind to the stupidity of others. That's definitely not the case as a lot of people here, both young and old, have demonstrated they have the ability to distinguish truthful recollections.
Denying that reputation/flame wars occur is simply foolish, and I will admit that they do happen, However, the comparative frequency of them is happening is rather low and is nowhere near the stage of concern, let alone being a big issue, or even problematic. ADISC has always been the type of community that has a collective mentality when it comes to dealing with issues. Sometimes it doesn't work in our favour, but in most instances it does. Nevertheless, it simply does not happen frequently enough to have to worry about.
Of course, I think it would be best if people that believed topics such as these to be deceitful, and refuse to ask exploritory (not mocking) questions to determine reality, would simply ignore/report the thread and otherwise let it die. But I simply don't believe that will ever happen. It's easier to supress the unusual and different, than ask the questions and do the work to sift through the truth and fiction of life's myraid of possibilities. Since this behaviour cannot be avoided, it is better to institutionalize it through regulation, and thereby manage it within reason.
But that's basically what we do here. I've noticed that when someone posts a bizarre or exceptional story that other members will question them to weed out the truth, often with a successful outcome. I'd like to think we pride ourselves on the fact we can differentiate truth from fiction, we can act sensibly, we can come to appropriate resolutions, that teamwork is prevalent amongst our population and that the majority can always agree on a sole outcome for the betterment of the entire site. This is usually the case and has become considerably apparent to me since I gained a staffing position.
Above all, can I remind you that this community isn't here to serve your interests, it's here to serve anyone and everyone willing to actively and appropriately participate within this community. That the following:
* Being babied.
* Wearing 24/7 for longer than a few weeks (except if incon).
* Relatives or friends knowing about you being ABDL and facilitating it in any way.
* Being seen or caught in public wearing diapers (except if incon) or AB paraphernalia.
* Speculation on the ABDL nature of others.
* Anyone you have ever met, especially in childhood, who have coincidentally been ABDL themselves.
* Being in any relationship where you are babied on an ongoing basis.
...is a permanent part of the construct and purpose of our site. We are attracted to diapers and/or baby-paraphernalia, whether by choice or not, sexually, emotional or both, as part of another fetish or as a standalone item... these sorts of topics are not only going to always come up, but they're to be expected.
Quieting them down will only serve to make this place a lot more dull and help in defeating the overall purpose of this site. As much as I love how we can all discuss different things here, sometimes I do want to:
- discuss diapers and baby-items,
- discuss my infantilism experiences,
- discuss my ABDL relationships,
- make myself known, and...
- hear other people's own thoughts and experiences on these matters.
After all, it's what brought me - and you - here, so I'm not keen on turning my back on it.
As a final note, people who post these kinds of things and don't get involved in other areas of the site really don't stick around here for long anyway. Why we're concerning about this is beyond me.
