a question to the longtime members here

[dee2essohkay (imported)]

i remember researching eunuchs years ago - maybe 10 or more (maybe around 2008ish) and coming across the eunuch archive. i don’t know for sure, but maybe because i lacked understanding of how to actually get on the site and find information, i came to believe that this was a site that had long since been abandoned and that i might be able to find some very old info but it would not lead me anywhere.

i recall searching several times and always felt that if only i could get onto the site i would be in a good place. that did not happen of course and then almost a year ago when i was told by the transgender place that i could not get surgery unless i was on estrogen for a year first (not appropriate for me) i got kind of upset and tried searching for the source of this requirement from where it comes. fortunately i was pointed in the right direction (this site) by some caring individuals.

i’m wondering and this is my question, was this site once as i thought - abandoned - or inactive? could it have been that i use a mac? not really sure, but i did have difficulty getting here (even last year) and fortunately well worth the effort. not so much a tech question than wondering why it seemed so unavailable. hey you might say its my lack of computer expertise and that is ok. i just wonder if there are people out there who have encountered the same difficulties.

[WheelyCurious]

No idea about the question you asked, but it might be nice if there was a 'History of EA' posted somewhere with more details about how it started and evolved...

For bonus points, possibly a bit of 'back-story' on some of the major figures that we see referred to - random questions that have occured to me as examples - Who is Talula? Why did Jesus pick that handle? Why the Nun? etc... Obviously it shouldn't include anything that folks wouldn't want shared...

I know there seems to have been some major rebuilds in the past, as when reading some of the older posts, I encounter a lot of dead links to other EA posts (I also see a lot of dead links to non-EA sites, but those don't count)

It seems sort of odd and definitely not a great source, but some ways I learned more about the back history of EA from stuff posted in those attack stories that were the topic of a thread here a few months back...

WheelyCurious

[Paolo]

There have been a couple of brief periods where EA was totally offline due to equipment failure and a couple of hacker attacks. One time was when we changed servers. I don't recall the place ever being offline for more than a week or so at a stretch.

Right now, the server does take to "spells" where you simply cannot get on - the page(s) will not even load. We have questioned the hosts about this, and they have no answers other than "Well, the servers must really be busy."

But, no, there has never been a time when the EA was totally abandoned.

[julian--- (imported)]

I have been visiting this site for a very long time... I come here several times per week or even more .. And i enjoy coming here and read the loads of information on here ..It's great .. and usefull.. Tot bad the personals don't work anymore. I met a lot ofr very interesting people there . Hope it will come back on line.. Love to talk with other interested or curious people

[Paolo]

As per the Personals, if anyone knows of any software out there, point us towards it, and we'll look at it. So far, all we've seen is junk.

[julian--- (imported)]

hello paolo, Glad you look into this.. i so hope you all succeed.. i soo love this site..

[WheelyCurious]

As per the Personals, if anyone knows of any software out there, point us towards it, and we'll look at it. So far, all we've seen is junk.

I'm a long time member of the Free Software Foundation (the folks that put the GNU in GNU/Linux), and just out of curiosity I thought I'd post a very vaguely worded question about what might be out there in the Free Software world...

(ME:) A non-software related forum that I’m active on, used to use some sort of commercial package for having an associated ‘personal adds’ site

I see lots of complaints about the fact that the ‘personals’ are no longer working, which the admins say is because the software it was running on was dropped by the company that made it

The admins say that they would like to resume having the ‘personals’ area, which needs to be separated from the forums area for various reasons, but haven’t found any suitable software

Anyone have any ideas about a Free software package that might work? For what it’s worth the forum runs on vBulletin

(Response)Put up a Discourse instance or section made for personal ads that is visible without being a member like the vBulletin site.

https://www.discourse.org/

It's GPL v.2 licensed and makes a big deal out of being 100% Free Software, but the company that puts it out seems to make most of their money from hosting Discourse sites... What I'm not sure about is what would be involved in hosting it as a private site on EA controlled hardware (which I presume is what would be wanted...) They do claim to have a 30-minute install on a cloud server w/ 1GB minimum space...

I don't know if this would work or not... It might be overkill.

WheelyCurious