Isn't part of the problem that what is/isn't 'porn' let alone cp is subjective. I don't know which stories precipitated the current crisis so have no opinion on the validity of the charge. The real question that needs to be answered at the MOM (aside from how to bring the stories back), is how to deal with future accusations.

Unfortunately we live in a world where guilt is assumed more often then innocent until proven guilty.

Wolf-Pup (imported) wrote: Wed Aug 10, 2011 5:48 pm Isn't part of the problem that what is/isn't 'porn' let alone cp is subjective. I don't know which stories precipitated the current crisis so have no opinion on the validity of the charge. The real question that needs to be answered at the MOM (aside from how to bring the stories back), is how to deal with future accusations.

Unfortunately we live in a world where guilt is assumed more often then innocent until proven guilty.

I'm guessing (because I really don't know.) that the complaints never came to the EA. They were lodged with the Domain host. That is something we simply cannot intercept or avert. Someone may take offence to stories that involve rape, or torture, or simply surgical castration. We cannot know what will trigger someone's ire. It could just as easily be someones aversion to circumcision that causes a complaint to the host. The only way to avoid the stories bringing down the EA, is to have them hosted on another domain.(possibly with mirror sites)

We do know, from our previous domain host that the stories that caused the offended busybody to complain were tagged "minor". Apparently there were two of them. Someone at the BME thought that was enough, and they hit the dump button. No argument we had could have prevented that. The decision was made without any input from the EA.

We need to decide, are the stories worth the risk and effort? If they are, how can we mitigate that risk so as to have the least negative effect on the EA? How can we best and most efficiently update the Fiction Archive without losing thousands of worthwhile stories?

I don't think we will be given the option of "dealing with future accusations.". We can only seek to minimize damage, and avert risk.

I think most of the minor stories are coming of age stories, and most such stories are about sex whether here or in mainstream media. Granted, the descriptions of sex acts here are more graphic than they are in most main stream media stories and the sex a boy might have is, at times, unrealistic, but it's hard for me to visualize a coming of age story that doesn't include sex. I can visualize stories about boys that never want to become sexual that might not include sex, but that would drastically limit the minor stories that can be posted. Rather than impose a bunch of restrictions on what and what can't be posted in a Minor story, I would rather not have them at all.

There are books available on Amazon that have more explicit descriptions of young boys having sex than do most of the stories in our archive. This (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5883 ... hool_Days_) one for instance.

None of these stories are illegal in the USA. I think it's impossible to have an archive that includes any Minor content that would be legal everywhere in the world. I'm not advocating for or against keeping such stories. I think in many cases they have value for the author and the reader, but it's not my name listed as the owner of EA. If it were, I wouldn't allow them: because I'm chicken and wouldn't want to worry about being shut down; not because I think they're wrong.

How about....

(1) NO anonymous access to stories;

(2) Every story has a thumbs-up / thumbs-down decided solely on basis of "this makes me nervous on a we-could-get-prosecuted level".

(2a) If there is no such marker, it's shown for no more than 1-2 weeks;

(2b) If there's more than 2 negative markers, it's not shown again until an admin sees it.

(2c) If there's more than two positive markers, and no negative markers, it's shown.

(3) The name of the submitter can be removed at any time by the owner, an admin, or the moment it hits a second negative marker.

I personally find the underage ones (pre-puberty and hit-it-recently sorts) troubling.

What I was trying to say in my previous post, is that there is always going to be something objectionable to the 'outside world'

If it isn't the minors in the stories it will be the gay content. Possibly the stories on female circumcision (which I find personally objectionable, but wouldn't call for a ban). It is adult content material and has a select audience. I don't think anyone here doesn't want the stories to come back. My concerns is how the complaints of the 'straights' will be handled. When are they justified (if ever)?

As for the technical side, as I suggested previously I'd keep the old stories in a static format as "Classic Stories" and start anew with a database/format that is editable and expandable, maybe even have a reviews option.

I can't wait until MOM is over so we can stop talking about it too

I wish to point out that just because it was a couple stories with the tag "Minor" that caused the problem, it does not guarantee that if we eliminate minor stories from the archive the same problem won't happen again.

The next complaint could involve the tag "Rape". There is a concerted internet movement to shut down any story sites, joke sites, etcetera that have rape as themes or even merely touch on the subject. I have seen many stories on the old Fiction Archive that were not minor themed, but featured rape predominantly.

Someone could become bothered by stories with slavery and submission, a very common Fiction Archive theme.

They might become bothered with stories of graphic content. There are a host of ideas, themes and stereotypes that were in the Fiction Archive, not just minor. Any one of them could be the cause of the next problem.

Even with no stories at all, there could still be problems. Someone might make an argument that the Eunuch Archive Forums are giving medical advice and encouraging people to mutilate themselves or others. Based on that, the forums themselves could next be the source of the problem.

It doesn't matter what the truth is. It is the perception that will matter.

We can eliminate and censor stories with the minor tag, but there is no ensuring we wouldn't have to do it again with another theme later on. The forum site itself could come under attack in the same way as the Fiction Archive. The very fact that a eunuch community exists might be offensive to some people.

Whatever we do there will be risks involved. Even with no stories, a complaint in the right ear could still shut us down. There will always be risks.

We need to decide in what way the EA will move forward and continue to exist. If it comes down to just an argument about what will offend people, then we should shut down the entire EA site today. The very EA itself is offensive. The EA is troubling to the majority of "normal" folk on the internet. In my opinion, just because it is troubling or offensive to someone does not devalue the benefit something can have to another.

We should be looking to take steps to both remain free to operate on the internet, AND to offer the greatest benefit to the most people. I feel that means both

Cainanite (imported) wrote: Mon Jul 11, 2011 3:24 pm an uncensored Fiction Archive,

and a welcoming Forum community. I believe I've made that same argument many times.

janekane, my apologies for this, but I'm going to borrow your story for a moment.

janekane has freely shared his story about how he sought out preventative castration to avoid a very real threat of dying from cancer. This proved a very wise decision on his part. He is still alive, his brilliance goes on, and his children still have their father. (Frankly, I'm rather glad to have him around too.)

If the Eunuch Archive were a person, one could argue that the minor tagged stories are like that potential cancer. We need only sever our connection to minor stories to save ourselves. Like janekane wisely chose castration to save the rest of himself, it would be a necessary sacrifice. I would be arguing instead to eliminate the threat to our well-being. It would be the right thing to do.

The Eunuch Archive however, is not a person. It is a collection of very real people. Each with their own desires, pleasures, needs, and problems. When we sever off that part of ourselves, we are severing ties with real people. People I care about. People who've helped others on these forums. People with something to contribute, and people that need help too, just as much as the rest of us.

We wouldn't be saving ourselves as janekane did. We would be damaging ourselves, and damaging others. It would be a slow bleed that wouldn't make anyone stronger. All of us are valid people on these forums. We are all here for a reason.

Again, my apologies to janekane. I know you've never argued to eliminate or censor stories, and you've never made the comparison I have. I sincerely hope you are not offended.

I'm going to go to bed now. I think I'll lay off this thread for a while. I'm starting to get tired of repeating myself.

Edit: Looks like Wolf-Pup and I made the same argument at the same time. Sorry for stepping on your tail, Wolf-Pup.

...

Cainanite (imported) wrote: Thu Aug 11, 2011 12:26 am We need to decide in what way the EA will move forward and continue to exist. If it comes down to just an argument about what will offend people, then we should shut down the entire EA site today. The very EA itself is offensive. The EA is troubling to the majority of "normal" folk on the internet. In my opinion, just because it is troubling or offensive to someone does not devalue the benefit something can have to another.

We should be looking to take steps to both remain free to operate on the internet, AND to offer the greatest benefit to the most people. I feel that means both [q

uote="Cainanite (imported)"

Cainanite (imported) wrote: Thu Aug 11, 2011 12:26 am time=1310361840]
an uncensored Fiction Archive,

and a welcoming Forum community. I believe I've made that same argument many times.

...

I'm going to go to bed now. I think I'll lay off this thread for a while. I'm starting to get tired of repeating myself.

Edit: Looks like Wolf-Pup and I made the same argument at
[/quote]
the same time. Sorry for stepping on your tail, Wolf-Pup.

Thanks for continuing the discussion. I think people are listening to you, and probably agree. I also think that each time you repeat it, it gets better ... but letting other people take the ball and run for a while, asking questions or making suggestions, might be okay too. Maybe you can summarize the various issues and proposals once more before MoM starts (along with your own recommendations).

My questions are:

-- Can we be assured that the "parent" or "upstream" hosting and internet providers are going to be able to resist whatever pressure might be brought? It'd be nice if we had assurances from them that they'll let the site function as long as we pay the bills on time. It'd be good to know that they have the resources and technical savvy to defend against "denial of service attacks" as well as any government meddling.

-- Is it worth the effort to try to set boundaries? Surely there will be someone who might be offended even by a community of eunuchs talking about how hot (or cold) the weather has been lately, let alone raping or castrating pubescent boys. Just the name of the site is offensive to some. If boundaries can be drawn around the forum/community, let's do it, but I'm skeptical.

-- If we do put the stories up on a different site, wouldn't just linking to them or announcing or discussing new stories on the forum/community site be enough to offend some people? If it is decided that links to a separate story site aren't going to trigger some sort of attack, that would make things slightly easier, but again there's no telling what some people might decide is offensive.

...

Password protecting the stories, or even putting up a paywall ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paywall ; Bitcoin might be easy and anonymous enough ) might keep some busybodies out. But not the craziest, most adamant.

I think it would be possible to use anonymous distribution of stories and even indexes and announcements. For example, Freenet, or sharing obscurely named and password protected files on MegaUpload and its kin. What gets sticky is links to those files on the Forum/Community site. I'm guessing that if links to stories are allowed on the Forum site and don't cause problems, the stories themselves could be hosted there, but that's just me.

I do like the idea of letting registered members give feedback, including but not limited to whether the story is appropriate. Comments and suggestions would be good, as would the ability to have a story go through different "versions" (let the author say whether the "old" version might still be available for reference, or whether the "latest" version is the only version that should be available, or perhaps withdraw the story altogether permanently or while revising it).

The more I look at ASSTR, the more I think it would be a place to host the EA archive. They say they provide unlimited space, and all the stories, including minor content stories, would be allowed. All we would need is a link to the Archive hosted there. EA would not be endangered; because they wouldn't have any of the stories saved on an EA server. I've come across some of our stories, the San Carlos stories, for example, already posted on ASSTR.

I know that I'm coming late to the discussion and am not a frequent contributor, but thought I would offer my two cents:

No offense to those who enjoy the forums, chat and community they afford, but I've had a very hard time getting interested and feeling comfortable in those parts of the Archive. Honestly, the interactive community feels closed and very much like a clique that's not particularly welcoming to newcomers. The drama level is high and even posting now makes me feel like I'm walking on egg shells. There's nothing wrong with that for a private club, and I suppose given the subject matter, the attitudes I've encountered are to be expected. I don't mean any of this as a judgment or criticism, and it may just be me. Obviously, the people who do take part get a lot out of it, and I'm thankful for that and thankful for the people who keep it running. I'm also very grateful to those people who through chat and private messages have taken time to welcome and interact with me.

The fiction archive has been a completely different experience. There's something for everyone from the profound to the absurd, from the austere to the sexy to the romantic, from the literary to rub-one-out-quick. There are no judgments, no arguments, no drama, no politics, no snark, no barriers to letting loose with an aspect of our lives most of us have to keep so secret the rest of the time. It's a blissful escape where we can lose ourselves without having to be so self-consciously serious about the subject. Of course, if serious and dramatic is what you want, you will find it in the stories, too!

Now, I understand from reading on the forums that some of the stories may have led to the latest round of domain host difficulty. I can certainly understand wanting to take steps to keep that from happening again. I'm not sure I have much to offer for suggestions for rules to make things more palatable for a hosting company that other people haven't already written about. I guess a free or low cost registration system might make sense (depending on the cost, difficulty and level of anonymity allowed, of course). I would lean away from content limitations -- one person's taboo is another's fetish (personally, many of the stories are of no interest to me because of the level of violence and heterosexual content, but if I hadn't been exposed to those two categories, I would have missed some of my favorites). Many stories involving minors are great, others are gratuitous, and it would be impossible to create an objective test to tell the difference. Those who have written powerfully about the importance of minor stories are right -- most of us began to experience eunuch/penectomy issues in youth, and excluding that topic entirely defeats a big chunk of the purpose of a fiction archive.

I guess, for me, everything comes down to this: if the fiction archive doesn't return, there will be many, like me, who will have no reason to return. If it comes back in a very different form, well, a lot will depend on the new form and content. This isn't a threat or an ultimatum. The site administrators have to do what is best for them and what they feel is best for the site as a whole. I'm just giving my opinion and a prediction that losing the fiction archive will make the EA a much smaller, less interesting site. There's nothing wrong with that, and it may still fill the needs of a lot of people, but the Archive will be a fundamentally different place.

Thanks for listening and good luck on some very hard decisions.

There is a viewpoint held by some people who do family counseling, that the most mentally healthy people are the ones who have the strength to bring up the most difficult problems and go to work on them. Sometimes, such people are labeled as "the identified patient(s)"

The "unidentified patients," in that model, are the ones who are having the greater difficulty and, if there is "mental illness" within the family, are the ones with the more severe illness(es).

It may be that those who object to the Eunuch Archive and its members, membership, and stories, are people who are not nearly as comfortable with the diverse realm of human sexuality as people who gather here may be.

Why would those of us who are able to grapple effectively with human sexual diversity willingly succumb to the limited perspective(s) of those who are not so able?