Jonn,
Thanks for your reply on this. Very interesting to hear the view from the UMD point of view.
My comments were based on moderately heavy use about 5-10 years ago - things may well have changed for the better, though posts above suggest not. (I suppose I started with UMD in about 1998ish - can't remember now and I used it until Splosh! came along.) At that time, the aggression was pretty horrendous and was particularly noticeable towards anyone who might fall into the LGBT category. As a crossdressing splosher, the namecalling and intolerance of a few members never seemed to be picked up on at that time so seemed to have became engrained in the same way that casual racism was in the 1950s on TV but would now make you cringe and squirm if seen today. (Maybe moderators now clamp down on that more?) That, coupled with the flame wars that seemed to erupt made me very grateful when Miss Helen started the Wamdrogeny site for crossdressing sploshers and Bill started this site (to which many of the Wamdrogeny members migrated when it closed). I came across many who'd said the same and we could never reconcile the idea that a user on a fetish site could be so aggressive towards someone who had a fetish that didn't actually match theirs. (e.g. the idea that you might want to dress up was so utterly appalling to them, yet pouring custard over themselves was clearly normal and fine ... how weird!)
It particularly reached a head (no pun intended) with the shock and outrage that there might be males in pictures, resulting in the banishing of crossdressers (who actually look and dress as *female*) to the 'male only' section. Some of the outpourings of insane 'logic' had to be seen to be believed. Now, as chance has it, I'm not gay (I refer to myself as a 'lesbian crossdresser') but the hysterical outbursts from some members just because 'there might be a cock visible' reached a stage where it was impossible to deal with and did make me wonder how they deal with seeing their own (they must be SO disgusted that there's a cock in the same room as them)! I don't go out looking for pics like that, myself, but if I do happen to stumble upon one, I don't (metaphorically) run out of the room screaming like a queen and yelling for a policeman to make an arrest to 'save us from the big bad man', yet some of the most 'macho' members did just that. I simply move on and shrug my shoulders. It's ironic that these are the same people who often complain about there not being enough 'real girls' into WAM yet it doesn't seem to occur to them that (a) this sort of narrow-mindedness is unappealing to the women they'd like to see on the boards and (b) the women might well want to see pictures that appeal to them too.
I wonder whether it's just the majority users who condition a forum to its style? There did seem to be a much more 'triggerhappy' attitude over there where, if someone doesn't like something, they will start a massive and acrimonious war, whereas there seems to be (in general) a more fun and polite approach here where if someone doesn't like something, they either don't comment on it or just treat it with humour. The majority of users in UMD are from the US whereas the majority here are from the UK so maybe it just reflects differences in national characteristics - the difference between baseball and cricket all over again ... or American Football vs Football (...er... "soccer"!)
I see this replicated in one of the other sites I sometimes visit (Pantyhosexperience) where there are some posters who will get into massive flame wars over whether a picture is showing footless tights or leggings (like it *really* matters!
) but, far worse, much of the language used by a few is appallingly demeaning to women to whom they refer as inanimate objects, existing purely for the purpose of masturbatory satisfaction yet this unpleasantly sexist talk is not stamped out by any moderators. Again, these people wonder why there are no women on the site! (It is, however, the only site I've found that has a good photostream of the legwear I love.)
The comment on UK users in the UMD chatroom is, again, probably out of date but it always used to be the case that everyone I chatted to seemed to be based in the US. I actually popped in there about a week ago for the first time in several years and Mike Nomic was in there. What I was meaning was that, perhaps the total number of people chatting in the UK would be likely to be higher in a UK-based site's chatroom than a US-based one. It may well be the case that many people in UMD chat are from the UK but it's possible that a busy UK-based site like this might attract many more. Maybe not - who knows until it's tried!?
Regards,
C_W
