Other Sites out there for you…

[Tytn]

We are currently in an age of uncertainty. Many countries around the world are imposing restrictions on pornographic sites in various ways.

They are mostly angling towards something like an age verification system.

We are looking at other options at the moment, but one of the links that was offered up was a site called FetLife.

In order to join that particular site, you will need to get verified that you are an adult. They do it, or did it with me with a facial scan over 180°.

If we go for the age verification system, it is likely to cost post a verification and a monthly fee. As I’m not sure we can sustain such a cost, I would like you to have a look at the above site and let me know what you think.

I’m in the UK, and Ofcoms’ Online Safety Act is what worries me the most. I cannot afford any fines, or the revocation of any of my other licenses issue issued by Ofcom.

So please, have a look around and let me know what you think

[SoakdBrute]

Some or all of these options may be on your radar already, but I wanted to point out that there appear to be other options for site hosting (commercial and non-commercial) which, being based outside of the UK, might not be subject to the same age verification requirements.

On the commercial side, XenForo offers a native phpBB import tool which would make it potentially the simplest to migrate to. There is also Discourse (which offers both self-hosted and paid, managed hosting) but the migration might be trickier.

On the non-commercial side, MyBB sounds like it would be the most seamless transition. NodeBB is another option but the migration there sounds like it would be trickier, and since the main draw of that platform is a set of real-time interaction features we don't have here today, it's probably overkill for this use case.

I haven't fully read up on the content moderation policies for each platform but, broadly, I'd expect that the non-commercial / self-hosted options give the host more discretion.

To be honest, I think any choice which requires facial scanning or anything of that sort from users would lead me to stop participating on the site.

[SimonWater]

I can’t even find this FetLife site and Wikipedia states it cannot be found through search engines due to data protection laws (maybe that’s just a German thing, though, I don’t know)
Either way, if it comes to the point that we all have to verify our age, be it at this site here or any other site, I’m sorry to say I’ll be out of it.
I would never register my real life ID or a photo of my face at fetish sites, it just strikes me as too risky. (You never know who might be able to find it online, no matter how "safe" it appears to be).

Wouldn’t it be possible to host the forum from a server outside of the UK? (Maybe Canada or the US?) That should avoid the responsibility of having to align to that online safety act thing, right?
Maybe it would also be possible to VPN around it?

Sorry if my suggestions are useless, I have no clue how hosting a website works.

I hope that there will be a way to keep the forum open without any sort of verification because I’d hate not to be able to come here anymore as this is such a great community.

[Tytn]

https://fetlife.com/

Tbf I hadn’t heard of it before either.