Here goes then. Why we did it.
Bit of a long-ish read this one, so have a cuppa and take 5.
We were on another very well known site, some time ago and on there for some time.
We joined there about 8 years ago and after a few years, we decided to start this after some seriously bad things we were witnessing.
Our good RL friend went through the mill on there. She had an issue where a guy was bombarding her constantly with very aggressive messages.
He was sending aggressive and vile messages, always pushing it one step more. Every time she blocked him, he would create a new account and do it again. He would make accounts of single gent, couple and lady - to negate her filters. I will come back on this.
He threatened her with a deeply heinous sexual act which I cannot mention here and that day was the day my mind was made up. We are going to do it.
She posted on their forums pleading for help and the response was "but you're doing it to yourself right now, by posting in the forums asking for help and drawing attention to yourself"
Seriously?!
Anyway after lots of friends saying to me all the time, do your own site, make your own site, we know you can do it - we decided we'd go for it.
We spoke to our friends, did what we needed to and started the ball rolling in August 2014. By the March in 2015 - the 1st being St David's Day and us being Welsh (okay plus a birthday there somewhere too) we launched and were online after months of preparing and building.
It wasn't just the scenario above that made us do it. We were witnessing bad ethics, bad business practices and bullying on a scale I've never seen before - nor since. It's bullying en-masse with some people and by some people.
The site is very clever at propaganda. It's also very clever from a business standpoint. Everyone always says on there, "it's a free site".... it's not free, far from it.
They've been hacked previously and I would not trust my data on there.
Anyway so fast forward and here we are. We made instant changes which were mimicked. SSL was the first thing I installed to ensure encryption, it was copied... Online markers were another feature, again copied.
We know it's a huge numbers game, of course we do. But in the grand scheme of things we're still a baby. Only 3 years online. It's nothing really... but we know this will take time, we know it will take more than a few years - and we're in it for the long haul.
We take people's safety and privacy, extremely important. We had a discussion about some things the other day and I was explaining why we enforced PV and what measures we take to prevent catfishing and fake accounts.
I was asked a direct question; "Does it weigh heavy on you" and I will tell you now; yes it does.
People don't realise just how much. Nor do people really realise how much goes on behind the scenes to keep things going and the wheels in motion.
We have members here from all walks of life and all different backgrounds and professions. As a result, we have to take each and every one of your accounts' privacy, extremely seriously.
It's not a joke when you are dealing with real people and real people's lives.
There's some people on here who are in extremely important professions and backgrounds. If it got out that they were on here and swinging; their careers would be ended overnight. That leaves not only a works based issue, but lack of money, risk of losing a house and so on.
It could be someone's worst nightmare - for employees and colleagues, to find out what they do in their personal lives. So of course, we're fully aware of this and go above and beyond to maintain privacy.
With that we've also set things up for others such as our own online safety net, where you can tell us what/where/who/when and leave a log, should (God forbid) the worst ever happen.
We have enforced PV, after a very lengthy debate and discussion about it, which was open for all to become involved in.
The reason we rolled it out and opened it for discussion was quite simple, we'd all had enough of fake accounts coming onto the site.
We'd been discussing it for a very, very long time but had pros and cons about it. However, after putting it to you the community, it was clear by an overwhelming majority - that this is what people wanted, so we did it. Requesting is one thing, enforcing is something entirely different.
Nevertheless that's what we did and in doing so, we became the World's first Swinging Site to enforce a fully face photo verified system.
We've added a lot of features to the site, from being able to cam directly from mobile using our apps, to videos, members maps, extensive search systems, forums, debates and so much more. Literally a plethora of goodies.
You can do so much with your accounts and so much on the site. Music threads, fantasy forums and threads, fun and off topic threads.. so many lively things on here.
You see, it's not just swinging and lifestylers that this needs to be about. We're all human beings, so why can't the site also be used by you, to discuss every day life and events?
Exactly... it can be, should be and really is. It's not just and only about swinging. It's a community, with community driven posts and topics.
We're very proud of what we have achieved within these years. We've made some very big changes to how things are done and I believe that yes, we're setting precedents. We really are. Granted again, it's a numbers game but we are getting there slowly but surely.
The safety side of it, is non-stop work for all of us as a team. People still must have their wits about them - but we do so much from behind the scenes to ensure certain steps are taken for maximum safety and privacy for all.
Of course, there's more technical things too such as the fact that we're not on shared hosting as someone mentioned in upgrades recently, but in fact on a very fast dedicated server. We then have a backups server too. In addition to this we have a load balancing server for chat and a lot more techie things on the go.
Incidentally about the upgrades discussion, we've recently and finally been able to restore them and offer you the chance to support the site that way, rather than asking for other details and payment methods. When you consider how much security is involved, the way we work, the professionalism and security minded approach we all take towards you and the site, then £4 for 31 days is a small but generous way of showing your appreciation for and to us.
It's fair to say that we love what we do, we love our community and we really do believe in what we're doing for you all; and that is smartening up the swinging lifestyle online.
We were so fed up of crap on other sites and trouble we saw... so we did something about it.
As I have always said from day one; we're not here to replace them, but to do what they can't.
There's probably more to be added but maybe I can add a bit more at a later date.
If you have questions or comments, by all means feel free and we will answer what we can..
Hope you enjoyed a rather long read, but relatively short insight into the site and why we even started all this.
Thank you.
L&P
xAmendment as of 24/02/18
I said I'd come back to this, so I would like to add something of extreme importance.
With this other site, you can make multiple accounts and use them as a SG, SF, CPL and so forth.. undetected and welcomed.
On our site however, it's a totally different idea. After speaking to @Baldricknkaz on the post itself about precedents then maybe this is one that I omitted, but you should maybe know.
We do not allow multiple accounts onsite as you may have seen when we post on someone's profile: "Why do you have two accounts".
We don't allow it for this very reason mentioned above. The fact that this guy was making obscene posts towards our friend. I needed to do something about it, but could not.
Now I can. Now we can.
We stop people from making duplicate accounts for this exact reason.
So this really is a way of stopping people from making an account SexyStacy, but then leaving it idle and coming back as DarkDesire in order to hurl abuse at people or spam the site.
In addition to this, this is precisely why we do not allow members to self delete. There's no way on this planet we will ever reverse this decision either.
Just thought I'd update this
x
