Important Announcement

i am working on it babes......but you keep say only a sociel

TallFunLondon - To be honest i didnt not expect this at all, i underestimated how tight this community is, and wish i handled things a lot differently.

two4u - I thank you for your confidence in us.

Alexandra - Calculating the distance between members, we will even show the locations roughly on a map (by that i mean pinpoint town, not you exact address, as that is dataprotection )

heavysyandck - i cannot give you company details as yet, as soon as i can you will know them

cybershine - thanks for your kind words, and i can assure you, the mods and ops will be kept on if they want too.

Serendipity -

1) We are a small singular company, your details won't be going anywhere, they will not leave the SH server, and will be encrypted.
2) Should the site do well enough financially, then the mods and ops will benifit.
3) As this site is not our main income, and we have enough backup cashflow, we are in a strong position and are not going away soon. One things for sure the site will never be closed.

ES - oddley enough i grew up near maidstone, (sheppy if you know it), cant say i remember nicking any ones undies though!

Elliott

I don't envy your position. This must be really difficult for you.

Just go carefully, don't change things too soon and get to know everyone. You will realsie that this is a great set of people and yes it IS a very close community, but as soon as the shock wears off, I'm sure the majority f people will be accomodating and open-minded about the changes. That's what we're all about isn't it?

Elliott and thank you for being around to answer all of our questions

I know I've only been here a short time in comparison to others, but I have been a member of this site for over a year and have only recently started using both the forums and chat.

I'm currently in the chat room and martin_675 is in there trying to explain what's going on.

My Internet background is very extensive in the respect I have, (in the past), ran IRC chat servers, (at a much higher access level than the SOP's currently in chat rooms), I've ran forums and I've ran a few websites in my time.

So, I know a little bit about running sites and making sure they run smoothly.

The first thing I have to say is you can't please all of the people all of the time, that's a fact and there's no getting round it.

But .... (And he's the really hard bit to get past for any new owner), there is a very strong sense of community on SH and there are a lot of 'hard core' users who go to meets, go to munches and also make great use of the forums and chat, (in some instances both).

Many years ago, I ran an IRC chat server that also had a strong sense of community spirit for an ISP. The ISP decided to get rid of its own IRC servers and rent ones from an IRC server that was/is infamous for child pornography and have many hundreds of thousands of chat users with thousands of chat rooms.

The community as it were boycotted the current servers on that ISP and moved over to a 'new community server' which I paid for. Thankfully this boycott lasted only a few weeks and eventually the ISP relented and retained its (then) current servers and format.

What concerns me about the new owner ship are:

1) The Webcams

Yahoo is well known for being the cess pit of the Internet with a huge amount of males who frequent the server and trawl looking for a "cam show" and react with violent abuse when turned down.

In addition, webcam feeds require server access rights to your computer, (all they do is take a pic every second then remotely display it on another machine, basically what you see is series of compressed JPG images hence the stutter), and the newly opened ports can be exploited if you know what you're doing.

2) The Voice

Again this requires server access to your computer and opens ports that can be exploited.

3). Pay to enter

I realise that all the current members will get a years free membership, but, (and this is based on what I've read here), very few people are willing to now pay for what they have used over the last few weeks/months/years for free.

But this doesn't change the fact that if from today your membership is free, then 1 year from now you'll have to pay.

This means in a years time, a massive amount of the membership will be dropped and the people paying for the service will be the only members. So in effect existing members will be told "Thanks for all the fish"

There are a lot of people on SH who are on a budget and can't afford a monthly subscription, so they will leave. Others will leave because they won't have the means to pay because they won't have a credit or debit card.

In short, as much as you've enjoyed using this site and meeting new people, it won't mean diddly squat if you can't afford a monthly subscription or have no way of paying to remain a member.

If this site goes that way, then I see it becoming a site full of blokes who are willing to pay because they think a pay to enter site gives them a better chance of meeting someone.

But isn't true, just because you pay doesn't mean that you'll get what you want, it means you have a slightly worse chance because the site will be flooded with like minded males. The real way to run a site such as this is to listen to the users, listen to what they want and what they'd like to see implemented.

Look at the existing community and see what that has to offer, improve what you already have instead of trying to change it into something you want it to be.

SH at this time has a sense of community I have never seen before, in all my years of being on the net and all my experience of chat rooms and forums, I have never seen people come together in the way they do here.

I fear a huge part of this community will be removed if this site goes to pay to enter.

I'm in agreement with charging for the webcam and voice facilities. That way people can be tracked and if they step out of line and don't respond favourably to warnings, then they can be banned from the site. If they get really out of hand, they can be easily identified by their payment details and appropriate action could then be more easily taken by the authorities such as the police.

I do welcome change, but I fear the changes won't be to the benefit of the site, but more to its detriment because it'll encourage morons who are only after a shag, a cam show or voice 'phone sex' and if they have paid for it, then they'll have a right to use those services because they have paid for them.

Also, because they've paid for the service, they'll use it all the more.

I wouldn't like this site to go down the tubes. I have my up's and downs here, (like when I start a reasonable debate in the chat room this seems to tax some op's attention spans and they stop the debate), and I know I mainly sit on the side, but I do like a lot of the people I've talked to on here and I really wouldn't like to see that community destroyed.

.
not quite answerd .
Things changed .
Swinging Heaven is FREE and is staying that way .
thats what it says over there on the panel we all read when joined

Don't worry Maia, you can come fiddle with my joystick while I try and get radio 1



Elliot - Thanks for answering me questions, I look forward to the changes in the photo ads, in the vain hope that it improves me success rate



edit:- Does this mean we can use larger files as avatars?

FFS........i take a few days off and the bloody place moves from under me <>(looks which way the rats are running).

for once ive read through an entire post

welcome to the new owners

well...it was nice meeitng so many of you lovely people....

sorry...not trying to be fatalistic but i look at the facts..

first and foremost.......SH has been bought out.......by a COMMERCIAL ENTITY......

these said companies DO NOT in any which way or form exist for our pleasure...

adam is employing the oldest psycho analyctic approach and its gazumped over 90% of you......hes probably a nice guy but i think he forgets that we are not in the under 50 IQ club (postie aside)...

i will answer yor questions approach is as said the oldest trick in the book...the 1s which can be answered are answered....the 1s which cant (like reeses) will not and in others the round the houses approach is used with no answer at the end as youve forgotten the question .....

this site has been "BOUGHT" not given,lent or borrowed....that money must be returned and a profit shown...here adam youve played a decent game....offering us FREE membership with nothing to pay....well...for a year at least...

i appreciate that you cannot comment on the reasons and ways for the acquisition and planned charges to be brought in.....

mark ran this site ofr the community and god bless him for it......

but the death knell has sounded as i for 1 have a lot of experience with this type of company....no bad feelings though adam...you saw a niche opportunity and youve took it....good luck to you...

SH as we knew it will cease to exist within a month...MARK MY WORDS

Spent the last 40 mins reading all these posts. Ive been using the SH ads for a couple of years, and been on the forums since earlier this year and have been getting into the social side of the community and made some really good mates.

Elliot....Please dont ruin this site and put it in the categories of all the other pay to use sites which end up a total waste of time. There are hundreds of very genuine people on here that have a fantastic social community as well as the swinging and you have to realise its all these people that make this site the success that it is now, so please dont piss us all off just to make a quick buck!

see above my post!


A gain i ask please keep the mods on .............. DONT JUST FOB THEM OFF AND SAY................. ITS THERE DICISION!!............. you have to work at keep them here

what effort have you made?

The mods and chat room ops have done and continue to do an incredible job on SH, we are talking to them and have no intentions of fobbing them off, we want to work with them.