I've posted elsewhere saying how much I appreciate the effort Mark put into this site.
Personally I have my doubts that the new owners will manage to keep the spirit unchanged in the long run - part of what made this site so attractive was that it was "for swingers, and by swingers" and I fear that however hard they try, at some point things will begin to go wrong. Not by design, but by accident.
But I don't know that for sure, and I feel we have to at least give the new owners a chance. Nothing's going to change overnight, so let's give them the benefit of the doubt.
But equally we have to accept that some people are in shock and grief at the moment, at what they see as a threat to something that's a huge part of their life. I don't think we should judge anyone who gets upset at this stage - give them some time to get over it.
M.
Sounds about right Bloke :shock:
Ow, my eyes hurt now!
Haven't popped into the cafe for a couple of weeks and when I did last night - bloody hell what a suprise. Didn't read the thread last night, thought I would sit down for an hour today and see exactly what was going on. Well four hours later I have finally come to the end of the thread :shock:
I don't know what this will mean for the site - the cafe in particular, but all we can do is sit tight and see what happens.
It seems to be a positive sign that Martin, St3v3 and Elliot are entering into dialog with members and haven't just swanned in and started riding rough-shod through the site straight off.
I truly hope this isn't the begining of the end for swinging heaven, but as it has been mentioned by umpteen people the community here is a very strong one. It extends much further than the physicality of the web site. I'm sure if this site does go pear shaped then we will just have to build another entrance into Swinging Towers.
The main thing right now is to make sure that we don't turn "the end of swinging heaven" into a self fulfilling prophecy. If everyone thinks that the site is going tits up so may as well stop visiting it now - then the site as we know it will go tits up. This won't have anything to do with the new owners, but will have everything to do with a "I'm taking my ball and going home" attitude of the community members.
So if you could all budge along a bit, and make room for two more on the fence (Just hope its not going to topple over with all the weight).
I wanted to say more, but didn't take notes when reading the thread and have forgot most of what i was going to say - and my head really does hurt :cry:
Les x
*Kat wanders off muttering it is a bit bloody much when a Kat can't find a place to sit on the bloody fence anymore*
Why do you side with Martin, Elliot.. etc? Why give them the benefit of the doubt? Why criticise your exisiting active members for daring to challenge their motives? Why criticise me for adding to the debate with my opinions? Why criticise fred (an active member and a close friend to many of you it would appear) for daring to imply that this site will be ruined by the likes of Martin and Elliot? Why do you post aggressive responses to my posts when i've only been a polite considerate member of the site?
I should only judge when Symbios have done something. Well... wake up! They HAVE done something. They've BOUGHT this website. They have changed it from a FREE community forum in an attempt to make money out of it! FACT. They have a history of running commercial websites that attract new membership by potraying exisiting members as products. FACT. They will NEED to make money from this site. FACT. To make money from a site like this they must provide a valuable commercial product. FACT. That product is YOU. FACT.
Symbios will probably be successful. They presumably make a reasonable profit from the deceitful Swinging Personals site already owned by them otherwise they wouldn't have bought this one. The community (you) will be the losers. I wish them all the best in ripping off a long succession of desparate men.
I HAVE NO INTENTION OF CREATING MY OWN WEBSITE. I was merely pointing out that it is a simple process to create a good free website similar to the oney you have here now and that if you wish to preserve your community this would probably be the best way to go about it.
There will be a stream of unnecessarily aggressive responses to this post. FACT
and just out of curiosity.... How much did it cost to buy this community?
£1000, £10,000... £100,000? Really... I'm interested.
I get the feeling that you will probably get the website you deserve.
Mr. Ben, why don't you just drop it and watch quietly? You'll probably end up banned anyway if you carry on posting the same stuff over and over - which is what you're doing. You're also being very insulting to other members by insinuating that we're not clever enough to see what's happening. What IS happening is that some of us are waiting to see what will become of the site as we know it, then we will decide to stay or go, as we see fit. OK?
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