TFP Town Hall: The Porn

[Halx]

Ladies and gentlemen, lets talk about porn. Here at the TFP, you have access to thousands of images, videos and other resources for sexual arousal. We all make use of the porn in many ways. Some only come to the TFP for the porn. Some ignore it completely and even wish I would shut off their access to it. Porn has been a part of the TFP since the beginning and it is without a doubt the major reason for its original rise to popularity. The porn is fun to look at and it always comes in handy. The single members appreciate it. Some couples make use of it. And then there are just as many people who wish it would go away. Lets talk!

My thoughts on the porn are conflicted. I use the TFP for many many things. The porn is one of the things that gets me through the day when I just need to see a pair of breasts on my iPhone. Its a convenient way to access such material without being bombarded with ads. I trust my site to not plant viruses or spyware on my computer. I've been exposed to lots of new material that turns me on and I develop new ways to enjoy myself. The TFP gets a lot of traffic from porn, and that traffic translates into a higher ranking on search engines, making it easy for both porn users to be converted into community members and for regular surfers to stumble upon the community.

Porn is not socially acceptable though. I put the TFP on my resume and I fear that it limits my potential job pool. I ask people to share the TFP with friends and family, but the second most popular excuse not to, behind the anonymity factor, is the porn. Paypal has killed 3 of my accounts because of the porn, preventing me from collecting donations online. I feel like the porn also limits the diversity of the crowd much the same way an NC-17 rating is financial death for a movie.

One misconception about the porn are that it gets more attention or priority than the actual community. The truth is that it is ultimately just a vehicle for traffic, search ranking, and added-value. Another misleading conception is that the porn costs us money. It used to cost us money, but the price of bandwidth nowadays means I get more than enough data transfer each month to handle 5 times the traffic we currently get without it costing a dollar more. I constantly debate with myself about potentially removing it from the site. We've tried to do many things; limiting access to senior members strangles and stagnates the content, limiting visibility to only registered members only confuses them because they didn't know it existed before. Completely removing the porn would instantly cut off many avenues of traffic.

I know many people think that the TFP can stand up on its own without the porn. The truth is that we can't kill our main avenue for traffic without building another. That part partially rests in the hands of those same people. If people linked to the TFP more on their blogs or on other forums, we wouldn't need a "crutch." If people worked their butt off to create original and interesting content for the board, we wouldn't need the sure-fire draw that porn provides. A lot of people say that the side has deteriorated, but when I look around, it's just me and a few other (very special) people who are posting original articles, expositions and features. If we want the TFP to be a remarkable place, we have to make it remarkable, we can't just wait for it to get there.

I want your opinions on what the porn means to you and what you think it means to the TFP. Do you want it to stay or do you think it should go? If you think it should go, what do you propose we do to make up for the loss in traffic? This isn't the only issue to be addressed regarding the TFP, but this particular discussion needs to happen.

[Psycho Dad]

I'd think if you attached a poll to this thread, there would be a large number that wouldn't care if it was gone. I'd also assume that this is cussed and discussed at length in the admin and mod forums. Perhaps it would be of use to compare the general population opinion with the staff opinion. Of course that doesn't help as far as figuring out how to make up the traffic.

[Ustwo]

I wouldn't care if it was gone.

I wouldn't be here if it wasn't here in the first place.

Sex sells, and friends and family won't fill the gap, and that sort of thing makes the place all cliquey.

I posted on this a year ago when the porn was mostly gone and tfp seemed to be in the dumps. Kill the porn, slowly kill TFP. If anything it needs more porn. The best thing that happened to TFP was when it became 'best boobies' site on fark.

Thats like 15 minutes on Opra for a website.

[casual user]

i think the porn is fine. if you don't like it, you don't have to go to it since it's restricted to certain boards. people can easily enjoy discussing LOST or grey's anatomy or bon jovi or whatever without even glancing at a breast.

the freedom's also there, if you see a picture you like and feel like sharing, you can. that's not there with most message boards. it adds to the atmosphere of this place and helps make it what it is. plus, i like the fact that it's 18+ and think that no matter what, that should definately never change and if you're website's 18+ you might as well have some tits on there

[blahblah454]

Originally Posted by Ustwo

I wouldn't care if it was gone.

I wouldn't be here if it wasn't here in the first place.

This is pretty much me. I found TFP from the porn, guys from the guitar.com forum actually posted this site and that is how I found it. But I stay for reading the articles and the community.

I don't read news papers or watch TV so I don't really get any media shoved down my throat, the only reason I know anything about the world is from the articles posted here.

[Willravel]

I do have a sneaking suspicion that I'm one of only a handful of people who wasn't initially attracted to TFP via the TB. I can personally take it or leave it, but I certainly cannot deny the importance it plays in how often TFP is used or found.

What does it mean to me? It's an area I rarely use on TFP. I happen to think it cheapens the community, but that's just a personal opinion.

Do I think it should stay? Yes. For better or worse, the relationship between traffic and the availability of pornography are directly proportional and I doubt it's coincidence. Unless the goal is to thin the herd here on TFP, it obviously should stay until something just as viscerally stimulating replaces it. I can't think of anything as viscerally stimulating as pornography, so here we are.

We can always supplement the pornography in a search for alternate lures, but getting rid of the porn would mean we would be a few people in a big room. Like Montana.

[ratbastid]

Originally Posted by Ustwo

I wouldn't care if it was gone.

I wouldn't be here if it wasn't here in the first place.

Sex sells, and friends and family won't fill the gap, and that sort of thing makes the place all cliquey.

I posted on this a year ago when the porn was mostly gone and tfp seemed to be in the dumps. Kill the porn, slowly kill TFP. If anything it needs more porn. The best thing that happened to TFP was when it became 'best boobies' site on fark.

Thats like 15 minutes on Opra for a website.

Exactly ditto.

[Charlatan]

I agree with both Ratbastid and Ustwo on this 100%.

[Daoust]

I think the porn has served as a gateway to TFP. I think that gate could be closed and TFP wouldn't suffer in the slightest.

I kinda think that there is a nice sort of community of users here already, and while it's nice to grow, I also enjoy coming back to a place where "everybody knows your name, and they're always glad you came." You can finish the song, but I think its appropriate.
Could we survive with the members we have now? Do we need that constant stream of newcomers? Could we survive on newcomers that came through other means?

I would be fine if we got rid of the porn, but unfortunately I can offer no real valid ways of bringing others in without it. I am sure there must be something.

Maybe there's a way to keep the porn, but limit it. Is there some way we could corner a niche market of the porn world? Specialize in amateur or something? I don't know. I'm just talking out my butt.

[Ustwo]

Originally Posted by Daoust

Could we survive with the members we have now?

No, it wouldn't survive, we would get bored.

I know how pretty much any old time poster will react to a question by now, I can even predict to myself who will say something like 'I hate to agree with Ustwo again but....' when I post on a subject. I'm sure most know my reactions too.

New people bring in new angles, they also spur new thoughts from old posters.

Porn is great because its a universal attractor.

Now could at some point TFP be so popular it no longer needed porn? Sure, but I don't think its there.

Look at a site like fark. Go back several years. Take away the boobies links. Fark today would be?

[Willravel]

Originally Posted by Ustwo

No, it wouldn't survive, we would get bored.

We're veterans of a sort. I don't think that you've ever bored me in the 3+ years I've been on TFP.

[Martian]

I'm not generally a 'me too!' kinda guy, but Ustwo really seems to have summed up popular sentiment. So, yeah.

Me too!

[filtherton]

I imagine we could do without the porn if there was more of a visual and written emphasis on my diamond shaped chest hair- maybe a new logo, one that gives my chest hair more prominence than it currently enjoys, or maybe somehow putting all the site's content behind a slightly transparent image of my mid-tits that scrolled with the window. That's only if you're really serious about getting rid of the porn, though.

[*Nikki*]

Unfortunately I came riding into TFP on the porn wave.

That being said, porn is everywhere, there is nothing special about it. There is however something special about the rest of TFP.

I say kill the porn.

[Craven Morehead]

Wow, to try and think of TFP without what originally made it what it is, is difficult. I think TFP would stagnate. Some of the core users would maintain their activity but after a while, what would attract new users? Word of mouth won't sustain the inevitable decline, or at least I don't think it will. Porn is a pretty big umbrella, I'd classify TFP as porn-lite. Some of the newer YouTube like sites are much more in your face than TFP is. There certainly are other sites for free porn but I prefer to come here for the enhanced experience of this site also being a community. I'm not sure how one without the other would survive.

[Push-Pull]

As long as you keep "Tilted Sexuality", you will always have porn in a sense.

At any rate, keep it. We're adults, we don't have to look if we don't want to see. It simply wouldn't be the TFP without it.

[silent_jay]

I'm with Ustwo on this one as well, that just feels strange to say.....

[Fire]

I came for the porn, and stayed for the rest= without the porn, you change the community, and the type of person that the community attracts- in short it would gradually transform this place, in a slow but dramatic way- and I suspect, eventually kill it off- we are what we are because of the adult content- beyond that, porn, religion, and sales drive the net, and we sure arent going to add religion in a way that would attract people, and unless hal really sells out big time, we cannot effectively become a sales site.......porn to tfp is like the force to jedi's- without it, eventually no one cares anymore.......

[Baraka_Guru]

Porn is the lube that holds us all together.


....I mean gue.... gah, GLUE.... I mean GLUE!


Well, it brings many of us here, anyway.

Yeah, what Ustwo said.

[telekinetic]

Originally Posted by Halx

If people worked their butt off to create original and interesting content for the board, we wouldn't need the sure-fire draw that porn provides.

What do you define as interesting content? I'm pretty much done contributing original content to this site. I have an extremely varied taste in hobbies, and a habit of documenting them...I actually have the pictures for four or five more writeups on my memory card, but it just isn't worth the hassle for this site. Anything I put up here gets very little feedback--an average of about five or six replies on the writeups--(although I love the feedback it gets, don't take me wrong!), and because of the porn, I can't link anyone to it. I don't regret putting them here, as I've made one important connection (hi doodlebird!), and maybe inspired two or three people, but I'm going to pull all of them off and put them in a personal blog. I like this place for social interaction, but as a creative outlet, it is extremely lacking.

I'm not trying to be full of myself, but a comprehensive writeup on a topic of general interest, with clear pictures, is about as interesting as content can get.

Just for reference, here's content I've contributed in the last six months:

• How to make Acrylic Halftone paintings.
  
• How to get started with low-budget home automation
  
• How to mod a nerf gun to be awesome for $10
  
• How to make a cat ladder from ikea bits
  
• Running barefoot is awesome--a review of Vibram Five Fingers
  
• How to make kickass shirts for almost free

If I'm barking up the wrong tree here, somebody tell me. I guess these topics aren't really conducive to discussion, but then again, traffic-generating user created content like you are describing is never going to be anything more than a message board equivalent of a youtube vid with 'thanks that's great!' or 'can you clarify some details?' type comments. It's actually ironic that I mention youtube, because I posted a retarded 30 second clip on youtube showing how to shoot two nerf guns at once, never really linked anyone to it or did anything to promote it, and, in the same six months, have gotten more comments on it than all of my writeups here combined.

I've never seen a top 10 digg (or reddit, or del.icio.us) link that reads "A really thought provoking community discussion about whether it is ok to date two girls at once." or "Is fish meat, so I can know if I can eat it?"...not to imply anything about the quality of those particular topics. TFP is more like a group blog than anything else, and its normal content isn't of the type to generate any traffic. The couple articles that you, Halx, wrote are about the only things that saw significant traffic bumps, and those were only because you pushed us to digg the content. If all content doesn't get the same push, we'll never get traffic from it.

tl;dr version: I've tried generating content for this site. It doesn't draw views feedback, or traffic...I could have gotten more feedback on it by leaving it saved to my desktop and asking people to look at it when they were at my house. Without significant changes in attitude, keep the porn or the site dies.

[mrklixx]

Most people don't know it, but I've been coming to TFP for a loooong time. I've been here through several incarnations. And I too originally showed up for the porn. However, that was several years ago. Back then there was no such thing as a blog (god I hate that word). Now there are porn blogs everywhere. There also wasn't a single image hosting site that you could hot-link to. Now there are multitudes of them. So, while I personally haven't visited the TB much in years, I'm not quite sure what makes it unique enough to set it apart from the millions of porn blogs (hate) out there.

Also, at some point in recent history, I believe that the adult sections were opened up brand new members. I assume that this was an effort to increase traffic, and hopefully some quality posters would spill over as they have in the past. However, It seems that both the quantity and the quality of posts have been decreasing instead of increasing since the "all-skate".


So if the TB is not generating contributions to the rest of the site, then is it really useful and or/relevant?

[Halx]

twistedmosaic, I love your contributions and appreciate them greatly. Its useful content that you cannot find elsewhere. I say keep it going.

[Sion]

I came for the porn...stayed for the community.

I don't check the TB often, but I'd miss it if it wasn't there.

[zed wolf]

Well, I didn't come for the porn!
I do like porn and look at it all the time on other sites but I still don't look at the porn here very often. I usually end up missing out on the porn here because when I log in I start at the top and work my way down. Reading all the different areas I usually end up getting side tracked by looking into something or other I've seen on here and pretty soon I am no where near TFP reading about something I had no idea I wanted to read about.
Keep the porn though. Everyone knows porn sells and its good for ya too.
Ive had discussions with friends about how to make electric cars sell better then IC cars.... All you would have to do is some how integrate porn into them and everyone would be buying them and keep them too. need proof? know anyone with a betamax player? I bet they have porn. same with laserdiscs most people with them will have porn. it holds true for any new tech. make porn available through your product or service and people will want it.
I'm not going to say tfp needs porn to survive but it sure helps.
Oh, and if any TFP'ers integrate porn into an electric car and become billionaires don't forget about who gave you the idea!

[ngdawg]

I didn't come for the porn, but I do like Wayside.
I think it sucks that Paypal closed the accounts-were any in your personal name? Because that's probably how you'd have to hold onto one.
Keep it. When things get a bit slow, I know I can depend on Bobby's finds in Wayside to give me a chuckle.

[ratbastid]

Originally Posted by Fire

I came for the porn, and stayed for the rest= without the porn, you change the community, and the type of person that the community attracts- in short it would gradually transform this place, in a slow but dramatic way- and I suspect, eventually kill it off- we are what we are because of the adult content- beyond that, porn, religion, and sales drive the net, and we sure arent going to add religion in a way that would attract people, and unless hal really sells out big time, we cannot effectively become a sales site.......porn to tfp is like the force to jedi's- without it, eventually no one cares anymore.......

Well that's definitely true. I would wager that 90% of the people on this site are the kind of people who would start visiting a site because of its porn. That's a particular kind of person, you know? Not rare, necessarily, but particular. And it's made this site what it is. You get rid of the porn, and a) your big fishing lure is out of the water, and 2) the people who do come are people who want to argue or who want to emote or want to troll, they're not "our people"--people who come for porn and stay for community.

[abaya]

I'm curious to know the gender composition of TFP members. While I don't care one way or another about the porn, I do think that since it's the major draw for most people to come here... that it's naturally going to slant the gender composition towards males (and yes, I know not all males like porn, and not all females dislike porn... I'm one of 'em... but you have to admit that it has an effect).

I'd like to discuss how we can attract more female members to TFP, since I think the variety of topics and responses would benefit from a more balanced gender ratio. It would be great to get it closer to 50-50, though I have no idea what it is right now... is there some way of figuring this out?

[Kadath]

I'm yet another who came for the porn and used to be fairly involved in the Wayside board, but now don't really visit that section very much. If you kill it I won't mind, but what will bobby do with all his spare time?

[Psycho Dad]

I really question how accurate the assumption is that we would get bored with tfp were it not for porn. In fact I'm surprised at some of the people claiming that the porn section is that important to them. These are the people I see posting interesting content in politics, tilted living, sexuality and general discussion.

No offense to anyone, but I rarely see the same people who post "Thanks Bobby" sharing anything else. Again, that is not a jab at Bobby. Nobody can deny what Bobby has contributed to the growth of tfp.

Being brought to the board via a link on Fark or some other site is one thing, but the porn here is nothing unique really. Not like the discussions often tend to be. And certainly not like the community aspect of the board tends to be. Hell... Someone could post a question wanting to know how to get a sweaty ass stain out of a leather sofa cushion and likely get several good replies despite the board not being about sofas or sweaty asses.

[Terrell]

I look at it sometimes, I would miss the Titty Board if it was gone, but I would still come here. I was here for a while before I thought to look at the Titty Board. Put me down as a vote for keeping the porn.

[little_tippler]

I didn't come for the porn and only learned about how it was what started the TFP a while later. It's also not what made me stay. I always keep coming back to the TFP.

That said, I like porn. So I don't see why it has to go. Most people I know enjoy porn of one sort or another. We're all adults right? I think we should keep it.

[roachboy]

good lord, i agree with ustwo.
not only that, but i dont have anything to add to what he said in his first post to the thread.

[Psycho Dad]

Originally Posted by little_tippler

So I don't see why it has to go.

I don't hink Halx is saying it has to go. I think he feels it may be a resume stain and ponders what the outcome would be were it to be gone or what can be done in terms of replacing it.

[pig]

well, since fark has been mentioned - you could try what fark did, if the programming wouldn't be too much of a hassle. move the porn to a sister site, and cross link between the main pages. tfproject <=> tfporn. you've got a huge community of porn lurkers, and they will never cross over to the discussion side. you've got a fairly substantial community of discussion board types, who view the porn side to varying degrees. if you officially separated them, i don't see how that would really alter anything. probably just make the current separation more de juris instead of de facto.

[ratbastid]

Originally Posted by pig

well, since fark has been mentioned - you could try what fark did, if the programming wouldn't be too much of a hassle. move the porn to a sister site, and cross link between the main pages. tfproject <=> tfporn. you've got a huge community of porn lurkers, and they will never cross over to the discussion side. you've got a fairly substantial community of discussion board types, who view the porn side to varying degrees. if you officially separated them, i don't see how that would really alter anything. probably just make the current separation more de juris instead of de facto.

That'd also solve the PayPal problems....

The only question is whether it would result in an inflow of people from the porn to the main site, the way we see now.

[Martian]

Originally Posted by pig

well, since fark has been mentioned - you could try what fark did, if the programming wouldn't be too much of a hassle. move the porn to a sister site, and cross link between the main pages. tfproject <=> tfporn. you've got a huge community of porn lurkers, and they will never cross over to the discussion side. you've got a fairly substantial community of discussion board types, who view the porn side to varying degrees. if you officially separated them, i don't see how that would really alter anything. probably just make the current separation more de juris instead of de facto.

Right, except that it's the ones who do move over from the porn to the discussion that keep this place from stagnating. There are a few who come to the site via other means (usually googling a specific subject, from what I gather) but the vast majority seems to come for the porn and stay for the chatter. With the current system it's easy to make the transition, since it's all on the same page. If we hid the discussion from the porn users then there'd be fewer of them making the jump.

Really, so long as there's no repercussions in terms of bandwidth and the resulting overheard/site speed, I see no reason why the titty board needs to go anywhere at all.

[1010011010]

There's usually not much in the way of good threads in The Erogenous Zone. I don't know if that's a product of the rules in place tending to stifle discussion, or if it's just that people aren't in the mood to type.

I've been on other boards where there was more community integration with the media (porn or not) where discussions of content or technique were commonplace. Mostly it's just "She has breasts! I like breasts!" level 'round here.

It's not a Bad Thing, though, because the separation between the porn and the rest of the board means you don't have people making fart jokes in the middle of an otherwise Serious Thread.

[kutulu]

Originally Posted by Ustwo

I know how pretty much any old time poster will react to a question by now, I can even predict to myself who will say something like 'I hate to agree with Ustwo again but....' when I post on a subject. I'm sure most know my reactions too.

That's exactly how I've felt over the past year or so. I got so tired of reading the same thing from the same people. It got to the point where I didn't need to know what the topic was, I knew what certain people would say because they always say the same things. I took a break and now I'm mostly a lurker.

The TB got me here but honestly I have other great resources for that content. Therefore, it could stay or leave and that won't change my viewing habits at all.

What it would represent is the gradual selling out of the tfp. I've always thought that too many people take this place too seriously. I mean really, it's just a message board. However, the TB gives it an edge. If you take it away to make it more appealing to the masses you might as well start posting ads and making money off of the place. What would be next, censoring the more extreme viewpoints on the board?

Look at fark. The place is a joke nowdays.

[roachboy]

I know how pretty much any old time poster will react to a question by now, I can even predict to myself who will say something like 'I hate to agree with Ustwo again but....' when I post on a subject. I'm sure most know my reactions too.

but this is a separate problem.
it is a driver behind the waves of boredom that i expect anyone experiences who has played anywhere like this long enough experiences.
i think it follows from the simple fact that every time a debate takes place, it starts all over, without reference to what has happened before.
that there are new folk around for whom what has happened before isn't necessarily relevant compounds the problem--but it is different from this topic, and may be a structural problem with messageboards themselves.

[analog]

Originally Posted by Ustwo

I wouldn't care if it was gone.

I wouldn't be here if it wasn't here in the first place.

Sex sells, and friends and family won't fill the gap, and that sort of thing makes the place all cliquey.

I posted on this a year ago when the porn was mostly gone and tfp seemed to be in the dumps. Kill the porn, slowly kill TFP. If anything it needs more porn. The best thing that happened to TFP was when it became 'best boobies' site on fark.

Thats like 15 minutes on Opra for a website.

Ditto.