Forum Steering Committee - Volunteers Needed

[+ Coolwave35]

Cooper I will certainly defer to your recollections of the facts regarding the site going to Hooboy's mother. By saying that facts are facts and not fiction I meant that whoever controls the server controls the site.

I happen to agree with you. If there was a husband a kid, a parent, hell, anyone that cared about what Guy left behind I’d feel differently. If he had cars a boat a house, let probate deal with all of that. I can’t imagine probate giving any iota of attention to this site or the review site.

 

my opinion is that this site has value to the members who frequent it and contribute to it.

[+ Coolwave35]

Maybe so. But from my experience, courts take their responsibilities seriously. They are more likely to approve what we want if we ask, rather than just presume they won't care. That could get their gander up.

 

Next on the docket, a community of anonymous gay men want the court to decide who should retain ownership of a website dedicated to cataloging reviews of their illegal solicitation of prostitutes. Fellas.... What world are we living in where people think this isn’t a case of “possession is 9/10ths of the law”?

 

I’m stepping up to take responsibility for this site continuing so we all have it for as long as it brings us joy. That’s my motive. That’s my intention. Rob having the database seams to me that the problem, at least for this site, could very easily be solved. If we acknowledge what Jack summarized above or in another thread.

 

If there is consensus that the community doesn’t want a trifecta team of one financier, one admin head, and one tech guru, and instead want to grab a collection plate and pass it around a few times a year, so be it.

 

If the community likes the trifecta idea, but doesn’t want me to be a part of it, I’m good with that too. I want the site to be here in a year, in 5 years, in 10.

 

My offer is to propose a path of least resistance that allows us all to go back to enjoying long rants, hot links, comic strips, nostalgic posts etc.

[+ purplekow]

Getting members here to agree on anything is like herding cats. A single patron is subject to the whims of that patron. The forum was lucky to have a patron who kept this site going for a long time. I do not pretend to know what is best for this site. It does seem as though there is an ongoing process to move this forward. Until the new owner of this site is determined, how it is to be run is a game of speculation.

It would not hurt to have a plan of administration in place, but that decision can only be made by the person deemed to own the site. Any other discussion is speculative. Though having a variety of plans in place to offer the new owner certainly makes sense.

One step at a time. The future of this site is unknowable at this time.

[mike carey]

As has been acknowledged we don't have a vote yet (and may never), but so far @Coolwave35 has offered the only firm solution for a way forward (subject to being able to secure a tech expert willing to join the project permanently). Community based solutions are aspirational at best and fanciful at worst. Reluctance to have a single owner (with or without quote marks around the title) is understandable as it would be a new owner, but that is the situation we have been in since the site's inception. I happen to think that a management model (which can be a separate and coexisting thing to ownership) that involves the community would be the preferred option but I recognise that may be difficult to achieve. The priority should be for the forum to survive.

[Guest]

As has been acknowledged we don't have a vote yet (and may never), but so far @Coolwave35 has offered the only firm solution for a way forward (subject to being able to secure a tech expert willing to join the project permanently). Community based solutions are aspirational at best and fanciful at worst. Reluctance to have a single owner (with or without quote marks around the title) is understandable as it would be a new owner, but that is the situation we have been in since the site's inception. I happen to think that a management model (which can be a separate and coexisting thing to ownership) that involves the community would be the preferred option but I recognise that may be difficult to achieve. The priority should be for the forum to survive.

Fearing an Orwellian outcome?

BTW...I agree. Management by committee wouldn’t work well.

Give admins tactical discretion with a Solomon-like benevolent ruler who gets to split the baby...or decide who gets the last piece of cake on the plate...

[+ stevenkesslar]

am I willing to take ownership of this website fully aware of the liability it presents, with the sole goal and intention of preservation? Yes.

 

Thanks for the clear answer. In theory it's possible that any human being on the planet could end up owning the site. But as a practical matter it seems like the options are really either "we" own it as a community, which is the language @Orin keeps using and some of us view as a desirable option, or it is owned by some individual.

 

You didn't answer the second part of my question. Are there conditions in which you would change your mind, and not want to be the owner? You have already named one, I think. I'll use the phrase "community planning" to describe that. But I can't read your mind so it's better for you to articulate what you are thinking.

 

I think Palm Springs has kind of spoken, albeit in code. I know some of the players, so I can read the like buttons and get a sense of where people are at. I assume @Epigonos is probably speaking for himself, but he's been the clearest. I'll call it the Benevolent (Maybe, Sometimes) Dictator theory of leadership. Several of the Palm Springs people hit the "like" button on what @Charlie said, about waiting for "the new owner." Since some of them have been following the conversation, that implicitly says to me that the options for who is "the new owner" do not include "us." My own opinion, and I don't speak for them at all, is that you're actually a good fit for them. If some individual takes over the site and sets his rules and goes from where Hooboy and Guy left off, they'll be good.

 

Like you, they view this as a "fun hobby." Probably more to the point a "private hobby." That's not a universal statement, but that's pretty accurate I'd say. So the idea of making this complicated, or having some steering committee, or doing anything much different than we do right now, probably doesn't have much appeal. So it's clear, I'm basing these observations off extended conversations I had with real people maybe five years ago. The idea of being on a steering committee or part of an LLC or non-profit would probably have no appeal to most of them. They want this to be a fun and private hobby. Period.

 

Again, I don't speak for them, and they are not a uniform group. Like you, I was curious to know what they think. Anyone who wants to do a better job than me of characterizing where many of the people who regularly attend the party are coming from ios of course welcome to do so.

 

One perspective that is not captured by that group is that for escorts this is a business. I'm not even in a good position to judge this now in a way I would have been a decade ago, and I'm being transparent about that. But my guess is that this website has gradually become increasingly irrelevant. That's a fact for the escorts I know, who make all their money of Rentmen or other sites. At least among the escorts I've known and know who were reviewed a lot on Daddy's or named Escort Of The Year there was a lot more involvement over here as well. So there's a "community planning" question in there, which is a direction you're stating you're not much interested in.

 

One really key community planning question is whether the dormant or dead review website is ever going to be brought back to life. As of now, there's no prospective owner of that. And if there's no owner, there's no website.

 

For the entire run of Hooboy and then Daddy, the two websites were joined at the hip. That's certainly how I experienced them. One helped grow the other. I know that for a fact, from my involvement with Bill. I don't know whether Hooboy designed it that way. But it wouldn't surprise me if he did. That did start to change when Bill became more defensive as a result of Rentboy and FOSTA/SESTA. Formalizing the divorce by separating the ownership and management would be another giant leap in that direction. More likely, my guess is that the review website just dies.

 

So I don't think we really know what happens if, or when, the review website is officially dead. One of the things that isn't clear to me is whether some steering effort would actually address what it takes to keep that website alive. But if the idea is that we don't need a steering effort, that solves the problem. As a practical matter, I take it as another nail in the coffin of the escort review website.

 

My view is this is a strategy for hopefully surviving and maintaining, but not growing. The result will likely be shrinking. But that's obviously just a guess. Regardless, this is a website that in the last six months has had 100,000 to 200,000 visits a month. So if you are the owner, and it's funded out of your pocket, even if I'm right and that number stabilizes around 100,000 or even 50,000, I'm not sure that anyone really cares.

 

As for the review site, if you want to get comparable numbers you now get this. It literally has no pulse, which was not the case three months ago. So maybe it can and will be brought back to life. But the way to do that is not by saying let's not plan anything. If there is some strategy to save that website, I'm not hearing it. And I don't mean save the data, which it sounds like our resident technology hero is in the process of doing. I mean transfer the ownership to some new legal entity that can run it moving forward.

[+ WilliamM]

There are many members in Southern California and New York City-Long Island as well And Australia-Canada.

[Lookin]

My offer is to propose a path of least resistance that allows us all to go back to enjoying long rants, hot links, comic strips, nostalgic posts etc.

If it's the path of least resistance you're after, wouldn't that be for OZ to fold this site into the Gay Guides site?

 

If I recall, he did make an offer to Hooboy's family back in the day but, as others have noted, the family didn't want to be bothered and the site went to Daddy. If OZ were to make an offer to the probate court, even for a hundred dollars, it might be the best offer they'll get. And it sounds like the Forums could be ported over, with previous content intact.

 

Can't say OZ is still willing to take on this site but, as far as I know, all the infrastructure is ready and waiting.

 

The only other issue I've heard of is that there's some ill will between some members of the two sites, but I expect that could be resolved by voting with one's feet. I'm pretty sure that everyone who posts here would be welcome there. In fact, OZ has said as much.

 

I'm sure I'm missing something and will prepare to get out of the way so that other viewpoints may be shared.

 

[+ Lucky]

There are many members in Southern California and New York City-Long Island as well And Australia-Canada.

@WilliamM there are also members in Illinois and Kentucky.

[+ WilliamM]

@WilliamM there are also members in Illinois and Kentucky.

I was responding to @stevenkesslar comments about the Palm Springs folks. Is he speaking for Palm Springs now?

[+ JEC]

I've been quiet so far on the governance question. Having done lots of committee work over the years, I think a very small group, maybe even the small group @Coolwave35 suggests, would work best. Committees can suffer from paralysis, lots of conflict, or a very few people doing most of the work anyways (and resenting those who do not). Legal issues aside this site is not that complicated. A few others could serve in a advisory capacity if that small group needs, or they can continue to use the Cabana. While the benevolent dictator model is not ideal, as long as they are committed and keep the site/community running we all win. All of that said, the probate/estate issue is up in the air which could be a show stopper, and I do think as @Cooper says we will need to be patient for a little but until we know if it is (a show stopper) or not. Team WA has other reasons for needing the know whether they will be assigned executor - like dealing with the rest of Bills property, even if it is modest. So, they need to stay the course regardless the role this site plays. So, I think we'll need to chill a bit longer until we have a better handle on probate. Peace ✌

[+ WilliamM]

I've been quiet so far on the governance question. Having done lots of committee work over the years, I think a very small group, maybe even the small group @Coolwave35 suggests, would work best. Committees can suffer from paralysis, lots of conflict, or a very few people doing most of the work anyways (and resenting those who do not). Legal issues aside this site is not that complicated. A few others could serve in a advisory capacity if that small group needs, or they can continue to use the Cabana. While the benevolent dictator model is not ideal, as long as they are committed and keep the site/community running we all win. All of that said, the probate/estate issue is up in the air which could be a show stopper, and I do think as @Cooper says we will need to be patient for a little but until we know if it is (a show stopper) or not. Team WA has other reasons for needing the know whether they will be assigned executor - like dealing with the rest of Bills property, even if it is modest. So, they need to stay the course regardless the role this site plays. So, I think we'll need to chill a bit longer until we have a better handle on probate. Peace ✌

 

Chill it is then thank you!

[+ Coolwave35]

@stevenkesslar I lack your knowledge of how to quote I’m sorry.

 

Yes there are circumstances I wouldn’t want”ownership”. If the community turns against me, vilifies me, or makes me a target of unfounded suspicion, I’d revoke my offer. I know my intentions. I know my heart. I know my motive. Preservation and carrying on business as usual.

 

If the succession plan were 100% up to me, which it isn’t, because at the end of the day, who the fuck am I right? But here’s what I would do.

 

Rob now has access to everything we need to continue the forums. That’s a done deal. We thank team Washington with the $10,000 go fund me and let them use that money to settle the rest of whatever the heck Bill left behind. They thank the community for the go fund me to help them navigate the position they found themselves in. I’d match it for their efforts and we (the trifecta) takes ownership of the two sites and we’re on our merry way.

 

Team Washington can deal with probate and administrator and everything else that goes with that, with $20k from our community as a thank you, but we all agree quietly that the websites aren’t considered part of the estate anymore. I happen to believe that no one with any standing would challenge this but sure, there’s a chance. I’m of the mindset that all’s well that ends well. And I believe possession is 9/10s of the law and members of this community now possess enough access to carry on.

 

One shell corporation “owns” the forums and the review site. The board of directors of that Corp would ideally be me, Rob, Cooper. If those guys are reluctant in serving in that official capacity, I understand. Liability as owner is something I’m fine taking on because I’m confident in my team’s ability to protect me. If anyone else wants the exposure, we can share ownership.

 

I give rob a credit card to put all administrative expenses on autopay. Cooper manages the moderator team that he does so well and life goes on until either person doesn’t want to serve anymore. Then a member of my tech team relieves rob of his duties, and someone else from the forum takes his seat at the board of directors table.

 

Twice a month we chat to make sure we’re all still happy with everything. Rob updates us on tech. Cooper makes observations on what members are requesting and anyone that needs a reminder to follow rules. We weigh the problems and suggestions. We garner community input via posts and polls, and we experiment with tweaks.

 

The steering committee concept I would change to a review panel that reviews the escort review content submitted to daddy’s review. That volunteer committee, each serving a 1 year term elected by the forum, of 5 or 7 guys that get off on reading reviews so it doesn’t feel like work, reads what is submitted sharing access to a google drive document, makes adjustments, verifies meetings, and reaches a consensus by simple majority. Once a review is signed off by 3 or 5 members, it gets emailed to a virtual assistant in the Philippines on my payroll to be posted to daddy’s review.

 

that is what I would do if I were a benevolent dictator. A guy can dream can’t he??

Edited May 1, 2021 by Coolwave35

[+ stevenkesslar]

As has been acknowledged we don't have a vote yet (and may never), but so far @Coolwave35 has offered the only firm solution for a way forward (subject to being able to secure a tech expert willing to join the project permanently). Community based solutions are aspirational at best and fanciful at worst. Reluctance to have a single owner (with or without quote marks around the title) is understandable as it would be a new owner, but that is the situation we have been in since the site's inception. I happen to think that a management model (which can be a separate and coexisting thing to ownership) that involves the community would be the preferred option but I recognise that may be difficult to achieve. The priority should be for the forum to survive.

 

Absolutely.

 

'm going to use the word "ecumenical" like a broken record. It's nice to think about community ownership versus individual ownership. But the even more basic point is that some type of ownership is a prerequisite to survival. Which is why I also agree with your point, Mike, that even if we think we have an individual owner, having a community ownership contingency plan is a good idea. @Orin took that one step further, I believe, and said even if we do have a new owner and technological hero we should have backs ups to them. I get @Charlie's point that people can be too enthusiastic. Generally, though, I've always viewed enthusiasm and new ideas and community involvement as a good thing.

 

So I have no interest in turning this into The Matrix. But it doesn't seem like this is well thought through. One indication of that is your statement, like most here, seems to implicitly acknowledge that the review website is dead, or going to die. To be clear, you didn't say that verbatim. But the direction this is headed, if it works, is that Team Washington will become administrator of two websites, for which it will be seeking owners. And there is only a prospective owner for one of them. It's even weirder than that, because the review website is in some weird cyber-purgatory where it is still Bill's property but it may or may not be on Bill's server. So while everyone is saying we should do this precisely and just right, that's not my impression of what's happening in the real world.

 

My life experience is that the difference between "aspirational" and "fanciful" is what you make it. As an organizer, my mantra was that if you are organizing people who are used to losing, you better have a well thought through plan to win and you better be dead serious about it.

 

The experience that most directly relates to this community is same sex marriage. For a long time, that was a "fanciful" idea, too. It surprised me that I had clients who'd been in long term relationships for decades that thought it was a waste of time. But I understood, because that was their lived experience. A lot of the same sentiment drives how Gay men feel about decriminalization. Keep your head down. Don't look left. Don't look right. Don't make waves. Don't cause problems. If you ignore this and get caught, it's basically your fault. That's my read, at least, from direct conversations with lots of clients and friends. In any community effort won, there's always people who say it's fanciful. At best. I won't post it again, but one of my favorite articles ever is The Economist piece that essentially says the LGBTQ community is top of class for figuring out how to turn all this around. We turned something that was "fanciful" for pretty much all of human history into reality. Some of my funnest years as an escort were when my paid job was being an escort and my volunteer job was phone banks and training teams of volunteers going door to door and organizing house meetings on same sex marriage.

 

In addition to taking a trip down memory lane, I'm saying all this because it's relevant to the excellent point you are making about a management model that involves the community as opposed to an ownership model that involves the community. I see both as desirable. But they are not the same.

 

This is a slight stretch and a vast oversimplification, but I'll say it this way. The ownership model of the same sex marriage fight was that it was owned by the Gay mafia. They hired a bunch of people, some of whom are or were my friends and colleagues, to run statewide or other efforts. Most of which lost in the short term. The management model was essentially to make it big, then bigger, then huge, then huger. Get every fucking Gay man and lesbian and their dog and their neighbor involved. Make it really fucking big. Blow it up. I could be very verbose about "community based solution" I've organized that seemed fanciful at best. Then two or three years later we'd completely kicked Enron's ass in Oregon or developed a $1 billion national Community Home Buyers Program with Fannie Mae and GE. On those ones, I was the paid staff who built the coalitions, in some cases from scratch. But by far the funnest effort of my life, in terms of my identity, was as a Gay man volunteering on same sex marriage. And while lawyers played a massive role and many people credit the victory to them, Anthony Kennedy himself credited it to the way public opinion moved. So for us, Gay men, it's a life lesson in the difference between "aspirational" and "fanciful." To spell it out, you better have funding and you better have a plan and you better think it through and you better be adaptive when shit goes wrong.

 

So I'm not against the idea of an individual owner. As you said, it's what has always been done before. It's obviously the easiest solution. And on this particular topic, the pragmatic starting point is that a lot of people don't want to be in any way publicly or formally or financially associated with a website they may rely on every day. Given my life experiences and biases, it's not a particularly good omen that the prospective new owner is saying community efforts to steer its own future kind of get in the way of a fun hobby. But you and I both know @Epigonos. And he is the poster child for Hardened Realist. There's something to be said for the Benevolent (Well, Maybe) Dictator model he proposes. You're looking for ways to have our escort and eat him, too. (Or cake, I guess,) Which is why I said you'd be a great person to help steer a pragmatic future.

 

I'll note a few conversations I had with Bill that relate to both what is aspirational, but would in reality be more likely fanciful and failure. This goes back to Rentboy and FOSTA/SESTA. My own read of reality is that it's very unlikely this website would be shut down. It's probably unlikely that the escort review website would be shut down, as well, assuming it's brought back from the dead. But you can reread the Rentboy complaints and fill in the blanks. The content of any future complaint would be about "escort" reviews, endless posts in The Deli about "Rentmen" ads, etc. The cynical and realistic way to look at it is it doesn't matter whether they have a case or not. Because once you're in jail and have no assets, you're fucked. In our conversations, Bill reached the conclusion that the key to avoiding another Rentboy, including either or both of his sites, is the Gay mafia. I think he was right, although that's in part because I was suggesting that. This is wild ass speculation, but I'm guessing that's one reason HRC is moving on decriminalization. Turns out the Gay mafia hires escorts. One Gay Mafia member who co-founded HRC has had years of legal trouble on an issue related to this. So it makes a lot of sense that now that same sex marriage is won HRC would be moving in that direction.

 

My guess is that if there were a poll, a majority of people here would say this is not a priority. That said, if those Rentmen ads, or this website, suddenly went away, that would really fuck things up. In fact, people here are now used to the idea that this is exactly what happens. This is why we keep our heads down, and don't make waves.

 

Bill had one interesting and extremely fucked up solution. The most respectful way to say it was he was about as good at community organizing as I am at computer programming. So he created The Guardhouse. I think that was the name, but in my mind I thought of it as The Doghouse. If you did five back flips and recited three secret codes, or something like that, you could get in - by invitation only. This is speculation, but I think part of that was because there wasn't really any "community" consensus or plan about what to do about Rentboy or FOSTA/SESTA. As I said, my mantra is if you're going to try to win, you better have a really good plan and a lot of people organized around it. So the whole thing was dead on arrival, in my view.

 

So I do think this is a problem. I'm intentionally talking about what I consider the most "fanciful" of goals, like moving toward decriminalization. But I could post a list of people, including myself, that made what they thought were helpful suggestions about much easier and doable things to Bill that they feel he simply ignored. My easiest solution now is simple. Don't worry about it.

 

Bill and I also talked about how we both covered our asses as people who provided escort services, or paid for them. So it's not my problem anymore. I basically see it as an opportunity cost of continuing to do things the same way.

 

To be clear, Mike, I'm not criticizing you for your choice of words. I think you're exactly right. Now is a very good time to be thinking and planning about what's aspirational, and what's fanciful.

[+ Lucky]

Okay Gentlemen, Please, let’s stop these premature discussions. Is there a lawyer in the house?

 

I’m sure I’m not the only one here who has dealt with being a trustee or executor of an estate. M4M is in @Guy Fawkes estate. He still owns it. Until the Probate Court finds there are no living relatives who can make claim to his estate and rules on an executor, we shouldn’t be making any decisions on who will own or run it.

 

Let’s be patient. Perhaps a member lawyer can give us an idea on how long it might take for a court ruling.

 

Thanks,

Cooper

It can take forever. Judges are their own fiefdoms and they proceed at a pace that suits the judge or their clerk.

[+ stevenkesslar]

A guy can dream can’t he??

 

Yes, and so can an old gal. I guess that's the difference between you and me.

 

One shell corporation “owns” the forums and the review site. The board of directors of that Corp would ideally be me, Rob, Cooper. If those guys are reluctant in serving in that official capacity, I understand. Liability as owner is something I’m fine taking on because I’m confident in my team’s ability to protect me. If anyone else wants the exposure, we can share ownership.

 

So this sounds like a significant change. You are considering a corporation comprised of individuals, rather than individual ownership. Personally, I think that's a good idea. Either a corporation or an LLC or a non-profit. All would have pluses and minuses. In my mind the chief advantage of a non-profit is it insulated everything from the idea that anybody is making money here off escorting. In fact, the opposite. I'd make it about spending money to promote health and safety and harm prevention. But what that really means needs to be thought through. More on that below.

 

At least in my experience you're dead right that serving in an "official capacity" is going to be an issue for lots of people. On this topic, Bill was part stoic and part cowboy. The context of several conversations I had with him were right in the middle of SESTA/FOSTA or Rentboy. The throwaway line he used was that a prison cell would be bigger than his apartment.

 

If you're talking about liability from a lawsuit from Bill's long lost heir or competitor, I think you're right that "your team's" ability to protect you is what matters. If you're talking about liability from prosecution, what your team does isn't what matters the most. In fact, the whole issue of prosecution risk is one reason why they may not want to serve in any "official capacity."

 

If I had to guess, on a scale from 0 to 100 with 0 being risk-free, the risk of prosecution based on owning this website is in the teens. I could make a good case it's a single digit number, just by starting and stopping at "freedom of speech." The escort review site would be less than 50, probably way less. But higher than in the teens. So that's a harder problem both in terms of how you manage it, and how you manage it relating to FOSTA/SESTA. @Epigonos is hardly unique in thinking the reviews got changed without any input. The blunt way a number of clients I know expressed it is they got watered down to the point of uselessness. Which is one reason why people like The Deli so much. And why excellent hall monitors like @Cooper are both needed and appreciated.

 

If I were in your shoes, I'd want HRC and the ACLU behind me. In fact, I might want them on the board. This is very simplistic thinking. But if you have them on a corporate board or in some type of affiliation, I think you just moved the needle on risk way down. It will never be at zero. But my view is you want to move it to zero. If I were in your shoes, that is what I would want. If I were in my shoes, that is what I would want for you. That is, in fact, why I am saying this.

 

Yes there are circumstances I wouldn’t want ”ownership”. If the community turns against me, vilifies me, or makes me a target of unfounded suspicion, I’d revoke my offer. I know my intentions. I know my heart. I know my motive. Preservation and carrying on business as usual.

 

I can pretty much tell you how that plays out, using Bill as the poster child. I'll paint the picture of both the smooth Atlantis cruise and the possible Titanic tragic ending.

 

The smooth Atlantic cruise is pretty much everything. If you choose to come to a pool party in Palm Springs, you'll be welcomed heartily. People who paid for Bill's hotel rooms or meals probably won't have to worry about paying yours. (Hint: one year Oz brought a beautiful bouquet of flowers you couldn't help notice. It was a very nice touch.) If people have anything bad to say about you, you know how that works. It will be said behind your back.

 

The Titanic tragic ending is prosecution. It could be that Long Lost Aunt Bertha shows up and decides she always wanted to run a Gay male escort review site and sues your ass. That sounds more like a plot for a dark comedy or a really bad porn movie than reality. So the more likely worst case scenario is that you end up, for reasons that can't even be anticipated or understood, on the wrong end of FOSTA/SESTA or any other number of laws. (let's not forget The Travel Act.) Some of that does relate to how you structure "the community." I have no idea how Rentboy or Backpage or other Straight sites that met the same fate were structured. At the end of the day, the KISS bumper sticker for being a good target is that you're a White male predator with assets. Read the Congressional Record and it's pages and pages and pages on FOSTA/SESTA of how some White male predators made a shitload of money on activities that resulted in the abuse and death of a Black female prostitute. Needless to say, you don't want to be that guy.

 

If any agency ever actually looked seriously into going after Bill, anyone with a brain would conclude that going after an elderly Gay man who was low-income and a former drag queen could be a problem, unless you actually wanted to ignite a massive backlash. Which is partly why I think we want to talk to HRC. And we would want this to be about some prosecutor going after "the Gay community," rather than going after a White male predator with assets, like they painted Jeffrey.

 

I know some people are shaking their heads and saying this is all tangential because really the only reason I'm here is talk about some hot new muscle stud who advertises on Rentboy. Oh, wait. Rentboy is gone. But I do want to write a review about the hot muscle stud I "had coffee" with last week. Such a nice young man. Oh, wait. I can only mention the size and depth of his coffee cup. Back in the day, somebody actually wrote a review about my eggs. Seriously. And it wasn't about what I ate for breakfast.

 

So at least in my mind all this ranges from the mundane, like what gets posted in The Deli, to what Mike appropriately calls the "aspirational" or "fanciful." To reinforce my point, I think we decide what's aspirational, and fanciful.

 

If I were to base it off what happened with Rentboy, I can tell you how you end up being villified. For whatever reason, which we may never understand, this site or the review site suddenly disappears. (The sad irony I of course shouldn't state is that Bill, through lack of planning, figured out a way to make it disappear all on its own.) And you have some big legal problems. Again, I think that's unlikely, anyway. But my view as a landlord or activist or escort is always: how can I lower the risk? And when I take risks (spoiler alert: owning escort-related websites is risky) how do I reduce the risk? All I can say is that the rule of thumb I noticed when I was asked to be part of an effort to raise money for Jeffrey's defense is that the people I knew who relied on Rentboy the most were also the most uncomfortable when I asked them to help defend Jeffrey, whose assets were seized. By the way, I never met Jeffrey, and his site was absolutely worthless to me as a business proposition. Whatever I did was based on my own moral compass about defending "the community," as opposed to anything that helped me. Like you said, I know who I am. I know my heart.

[+ stevenkesslar]

And now, just to prove I can always beat you when it comes to the biggest .................... word salad.

 

The steering committee concept I would change to a review panel that reviews the escort review content submitted to daddy’s review. That volunteer committee, each serving a 1 year term elected by the forum, of 5 or 7 guys that get off on reading reviews so it doesn’t feel like work, reads what is submitted sharing access to a google drive document, makes adjustments, verifies meetings, and reaches a consensus by simple majority. Once a review is signed off by 3 or 5 members, it gets emailed to a virtual assistant in the Philippines on my payroll to be posted to daddy’s review.

 

So I think you are talking about being owner of the escort review site now. Is that right? Although legally it would take the form a corporation with a board.

 

I mostly agree with you that this site manages itself. That's if you assume the people who manage it like @Cooper and @Daverwr and now @RadioRob keep managing it. That's also based on a vision, which you have clearly articulated, that everything is pretty much as it should be and nothing much needs to change. The more you move in the direction of wanting to expand or improve the website, the less sense it makes to say nothing much needs to change. The most immediate thing I think is staring us in the face - other than this website goes away - is what happens if the escort review website goes away.

 

The review website is a whole different story. Whatever one thinks about "community control" as a philosophical issue, on a very pragmatic and urgent level if there's a need for "community planning" right now it's with the escort review website, not this one. I agree with you that some community management model makes sense. Ironically, what you're proposing sounds even more bureaucratic than what Bill figured out.

 

The thing that is weird about me is I've been successful as both an activist and an escort. And landlord, too, but that's not relevant. So the box that escort review site goes into in my mind deals directly with decriminalization. I don't separate them. And while that may be long-term and aspirational thinking, it's also a day-to-day pragmatic issue. Bill leaned really, really, really heavily into defense, I think. My own view is the government basically won without even having to put Bill in jail. They castrated the site. That's my opinion. But even if you agree with me I feel Bill's ass was on the line so he got to do it how he wanted.

 

So if it were my call, I can tell you some of the extremes I'd think about. 100 % defense means let the site die. That's the safest thing. 90 % defense means there is no narrative in the reviews at all. It's thumbs up or thumbs down, or 1 to 5 stars. Nobody has to edit anything, because nothing risky is communicated. Rentmen.com basically chose that model. And it is useful information, if it is true. It helps to know if someone is recommended, if their pictures are accurate, etc. I could have built a successful escort career off that, instead of Hooboy and Daddy's reviews. Again, the escorts I know pretty much don't give a shit about Daddysreviews anymore. They care about Rentmen more than anything.

 

The 100 % offense strategy is that both sites actively are promoting decriminalization as part of a Gay community that has every right to free speech and our own agenda and goals. We are in bed with HRC and the ACLU, openly. They will say we don't want to be part of anything that has to do with pedophilia or sex with animals or human trafficking. We will say, "Geez. How funny. We completely agree." The reviews follow from there. They allow narrative descriptions. Is it really a problem to say some guy pissed on me and I really enjoyed it? I don't know. That's a complicated question. It depends on a legal and political strategy that hasn't been thought through at all. At least not by anyone here. I'm pretty sure HRC and the ACLU, among other, have been thinking about it. The key point is that if there was ever any risk of the review site running into problems based on something said in some review, it makes a huge difference if you have HRC and the ACLU on your side.

 

I'd take what Bill put in the TOS about escort health and safety and harm prevention and blow it up on both websites. What does that mean on a review website? Should there be a forum on decriminalization and escort health and safety here? Does that protect us, or add risk? I obviously think the former. I've worked with enough Senators and MOCs to know they are not stupid people. So these cute word games about what a "rentboy" or "escort" is don't pass the smell test with trained lawyers who managed to win very expensive elections. I think it would be better to politely throw in their face that it makes no sense to have this running off servers in Amsterdam. Isn't it better to promote doing this in ways that are safe, healthy and decriminalized? These days if I asked that of Kamala Harris, seems like her answer would be yes.

 

Jeffrey's biggest problem is that his arrest ignited a very interesting discussion about this. But for him it all happened too late. In one day he was arrested and his assets were seized. From then on it was game over. So what I do think is that if the escort review website doesn't die, and there is going to be "community" discussion and planning about this, now is the time to start. I'm reading whatever I can find about HRC or the ACLU. And I'm just in ignorant whore mode. But my superficial impression is that the position they are forming is "Hands off!" If true, and we want to know if it is true, that's good news for us.

 

Let me say again. I don't know that the escort review site faces any real danger. If it dies, it's due to Bill's lack of planning, not law enforcement. But in the situation we are in I see no reason to either let the site die, or assume we have to take an extremely defensive position if it continues to operate.

Edited May 1, 2021 by stevenkesslar

[+ FreshFluff]

If you're talking about liability from a lawsuit from Bill's long lost heir or competitor, I think you're right that "your team's" ability to protect you is what matters. If you're talking about liability from prosecution, what your team does isn't what matters the most. In fact, the whole issue of prosecution risk is one reason why they may not want to serve in any "official capacity."

 

”My team“ may be a reference to his lawyer(s), not to the tech guy and moderator.

[+ Coolwave35]

I enjoy chatting with you but it’s all conjecture at this point. You and I have no power here but it’s fun to dream.

[+ Coolwave35]

”My team“ may be a reference to his lawyer(s), not to the tech guy and moderator.

Yes. As my 10th grade English teacher loved to comment on my papers “vague pronoun reference.” Lol. Sorry about that.

[+ stevenkesslar]

I’m sure I’m not the only one here who has dealt with being a trustee or executor of an estate. M4M is in @Guy Fawkes estate. He still owns it. Until the Probate Court finds there are no living relatives who can make claim to his estate and rules on an executor, we shouldn’t be making any decisions on who will own or run it.

 

All of this means that it is time to decide who will own and run this place.

 

This is why I am confused.

 

For what it's worth, the reaction to that post by Orin got was 31 likes, 21 applause, 1 happy, and 1 love. It was the post about what happened when @RadioRob brought the message center back from the dead by moving the message forum to a different server. So people were mostly reacting to that, rather than @Orin wanting us to decide who will own and run this place.

 

The part about running the place - not owning it - is a bit confusing in itself. It seems like a life-saving decision about how this place is run was made. And we're all grateful for what @RadioRob did.

 

Let me edit what Orin said and see if it makes more sense:

 

"All of this means that it is time to decide who you would like to own and run this place."

 

Is that more precise?

 

Orin's statement is a bit confusing in itself because him and Deb and Team Washington are actually who will decide will own this place. But that is true only if they are selected as administrators. "We" could decide we want to own it through a non-profit. But that doesn't make it so. @Coolwave35 just wrote he would like to own it through a corporation. But that doesn't make it so. So the one thing we know for sure is that "we" will NOT decide who owns either website. What we can decide is that we want to own it, and how. To me that makes a lots of sense. Particularly because @Orin is asking us to do just that.

 

Many of us have gone through probate and/or a trustee process. I've gone through both. So let me give an example which is not totally apples to apples but close enough to make the point. Now I will use my landlord experience.

 

"There is a process. You have to be patient. An executor will be named. The executor will determine the new owner. Once the new owner is determined we will see where he or she wants to go."

 

That's meant to be an accurate summary of a lot of vocabulary I am reading. It all makes sense on the face of it.

 

Now let's take a specific example. I wanted to own a house in probate. This actually happened in 2012. If I had waited until an administrator had been selected and a new owner was determined, I would have failed. Because I wanted to be the new owner. So what I in fact did is everything I reasonably could to steer the outcome to what I wanted. Which seems to be the position we are in now.

 

In fact, my understanding of the $10,000 we raised is that it is mostly for that purpose: steering the ownership of these websites to where we want, legally, whatever that ends up taking. So instead of saying "A court will appoint an administrator" and we'll wait to see who that is, we're being pro-active and paying for legal support to steer the outcome. Which makes enormous sense to me.

 

I'll add another point that dovetails with my buying a home example. @Coolwave35 actually went further than I asked him to, which I appreciate, and basically made a public offer. That is essentially what I did when I bought a house through probate. It could have been accepted or rejected. But I obviously designed it in the hopes it would be accepted, which it was. As far as I'm concerned, "the community" could decide we want to form a non-profit and become the owner. It seems like that would be a legitimate thing to do, if we choose. And that is in fact what the prospective administrators are saying potentially makes sense to them.

 

So while some of the language is confusing, what we are actually doing all makes sense to me.

 

I'm factoring in that the worst thing that can happen is Long Lost Aunt Bertha shows up and says really the assets belong to her. Then the question is does she want to manage a Gay website with verbose assholes like me? How about a Gay website that posts reviews of male escorts? We can deal with that when Long Lost Aunt Bertha shows up, which sounds pretty unlikely. But my strong hunch is that even if she does show up, Aunt Bertha might decide that she really doesn't want to own a Gay website. So it would make absolute sense to me to prepare. I'd like us to be in a position so "the community" or @Coolwave35 or some individual or collective version of "us" is ready to help Long Lost Aunt Bertha dispose of this asset, which we actually want to own.

 

This sounds very much like a train in motion. My understanding until today is that there was no prospective owner for the male escort review website. So if @Coolwave35 is now saying that he's interested in some form of corporate ownership with some kind of community steering process, that's a very different thing. One way or the other, my own opinion is that it is in our interest to somehow take ownership of that escort review website rather than let it die.

 

To again go back to my landlord experience, let me quote one other thing I've heard a lot.

 

"Now it's time for you to hurry up and wait."

 

I have no clue how many mortgages I've gotten in my life, counting refi's. I only heard that exact line once, decades ago. But I've heard a variation of it pretty much every time. I take it to mean that at this point there is nothing you can do to influence the process. So just go watch some porn or something.

 

The final thing I would note is that at least half the time that something like that is said, it's not true. My pet peeve was that I tell a mortgage lender I am going to Mexico for a week. And so if you need something figure it out before I leave, because what you need is in a file here. They say we have everything we need. Then the first day I'm in Mexico they urgently need documents that are 1000 miles away.

 

The picture @Lucky painted of judges sounds right to me. Which is to say they are pretty much like banks and mortgage lenders. They will get to it when they get to it. And when they get to it you better be prepared because they want it now. My great hope, which I think @Orin already confirmed is possible, is that if our legal strategy works Team Washington becomes administrator. And the lawyer they hire figures out how to get this to fly under the radar, which is to say the small estate exemption. Then whatever a judge thinks about the disposition of the assets doesn't matter because he or she has nothing to do with it. I think that should be our goal. I can't think of a good reason why we'd want a judge in Nevada or anywhere to be pondering what to do with a male escort review website.

 

So I feel like we should keep doing what @Orin said above. We should keep figuring out who we want to manage both websites, and how. I'm glad @Coolwave35 is thinking about some form of community management, particularly for the escort review website. I think it is obvious it needs a lot more help than this one.

 

Am I being an ignorant whore and miscalculating something?

[+ Coolwave35]

Stephan we have no power or say in anything. All we can do is talk and throw out offers. The powers that be are spinning their wheels and I think we just have to wait.

[+ stevenkesslar]

I enjoy chatting with you but it’s all conjecture at this point. You and I have no power here but it’s fun to dream.

 

That's actually not true.

 

I've been talking to escorts I know about what would happen if I end up owning a male escort review website. Do I want to own a male escort review website? No, I don't. Not as an individual, at least. But the picture that was forming is that nobody actually wants to own this website. Now it sounds like somebody does. My own opinion is that whatever form ownership takes it is better for the two websites to have joint ownership, and work hand in hand, like they have up until now.

 

So we could get into definitions of "conjecture" or "dream." In my vocabulary, it's not conjecture to say that if I could buy a home in probate, which is something I wanted to do, I could buy a male escort review site in probate, which is something I don't want to do. In 2021 I actually am going to figure out how to gift a $130,000 condo to a friend. So I suppose if needed I could buy a male escort review website and gift it to "the community" and let "the community" figure out what that means. If I did that, I would have a few conditions. It would be dedicated to Bill. It would celebrate the fact that this was a good-hearted Gay man who took risks for his community and as an escort or drag queen or operator of a escort website tried to advance the interests and safety of his community. One good reason to do that is I have no interest in owning it, or managing it. But I would like to see it survive. It did a lot of good for me, so my vocabulary would be "pay it forward." So if the only choice was buy it or it dies, I would buy it and figure out how to have it run as a non-profit with a board. That's not a "dream" either, at least by my definition, since I've been involved in the development of various non-profits. I could give you a list of some people here I think would be great board members. But like you I don't like to speculate.

 

I do know that if I did in fact want to buy the male escort review website, which I don't, I would be actively planning to make that happen. Just like I planned to buy a house in probate or I will plan to gift a condo to a friend.

 

So I'm quite glad you are saying you want to buy it. And I hope you are not dreaming.

Edited May 2, 2021 by stevenkesslar

[+ sam.fitzpatrick]

@Coolwave35 , @stevenkesslar, and other great members

 

I am currently without my PC for a couple of days and trying to keep up with this thread on my iPhone 6s, this I will admit that I haven’t read everything completely. (This two finger typing thing sucks.)

 

Anyway, I want reiterate a couple of comments I made a while ago. (1). A huge thanks to @Orin and @RadioRob for what they have accomplished to keep this site running the past few weeks. My concerns about the sites’ long-term technical survival have diminished significantly. (2). Given everyone’s comments and proposals about how this should be run, I know the community’s interest in the sites will ensure their survival and revelance to us, as a fun outlet to share humor, share the worst theater performances we’ve seen, or figure out how much cologne is too much to wear when meeting an escort.

I know we all want resolution to how this site is going to be run. It reminds me of questions I have experienced in my years of doing corporate merger and acquisition work. When one company is bought by another, colleagues want to know the day after the merger announcement if they have a job, and in a merger of equals with both parties having thousands of employees, it usually takes months to make all of those decisions as usually executive management decisions needs to be made so they can participate in decisions on their teams. And often there are months between the announcement of the planned merger and the actual transaction closing, delaying further the actual effective dates of those decisions.

 

So PATIENCE is the word I often find myself stating in M&A work. It takes time to execute things of a big nature. It feels that is appropriate to state that again here. Team Washington is making progress and they have the same desire to have Guy’s hard work continue that folks reading this thread have.

Edited May 2, 2021 by sam.fitzpatrick

[RadioRob]

It’s not that we’re spinning our wheels in that were being indecisive. Our challenge is how much we can do on our own right now. While we have managed to preserve the forum, we don’t “technically” have a claim to it.

 

While it’s unlikely that someone who could actually have a legal claim would make that stake, it could happen.

 

As a result, we’re trying to be cautious in what we do to not rock the boat. Cooper and I had a call earlier today talking about “what could be”. There are a lot of things we would like to see happen. This includes adding more people to help serve as admin/moderators, adding new features and capabilities, etc.

 

I would encourage people to think about the “future” in phases. The first thing that needs to happen is to stabilize operations. That includes getting this site off of my personal server into one operated solely for this community. That’s the first step in ensuring if God forbid I’m hit by a bus tomorrow we don’t relive this situation again. It also includes getting control of critical services needed for the site’s operations and getting it documented with a few key trusted people having access to it.

 

Once we can do that, we can think about who and how the site will be operated. For now it looks like Cooper will take lead in administration of the site (approving members, responding to reports etc). He is going to need a lot of help so we will be tapping people to help initially in individual forums and then potentially wider as a super moderator. I’ll continue to help maintain the “background” stuff such as patching, security, and keeping the lights on.

 

I personally see a future where it’s not a single owner, but also at the same time not necessarily a full committee. Instead most likely I foresee a future somewhere in the middle. I see having a small team of 3 or so people to handle administration with another 6-12 moderators helping keep the house clean and following the rules. Each community leader would have an area they have primary responsibility for, but is able to step in to assist as needed elsewhere. Basically taking the single role managed by Daddy solely and splitting it into multiple parts. The goal would be that it is less work for everyone and also reduces the risk of a loss of a single key person.

 

I realize there is a lot of unanswered questions right now and I don’t know the answers to everything myself. With that said, you have my commitment that I’ll do everything in my power to get us to the other side.