Let it snow, let it snow redux

[greatbear]

Well, it's snowing rather briskly outside now, and I say let it go right ahead. After taking Mom to the Xmas luncheon held at her former employer (Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, where she is a retiree), the afternoon/evening was spent modding Mini Coopers in the cold. It is here that I am thankful for my Russian genes, as I am able to work outside in the cold with little difficulty while others stand around shivering. I prepared for the snow this weekend, stocking the house up with firewood, getting things ready, and, sadly, staying home here in MD and away from my honey in PA. Up there is supposed to get hit even harder. Jeff used the time free from my pawing all over him to get homework and studying done plus get ready for his finals. So, let it snow (x 3).

The phones are finally fixed here at Casa Greatbear! One thing I have learned over the years is to get in good with those actually doing the work even if I fly off the handle with those that I have to schedule said work through. Case in point, the technician working on the phone line was an outgoing, rather cute little blonde woman. She was busting her tiny little butt trying to make sense out of the ancient, tattered lines up and down the roads here as well as problems that were all the way at the C.O.. She came by a couple times giving me updates while I did what I could to help. We even talked shop. In the end, she gave us her direct number to call the next time we might encounter the same problem in the rain and cannot wait to have an appointment scheduled several days after the problem occurs. Both of us know the only way to fix the problem is immediately, that save both me and the techs time and effort. Another problem licked (hopefully, and if not, it's better prepared to be fixed if needed).

In more frustrating news, I am probably going to abandon my profile and presence at Bear411.com. Much like gay.com, the owners are restricting the features given to us cheapskates who use the free features. Specifically, they are limiting the number of people one can have on their pal list. In the broken Engrish found on the site:

NEW CONTACT LIST RULE: To keep good servers speed and to avoid abuse, since december 10th 2005, the maximum number of people allowed in contact list will be:
# For PRIORITY ACCESS MEMBERS: 300
# For NON-PRIORITY ACCESS MEMBERS: 50

If your contact list is upper this maximum limit, thank you to clean it.

While I dont think I have 50 people on my list, or if I do, it's not much over (I didnt bother to count), I am tired of seeing everything monetized to death, especially by increasing limitations more and more. This ruined gay.com years ago. It's different if the site is of extraordinary value to begin with (LJ). The guys at bigmuscle/bigmusclebears/normalgay (ugh, I so dislike that name) seem to have no problems giving the non-paying members quite a nice feature set, plus everyone has chat access (though the chat there is inane at best). Sad part is, Bear411 is where most of my friends went after the collapse of the gay.com bear's den chat. I'll be still around on Yahoo (greatbearmd), AIM (greatbear1md), Google Talk (greatbear), and ICQ (380056) though.

EDIT: I counted 97 on my pal list, far more than I expected to see. Granted, many of those I no longer interact with and could be removed, but, hey, it's the principle of things, ya know?

Comments

[shake-it-up.livejournal.com]

The icon is in honor of the thought of you pawing Jeff to warm up after crawling out from under your Mini Cooper..... woof! Thanks for the image.

And also the information about Bear411. I never joined it until last summer, a bit after I joined LJ. I haven't been there in a couple of weeks, and I hate the pile of messages after that amount of time. The chat is a little hard to navigate, but I have connected with a lot of old friends there, and a few new ones (hey, I have a date tomorrow with a guy I met there around Labor Day). It is really a shame- revenue will go up, real connections will go down.

All the same, I could never handle the volume of connections, prefer to meet people there and chat on other channels- I'll add you on AIM (I am ZenBearDave there).

[greatbearmd.livejournal.com]

People will move on, I'm sure. I just gotta find where. lol

Bear411 'chat' is just instant messages to others, individually. What I miss is a chat room, where people interact with one another. I find that far more entertaining (when real chat happens) and people's personalities come through. It's far more social and connective than firing off IMs to people you have never heard from before. Most if not all chat services allow private IMs between users for more direct and intimate conversations. If Bear411 offered the former and the chat was mostly lively and of good 'quality', I might think more about staying.

[dfwteddybear.livejournal.com]

Bear411 has REALLY gotten out of control. I had 174 people on my list. Granted, most of them were on there because they were cute LOL, I never got the nerve to talk to them. But still, I cleaned it up and got it down to 75. The rest are people I talk to and are on LJ.

arrrg!

[greatbearmd.livejournal.com]

I need to get a clear count of how many I have on my list. The main reason for the restrictions is that most people, like me, would 'pal' people for those days when you cannot do a search or see who's online. Lately I try to chat and find that the entire chat service is restricted to paying members.

[dfwteddybear.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, the loverly "Our chat feature is SO popular, that we couldn't POSSIBLY let a cheap-ass non-sunscriber like YOU on here to see if your friends are okay. We only let those that pay the troll cross THAT bridge." LOL...

We need a more public-friendly site.

[greatbearmd.livejournal.com]

For what little I have tried it the chat on biggercity is not bad (you dont even need to have a profile there to chat). Maybe we need to create an IRC room for LJ users. lol

[furr-a-bruin.livejournal.com]

The only problem with IRC (as of the last time I was on) are all the script kiddies and obnoxious jerkwipes who enjoy taking over channels just for the jollies of doing so.

[in-fin-i-ty.livejournal.com]

There is a site called _normalgay_?!??! How fucking inane! *sighs* I admit that I get somewhat annoyed by all the, "I'm just an average guy" profiles I see on bear411. I mean come on! I don't want someone _average_ no matter which way you slice that adjective!

*sheesh*

And *THAT's* what that message meant? Eeeegads. I was so confuzzled by it. But yeah, service there is just getting insane. The whole cut and paste thing pushed me pretty much over the edge. :/

[greatbearmd.livejournal.com]

The irony is that the 'normalgay' site is promoted as a place where people who dont fall under (or feel they fall under) the muscle or bear monikers can go, however, when you see who has profiles there, it's the same people as on the other two sites. 8-|

[in-fin-i-ty.livejournal.com]

then perhaps it should be names 'desperategay' or 'insecuregay'?
*ponders*

[shake-it-up.livejournal.com]

There's a few ways to think about it--

It could be opting out of the "bear thing" as that has become an exclusive club

It could be a fetishizing of the "regular guy" the schlub, the blue collar, the whatever but not "pretty boy"-- that's what seemed cool to me when it started (but I didn't join)

Or it could be that obnoxious self-denial thing of someone who is gay but totally "normal" but for certain sex acts.

[in-fin-i-ty.livejournal.com]

It could be a fetishizing of the "regular guy" the schlub, the blue collar, the whatever but not "pretty boy"-- that's what seemed cool to me when it started (but I didn't join)

But isn't that what the bear community was supposed to be about all those years ago?

*sighs* I don't know. I've just grown to kinda despise using 'normal' since most of the situations I've heard it used in are highly pejorative one way or the other.

[greatbearmd.livejournal.com]

Doesnt look like those are active, so, maybe you are onto something ;-)

[furr-a-bruin.livejournal.com]

If you turn off Javascript in your browser, a few things in the interface don't work the same way - but you CAN then paste text into the messenger. :) I'm working on a "Sayonara" message I'm going to blast out to everyone on my list, give it a week, then cancel the account *AFTER* sending the owner a message as to exactly why I'm doing it.

I posted about this on my own journal - I'm sorry, but $10 a month is too much for a chat site - there are porno sites creating their own original content that charge not much more than that. Especially when the management keeps tightening the screws on the "freebie" users. That's partly why I gave up on bikermen.com as well.

[greatbearmd.livejournal.com]

There are plenty of other sites offering free chat. When Bear411 pisses off enough people, they will eventually siphon off to another place.

[aadroma.livejournal.com]

You know, after some of the stories I've heard of people being TURNED AWAY from the site, this is probably the straw on the camel's back. A shame, as I don't mind the accumulating messages thingy it does.

Hrm -- I don't think I've ever had the pleasure of chatting with you, cutie ... ^o^

[greatbearmd.livejournal.com]

I had to block out more and more stoopid ads and those creepy talking 'hosts' that were irritating me when going on there. I do like how the IMs are stored when you are not on the site for later retrieval, but that's only a small plus in a sea of increasing minuses.

And, no, other than via LJ commentary, I dont think we ever interacted. Why is that? o_O

[aadroma.livejournal.com]

I don't know why we haven't had more interaction -- perhaps we should remedy that, nena. ^o^ My chat handle's almost always aadroma (AIM and Yahoo), so do IM me if you ever see me on, okay?

(And I'm glad I'm not the only one that was creeped the fuck out by the talking head thingies!! I saw the site that sells that technology to webmasters, and I could only wonder why someone would think this would generate MORE traffic!!)

[in-fin-i-ty.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've heard of that. Soooo bizzare!

Oh, and the fact that there's no way to go backwards in chat... Like I have conversations that span over months practically and I'm like, "WTF were we talking about?"

[barak.livejournal.com]

I'm not renewing my paid subscription come February for the cheapening of the site, the slow speed of the site and the shitty rules (you can't paste, copy or send messages containing the web addresses of competing sites). I don't mind that a site wants to create some profit for its efforts and to keep up with the bandwidth, but this guy isn't even trying.

Too bad there doesn't seem to be a decent, new site that works better.

[greatbearmd.livejournal.com]

When a site prohibits the sending of competing URLs, it;s because the owners are far too paranoid about losing people knowing full well that their actions are what's causing it.

[barak.livejournal.com]

I could theoretically buy why he blocked pasting of messages- to block spammers, but I never had that problem. But the "disappearing"of any messages that contain competing sites was very suspicious.

Oh well.

[shake-it-up.livejournal.com]

BearWWW seems like more fun, a little slicker, easier to keep track of people- your buddies list, I think, is limited to 50 for a free account. But you can easily access a page that shows if they are online or not. The interface has been updated, which Bear411 barely has since its inception, way back when...

(sorry, no kows in my icons)

[shake-it-up.livejournal.com]

I was never on aol, so I never got into those chat rooms. I used a bulletin board in LA for awhile, a small group, and sometimes would go to the chat rooms there but the talk was all "take a flying leap" and idle flirting of people that would never get together in real life.

Never did IRC....


I just saw your note on your list, I probably have that many after a year of Bear411 chat. but the service sucks, they do nothing to entice you when you are a "free" customer (and given the advertising i would not call it free I'd call it ad-supported).

[le-lapin.livejournal.com]

[furr-a-bruin.livejournal.com]

The problem is that this isn't the first time this sort of thing has happened. It seems quite clear to me that the owner(s) don't realize that part of the value of the service is the size of the userbase - including the people with free accounts. Piss off the free users, and the site has much less attraction to the paid users.

[le-lapin.livejournal.com]

[dr-scott.livejournal.com]

I object to companies that set out to snare a big user base with free or low-cost service, then start to charge for the material created by the users. Planet Out, gay.com, etc etc have all gone that way. They drove away their most interesting members and then declined. A realistic price for the bandwidth and maintenance might be $1-2 a month.

[champdaddy.livejournal.com]

I object to companies that set out to snare a big user base with free or low-cost service, then start to charge for the material created by the users.

Glad you made this point. I was approached years ago by a guy starting a new website called Buddy Bear's Cave. He wanted approval for a profile he setup for me using a pic he got off Woof Watch. I didn't like his tactic, but agreed.

Buddy Bear's Cave became Bear411 and shortly after became a commercial site. At that point, I removed my profile... so this little chunk of online bear history with its chat, pals, and stories of not-bear-enough is pretty much exactly as you describe.

[theoctothorpe.livejournal.com]

That's kinda it.. There are so many places out there that are kicking and screaming because their CoLo-s are so expensive. Well, now bandwidth is cheap, as is storage. Perhaps they should consider changing hosting companies. If they actually bothered to code things correctly, they shouldn't have giant costs. Of course, this could simply be a money grab. If so, fuck 'em.

Let this be a lesson. Bad code hurts everybody.

Of course, now I want to know. What *do* people want in a site like that. I'd think you'd want:

text profile
image upload (for images)
"pals" (adding and status of)
some sort of server-side messaging (not chat)

and what I was also thinking... a private IRC server (rather than trying to do it via a webpage). You can kill the script kiddies by making sure only those with valid accounts can sign on (and each account must be validated by a human). You cal also see who's in the channel(s) on the site, rather than having to log into the IRC server.

This isn't rocket science. Is this an opportunity to make a better site?

[le-lapin.livejournal.com]

[furr-a-bruin.livejournal.com]

I like profiles that have some things as defined lists - the answers may not be perfect for everyone, but that way the data is regularized - and it can all be searched. What's really insane are sites that make you fill out a profile questionnaire with a lot of those kind of questions - and then don't permit people to use them to search! Granted, being overspecific won't get you anywhere - but maybe I just want to know if there ARE any goateed uncut tops who are HIV+ and have red hair in Burbank. ;)

Oh - and there should be separate hair color answers for head hair and beard hair. ;)

The "message drop" feature should show a listing of waiting messages, unlike Bear411 that makes you deal with them in the order of arrival.

I'd suggest two lists - "pals" or "buddies" who are people you actually know/chat with, and "hot fur" - guys you think are attractive, but haven't actually worked up the nerve to approach. ;)

It's an interesting question as to whether to show a person who's been browsing his profile. Some sites do it (bikermen.com, bearkink.net), others don't.

I like the idea of a private IRC server; I also like Jabber, but many of the clients aren't very good and I'm not sure about how well it does the kind of group conversation that IRC does so well. Would you let users set up their own channels, or would there be a pre-set selection?

[theoctothorpe.livejournal.com]

Preface: I am not on Bear411, but I am on bearwww, and it too falls short in some key areas, but at least the interface doesn't get in your way. I will probably steal ideas from all over, should I decide to create this. My IA juices are always flowing.

I like the idea of the bearwww pals list, as it allows you to "rate" your pals. You can interpret this in any way you wish, but I use it to separate out those with whom I chat/know, and those who are just hot. The list is sorted by rating (highest at the top), and online status. I think the IM folks have the buddy list hammered out. In a small space, you see who is online, their name, and their icon. Some allow grouping by an arbitrary group name, but I think that's too much effort for little gain. The ratings system will keep long lists under control. Mind you, these ratings are private and personal. No one knows how you've rated someone. They aren't global, there is no global scorecard.

Yes, I agree, Bearwww and Bear411's messaging system (serial style) blows goats. It's not difficult to have a proper message page. One could even do some fancy AJAX thing and keep the page updated without having to resort to constant reloading. Oh, another thing one needs for messaging. The ability to silently ignore someone. This is key.

Search, while it sounds rather trivial, is more difficult than it seems. Not because it's difficult to code, but that it's expensive computationally. You can't really set up custom views, triggers, and stored procedures for an ad hoc query such as what you describe. That said, I, like you, wish to see *some* normalisation of the form, to facilitate accurate searches. However, I want to temper that with a short form, so people don't feel bogged down in profile creation (just let me in to get to the fresh meat!!)

The more I think about a private IRC server, the more I like the idea. The first thing that popped into my head was channel creation. I think a nice "perk" of a paid membership would be to have the ability to create (OP) your own channel. Non-paids can join any channel they want (assuming they have access –paid member channels may be locked at the OP's discretion).


Thoughts?

[furr-a-bruin.livejournal.com]

Personally, I think what bogs most people down on profile creation is writing something free-form in their own words - the "pick one from a list" parts tend to go pretty quickly. I realize search is a CPU burner, but if the point is to enable men to make connections, it should be as easy as possible to find the people who one is interested in. Assuming lots of users - making people essentially drudge through everyone in their geographic area is just ... lame. Or by using ill-defined self-categorizations like "cub" or "grizzly" or the like. And ideally, one could make multiple selections - let's say that one will go for a guy with a goatee or a beard, or perhaps wants someone who's either "hairy," "very hairy" or "sasquatch" ;) [Having some torso photos to suggest what's meant by the various furriness levels wouldn't hurt... and would make the ratings a bit more regularized.]

I think your idea regarding IRC channels is excellent; that's exactly the kind of thing that I think should be a paid perk. I'm not sure if there's any way to enforce it on an IRC server, but perhaps free users could only join so many channels at once (say, two?) but a paid user could be in as many as they can keep up with.

In that vein, I think it's reasonable to give paid users the ability to upload more pictures than a free user... though how you gracefully degrade if the person lets his paid status lapse is a good question. (A personal annoyance - people who upload teeny little thumbnails instead of proper pictures. Just as there could be a maximum file size... how about a minimum pixel count to weed out the itty bitty things?) This is more a policy thing, but I do like the idea of requiring that the "main" photo on someone's profile must show their face and that they be clearly identifiable in it. Sure, I like pix of various body parts as much as the next guy - but for me, the face is most important.

Given some of the recent legal BS that's going on, how would you deal with more explicit photos? At this point, I'd almost by default go for non-US hosting for a site like this so I don't have the Republican Goon Squad on my neck because someone uploaded a picture of himself getting pissed on or the like. It's a complete annoyance, but it's something to consider.

And in a complete reversal of B411's policy - how about being completely welcoming to people listing other ways to get in touch? IM handles, a screened email address, and maybe have a few slots for "interesting web links" that would be permitted to be links to profiles on other meet & meat sites, a Yahoo! profile, or whatever.

I'm not quite sure of how much one would have to limit free users to encourage enough of them to subscribe to make the site pay for itself. At the same time, one wants lots of people to sign up - even for free - because the bigger the user base, the bigger the attraction for someone looking for a buddy, a sex partner or whatever.

[theoctothorpe.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the Network Effect is important (your profile becomes more valuable as more people are added to the pool)

I was also thinking that IM is also good. I'd just keep a "betterbears.com" AIM group open forever (many find IRC a bit "techie"). The point being, there options, and I would be wise to look into them.

As I seem to be semi-hijacking this thread, I am going to take it over to my LJ......now. See "Building a Better Bear411"

[truckerbear.livejournal.com]

As in any business you must listen to the customer base if you don't your company with die.

I have been rejected from bear411.com twice and just given up, all because I posted an honest desciption of myself, as here on LJ.

I agree with the post above me need a free more open place that has less rules.

It bothers me the stories I hear about what goes on there, I wish I could chat with the bears but hey he calls the shots.

[psuweightlifter.livejournal.com]

I had my profile rejected 3 times. All for not posting clear pics having my partner in the pic. The pics looked clear to me. Description was honest too, just looking for friends, etc. Finally my partner wrote up a profile for me, found a pic on his computer, and put in the description something like Hot bear chaser looking for fun. It gets approved. BS!!!!!! I've had problems in the past about being asian and in the bear culture so I attributed some of the first three denials to that.

[jn1701e.livejournal.com]

they need to make deleting people off your contact list easier.. it's time consuming..

[jkusters]

I tried Bear411 once. Created a profile, uploaded a pic, and everything. A couple of days later I tried to log on only to find that my profile had been deleted. Yeah, that made me feel great. I know a lot of people love it, but it really turned me off. Personally, I think you're better off without it. (But perhaps I'm just bitter. :-)

JOhn.

[orange-groves.livejournal.com]

I'm still glad I'm not a member of Bear411. To me, it seems like a pyramid scheme

[in-fin-i-ty.livejournal.com]

I just found someone on Bear411 named 'ChelseaMuscleBear.' Now conceptually if that isn't heralding the end of the bear movement I'm not sure what would... Eeeeek.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_angry_alan/]

Ugh, fucking bear411.com.
The owner is such an asshole.

[brinlondo.livejournal.com]

That sucks...I'll miss your occasional appearances on my own pal list. Though I did finally decide to be a pay member, I understand how you feel. It's exactly like the disaster that used to be gay.com.

Chasers love bears!

[chaserforchubby.livejournal.com]

Heya guys, I still did not manage to create a profile on bear4/11, I suppose it's because i am a chaser. Well, I stick to BearCity (http://www.bearcityweb.com), they are friendly and accept all and bears and chubs and chasers. As far as I know there is no censorship on online messages and it's fun to chat in their chat and cam room.
Well, there are TOS but TOS are everywhere.
HUGS to all