Change the Way Tags Appear in Ads

[LadyCeleste]

Okay, so I have a suggestion. This is something that has been brewing around in my head for some time and I never knew just how to put it into words until now.

In the S/M Area where people can post ads for threads. I really do believe it would be necessary to add more tags. I see all the time "I'm 18 years old and a master/mistress." No, you're not. You might have experience from being under the age of 18 from doing it, but that does not mean that you are qualified to be a "master" or a "mistress".

What I am suggesting is that there be other tags added.

Newbie
Dominant
Master/Mistress

The way to define these would be:

Newbie: 0-5 years LEGAL experience
Dominant: 5-10 years LEGAL experience
Master/Mistress 10+ years LEGAL experience.

By legal, I mean being over the CONSENT age (IE: 18 for the US), and participating actively in the community. Yes, that would put many of the 20 somethings into Dominant or the Newbie category, but it would seriously prevent a lot of confusion.

I find a lot of times, these people who are new out of the gate who call themselves a Master or a Mistress and have little to no experience actually end up doing more harm than those who have a little bit of experience in the scene.

I answer a lot of questions in the S/M Advice collumn and via PMs and E-mail so often that I find that something like this is truly necessary. Please, post your comments, thoughts, and feelings on something like this because I am not the only one, who I know, that feels this way.

[slave1987]

Problem is that there's no way to check it. A 30 year old could come on here and claim they have 10 years of experience and yet have never experienced anything other than a vanilla relationship and have no experience whatsoever.

[Star Shadows]

I think this is a really good idea. It really frustrates me when people who have little to no experience go around the place thinking that they have all the god-given knowledge in the world to be seen as a master when they really are nothing more than a heaving stack of testosterone and ego.

It would also make it far easier for members to deduce what to expect and what they are looking at to some extent- especially as some members would prefer a dom/master with a lot more experience rather than a newbie fresh out of the starting blocks.

Its also possibly a good idea to have similar changes in tags for the submissive/ slave side of the adverts splitting it into newbie, slave and submissive.
A newbie may not know what they want, have little experience and or training in the lifestyle, and submissives and slaves are two entirely different parts of the lifestyle. Something that has been neglected by the site.

[Id.]

Yes, I know I have incorrectly used the master/dominant/dom terms interchangeably. The profile tags are the same way. I think the only choices are "dare master" or "dare slave".

The ranges may need to be a little different. I think it would be hard to find many getDare users, of any age, who have even 1 or 2 years of actual, continuous experience.

[nellybell]

I think the distinction is a good idea, but there is no way to prevent people form lying.

Also, I think the expirence time requirments are a bit unrealistic for this site. Not only will you have MAYBE a handful of people that even make it to "Dominant" and even less that might actually be able to reach "Master/Mistress" level. Everyone else will be considered a newbie. That is kind of pointless if that is what everyone is labeled as.
Also, I don't really agree that you have to have 5 years of expirence to know what you're doing and to not hurt someone. If someone has 3 or 4 years of expirence, I would think they would be insulted if they were still labeled as a newbie. They may not perfect, no one is, but they aren't going to be on the same level as some of the idiots on here.

[CollaredBlondie]

Yes. Something like this would be good. At the very least, different tags for slave and submissive because they are two totally different things, and I'm not sure that many know that.

Blondie x

[jamness]

I think this is a great idea. The question is the validity really, how you can check. I suppose it could work just on honesty.
Perhaps people could be assigned a tag if they apply for one? So as opposed to just writing it in themselves they could have one automatically there set to Newbie as default, and apply to a mod or an experienced Dom like you to upgrade? And you can decide whether you believe them or something.

Something along those lines anyway, all rather vague.

[LadyCeleste]

I appreciate the feedback, and certainly, I can see the concern being how to trust people and that sort of thing.

Jamness - the applying process through the mods is a fantastic idea. I certainly think it would work nicely that way.

Nelly - I can understand where people who might have an issue with the whole "newbie" category with 2 to 3 years under their belt, but that was just an example. Certainly 2 to 3 years is quite a bit of time, but at the same time, they do not have the multitude of experience that someone with 5 to 10 years would have, hence why I suggested the 'newbie' title. It could obviously be split into more categories than this, but as I said, it was just an example.

ID. - Very true. It is hard to find those who have continuous experience, but it is not based on continuous, it is more or less a combination of how many years total they have, that sort of thing.

CB - Yes, I completely agree. There needs to be a distinction between submissive and slave.

Slave1987 - While that is very true, it would also be reliant on users coming back and saying "this person does not seem like they have the experience that they claim" etc etc.

[slave1987]

Originally Posted by LadyCeleste

Slave1987 - While that is very true, it would also be reliant on users coming back and saying "this person does not seem like they have the experience that they claim" etc etc.

So basically you have to pick a person to trust, either the person who claims the experience or another user who claims that they don't have it based on a short encounter.
If someone was to come into my place of work and after a short period of time told me that I didn't have the experience that I have because I wasn't doing it in a way that they like/would do it themselves I'd be pretty pissed off and, to me, this amounts to the same thing.
It seems like this is very similar to the dominant/submissive trust system that is also being suggested. At the very least it has many of the same problems, primarily the fact that it relies on trusting one person over another.

[LadyCeleste]

Originally Posted by slave1987

So basically you have to pick a person to trust, either the person who claims the experience or another user who claims that they don't have it based on a short encounter.
If someone was to come into my place of work and after a short period of time told me that I didn't have the experience that I have because I wasn't doing it in a way that they like/would do it themselves I'd be pretty pissed off and, to me, this amounts to the same thing.
It seems like this is very similar to the dominant/submissive trust system that is also being suggested. At the very least it has many of the same problems, primarily the fact that it relies on trusting one person over another.

Again, I see your point; however, if there are multiple complaints against a single user, based on posts, it might bring to light that they are not as talented as they seem or claim to be.

I do not know if you've actually looked at the boards, particularly the ad section. Those who have made it into the top ads, have made it there for a reason and those are people who have either impressed a mod due to the post.

[slave1987]

Originally Posted by LadyCeleste

Again, I see your point; however, if there are multiple complaints against a single user, based on posts, it might bring to light that they are not as talented as they seem or claim to be.
I do not know if you've actually looked at the boards, particularly the ad section. Those who have made it into the top ads, have made it there for a reason and those are people who have either impressed a mod due to the post.

It doesn't neccesarily follow that the people with the best ads are the best or even most experienced slaves/sub/doms etc. It merely means that they have a greater grasp of the English language than others, similiarly it doesn't follow that a badly worded ad was placed by a poor slave/sub/dom.
In fact given the setting of the forum I'm not surprised by the quality of the ads as most of them seem to just be out for a quick thrill. A female with a poorly written post will almost certainly get 10 times the number of replies that a well written post by a male will get and that being the case why would the female bother to write a long ad when they can instead sort their way through until they find a decent person. This could cause a large number of complaints against this person by the people that are judged and found wanting.
Also experience doesn't always relate to talent, someone could have 5 years experience in the life and simply not have experience in the area that they are experimenting with at that moment.

[LadyCeleste]

Slave1987 - I appreciate your candor, but we are getting off topic. The point of this is not to see who can argue with whom longer. You have said your piece, I have seen your point, please, if you have nothing further constructive to add, do not post again.

[slave1987]

Originally Posted by LadyCeleste

Slave1987 - I appreciate your candor, but we are getting off topic. The point of this is not to see who can argue with whom longer. You have said your piece, I have seen your point, please, if you have nothing further constructive to add, do not post again.

No, the point of this is to discuss an idea and point out the pros and cons, my last post was, point for point, a response to your previous post so in my opinion was just as valid. If you don't want feedback on something then I suggest you say so at the start so that people needn't waste their time.
And I'll thank you not to tell me where and where not to post.

[Star Shadows]

Look this isnt some battle of the ego's or whatever, you both have perfectly valid opinions on this matter but from an external point of view you seem to be taking this way to far and becoming over involved empotionally, slave1987. Lady C was perfectly reasonable in her request. I think you both need to settle down a bit.

Point for point is one thing but I think you have made yourself quite clear, the idea may not be perfect- and yest it relies a lot on trust but the OP has acknowledged this. You have made your point quite clear and there is a difference between constructive criticism style feedback and what you appear to be doing. Just relax and try and enjoy yourself.

By no means am I trying to tell you where you can or cannot post or what you can or cannot post, at the end of the day I don't want to get into fights and drama over this but I feel that you are at risk of exhausting your point.

Peace, Love, and Kink.
Becca.

(Make Kink, NOT War!!!)

[Ninjota]

I can understand the reasoning behind this, but at the same time i don't think I'd fully support it. Just because someone has experience in a specific field doesn't mean they have skill in it.

For example, someone with two to three years of experience in the field may be a more skilled and knowledgeable dominant than someone with nine or ten years. There's many factors that come into play. There's natural dominance/submission, There's medical and safety knowledge, there's psychological knowledge in how to deal with someone if they become upset. Is this the case all the time? No, but there's far too many factors involved in it to label someone solely based on the time they've put in.

For instance, you could have a a 22 year old Dominant with extensive medical and safety knowledge , who has been dominating for four years and be labeled a newbie, and then you could have the 35 year old dumbient who's ignorant or uncaring and simply because they claim to have more "experience" in it, they would be looked at more favorably than a newbie.

This isn't always the case, obviously, but you see the problem.

I would suggest changing the Master/Slave tags to Dominant and Submissive, seeing as how being a "Master" or a "Slave" is implying certain aspects of a relationship, whereas Dominant and Submissive is more of a personality type; and gives more leeway in a relationship.