Is zoo community dying out?

[LoftyLemur]

I've noticed in the past year it's went from a decent number of people all the way down to like 3 people. Is there any reason the popularity dropped so much?

Edit: Ignore this apparently no-one has heard of it and I've been in a delusion of it being popular

 

[dartel]

What community?

 

[LoftyLemur]

T

What community?

He website "Zoo Community". It used to be much more popular like a year ago

 

[LoftyLemur]

Maybe go ask over there instead of here. We don't care about other forum drama.

I mean seeing as no-one goes on it it's not like I'd get an answer.

But alright that's a fair statement.

 

[Jester]

I've never heard of Zoo Community. So I totally thought you were talking about the zoo Community as an entirety. Or even to this
Forums Community.

 

[LoftyLemur]

I've never heard of Zoo Community. So I totally thought you were talking about the zoo Community as an entirety. Or even to this
Forums Community.

Honestly I thought that was like one of the biggest forums so I'm realising that it isn't anywhere near as popular as I thought it was

 

[KaylenJust]

Also never heard of it!

 

[egoldstein]

T

He website "Zoo Community". It used to be much more popular like a year ago

Sites come and go for various reasons, that particular site I think is doomed to fail for a number of reasons, not least of which is that it's admin, MikeTheDog, actively discourages honest discussion and seems to punish some users and not others depending on whim or other unknown criteria. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, it was always very slow and navigating the arbitrary rules just isn't worth the hassle.

 

[LoftyLemur]

Sites come and go for various reasons, that particular site I think is doomed to fail for a number of reasons, not least of which is that it's admin, MikeTheDog, actively discourages honest discussion.

Aw thank god someone has heard of it. Yeah I've not been on it for that long but it did seem like it all went under after the admin changed

 

[egoldstein]

Aw thank god someone has heard of it. Yeah I've not been on it for that long but it did seem like it all went under after the admin changed

I tried to support it, but after getting penalized for being "political" (I was not, I was actively avoiding politics) and when I pointed out that he'd blessed the discussion with his own comments instead of taking action in the thread and stopped it then, his defense was "Well I don't read that user's posts because they're an idiot" (the user was the OP). I was penalized, however others who were being very political were not. He later clearly stated to me that the forum wasn't for discussion and that I was not to engage with anything I thought was wrong, which kinda ruins the whole idea of a forum where people discuss a topic. Perhaps I'm a tad salty about it, but in decades of participation in the zoo community never before or since have I been penalized for engaging in polite discourse and been told that I should not participate; it was bizarre.

 

[xXSINNERXx]

I haven’t been around long enough to notice.

 

[pempem]

I don't think so, It is true that maybe there's people who doesn't like to comment on posts like me but I'm very active and I read a lot of threads lol

 

[FloofyNewfie]

There's a few problems with Zoo Community, and I'm going to be honest from the heart here:

1) They insist on using a "thanks" system with limited number of "thanks" you can give out. When you like someone's post, there is no way to make it so that you receive a notification, only "thanks" reactions will receive notifications which cost points to use. This seriously hampers engagement from users. There's been posts that I've made on that forum that received multiple likes from users, only, I didn't know about it because there's no way to receive a notification. I pretty much had to stumble on them in the wild. If they were smart about it, you'd be able to get notifications from both actions. A like would cost nothing, but would at least alert you that someone else agrees with your post/point/information. While a "thanks" would feel extra special because you know the user gave up some of their points to give it to you, which makes them rare to get.

I've brought this up to the admins over there and I was pretty much blown off. *Shrugs* whatever I guess. And, I don't know if this is just me, but I also don't receive a notification after someone else has posted after my post in a thread. Which, again, stifles user engagement. I only received a notification if someone replies directly to me.

2) The layout of the site is an absolute cluster mess. And that's putting things nicely. There's plenty of redundant categories, and they've further broken things up into general audience/adult audience. It makes using the forum a pain in the rear end to navigate.

3) The fact that the whole forum is geared towards pushing a "zoo acceptance" and "zoo positivity" narrative. They are pretty much in your face about it.

4) The fact that they allow minors on the site. Which is a big fucking yikes! There's also usually mature threads mixed in with the general audience threads. I used to report these, but after awhile I kind of gave up on doing so. Because apparently it's not an important enough issue to them.

5) You're PMs are NOT private. All discussions can be viewed by the mods/admin. And, I get that this is because they allow children on the site, but IMO they should not be allowed on in the first place.

6) I will say that my interactions with their staff members have either been mostly neutral or pleasant. But that's my experience. @egoldstein above isn't the only one that's had issues with their mods/admin. But since I personally haven't, I'll end this point here.

 

[Caniform]

I've been an active member for some time in the beginning, but the site was frustratingly slow and so I spend more and more time on other platforms.

 

[egoldstein]

4) The fact that they allow minors on the site. Which is a big fucking yikes! There's also usually mature threads mixed in with the general audience threads. I used to report these, but after awhile I kind of gave up on doing so. Because apparently it's not an important enough issue to them.

This one to me is just weird. I get it that not all zoos are adults, but it's hard to talk about a sexuality without touching on adult topics. Even skipping all porn (which itself is a whole other discussion about ZC) it's hard to have honest discussions about sexuality while avooiding adult topics. I kinda get what they're trying to do, but I just don't see it working in reality. I feel there's a long history of young people logging into forums and so long as they remain silent about their age there's nothing that can be done to separate them, but once they identify as under age they need to be removed for the safety of all. I feel young people have enough issues figuring things out, they don't need creeps trying to "help" them; something that I think once known they're underage, is almost certain to happen. Not that I think there are lots of creeps in the zoo community, but just as we can't ID someone as underage until they self-identify, we can't ID creeps either until they do.

5) You're PMs are NOT private. All discussions can be viewed by the mods/admin. And, I get that this is because they allow children on the site, but IMO they should not be allowed on in the first place.

To be fair, that's all forums, it's just a question if the admins care/bother to look. I know you're aware @FloofyNewfie , but lots of people don't realize that PMs aren't special and private to the individuals active in them, anyone who has privileged access or access to the database itself can read any of it and typically when they're deleted they aren't actually removed, just flagged as deleted and not shown. I mention this because security incidents happen and I do not want anyone to think PMs are secure, they aren't and absolutely should not be used to transmit sensitive information; if you want to share identifying info, I'd recomend a separate channel for it, such as a secure email (I'd additionally encourage PGP or the like, too) so that if there's a compromise at one location sensitive info is isolated to other channels not likely under the control of the attacker.
The openness about readng of PMs is one thing I'll give them, they're up-front about that.

 

[FloofyNewfie]

This one to me is just weird. I get it that not all zoos are adults, but it's hard to talk about a sexuality without touching on adult topics. Even skipping all porn (which itself is a whole other discussion about ZC) it's hard to have honest discussions about sexuality while avooiding adult topics. I kinda get what they're trying to do, but I just don't see it working in reality. I feel there's a long history of young people logging into forums and so long as they remain silent about their age there's nothing that can be done to separate them, but once they identify as under age they need to be removed for the safety of all. I feel young people have enough issues figuring things out, they don't need creeps trying to "help" them.

Yeah, there really isn't an easy answer to the question "what should we do about those that are zoophilic but are under the age of 18." My initial instinct is to just say "leave it be, we all had to figure it out when we were younger, and it's not our responsibility to educate other people's children" but at the same time the thought of "well, if possible, we want to make sure that they don't make the same x mistakes as I (or someone I know) did at that age." But what certainly doesn't help is the way the forum is currently managed regarding adult/general content, and what doesn't help are the threads that push for being out and proud about zoosexuality. As a child might be more inclined to take that advice to heart and confess this to their parents/guardians causing a whole slew of other problems.

To be fair, that's all forums, it's just a question if the admins care/bother to look. I know you're aware @FloofyNewfie , but lots of people don't realize that PMs aren't special and private to the individuals active in them, anyone who has privileged access or access to the database itself can read any of it and typically when they're deleted they aren't actually removed, just flagged as deleted and not shown. I mention this because security incidents happen and I do not want anyone to think PMs are secure, they aren't and absolutely should not be used to transmit sensitive information; if you want to share identifying info, I'd recomend a separate channel for it, such as a secure email (I'd additionally encourage PGP or the like, too) so that if there's a compromise at one location sensitive info is isolated to other channels not likely under the control of the attacker.
The openness about readng of PMs is one thing I'll give them, they're up-front about that.

As far as I'm aware the PMs on here are encrypted. So, yes, they exist on the server, but in an unreadable form without the proper encryption keys to decode the message. If someone has access to these messages it certainly is not me. But as far as I know only the end users will have access to the PMs they are a part of. It's also why we had no idea of the large sadism ring that was brewing in the PMs a couple of years ago, we didn't know until someone in said group ended up blowing the whistle on the whole matter.

 

[Caniform]

As far as I'm aware the PMs on here are encrypted. So, yes, they exist on the server, but in an unreadable form without the proper encryption keys to decode the message. If someone has access to these messages it certainly is not me. But as far as I know only the end users will have access to the PMs they are a part of. It's also why we had no idea of the large sadism ring that was brewing in the PMs a couple of years ago, we didn't know until someone in said group ended up blowing the whistle on the whole matter.

If they are encrypted, the key would at best be derived from the user's password or else a user couldn't read their PMs here, not without client-side scripting. The users' passwords can be intercepted by site admins when users log in. So you as a moderator or even forum administrator may not have the tools at your hands to read PMs and it's honorable that you respect users' private communication. But it's possible for those with more control over the server to read the information stored there. So users should not expect their PMs to be absolutely safe and are better advised to send sensitive personal information via inherently more secure channels. I don't mean that as criticism, it's just an aspect of how forum software works like @egoldstein said.

 

[pes]

3) The fact that the whole forum is geared towards pushing a "zoo acceptance" and "zoo positivity" narrative. They are pretty much in your face about it.

This has been my almost primary issue with the forum.
I do not care about meaningless empty discussions about unobtainable nonsense where nothing moves you forward but everything is always rainbows and sunshine. And when you point out it is not, you get yelled at.

They also deleted my "non"-zoo story about a photographer watching a dragon having fun with itself. There was not human-animal sex in it at all. But for some reason national geographic in written form that is too much, but posting explicit yiff with ferals showing genitals is ok?

Nowadays I use the forum to check what is happening with zv when I can not load it.