Hello everyone, @brightestjewel here! I’m the one who runs the forums and I wanted to clear up a few things about their closing.
1. First off, nothing has happened. No drama, no fighting, none of that. This was a decision made by myself that has nothing to do with anyone or any particular situation that may have happened.
In fact, I think the forums produced some pretty good discussions, which unfortunately brings me to my second point…
2. The forums just aren’t being used. I know interest in fandoms waxes and wanes, people come and go, but I’m not sure that’s the problem here.
I’ve received some negative feedback regarding the registration process. The forums require that you register and provide your email and date of birth. People seem to be OK with the email address, but they don’t want to give out their date of birth (which can be hidden from the public in your profile). The DOB is necessary because of a law in the US called COPPA, which requires forum owners to keep children under the age of 13 from seeing “adult” content. So if a COPPA complaint is made, I need to be able to provide a list that says all of the forum members are over the age of 13 or I could get a big fine. Sure, someone could enter a false DOB, but in that situation I wouldn’t be responsible, since I don’t have to verify any of the DOB information. The current program that I used to create the forums requires that you ask this question of new members and it doesn’t give you the option of skipping it.
I’ve also received complaints about some of the questions asked in the member profile, that people don’t want to fill out their FB account name, what kind of job they have and whatever else is being asked. However, none of that information is required, you can leave it blank or even make stuff up, it doesn’t matter. Some people seem offended that these questions even exist and won’t sign up based on principle, and in that case there’s not much I can do.
(Since this is getting long, I’ll continue it in another post.)
