Days gone by...

[2prnot2p]

Hi Maria,
Thanks for your input, but I think I'd have to disagree regarding the reason posts are way down. This started happening quite a few years ago. So many pee sites went belly up. My pal closed his due to lack of visitors, among other reasons.
I don't think the cell phone cams are the cause at all. I think our society is more interested in instant gratification. Human interaction, albeit on the web, is no longer that popular, at least when it comes to fetishes. Sure, there are the social media sites, but they're in a different class altogether. LOL!
One example is my site. About 7 years ago or so, I'd get 2 or 3 new posts daily on my message board. And, every night there'd be a half a dozen chatters in my chat room. (My site's a minnow in the ocean of pee.) But, for me, that was pretty good! Then, they both became ghost towns. So, I tried bringing back the chat room and it bombed. So, it's gone...again.
I like Wet Set and mean no disrespect, but I'd bet even this site's members are way down compared to several years ago.
It's just a sad turn of events in our niche and probably many other niches as well.

[bazman440]

Thank you for your post Maria, and for a womans perspective.

So men want instant gratification and women want connection.

Some men want connection too, many can not share their secret interest with their partner, which is a shame, so they're just as lonely as the women in the same boat.

I've always been open about my interests with every partner and whilst most reject it I have been fortunate enough to be able to share it with a small number of women, which was immensely enjoyable for both. Sadly none lasted the distance, but I'm not one to be negative and life is immensely rewarding anyway. Still there is that side to me that'd love to meet its match. I'm sure there's many like me here.

[mysteron]

This post for the win. Going even back into the late 90's there was a generally great community spirit and mutual respect amongst members. A few assholes who get off with their negativity and need to keyboard warrior were allowed to ply their negativity and that killed the spirit of goodwill here. Many good women left or stopped posting, and guys like me hardly ever post because that community spirit between male and female members has been negated by too many negative dickheads.

Word to dickheads - if you come here, find some material you do like - get yourself off on it and shut the F up. We are not interested in your criticisms, nobody comes here interested in your opinions. Yes, links to sites that end up with heaps of pop ups and hoops to jump through to get to see the video or pics are annoying but do what I do, ignore them, don't rant about it here.


There is still great material here from time to time and good contributors and maybe we should all make more of an effort to thank those responsible, and to treat any female here with utmost respect, but also each other.

Totally agree.
I share a lot of stuff on Omorashi.org, but not so much here anymore because there are too many whingers. Frankly, life's too short. I go where people appreciate content, instead of whining or getting on their moral high horses.

[jackgriffin]

I remember those days. I think part of the success was that there simply wasn't the wealth of sites you can get now. Hell I remember when I used to order VHS fetish tapes from amatuers and have to wait for them to arrive in the mail. Now we have ********** or other digital downloads. It's grown, which means people are spread out more.

That being said I remember the old days weren't perfect. Still had lots of drama and spam. I think registration helps with that but attitudes are also different. Back then I think many of us were happy to just knowing we weren't alone. That there were others we could talk and share our fetish with. It made us more friendly. Now there are people growing up who knew very young there were others like them so it's not so special. Plus people tend to be jerks when they can hide behind a screen name so nice people are often scared back into lurking.

I don't even know what I'm trying to say here to be honest. I guess over time some things are better and some are worse, but I don't believe the old style message boards will help.

[jackgriffin]

I don't think it's the format. Rather, it is the way that the nature of information sharing over the Internet has changed. I have been here since about 2000 -- yeah, that long. There used to be a fair number of women here, and now I seem to be the only one left.

In a way, the new format is better. It was really scary when the IP addresses were posted. Some guy would always write and say: "I traced her and she's in Cleveland," or in Norfolk, or Brisbane, or wherever. And then the woman would freak out and disappear. At least there is much more privacy and protection with the new format.

But unfortunately, there is no content which would attract a woman at all. In the days before youtube, when not everyone on the planet carried a camera cell phone, it just wasn't possible to post endless, countless links to free vids. People didn't have much of any other way to communicate except to talk about themselves, their experiences, their feelings, and so on. And that was what the women came here to read. Because we are into RELATING. What heterosexual woman in her right mind would want to see a grainy video of some teenage girl pissing herself as she falls over the couch because she raided Mommy's pharmacy cabinet?

And there is no point in complaining about it because the march of technology -- dehumanizing though it might be -- is never going to stop. You can have your free vids and avoid contact with real people. It's the wave of the future.

My own suggestion -- and I have thought of doing it myself -- would be for someone to start a whole website that focuses only on conversation, stories, the sharing of experiences, and so on. In order to accomplish this, one would have to simply ban all the vids and youtubes, but I can think of several guys here on this very message board who long to talk to other people -- especially women -- and would probably sign up in a hot minute.

That's a good point. You covered some of what I was trying to say in a clearer fashion.

I think it can also be easy to form new habits. Habits that don't involve communicating with others and are more solitary. I am guilty of this. The old me is gone and I tend to lurk more nowadays.

[Lloyd_R1]

My own suggestion -- and I have thought of doing it myself -- would be for someone to start a whole website that focuses only on conversation, stories, the sharing of experiences, and so on. In order to accomplish this, one would have to simply ban all the vids and youtubes, but I can think of several guys here on this very message board who long to talk to other people -- especially women -- and would probably sign up in a hot minute.

Maria, that's what this site originally was! Perhaps what's needed here is for these boards to be more specific - the photoboards are great for posting pics, perhaps they could also carry the links to online content. The main discussion boards could then be left alone for just that - discussion. It isn't easy to prevent posting of links, but with enough dedication, at least links to online content could be encouraged to go elsewhere.

Anyone here from the old Monty era? That's what we could aim for - lots of discussion, pure discussion, and relating of events, rather than endless links. WetSet started back then, with what Paul called the "WetNet", although the magazine predated that, but only just. A return to having a board which was just for discussion would be an excellent move. We don't have to start a whole new site, just give the existing boards a new role, and move the links to the photoboard...

[Lawrence]

The early days

Anyone here from the old Monty era?

I remember the "watersports forum" run by Monty.

I wrote about it nostalgically about five years ago, on the old version of this forum...

http://www.wetset.net/watersports-bb...ges/182271.htm

LM

[Omo Rashi]

Where is Fluidity now?

[burningblood97]

I remember back when I first found Wetset. I was 9 years old, and I was literally just discovering my interest in wetting and diapers. I had to log on to the internet using dial up and Compuserve. When I found Wetset, I knew there were other people like me.

That old message board with the black background and green links was great! Being a kid, I didn't contribute to the conversation, but I lurked, and I had some great finds.

Today I'm 21, and I do miss that old board sometimes. It felt more anonymous and easier to post. Sure there was spam, but it wasn't very disruptive by any means. And there seemed to be more content back then too.

The only con with the old board is that it's pretty archaic by today's internet standards. There weren't many features, and looking at it today, it's ancient. But I personally don't care about that. All I want is some good free content. Whatever forum Wetset uses is fine, but I do miss the days of the old message board. Maybe it's just for nostalgic reasons, I don't know. But Wetset has never really let me down yet, so I trust whatever they do will be fine.

[Adrian6970]

From what I remember of the old board it was far livelier than tye present one. Happy days!

[Maria]

I don't remember Monty, but I wonder if anyone else remembers Thomas' Watersports Page. There were lots of good stories, esp. from the talented Michelle (obviously a woman, by the way, you could tell by the consciousness and the romanticism). If I were to start a little site, I would try to create a mix of the kind of quality story writing which characterized that site combined with the personal experiences that were common on the old wetset boards with the black background.

[Peevert]

Why are some of you so upset about links to youtube and pee porn? Are you so childish that you can't just ignore a hyperlink when you see it? You absolutely must click it? Are you afraid your wives will find out?

Getting rid of the links isn't going to encourage people to post stories and share experiences. They already have the option to do that, and they're not doing it. Probably because there are so many other places to go now to do that kind of thing. Wetset used to be the only one. Now there's competition. It's not a conspiracy, FFS...

Maria, if you want to start a story and experience and meeting place board, I encourage you to do it. I'd check it out myself. But it may not be as busy as you think.

[Lloyd_R1]

Anyone here from the old Monty era?

I remember the "watersports forum" run by Monty.

I wrote about it nostalgically about five years ago, on the old version of this forum...

http://www.wetset.net/watersports-bb...ges/182271.htm

LM

Hi, Lawrence! I certainly remember you from the "good old days"..

Good to see some of the old community still around.

[Lloyd_R1]

I don't remember Monty, but I wonder if anyone else remembers Thomas' Watersports Page. There were lots of good stories, esp. from the talented Michelle (obviously a woman, by the way, you could tell by the consciousness and the romanticism). If I were to start a little site, I would try to create a mix of the kind of quality story writing which characterized that site combined with the personal experiences that were common on the old wetset boards with the black background.

Yes, Maria, I remember Thomas. And yes, Michelle was an excellent contributor. She blamed me for one of her incidents, by the way, something of which I'm quite proud to this day!

[Lloyd_R1]

Why are some of you so upset about links to youtube and pee porn? Are you so childish that you can't just ignore a hyperlink when you see it? You absolutely must click it? Are you afraid your wives will find out?

Getting rid of the links isn't going to encourage people to post stories and share experiences. They already have the option to do that, and they're not doing it. Probably because there are so many other places to go now to do that kind of thing. Wetset used to be the only one. Now there's competition. It's not a conspiracy, FFS...

Maria, if you want to start a story and experience and meeting place board, I encourage you to do it. I'd check it out myself. But it may not be as busy as you think.

Peevert, I can't speak for everyone, but for me, it's not the links that are really the problem, just the fact that there are so many of them and hardly any original material. That's what was behind my suggestion that the links could go into a different forum, perhaps the photoboard, since they are related. I would certainly welcome a board that was only original written material, with links on a different page.

As for your suggestion that Maria could start a board to do this sort of thing, I might make the observation that at least at the beginning, this board was very much like that. Starting another board to do the same thing will likely result in the same influx of linked content, as people get used to posting there instead of here.

But we should be careful what we wish for - with the present amount of original material being posted, a board dedicated to it might just grow cobwebs....