September 20, 2009 PozQueers Y3 and Why We Are Unique
Two years ago I embarked upon creating a new community for HIV+ poz gay men. After years of being on several HIV+ poz gay men Yahoo groups and other HIV+ poz gay men networks that were very limiting in scope of features, sometimes poorly moderated and designed, seeing the same old tired attention grabbing posts, faceless empty profiles who always wanted to IM chat (and ask for photos), constantly being bombarded with sales pitches, receiving countless spam messages into my email box, and asked for money or donations to upgrade or to help “offset operating costs“ for a site that was already full of advertising (or ad supported), I said to myself that if I was frustrated, others probably were too.
I wanted more substance and quality, more fun, and a homepage that would allow me to express more of myself through music, video, images and customized boxes. A network of faces and profiles primarily for hiv poz men with profiling designed to connect me with others who shared similar interests, and maybe somewhere in the future, a partner.
That was back during the summer of 2007, right after I left Texas for Georgia, fresh off the dialysis machine, no longer able to ride motorcycles – still in recovery from bad health – and accepting the realization at that point in my Life I probably might not find my soul mate. About the same time I received a notice from Yahoo, telling me that after October 2007, Yahoo Web Hosting would no longer host personal sites that had any adult content. After years of paying Yahoo money to host my personal website, which at that time had very little adult content, I suddenly found myself in a position where I had to scramble and find a new web hosting service for my personal site. I did not know the first thing about html css and always used Yahoo’s WYSIWYG website creator.
Rather than just “laying it all down and doing nothing,” something I have always refused to do, I quickly found a new web host and discovered how cheap web hosting really was – Yahoo charges three times more than anyone else does! By September 2007 I had my personal website moved to a new host.
About the same time I started looking into how to create a social network. I looked at several networks that allowed people to create communities but the two that caught my attention were NING and me.com. NING seemed to be easier to use but I had a bad gut feeling about NING (a year later NING shut down communities that allowed ANY adult content regardless of what it consisted of).
I discovered me.com when I joined “thinkpoz,” another community on THIS network. It’s a cool community but open to anyone over the age of 13 and it’s mixed with both men and women. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against mixed sites – I belong to several and just recently launched a 2nd site that includes men and women. As a man who identifies as being queer and BI, I also recognize that there are guys like me who want to share things about ourselves that we may not feel comfortable in sharing with everyone else, just as I know that there are het men and women out there who really don’t care to see some of things we love to see. When I joined “thinkpoz” I saw the many interactive features, the freedom of being fully able to create customized profiles, lots of things most social networks didn’t have at the time (and still don’t have).
With that in mind, I started POZQUEERS on the me.com network, aka SNAPP Networks, in the month of October 2007. Snapp was still in the Beta stage. The profiling, groups, forums and themes were built from the ground up by myself, designed on what I felt was lacking from other communties, with the exception being for poz.com and thebody.com - those are still two of the best sites for up to date information. poz.com still has the best personals site and there's also a huge number of people who blog on those sites!
Anyway, soon after starting this community the domain name me.com was sold to Apple Mac, and Snapp became snappville.com. Naturally what followed was a transition of the old me.com communities into the new Snappville web domain. Many of our original members went through that long transition stage. There were times things didn’t work, skins disappeared, the way we posted comments onto blogs, photos and into forums changed, and so forth.
Our video players went “white” but then we discovered that was due to software changes YouTube started doing. Some of our videos lost their sound but that was due to the battle between YouTube and Warner Music Group. Myfabrik became Joggle and all our old audio players went too. Those of us who use Yahoo and Google saw LOTS of changes on their platforms as well – Yahoo has its days!
Snappville has been good to us, giving us unlimited storage and bandwidth. I appreciate that Snapp has allowed us to host our community on their network, allowing us the freedom to express ourselves and have a little fun as we do in many of the site’s areas. They allow us mixed use because we follow their terms, staying within our own self defined guidelines, boundaries and parameters. Thank You Snappville!
Most of our original members who stuck it out HERE know what I am talking about. And once we thought things worked they continued to change. We simply have learned to keep up with it all and accept the fact that things don’t always work they way they should, or the way we think they should. Last year gay.com caught up with the times and changed its software and look. Yahoo has done the same – Yahoo 360 and Yahoo profiles are a prime example of changes and glitches. I can remember the number of people who shouted “keep it the old way.” The technology continues to change and as it changes we can expect glitches within any social network and ISP. Prior to his retirement Bill Gates said that as the technology changes “people are going to have to work harder to keep up.” When personal computers were originally introduced to us we all can remember the old cliché – “computers will make life easier.” In many ways they have but growth and learning never stops.
The community, still somewhat new and small in size, continues to grow slowly. It took a year for us to climb up in the search engines, I continue to promote the site throughout the Internet and new people find us from my efforts, and the efforts of a small number of existing members.
POZQUEERS has evolved during the past two years and continues to evolve on varying levels; YOU have contributed greatly to making it all happen - your photos, blogs, comments, videos – YOUR willingness to share with others more of you and your Life. What you have shared has helped others here and that is what turns the “dingo wheel” which is why this site has evolved.
Recently I received a private message from a new member that echoes similar messages received over the past two years:
“Hello! My name is ***** and I have been poz for more than 20 years. I have taken the time tonight to look at your profile and have read some of the poems and I have to say that I am touched and just wanted to say thank you for inviting me to join this site. What you wrote about pissing is something that has been in the past something that would be a turn on but, the cleansing aspect that you speak of gets me down deep, just because I never felt that I fit in or that I can be accepted as a lover to someone or a lifetime partner. I feel like I could learn a lot from you and would be more than honored to have you guys as my friend. Anyway, thanks again.”
“….since joining the group ,it has helped open my eyes , my heart and my soul, once again to the outside world, it has given me hope, that there are other men out there, like me into the rural life.”
My personal reply to them and others varied (this reply is from a blog I created):
“You are not alone - there are just as many of us out here and we are all UNIQUE - that's the beauty of our creation and WHO WE ARE - many of us felt that way at one time and there are just as many still out there who feel they do not fit in - my wish for you is that you find your soulmate - enjoy the journey along the way of that path.......DINGO”
“Our youth has a great deal to do with our perceptions of ourselves. Some of us accepted what we were taught, some questioned it, and some may have rejected it altogether. The choices we have made over the years reinforced our initial perceptions until we were faced with a circumstance that causes us to question it. We either reinforce those walls at these times, or some of us begin to chip away at them. My advice is to chip and build until you are comfortable with you and can celebrate who you are. Only then can you truly let go and let someone else in. If you don't some portion of those walls will keep them out, and keep you from finding happiness. No one has to Fit into anything to be happy. Just be you.” (Keith)
As we cruise into our 3rd year, I wish to express my appreciation to you all for making it happen as you continue getting to know others and share more of yourselves in your own unique ways. Bonding, Loving Life and Loving Others. Have fun!
Jim Thurman
Loving and Living Life without Fear – always!
the dingo
Somebody recently sent an email to me asking me to explain to him before he joined what is so “unique and different” about our community compared to gay.com. (Uh Huh!) I was somewhat amused by that question since the basic answers to that are posted on our main page www.pozqueers.org (dingo)
“When Dingo asked me to write about “what is unique and different” about pozqueers, I was caught off guard, because who would know better than the Dingo Man himself? But then, if we as users do not see it as unique and different, then maybe we are missing something. And by the way, he asked me to be objective and not write it as his partner, so I will. Even though Dingo can be very demanding, wants things his own way, would probably withhold sex and blow smoke in my face if he does not like it, I will be honest. After all, two can play that game.
Of course, there are many technological reasons that make it unique – heaven knows it is probably the most complex to learn all of its features than other systems – but once we learn how to use it, the complex technology adds to its uniqueness. For example, how many places can you attach a video in PQ? On your profile page, you can add as many media boxes as you want (the catch is waiting for them all to load) so you can view the page. Comments, messages, forums, and blogs are other places one can use this feature. You can customize your own page with your own art work if you so desire, not encumbered by preset artwork choices and structure. I could go on, but you get the point.
The most striking difference of uniqueness from other sites, is that it encourages individual expression. Because of the moderation, it is the norm to express your internal self, meaning we feel safe to talk about what we do, express our opinions, criticize other’s opinions, and give advice. Other sites that lack the moderation usually degenerate (in my opinion) to pictures and poses and sexual preferences mainly because it is what everyone does in search of a hook up. Don’t get me wrong, I am guilty of a few hook ups in my past, and I like looking at the beauty of the male body in all of its parts, but if we are really serious about forming relationships and friendships, we have to see beyond or through the cock and ass to get there. At PQ, there are places for the C&A shots, but the profile is geared more to OUR uniqueness as individuals, not OUR sameness or differences of human form and sexual action. In other words, we are not different when it comes to the exterior other than size, but we are very different when it comes to our personalities and interests in terms of what we do with our time and our minds.
AND THAT IS VERY WORTH SHARING WITHOUT FEELING LIKE AN OUTCAST OR BEING OPPRESSED FROM THE MAJORITY. If I put that out there on Manhunt or Men4SexNow, I would be totally ignored! I just had to hope that when I hooked up, the person would talk a little after the sex, which did not always happen. Dingo, PQ makes us feel safe to express our unique selves, and BRAVO our sameness as well.
Through PQ, I have found a place to be free with my self expression as long as it is non attacking or not cruel to another. We have such wide varieties of ways to express ourselves that I have learned much about others on the site who choose to express themselves. And I find the video reduxes and the artwork and photos shared by members very…stimulating. And I will leave it at that.” (keysman)
PQ MOD REPOSTED COMMENT (originally posted Date: Oct 06, 09 | 09:40 pm From: Paddy )
Dear Master of Dungeon- This is Paddy and I just saw a couple of your slide shows put to music regarding the three year celebration of some of your sites and first of all, The Body Electric is one of my all time favorite songs from one of my all time favorite movies 'Fame'. Secondly, and as usual, I am flabbergasted with the amazing talents that you bring to these websites and the amount of work, attention and respect you seem to have for all that have associated with these sites is astounding. I am sure I have said this before but I deeply enjoy witnessing the heart that you put into your work. Touching so many people the way that you do is amazing. I feel like I already know you and consider you a great friend and we really have never even met. I think that that is a good sign that your heart extends through the virtual cosmos and pulsates into the varied welcoming hearts of others who need what you have to offer on whatever level that is. Thank you for all you do. I am hooked on you and all that you are about my friend. Thats it. Just thought I would share some of my thoughts. Peace. A big O (of X's n O's-if keys doesn't mind for a sec.) Laterz~~Paddy
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Two years ago I embarked upon creating a new community for HIV+ poz gay men. After years of being on several HIV+ poz gay men Yahoo groups and other...
