GaySpeak - The Years That Weren’t

[IanSaysHi]

- This thread is aimed at those who were members prior to the site being down for a couple of years, but hopefully the responses will show newer members how great this forum is. -

So I created this thread to ask past members who’ve returned if they found any other forums or communities online that you’ve used (or continue to use) whilst GaySpeak was down? If so what were they like? Also if there’s anything in general you want to share from your time whilst the site was down please do, it’s nice to catch up with everyone

Personally I really enjoyed it here more than I realised before it went down; although I did a lot of word games I also found I liked helping others by giving advice (I am dreadful at taking any though) and I think being able to help people with difficult problems helped me with some of my own - I’ve missed that side of things. I also of course really enjoyed the community here.

I tried a couple of forums whilst this was down, really weren’t the same. One was very cliche and full of bots and felt more like hard work than anything.

I only donated a little last time I was here but considering I pay for things like Netflix and Prime I will be happy to also make a monthly contribution for something that I value like this from now on (I just need next week to come around first; a lot of bills this month  ).

[CellarDweller]

*waves to Ian*

I didn't find any sort of substitute for GS while it was down, but then, for me it wasn't necessary.

I'm a member of an online forum for fans of the movie Brokeback Mountain. It was started in 2005 and is still going on today. When this forum went down, I was able to focus there and discuss things of a gay nature there.

I was glad when this one came back, however. I feel there is a better variety of LGBT people to speak to.

[InbetweenDreams]

I did try a couple things... I think it was LGBT Nation if I remember correctly. Then their forum went down. There might have been another in there. There just aren't other sites with good vibes, or an active community.

For one year I did run gayforums(dot)net.... Of course at the time GS was down and although I was self-hosting I did kind of run into some money issues and did not renew the SSL cert...and because of that I decided to shut it down as it would be reckless to not have some form of encryption. Running a website, of any kind, is all fun and games until it costs a lot of money. The ads, heh I might have got $20 in 5 years, there is very little (at least for me) income generated by ads. No, I do not plan on launching or re-launching the site, I no longer own the domain. I feel that would be in poor taste, after all the creation of the site was in response to GS's absence. Trying to launch a forum in 2020 is a big uphill battle, thanks to Facebook and other social media. So yeah GS is a special corner of the web.

[Bookworm]

I tried another gay forum too, but I wasn't very active there. I missed the vibe that GS always had (and still has)    
I found myself searching from time to time to check if it was back up.

I've actually surprised myself with my longevity here. When I first joined 9 years ago, I never thought I'd still be posting in 2020! I'd never really been very active on forums until I registered here. 

I put that down to all the great people I've been fortunate enough to meet on here over the years. I've made some good friends.

[MusicFanLover]

Well I'm new here at GS and this place look great glade I joined here and see wfat all the fun is about