Updated profile policy

@RusticMagic sorry the credit card is the standard and candidly not really an issue. I trust my #'s and monetization on the site site is about new members, affiliate drivers (monetizing traffic patterns) and cruise sales. The lifetime members should have paid for the infrastructure software ect But the reality is that this site can more than survive with quite a low # of new members for basic financials but the internal mechanisms of the site and the churn of both older members and younger members that drop out of the lifestyle. Lower #'s will make for a dissatisfied member base and lead to even greater churn.

it does work well enough people are going to parties and meeting up for sex just through communication on this site.

I really don't want to get off on a tangent about the problems with the site, it's really useless to even discuss and will most likely get this thread locked again. However, failing to adapt to newer technologies, and the way people use devices; while spitting in the face of your users isn't a business plan with a future - this place succeeds despite it's failing only because as grim as this is; the competition isn't that much better.

Li73AndJo75 except you are forgetting the reputation of adult sites that ask for credit card information for a free trial. Most people who would give a site like Netflix all sorts of personal information are reluctant to even provide an name much less credit card info to an adult site. Now I'm not saying this site is perfect. Heck it has many flaws but I am saying it does work well enough people are going to parties and meeting up for sex just through communication on this site.

MandC508 how many "professionals" would run a "free ad" for 14 days then using another e-mail run another one if they had full access?

Ask Netflix, HBO, HULU and countless other subscription services that offer free FULL trials, that require them to be backed with a credit card, address and other details other than just email. It's 2020, people already do this.

MandC508 how many "professionals" would run a "free ad" for 14 days then using another e-mail run another one if they had full access? The way to solve this is prevent outside and limit or even not allow inside communication. Allowing a free member to look around and get a feel for things without being able to contact others gives them enough of a taste to know if they want more. Anyone not willing to spend the money for at least one month of full access is really not that interested in the lifestyle to begin with and just a looker or perv if you will. How this site works makes sense.

slowseduction4me funny we are paid lifetime and have not been roped into doing anything. Now if you wanted we understand there are things you could voluntarily do but anyone that volunteers to do something never learned the golden rule "Never volunteer". As far as cost go I have no clue if your numbers are even close. I do know in the end even saving $4K is a chunk when it comes to running and hosting a site. In the end the whole thing is about saving on the bottom line in time which is money. Overall it is really not a bad thing or at least in theory. You reduce the time and number of profile changes while increasing traffic on the Hot Date function causing it to work as intended. Once again IDK anyone who looks at hundreds of profiles before making a trip somewhere but they sure are looking at the Hot Dates in that area.

BTW when talking money on a site with a lifetime subscription or monthly subscription you count on the monthly to bring in the income. A lifetime subscription means someone paid one lump sum and over time there is no more income. In fact given enough time that one time contribution breaks even then you actually lose money. You get a lot of lifetime subs and not many monthly one year you show a good profit and then the next well you are barely making rent as it were. Of course there are more sources of revenue than just the subscriptions for the owners but no one said they are not out to make money and that is not a bad thing. Overall the owners have to make money to keep the site open. Where would the members (especially lifetime) be if they simply shut down?

The "Free Member" is an easy issue to fix. Give the free profile a 14 day grace period. You sign up, and you are not required to pay for 14 days. On the 15th day, you must choose your paid membership plan to continue to use the site.

That gives a user ample time to navigate around and figure out if they want to continue or not. It cleans up a lot of the time wasters, and SLS loses nothing in revenue since they aren't paying anyway. If the issue is free members running an end around by posting Hot Dates info on their profile, why force a 100% policy on those that pay (or paid) to use the site as it should be?

@RusticMagic the lifetime members get roped into doing a lot of stuff on here for free so there are not as many paid hours at you might think also for perspective You should be able to process 1 profile per minute for proofs...so your talking at most by your #'s 2.5 hours of work a day for one person. An automated program would cut that to about 1 hr by on flagging maybes for human review and allowing report tickets and bots to cull the site of missed content violations. So thats $5-8k spent on moderation costs if done correctly. Just saying.

As far as the hotdates in the profile its total bullshit its monetization plain and simple what and how we will find out later.

@Mayhem8 you can drop $500 on dinner and never make the ballpark. Our point was that if your a free member you have such limited interaction it makes no no sense to stay that way unless your a lurker or your not serious. You can't communicate or use the forums. So really its to see who's in your area and what clubs are out there. When you get serious you pony up. Of course anything can be done cheaply...and sometimes expensive is not the way to go (Club verses house party) so we agree with you there our point was your going to spend a nickle at some point is all. For us its an indication of commitment to the lifestyle on some level even if its just casual play...verses a lurker or a pic collector...or just a creepy neighbor...we hide our profiles to free members and that would be the straw for us to leave if we couldn't. I guarantee if they change that this site will fade off in membership participation and you will see very few face pics in open galleries thats for sure.

Since we joined (and for some it was not that long ago) every time we updated our profile it had to be approved. That means someone had to read it and approve it. Now IDK how long this has been going on but the fact is it does go on. This means that every time someone changes their profile for traveling, or a Hot Date type activity someone has to read and approve it. So for traveling there is a change before the trip and a change when you get back and the same for a hot date (let's lump this all into one for now). So I do this one week and that another it results in at minimum 3 changes of my profile. But let's be realistic we do 2 things a month and it results in 4 profile changes per month multiplied by 12 months and that is 48 total profile changes a year. Not a lot but then to add perspective you have 1000 members doing this per month and it is 4000 a month or 48,000 profile changes a year for someone to approve. That works out to 131.5 changes a day. Now this would not be every day as there would be an increase on weekends and perhaps none on Wednesday. You can see how this is a lot of work for 1-2 people not to mention other things such as approving hot dates, pictures being approved, form posts moderated, etc. What they are trying to do is "limit" the overall amount of work while offering alternatives like hot dates now showing up on your profile. It also makes users use the Hot Date feature as intended which should be a good thing because folks look at Hot Dates for things going on in an area they may be visiting versus search and read every profile. At least I know we do. BTW we know the Hot Date feature does not appeal to everyone and they do not like it showing on their profile but honestly if you are advertising for a "date" why would that be an issue because all it is doing is increasing the advertising.

Now I feel the need to address how the owners of this site choose to address the new regulations that came up a while back. Let's keep in mind every site that hosts user created content has been made to be responsible for said content equally as much as the creator. That means there was sweeping changes to user agreements, content allowed, and even content moderation across the board from Facebook, game chats, message boards, classified ad type sites (Craiglist comes to mind), and yes more adult oriented activity sites such as this. Some sites with large legal departments realized they did not be as draconian in control but still banned (as has been done for years before) mentioning outside forms of communication. Content such as videos and pictures were also moderated with some sites even creating new categories with age controls or limiting access to members only. Of course it has always been the rule almost everywhere you cannot directly mention the competition if money was involved (subscription or even pay as you go). So given all of this and lack of a good (expensive) legal team sites chose to be dangerous and liberal or safe and draconian. As users we may not like these changes but the site owners are making them to cover their ass. It also means the site is allowed to operate versus being taken down and the owners charged with a crime they actually had nothing to do with because a user created some content that was illegal or offering illegal things. Welcome to 2020 when we have more available to us than ever before (anyone remember swinging in the 90's?) yet are more monitored in our activities than ever before as well.

I think out of all our profiles on different sites SLS has the most rules, and definitely the most "Nanny knows best!" oversight on both text and photos. Several other sites have Apps, and strangely do not run afoul of Apple/Google policy or supposed legal statutes that require blocking even reading forum replies if you're a free member (even on their Help forum? lol )

It is obvious that there is some desperation on SLS's part to control what users do, post or say when it comes to any external information and it is completely overbearing and it isn't just about free members -- you could actually require free users profiles to be moderated, and not require paid users to have to wait to update their profile text - or take them offline for putting their own contact preference for messages?

I mean is it actually worth all of this for people who cannot message you, cannot read forum posts, cannot see profiles with adult contents, can't read messages sent to them, cannot edit their own galleries etc ad nauseam? No of course not. Personally I would focus on the experience that paying users have on the site, and looking at things they don't like and fixing them -- but that's just me.

@Slow - I have no idea of the breakdown, but that cost included upscale tickets, sovenoirs, and a meal at a restaurant for 2, but point taken.

I do remember when we started that people were saying then that free members couldn't be taken seriously, but other than a paid membership, nothing really changed in the way we felt about the LS after we were paid members. It didn't cost us anything to determine if it was worth spending anything for a membership.

We used to attend a Meet & Greet party with strip club priced bar drinks as newbies and had someone tell us how they thought it was a bargain to be able to meet others in the LS at such a party. It was easily a $100+ night, and double that if we wanted to play. Then we discovered house parties where there was food, rooms to play in, condoms/lube/towels, a hot tub, and was BYOB all for $50-60/couple. The LS doesn't have to be expensive, but Yes, you do have to spend some money to have fun.

Point is, I'd look more at the effort someone put into their profile (and back then, emails) as an indication of whether they're serious or not versus just being a paid member. I know others disagree with me on this, and that's fine. We just agree to disagree.

@mayhem8
I would say don't ever let your friend plan anything then...Boston Tickets are $11 for standing room and a box for $68 if you want the best seats in the house they are $168 and we have never paid more than $40 for parking but normally pay $20. I could not blow $500 going to a sox game if I tried. I was going to link you to the ticket sheet pricing but the site won't let me post a link so just google 2020 Boston Redsox pricing it will come up.
But seriously if someone is to cheap to drop $80 on a short term membership then they don't belong. Really I mean think about it club costs, hotels, sexy cloths, toys, travel, dinner out, ect ect...swinging is not cheap...it aint Redbox and the dollar menu so if they won't pony up for a membership then really they should not be here.

I'd think that the policy exists mainly to keep free members from being able to essentially post Hot Dates in their profile, and Yes, AFAIK it was already a policy. If free members can get want they want for free, there's less incentive for them to sign up.

As a result of this policy though they now have the overhead of having to check every single profile change. Kind of doesn't make sense that they ditched the email system because it was so much maintenance but created a policy that dramitically increases their "hands on" needs. Then again, few things they do here make sense to me ;-)

We were free members for a while. That was back when you got 5 emails a day. As we met more people online and hit our email limit daily, it motivated us to join because we already saw the value in it. Plus, the lifetime membership seemed like a bargain, and about 6 or 7 years later, turns out it was.

FWIW - If it cost us as much as attending a typical Red Sox game we'd STILL be free members. A friend was saying he and his son went to a game and between tickets, food, and parking it was a $500 day, so "cost of a baseball game" may not be a good comparison to SLS costs, as a prior post mentioned.

I get it...they want everyone to use the Hotdate section. OK, make it more user friendly. Make it so you can edit the Hotdate instead of deleting it and reposting it. I understand someone may post something you think is advertising or something else. Don't give us generic cut and paste emails, let us know what we did incorrectly...maybe it's a one-word fix. The staff has no time for that I guess. They also don't want us emailing each other. Mostly because it's not what the younger people do...Younger people, apparently never learned how to compose a letter, so it's much harder for them. (They need younger people to keep the site going...lifetime members really don't matter) Quite frankly as long as we are not advertising some other swinger web site, why would SLS care what we put on our profile. To SLS, apparently it matters. The policy for SLS is... instead of giving you treats when you do things they like, they punish you when you do things incorrectly, by removing your profile. You would think they would want people to use the site instead and entice them to use it more. I do get it...it is their site and they can run it any way they want...damn the members. Hopefully, we will not get banned for posting our opinion.

@ebony10inch
I understand your frustration but I might point out a couple things...
One you chosen pic does not make me want to click on you profile..change it up..you have some awesome pics of you in your gallery...no need to show some girls ass when you have a great smile and body yourself...just an observation.

As far as trials and free members its literally the only thing i agree with that the powers that be have done.
It protects paying members from the casual lookers and candidly if your not willing to invest a little in your fun , less than the cost of a Friday night bar tab, less than the cost of a baseball or football ticket...than they don't belong here. We like you are lifers here. We want the same from our playmates. Casual folks can go somewhere else.

We hope you find some fun. She said if you were closer you would be on the list...try the pic change and see if it helps.

SAD!! Cannot even find a play date here, banning trial for the free members and not allowing them to use mail was worse marketing move ever. Many other sites have trials and I remember signing up here as lifetime 17 yrs ago because i enjoyed the trial.
The traffic on the site has gone down while other sites are gaining members.
PLEASE SLS. Listen to your customers. ALL not just a chosen few.

The real question is; does anything on this site make sense anymore?

From a user/customer point of view, a web site that exists for swingers to find and connect with other swingers, shouldn’t be restricting the ability to connect while traveling and attending events.

The Hot Date calendar is cumbersome to use. It’s like being forced to drive to work in broken down jalopy.

Not sure what the point of all this is it makes no sense to us. Are the date combing the hot dates now? are they going to farm that into a dating add on for the free members or paid members ? maybe adds on the dates? are they going to tie hot dates to the wall to push traffic to the wall we are not using? just seems odd to restrict how we find play partners.... its ridiculous to regulate how we play on a swing site. Its not compliance and its not internal revenue so it has to be data mining.

“ The type of content no longer allowed can include but not be limited to: any time/dated references to events, clubs, future vacation/travel plans, etc.”

When we travel, it’s no one specific city to post a hot date in, so we announce our travel plans on our profile so our non-local friends see when they revisit our profile and contact if they want to meet, not to post a hot date as we travel nor have our hookup plans afar in our local, like admin currently do.

It’s about time to do some diversity investments.

~Allen

Indeed...
I used to see 2 or 3 new matches(users) go by a week... Now it is one new user roughly every 2 weeks. Unfortunately sls seems to be circling the drain and the owners are going about the wrong way to fix the problem..... Hey owners! Before you delete this look up my personal info and then give me a call. Would be willing to chat about the issues you are facing.

Sail:

No wonder so many accounts have gone dormant.

We have an affiliate account and it appears that rate of renewals has gone down. Less members are willing to pay to renew.

New SLS Profile Changes were sent by the favored email system.

Why didn't SLS send message via the IM system that they force on us???

I'm appalled by management continuing to ignore their customers...
Recently back after a break and noticed a big reduction in activity. No wonder so many accounts have gone dormant.

Naughtyones, yes you’re correct. It already was the policy.