There is some discussion here about clearing your cache and some of the communication issues that could arise from one user having the newer emoticons and another user having the older ones. Sorry about the issue everyone, I will try to remember that when we apply the next update! Big thanks to ladylikes for pointing out this issue on the comments this morning!

Let’s see, I know there was a few more changes around here and there as well. I am still working on it, so there will be more to come. Pop on over to the sex chat peeps section and check it out.

Oh yeah, added a new page to the site blog section here about the broad range bans for people. Here’s to the ever improving community – cheers!

For those that used the “longer method” to upload pictures into actual posts to give you more control, there are some major upgrades. Your old login SHOULD work – let me know if it doesn’t. The new upgrade made the posts easier for the public to find, so I changed everyone’s older posts to be “private” – you of course have the option of going in and making adjustments to the visibility of your past posts and future ones as well. If you have any trouble with any logins, or your old posts or anything please let me know.

There are many new features in the peeps section, making it a mini sex chat community crossover thing, with some of the functions of an adult facebook, and a touch of myspace like profiles and private messaging thrown in. There are now profile fields, activity wall posting, private messaging between users, new groups, and photo albums you can use to upload pictures that are only viewable by connected friends, or the general sex chat community.

There are some other goodies in the upgrade as well, and we’ll add some more cool stuff if people start to really use it – I know it’s hard to get people to leave the sex chat room for a minute to check things – but I think this will be a good way people can set up a basic profile, with a couple of pics, and perhaps some other people will find you there when you are not in the chat room or online, exchange some private messages, and let each other know when you will be online in the main chat – stuff like that.

Anyhow, we’ll see. For now it’s still in a ind of test mode – there are more details in the peeps section now, and particularly in this post here about the march 12 peeps update.

Luckily the times and dates are still displayed next to each comment, so using those tags next to each comment it should be easy enough to figure out when each comment was posted. We just rolled this out, so I am unsure of the exact specifics of how they are going to display with the threaded comment system though. This may push some older comments to the top when replies are made to an actual comment, and it may not. We re going to go with this type of “newest at the top” comment display for a while to see if it makes things easier for everyone to keep up with that has been going on with the various discussions.

Depending on how the replies to older comments end up being displayed, or re-ordered or not, we may switch it back to the old school way – we’ll see.

Looking to have these updates very soon. Some of these changes come from viewing the various room usage, and suggestions made by users on the site suggestions page. We are always looking to make the system more user friendly, hopefully these changes will continue that trend.

Overall this is a minor update to fix a few minor things. We are still working on the bigger upgrades and newer things to beta test, so hold tight for all that. Of course we are still open to suggestions to make things better on the site suggestions page, admin contact info, and any questions about anything can be asked in the comments here or via admin email as well. It is our aim to be fair, open and transparent. Here’s to working on making this place better and better for everyone!

* edit – added info 18 hours after original post* – Most people are aware that we have also been adding to the chat room etiquette rules this week, Mainly clarifying some things there as well and adding to the definitions of things that were originally outlined in the terms of service. This puts some issues right on the page that people are sent to when kicked out of the sex chat rooms, so that can have a clearer understanding of some of the reasons that people will be kicked for. Thought I would mention that here as well for those who are interested.

One of our users was suggesting that we make a direct way to enter straight into the gangbang room, so I added that tonight, along with direct access links to the FFR and the new Russian sex chat room as well. Those direct enter options are all presented on the sex chat now page. This will save many people from auto-entering the lobby only to bounce to another room if people bookmark and use that page.

Another big change that went into effect tonight is the default setting for pms to be ignored / turned off by default. Now this may not affect everybody, most of the people that have been to the free text chat rooms will probably not get this setting changed, but for new users that have never been here and not had their settings “cached” – or if you come to the site from a different computer that you have not accessed the chat with, then your setting may be auto-set to having pms being turned off.

If you want to pm with people you will have to go into the settings gear near the top of the chat window and uncheck the option to ignore all pms – then save the settings. When people try to pm you it will just disappear – some of our regular users will notice that “You tell Sasha blah blah blah” does not appear when pming someone who has them set to auto-ignore – but some of our newer users may not notice the pm they type simply disappears and may assume that the pm was sent. I can see this frustrating some users, but if it frustrating the non-stop rude pms that group harass every girl who enters the room, then it may be just what the doctor ordered for helping to make the chat experience here better for women.

The really bad thing would be for someone to see someone they know come into the room and they type some long message and then have it disappear. Another bad thing would be for users to assume that their message went through and the other person never even knew one was sent. We’ll see, I think the good is going to outway the bad, but with all changes here at the site I never know how many people are going to love something and how many people will freak out about it. I heard a quote somewhere that was something like “All people hate change, All people want better” – I have certainly seen that around here over the years!

Either way, we may keep the new changes, and we may not – let’s give them some time and decide in a couple weeks perhaps. My fingers are crossed that all these things make the place better for everybody, er well, at least better for more people than it makes it worse! Pleasing most of the people most of the time is a lofty goal – I know I can not please all the people here all the time – lol!

Oh what else did I change tonight? I can’t think of it all right now, I do think that’s the main important stuff that people are likely to notice. There will be some more small code updates to keep the chat running strong with so many users, and more updates and changes to come next month as well!

We’ve had some growing pains and some (mostly – lol) mature discussions about how we can continue to grow in ways that are fair and fun. We have had some really incredible moderators volunteer a ton of time to dealing with the multitude of issues that arise from the clash of multiple cultures around the world finding their way into our little sex chat place here on the net. We have also had a good number of regular users put their desire to be smart and quick, and take some of their time to welcome new users who are not as aware of the etiquette that is encouraged. We really appreciate the mods and the regs who embraced the challenge to the regs, and even though no policy is perfect to make all of the people happy all of the time, I think in general the place has just gotten better and better.

The influx of more and more people, along with our growing popularity has brought some challenges in the backend that has kept me spending a lot more time dealing with some mundane things and taken time away from working on our upgrades and new features – but it’s been worth it. It’s been a lot of work to keep this place spam free, much more than I ever imagined. It’s also been a lot of work conversating with people about bans and other support comments and emails – but I think we have been quite fair with everyone, and I must believe that we provide the best support of any free sex chat place on the planet.

I hope the thousands of people who joined us in 2011 had some good times, and we look forward to more good times to come this new year!

We are for free speech and protecting it. Hopefully you have already seen a news story about this, as a few have cropped up talking about how google and AOL and many others are opposing this bill. I am sure we all know that the music and movie industry pays a lot of bribes (lobbies, lobbying, donating to campaigns, etc) to congress, so without people contacting their representatives this may become a reality – it’s just one hop skip and jump away from pushing us in the direction of Pakistan – where that government is now forcing all telecom companies to censor what they term as offensive words from text messages that people send to one another.

Imagine a time when government dictates that private companies have to censor and citizens are not allowed to post or text each other words like “fart”, “tampon” or “Jesus Christ” – well it’s true now in Pakistan, and the United States is seriously considering taking steps in that direction. (and my Levis jeans and Hanes socks I am wearing are from there? really?)

And a separate law / issue you may have missed – I wish people would of made more noise in the news and the blogging community about the law that was recently passed in the US that requires every internet service provider to keep records of every web site that you visit. Lifehacker has an article about this mandate for your internet company to keep future spying records for the government to inspect, and what you can do about it.

I could write pages about all this – but I hope you will visit thew links to learn more, and I will keep this short for now.

Double props to lifehacker for doing more research about which VPN services actually keep you private.