thoughts on open recruiting on other sites

[radioakt]

i haven't taken note of who has been doing so, but i've seen few people on sex sound posts on other sites trying to recruit people to this site. while i appreciate the attempt to rally more activity here, i wonder if it might not be more damaging than good. on top of perhaps inviting prying eyes we may not want here, i think it also may scare off people posting elsewhere entirely. if one is posting with some hope of some anonymity, being alerted that a whole forum community is lurking i think can pretty easily turn the tides on the willingness to share. curious what other people think.

[Nuci79]

Well i´m new here so i don´t know if my opinion counts, but my personal opinion is kinda mixed...like you said, we don´t want unwanted eyes/ears here or some kinda trolls...i just think, whoever want´s to find this Forum, is gonna find it, if he/she is really interested in the subject...

On the other hand, more activity would be great (think there alot more people in the world who love overhearing sexsounds ) and the option to get free access to the Archives if your an active member is just perfect...

The question is just how do/can you balance the two?

[edtraveller]

I've always been about free information and openness. That said, Physicist has been able to get me to think more carefully in terms of what we do here - and that if we are too free here, might make our activities more restrictive. For example even publishing the names of particular hotels in board posts opens the possibility of a hotel owner/manager finding the post on a search and then clamping down security to limit/stop our movements. So like Nuci79, my feelings are mixed. I want this site to welcome people that genuinely love these sounds, but at the same time feel we need some exclusivity so outside of the crowd, no one really knows or cares about us.

To that end, I would even be open to Yeppie locking down the board so the posts can't even be accessed without membership.

I guess what that means in short is I am all for limited recruiting. ie we find some wacko on YouTube obsessed with this stuff, we reach out. If we find one of our lurkers is a college student living in a dorm, we reach out and even sponsor some equipment (USB mic, double faced tape, decent quality hand held recorder for in-person door gap recording) - but am against any advertising or other shotgun method of recruiting.

The posts I issue are purposefully long and describe my techniques as I am trying to encourage lurkers here to get active - I mean, some of my recordings get close to 150 - 1,000 downloads. So I don't think we are starving for members. If even a quarter of our members started going active, can't even imagine the variety of good quality sounds we'd be seeing here. I'd love to have so many, would have to scan and pick ones because it would be impossible to keep up with all of them.

[Sktlr]

I think people are interested as you say and they are active downloaders of content.

It's just that hotels cost money. I don't think it's really know-how of equipment, as interesting as those details are. Though that said, I'd be intrigued if I ever was to do it the way you do it Gekko; if I would find it less or more interesting than literally standing outside someone's door. I'm just hoping it doesn't become an addiction, but I think that ship might have sailed. I don't know yet.

[edtraveller]

Totally an addiction; obsession, whatever you name it. Especially hearing in person. The equipment can be used anywhere though. USBs have come a long way. Turmoil in an above thread "Day by Day" (look under the "Soundlovers Talk" section) has a great recording of a couple making love near a waterfall. And I don't think his going there cost him a penny/pence..

I guess I am posting techniques to give people confidence that they can get out and explore for this stuff if they are at a hotel. I used to be terrified of the idea until I knew how to just look like I belong wherever I happen to be. Just standing and looking at an iphone is enough; people won't even give a second glance. And if a security person walks past, just looking up and nodding to them is usually fine.

My goal isn't to get everyone to start going out and spending money on hotels - but if they are at one anyway or travel for work, I figure we can get some more material if I can help eliminate the fear factor if that is the only thing standing in the way..

[Sktlr]

I guess I am posting techniques to give people confidence that they can get out and explore for this stuff if they are at a hotel. I used to be terrified of the idea until I knew how to just look like I belong wherever I happen to be. Just standing and looking at an iphone is enough; people won't even give a second glance. And if a security person walks past, just looking up and nodding to them is usually fine.

You can? Even though the couple next door are at it?

They couldn't figure it out?

[edtraveller]

Thanks Sktlr -

Context was not while hearing anything - but walking around exploring (discovery phase). I usually walk a few steps, stop, listen - repeat. So there is nothing to figure out except why I am there. And a guy walking around staring at a smartphone is one in a million in most places now, so pretty much everyone walks past without even a glance.

As far as encounters while stuff is going on, that is a different story. No, standing at a door with sex noises going on is not a good thing to do in front of security or anyone else. In my favorite place there are a lot of turns in the corridors in that building, and with great acoustics, so if anyone comes out of the elevator, stairwell, or another guestroom, I can hear in plenty of time. So will pick up my Olympus, hit pause and walk quickly away and hang out in another part. This disconnects me from the event. I might even pretend to be talking on my phone to make it appear I don't care about anything else.

Also, when I encounter sounds, I'll set my Olympus up immediately at the floor; then find a place to attach a concealed or camouflaged USB mic. That way, the recording still goes on even if I have to ditch. Plus, I've been able to capture repeat performances (including wake up sex) from the same couples that way.

[reggind]

You have it down to an art. Thank you for sharing your techniques with us.

[man69]

I see it mixed too...but have to say that I am a new member too. And two things more...

1) The reasons gekko worked in his first post out (hotels making stricter protection and so on...) wont impact me, but sounds logical for a lot of concerns, so it even does makes sense to me.
2) On the other hand I have to say (I guess I've said it before in my "Hi Im new"-Post?) that I didnt found this Community by any own researches but just by a post under a Youtube-Video this way "sexsoundlovers dot cc slash ssl-forum" (said to try this site out)

Anyway, imo it would make sense to cut the content of the forum for the crawlerbots by making a login necessary to be able to read the threads.

But I see the necessary for being open to get more and new members who maybe doesnt know anything about this forum (like me before) and would be appreciated and maybe even share some content if they would find out where to post it.


So my little Conclusion must be: we must be open to get new and maybe even active Members, but it may be a desaster for the future if too many eyes come here and start thinking how to avoid such recordings (closing windows in summer, new designs or even security-solutions in hotels to avoid and so on)


But this are just my 2 cents.


Edit: BTW it aint illegal to record sounds you can hear in anyway, but if it would get to the public (by press or so) it would make things harder for a lot of guys here, maybe. Maybe even not...just cant imagine about the impact. Would it go viral or not? If so, it would be not that good, but if not it wouldnt even matter and maybe just get some more guys and girls here to be active

[yeppie]

Guys, I just wanted to say that I love this discussion and I think it is a necessary one. Please go on ... I will stay quiet and just listen for a while.

[physicist]

I wanted to add my thoughts.

There is a general feeling among the community that the more people that come in the, the more sounds we get uploaded and the more time passes, the more sounds we should have.

Obviously this isn't the case because there was a time the forum was very very active but later that activity seemed to significantly drop and a dry spell came about. Thankfully we are currently at above average levels.

I had to preface that because I feel we should be selective rather than openly recruiting. This way, we ensure high quality members who at least post and add their thoughts. Lurkers are no good because they get what they are looking for and go away. If you notice, most of the current active members have been on the site for multiple years. Very few sign up and go after a few months.

How do we selectively recruit? I don't know yet but I know I could think it up. Its also to make sure that members who do go out and get recordings are first aware of the safety and surroundings. Safety is paramount I'm sure most would agree. No point getting busted over and over again, its just not a good look. Very few are fortunate enough to have placed themselves in a situation where this is a peace of cake. Like you live in an apartment with another womanising roommate and when hes with a girl he doesnt care if you hear him and its only you outside his door in the whole place. You could place your high end recorder and go and finish your late dinner.

But, I digress.

So yes, I'm not really for open recruitment that "oh hey, come join out site, we have loads to offer".

There are also members who prematurely request to become an active member. Your contribution should be so good that the board doesn't even have to think it over :p

What is interesting to me is that it seems many of the people here much prefer authentic couple sounds over some fake porn too.

Anyway after that incoherent ramble, I hope it helps :p

[thomas]

alright, I was a bit silent here bacause I had shared thoughts and strategic considerations already in other threads (e.g. viewtopic.php?f=12&t=5492&p=32138&hilit ... orm#p32138) but maybe it`s still worth to share my opinions also here:

In general, I think openly recruitung is a very critical topic and we have to discuss carefully how to proceed to really attract the right people to this community, i.e. not getting more members/lurkers or the wrong people, but paying members or active contributors. Only getting more poularity does not bring us more recordings but will bring us in danger. On the other hand it is really a pity that so many chances for recordings remain unused (I do not talk about student dorms here again...) and we should look for options how to make better use of them.

One comment to physicist`s contribution: indeed there was a phase of silence in the community in 2015, however, this was also to some extent caused by server updates and other technical aspects that made the server quite slow at that time, and thanks again to yeppie that this a all solved now and we have this brilliant platform that even develops novel features such as the like buttons.

Back to the original question: I usually think quite pragmatically and try to get the smaller succsses being directly in front of us rather than striving for very general approaches in striving for the high-hanging fruits. Nevertheless I think we should not recruit on other sexsound sites as those sites are in my opinion predominantely attracting the wrong people and from those we get artificial moaning sounds, porn audios etc.

On the other hand there will be a lot of "amateur" soundlovers out there who like to record and will post their material for sharing on the most obvious platform that exists: youtube. This is exactely what I did when I was "recruited" I think by findu and linked to this community. By the way, to be honest I found this community already earlier (I think it was in 2004) however the few example sounds I listend to of those on the webpage that one can get without registering were a bit artificial and did not convince me directely to join at that time, so it was findu`s private message via youtube (thanks again that linked me back to this community.

And this is as well my suggestion for a first step how to proceed to attract the "right" people: lurking at platforms like youtube (i.e. NOT the sexsound-specialized ones) for regular posters who have shared 3-4 sounds (usually the accounts are deleted after a few weeks) and leave a private message there to generate some polite awareness for this community without being to agressive). This is what I have done already quite a few times, and only if sending a private message wasn`t possible because the user has blocked this option, I made a comment below the video that there is a dedicated community for this kind of recordings. Maybe we thereby get a new contributing member, maybe not, but the we have at least tried before the account is deleted and the poster is reluctant to post something again.

If we do this more systematically (maybe now in an agreed way an on agreed youtube contributors, to avoid that about 100 messages are entering the inbox ) we could already make quite some progress.

[yeppie]

Thank you guys (so far)!

I am pretty much with Thomas and everybody who voted for selective recruiting and this is kind of what we did in the past ... but we could do this better, probably. I like the idea of a concerted action towards soundlovers on youtube via pm, especially those who share custom recordings. Should I provide a "Word-of-mouth" subforum (in the ssl faq) for sharing ideas and notes on whom we approached? Or would you recommend the restricted "Internal Talk" area?

[yeppie]

To that end, I would even be open to Yeppie locking down the board so the posts can't even be accessed without membership.

As this is a slightly different topic, I choose to answer separately.

The settings have been like that in the past. As far as I remember, only the "About this Community" subforum could be read by non-members but they could just see the topics in all other areas. More openness should make it easier to join the community and I´m also uncertain about the visibility for bots - Google is still the most important source for new members.
Has anybody got better information on this topic? ... and better ideas?

[thomas]

Thank you guys (so far)!

I am pretty much with Thomas and everybody who voted for selective recruiting and this is kind of what we did in the past ... but we could do this better, probably. I like the idea of a concerted action towards soundlovers on youtube via pm, especially those who share custom recordings. Should I provide a "Word-of-mouth" subforum (in the ssl faq) for sharing ideas and notes on whom we approached? Or would you recommend the restricted "Internal Talk" area?

Indeed, I like the idea of a Word-of-mouth subforum... everybody who detects promising authentic recordings might then invite the corresponding author (maybe after some alignment/feedback in unclear or suspicious cases) via pm and list the channel/name in this subforum...
Sounds reasonable to me... we should try this at least and see how it works