Eh, I was occasionally moderated like the rest of you, but having run a site myself before, I get it. I like Carhill just fine, though his mod personality was necessarily annoying because who likes criticism, right? There were some stupid rules, as if this site wasn't for 18 years old and over but for grade school kids. My biggest gripe is I think adults should be able to use the same cuss words you can see nightly on prime time tv, as long as they're used passively rather than for name calling at the person. I was once moderated for using the word "cucumber." Really? It takes all the humor out of it.

That said, when I ran a site, my site was a total dictatorship. People whined about their "freedom of speech" and I quickly told them my site wasn't a democracy and then banned them if they kept it up. This would mostly be people I found annoying or who challenged everything anyone said. That site, due to the subject matter, attracted lots of trolls (you can't say "troll" at Loveshack) and I know how big a job it is to keep track of them and research and ban them, so I have some sympathy for mods. And as they said over and over, they had to go by the owner's rules.

The mods said back a few months when the site was down for a couple of weeks that it could just vanish one day, and it has. We'll see if anything else happens, new site, whatever. I mean, that one did need to be updated some way. There was an app but it was hard to read on. If I knew how to make an app-friendly site, I'd do it myself. Might anyway sometime when I'm not so busy. If I do, I'll come on here and let people know. I don't have anyone's email.

What I liked best: I thought as a whole, there was usually a very good consensus of advice, especially on serious matters.

What I liked least, people who came on there making basically the same post over and over, got sound advice, ignored it, and kept posting hoping for someone, anyone, who agreed with them. Broken records who would never take advice, who thought everyone in the world was wrong and they were right, would never seek professional help, as is too often the case of people who need it worst. These people were just like a rat on a wheel, hoping to somehow get what they want with no effort or taking responsibility for their own situations. They need someone to be honest with them instead of just sympathizing because they're their own worst enemy. I'd ban those people once it became a hopeless pattern if it was up to me because it demoralizes those trying to help. And sometimes I think LS did. But not enough.

Another thing is you can't judge that a person is a loser because they post a lot. Some of us type as fast as we think. One such person is home with a special needs child. You really want to act like she's nothing because she posts good advice for you on a regular basis? Another was a professional, and she posted excellent advice. These people aren't idle or losers. They're smarter than you and a lot more productive, apparently.

It made me feel good on the rare occasion when someone came on there with a big real-life problem (instead of one in their head) and the forum was able to really support them and show them the way out. It's worth putting up with all the rest if you think you might have really made a difference in one person's life.

I was banned from LS years ago, and it was my impression that the moderation team (or some of them anyway) had a bit of the toxic incel mindset that everybody's talking about now. Those of us who posted on LS circa 5 years ago were already well aware of this embryo movement of misogynistic incels who believed society owed them adoring girlfriends who would cuddle and dote on them, and put up with all sorts of abusive treatment. I remember Whichwayisup as being one of the nice, doting women who had all the time in the world for these guys, but it never did any good.

I don't know which was worse. The PUA advocates who insisted that incels would have more success with women if only they learned to treat them badly enough, or the angry incels themselves. And the endless "don't accept friend-zoning from women". So if you were a woman, you should have nothing to do with these guys unless you were prepared to have sex with them... but now they're all whining and ranting on their own horrible little forums because women want nothing to do with them. Ummmm, no we don't. If the only dealings we should have with you are sexual ones then we won't have any dealings with you at all.

I'm actually very glad I was banned from LS, because once I was away from all of that it became easier to trust men again. Funnily enough I found out about the demise of LS after trying to visit because the Toronto story reminded me of LS and I was curious to see what reaction LS would have to i. I felt sure that there would be lots of incel guys expressing sympathy for the killer and blaming women for refusing to make ourselves sexually available to the lonely and maladjusted. It's probably a good thing I wasn't able to find LS and find the inevitable ugly views on it.

Obviously from reviews here, it shut down before those events occurred but my first thought was "I wonder if the killer was one of those incel guys who posted on LS and that the site has shut down because of that?" One of the moderators on LS even used to have a picture of Ted Bundy and his mother as an avatar. William. That he turned out to be the poster Carhill explains a lot. He was a bit more subtle than some of them in his bitterness and bile about women, but it was regularly in evidence still.

As far as I'm concerned, that site was the lite, socially acceptable version of the kind of sites that the press are now taking a great interest in due to the Toronto murder.

The biggest problem with this board is the little power-hungry gnome known as William. He's an unbelievably self-important little troll with a very itchy 'ban' finger - and God forbid you dare to get out of line and voice your true opinion. No, that won't do at all! Loveshack's top flying monkey will swoop right down on you with a primate vengeance the likes of which you've never seen and could never understand - but that's because most people don't define the pinnacle of all their life accomplishments as being an admin on a sleazy message board.

Most people aim much higher in life. LOL.

William also loves to pontificate and try to show off his 'mastery' of the written word, and frankly, it's just sad because you intrinsically know that's all he's got to offer. I picture this balding, middle-aged, very short and wiry, bitter, sad and lonely little troll-like man all alone in his mother's basement sitting in the dark and raising his little fists at his monitor whenever an outlier dares to stray from the fold and tell it like it is. I envision this little creature stamping his foot, spinning around and frothing at the mouth like one of the little munchkins in the Wizard of Oz, throwing a little hissy fit while blindly clawing his keyboard to hit the 'ban' button. Truly a pitiful little man, indeed.

The rest of the place features a bunch of folks who obviously don't have jobs and have made Loveshack their permanent home. Some have post counts up in the thousands, with some having 20,000 and 30,000 posts or more.

The OW/OM board is entertaining as hell to read. It's a bunch of foolish women involved with married cheating men and they're all SO sure lover boy is going to leave his wife and come galloping up to their house on his white steed so they can ride off into the sunset together. And as predicted by anyone with half a brain, eventually pretty much ALL of them end up being dumped either because of a D-Day and their cheater getting caught and being put on lock-down, or they find out their married cheater has replaced them with Other Woman 2.0. What a bunch of sad sacks on that board.

Some people just never learn.

The entertainment value of 'stupid,' however, cannot and should not be under-estimated. It's always good for a laugh or two.

Just be sure to wear a few good coats of monkey repellent if you decide to post there.