Excellent point, Bozo1.
Now, here's a (hypothetical) happy thought: perhaps alien technology will one day be able to relocate these lost deceased souls.

This is why I didn't use quotation marks, I didn't care enough to look up the exact quote. Yes, it was Regis' thing (being a troll), no I didn't particularly mind so long as the other person knew. Obviously, most people didn't seem to mind either. But I think this remark was made before the sex doll in question made it 100% clear they were in fact some sort of rubber android.

The point is, that ultimately Regis was setting a precedent saying it was ok to treat new members like that. I'm pretty sure he was warned or something before that. But I'm not MM, and I don't have access to the exchange. I just know that THAT was the thing that led to the ban.

You can't look up the quote as the whole thread has been deleted.

By the time he made the remark, it was fairly obvious to some of us that this new "female" was a troll of some kind. I just assumed she was another sock puppet for ScumbagChris or one of the other con artists, so yeah, color me surprised when she turned out to be a sex doll.

If that's what got him banned, then so be it. Again, I hope that the members sending ACTUAL dick pics are getting banned as well. If not, we're setting our own precedent that (mild, snarky) public harassment is not tolerated, even towards someone who's clearly a troll, but ACTUAL private harassment towards female members is given a pass?!?

Anyone looking for answers on Regis can check Twitter. Like Rich, I also wish things had gone down differently, but it is what it is.

There was (far) more to it than just this, but the finger-wagging over Regis creating a hostile environment for female members is to me so misplaced. Do you guys think women don't have a sense of humor? I think it was pretty clear pretty quickly to most that Regis' thing was a bit, and I for one found him hilarious. There are far, far worse offenders here who are actually and actively creepy, offensive, and harassing to women, and I would never put Regis in a category anywhere near them.

As to the topic at hand, I've had many friends come and go here over the years, and I supposed it's just the nature of the beast. While it's certainly tragic to think they died, I think it's equally sad in a certain way when the disappearance is shame-related. I took a hiatus from the UMD for awhile because a boyfriend found my profile and made me feel ashamed about it. I know other friends who have gone into exile after being "outed" or discovered, and others who thought they could "cure" themselves of their fetish by staying away.

A bit later...



It's clear to me from the above statements, that even Rich, despite his apparently close relationship and behind-the-scenes contact with Regis, actually doesn't know much more about why Regis got perma-banned than any of the rest of us. I think probably only MessMaster can supply the real reason, and I have a strong hunch he has no desire to do so, or he would've shared this with us already. So be it. (Inquiring minds STILL want to know though! Curiosity is only human....)

Rich clearly thinks it might have been the Dick Pics/Sex Doll Incident that got Regis banned, but that CAN'T BE THE CASE by dint of simple chronology. And for the record, no one else has said anything of the kind in this thread -- even Potatoman-J, who brought this incident up, just described it as "the short version of the kind of stuff that got [Regis] banned."

In the aftermath of that sex doll brouhaha, Regis by his own account left the UMD of his own free will and then returned a few months later with a new ID which he used a variety of screennames for, the first of them being "Not a Russian Bot." This new persona never quite admitted he was Regis, but it was very clear to most of us who he was. "Not a Russian Bot" did, however, act as a sort of spokesperson for Regis. In that capacity, he explained that the reason Regis self-exiled himself was that people were "white-knighting a sex doll" and that this was "too rich even for Regis' blood." (You can't just make up this brand of Regis language -- unless you are Regis himself.)

New Regis was particularly active in the forum thread on the UMD's new Terms of Service (TOS) back in late February. Regis -- at that point calling himself "Darth Bater" -- was in the most ferocious form of his UMD life in that thread, writing probably two dozen stinging posts attacking MM's reasoning from every conceivable angle, and then a number of further angles that were patently inconceivable. That is, he was arguing with all his might, landing some good points early on, but then going way beyond that and conjuring arguments that didn't make much sense at all, in my opinion just being very show-off-y about how endlessly combatative he could be. (Rich would say the same about some of my posts about him, I'm sure. So be it.)

In my opinion, Regis was very insulting to MM in that TOS thread. I thought he was very likely to be banned for all those rather intense attacks on MM and his policies. But he wasn't, at least not right away, which I think speaks well to MM's openness to discussion and criticism of his policy decisions. Regis continued to post for three months after that, and then one day he was just gone, very quietly (unless there was a final flareup thread that was quickly deleted before I saw it).

It's probable, of course, the perma-banning is not attributable to any one specific offense, but more than a decade's worth of questionable choices -- and maybe all those attacks in the TOS thread really were the final straw for MM, and it just took him a few more months to finalize the ban. But all of Regis' harsh comments in that TOS discussion were left up for all to see for several months until the banning happened and his ID was deleted, and all of his posts along with it.

Regis was a genuinely funny character and arguably meant well in general, but he often had a pretty fucked-up way of showing the latter. His bratty, catty, how-far-can-I-push-this behavior no doubt caused MM and the other mods a great deal of headaches and extra work over the years. I think the evidence on hand illustrates that MM was actually very patient with Regis for a long, long time before finally deciding he needed to "let him go."

I don't know if the trolls concerned were banned in this case, but I do know of one female user who's deleted her account in just the last few days due to harassment. I realised when I spotted my Friends count had gone down by one and checked who was missing.

I feel bad for her, as I think she had all sorts of problems like this ever since joining a couple of years ago. She began by posting a handful of amateur clips of herself, but commented not long afterwards that she was already getting tired of the unsolicited messages. She never posted again after that, or added to her store. I'm assuming she felt keeping a low profile was the only way to not attract attention.

Well, it seems that strategy didn't work long-term. She did post on her wall earlier this year about a comeback and new clips, but nothing came of it. And then just the other day, I saw she'd gone. I checked on an old thread I remember she posted on, and that confirmed it. "Profile Deleted", with a note where her message had been saying she'd deleted them all herself and for the reason of "Harassment".

Poor girl. That's awful.

Holy shit, you people type alot are you drunk???

I'm out and open about my production. Hell my license plate says Mr Cake. If I for some reason have a way of knowing about my impending death you can be assured I'll go out in a way that people will hear about.

Rich, I know who you're talking about and that affected me a lot when I heard about his passing. Not only was he a great customer but he became one of my best friends and one of the nicest human beings I have ever known. He came out to visit me several times in the years since we began doing business and it was always wonderful. My girlfriend at the time was the one who called me to tell me he had passed away. Life is precious; I still miss texting him everyday.

"Live fast, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse."
-- Willard Motley

Please tell me you got her back in the mud.

That suggestion was made elsewhere. If circumstances were a little different we might at least make the suggestion to her. Can you see her playing Synda the Jungle Girl again as Summer's mother? That should force any depressing thoughts from anyone's mind.

I was actually thinking about something similar recently.

Over on Facebook, I've chosen one of my friends as my "legacy contact":
https://www.facebook.com/help/103897939701143
I've also gone with the default option of memorialising my profile rather than removing it.

I could also leave instructions to get a message to MessMaster, but I'm not sure what I'd actually want to happen to my profile here. The simplest option would be to delete it, maybe leaving my posts intact. (If I've reviewed videos, I assume that the producers would like to keep those reviews around.) If my profile stays online, it would be nice to turn off incoming messages, since I won't be able to reply to them. Maybe MM could add something to the "About Me" section that says "Deceased"?

While it's morbid, I'd encourage everyone to think about making a will (particularly if you own a house). I've also written a "letter of wishes"; it's not legally binding, but it gives informal advice to my friends/family about what I'd like to happen to various stuff.

I've got the opposite problem from what Bozo1 posted at the start: I want my entire catalog of pictures and videos to disappear when I'm gone. OTOH I don't want to delete it thinking "its the big one" and come home from the hospital to find out everythings gone.

Those of us with moderation tools can see all posts, even deleted ones, so quotations can be accurately made if necessary.

I do feel this is straying a bit from what is quite an interesting topic into already well trodden areas. And you're right, Rich, the entity who was known as Regis is not here to defend himself.

Here are the facts:

Regis was banned
MM has comprehensively explained his reasons
Regis's side of the story can be found on Twitter if you're that interested

Judge for yourself.

I think Trouso's second point above merits a caveat:
MM has not comprehensively explained his reasons for banning Regis publicly. In fact, MM has said that he won't discuss his reasons for that on the forums specifically because Regis can't post anything in his own defense here. But at the time MM announced Regis had been perma-banned, he publicly invited all UMD members to message him privately for details.

Back on topic, I'm friends with - I think - 3 or 4 people on Facebook who are also on here and probably a few on other platforms. I would hope that if I were to die, one or more of those people would send a coded message to a family member stating that in the broadest possible terms I was a member of various online communities and asking whether it would be useful for them to pass the news of my death on.

I'm thinking more "hi, your girlfriend / daughter / sister and I were involved in an online community who would be very sad to hear of her passing. Would you like me to post online so that her friends are aware?" rather than "I've seen a picture of your girlfriend / daughter / sister covered in custard with her tits out. Shall I tell the other pervs that she's dead?"

And some of us took a pause because of personal sadness. There are so many reasons people become absent.

I accepted full responsibility and apologised to Lord Regis...

Who Candy, I'm curious now?

It's all a question of existentialism, Schrodingers UMD profile.
I really shouldn't have read this post stoned

My wife has an account on here, though not very active, and I think if anything happened to me it would also reach here through the furry grapevine.

Yes, hullo peeps, I exist. It's not my kink, although I'm perfectly happy to help facilitate it. I was a pro-domme in my youth, and still am in my, our, personal life to some extent. So this forum really entertains me and is an interesting place to roam around watching and reading.

But I've also had to deal with a huge amount of harassment from men on various kink and fetish groups since I first got online in 1995 when I was 16. I decided years ago it just wasn't worth dealing with the barrage of questions, non-consensual images flung my way and outright stalking and harassment that comes with having an open profile on kink sites.

If I'm not working and not actively looking for sexual contact online, it seems daft to keep an open profile. At least now I'm 40 and chronically sick fewer strangers have any interest in harassing me in person. Who said getting older didn't have its perks?!

Given the context of this discussion, it seems slightly ominous that Tilly's account is now deleted! Without wanting to pry into personal circumstances, does anyone know whether she's ok (i.e. still alive)? I'm hoping that she's just got a new job or something.