READ THIS: Rules, advice and help for using the SAAFE Forum

[amy]

To all newbies

Welcome to the SAAFE Forum. You're probably here because you're thinking about becoming an escort, or you've just started your career. You'll have a lot of questions, but most of those are the same questions everyone has to start with, so they'll have been answered before. Please make use of the information available here before you start to ask for advice.

This forum is just a part of SAAFE, the main site has articles put together by experienced escorts which will answer many of your questions and bring up things you hadn't considered.

After that, you can see what's been discussed on the forum recently and search for anything in particular that you're interested in. To search, use the box at the top right of the page and enter some words that relate to your question. For example, if you're a man who wants to be an escort, search for 'male escort'.

Once you've done some reading you can ask whatever questions you still have and we'll do our best to help. If you'd like one-to-one support from an experienced escort, go to the Buddy System section and contact Penny.

[amy]

Privacy and anonymity

You're probably quite concerned about your privacy, and even if you're not it's something you need to think about. This forum is public, popular, and ranked highly in search engines. That means that anyone could come across it including, possibly, your friends and family. Think about what you post in case some details could identify you.

The other privacy concern is that even though the discussion here is between workers, many clients read the forum. It's highly likely that some of your clients will find their way here and if they know you're posting they'll be interested to see what you say. Therefore, before you sign up you should consider whether you want to use your escort identity here or if you'd rather speak freely. If you want to post about things that you're not comfortable with your clients knowing, you should choose an anonymous name here when you register, and don't use an easily identifiable 'work' or face photo as your avatar.

Your email address can be public on this forum, and if it is then it will also be visible to search engines. If you need to keep it private, make sure the box marked Hide email address from public? is checked. This is now checked by default when you sign up, but if you registered before 2010 it may not be. You can change this setting by going to your profile and selecting Account Related Settings. Checking that box will hide your email address from everyone except yourself and the forum administrators. If you want to make sure it's hidden you can log out and then look at your profile.

[amy]

Forum Etiquette

Lurking

When joining any internet community, it's a good idea to spend some time reading posts before you make your own contribution (known as "lurking"). This is the equivalent of listening to a group of people you've just joined before you start to talk, and allows you to get an idea of how the group works so you don't say something silly. We appreciate that you might be here because you want help quickly and we won't berate you for posting on your first day if that's the case, but please do check the main site and forum posts first to see if your question has been answered already.

Member or Lurker?

This forum is a place for people involved in the sex industry to share ideas and get advice, it's not a forum for anyone who's interested in the industry to discuss it. Outsider input can be useful but there are other places for that, and punters are not permitted to join and post here. If you're not a sex worker or someone who works with sex workers, please stick to lurking on this site. The exceptions are people signing up to advertise something, who may not post on the main boards. There are separate rules and permissions for them here.

Writing a post

When you write your message, please have a look at it to check that it makes sense and is easy to understand. A small amount of effort on your part will make things easier for every person who reads your post, so it's the polite thing to do. If your post has a lot of misspellings, or goes on for several lines without any punctuation, it will be harder to read. If you're writing a long post, break it up into a few paragraphs, and please don't write posts or thread titles in ALL CAPS - it's rude to shout, and makes your posts difficult to read.

Please don't post live links to other sites on the forum, including to your own ads. (At one point anything with http: or https: became a live link - it no longer does.) If you want to include your link you can add it to your Forum Profile, but remember it will then be displayed underneath your username and available to anybody reading your posts.

Posting your own thread

If you start your own topic you'll have to come up with a title for it. This should give an indication of what the post is about, so please put some thought into it and don't use vague titles like "a question", "I was wondering..." or 'Is it just me..." (no, it isn't just you). Again, don't use ALL CAPS and don't include emojis in the thread title.

Please keep threads and posts on topic. The topic is sex work, and it's important that discussions here stay relevant - if you want to find information and discussions about vaguely related subjects like fitness, cosmetic surgery or online dating, there are other forums covering all these in far more detail if you search for them. Discussiin of other forums, their content and their members is also off topic here - we're not interested in stupid board wars.

Being nice

We all disagree with someone now and then, and one of the good things about using a forum is that we don't need to rely on just one person's opinion. If you want to contradict someone that's fine, but stick to the issue. Personal attacks don't back up your case and are bad for the forum - if you feel that a discussion (whether it involves you or not) is getting out of hand, please report it so that the mods can intervene.

On the other hand, if someone's just disagreed with something you said, keep it in perspective. Internet discussions can feel quite heated and significant, but a difference of opinion generally isn't a problem. Don't feel like you need to leave or fall out with someone because you disagree.

Please don't post about individual people who are not here to participate themselves in any way which makes them identifiable to others. This includes other sex workers (who may well be here and posting anonymously) and also punters, including posters on other forums. Warnings posts (where a degree of identifying information is needed to alert others) should be posted in a particular way, and according to the board-specific rules here.

Talking privately

You can use the PM system to talk privately to other members on the board. This is useful if you want to talk about something that you can't post publicly, have an conversation that isn't of interest to the rest of us, or respond to an advert. If a member has 'Advertiser' or 'Restricted' under their username, they don't have access to the PM system - use the contact information included in the ad.

Please don't send or solicit PMs for general advice that would go just as well on the main board. We're concerned that some people may style themselves as experts and privately advise new members on subjects where it would be more useful for them to have input from other members as well - what works for them may not work or be appropriate for you.

_{(Added a couple of small points)}

[amy]

Reporting problems and getting help with the forum

Meet The Team

The team here is made up of me (amy) and Ian (xw5)

We are administrators, which means we can see IP addresses, edit profiles and all sorts of things. We're also familiar with the technical side of the forum (xw5 more than me) so contact us if you have any technical issues.

We also deal with moderation issue - we can move, merge and split threads, edit and delete posts, and tell people off. Contact us if you have an issue with content on the forum.

Technical Problems

If you're having trouble using the forum, see if the help page answers your questions. If that doesn't help, ask an administrator.

Problems with other users or content

If you think that someone's broken the rules or you're concerned about something that's been posted, you should tell a member of the moderation team privately. You can use the PM system for that or send us an email.

At the bottom right of every post there's a link that says "Report to moderator". If you click it you can send a message to all of us, with a comment about why you're reporting the post. This is useful for things that should be dealt with quickly, including spam messages or private information that needs to be removed.

Suggestions

If there's something you'd like to see on the forum or SAAFE itself that we don't have already you can contact us about it by PM, or send an email to the address on the main SAAFE site.

[xw5]

To repeat:

This forum is public, popular, and ranked highly in search engines. That means that anyone could come across it including, possibly, your friends and family. Think about what you post...

Every so often someone tells the mods to delete posts they have made.

If you have not deleted your account, you can edit the posts yourself. Other people may have quoted your post(s) and if, and only if, there is a clear and obvious safety issue involved, you can ask the mods to edit those.

If you have deleted it, this is made far harder for the mods to do and, again, if there is no clear and obvious safety issue involved, we have far, far better things to do with our time.

Moral: If you don't want anyone to see it here, don't write it in the first place.