Written by Aconite
Before RIK
Let me begin with the history of BDSM communities in India. I would go as far as I've been around and as per my knowledge. Since the time i figured i love tying up my boyfriend, i knew i was kinky and i was different from so called 'normal' people. It started with searching for porn on INTERNET and lead to a quest for more knowledge and like minded people who were looking for the same thing as i was looking for - a place where i can socialize. As most people I began my search at US chat-rooms on BDSM on IRC/Yahoo in Year 2000. This is where i met a few people from India and was directed to a chat-room & a group dedicated to Indian people in BDSM. The chat-room was called "Sub/Slaves for Indian Dom/mes" and it was managed by dear friend DD or as we knew him then "darkshadows_of_hell" . The group on yahoo was called BombayMumbaiBDSMClub and it was moderated actively by a lovely lady and a dear friend, Karen or as we knew her then "slutkn". Honestly, that was the first time i felt at home as i felt a spirit of belonging, being within a community who understood my choices and loved/respected me for it. Here in this community I made many friends, found play partners, had a lot of fun, equal amount of drama,comedy, tragedies while it was active - until year 2005 when almighty yahoo decided to shut down adult groups in India and Bombaymumaibdsmclub was deleted/removed one fine day without any notice.
While that group was active, there happened a lot of real time meets or Munches as we call it. It was open to all though most of the members were in Mumbai so it was sadly the only place they had meetings in beginning. After similar groups started in Kolkata and Gujarat and there were a few munches that happened in those respective parts. In Bombaymumbaibdsmclub there were quite a few tragedies that happened too. I was personally harassed by an anonymous member who posted my real photo/contact details on an open board , with inappropriate accusations. Also, as far as a I remember, once a reporter/journalist ended up in an open munch as well!! Some ego clash between members made a divide and a small group of people left the BMBC to start another group called India-Alternative. Even though all those problems took place, as a community, we stood by together, and overcame most hurdles.
After yahoo deleted BMBC, for a few years there were feeble attempts by some members to revive the community at different places. There was a place created by Lordrac and me called "altlifeindia" where for months we tried to get the community together. but it did not pick up. and the site shutdown when lordrac decided to stop running it after he was being reported for running a illegal site and for his own safety he decided to not continue it further. By this time, there was no concrete place/idea that was around that would make an Indian community on alternative lifestyle thrive.
Beginning of RIK
Thankfully, In January 2008, John Baku started FetLife and by August many Indian members and my old friends were on it. This is when we decided to try for a community again. I started a group called "Real Indian Kinksters" in September 2008, with a vision in mind that - this group was going to be different from others in may ways. we would concentrate on sustaining as much as we would concentrate on creating a members base. We also decided to introduce a method of verification which would confirm a genuine person behind a user ID as there have been so many instances in past when people faked their genders, orientation, age etc while conversing in a community. the attempt was to make this place closer to reality and far from fantasies of people's mind - where behind the veil of anonymity, so many attempted stalking/harassing/abuse etc. This is where the word "real" came in to the group title.
RIK Intro , Request to Moderator, Reality Check , Adding Mods These were the first & few posts on the RIK group where we discussed the term "Validation" and methods of achieving it. There were very few people in the group then so those people were the first to decide the validation system democratically. Validation then meant a verification that there was a real face behind and id and it matched his/her profile details. [ we did not call it verification cause we were not planning to ask people for their ration card, voters ID or any other docs ] This way validation meant we would at least avoid cases like a 40 yr old male pretending to be 21 yr old female and getting a location for the munch and crashing it. By validation we wanted to make sure at least there was one person in the group who had met the new member before the new member gets an invite. Initially we discussed a system of one person referring another in a chain sequence, but then moved on to having appointed few volunteers who would do the referral. We restricted munches to only validated members thus encouraging non-validated members to be validated and interact with members more real time. A few volunteers from different part of the country took up the work as "validators" who decided to take risk in meeting new people and vouching for them before giving them invite for munch. OF you want to read more details on what validation meant then, please read this post - validation clarification this was the earlier process with discussion of pros and cons of members active then.
After the validation started happening, In December 2008 we had our first munch in Mumbai and thats how it began. slowly and steadily the number grew, along with that, a lot of controversies, loopholes and troubles started appearing in the system. The system that was good for 100 members where everyone knew everyone else , almost became a hurdle when the number went to 500. There were quite a few tragedies here as well - There came forward one case of a member complaining against a validator for misusing his credentials as validator and stalking after getting the said member's contact details. After long discussions over the group, taking every member's suggestion in mind, The said validator was removed from his validator status. [ i would have linked the thread of discussion here but the said member left FL and along with that all the thread posted by that member got deleted as well ]
After that one more trouble that came across when a member gatecrashed a munch in Mumbai. his spouse got validated and rather than waiting for this own validation, he decided to join the munch Unannounced. He was banned from the group/munches altogether but as far as we know, he continued to harass the validator over the phone etc for quite sometime. Afterwards the said validator also left RIK and FL for her personal reasons.
Changes in RIK Policies
After those episodes,and lot of discussions about it, we knew it was time to change. piece by piece we started taking the process apart and re-evaluate. Changes in RIK was started and first of all we evaluated the term validation in a democratic poll system. once we gathered results, the changes were applied.
In March 2011 we stopped validation altogether to discuss and a bring a thorough change in validation system - statistically, this is probably one of most discussed thread on RIK as of now. After the discussion we did another poll for changes in validation process and applied those changes in the new validation system that we called - validation 2.0 in this system, rather giving a power of validation to one "validator" which created a lot of issues, we divided the responsibility to all the validated members who wish to be a part of administration. In this system, every new member gets in the validated circle by getting 5 positive votes on his interaction with people online/offline of RIK. This system was put in place in June 2011 and we decided to wait till December 2011 before we start another democratic process to evaluate/fine tune/change it.
In a nutshell
In last three years , we have had 62 munches and 2 workshops and a Meeting in Goa . It must mean we are doing something right. Validation, even with its flows, has worked well within our community. We do not say that validation is a foolproof method or serious safety measure but it sure helps out in initial vetting process.
Like every community, this one has the fair share of ups and downs and turn arounds. Probably more than the fair share. But as of now, our goal is still the same. RIK is and will be - A social networking and support group for People in India or of Indian origin in kink community; promoting a safe space for sharing ideas and knowledge
Before RIK
Let me begin with the history of BDSM communities in India. I would go as far as I've been around and as per my knowledge. Since the time i figured i love tying up my boyfriend, i knew i was kinky and i was different from so called 'normal' people. It started with searching for porn on INTERNET and lead to a quest for more knowledge and like minded people who were looking for the same thing as i was looking for - a place where i can socialize. As most people I began my search at US chat-rooms on BDSM on IRC/Yahoo in Year 2000. This is where i met a few people from India and was directed to a chat-room & a group dedicated to Indian people in BDSM. The chat-room was called "Sub/Slaves for Indian Dom/mes" and it was managed by dear friend DD or as we knew him then "darkshadows_of_hell" . The group on yahoo was called BombayMumbaiBDSMClub and it was moderated actively by a lovely lady and a dear friend, Karen or as we knew her then "slutkn". Honestly, that was the first time i felt at home as i felt a spirit of belonging, being within a community who understood my choices and loved/respected me for it. Here in this community I made many friends, found play partners, had a lot of fun, equal amount of drama,comedy, tragedies while it was active - until year 2005 when almighty yahoo decided to shut down adult groups in India and Bombaymumaibdsmclub was deleted/removed one fine day without any notice.
While that group was active, there happened a lot of real time meets or Munches as we call it. It was open to all though most of the members were in Mumbai so it was sadly the only place they had meetings in beginning. After similar groups started in Kolkata and Gujarat and there were a few munches that happened in those respective parts. In Bombaymumbaibdsmclub there were quite a few tragedies that happened too. I was personally harassed by an anonymous member who posted my real photo/contact details on an open board , with inappropriate accusations. Also, as far as a I remember, once a reporter/journalist ended up in an open munch as well!! Some ego clash between members made a divide and a small group of people left the BMBC to start another group called India-Alternative. Even though all those problems took place, as a community, we stood by together, and overcame most hurdles.
After yahoo deleted BMBC, for a few years there were feeble attempts by some members to revive the community at different places. There was a place created by Lordrac and me called "altlifeindia" where for months we tried to get the community together. but it did not pick up. and the site shutdown when lordrac decided to stop running it after he was being reported for running a illegal site and for his own safety he decided to not continue it further. By this time, there was no concrete place/idea that was around that would make an Indian community on alternative lifestyle thrive.
Beginning of RIK
Thankfully, In January 2008, John Baku started FetLife and by August many Indian members and my old friends were on it. This is when we decided to try for a community again. I started a group called "Real Indian Kinksters" in September 2008, with a vision in mind that - this group was going to be different from others in may ways. we would concentrate on sustaining as much as we would concentrate on creating a members base. We also decided to introduce a method of verification which would confirm a genuine person behind a user ID as there have been so many instances in past when people faked their genders, orientation, age etc while conversing in a community. the attempt was to make this place closer to reality and far from fantasies of people's mind - where behind the veil of anonymity, so many attempted stalking/harassing/abuse etc. This is where the word "real" came in to the group title.
RIK Intro , Request to Moderator, Reality Check , Adding Mods These were the first & few posts on the RIK group where we discussed the term "Validation" and methods of achieving it. There were very few people in the group then so those people were the first to decide the validation system democratically. Validation then meant a verification that there was a real face behind and id and it matched his/her profile details. [ we did not call it verification cause we were not planning to ask people for their ration card, voters ID or any other docs ] This way validation meant we would at least avoid cases like a 40 yr old male pretending to be 21 yr old female and getting a location for the munch and crashing it. By validation we wanted to make sure at least there was one person in the group who had met the new member before the new member gets an invite. Initially we discussed a system of one person referring another in a chain sequence, but then moved on to having appointed few volunteers who would do the referral. We restricted munches to only validated members thus encouraging non-validated members to be validated and interact with members more real time. A few volunteers from different part of the country took up the work as "validators" who decided to take risk in meeting new people and vouching for them before giving them invite for munch. OF you want to read more details on what validation meant then, please read this post - validation clarification this was the earlier process with discussion of pros and cons of members active then.
After the validation started happening, In December 2008 we had our first munch in Mumbai and thats how it began. slowly and steadily the number grew, along with that, a lot of controversies, loopholes and troubles started appearing in the system. The system that was good for 100 members where everyone knew everyone else , almost became a hurdle when the number went to 500. There were quite a few tragedies here as well - There came forward one case of a member complaining against a validator for misusing his credentials as validator and stalking after getting the said member's contact details. After long discussions over the group, taking every member's suggestion in mind, The said validator was removed from his validator status. [ i would have linked the thread of discussion here but the said member left FL and along with that all the thread posted by that member got deleted as well ]
After that one more trouble that came across when a member gatecrashed a munch in Mumbai. his spouse got validated and rather than waiting for this own validation, he decided to join the munch Unannounced. He was banned from the group/munches altogether but as far as we know, he continued to harass the validator over the phone etc for quite sometime. Afterwards the said validator also left RIK and FL for her personal reasons.
Changes in RIK Policies
After those episodes,and lot of discussions about it, we knew it was time to change. piece by piece we started taking the process apart and re-evaluate. Changes in RIK was started and first of all we evaluated the term validation in a democratic poll system. once we gathered results, the changes were applied.
In March 2011 we stopped validation altogether to discuss and a bring a thorough change in validation system - statistically, this is probably one of most discussed thread on RIK as of now. After the discussion we did another poll for changes in validation process and applied those changes in the new validation system that we called - validation 2.0 in this system, rather giving a power of validation to one "validator" which created a lot of issues, we divided the responsibility to all the validated members who wish to be a part of administration. In this system, every new member gets in the validated circle by getting 5 positive votes on his interaction with people online/offline of RIK. This system was put in place in June 2011 and we decided to wait till December 2011 before we start another democratic process to evaluate/fine tune/change it.
In a nutshell
In last three years , we have had 62 munches and 2 workshops and a Meeting in Goa . It must mean we are doing something right. Validation, even with its flows, has worked well within our community. We do not say that validation is a foolproof method or serious safety measure but it sure helps out in initial vetting process.
Like every community, this one has the fair share of ups and downs and turn arounds. Probably more than the fair share. But as of now, our goal is still the same. RIK is and will be - A social networking and support group for People in India or of Indian origin in kink community; promoting a safe space for sharing ideas and knowledge
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