what ever happened to the gaylifeinthailand board ?

[Nirish guy]

So, whilst clearing out some old saved bookmarks earlier I came across a link which I must have saved at one point for what is the now totally defunct gaylifeinthailand.com board - and it just reminded me of that whole saga and it made me think back and wonder what WAS all that about ?! Was as it was claimed at the time simply it a genuine attempt by someone new to create a new board and nothing more than that, or was it perhaps one of the old hands from one of the existing boards having a go at establishing their own board, or was it as many suspected at the time good old Neal Bernard just stirring the shit and thus doing what he tended to do best perhaps ??

From what I recall at the time when the board appeared there were many detailed and point blank denials from Neal that he was involved or had anything to do with the board but if I recall correctly he then changed his story and suggested that well he "might" have been involved at the start or perhaps owned the domain name or something ( as we all know how much he liked to buy up and try to control board via their domain names :-) but that he'd then he sold the name / board on to some other guys who had then let him down and were he believed ending up using that domain for something totally different ( porn perhaps he thought) and he said thought they were "stupid" / crazy and that wanted nothing more to with them after that and told them how disappointed he was in them not carrying the project through etc ( or am I getting that confused with his other board - there were so many !? :-)).

But I see on clicking on the boards URL that the site is in fact still there, albeit unused since November 2013 or so it seems, but it certainly hasn't used for porn etc as Neal had suggested ? ( again if I'm remembering things correctly ?).

So, purely out of nosiness and as I believe enough time has passed now that it doesn't matter to anyone I was just wondering did anyone EVER actually get to the bottom of what that whole thing was about or was that indeed just yet another one of Neals attempts a derailing things in general like his other bullshit failed "gentleman board" and the various bitch board ownerships etc that he'd lied about owning for so long etc so much about until he was rumbled or like I say WAS it just a genuine attempt by someone at starting another board perhaps ??

[Surfcrest]

Oddly enough, despite over a year without a single post the site is still there.

http://gaylifeinthailand.com/

I don't think it had anything to do with Neal Bernard, but the timing to launch such a board was far less than ideal.

On a slightly different note, I can tell you though that sclivejames was a fabrication of Neal's. The email address that this user was registered too was the Board's own email address (Long since inactive).
I recently discovered this while screening through the inactive memberships while fighting this recent "Spam" attack :AR!

http://sawatdeenetwork.com/forum/the-board-the-psychos-t28103.html#p268273

http://sawatdeenetwork.com/forum/post270002.html?hilit=sclivejames#p270002

Surfcrest

[Nirish guy]

:-) I'm glad you were the first to reply here Surfcrest as I was hoping you wouldn't take offence at the question even being asked on your board :-)

i know quite a lot of existing board members registered with that board but I'm guessing everyone was sitting back to see either who or what was really behind it ( if anything ) - and as you say if ( and assuming) it was just a genuine attempt by someone at opening another board yes as you say it was very unfortunate / unwise timing for them perhaps based on all the shite that was flying back then and to be fair to whoever was behind it they seem to have spent quite a bit of time putting it all together too :-(

See, just like comedy it appears that when it comes to gay thailand boards timing also is everything there too it seems !

[Surfcrest]

:-) I'm glad you were the first to reply here Surfcrest as I was hoping you wouldn't take offence at the question even being asked on your board :-)

Actually, as I've said before I consider this "our" Board...not "my" Board. I'm just the custodian without a lot of custodial duties to look after other than a little routine maintenance and the odd battle with Spam in the background. So certainly no offence taken...of course. :) and I've always treasured your opinion.

Surfcrest

[fountainhall]

That Board never took off. It had nothing whatever to differentiate it from the other gay Boards. It didn't even have many posters as evidenced by this forlorn plea from an anonymous member -


Posting is the lifeblood of any site like this one. Please post some items of interest to keep this place alive. I believe that the owners/originators have given us a great place to hang out but it is up to us to get ourselves and others posting interesting things.

A great place to hang out! Hmmmm!

[Rogie]

Looks like a couple of useful features:

http://gaylifeinthailand.com/currency.php

http://gaylifeinthailand.com/weather.php

[Smiles]

There is a newly-posted thread on that board now, responding to this thread: http://gaylifeinthailand.com/viewtopic.php?t=214
An eerie note from a coffin buried in a shallow grave.

All I remember about that board is that it was so heavily moderated that a single word possessing even a scintilla of an edge to it was immediately stifled. The Admin of GaylifeinThailand really didn't have a clue.
That board has not seen a member log in for going on one year now and the owner is still stating that " ... This board will become part of a much larger project I am still working on and hope to launch second half this year ... ". Well, I think he wrote something like that a year ago.
Not sure about anyone else, but I'm on absolute tenterhooks, waiting.

[catawampuscat]

Maybe it should have been called gaydeathinthailand. :ymdevil:
Neal pushed it as part of his quest to kill this forum but he failed.
What a nightmare the man was right till the end

[catawampuscat]

Just read the attack on smiles and surfcrest on gaylifeinthailand forum. I didn't
know smiles was the ring leader of a cabal here and that only after we all croak
will the young generation run things on the gaythailand forums. Thomas a clearly
delustional failure, even with much pumping by the deceased former owner here.

[Smiles]

Yes, he does seem to have a few issues. And a 'cabal' fetish to boot.
And the nerve you say: calling all the members of Sawatdee 'common'. Last time I checked only Kommentariat could be classed as 'common'. All the rest are certifiably Hi-So.

[Gaybutton]

Just read the attack on smiles and surfcrest on gaylifeinthailand forum.
I just read it too. Part of his post says:


If I would choose a board to join, maybe GayThailand or Gay Button
Since he did not leave the topic open for replies, I hope nobody minds if I reply here.

When 'Gay Life in Thailand' first came online, I was the first person to become a member and the first person who ever posted on that board. I congratulated him on his new board and wished him luck with it. I also wrote a supportive post on my own board.

Now that I've read the attack, which was an utterly stupid thing for him to do, my response is please don't do me any favors by joining my board. I neither want nor need board owners who use their board to attack others and along with the attack leave no way for anyone to respond.

The post included "The internet is for the YOUNG people like me". I didn't know that until now. I didn't know that reaching old age disqualifies people from using the internet. Now that I do know, I guess I'll have to contact my ISP and cancel out my ability to access the internet due to my age. I'll have to ask them to amend their sign-on policy so that it includes an age test. I don't know at precisely what age 'too old' begins. I'll have to leave it to the ISPs to come to a consensus on that.

The post also included "I could not resist after a friend informed me again about Sawatdee reply today." He should have resisted.

Any support I offered is now withdrawn. Attacking people because of their age and posting baseless accusations against Smiles or anyone else, in my opinion does absolutely nothing to make a board worthy of attracting members. As far as I'm concerned, it makes the person who submitted that attack post worthy only of our contempt.

[a447]

maybe I was wrong to open this new board, for young new people of my generation

Yes, obviously you were. The board failed to attract any those young guys for whom the Internet was made (lol) and it died.

Get over it and move on to something more productive!

[francois]

The owner of gaylifeinthailand is a dreamer and not a doer; he blames his failure on others and not himself but he, at least, tried.

[catawampuscat]

Being an ageist shows rank stupidity. He desired to fail and no doubt will cry over
the old men who destroyed his forum that never was..
Maybe he can merge with Gaytingtong and make a go of it. 555

[francois]

Gaytingtong, another forum which is on life-support by just one poster.

[goji]

Three active boards works just fine. There is not much to be gained by knocking the weak ones, even if in some cases that's exactly what they deserve from their comments or policies.

[scottish-guy]

It's fair to draw conclusions about the business sense of the gaylifeinthailand owner from the fact that he apparently allowed Mr Bernard to be involved in the project (to what extent, we shall probably never know).

In the circumstances and at the time, it's difficult to think of how he could have found a bigger kiss-of-death had he tried.

Now, since Surfy seems to be in revealing mode - for old time's sake can we also have the alternate identities of Timmberty and Uncle Albert please - I'm sure they stand by every word they posted and would have no issue being outed :))

If there's any doubt about that, I suspect at least one of them could be sent a PM. :ymparty:

[Surfcrest]

Now, since Surfy seems to be in revealing mode - for old time's sake can we also have the alternate identities of Timmberty and Uncle Albert please - I'm sure they stand by every word they posted and would have no issue being outed :))

First off, if the Board did gather information from members that allowed me to reveal anything about their true identity I would be bound to keep that information secure. I hold that ethic quite high and so I was very disappointed when the bitchboard published Timmberty's real name and a photo from facebook...I believe that is where Neal said he got it. Fortunately, that post went into deep outer space with all the other identities and lies when Neal pulled the plug and then later died.

Timmberty is banned from Sawatdee and I am not aware of him being here in any form after he was banned. I recall he was here as another name (Neal had banned him previously) as bnaibrit or something.

I have no way of knowing who Uncle Albert is....was. He was never a member here under that handle. He was smart enough never to mix the two boards up and so was never revealed during all of that. He was the most clever of the bunch in that respect.

Surfcrest

[Gaybutton]

Apparently 'Gay Life in Thailand' has now been entirely removed from the Internet.

[scottish-guy]

Surfcrest, as I (think) I said - I'm not in the least interested in who Timmberty or Uncle Albert actually are, what I was asking (a little tongue-in-cheek) was what they called themselves on here whilst slagging us off elsewhere. Clearly you don't know, which is fair enough.

I think the timmberty ID you are struggling for was something like Britthai (combo of Brit and Thai) - I still have lots of screenshots I found necessary to take at the time.

#:-s

[Surfcrest]

Surfcrest, as I (think) I said - I'm not in the least interested in who Timmberty or Uncle Albert actually are, what I was asking (a little tongue-in-cheek) was what they called themselves on here whilst slagging us off elsewhere. Clearly you don't know, which is fair enough.

Sorry Scotty, I think I've been in a parallel universe lately or something.

It sounds as though this "Thomas" is reading Sawatdee, for whatever reason...whether that is somewhat related to this next business venture he's going to launch sometime this year? I'm not sure, perhaps we touched a nerve or something over there. I received two emails from them, which seem to indicate someone else is speaking on behalf of whatever was, gaylifeinthailand.com.

One thing they either never knew or were too stupid to piece together was that we had only been duped twice by Neal for two other new web sites that same year; cruisinggaythailand.com (that somehow ended up as Lonely Wombat's site (let's hope he didn't actually pay anything for it); and of course the pink Pattayabitchboard...which later became the pink Thailandbitchboard. When gaylifeinthailand.com entered the scene, Thomas introduced himself as this secretive guy who we didn't need to know about, someone with too much time on his hands... The whole story was suspicious in a very suspicious time.

I imagine if new (young) perspective members came by and saw his flashy site, they might join and start something up. Unfortunately, that didn't happen, because you need the guys that have had the experience to create the resource newbies come to read. Gaylifeinthailand needed to win people's trust over and they stuck to being secretive, in an environment dominated by Neal (at the time) and they simply couldn't survive like that.

Could it work again somehow? Well after this P.R. blunder, I wouldn't think so.

Surfcrest

[fountainhall]

Clearly we'll have to wait and see what is going to be on this much bigger (in terms of content) Board that will be aimed at "YOUNG people like me". One question, though, that surely has to be asked is: "Is there actually a market for any Board - gay or even just partly gay - specifically aimed at younger people who presently don't post on the existing Boards, the more so if it is to be in English? Various Boards at various times have tried to inject new younger blood into the posting pool and by and large with few notable exceptions - christianpfc take a bow - it hasn't worked.

When you look at other countries, Singapore has a very active gay chat Board in English with a membership that is almost exclusively in the 18 - 40 age group. It is far more wide ranging with vastly more daily posts than any of the main Thai English Boards. But that is to be expected as English is an official language in Singapore. I am sure there are plenty of Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese sites in those countries in their native languages with younger members. I reckon also there must also be plenty of sites in Thai with loads of young contributors.

But that leads to another question: in the longer term can anyone succeed with any Board that is exclusively in English? Over the years I've posted on the three main ones and have rarely seen more than a core group of regulars. Are english-based internet chat Boards almost bound to fail here in this age of social networking and dating sites?

[christianpfc]

But that leads to another question: in the longer term can anyone succeed with any Board that is exclusively in English?
Absolutely! There are three active forums and two active blogs at the moment. English language is mother tongue of USA, most of Canada, UK and Ireland. While there are more Chinese speakers, native speakers of English have larger spending power. And educated people from all over the world can participate.

As a contrast, there is only one German language forum about gay Thailand that I know of: http://www.gay-reiseforum.de/forum/inde ... 9c5a48cd08 (http://www.gay-reiseforum.de/forum/index.php/Board/38-Thailand/?s=bbe9704ec028a973e7bfe1f12bb2599c5a48cd08) (the forum covers the whole world with a Thailand sub-forum with several posts per month (!)). I don't know of gay Thailand forums in other languages.

[Gaybutton]

I don't know of gay Thailand forums in other languages.
Are there any in Thai?

[Surfcrest]

I don't know of gay Thailand forums in other languages.
Are there any in Thai?
I believe there are two in Thai.

http://74.55.90.235/cgi-bin/CCforum/board.cgi

http://zaa.xq28.org/viewforum.php?f=3&sid=499326bd14c203fcfce41fbe0c7c02c2

Surfcrest

[dab69]

Not Found

The requested URL / was not found on this server.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

http://gaylifeinthailand.com/

[Nirish guy]

Oh well at least his / their Facebook page is still up ( albeit not updated since December 2103) just in case any "young" people might feel the urge to message him to show their support for his up and coming "big project".

However as I'm now 46 that's me obviously well out of the running for becoming a member now anyway as it seems seeing that I (and most others here and on all the boards I suspect) have been sumarily judged as being too old and useless to be able to have anything of interest or use to contribute about holidays, gay or otherwise and or living in Thailand, even though it's exactly that actual experience that is usually sought out on boards by others.

Wow, talk about shooting yourself in the foot and cutting yourself from off half of your prospective member base before you'd hardly even launched your ( failed) all new singing and all dancing web site ! On no wait, sorry I forget it wasn't his fault it didn't work out, it was all Smiles and Surf's fault - tut tut, see, theres that bloody gay mafia at work again, naughty boys the pair of you ! :-)

Oh well, hey ho, I'm sure I'll get over the massive disappointment of not being able to participate in his young persons experiment. :-)

http://www.facebook.com/GayLifeInThailand

[Smiles]

Nirish above refers ~ tongue in cheek ~ to the concept of a "Gay Mafia" conspiracy regarding the administration of Sawatdee, and the owner of 'GaylifeinThailand' uses the word 'cabal' to describe some kind of Inner Circle ... i.e. yet another conspiracy theory. So stupidly paranoid. So completely wrong.

So Herein a Short History of Sawatdee (the dates are partnered with the word 'around' because I simply forget the precise dates, so the best I can do is in yearly terms):

(1) 2002 ~ 2005 The message board known as 'Sawatdee' was started by myself 'around' late 2002, early 2003. It was named ~ all through my ownership ~ as Sawatdee Forum and began life as a 'Tree-style' Message board. That lasted a short time until I found a much better system called EZBoard, a visual style which lives on to this day. At the time Gaybutton had his board, as did PattayaGay. THe PattayaGay board was an excellent one, but by the beginning of 2003 Gay Pattaya had pretty-well had it and decided to shut it down. The news that that would happen soon was the main trigger which prodded me to start up a full-bore message board named Sawatdee Forum.
From 'around' late 2002 until 'around' late 2005 I was the sole owner and moderator, and stayed that way until I passed it over to Elephantspike 'around' late 2005.

(2) 2006 ~ 2012 Elephantspike took over the board (it was given to him, not sold.)
At that time Sawatdee Forum was very much like Gaybutton and PattayaGay ... none of which had any advertising. Elephantspike saw some potential in the board (it had greatly expanded it's membership since 2002) and went the 'add-route'. Sawatdee continued to get busier.
I continued on Sawatdee (now name-changed to Sawatdee Gay Thailand) for about a year as a Moderator (along with jinks) and helped Elephantspike with the technicalities of the old EZBoard. Some time later ElephantSpike ('Robert') changed message board hosts to the phpBBB system, and it remains that to this day. After I left as moderator, jinks stayed on ... and in fact did so almost until his death in 2014.
2006 was also the Year of Hedda (a nasty piece of work) and the Board Wars ... which I believe accounts for some of the 'conspiracy theories' which are still levelled at Gay Thailand message boards every so often: (see above introduction).

(3) 2012 ~ 2013 The lowest point in Sawatdee's history: Robert sold (?) the board to Neal. In hindsight, an almost disastrous accomplishment.
Jinks stayed on as moderator for as long as he could stomach it, and I believe that Scottish-Guy helped out with moderation as well ... but he also finished with Neal after putting up with much histrionics, back stabbing, and lying on the part of the new owner.
I quit Sawatdee completely for about 2 years vowing never to enter the cesspool Neal made of the board until he had (hopefully) passed Sawatdee onto someone else. So no more about that ghastly Interregnum.

(4) Early 2014 ~ to present Neal sells Sawatdee to Surfcrest and he begins a badly-needed renovation. Jinks returned as a moderator and I believe Surfcrest also had some tech support from a friend of his (of who's name I know not).
Sawatdee came though well enough, and continues on as the board which has been around continuously for the longest time of any of the boards. (Gaybutton has been around the longest as continuous owner, but his first board went into a long hiatus, then changed names, and now flourishes.)


So ~ and this is particularly aimed square at the owner of GaylifeinThailand ~ the 'cabals' and the 'conspiracies' regarding Sawatdee never happened. They are myths only, beloved of those who are gullible, paranoid and stupid enough to believe them.
From 2002 to the present Sawatdee has had 4 owner/Admins ... 1 long-term moderator ... and 2 short-term moderators.
Ah yes, what a nefarious cabal they make.

[Surfcrest]

(3) 2012 ~ 2013 The lowest point in Sawatdee's history: Robert sold (?) the board to Neal. In hindsight, an almost disastrous accomplishment.
Jinks stayed on as moderator for as long as he could stomach it, and I believe that Scottish-Guy helped out with moderation as well ... but he also finished with Neal after putting up with much histrionics, back stabbing, and lying on the part of the new owner.
I quit Sawatdee completely for about 2 years vowing never to enter the cesspool Neal made of the board until he had (hopefully) passed Sawatdee onto someone else. So no more about that ghastly Interregnum.

(4) Early 2014 ~ to present Neal sells Sawatdee to Surfcrest and he begins a badly-needed renovation. Jinks returned as a moderator and I believe Surfcrest also had some tech support from a friend of his (of who's name I know not).
Sawatdee came though well enough, and continues on as the board which has been around continuously for the longest time of any of the boards. (Gaybutton has been around the longest as continuous owner, but his first board went into a long hiatus, then changed names, and now flourishes.)


Thank you very much for remembering the history Smiles;

Just a small correction on the dates...

(3) May 2011 ~ 2013 May 2011 Elephantspike announces he's "Moving On". My understanding is that Elephantspike was in discussion with another member about buying Sawatdee, but for some reason the deal fell through. This opened up a bidding war between (Probably the best owner we never had) and the worse owner we actually did have. Neal tries to change the name from Sawatdee-Gay-Thailand to Sawatdee Gay Forum.

(4) May 2013 ~ to present Neal and I met down on the beach in March 2013 to discuss the terms for me to buy Sawatdee from him. On May 1st 2013 The deal to buy Sawatdee was complete. 5 days later I brought jinks back as our moderator and soon after that, Neal was gone. I changed the url from Sawatdee-Gay-Thailand to Sawatdee Network to get around the True ban in Thailand. Elephantspike technically is our engineer or tech, but he's taken a break from Sawatdee for about a year now. Prior to Elephantspike, "the best owner we never had" assisted jinks and I with the initial clean up and updates. He asked that his role remain anonymous and you might recall him as being Dante.

Surfcrest

[fountainhall]

At the time (around 2003) Gaybutton had his board . . .
This is merely out of curiosity. GB started his present board in mid 2010 after the owner Michael announced he was closing the gaythailand board. A couple of months or so later, he then announced it had been sold to someone who goes by the name of Scooby whom no-one seems to know or has ever seen. In the interim, quite a number of previous posters left gaythailand to join the new GB board and many of the regular posters never returned. I believe the gaythailand board started around 2004. Did GB have another board before then?

[fountainhall]

Are there any in Thai?
Here are more (at least I believe they also include chat rooms - maybe someone with better Thai skills can confirm).

http://www.baantomdy.com/
http://www.dekchai.com/
http://forum.gterday.com/categories/rainbow
http://zaa.xq28.org/viewforum.php?f=3 This site also has an international Board in English -
http://zaa.xq28.org/viewforum.php?f=6

[Smiles]

Did GB have another board before then?
Yes he did. Can't remembe quite when, but his first board pre-dated Sawatdee ... I believe it started up around the turn of the century :ymapplause: That was the board which ran into a lot of trouble and criticism regarding his 'attached' Meet-a-Thai-Guy service. Could easily be around 1998 or 99. When it closed there was an hiatus of a few years before he started another message board. Then Gaybutton board was for awhile plagued by technicalities and periodic shutdowns. The board he owns (also phpBB) now seems to be quite stable.
Although Gaybutton and myself differ to a rather large degree regarding message board moderation (I'm a leftist, he's a reactionary ;;) ) you gotta give him credit for general stick-to-it-ism ... he has stayed the course for longer than anyone. Owning and moderating a message board is, more often than not, a frustrating endeavour.

As the years go by I rather lose track of the dates in my old brain. I apologize for this and defer to younger noodles for the temporal details ... as Surfrest has done a few posts back.

Heavens Smiles you make it all sound rather like the meetings of the local branch of the Mothers' Union - at least the way my mother tells it.

[catawampuscat]

2006 was also the Year of Hedda (a nasty piece of work) and the Board Wars ... which I believe accounts for some of the 'conspiracy theories' which are still levelled at Gay Thailand message boards every so often: (see above introduction).
Was is really so long ago, as 2006.
I've had my differences with many posters over the years but never despised anyone
as much as hedda. She holds the record and one should not forget baht-stop and
heddas hopper. She used the word 'dear' endlessly and was wicked. We used to have
many posters with female personas as remaints of what was 'gay' in the 1940-50s, when
drag was chic.

[catawampuscat]

(3) May 2011 ~ 2013 May 2011 Elephantspike announces he's "Moving On". My understanding is that Elephantspike was in discussion with another member about buying Sawatdee, but for some reason the deal fell through. This opened up a bidding war between (Probably the best owner we never had) and the worse owner we actually did have. Neal tries to change the name from Sawatdee-Gay-Thailand to Sawatdee Gay Forum

Surfcrest

The deal that feel thru would have been a dilly.
The member failed to come up with the agreed upon sum of money.
The same member is now incarcerated in the UK, after more than a year in a Thai
prison. The story was reprinted from the Sun newspaper in the UK and posted
on at least one of the gaythailand forums.
The member confessed to raping a boy using a hand gun. George would have been a pip.
He would have made a good mate for hedda, sort of like a Bonny and Clyde.

[Up2U]

Did GB have another board before then?
Yes he did. Can't remembe quite when, but his first board pre-dated Sawatdee ... I believe it started up around the turn of the century :ymapplause: That was the board which ran into a lot of trouble and criticism regarding his 'attached' Meet-a-Thai-Guy service. Could easily be around 1998 or 99. When it closed there was an hiatus of a few years before he started another message board. Then Gaybutton board was for awhile plagued by technicalities and periodic shutdowns. The board he owns (also phpBB) now seems to be quite stable.
Although Gaybutton and myself differ to a rather large degree regarding message board moderation (I'm a leftist, he's a reactionary ;;) ) you gotta give him credit for general stick-to-it-ism ... he has stayed the course for longer than anyone. Owning and moderating a message board is, more often than not, a frustrating endeavour.

As the years go by I rather lose track of the dates in my old brain. I apologize for this and defer to younger noodles for the temporal details ... as Surfrest has done a few posts back.
Going back to last century, my recollection was in addition to the GB site, there was Dreaded Neds and Gay Pattaya (owned by the Gay Pattayan, Alan Briggs). My recollection is also that you (Smiles) rescued the Gay Pattaya site and it eventually became SGT.

[Smiles]

" ... Going back to last century, my recollection was in addition to the GB site, there was Dreaded Neds and Gay Pattaya (owned by the Gay Pattayan, Alan Briggs). My recollection is also that you (Smiles) rescued the Gay Pattaya site and it eventually became SGT ... "
Yes, you are right about Dreaded Ned: in fact DN's tree-style crazy message board was pretty well the Grand Daddy of ALL the Thailand (gay) message boards ... started sometime in a 1996 or 1997 time frame if my memory serves me well. It was great chaotic fun but almost completely un-moderated and wonderfully chock-a-block full of trolls and perverts and flashlight weirdos. It really was a blast for a few years. Members from that board who still post occasionally on this board I still lovingly recall: PeterUK, Charles (Brad The Impala), Rick (of flashlight fame, possibly Latinproxx), and quite a few others whom I have forgotten.
It ended when Dreaded Ned was facing legal issues regarding some of the nonsense which was written there and Dreaded Ned pulled it down and started up a new 'modern style' message board. For some reason ~ again, legal I think ~ he ended up completely getting rid of the message board as part of his web site. Almost no one visits Dreaded Ned any more.
The demise of Dreaded Ned's board made room for the the Big Three boards (i.e. PattayaGay, Gaybutton, and Sawatdee) to come to the party in a big way.

I did not "rescue" PattayaGay in any way. I was always just a regular poster there, nothing else. When I started Sawatdee the PattayaGay board was still going, but it was not long after that that Alan Briggs decided to take his board down. As far as I'm aware his board was doing fine right up until he pulled the plug.
However, for all I know Sawatdee might not have been as popular or successful as it turned out to be had Alan not decided to put an end to PattayaGay.

[Up2U]

Thanks for clarifying, I thought the Gay Pattaya site was archived and adsorbed by another board but I am probably wrong about that.

[colmx]

Did GB have another board before then?
GB had a board going back to the late 90s
The original site was http://www.gaybutton.com and bsides the messageboard also has a blog like section siimilar to ChristianPFCs blog with trip reports and tips for newbies etc
YOu can still find a lot of the site on the WayBackMachine at archive.org

[Smiles]

" ...May 2013 ~ to present Neal and I met down on the beach in March 2013 to discuss the terms for me to buy Sawatdee from him. On May 1st 2013 The deal to buy Sawatdee was complete ... "
Thanks for that date correction. How times flies ... I would have sworn you've only been owner for one year, not two.

[lonelywombat]

One thing they either never knew or were too stupid to piece together was that we had only been duped twice by Neal for two other new web sites that same year; cruisinggaythailand.com (that somehow ended up as Lonely Wombat's site (let's hope he didn't actually pay anything for it); and of course the pink Pattayabitchboard...which later became the pink Thailandbitchboard.


Surfcrest


cruisinggaythailand was offered to me for nothing by Neal. I did not want it but saw it as a chance to close down one of the irritants. I had a friend that was interested in starting up an asian male nude site. It did not start.

I transferred everything out before closing

[Surfcrest]

I transferred everything out before closing
What does that actually mean? What did you transfer?

Surfcrest

[lonelywombat]

I transferred everything out before closing
What does that actually mean? What did you transfer?

Surfcrest


I deleted all posts cancelled the memberships to start with. Why the interest?

[Surfcrest]

I deleted all posts cancelled the memberships to start with. Why the interest?
Because you mentioned this before and you speak of these posts and memberships as being anything other than virtual.
For example, there is no hard copy of this forum...it is soft copy only.
Once I pull the switch it ceases to exist, no body, no blood, no remaining posts, memberships, words...nothing.
I'm certainly no expert LW, am I missing something?

Surfcrest

[lonelywombat]

I deleted all posts cancelled the memberships to start with. Why the interest?
Because you mentioned this before and you speak of these posts and memberships as being anything other than virtual.
For example, there is no hard copy of this forum...it is soft copy only.
Once I pull the switch it ceases to exist, no body, no blood, no remaining posts, memberships, words...nothing.
I'm certainly no expert LW, am I missing something?

Surfcrest

You have a great deal more info than I had ,it was all new to me and I did it to my pace and experience.
Sorry I did not think of asking you of how to do it perfectly.

[christianpfc]

This thread prompted me to complete a draft on Asian gay forums, blogs, guides and encounters:

http://christianpfc.blogspot.com/2015/0 ... nters.html (http://christianpfc.blogspot.com/2015/02/gay-forums-blogs-guides-and-encounters.html)

[christianpfc]

The forum under http://www.gaytingtong.com/ disappeared some time during the last months,
and nobody noticed.
Now there is advertising for straight encounters and I get a virus warning.

[Tobi]

Once I pull the switch it ceases to exist, no body, no blood, no remaining posts, memberships, words...nothing.
I'm certainly no expert LW, am I missing something?

Yes. http://archive.org/web/

[lonelywombat]

Yes. http://archive.org/web/

I do not know. I an not a computer whiz. Tell me what you found.

[Tobi]

I do not know. I an not a computer whiz. Tell me what you found.

Surfcrest was saying that if he pulled the plug the entire content of this site would be lost. It's not necessarily the case, as archive.org often keeps a copy. For example, gaytingtong.com is no longer active but you can still find some of the content at archive.org