Dear Nigel and other active BLUFmembers,

First of all thanks for the effort of taking over, creating new ideas, put them 'on paper' and sharing them with us. Some ideas are really fine: the instant messageing, the weekly updates, the clean up and the party info, the forum integration.
On the self-issuing of pics I have my doubts indeed: the strength of BLUF is the strict dresscode. By letting that go (or making it easier) it has been so often the beginning of the end as we could see in e.g. Amsterdam at the leatherbars like Argos: they let the dresscode go and nowadays you often see nobody in leather anymore on a saturday night. Can you believe it?!
There are many other possibilities for BLUF members to post pics of them in other than BLUF gear such as gayromeo of recon. They can make a link to those sites in their BLUFprofiles. That will probably also limit the number of pics added to ones profile.
Hope this will do for the moment.
Greetings,
Leathervictim BLUF #49

Even if we do let people add photos themselves, they won't go straight on to the profiles - they will simply be available for the admins to approve or reject - so you won't be able to add a picture of yourself naked, or in a dress (skinheads in lingerie - what's that all about, eh?) or something else like that.

If you do, then they still won't appear.

But, although it won't be instant, it will still be a lot simpler for members (and for admins), I think.

@ Leathervictim #49:

I don't want to lecture you but I don't like it when people voice negativity on anything in Amsterdam while not knowing all details. So here are some things which you might want to take into account.

This 'beginning of the end' is not a consequence of the abandonnement of the dressscode solely, but also a consequence of:
- the emergence of the clone-style in the 1970s and the way leather became a fabric for gay men to express their 'regular masculinity' rather than 'leather fetish/leather masculinity'.
- the diversification in the leatherscene from the 1990s and onwards - much influenced by the emergence of the world wide web
- the fact that our politicians aren't fond of the 'exclusivity' in our leather bars (an argument they used in the discussion about the Stable Master Jack Off Parties which eventually led to the closure of that hotel & its bar a couple of years ago)

And as I found out while talking to several bartenders in Chicago earlier this year, its the same with dresscodes overthere than it is in Amsterdam.

I think opening a leatherbar with a strict leather dresscode these days is very riskful in terms of being able to run a succesful business.

I also doubt that the Argos ever really applied a strict dresscode rule. As I was told once the statement plaque 'strict dresscode' is used to scare off unwanted visitors like the many tourists passing by. I also never found any pictures of the Argos where everyone is in leather. (For a picture of the first Argos bar in 1968 see http://www.lthr.nl/?p=2392 )

Luckily BLUF is there to fill the void and our need to be in a 100% leather environment!