First of all, I would like to thank all of you for your kind and supportive words. Even under this frequent barrage of attacks and complaints, I can reassure readers that I have no intent of shutting down the site. However, given Pigtails’ organic growth and the nature of the publicly-accessible internet, we need to step back and do some long-needed overhauls. We are also going to engage in some recruitment to get help running the site. (details to appear in the next ‘Maiden Voyages’)

Visceral Impact: One of our chief goals is to educate the general public about the legitimacy of the nude form, including those of children. The trouble is that no matter how rationally we attempt to proceed, one cannot overcome the visceral impact of seeing a nude child when one has been conditioned to be shocked by such images. This is a very primal response and no good is served by shoving such images down the throats of the unwilling public. Therefore, we are taking steps to protect those sensitive types from their own rabid response. Please understand that we are not conforming to some societal standard (just our own). We still maintain the ethical high ground and will not be restricting access to anyone who wants it, despite any misguided notions that some presumed class of innocents require protection. However, any person publicly viewing this site should be advised that we at Pigtails in Paint do not depict any kind of lascivious display of children nor any overtly sexual behavior by individuals, groups of children or between children and adults.

Internet Security: No man or woman is an island and neither is any website or online account. Because of the complexity of the World Wide Web, every site depends on the cooperation of many others to function smoothly and offer full access. It is impossible to just carry on obstinately and not have some kind of interference by a service provider, site host, data center, domain registrar, nation or other legal authority. It is clear that middle managers  who receive complaints and are tasked to judge the legitimacy of public content are not expert enough to make sober decisions in the face of public pressure. The imperative of corporate capitalism compounds this problem even further. Therefore, we are taking steps to be less publicly visible so that important content can continue to be preserved and accessible to those who want to see it.

Image Scrutiny: So far, we have gone through and made most posts private which can now only be seen by registered users. I am currently going through one post at a time and making them public again. For those posts that have controversial and triggering images, we are establishing a system that will make certain images private while making the post as a whole public allowing in-site and internet searches to work. The use of AI (artificial intelligence) algorithms has also forced us to use a special application that protects images from being scanned by external automated searches. We have had trouble in this regard from the Canadian Centre for Child Protection and there will doubtless be others as the use of AI becomes ubiquitous.

Judging which images are “safe” will have to be somewhat subjective, of course, but I can share some guidelines to give you an idea. The following categories of images will be classified as private: 1) Practically all complete photographic nudes of children, 2) Partial nudes if they could be considered slightly erotic or have an attitude of intimate vulnerability (Taking this precaution will also tend to protect models from the stigma of public ridicule), and 3) Images in any medium that depict children in the context of an overt sexual metaphor or otherwise disturbingly transgressional.

Registered Users: There is no restriction to be a registered user (except those who are suspected of being trolls). Simply go to the ‘Contact Page’ and send me a message from the email you would like to be registered under. You will be sent a password and login instructions. Please understand that those instructions are confidential and should not be shared with anyone. If we have to alter the login procedure because of security leaks, it will inconvenience other users who would have to be informed and learn a new procedure. I have received a few requests already and starting today, will be going through and creating those user accounts.

Navigation: Until all posts are made public again, navigation will be difficult for all users because posts that are still private cannot be searched. I have made all ‘Maiden Voyages’ posts public so that readers can go to the “Month” index found on the right side and go to a particular time period. It will be necessary to click on the post title that appears so that the “next” and “previous” links (in green) will appear on the right side just under the banner. From there you can navigate forward or backward one post at a time. It is my intent that this process of updating the posts will be complete during the summer and will function normally after that point.

Special Bonuses: Many have suggested in the past that Pigtails offer special bonuses for premium users (and that could be a source of some revenue). I still resist that idea because it will create the assumption that we are hiding salacious materials because of our challenging subject matter. However, a few pages will be available to only registered users because they contain images that some might find shocking. A menu item will be created that will index those private pages so those who are registered will know what is available. However, all posts will eventually made public.

Agapeta: Fans of the Agapeta blog may already know that for some reason, the codes to that registered domain have still not been released. As a result, Agapeta is now operating with the domain agapeta.fr. It is still not clear why the codes for Pigtails were released but not those of Agapeta and Ovenden which most would agree are less controversial sites.