External Messaging Services

[Blondeshell]

All links to external messaging services within individual profiles have been removed. The reasoning for this is that all of those services have been shut down, and this will help prevent any potential security risks that might come from leaving personal information in an abandoned visible place. This affected 181 total profiles, but 58 of those never posted on the forums and 23 were spam accounts. (Interestingly, spam accounts made up more than half of those that used ICQ.)

For reference, this is when the various services shut down and how extensively they were used:

MSN - April 30, 2013 (89 profiles)
AIM - December 15, 2017 (88 profiles)
YIM - July 17, 2018 (100 profiles)
ICQ - June 26, 2024 (32 profiles)