I am not an adopter but I first started following adoption type threads when Kew adopted her ds and I followed her blog etc. I am also now in a relationship with someone who grew up in long term foster care ssince the age of seven and who is VI as a result of the experiences which brought him there. It's interesting that I have learned about things such as attachment disorder etc from adoptions way before I knew that I might be able to identify with them iyswim (not that I sought to but that I knew about them - hope that makes some sense).
I think tbh that the fact that any sub-section of the community feels that they need a section which is essentially for them and needs to be opt-in says a lot about the ethos of mn as a whole and should be a wake-up call for mn hq to look at the ethos which their site represents.
Mn sells itself as a place of support by parents for parents (or is that the other way around?) however when the top board is the ibu one, where people are essentially encouraged to voice their incredibly robust and more often than not offensive opinions while laying into someone who to them is just a username behind a keyboard it stands to reason that those posting styles will filter across to the rest of the boards because a lot of people simply don't look where they're posting.
And because the adoptions board is a relatively low traffic board compared to the likes of aibu, even one offensive poster is going to be noticed if they come on to a particularly sensitive thread.
Mn needs to start thinking about whether it really wants to continue to have the reputation for having the rudest posters on any parenting forum online. Many people come here because they claim they like that it's straight talking, however we have IMO crossed from straight talking into the realms of generally offensive, non empathetic and unmoving.
Yes there are supportive parts on mn, however we shouldn't be at a point where posters have to opt into the supportive parts in order to feel that they do actually have support and don't need to justify their position in life.
In my opinion the aibu board should be opt-in, like the sex topic. But it also needs to be toned down.
I do absolutely see why adopters want an opt-in, but IMO we need to start making the more offensive topics less accessible in order to reiterate what mn was started for in the first place - support.