Fur Affinity forum staff abandon their posts, future of forum uncertain
Fur Affinity is suffering from another round of staff resignations. This time the damage mostly occurred in the forums after one of the art site's disgruntled moderators, Renashe, left and leaked conversations and information which revealed a tool which moderators could use to search for their names in comment sections on the website, among other items.
Following the suspension of Renashe, Kalmor, a moderator on the Fur Affinity Forum followed suit. They wrote a resignation journal which was promptly removed by staff. Afterwords Kalmor posted about the incident on the forums and linked to his twitter at which time he was permanently suspended from the forums and main site for violating the 'privacy' or Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). An agreement that most of the Forum staff never signed in the first place, according to Kalmor.
Following Kalmor's suspension three other staffers left in rapid succession, bringing the staff page down from 10 to 6. The remaining six, according to sources, are mostly not involved it the operations of moderation of the forums. It is certainly a far cry from the site leader page in April this year.
Update (Aug 28) - Fur Affinity Forums host Carenath comes forth to talk about plans for the future.
Update 2 (Aug 31) - The staff page for the Fur Affinity Forums is down from 6 to 1. Carenath replaces the six originally listed.
Update 3 (Sep 5) - A poll has been posted with new name proposals.
Update 4 (Sep 13) - Fur Affinity no longer has a forum, the newly-named Phoenix Forums are now fully independent. Links have been updated.
Update 5 (Sep 22) - IMVU has allegedly issued a cease-and-desist order against Phoenix Forums, which was taken offline for several days.
Update 6 (Sep 24) - Former host Carenath claims FA, IMVU staff pressed for database transfer, deletion on data protection grounds.
Fur Affinity v Fur Affinity Forums: Reining in a loose end
While they share a name, these two entities started off as two fiercely independent bodies at Fur Affinity's conception. Thereby, the staff running the forums were brought into the fold via different means than those that worked the main art site. This changed around 2013 as former head forum staff were let go or left for various reason. Kalmor states:
Arshes Nei was the forum admin when most of us were hired. They were removed at the end of 2013 for being too blunt (borderline insulting) to users. As a result, Dragoneer tried to reign[sic] in the forum staff. We had to answer to him and Chase now. The staff on both the main site and the forums became more unified. We talked to Neer and Chase more often and used the same staff Skype channels as the art site staff did.
After Kalmor's resignation and ban from the main art site, all of those that purely worked the forums left. While on the surface it appeared that the mass exodus of forum staff was purely in reaction to their canned comrade, there was also another reason that seemed to have surfaced. Iskar Jarak, the last of the four to resign, put up a tweet indicating that the main site administrators started to ask forum staff for identification in order to maintain their position. This was probably in reaction to Kalmor's behavior causing alarm within the administration so they wanted to get the forum staff to adhere and sign onto the same NDA clause as the main site staff, and needed proof of identity for this.
A forum's future uncertain
Without a proper staff the future of the Fur Affinity forums is now uncertain. Currently there is a sense of anarchy as users realize no one is watching over their behaviors. The ability to register new accounts on the forums have been disabled temporarily until the situation improves. One question may be on many user's mind, and that is will Fur Affinity be able to bring in their own staff to help oversee the forums, or will they eliminate the forums all together and keep the main site?
According to Kalmor there has been talks of the forum being terminated by site staff even before this incident, "Sciggles once suggest to just kill the forums all together, which quite rightly [angered] a lot of the forum staff."
However, Dragoneer has stated they have no intention of ending the forums:
@Tantroo_McNally No intentions of killing it. We'll need to change some things though.
— Dragoneer (@Dragoneer) August 19, 2015
What changes would be incorporated is uncertain.
While it is possible that Fur Affinity could acquire the forums completely, they would need to provide their own staff and bring on additional hires. However, a larger issue is that forum's back end was never signed off to IMVU and the vBulletin license may not even be owned by them. According to an ex-forum staffer, the forum is hosted by a Fur Affinity ex-systems administrator, who is independent of the current art site staff. If that is the case, this third person would be a major key holder on the future of the forums.
Should this ex-system administrator decide, a third possibility is that the Fur Affinity Forum declares independence from Fur Affinity entirely and changes names, becoming instead a general furry forum. This would require some rework so that the forums don't utilize assets currently shared with the main site. It would also require the person who owned the forum's back end to put a lot more time in rebuilding the community. If this were to happen then Fur Affinity would have to either setup their own hosting and back end for a new set of forums, or just go on without one.
However, at this time it is purely speculation to delve into the possible futures for the Fur Affinity forums. The hard but important question that arises is what has happened to the forums a sign of things to come for Fur Affinity itself? And if so, what, if anything, can be done to prevent it?
About the author
Sonious (Tantroo McNally) — read stories — contact (login required)a project coordinator and Kangaroo from CheektRoowaga, NY, interested in video games, current events, politics, writing and finance
Comments
Need to clarify that Renashe was not a forum mod, but in fact an art site moderator. Other than that, I don't see much wrong with the article. ^^
I edited the beginning a bit to try and make it a bit clearer.
I have a feeling that forums are antiquated and on the way out. I have seen good ones with no reason to be abandoned slide into disuse and spampocalypse, because everyone went to social media.
Facebook is an awful base for furries. Their "real name" policy is poison.
Reddit is sort of better I guess, with the same hobble as any other place. r/furry is so full of filler, art reposts and memes, that no interesting discussion will stay visible for more than a day or two and it's not productive to put in effort. This place is way better. :)
Well in all fairness those on the furry reddit will at least have some sense of deja vu over the whole ordeal: https://www.reddit.com/r/Blackout2015/comments/3c3csw/hear_me_out_moderators_of_...
Nothing staying visible for more than a day or so is the modus operandi of reddit, it is not meant to be differently. The entries there are not really much about long-time discussions.
BTW I would use voat not reddit. Reddit closed many subreddits recently to appeal more to advertizers, so who knows if they wont go after furries. (voat has its own problems though)
> According to Kalmor there has been talks of the forum being terminated by site staff even before this incident, "Sciggles once suggest to just kill the forums all together"
Now see, who says nothing good ever happens on FA? People need to stop being so damn cynical all the time!
Had to correct a spelling mistake for "Reigning" in... should have been "reining" [error noted on Twitter: https://twitter.com/nicktail/status/634010458232500226]
The person I interviewed, however, did use the word "reigning" so that is maintained. Probably why I thought that was how it was spelled. Thereby [sic] was added. Wrong homonym usage is contagious!
Oh, man, don't even expect me to catch homophones. I'm always dialing the wrong homophone.
I read through some of the conversations on the referenced screencaps. What I saw was one side (Renashe, I presume) trying to discuss an issue, and the other (either Dragoneer or Chase) getting sidetracked on side issues and twisting the meaning of statements to treat it as a personal attack. A lot of time and energy gets wasted trying to get past that and get the conversation back on track (if it's still even possible, as sometimes it effectively wrecks the mood for getting anything useful accomplished). I had a lot of those kinds of conversations with my ex-wife before we got divorced. It's difficult to feel motivated to communicate about anything when a discussion about what should be the most open/shut issues could end up spinning off into unexpected and hostile territory. In a setting where the parties are supposed to be some degree of professionalism and working as a team, it's completely inappropriate.
I think the biggest thing for me was the NDA flub where they didn't have them sign the complete document and the search function where they can find their name in comment sections.
I mean, I know they're trying to fix issues, but perhaps they should fix the issues that are sent to them instead of look for trouble (that aren't trouble tickets). As a pro-tip if one fixes issues that happen when people bitch at you, they are less likely to resort to bitching about you.
Seems to me that Dragoneer confuses criticism for drama-mongering, and that he hires people for head pats and little else. :p
Fur Affinity Forums have always been a madhouse. If the interns of a madhouse quit, so what? Everyone left is a crazy asshole already.
I haven't kept track, is this the first major staff dustup since the IMVU acquisition? I have to wonder if they're now asking Dragoneer some awkward questions.
What IMVU can or cannot do would be based upon the agreements that Dragoneer and they came to. It is quite unusual that when one sells something that they make themselves part of the product, but it's kind of what Dragoneer seemed to do with FA.
"I want to sell you this, but only if I still get to run it."
Many theorize that he had to go outside the fandom to sell because he was afraid any other furry would remove him from his position as soon as they acquired it.
Nothing is forever though, agreements usually have ways for either party to eventually make addendums at some point. I'm sure if IMVU is paying any attention at all to their investment, this is should certainly lead to some questions.
The main question IMVU needs to ask is this though: If the current staff running the site are taking so long to implement features their users desire, how long will it take them to implement the features THEY desire. While this is the first major staff dust up since the acquisition, a lot of dust up has occurred over the haphazard way these IMVU desired changes (ads) were made and later redacted.
"Many theorize that he had to go outside the fandom to sell because he was afraid any other furry would remove him from his position as soon as they acquired it."
In all the complaining I heard about why some other fans couldn't run this site, I didn't hear a single claim to have resources to do it.
Dragoneer's been tendered offers for a site buyout before - I'm sure that with a little diligence I'd be able to find the relevant comments.
Regardless - offers have, in the past, been made to privatise FA and unburden Dragoneer from some of the issues he's faced as the FA head. Dragoneer's issue is his fear of losing control over his 'baby', for lack of a better term, and it's been shown countless times that when faced with the prospect of somebody else taking the reins and doing a better job, he'd rather flub an excuse as to why he doesn't want to let the site go.
It's a pretty obvious thing, I'm afraid. The man just doesn't want to lose control of FA - it's his meal ticket, and his doorway to a position of power within the community. Ultimately, for better or worse, he holds the strings - it's just a shame that he's so absolutely incapable of doing his job.
I was familiar with previous buy offers. None of them appeared to back buying ability with a serious claim to have support resources.
Like, if you blow your savings or Aunt Edna's inheritance money once to acquire the site, how do you then provide investment and continuing revenue to re code it from the ground up, pay employees, and develop it beyond where it already is?
I have no problem with hearing criticism about Dragoneer, but he put himself into a lot of debt to provide a platform for users and whiners alike, taking some big risks for it. (Like keeping it a haven for free adult expression when the stigma kills a lot of business development options.) At least give him as much credit for that as complaint.
The conundrum that keeps appearing is that the site is costly to maintain in a flawed state, would take an out of reach investment to re-build to be less expensive, and has content that's awesome for freedom but crippling for certain business options.
Team wise, volunteerism is just naturally a shitty way to support something that really calls for employees who get paid for a real life commitment. People with the skills aren't going to want to apply them full time to a hobby when they're in demand for real. And site users demand entitlements to service they don't want to pay for. There are alternative sites that could fill the same role. They aren't doing that for a lot of reasons, but one of them is they also can't pay a team.
It's like every hippie commune that ever existed. They can be amazing places for culture and freedom, and they suck at taking out the trash, keeping the roof from leaking and meeting code.
It's why an established company brings a real business model like an ad-hoc group of donors and volunteers doesn't.
Don't get me wrong, I love DIY culture. I'm just unbothered by complaints about FA because FA isn't furry fandom. Giving it a license to fail is just as good for other sites as it's bad for whoever is on FA. I keep hearing about poor artists who depend on the site for income - well if they want it to be a real job, then pay real rent for a base. Every other artist has to pay for a studio and all that. Form a guild, charge dues and get a little clout. I have no doubt that the stronger the entitlement is, the more it's coming from kids used to parental safety nets with little experience in how business sustains itself.
While I have considered something like the bottom before, you would really need to create a furry version of paypal first. That way you can extract the business fee from the artist/consumer interaction. And that requires more trust in the one running it than I think people have in Dragoneer at the moment.
Or just the furry version of ebay/etsy that offers mediation and ratings. Hmm, there is one but it's only modestly used. It's had some of the same problems as FA and doesn't cover its' costs.
Cryptocurrency seems to offer an alternative for direct payments, to get over the problem of banks blocking business (not just paypal but the banks under federal regulation, I have shared articles about that. The first one directly mentions furries:)
http://www.vice.com/read/how-cryptocurrencies-like-bitcoin-could-save-the-indie-...
https://news.vice.com/article/is-the-doj-forcing-banks-to-terminate-the-accounts...
I wonder where Offbeatr fits with that... of course furry art isn't all adult, but having any amount of that poses a problem, and banning it does too.
If the platform doesn't handle payments, perhaps it could charge dues or yearly subscription. Think of site developers partnering with an artist guild who pays a rent to use the platform. Regular users could get user ratings. Guild members could get additional benefit from being approved by the guild.
Furaffinity is toxic and should be disbanded. That's just my thoughts watching the drama train over the past few years, including the Chase stuff, that other furry website's mods who came over and left within like a month, etc etc.
I have an... unrelated to most people view on this matter. Being an """artist""", I already have FA and DA as a mean to connect with other artists. I don't necessary need to talk to non-artists.
I understand that a ton of people do, and................... I don't know what to suggest.
Well, I'll be...
Well, as an artist... You kinda need to talk to non-artists if you want to have public do commission you.
While for you it's okay to browser and talk to other artists and that is enough for your needs, most of the users can't produce art and don't really get to communicate with artists because many have the same mindset as you.
For those people then, they do need the social and community features so they can really engage the site and not just mindless watch and favorite things. They need to engage with others and build a place for them there.
So it is important for you to realize how issues like this can affect you. If FA and DA no longer becomes a place where the common user can express themselves and participate then the community dies. If the community dies and they move somewhere else YOU will be the one that will get less public and suffer from it.
After all they invest their time and money on what is your job. They would have more to spare without the site. They don't NEED the site. You do.
Well, who is up for the task of creating a new furry forum that does not devolve into drama and scare away "moderate" fans? I don't know who would create such a forum, and keep it alive for years.
Well, I'll be...
I have added an important update above.
The host of the FurAffinity Forum has come forth to discuss the future of the forums with the users.
I moved it into the introductory section; we usually put updates (and corrections) where people just browsing the front page can see them!
Oh, furry, you never cease to be entertaining.
"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
~John Stuart Mill~
I have never had an account on the FA:F so I'll have to provide my comments here.
If they do gain independence obviously FurAffinity would be a no-go for their name, however you also don't want to change it too heavily. I would say the name of: Affinity for Furry forums would be just enough of a tweak, but also maintaining the understanding of its foundation.
As far as maintaining a community, I believe that it needs to be cautious about being a "Bitch about FurAffinity" forum. People can already get that in many other places, we don't need another Vivisector. It needs to be a place that can really be a commentary hub for the fandom where people using any site can communicate.
See those buttons below this comment? You need something like that. Yes, even for FurAffinity, the users may not agree how it runs, but it still does exist and the best thing to do when breaking up is not to look like the bitter one.
It's goal should not be to compete against FA, it should be to compete against the furry reddit page, and maybe even non-fiction sites such as this one (while also referencing them). However, also having a robust art section that people can share links and discuss art/suits/writing and other creative endeavors.
Specialize in nothing, but be the bridge between all specialized sites.
Another suggestion for steps for the independence of FurAffinity Forum:
Talk with other furry sites about having their own subsection on the forums that they can link to off site. Right now this forum exists as a FurAffinity linked board, you need to make it so it belong to all furries to talk about anything and everything furry. Thus, make thread group for all furry sites and discuss with those sites if they are willing to link to those subsections on their sites.
This is for two reasons: One, it gives the forum survive should FA pull their traffic support. Two, if there is a FurAffinity subsection along with SoFurry, Inkbunny, etc and only FurAffinity refuses to link to their related subsection it is a way to make FurAffinity look resentful on losing their forum while the other art sites would look mature in welcoming an independent furry board.
I can't really see why sites would want a section in an independent forum. It wouldn't be under their control and would be running under a different set of rules, which can just be bad for that site's image and would only serve to create confusion. In addition, while Inkbunny chose not to have a forum, the idea behind SoFurry was to make a whole community site which includes integrated forums. Having a seperate forum would serve no purpose and, at worst, drive traffic away from the official forums to a third-party-site.
"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
~John Stuart Mill~
"Specialize in nothing, but be the bridge between all specialized sites."
Won't work. Such general sites already exist such as the Furluminati.com site, and the specialized sites are too concerned about keeping eyeballs on their site.
I've had over two decades in this fandom - none of these site owners are willing to give up their control.
From my soft warm paws! :-|
What you say may be true, however this is more an opportunity to take some control away from FurAffinity. It's a risk vs reward analysis.
Here's the thing, eventually FA may drop the link to the forum. However, in order for them to make things appear normal they need to create their own to link to.
If they remove the link and have no other forum to take its place, that action will resound amongst the art site, because things change so infrequently that even a small action like removing a link is a major event. That and having someone remove the link itself has to bring into the thoughts of the one who ordered it that, yes, something really is wrong.
So if the Forum gets its ducks in a row and FA itself doesn't, art sites should be begging them to make some kind of reference to their sites, it's free advertisment.
Think of these subforums as more an "embassy" then an actual fully fleshed out replacement forums. Is it possible that FA will cut off access to the embassies? Yes. But for now, it's free advertising from the largest furry site's forums.
It would be a major event if people noticed the link vanish. Despite all that's happened with the forum there has been total silence about it on the main site.
"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
~John Stuart Mill~
You're vastly overestimating the importance FA users put on the presence or absence of a link.
FA only cared about FAF as an emergency support and staff discussion/recordkeeping forum. That's all they'll have from now on. What's now FAF will receive no traffic from FA; it'll be lucky to maintain a few hundred regular users.
As for Inkbunny, if we saw value in an official forum, we'd run it ourselves! We have a working ticket system with zero backlog, and Twitter and Facebook are there for short outages, so we'd rather members spend their time on the site, A minute spent in the forums is a minute not spent interacting with artists and writers on their submissions.
I don't think users would care as much as the leadership of the artsite would, I would agree with that.
It's one of those psychological things that they would be more apt to want to have a replacement forum in place instead of removing the link to the rebellious forum, so they can save face with themselves.
But this aside:
If FAF does die as you predict it will, it will only further be used to point out to furries that artist and traffic survival are dependent on ties with FurAffinity. That like the forums, if you as an artist leave, you will suffer the same fate. Allowing the forum to die after independence will drive home the narrative FurAffinity wants.
I would think SoFurry, Weasyl, and Inkbunny would do all in their power to combat such a narrative. But let it die, and so with it any opportunity to prove a third party site can thrive in spite of FurAffinity.
Plenty of third-party sites thrive in spite of FurAffinity. Especially niche curated aggregators.
FAF is unlikely to die. It'll have a smaller peak audience, but outside FA-related forums, that's always been so. Perhaps the mood will improve without a constant stream of problems with FA or its administration.
Several successful furry forums have not been closely linked to any other website - a past incarnation of Furry to Furry springs to mind. It takes work to build up any community; but if anything, the risk is that forums are less popular in the social-site era, so maintainers will have to work harder to attract an audience.
Believe it or not, the staffs of SoFurry, Weasyl and Inkbunny do not constantly plot to undermine FA, tempting as it may be. We each have our own communities - for IB, thriving quite nicely - and our first goal is to serve them better.
Weasyl already tried to put up with a migration of FAF regulars and they nearly killed the rest of the forum with their... "culture."
Nobody in their right mind is going to adopt FAF. There's nothing to be gained from it.
The Furluminati could easily survive an FAF member migration.
If Weasyl couldn't handle it, that just says things about the competency of the moderators and owners.
"The forums will be offline for the next while as we sort out a few things. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience."
"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
~John Stuart Mill~
Meanwhile, the catalyst for all of this, Renashe, who had an account on FAF, appears to still be banned from FAF.
What a wonderful way for the FAF 'community' to treat the person pretty much responsible for their newfound freedom from Dragoneer.
Registration is still locked. People that wanted to join FAF, now that FA staff is out of the way, are unable to, and I'd bet their interest is rapidly waning.
BRAVO, CARENATH! Way to thoughtlessly strangle yourself, your community, and the person that got you where you are right now.
And Renashe is now unbanned, it seems. That took how long, again?
@Khyber: Passionate comments but rather short-sighted I'm afraid.
When I seized control of the forums, that prompted FA management to contact me to discuss what would happen next, one of the conditions I agreed to was to leave the forums "as is" while this was happening and that was why Renashe remained banned during that period and registration closed.
Since we split, registration was re-opened and Renashe among others were unbanned.
I'm still banned even though it was done by Dragoneer and I didn't break any rules. It's almost funny in a way. I'm banned on FA for something that wasn't done on FA, even going by the official reasons FAF no longer exists. And I'm still banned on the new forums by the person they split to get away from because he wasn't managing things properly. I'm not planning to go back but it would be nice to see some sort of justice there.
"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
~John Stuart Mill~
You're always welcome to come on over to furluminati.com and enjoy a unique group of individuals!
@Carenath
It took me bugging one of your members over twitter to talk about getting Renashe unbanned well after your 'as-is' grace period. Had I not, how long would it have been before you unbanned her?
She should've been unbanned immediately anyways, before any discussion of leaving anything 'as-is' with people that legally had no right to demand anything (your servers, your license, your hosting, 100% your property.)
Sorry, that simply looks rather like poor forethought for the community there.
1) I would agree that anyone who was banned by the Fur Affinity Forums who wishes to rejoin the Phoenix community should be able to file an appeal at this time to get their banned removed.
2) It seems like you're promoting your own forum, which is fine, but it makes your pushing criticism seem a bit more motivated by other factors rather than empathy for the party affected.
In fact, the party affected is now unbanned and hasn't made any complaints on how slow the process was that I have seen. Let this individual speak their own offense. They may not feel the same way about the circumstances as you would in that situation.
"It seems like you're promoting your own forum, which is fine, but it makes your pushing criticism seem a bit more motivated by other factors rather than empathy for the party affected."
I'm a brutally honest and forward person. Something that seems to bother the majority of the community. Serves as a great litmus test in many situations.
"In fact, the party affected is now unbanned and hasn't made any complaints on how slow the process was that I have seen. Let this individual speak their own offense. They may not feel the same way about the circumstances as you would in that situation."
You didn't read the prior comment I had made it seems: "It took me bugging one of your members over twitter to talk about getting Renashe unbanned well after your 'as-is' grace period. Had I not, how long would it have been before you unbanned her?"
AKA I already know about the unbanning - I was responsible for making it happen from the get-go.
When it comes to community, my first and foremost thought is for the people. That's what community is about at the end of it. To not think of the people responsible for your community's new-found freedom is pretty much within the definition of neglect.
It was ultimately neglect that triggered this whole fiasco in the first place, so watching it repeat itself almost immediately warranted some heavy-handed criticism.
I've never not seen such a function on anything i've moderated.
Furries once again want to make tiny, neglible, or nonexistent issues, or claims of such into a huge fucking issue, and in the progress do considerably more harm than anything else.
The dramawhores should be just tossed away of furry communities to get rid of this useless shit.
Impossible. Even Furnation is trying such a thing with a 'Drama-Free Zone' and it's failing.
Welcome to perpetual summer.
Looks like posting regular replies isn't working right now, so forgive me for starting up a reply outside of the comment thread.
@Sonious
"It seems like you're promoting your own forum, which is fine, but it makes your pushing criticism seem a bit more motivated by other factors rather than empathy for the party affected."
I'm a brutally honest and forward person that gives almost zero f**ks Imagine a mix of Lowtax, Maddox, Sam Kinnison, and George Carlin. That seems to bother the majority of the community. Serves as a great litmus test in many situations, on the other hand. No other motivations, here. I simply speak out even when it's not asked for.
"In fact, the party affected is now unbanned and hasn't made any complaints on how slow the process was that I have seen. Let this individual speak their own offense. They may not feel the same way about the circumstances as you would in that situation."
You didn't read the prior comment I had made it seems: "It took me bugging one of your members over twitter to talk about getting Renashe unbanned well after your 'as-is' grace period. Had I not, how long would it have been before you unbanned her?"
AKA I already know about the unbanning - I was responsible for making it happen from the get-go. I also kept her company while this was going on, so she wouldn't need to feel left out and alone.
When it comes to community, my first and foremost thought is for the people. That's what community is about at the end of it. For a leader to not think of the people responsible for the community's new-found freedom is pretty much within the definition of neglect.
It was ultimately neglect that triggered this whole fiasco in the first place, so watching it repeat itself almost immediately warranted some heavy-handed criticism and a good dose of face-palm.
You keep double posting and the spam blocker thinks you're spamming us.
Seriously, I have had to unmark-as-spam almost every single post you've made in this thread at one point or another.
You keep popping 403 ajax errors.
IOW your spam filter and other various protections are not functioning properly - fix your site.
I fixed the problem. In our recent move, a filter for an unusual and spam-indicating character had been incorrectly converted from a different code-page. The upshot is question marks were marked as likely to be spam.
It's called the corrupt government official Spam filter.
All questions are unwanted!
Getting worked up about FAF decoupling from Furaffinity is getting worked up about a group of terrible people leaving because of terrible people. The forums were toxic and the administration of the site is toxic. There are no winners here.
Round and Round it goes... where it stops, nobody knows.
Especially since it has gone off the front page, if (or should I say when?) you make any more updates, you should link to the article in Newsbytes from now on with an explanation of the update, so people can keep track.
Or, hell, it might finally be time to write a new article; five updates is about the limit.
Actually, it looks like mwalimu might have done a few; either way, put up a Newsbyte!
Carenath has given more details in IRC.
IMVU, you're going to learn really quick that FurAffinity's data security has more holes in it than the Swissiest of cheeses.
My guess is, after this, IMVU may be considering the liability of keeping the current staff at this point? If that's the case I wouldn't see it as a loss on Carenath's end. Dragoneer's bosses are probably going to be a lot more hands on to ensure this kind of thing does not happen again.
You guys have a life outside the internet and it's not the end of the would to have to use your real name on FB. Who cares if someone knows your a furry..those who mind don't matter, those who matter find mind. As long as you're not going about in your fursuit and bringing negitive attention to yourself you should be fine.
Thanks Mark Zuckerburg, I'll keep that in mind.
Facebook? If we wanted billions of game advertisements and thorough data mining, we'd already be there.
Since we don't care for that kind of nonsense when all we want to do is hang out and talk on a site that doesn't infinite-scroll ad waste browser resources, FB is pretty much pointless to six-sigma of the population.
I would sooner fellate Crusader Cat on live TV, broadcast in 4K, than sign up to Facebook.
I'm so glad the FA forums died; worst furry site on the net, and gave furries a bad name, made them look like assholes. What a petty, mean-spirited site that was...good riddance to bad company.
I've seldom wanted to see a site disappear so badly; what a bunch of up-tight, moralizing prudish assholes it contained. Maybe now they can go join ISIS or the born agains, or just rot away in their basements...
I'm of the opinion that Carenath pretty much gave up on his users, their privacy, and their personal information.
I have e-mails from vBulletin explicitly stating he was the rightful owner of all FAF posts and data after roughly July 2010.
And yet he handed over that data to Dragoneer over a bullshit legal threat.
And while Carenath claims that he only handed over avatars, etc., mods (specifically Quoting_Mungo) on FA are claiming they'll have EVERYTHING back up, which implies exactly the opposite of what Carenath said.
This story isn't done, yet, and it might end with the crowning of a SECOND Dragoneer.
I'm more worried we might get a second Xydexx.
I actually miss the bloke, made things fun.
There exists a spiritual successor to the forum now.
https://phoenix.corvidae.org/
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