Furry Writers' Guild establishes new forum after technical difficulties

On 26 June, the Furry Writers' Guild (FWG) announced that the FWG forums were no longer functional due to technical issues. The problem appears to have been that anyone who accessed the FWG forum main page and saw the shoutbox had their IPs blocked by the host firewall. This disturbance, coupled with the age of the forums and the question of its future hosting, led to the closure of the forums.

However, the loss of the forum had negative repercussions. While some functions were able to be transferred to a Google Calendar, Slack or Telegram, many members had come to rely on the forum. The various stories about how the forum had helped FWG members led current FWG president Dwale, to comment on Telegram:

As time goes by, it becomes more and more apparent how much utility the forums had. I really hope we're able to get them up and running. Sooner the better.

About five months after the forum closure had been announced, they were reopened, now running Discourse and hosted by former FWG president and co-founder of [adjective][species], Makyo. There were some migration issues such as broken BBCode and a scare that user data was deleted. However, the move also fixed other issues, such as the lack of HTTPS support in the earlier forum. Although there are still plans to alter the forum's URL in the future, presumably to match the main FWG website, the forum appears, stable and accessible and should slowly become a key part of the FWG's mission once again.

The Furry Writers' Guild, founded in 2011 by Sean "Duroc" Silva, exists to support and promote anthropomorphic fiction. It has done this in different ways. The FWG serves as a point for writers to talk, learn about calls for stories and find editors and beta readers. FWG members are also able to vote in the annual Coyotl Awards, the most recent results of which can be read here.

Art by Frank LeRenard