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Guest post by Ralphie Raccoon. 

Hi, I’m Ralphie Raccoon, and this is hopefully the first in a small series of short articles presenting some important and interesting (and perhaps some less important, but hopefully still interesting) questions about the fandom, and attempting to answer them as best as possible through the eyes of statistics and data. If you’re British and listen to Radio 4, or enjoy listening to the BBC World Service if you are from the rest of the world, you may have heard of the programme “More or Less”. Well, this is sort of like that. Except it’s a blog post, not a radio show. And it’s not on the BBC, it’s on [adjective][species]. And rather than a bunch of guest speakers, you just get me. Sorry about that. Anyway, I hope that you find these articles enjoyable, or, at the very least, slightly informative.

Disclaimer: I am not a professional (or even really an amateur) statistician. I have never taken, and probably will never take, a proper statistics course in my life. So if any professional (or amateur) statisticians notice any errors or incorrect terminology, feel free to come over to my house and beat me with a big stick (or just leave me some constructive feedback, whatever you prefer).

For this first article I’m going to try to answer what is perhaps the biggest question of all: Just how many of us are there? It certainly is an important question to answer. After all, a fandom’s popularity is defined by its size, and while we may still pale in comparison to other big fandoms like science fiction, anime and fantasy, in recent years our numbers have swelled as awareness grows, and some of the stigma begins to wither away.

Total attendances at furry conventions have grown by over 500% since 2003 (Wikifur), and it would be fair to assume that the fandom has probably grown by a similar amount, if not more. But while we instinctively know that the fandom has grown in recent years, it is hard to work out how big it has actually gotten. What are the chances, for example, if you got 100 random people into a room from around the globe, that one of them would be a furry?

It’s not an easy question to answer. The fandom is not a club, we do not have any way of knowing how many “members” there are, people are free to join and leave without notifying anyone. Censuses such as the Furry Survey are entirely optional, and while they do produce valuable data, it is not possible to extract an estimate of the total number of furries on earth purely from the number of responses. However, combined with the aggregate attendance data of conventions from Wikifur, there is another way…

The Convention Method

One way to calculate the population of something is by using a known quantity of a subset of that population, and knowing what percentage that subset was of the total population. To put it in laymen’s terms, if you had an unknown quantity of marbles, but you knew that 10 of them were green and 10% of the marbles were green, you would instantly know that you had 100 marbles. We can do a similar thing here, by using the aggregate attendance data of conventions as mentioned previously (the known quantity), along with data about what conventions furries attended in 2011 from the Furry Survey.

Now, we can’t just say that X% of the fandom attended a convention in 2011, as we know that many furries would have attended multiple conventions, but we do have data on which exact conventions (from a list of the most popular conventions) each responder to the furry survey attended in 2011. If we add up all the convention attendances, and divide them by the total number of responses

Total convention attendances (Furry Survey 2011) = 0.4 conventions attended per response. Number of responses (Furry Survey 2011)

So we now know that according to the Furry Survey, each furry on average attended 0.4 conventions in 2011. Now, if we take the sum of all the attendance numbers from conventions only from the list on the Furry Survey, in 2011, from Wikifur, and divide that by 0.4, we now have an estimate of the total number of furries in the world:

Sum of attendance at conventions listed in the Furry Survey in 2011 (Wikifur) = Sum of attendance at conventions listed in The Furry Survey in 2011 (Wikifur) × Number of responses (Furry Survey 2011) 0.4 Total convention attendances (Furry Survey 2011)

? 60,300

So there you have it, there were approximately 60,300 furries in the world in 2011. But is that really an accurate answer? As mentioned previously, the list of conventions that the Furry Survey collected data on attendance for was only limited to the most popular conventions, so many attendances at smaller conventions (particularly those from countries with small furry populations) would have been missed, meaning that the average convention attendance number is lower than it should be, and therefore there are less furries in the world than the statistic suggests.

However, my “gut instinct”, so to speak, actually points in the opposite direction, that 60,300 is actually too low a number, rather than too high. There really needs to be another estimate collected using different data, in order to give the number more (or less) credibility. You could use this methodology on something like, FA accounts, for example, as long as you could persuade Dragoneer to give you the numbers (If he’s kept any!). The more estimates like this that can be collected, the more certain we will become of an accurate number of people in the fandom.

There is also the issue of language. We perhaps assume that since the most popular furry websites are in English, and that most conventions are held in English speaking countries, that the vast majority of furries are at least proficient enough to be able to complete an internet survey. Is this a good assumption to make? Perhaps, but that is probably a whole other topic in itself*.

And finally, what about the question at the beginning, about the chances of there being a furry in a room of 100 people? Well, if we divide 60,300 by 7 billion, we can work out that approximately 0.0008% of the world’s population were furries in 2011. So to answer that question, if you got 100 random people into a room from around the globe in 2011, the chances of one of them being a furry would be approximately 1 in 125,000. Better odds than winning the lottery, I guess.

* This article was revised on 31 August to include this paragraph, which was mistakenly cut from the final version of the article. Bad editor-horse!

Coming soon: What is the “furriest” country in the world?

Ralphie Raccoon (not his real name, and he is not planning to ever change it to that) has a BSc in Special Effects Development at the University of Bolton and an MRes in robotics from the University of Plymouth, neither of which really had anything to do with statistics. He currently lives in a little house on a windswept hill just outside of the great northern English city of Manchester, known for its lively arts and music scene, trams the size of lorries, and rather excessive amounts of rain. At work he plays with big robots and deadly deadly lasers (no, really, that’s what he does. Trust me, it’s not as exciting as it sounds). Apart from hiding in trash cans and hissing at the neighbours cat, he also likes to watch TV, play computer games, burn himself on soldering irons in his workshop, and generally reflect on life and the universe in general.

submitted by HarmonyHeartstrings
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submitted by sidran32
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submitted by NigelG
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Today I messed with the Backer Beta for about 4 hours, so I got to tweek with it a bit before everyone else. Here's some little tips that will help your experience when it comes out tomorrow.

1. This is the big one. You're going to want to set up FaceRig to emulate a WebCam output. To do this you will have to turn on FR, then press the button across the top menu labeled "Broadcast". But that's not the end of it. To get Skype and your web browser to recognize it (For Omegle and TinyChat for example) you'll have to fully close them and then reopen them after you'd turned on the Broadcast button in FR. For Skype espeshially, this means you'll need to find it in your task bar next to your Clock and RightClick > QUIT. Then reopen it. Now you should see FR on your Skype's Options/Tools > Video in the pull-down menu, and when selecting a video source for web-based web cam apps.

2. Some avatars have extra skins. But many do not. Doge for example has no extra skins, and you can't change his fur color... HOWEVER you CAN if you set his skin to 'Custom', it will activate color sliders for his fur color and other features.

3. Turn off your fan! Yes, it's hot. But if you want Lip Sync to work properly you'll need to make sure there is no noise hitting your mic.

4. Experiment with the Eyes Looking At Camera toggle. If your cam tracking works well enough without it, leave it. If your avatar is spacing out like a derp, just toggle that on.

5. Some effect and sensitivity sliders are not yet enabled. If a facial feature is freaking out on you, like making cosntant duck-faces with your wolfy lips, then you can disable them with a click of the button next to the slider.

6. Activate your Tongue!! It's in the character settings on the far right tab. Some of you vore nuts are going to love this program, I swear.....

If anyone else has any advice from their experience in messing with the pre-beta that began yesterday, post it here! ENJOY!

submitted by HappyWulf
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submitted by ajtexasranger
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Rock band fronted by Peppercoyote.

In their wordsLook Left was formed in 2008 when Jared Clark (Vocals/Acoustic Guitar) decided he wanted to be a rock musician. He went out into the harrowing Northwestern Pennsylvania tundra, bought a microphone and started recording. He was joined by Derek Wilber (Bass), Andrew Cotts (Guitar/Backing Vocals), and Matt Royek (Cajon/Percussion/Oddjobs).LATER after graduating the college, Jared continues alone.Rating

Suitable for all ages. This site has no offensive content.

Where to listen The College Years £7.99 Look Left Master of Tiny Shoes £7.99 Look Left Waiting £7.99 Look Left You Should Drink More £7.99 Look Left Bite the Green Apple £7.99 Look Left

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What are your thoughts on toll roads? These pay-for-use routes are not appreciated by all, but for those with the means and willingness to pay, they might be a good option. Join us this week as we discuss the positives and negatives of tolls and toll routes, how they should be run, and make other comments on infrastructure.

Metadata and Credits WagzTail Season 3 Episode 34

Runtime: 30m

Cast: Braniff, Levi, Wolfin

Editor: Wolfin

Format: 128kbps ABR split-stereo MP3 Copyright: © 2014 WagzTail.com. Some Rights Reserved. This podcast is released by WagzTail.com as CC BY-ND 3.0. If distributed with a facility that has an existing agreement in place with a Professional Rights Organisation (PRO), file a cue sheet for 30:00 to Fabien Renoult (BMI) 1.67%, Josquin des Pres (BMI) 1.67%, WagzTail.com 96.67%. Rights have been acquired to all content for national and international broadcast and web release with no royalties due.

Podcast image belongs to SPUI (public domain). Used with permission. Toll Roads - What are your thoughts on toll roads? These pay-for-use routes are not appreciated by all, but for those with the means and willingness to pay, they might be a good option. Join us this week as we discuss the positives and negatives of tolls and toll r...

What are your thoughts on toll roads? These pay-for-use routes are not appreciated by all, but for those with the means and willingness to pay, they might be a good option. Join us this week as we discuss the positives and negatives of tolls and toll routes, how they should be run, and make other comments on infrastructure.

Metadata and Credits WagzTail Season 3 Episode 34

Runtime: 30m

Cast: Braniff, Levi, Wolfin

Editor: Wolfin

Format: 128kbps ABR split-stereo MP3 Copyright: © 2014 WagzTail.com. Some Rights Reserved. This podcast is released by WagzTail.com as CC BY-ND 3.0. If distributed with a facility that has an existing agreement in place with a Professional Rights Organisation (PRO), file a cue sheet for 30:00 to Fabien Renoult (BMI) 1.67%, Josquin des Pres (BMI) 1.67%, WagzTail.com 96.67%. Rights have been acquired to all content for national and international broadcast and web release with no royalties due.

Podcast image belongs to SPUI (public domain). Used with permission. Toll Roads - What are your thoughts on toll roads? These pay-for-use routes are not appreciated by all, but for those with the means and willingness to pay, they might be a good option. Join us this week as we discuss the positives and negatives of tolls and toll r...

submitted by sphericks
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This is Featuring “Animals“ by Maroon 5 so extremely weird and furry.

submitted by HappyWulf
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submitted by HappyWulf
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submitted by FizzyFoxy
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Cardboard head mounts.

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Lion head mount

Animal head mounts for your wall made out of cardboard.

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Cardboard Safari makes its home at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Charlottesville, Virginia. Inspired by the landscape that surrounds us, we celebrate the union of art and technology, joining imagination and fabrication to make beautiful sculptural forms for your home. Our goal is to make neat stuff, fun products that foster an appreciation for the natural world.

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submitted by howelllawson
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