A new site is to open this year: Weasyl, for "artists of all kinds". But they need money to do so…and the countdown ends Tuesday.

If funding falls short, the group will still be paid, but must forfeit an additional 5% - up to $250 - as well as the regular fee of up to 7%.

Update (30 Jul): The goal is met; funding is still open until Aug 1.

Update 2: The total raised was $6015.

A variety of artists are offering services to donors, who can also receive paid site access, ad space, and merchandise.

Staff plan to use cloud hosting (Amazon S3 and EC2), rather than purchase their own servers. The site is being organized by a team of eighteen, headed by co-owners Benchilla and Kihari, and lead admin Taw Echo.

Three staff gave an hour-long presentation at Anthrocon 2012. Members also promoted the site at this year's FWA.

Weasyl links: Tumblr, Twitter and Facebook accounts — Screenshots — Forums

I may be the only one in the world to say this, but I hope the next Star Fox – assuming there is one – has less flying.

Let me explain.

Michigan convention Furry Connection North has banned minors from registering, a year after restricting them to pre-registration, due to the hassle in obtaining parental consent forms:

Overall registering 10 minors took us as long as the other roughly 400 preregistrations. Considering the total attendance for FCN 2012 was 1127 this meant that the total minor registrations constituted less than 1% of total attendees.

It became obvious to us at that point that Furry Connection North does not appeal to the under 18 demographic. That combined with the serious burden that minor registration placed on our registration department compelled our board of directors to decide to eliminate minor registration from FCN.

While those under 18 will now be excluded, con-chair Gir Tygrin hastened to add that the event will not be changing in "rating" as a result, perhaps to avoid the spectre of FOXmas.

There is a quite widespread idea that the furry fandom is a uniquely creative group of people. We say it in our own documentaries, we say it in our own comment sections and the more senior members of the fandom such as Unci and Uncle Kage say it when they talk about the fandom. This majority opinion can be summarized in a single paragraph from the Furry Writer's Guild:

The furry fandom can be difficult to describe succinctly because, unlike media-based fandoms, furries aren’t fans of any one particular television show, film, or even genre. Many furries do find their way to the fandom through overlap with fandoms of mass media properties like The Lion King and My Little Pony, but for the most part, furries create their own original content to be fans of. It’s an incredibly creative community, and the boundaries between creator and fan are often slim to nonexistent.

But is it really true? Let's be clear, I am not saying that the furry fandom is not creative or original, but I do not think that we are uniquely so and, hopefully, by the end of this, I will have convinced you of that.