If you come to me, apologize to me, and I point out I'm not the one that needs the apology and aim you towards the correct avenue and you say you're going to do it, do not expect me to be happy...at all...to learn that you saw the person in question...multiple times last year and have already seen them this year and you STILL HAVEN'T APOLOGIZED!

You think you were in hot water before...that's nothin compared to how hot it is now.

Possible triggers warning for survivors

Coercing someone into a yes is still against their will whether they press legal charges or no.

http://www.clarku.edu/offices/dos/s.....definition.cfm

"Rape and/or sexual assault is forced, manipulated, or coerced sexual contact by a stranger, friend or acquaintance. It is an act of aggression and power combined with some form of sex. A person is forced into sexual contact through verbal coercion, threats, physical restraint, and/or physical violence. Consent is not given. "

"Coercion
Coercion is the use of emotional manipulation to persuade someone to something they may not want to do – like being sexual or performing certain sexual acts. Examples of some coercive statements include: “If you love me you would have sex with me .”, “If you don't have sex with me I will find someone who will.”, and “I'm not sure I can be with someone who doesn't want to have sex with me.” Coercive statements are often part of many campus acquaintance rapes. Being coerced into having sex or performing sexual acts is not consenting to having sex and is considered rape/sexual assault. "

The more you know *rainbow*

ED - http://goo.gl/DRBCy2 For those that still have their heads in the sand about the whole thing.

https://www.weasyl.com/~visky

Wanna see anything new I've adopted/commissioned/had gifted to me, etc? Look at the above. I will not be posting another bit of art here between EVERYTHING going on and the continued and consistent mismanagement of this site.

Putting the people that they have into places of power like this...no, this place is not safe. Not by any means. Dragoneer just cannot stop making bad decision after bad decision, it seems...and can't stop defending these decisions as being good, despite proof otherwise.

https://www.weasyl.com/~visky

Find/join me here.

ED - I've spent a lot of money on adopts/auctions/such...If an artist makes a presence elsewhere that I can deal with them, great...if not, if FA is the only place they do business...thennnn...nope. Which is a sad thing for me as I've enjoyed every adopt/art piece I've gotten from everyone. But I will not do it through FA.

I'll continue to look here to see new art and maybe find new artists...but if I want to communicate with them, it will be elsewhere. And if they don't exist elsewhere...I will be sad.

Looks like FA has once again set their search to only update once a day. It only seems to hit around 1am-ish and nothing new gets listed past that til the next day. So unless you're actively watching the artist in question, searches will be a day behind. Kinda blows for '1 day auctions' and the like.

Wanna help out some artists who not only do great art but are also wonderful people?

Head on over to -

http://www.furaffinity.net/user/alkalie/

and

http://www.furaffinity.net/user/nextstep/

If you like their art style, please think about giving them some commissions!

Read it...re-read all the quotes and such...seen both sides now.

Wrong actions were still taken...wrong things were still said. Still looks like they would much rather have had things just swept under the carpet, as with EVERY OTHER thing that's ever blown up in Dragoneer's face from how FA's been run.

Every time, it's been a 'nonono, it's not how it looks' type of explanation...and this is yet another one. From the warning people to delete illegal content from their pages, trying to cover up rape accusations, now protecting a stalker...just...more of the same.

Why are people surprised anymore? Because they keep claiming they're trying to improve things? If that were true...things like this shouldn't happen. If that were true...the site would run better. If that were true, people would not feel the need to leave time and again.

To those leaving, I don't blame you. To those staying, I have to wonder...why? With this track record, this history...why?

I'll linger for as long as artists I watch stay here...waiting for the next case of extreme drama from FA/Dragoneer mishandling everything yet again...watching the site lag/crash/code not be improved...etc...and look forward to when all the artists I watch finally leave...so that I, too, may depart.

A repost from  Qarrezel

I am not normally the sort of person to take an extreme position on something. Usually I am happy to work through a problem, mediate, or wait for a situation to improve. But sometimes there is a problem which just isn't going to be solved, and you take all of the right courses of action, only to find yourself faced with a moral dilemma - and the only solution is to make a statement.

Currently, I have a moral dilemma with regards to Fur Affinity.

Over the past few months, my long-term client and friend, tarangryph tarangryph has been the victim of some pretty serious stalking behavior by fredriksam fredriksam - both on and off Fur Affinity. He has found and posted photographs of her online, posted her personal information in public, and written a sex story wherein the main character breaks into Taran's house, steals her fursuit, and does awful sexual things. In this story, he uses her real name and location.
Fredriksam has made several comments about looking up Taran's address, about how easy it would be to find where she lives. He even contacted me to try and confirm her address, knowing that I would probably have records of my customer's contact information.

A week ago, Taran finally decided that it had gone far enough - she composed a journal on FA warning people about this guy's behavior, and filed a harassment ticket against him.
Fredriksam commented multiple times on the journal, making endless excuses for himself and claiming that she should thank him for what he did - he gave her lots of attention, after all.
You would think that this individual would be banned, or at least reprimanded (especially since his gallery was full of stolen art).

But No. Not only was he NOT banned, but the mods saw fit to punish Taran. They deleted her journal entry and the comments therein, with all of the evidence of the conflict. Taran feels so threatened and betrayed, she has left FA, and probably will not be comfortable associating with furries again.

When svedge svedge brought this troubling development to the attention of Dragoneer, this is what he had to say:
"Dragoneer
Posted: 6 hours ago
The admin took the right course of action in this case. I don't feel it's something to leave FA over, as if it happened on FA, it will happen on /any/ site. It's unfortunate, but a choice they have made. I'll respect that."

So Dragoneer very respectfully does not give a flying ass-wipe about what is obviously criminal behavior and exploitation happening right here on his site. Why? Because it could happen anywhere! brilliant logic, Dragoneer.

No, I think that this is a great reason to leave. In my eyes, and certainly in Taran's eyes, this website's administrators are willing to turn a blind eye to abuse. They are willing to condone harassment and exploitation, and in doing so, they encourage this behavior.

And that, my friends, is why I am leaving Fur Affinity. As a woman, as a person with respect for my friends and customers, I do not want to be associated with a website that protects and supports predatory behavior.

It pains me to leave the parts of this site that I really love - that being the overwhelming majority of you who are good people, and who are kind and amazingly supportive of our work.

Luckily, at the same time that this situation pushed me to this point, Weasyl (https://www.weasyl.com) just launched open Beta - so it is now open for anyone to join. Even though the site is just getting started, I can tell already that it's brilliantly designed, and I can see a really great community being established there. Maybe the best part is that it's not being run by people who have their heads lodged firmly up their rears.

I have registered two accounts:
https://www.weasyl.com/profile/clockworkcreature for our costumes and other work done under the Clockwork Creature header, and
https://www.weasyl.com/profile/qarrezel for my personal artwork.

Please come join us there.

(p.s. I am screencapping this journal and any comments that are left on it, just in case FA decides to target me as well) If you would like to get in touch with us, please email Info[at]ClockworkCreature.com

Price Quote requests are currently OPEN.

Commissions are CLOSED.
Next opening date TBA.

I normally don't do things like this...or really much of anything...but...this needs to be mentioned.

http://artists-beware.dreamwidth.org/514736.html

An artist friend of mine recently posted an auction only to have the individual in this bid, then turn around and note them, saying they didn't have money, so they should give them the auction art for free.

Please don't harass them, note/shout/comment to them or anything like that. All that will do is get you in trouble, not them. Simplest way to deal with them...blacklist them. I wish FA had a good blacklist that would stop them from seeing anything on the accounts they're blocked on, but...My FA, Account Management, Profile Info. You can add them to your blocked list, which will keep them from commenting/noting/etc. This way, at least, if you forget the why, they still won't be able to try and scam you. (Of course, FA needs to take a better stance on things like scammers, but...)

Please be sure to look at the two imgur links in the main report.

The ONLY plus side I can say here is...at least the guy actually came forward straight off and said it instead of waiting til the end.

Democrats - Yes...he won. Being happy he won is fine, gloating/insulting others is not. They're people just like you, just with different views on who would have been a better leader for the country. It's the USA we live in and people have rights to their views no matter how much you may disagree with them. That being said...

Republicans - Yes...Obama won. He didn't destroy America/the world in the last four years, he's not going to do it during the next. Stop the doom-and-gloom and insults being flung at people that didn't vote Republican. They're not idiots, welfare whores, soulless, etcetcetc. They're people just like you who disagree with you on whether Romney would be a good choice for President. Suck it up and move on.

I'm really tired of gloating and doom saying. I'm tired of the people only driving a wedge further and further separating the nation on politics. Vote issues...vote people that will go in and vote the way you see things. If there's no one that sees eye to eye with you 100%, then vote for the closest you can find. It's that simple. If they win, great! If they don't...oh well. They're all politicians, in the end. We need people who are more interested in running the country rather than pushing an agenda or obstructionism.

He was elected president. It's still our country. Try to remember that. More people felt Obama would be a better leader for the country the previous election...and now in this election. Let him lead...work on fixing the things that need fixed...and move on. And be sure to vote. The thing that will destroy this country isn't Obama, it isnt' Democrats or Republicans...it's the polarization of the sides, their uncompromising views and attitudes...the refusal to meet in the middle...and people more worried about getting elected/re-elected and making sure they have enough money from big donators to fund their campaigns than running a country and fixing the things that are broken.

Refocus, revamp, rebuild.

I can only say one thing...

AAAAAHAHAHHAHAHAHA...right

It only updates once a day, it appears...so searching for anything time sensitive is rather useless...and attempts to point this out by myself have been ignored...yay stupidity!

Administrator notice -

blahblahblahblah...except for the search engine which will be restored later today. Days later...still no search.

And comment on a Twitter post I saw - Yes...people will leave you for a hardware failure...especially when it takes days to restore functionality. Some people are using the site for income (commissions, auctions, adopts, sales, etc) and...when this goes down...complete disruption.

Lots of unused servers...yet no redundancy...and even when you managed to so something somewhat restoring functionality...only read only...sorry...you get to browse the art...and that's it...can't say 'just notes only' or 'no new art, but you can post comments and such'...nope...complete lockdown...which makes it kind of useless for the most part. Well done.

Syn's doing another auction.

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/7876786/

Go see! You won't regret the looking!

Also - while you're at it....go see what my housemate Nextstep has been up to

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/7841994/

And yes...he is making these on commission for people, last I'd heard. He did that all by hand!

Thought I'd mention here the up-and-coming chainmails by Visky that I'm gonna be doing. Done chainmail before...just trying to get things lined up in order to do it again.

Be sure to go check out http://www.furaffinity.net/view/7405300 if you like phoenixes. Great artist...great piece!

Alternatives just seem not to take off, so...why not? If a good one comes along, I'll switch...until then, might as well feed the beast...posts away.

Yay for FA doing something at start without letting people know, getting caught, then bringing it public when they've got their hand caught in the cookie jar.

Side note...yay for NoScript and Firefox.

[edit] I'll just have to keep adblock and noscript running along....keep FA from profiting from my own presence...hope that others follow suit or that the administration finally wakes up.

To Dragoneer, who will probably read this as I'm sure Viglink is in some journal scraper of his...I'll mention Inkbunny, too, since I know he's had one on that for a while, instead of going 'ohgod no donations ROLL OUT VIGLINK', did you ever stop to think there might be a reason 'why' people aren't donating? Between past performance...current policies being implemented, and now this monstrosity of a drama bomb...have you STILL not learned your lesson?

You run a website FOR others...this is not your personal playground to run however you want, implementing whatever you want just because you want to. It's running it like that which has driven away your donations AND a fair number of the fandom as well. You mgiht go 'well, I didn't want that part of the fandom anyway', but seriously...how much longer do you think the rest of us will put up with things like this?

This whole viglink thing SHOULD have been brought up and discussed before implementation. Who knows? Maybe the people you still have left that might throw money at you might have thrown some to stop it from being implemented...but of course....why give people the choice? Just ram ANOTHER thing down peoples' throats...it's your website after all right? You don't need any of them...OH BUT WAIT...without them...IT WOULDN"T EVEN EXIST!

Yayyy...FA's running PHP scripts to search journals for keywords. Yeah...so looking forward to alternatives x.x

Privacy invasion much?

Considering the actions of the owner of this place, the continual lies, the cover ups, and now the rather solid proof that he's helped cover up certain actions by others that should NOT have been covered up at all...

Deleting my one posting...will never post stories here again. If there were a better alternative to jump to, I'd go there, but at present, there really isn't. So I'll continue to be here to watch the artists that are left after this fallout...and hold out the hope that there will be 'SOMETHING' decent coming along eventually.

FA has left a gap again. Through mismanagement, dirty dealings, bad decisions, and running this place as their own little playground, the furry community is once again left without a decent place to have art, community, etc. Considering Dragoneer's actions, as well as other admin's and their actions, I wouldn't even feel safe to call this place an art dump, let alone a community site.

For a community site, it's rather important for things to be handled properly. It is NOT okay for someone running a community site to help cover up illegal actoins by members. It is NOT okay for a community site to ignore repeated alerts to security holes. It is NOT okay for a community site to have security through obscurity, which has been FA's security model all along. It's like wearing a pair of pants with a hole in the crotch and trying to walk in such a way that it keeps the hole hidden. You walk funny, you look funny, and eventually...someone you don't want to see the hole will see it.

Just knowing that I'm going to be having to visit a website run by this...individual...who has done all these coverups...who has shown that they have put protecting the popular above being a decent human being...it makes me sick that I will have to continue being here to view the artists that are not relocating. It makes me sick that it has come to this point. FA could have and would have been a wonderful place if it'd been run correctly...but now...it's just...nothing but another bad example of what people have come to expect from 'furry'.

Oh yeah...FA resecured! That's why admins got set back to Members again...so secure...no wonder it's #1 (I'd apologize to AOL for using their slogan in this...but...AOL sucks too ;) )

It's things like this that make me wish there were a better site around. One well coded, administrated by competent people...

I know of 'one' in the works...

Pity there isn't one at the moment. Imagine the exodus. Oh well *sigh*

For now, we return you to your popufur debauchery drama filled, security hole filled, admined by people that seem to care more about their bragging rights than anything else website already in progress...aka...FA

Just in case anyone was worried from the long silence from my last post.

The Lonely sits in her room, watching the world. She wants to be a part of that world, but she knows that she is not 'normal' enough for them. So when she does venture among them, she wears a mask to try and be normal. It's an uncomfortable mask...she hates wearing it...and works on changing herself bit by bit to try and be herself and normal enough to walk among them without the mask.

She ventures online, where she can be herself without worry. She finds friends and loves. Some she welcomed into her heart should not have been and tore it apart on leaving. She keeps putting it back together and still welcomes new friends and loves into it, damaged and scarred though it may be.

She eventually lives in a house with many loves and friends. She tries desperately to relax and be happy with them, to socialize more and be herself with them, yet still she cannot relax completely. She doesn't know why, so she hides. But she still tries again and again.

She longs for the touch of others, yet seems horrible at relaying this. Even when the touch does come, she tenses at the start and people misread it and think she doesn't like it. She tries to touch others and that seems to work to a degree. Still, she yearns for more.

She hides in the computer, where she can be herself completely. When the computer is not working in some way, it upsets her, disturbs her deeply. It must work. It must let her live there! But she tries to slip away. Tries to relax...tries to be without it for longer periods.

She thanks her friends and loves for putting up with her for so long, but she is scared of losing them as well. The fear is not constant for her, but it is there. She fears that the continued inability for her to relax and live will make them drift away.

Maybe the Lonely is the way she is because she knew she wasn't normal since her childhood...and so grew used to playing alone in her room. Her family was never very 'touchy-feely'...hugs were not really given...love yous were never really said. Perhaps it's because of other things in her past...hurtful things...things that nearly destroyed her. Maybe those things did destroy her and she's just too stubborn to admit it and keel over.

...I don't like being the Lonely.