<3

Ferris returned and stole all the attention! *waves his cane in the air* Argle bargle.

To be honest, I think it's just FA is hitting that maturity point so growth is now stagnant. I'm seeing more and more people lean into Discord communities.
Hopefully you can find your path in the coming landscapes.

FA's problem is that they never modernized or updated anything. What was good 15 years old isn't adequate anymore and people are leaving to use more modern and feature-rich alternatives.

Certainly. I'm not about to pretend to know how they can 'fix' it but they are no longer the only game in town, the only benefit they can currently hold onto is 'first to ride the wave' when the only competition I can remember was VCL with was akin to a Web 1.0 in a 2.0 era and FA is heading the same route without doing some proverbial houscleaning to modernize, but that's gonna be chasing an oasis without knowing what drives the traffic of the next generation's fuzzies.

One thing FA desperately needs is a keyword/tagging system that actually works, and can be used to -- among other things -- blacklist content that people do not want to see.

Frankly, Inkbunny's system is probably one of the better ones out there, at least from what I've seen of it. For one thing, they actually make posters tag their stuff with at least a minimum number of tags (I've lost count of the number of times I've seen posts on FA where they don't even bother putting the species or sex, much less any more detailed tagging), and other viewers can suggest additional ones. Then, as a user, you can actively put certain tags into a "never show me these" blacklist, to filter out things you don't want to see in your feed, or even on the front page or when you're browsing.

The other thing FA really needs to do is split "advertising" posts -- YCH reminders, stream announcements, auctions, etc. -- off into their own separate category, like stories and music are now, and keep that stuff out of the main feed. Only finished art should be permitted in the "recent submissions" category. That would go a long way towards alleviating the "art firehose" problem, I think.

FA has needed a 'Marketplace' feature for years now. Even SoFurry has a basic place on the site to look for and provide art and writing services. FA has nothing and compensates by enacting ever-increasingly restrictive rules as to how artists can advertise and sell, which just drives artists who depend on this stuff to live, away to other platforms.

Pretty much all of this. Tagging is so important for a good art site, especially one with as varied creators and audiences as FA.

What do you suggest? A lot of the "good" that I see in most sites is just designer busywork, and accomplishes nothing besides making the code less robust and the layout an indecipherable mess. Or by "good," do you mean "optimized for slower-than-molasses handheld devices that you have to squint at to see and snuff opium to navigate without having an aneurysm"?

Personally, I would try I'm still trying to figure out what "fixes" they should do that would actually improve user experience. Most changes that people often bring up would make the site demonstrably worse (weasyl, sofurry, inkbunny, et all had that problem).

The actually good features I wouldn't mind seeing:
Better search in general.
Better tagging, maybe something similar to e621. Their tagging and blacklists work pretty well.
Journal favoriting, and being able to tag journals for mature content.
Submission queue search/filtering: sometimes my 15k large new submission list is just too cumbersome. I'd probably enjoy going through it a lot more if I could sort by artist.

What I would not want: any "social media" sort of features, thumbnails that don't match the content (IE, autocropping, auto-zooming, this absolutely killed Weasyl for me when it came out), or any relaxation of the "keep it about furry art" rules.
Also, keep the interface light, fast, and clean. No fucking bells and whistles, thank you. Those just slow things down, especially when you have a bunch of tabs open. FA is one of the few furry art sites that do this well.

I feel bad for not commenting more often on stuff. But I do like your work, and have for ... uh, literally decades. You were one of the first artists I ever commissioned! :)

YAY!
I would be sad if you stopped posting!

If this 2Paw is Captain Sheridan, and Jenora is my Delenn, then you're going to be at least one of my Jeffrey Sinclair/Valen(s). I'd rather give a good and old friend a boost and tell them what they and their purpose means to me and my journey if they're fostering doubt in themselves and theirs, so you are wholly and mightily welcome, good chummer.

Be you, and continue to merit and claim your purpose, with a bit of that on behalf of the fact I think you're a pretty awesome person, and that opinion is far from mine alone. Have yourself an excellent rest of a Good Monday, if you'll allow me to wish you a Good Monday.

-2Paw.

Glad to hear it! ^_^

I'm probably a contributor to this issue. I've never made comments other than on pieces I've commissioned. FA is an art firehose and I just try to keep up.

But it's important to remember that there are real people drawing these things, at least for the time being. I don't think an AI prompt will do good enough for lustful furries for a while yet. It's designed to be good enough for a webpage. But anyway, I'm happy you will not stop posting. I've been around forever myself and I appreciate another greymuzzle still here.

Glad you got some good responses.

Good, would be a real shame to loose the classic style

No thanks needed; like I said you were on of the main reasons why I thought up the Corduroys.

Sounds entirely sensible. Hang in there, and all that sort of thing.

*thumbs up*

I am glad that you're still here. There's so much art I wanna see from you. As a veteran, you deserve more love and respect.

Glad you'll be hanging around!

Being a long time follower, patron, even someone that's commissioned, since the Macrophile archives and VCL....

It's still good to see your posts, Wolf. Thank you for sharing, always.

There are enough angry individuals who get buthurt on positive commentary that I've just grown weary of commenting. I have a small group of folks I comment on their journals and vice versa. Also I love a swath of your stuff just don't have anything to say.

"Wuffy... we love you... and that's all there is to it..

... thanks for being YOU!!

Glad to hear you're putting retirement off for now, at least!

I do feel a bit guilty for not commenting more on people's art, and not just yours but many others'.

You've been posting sketches for a long time, and they're good sketches. I maintain that 'engagement' is a bullshit metric of worth, but have you given thought to working on your inking skills? Well defined linework might make your thumbnails pop a bit more.

Glad to hear! :3