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Feedback on 2.7. Make sure to submit yours too.
2 years ago
I am posting this here, both so that it is public and because I am still banned from the furaffinity discord, and I still have roughly 2 days of timeout period, and I will have a friend crosspost the journal link for me. I was banned over trying to discuss a policy when there was no avenue for feedback. And, a place was opened up for it later that day, when they realized it was in fact, an issue that was going to be discussed whether they wanted it or not. I would appeal it, but being timed out means that I cannot react to the bot they use for the purposes of tickets. This is incredibly unprofessional of the staff and needs to be rectified immediately.
A copy of the exchange so that you can see that I was not harassing anyone, and I was later proven right by their list of banned pokemon: https://twitter.com/gyrofeather/sta.....81517369163777
For those not aware, you can submit feedback re: the 2.7 policy change on their discord: https://discord.gg/fur-affinity in the particular channel they made for it: https://discord.com/channels/991855.....78846061543444 or you can submit a ticket, though I feel like the latter they're just trashing. At least the former you can make your voice public. Just note there is a 6 hour timer, so formulate a decent post before hitting enter. Its not a discussion location.
Cub art does not belong on the site, but this policy is far overreaching and affects many artists who do not deal with cub art. If someone has a clear record of doing such things, that is when action needs to be taken. It needs to be taken in the context of the whole account and not just an individual work or two. You can generally tell when someone is a cub artist, vs a chibi or pokemon NSFW artist, and if you cannot tell, then they're probably not. Ferals, including pokemon and digimon, as well as fictional anthro species often undergo development differently than humans do, and so judging things by human standards immidiately becomes suspect. Even within the animal world, a corgi looks a lot more childlike than a German shepherd, and they are within the same species, let alone when you have something like a fennec fox and compare it to a red fox. Many fictional species are actually timeless in their shape, like pokemon, which can stay the same form over the course of their life. I think its reasonable to depict this as a cartoon shortcut, but what is shown should be taken as the full developmental age, and it should be a question of whether someone has made them younger.
Your banned list of pokemon/digimon has 2 major issues with it. 1st, it is incomplete, and if you are going to force something on the community that paints such a broad stroke, you better damn well have a list of what you consider acceptable or not. 2nd it lacks the nuance of what should be a delicate issue that should be looked on in a case by case basis with heavy favor towards not calling the artist a cub artist.
While you say the new policy doesnt extend to other characters, we've seen plenty of anthro characters or characters of other franchises suddenly being declared underage in the support tickets that were filed, which either means something has changed, OR the community did not understand and does not agree with what you seem to consider cub art. This is a problem. If the staff and the community cannot agree on what is actionable, then it becomes a bit like russian roulette where the loser gets yeeted from the site.
This brings me to the next issue, the chilling effect. If you're not familiar with the concept of a chilling effect, its defined as follows:
The "chilling effect" refers to a phenomenon where individuals or groups refrain from engaging in expression for fear of running afoul of a law or regulation. Chilling effects generally occur when a law is either too broad or too vague. Individuals steer far clear from the reaches of the law for fear of retaliation, prosecution, or punitive action.
Largely artists will not 'age them up' but will rather refuse the characters altogether, leave the site, or abandon artist pursuits. This is especially true of the list of banned pokemon and digimon, where if you don't go far enough, you are handed out a 7 day ban, followed by a permanent one. But it will also leak into the shortstack spaces as well, as seen by how people are reacting to the above mentioned tickets. The consequences of accidentally crossing the line are so dire, that there is no incentive to do anything that even might get within 100 ft of the line, especially when we dont know where the line is. Hell, I personally am just going to stop posting pokemon to FA. I'm lucky that I do not rely on art to make money, because that's not a luxury a number of artists have, and not posting art here is starvation. As we've seen from koopas or corgi OCs, we cant really be reliant on even the list of banned pokemon.
Earlier this year, when vore was briefly included in the underage catch all, I removed some stuff because I had some largely cute pieces that technically ran afoul of the rules, but I think in this instance including fetish content catches more of the intended target than people who are innocent bystanders. I think its really weird for vore to be walked back, after what happened to Strega and Foshu earlier this year and pregnant is very strange given how one becomes pregnant. If you want to include some fetishes under the breast feeding exemption, its probably once again best to just say something like nonsexual interests like some TF, cartoony eating, breast feeding, etc... This is one of those cases where a chilling effect is probably fine because it affects a very small subset, and we know it when we see it.
It is also clear that FA does not have a moderator team that is both professional and large enough. This could be solved by actually paying staff for working here, and also could be a violation of the FLSA since volunteering for a for profit company, of which I understand FA is, happens to be illegal. Paying staff will ensure that you can get more manhours out of people than volunteers. It helps ensure a level of professionalism because its no longer a hobby, and allows staff to be more invested in the moderation of the site. And it means that someone doesnt have to come home after work to be bombarded with tickets, maintaining a much healthier life balance. Volunteer staff, if you are reading this, please demand pay for what you do, and file a complaint with the US Department of Labor. The company operates in the US even if you do not, so they are bound by US laws. (That said IANAL).
On professionalism, if you're answering questions in a public forum like various mods were, you are wearing your mod hat by default. Anything you say WILL be taken as law. If you want to discuss without it, you needs a separate account. One moderator in particular was said to be providing false information by other mods many times, when the screenshots of quotes circulated around, and that SHOULD NOT be happening. If you are not speaking as a moderator, consider using an alternative account. Discord makes it incredibly easy to swap between the two.
Also you need a better bot on your discord server, if discord issues are supposed to both A) be filed through the discord bot, and B) you cant actually interact with the bot while timed out to file a ticket. You're a big company, you can have someone code a new bot if existing ones do not work.
Honestly I will join the voices of people who say that FA needs to change to an 18+ site. Yes minors will lie about their age, but often they end up leaking it and you cannot know if their account is sfw or not. By making it 18+, you will by default make it so minors can be removed without question. Additionally minors only get groomed by interacting with adults. By making it clear that they are not allowed, they should at least be wary of their participation when they do.
➤ As the largest furry site, you have an obligation to do good by your community.
➤ This does far more harm than good. You are painting too many things with broad strokes in an effort to eliminate edge cases, when just those edge cases should be dealt with.
• Many artists who should not be affected are being so.
• This will have a chilling affect on art posted to FA
• Applying human proportions to furries does not make sense.
• The fetish exemption is odd and needs to be reevaluated.
• The policy accuses artists who obviously are not of being cub artists.
➤ Moderation needs to be imporoved at FA.
• There needs to be more professionalism and communication.
• Strikes need a fall off period, especially considering how old FA is.
• Pay your staffers. It might even be illegal not to.
• Staffers: Demand pay. Not paying you is likely illegal under the FLSA.
➤ There needs to be a place where the community can be involved in policy discussions
➤ Groomer rhetoric and cub accusations are highly damaging to people's mental health and not helpful.
• Ban the minors instead. This is not a safe space for them. Lets stop pretending it is.
Once again, if you have any feedback, make sure to join the discord server and post in the thread. Just note its a 6 hour timeout, so formulate something good before posting it. https://discord.gg/fur-affinity in the particular channel they made for it: https://discord.com/channels/991855.....78846061543444
As an addendum: an archived copy of the 2nd discussion thread (After the 1st was deleted) can be found here: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachme.....3290999839.txt
A copy of the exchange so that you can see that I was not harassing anyone, and I was later proven right by their list of banned pokemon: https://twitter.com/gyrofeather/sta.....81517369163777
For those not aware, you can submit feedback re: the 2.7 policy change on their discord: https://discord.gg/fur-affinity in the particular channel they made for it: https://discord.com/channels/991855.....78846061543444 or you can submit a ticket, though I feel like the latter they're just trashing. At least the former you can make your voice public. Just note there is a 6 hour timer, so formulate a decent post before hitting enter. Its not a discussion location.
Now onto the meat of things:
This policy itself is incredibly shortsighted in how it affects the community at large. Furaffinity, like it or not, is the biggest art repository in the furry community, the main market place for people to deal art and make a living, and a major community hub. This means that the admins at furaffinity have an extra responsibility to do good by the members here, because decisions taken here affect the community as a whole.Cub art does not belong on the site, but this policy is far overreaching and affects many artists who do not deal with cub art. If someone has a clear record of doing such things, that is when action needs to be taken. It needs to be taken in the context of the whole account and not just an individual work or two. You can generally tell when someone is a cub artist, vs a chibi or pokemon NSFW artist, and if you cannot tell, then they're probably not. Ferals, including pokemon and digimon, as well as fictional anthro species often undergo development differently than humans do, and so judging things by human standards immidiately becomes suspect. Even within the animal world, a corgi looks a lot more childlike than a German shepherd, and they are within the same species, let alone when you have something like a fennec fox and compare it to a red fox. Many fictional species are actually timeless in their shape, like pokemon, which can stay the same form over the course of their life. I think its reasonable to depict this as a cartoon shortcut, but what is shown should be taken as the full developmental age, and it should be a question of whether someone has made them younger.
Your banned list of pokemon/digimon has 2 major issues with it. 1st, it is incomplete, and if you are going to force something on the community that paints such a broad stroke, you better damn well have a list of what you consider acceptable or not. 2nd it lacks the nuance of what should be a delicate issue that should be looked on in a case by case basis with heavy favor towards not calling the artist a cub artist.
While you say the new policy doesnt extend to other characters, we've seen plenty of anthro characters or characters of other franchises suddenly being declared underage in the support tickets that were filed, which either means something has changed, OR the community did not understand and does not agree with what you seem to consider cub art. This is a problem. If the staff and the community cannot agree on what is actionable, then it becomes a bit like russian roulette where the loser gets yeeted from the site.
This brings me to the next issue, the chilling effect. If you're not familiar with the concept of a chilling effect, its defined as follows:
The "chilling effect" refers to a phenomenon where individuals or groups refrain from engaging in expression for fear of running afoul of a law or regulation. Chilling effects generally occur when a law is either too broad or too vague. Individuals steer far clear from the reaches of the law for fear of retaliation, prosecution, or punitive action.
Largely artists will not 'age them up' but will rather refuse the characters altogether, leave the site, or abandon artist pursuits. This is especially true of the list of banned pokemon and digimon, where if you don't go far enough, you are handed out a 7 day ban, followed by a permanent one. But it will also leak into the shortstack spaces as well, as seen by how people are reacting to the above mentioned tickets. The consequences of accidentally crossing the line are so dire, that there is no incentive to do anything that even might get within 100 ft of the line, especially when we dont know where the line is. Hell, I personally am just going to stop posting pokemon to FA. I'm lucky that I do not rely on art to make money, because that's not a luxury a number of artists have, and not posting art here is starvation. As we've seen from koopas or corgi OCs, we cant really be reliant on even the list of banned pokemon.
Earlier this year, when vore was briefly included in the underage catch all, I removed some stuff because I had some largely cute pieces that technically ran afoul of the rules, but I think in this instance including fetish content catches more of the intended target than people who are innocent bystanders. I think its really weird for vore to be walked back, after what happened to Strega and Foshu earlier this year and pregnant is very strange given how one becomes pregnant. If you want to include some fetishes under the breast feeding exemption, its probably once again best to just say something like nonsexual interests like some TF, cartoony eating, breast feeding, etc... This is one of those cases where a chilling effect is probably fine because it affects a very small subset, and we know it when we see it.
Moderation:
Furaffinity also has an incredibly archaic in its moderation. It is worth remembering that the site has been around for 18 years and you have no language for the falling off of previous strikes for good behavior. I received a MPS strike way back in 2017 or so, and anyone in a similar boat, especially around previous policy changes where stuff that was once fine was creeped over to no longer being so is, according to the letter of the rule on FA at risk of instantly being banned, no longer how old that strike was. Good behavior should be rewarded, and people who when told off do not continue to be a problem should be seen as a win by furaffinity. Strikes NEED to fall off over a period of time, and that needs to be codified in the enforcement section of FA's rules, like, for example, it is on E6's Records and Feedback policyIt is also clear that FA does not have a moderator team that is both professional and large enough. This could be solved by actually paying staff for working here, and also could be a violation of the FLSA since volunteering for a for profit company, of which I understand FA is, happens to be illegal. Paying staff will ensure that you can get more manhours out of people than volunteers. It helps ensure a level of professionalism because its no longer a hobby, and allows staff to be more invested in the moderation of the site. And it means that someone doesnt have to come home after work to be bombarded with tickets, maintaining a much healthier life balance. Volunteer staff, if you are reading this, please demand pay for what you do, and file a complaint with the US Department of Labor. The company operates in the US even if you do not, so they are bound by US laws. (That said IANAL).
On professionalism, if you're answering questions in a public forum like various mods were, you are wearing your mod hat by default. Anything you say WILL be taken as law. If you want to discuss without it, you needs a separate account. One moderator in particular was said to be providing false information by other mods many times, when the screenshots of quotes circulated around, and that SHOULD NOT be happening. If you are not speaking as a moderator, consider using an alternative account. Discord makes it incredibly easy to swap between the two.
Also you need a better bot on your discord server, if discord issues are supposed to both A) be filed through the discord bot, and B) you cant actually interact with the bot while timed out to file a ticket. You're a big company, you can have someone code a new bot if existing ones do not work.
Policy Discussion:
It is clear from this debacle that FA needs a location in order to discuss policy. The discord server A) requires a phone number, B) forms an effort barrier to entry, and C) is apparently not an appropriate place to discuss policy according to the mods anyways. Trouble tickets are not a valid location, as they are not public, and therefor not accountable to the general public. Either bring back the forums, in a limited scope or otherwise, OR leave comments open on policy journals where things can be discussed. That said the latter is far better, so that things can be discussed that people may think are problems before they are addressed. People should not be banned for discussion policy, and a number of people were from the discord.Respectability Politics and Adult Spaces:
Already we're seeing LBGT people accused of being child abusers by just existing, and you are not making things better by turning around and labeling the art that they enjoy as cub. Furry will never be seen as mainstream and accepted in society, so taking steps to appeal to the normies will not work. Any time ANY group in history has tried to make strides to appease the oppressors, the goalposts just shift, and the same will happen with the furry community. Please do not cave to the ever shrinking of safe adult spaces. we do not need more of our friends to be labeled as groomer for simply existing and enjoying the things they do. It is insulting and demeaning to be called such a thing and is used to justify a myriad of hate and violence against people.Honestly I will join the voices of people who say that FA needs to change to an 18+ site. Yes minors will lie about their age, but often they end up leaking it and you cannot know if their account is sfw or not. By making it 18+, you will by default make it so minors can be removed without question. Additionally minors only get groomed by interacting with adults. By making it clear that they are not allowed, they should at least be wary of their participation when they do.
In closing, a summary of my points:
➤ As the largest furry site, you have an obligation to do good by your community.
➤ This does far more harm than good. You are painting too many things with broad strokes in an effort to eliminate edge cases, when just those edge cases should be dealt with.
• Many artists who should not be affected are being so.
• This will have a chilling affect on art posted to FA
• Applying human proportions to furries does not make sense.
• The fetish exemption is odd and needs to be reevaluated.
• The policy accuses artists who obviously are not of being cub artists.
➤ Moderation needs to be imporoved at FA.
• There needs to be more professionalism and communication.
• Strikes need a fall off period, especially considering how old FA is.
• Pay your staffers. It might even be illegal not to.
• Staffers: Demand pay. Not paying you is likely illegal under the FLSA.
➤ There needs to be a place where the community can be involved in policy discussions
➤ Groomer rhetoric and cub accusations are highly damaging to people's mental health and not helpful.
• Ban the minors instead. This is not a safe space for them. Lets stop pretending it is.
Once again, if you have any feedback, make sure to join the discord server and post in the thread. Just note its a 6 hour timeout, so formulate something good before posting it. https://discord.gg/fur-affinity in the particular channel they made for it: https://discord.com/channels/991855.....78846061543444
As an addendum: an archived copy of the 2nd discussion thread (After the 1st was deleted) can be found here: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachme.....3290999839.txt
If they did, its reprehensible and they deserved the ban. But I dont have further opinion on this matter, as I've not dealt with it.
serves em right
And whoever does end up forwarding this. Perhaps you, dear reader, leave a comment here so we know its been done.
Saw that message more times in a row than I could tolerate. Starting to think they deliberately made the Discord difficult to use for the same reason they deleted the message boards: Because they absolutely do NOT want our feedback.
Whether or not they listen, thanks for speaking out.