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My opinions on the policy changes
2 years ago
I'd like to share my opinions about the recent changes, Dragoneer, and the mod team in general.
Firstly -- FurAffinity's policy change wasn't made flippantly or out of ignorance to how the community would react. It wasn't made with a lack of preparation, and the resulting outcry did not come as a surprise. Months ago, they hired dozens or possibly hundreds of new mods to accommodate the new workload. In the recent announcement, they gave the community places to discuss, react to, or request clarifications about the new policies because they knew there would be thousands upon thousands of people demanding their attention. And when I submitted my ticket they reacted concisely, promptly and unambiguously. (90 minutes? Seriously? Holy shit.) They came in prepared, our reaction was as they expected, and the mod team has done an outstanding job keeping up with their new workload.
Secondly -- making a website is hard, moderation is hard, people's values change, and 18 years is a very, very long time. Think about the kinds of websites you might have created 18 years ago. Would you still be enthusiastic about running "Lego Fart Cannon Dot Com" now that you are in your 20s or 30s? I think you'd have moved on. Dragoneer hasn't moved on and I think is because he's passionate about the fandom -- or less generously, perhaps because he's grateful for his status in it.
So no, I don't care if people have art from their distant past that no longer represents their current values. I don't think it's something to criticize if someone removes art because of who they are now, or who they want to become. While I'm loathe to Streisand effect my masterpiece affectionately dubbed "The Hitler Spitroast", there's stuff I uploaded 15 years ago that I'm not super proud of either.
Lastly, I've helped moderate the Monster Mind discord for 6 or 7 years, and was at times forced to moderate on issues I was incredibly ignorant of. And if you've ever been a moderator you know -- it's always easiest to do nothing. Despite my ignorance and my laziness, others took the time to educate me about why THIS time was different, THIS time I had to do something. It was rarely because of values I held at the time (I cannot exaggerate my ignorance) but because of values others passed on to me. I don't consider it a weakness that my values are malleable, I consider it a strength that I listen to others and change myself.
In summary,
1. Dragoneer cares about the community, the mod team cares about the community
2. It is normal for your interests or values to change over 18 years, it does not make you a hypocrite
3. It is normal to balance your own values against the values of your peers, it does not make you a hypocrite
4. Moderating a community of this size is very hard, and making and enforcing this decision was the most difficult choice they could make
Firstly -- FurAffinity's policy change wasn't made flippantly or out of ignorance to how the community would react. It wasn't made with a lack of preparation, and the resulting outcry did not come as a surprise. Months ago, they hired dozens or possibly hundreds of new mods to accommodate the new workload. In the recent announcement, they gave the community places to discuss, react to, or request clarifications about the new policies because they knew there would be thousands upon thousands of people demanding their attention. And when I submitted my ticket they reacted concisely, promptly and unambiguously. (90 minutes? Seriously? Holy shit.) They came in prepared, our reaction was as they expected, and the mod team has done an outstanding job keeping up with their new workload.
Secondly -- making a website is hard, moderation is hard, people's values change, and 18 years is a very, very long time. Think about the kinds of websites you might have created 18 years ago. Would you still be enthusiastic about running "Lego Fart Cannon Dot Com" now that you are in your 20s or 30s? I think you'd have moved on. Dragoneer hasn't moved on and I think is because he's passionate about the fandom -- or less generously, perhaps because he's grateful for his status in it.
So no, I don't care if people have art from their distant past that no longer represents their current values. I don't think it's something to criticize if someone removes art because of who they are now, or who they want to become. While I'm loathe to Streisand effect my masterpiece affectionately dubbed "The Hitler Spitroast", there's stuff I uploaded 15 years ago that I'm not super proud of either.
Lastly, I've helped moderate the Monster Mind discord for 6 or 7 years, and was at times forced to moderate on issues I was incredibly ignorant of. And if you've ever been a moderator you know -- it's always easiest to do nothing. Despite my ignorance and my laziness, others took the time to educate me about why THIS time was different, THIS time I had to do something. It was rarely because of values I held at the time (I cannot exaggerate my ignorance) but because of values others passed on to me. I don't consider it a weakness that my values are malleable, I consider it a strength that I listen to others and change myself.
In summary,
1. Dragoneer cares about the community, the mod team cares about the community
2. It is normal for your interests or values to change over 18 years, it does not make you a hypocrite
3. It is normal to balance your own values against the values of your peers, it does not make you a hypocrite
4. Moderating a community of this size is very hard, and making and enforcing this decision was the most difficult choice they could make
Btw. argon_vile was a lucky one to get a quick and at least mostly clear response.
Many others have got copy'n'paste answers to their tickets or like me, none at all (despite having opened a ticket <12h after the anouncement).
Hope you are not surprised that many here thought you were joking or worse.
Also they are 100% hypocrites because they were still posting and liking and making the stuff they were banning up until the week of the rule changes. Not decades ago.
This just makes me think you're bending to pressure and backtracking and being hypocritical yourself.
Actions speak louder than words, and I have no reason to give FA the benefit of the doubt and assume they had any good intentions behind this, when all they are doing is destroying regular people and all the history they had on this website, while helping literally nobody with it.
If retroactively declaring people as pedophiles for drawing their adult characters, people you claim Dragoneer and the mod team cares about so much, is simply "doing the wrong thing for the right reasons", then this really is a lost cause.
Though, actually, I suppose you're right. You didn't say they care about any of the individuals. You said they care about "the community". It's just that they have the power to decide who gets to be a part of this "community" and who doesn't. That's why they could so boldly say that these changes were "well-received" in the "community". Because they no longer consider any of us who enjoy this kind of content to be part of it anymore.
Nowadays, Monster Mind is now in HTML5, Windows, Flash and can be ported to Linux and Android without much trouble. I am active on a dozen gallery sites, so while FurAffinity giving me the boot is bad news for me, it is not the end of my virtual existence
Bad news comes whether you want it or not, but it's your personal choice whether you let it kill you or grow from it. I'm proud of the Pokemon I evolved into 🌈
I think that outcome is incredibly likely! I think a lot of people staying on the site think, "I am standing up for myself! I hate the rule! Let them take my art down! I'll show them!!" ... But July 1st is not just going to be a massive banwave. It will just be another day. Anybody who was here eight years ago knows the drill. Your art will probably stay up. It is just a rule! Someone has to find your art and report it for the rule to matter.
Ideally, everyone will leave and go to other sites. And those sites will realize, "Wow all our business came from those people who left FurAffinity. We'd better not make them upset with a weird rule!"
Well, if it was up to me I'd just make everyone leave! But a lot of people have roots here or good reasons not to leave. That's okay too! I think this website is a better fit for some people than it is for me personally
This rule change makes it unsafe for many artists to be active on this site...
5 days and counting without response here. To tickets that supposedly receive the highest possible priority.
My experience could not be further from yours, and neither could my opinion of the staff.
its usually 1 or 2 days for me, except underage stuff is 2 weeks average with a response of "The content you have reported is no longer in our database" after the account gets banned by another admin
Sexualizing and objectifying infants, posting screenshots from a fucking movie
I'm wondering if it is because while other people were wondering "is this for real" I was already submitting a concise and specific trouble ticket. I probably got mine in in the first 90 minutes! The early bird gets the worm maybe. (It doesn't hurt that I'm retired and have all the time in the world to dick around)
I was worried people might interpret this as an act of self-preservation or a negotiation tactic, like I'd try to get on the mod team's good side so they wouldn't remove my gallery. That's why I waited to post this journal until I'd already removed most of it. I am just saying what I think about the situation and the mod team.
I know the common public opinion is incredibly negative towards the mods and Dragoneer, and I am of course upset they have forced me to remove most of my art today. But I know why they're doing it and it makes logical sense even if it sucks for me personally.
I've read the comments and give it some time to settle. I think the overall issue for some folks is this: It kind of coming off as an 180 and kind of meaningless to really bring up. I can get what you're going for, but it kind of saying you should praise drivers for not getting into a crash on the daily. It's a good idea, but seems rather...needless. More so when you're praising someone for doing the job they're meant to do. Like giving thanks to someone who cross the street without getting hit by a car.
This isn't really taking into account with what's happening on the site now, but it can come off as 'Right place, right time' kind of thing.
I can get the idea behind it once I got it from the horse's mouth, but do you really think this is really the time to do it now? I mean, you can do whenever you want, I ain't your mother. But it can easily come across as the wrong idea and easily come off to different people without a real clear 'this is what I meant' through text.
Are you certain you read my previous journals? In what way do you interpret a difference in tone or underlying message?
> dragoneer loved my silly gay agumon/guilmon art 13 years ago, then he changed his mind. dudes are allowed to change their mind, people drift apart and priorities change. #1
> dragoneer hasn't drawn or commissioned that kind of picture recently so i don't think it constitutes hypocrisy as much as a change of interests #2
> they're being transparent about it and not just arbitrarily banning me out of nowhere like last time #3
> FA's policies are constantly changing, and it is pessimisitic to assume they will always get more and more restrictive! Some day, maybe their policies will loosen and I can reupload a few of my old pictures... #4
All of my comments on my previous journal were incredibly lenient, polite, and tolerant of FurAffinity and their decisions. If anything, it would be a 180 for me to post something toxic about how they made a big mistake and how mad I am. I'm not mad, I'm just taking down my art because they told me to
1. Dragoneer does not care about the furry community, he cares about HIS community. This policy was for his friends, not for anyone else. Which is apparently Twitter bullies trying to dictate what is acceptable porn. Furries have always been about artistic expression, after all how else are we suppose to get these ideas out of our heads, so for someone to come along and claim what is acceptable to be a furry is kinda gross.
2. It is normal for your interests and values to change, however, there are several things Dragoneer has said and done that is hypocrisy. First off, he made this policy, then started deleting his art as people pointed it out. For someone to change, it feels like this change happened over night, not over years. Second issue was the banning of Zaush and JasonaFex, of all times, why now? Zaush stated he hasn't even used FA in years. After all that drama, and NOW they do something? Making statements like "We received positive feedback on this policy" despite the OVERWHELMING negative responses is... terrifying.
It's very obvious he's doing this for his self-esteem, which makes him look even worse.
3. It is normal to balance your values, however, a lot of artists rely on FA for income. It has the YouTube syndrome, you can be punished for unjust or stupid things (like that YouTuber censored all swear words into saying YouTube) but since your large audience is in one place, you are just kinda stuck at the mercy of the owner. That does not make it okay, and people can be hurt for doing nothing wrong.
4. Moderating a community of this size is indeed hard, which is why Dragoneer is one of the worst people to do it.
-Ignoring the screams of thousands and thousands of upset furries, trying to dismiss it as "fear mongering."
-Taking money and making empty promises on upgrading the website. How many decades has it been for a name change?
-Opening a discord for discussion, and even though the feedback is extremely negative, they still think they need to debate if this policy should stay or not.
-Willing to change his values on what is the trend on Twitter.
Dragoneer could be worse, but that doesn't make him better.
Dragoneer does care for furries, however, he very much cares for himself more. Not realizing by making this policy for his friends only digs the hole deeper for how much he is utterly despised.
Also join my raffle https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/10557670
Thank you for letting us in on the humour
New policies, by the way, that had been proposed countless times in the past, and every single time the response had been "I understand what you're trying to do, but enforcing such a policy fairly would be impossible because-" etc.
We warned him, over and over, that precisely what happened as a result of these changes would proceed to happen if he made such changes. And apparently the only thing he / they took away from that was that it would be so much more convenient if he could just avoid the warnings.
That was the first hint that Dragoneer and/or some of the other admins still hiding behind the "Fender" account were not being truthful.
The second was the declaration that "these changes were well-received".
Either Dragoneer is flat out lying, or he's only paying attention to the way they were received by his inner circle of stick-up-the-asses.
I don't particularly care which. Neither one is excusable IMO.
Watching.
Us.
Emotionally, for such a niche community that has a strong foundation rooted in creativity, expression, diversity, and eccentricity, it hurts. As a trans person living in Florida, it's hitting me pretty hard. My government is restricting healthcare access, discussion and acknowledgement in educational settings, etc. This is yet an other restriction placed upon artists that may produce content that falls into a grey area, and out of fear or anxiety of having their art targeted, they retreat.
These instances where waves of artists tear down and leave is hard for me. I've been on FA officially since 2007, and browsing without an account since 2005. This is not the first time something like this has occurred, and I can expect it to happen again. But I really don't think the site structured the implementation of such policies very well. Maybe if they had released a plan over the span of about a year, detailing incremental steps for users to prepare, that would have been less of a hit. People need time to adjust, and to figure out what they want to do with art that is questionable or no longer permitted on the site.
Good lord I can't even imagine. This week must hit you very differently than it hit me. I'm around if you need to talk
> This is not the first time something like this has occurred, and I can expect it to happen again
By my count, this has happened around 2010, 2012, 2014, 2015 and 2018. It is of course happening in 2023 and yes I would mathematically expect it to happen in 2025, 2028 and 2030. Every 2 or 3 years FurAffinity makes a big sweeping crazy decision that impacts a ton of people negatively (or, DOESN'T make a big sweeping crazy decision and people get equally upset)
> Maybe if they had released a plan over the span of about a year
I don't think this would have affected me personally. Either my art is allowed here or it isn't, it doesn't matter if it is an incremental change or if they do it all at once, it doesn't matter if they communicate it eloquently or with a set of ambiguous rules nobody understands, it doesn't matter if they ban me without warning or keep constant communication open so I am fully aware of everything that is happening.
Either my art is here or it is not, everything else are just fun little details that decide how painful it is along the way. It doesn't really affect the final outcome very much
I don't think the mods really care, I mean, if they really put places to discuss and ask about the new upcoming policies, wouldn't they have thought more about this if they listened to the feedback? I did not participate in said discussions, because I barely read the site news (yes very bad from my part, I know) ,but if said policies were planned and anticipated, wouldn't the negative feedback coming from a hood share of artists (considering that the new policy is basically removing one MAIN category of furry art) brought them to not do this? I don't know a single thing about how sites works, but my journal feed is full of rants coming from artists that are leaving because their art is considered unsafe, and many comments below them that say the same.
And this move they are making with the site is just...for what, exactly? It doesn't feel like this was thought through, they could have applied any different sort of change to the site mechanic to prevent kids from entering, or to save people from accidentally look at certain kind of artworks, like tag blocklist, or set up a better mod managing (many people complain today about some features that need an upgrade or that should be there, but are missing), but they thought that forbidding one of the biggest categories of furry art was the right choice, I mean, come on, it seriously feels like they pulled the "pedophilia bad" card on this for other motives (but I won't talk about this topic further, because I don't have actual proof, just some angry thoughts)
I understand that one's values and interests change in time, but one's should always be in contact with the outside world, when it comes to making decisions regarding a site that is supposed to host art for everyone to share, fur affinity was born as a place for people to be free, even if under certain rules to protect everyone, but now it's not just banning one or two people, it's banning a good chunk of the original population, and for a motive that everyone thinks it's futile.
And yes, I know that managing a site this big is hard, and making these decisons can be really difficult, but was this decision in particular well thought, was it because of ideals, or was it for other interests? Fetish cub porn is still allowed in here, but not a naked yoshi? I mean, come on, this policy is discrimination against many artists art styles, and I doubt it will help fight child porn in the net.
"Oh, you hate vore? Tell me how your shit fetish is superior". How many of you read that and were immediately reminded of the Willy Wonka meme?
I can't tell you how many names are on my block list because they tried to impose their values on me or someone else -- how many times one idiot or another lashed out at me because I have a Pokemon sona', because I sometimes include humans, because the dragon was not the apex dominator of all, etc., etc., etc.
And I'm just a lowly commissioner and once-in-a-blue-moon writer. Unless your interests perfectly line up with my own, you've probably never seen me before.
And yet, somehow, I have seen enough of this to know that; to know that your values are not universal and to never try to impose them on others.
How the hell did Dragoneer and the rest of the admins somehow miss that?
But what we can do, especially if it involves making a decision, is to listen everyone's opinion, and try to compromise to a solution thay can satisfy everyone, but for doing so, the the responsibles of this site need to involve the community and discuss with everyone beforehand, before slapping everyone with an eviction notice (again, I never read the site news, and for what I know, there weren't forums or any other kind of platforms where people could discuss said things, maybe the decision was open for anyone to debate but no one gave a fuck about saying something or checking for these future changes)
This is what drew me to the site! I was used to sites like DeviantArt with "No Adult Material" and VCL with "No Fanart Allowed" and other sites with tons of rules.
FurAffinity was technically a furry site but they let me draw anything I wanted! That's what I loved about it
> now that only adult anthro charcters will be able to stay
Yeah! It's not the kind of website I need to be on any more. I don't really like that kind of art and I don't have an interest in drawing it. Maybe if I felt differently I'd be more upset about being forced to leave
> this policy is discrimination against many artists art styles, and I doubt it will help fight child porn in the net
I agree, but it is a really hard problem to solve. People say "Oh you shouldn't care about character's proportions, or their canon ages, it is all about context" and of course selfishly I'd like that. But imagining you want a policy which prevents fetish cub porn, while minimizing impact to regular Rule 34 artists, what does a policy like that look like? I have heard a few ideas and they all seem very bad
* "The artist decides if it is underage." Okay, then you have people drawing fetish cub porn who insist it is not underage. This isn't a rule, it is barely a formality
* "We go by their canon ages." The 1,000-year-old loli vampire is not a hyperbolic use case, I was literally commissioned for an 800-year-old child dragon. This rule doesn't work either.
* "The mods decide based on context" This sounds OK on paper until you are banned for the same Pikachu someone else drew, with no visual difference. It's so ambiguous that the mods can do whatever they want.
* "We go by their body size." You can take Fievel and The Rescuers and they all just look like mice. Body size is not enough.
Every rule is bad. This rule is bad, but so are all the others. The intent is good, and I'm not against the idea of a rule. It's just a hard problem. FurAffinity is trying to solve the problem, and I give them credit for trying. It sucks the specific rule they chose made me take down my gallery. But I'm not mad at them for trying and I don't have any better ideas.
Only feedback from supposed trouble tickets were the stated reason.
These things are all allowed here. You know this isn't the reason they did it.
The discord initially labled any disenter as pedophile for at least the first 6 hours and attempted to chase them out (which moderators allowed.) Eventually general chat was flooded so much that a moderator went counter to Luffy's direction and made a channel. Luffy closed the channel upon learning of its existence since they were busy playing table top. They had no idea the announcement was being made that day. They eventually reopened it when realizing it'd take several days for them to make that joke of a clarifiaction. They were in no way ready and attempted to SILENCE the discourse before giving up and making a quarantine zone with steadily increasing posting cool down.
So many livlihoods are being disrupted. The decisions here will have lasting effects on the furry/pokemon community. People will/are already using FAs decision to bully artist (which stifles creativity and can lead to depression or worse.)
Neer and Sciggles absolutley give no fucks and shouldn't be welcomed in any community for the amount of lives they've harmed.
Thank you, this is a lot of information I didn't have and colors my perception of the moderation team
> So many livlihoods are being disrupted. The decisions here will have lasting effects on the furry/pokemon community.
I'm very curious what the atmosphere is at AnthroCon this year or how this spreads through the furry community! I agree it will have long-reaching effects as far as people quitting the fandom, deciding "Well I don't want to get banned for my duck character, so I will be a wolf, wolves are okay" or other things like that. Those kinds of decisions make me sad and I really hope they'd just explore other options. One website shouldn't control your life, not when there are so many other options
1. "Dragoneer cares about the community, the mod team cares about the community" Are you kidding me?! The guy doesn't care about the Furry Community at all! If anything, Dragoneer (AKA PREYFAR) DESPISES the Furry Community and only sees it as a community he can take advantage of and manipulate to his own twisted ends! Not only does his attempting to play God and decide what artstyles Furries can and can't use directly conflict with Free Expression, something that is one of the Core Values of the Furry Community, but it's also insanely delusional and self-centered, demonstrating how he only cares about himself and his own goals and not at all about the Community!
2. "It is normal for your interests or values to change over 18 years, it does not make you a hypocrite." While that alone doesn't make you a Hypocrite, doing something that you want to ban others from doing DOES! Not only did Dragoneer still keep his Proportionally Accurate Pokemon Art up even after writing this new policy, but the only reason he took it down was simply because people began calling him out on his Hypocrisy and BS! Statements like "We received positive feedback on this policy" despite the overwhelming pushback against it is another clear demonstration of his Hypocrisy as it clearly shows how, in spite of claiming he listens to the Community in general, he only listens to himself and a small number of people that support him. In other words, it's foolish to say that Dragoneer isn't a hypocrite when, in reality, his entire history is full of nothing BUT hypocrisy!
3. "It is normal to balance your own values against the values of your peers, it does not make you a hypocrite." The problem, however, is that Dragoneer only cares about himself and his goals and values and doesn't balance them with anyone else's. Almost all of his actions as this site's owner have been self-serving, with him shutting down literally any avenue for people to voice his concerns, and when he does want to hear what other people say, he only does it in a very strictly controlled Discord Channel where people routinely get shut down just for so much as speaking out against him! If he did balance his values against others', then we wouldn't be seeing the catastrophe we were witnessing over the last few days taking place at ALL!
4. "Moderating a community of this size is very hard, and making and enforcing this decision was the most difficult choice they could make" LMAO! No...This entire decision was almost entirely Self-Serving and was solely based off of what Dragoneer and a select few others thought was best for the Community. Other sites like DeviantArt and Newgrounds have to deal with tons of stuff every single day and are absolutely massive, and even then, they don't have ridiculous, hypocritical, and backwards policies like the stuff you see going on here! Everything about this new policy is purely just Dragoneer trying to decide what is and isn't acceptable solely because of his uncontrollable God Complex where he thinks he has the right to determine what Artstyles others can and can't use and nothing more!
I don't know what happened to make you do such a hard 180 and start supporting Dragoneer in such a fanatical way like this, but given the fact that his blatant hypocrisy, arrogance, and delusional God Complex are all right in the open, especially now with his new policy, I'm betting he probably did you a "Big favor" if you get where I'm going.
My previous journal was completely empathetic towards the staff about how it's a difficult problem, they're doing their best, there are plenty of viable alternatives, and we shouldn't force them to run their website a certain way. I was never demanding or expecting them to change their mind.
#1 FurAffinity does better than other sites, in that they at least preserve your gallery, its comments, and shouts and stuff
#2 they anticipated the outcry and everything including our response is following their plan exactly. it would be baffling behavior for them to renege
#3 FurAffinity does not want anybody to quit either! they just want to avoid hosting CSAM on their servers which is frankly a noble cause
It feels like people didn't read anything I said and just assumed I reacted negatively because I had to take down my art. I complied with a rule and I felt a little bad for myself. I'm not upset or hostile towards FurAffinity or its mods in any way. Please reread my comments
> I'm betting he probably did you a "Big favor" if you get where I'm going.
That's an interest hypothesis and I wonder what that kind of "Big Favor" would look like given that I have removed almost all of my art and will no longer be active on the site. You will have to let me know when you figure that one out!
No one reads between the lines these days! XD
They did not do this at all. They kept on the same team.
"In the recent announcement, they gave the community places to discuss, react to, or request clarifications about the new policies because they knew there would be thousands upon thousands of people demanding their attention."
If anyone paid ATTENTION to the journals they did, everyone would notice that on not ONE of the single journals was anyone given ANY chance to discuss things. Not to mention the whole getting rid of the forum topics thing to prevent MORE discussion.
"They came in prepared, our reaction was as they expected, and the mod team has done an outstanding job keeping up with their new workload."
Lots of artists still HAVEN'T gotten any response back from FA. Haychel is an exception to that, and even then with their 'quick' response time you would expect them to be a bit faster. 90 minutes is laughable on a site like this, especially with a new set of policies being outlined.
"Would you still be enthusiastic about running "Lego Fart Cannon Dot Com" now that you are in your 20s or 30s? I think you'd have moved on. Dragoneer hasn't moved on and I think is because he's passionate about the fandom -- or less generously, perhaps because he's grateful for his status in it."
Here is shade being thrown at Dragoneer. Of COURSE anyone who had changed values would move on from a site they deem 'problematic'! Haychel outlined a great point there, and nope, the guy in charge who seemingly wants all these values changed also has favorited Eevee stuff before hand, which would have been a direct violation of the rules now. As indicated in the post 'hypocrite'.
And finally, cream of the crop of this : "And if you've ever been a moderator you know -- it's always easiest to do nothing. Despite my ignorance and my laziness, others took the time to educate me about why THIS time was different, THIS time I had to do something."
Yeah, Dragoneer for so many years did NOTHING about this supposedly very very important issue, up until now.
It's sarcasm dripped in sarcasm, with a few extra topping of sarcasm drizzled on top with a sacasm laced cherry added finally to finish it off.
I know most internet posts don't have ton or voice inflection to go off of, but it seems most folks just scanned over the post instead of reading and seeing what points were being made. But I hope that helps!
Actually, they did do a mod recruitment post about six months or so months ago. I remember that clearly as every once in a blue moon they do such. So it kind of break the logic of the whole post, reason why it wasn't making any sense to me and to the rest of the post.
What I am guessing is, given the amount of artists still not having tickets responded to... that the site could be understaffed for this particular announcement. Even worse is the assumption that Dragoneer and any veteran mods might have thought that, despite pokemon and digimon being large cornerstones for the fandom, that the announcement wasn't important enough to hire more people on. Such shows how tone deaf the mod team is to any possible community reactions.
Apart from that, I think it's just really anger in the community over how a lot of tickets still aren't answered. With such a big mod recruitment drive, one would expect tickets to not only be answered in a timely manner, but for the new mods hired on to have been thoroughly trained in this particular issue before it had been announced. From what I've been hearing from some artists, different folks are still getting different answers as to what is and isn't okay in their galleries.
But the overall issue is folks are kind of crazy about the new rules, and it isn't extacly the best to make a post what seemingly giving thanks. And just for the sake of trying to be fair to this artist whom, seemingly, trying to make a joke. There is another artist whom did make a joke of it all. https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/10554033/
But, overall to me, this kind of coming off making bad joke about someone death at their funeral. Nothing against you for explaining it, thank you for that.
And no worries. Your points stand good as well.
Whelp, I guess I totally misread the tone of what you were setting down then.
No one I know was going "see, he's a bad guy because of that" and ignoring him bettering himself; we were drawing attention to that one example to say, "this rule is so dumb that even the site owner doesn't follow it! how uncoordinated and needless is this rule?"
So Agumon, who's just kinda personable and chill, is a nono. But... Guilmon, the dopey one that speaks in the third person, is fine.
Well he took down his art, so I don't think it's "The site owner doesn't follow it," as much as "The site owner didn't follow it before the rule existed"
If Dragoneer hosted eevee art on a different website, would people consider that a dumb rule? Are you not allowed to host a website where your own content is disallowed? I run a discord server, and my server has strict rules about "underage" characters and disallows certain hard fetishes which I've drawn before. Are these rules equally "dumb" just because I'm both a moderator of the discord and also don't mind drawing these characters and fetishes?
I totally understand the knee-jerk reaction of "Wow, you are banning art that you like! You are dumb!" but i think if you evaluate things more objectively, that's not a very good criticism of a rule
It's not dumb because the site owner doesn't follow it; it's dumb that it bans something so inoffensive to the masses, and the fact that the site owner partook in such a thing was the cherry on top.
Yeah, I was half joking, but of course that means I half wasn't. I'll explain:
I got the serious tone of what you said. I'm sure you believe this. I'm not quite so confident in the administration here, though.
I admire your approach to this. You've taken it calmly and logically, with good humor. I'm not quite so inclined to do this, though. You seem to agree with a lot of the critics here, and you're prepared to just move on. Good for you.
I'm not one of the people that instantly jumps on the admins or Neer and slags them. That tends to annoy me. It's all to easy to criticize, which seems to be the knee-jerk reaction of all too many folks here, without real justification in most cases, as far as I've seen. This site is run on a shoestring, and built on ancient, creaky code, so it's hard to make substantive updates, and I think I understand why those take so long at this point. This current mishegoss isn't going to help with that, which I tend to think should actually be the priority here.
I've tended to defend the administration here overall. My dealings with them have tended to be fair and reasonable, even where I haven't always agreed with all of them.
No doubt they prepared for this, at least to some extent, but the rollout was abysmal, and their reaction to the pushback against it has been poor at best, to my estimation. It's ultimately no clearer today than the day they introduced this. There are just too many things about the vagueness of these "Rules" that pave the way for abuse by both admins and users.
I realize that a site like this is a private entity. It's up to them to set whatever rules they wish. This isn't a democracy or a cooperative.
But I can't see how this was necessary. If they're under outside pressure, which I suspect, and wouldn't be surprising, they should have been transparent about this.
As someone else mentioned below, I'm an activist. It's in my nature to push back against things that strike me as senseless and unfair. Of course the majority of folks here don't care, either because that's in their nature or because they imagine that they won't be affected. This reminds me of how such a huge number of people in this country don't vote, get involved in issues, or are centrists. This behavior just enables the worst things to happen due to people's complacency or inaction.
I joined FA almost eight years ago to enjoy and share art, and possibly find some community. It seemed a pretty friendly and welcoming place overall, whether regarding the administration or a majority of the users. It's tended to be good for that until recently. But this decision, which I can only assume they're not going to clarify further or rescind at this point, as well as their recent regressive and lazy blanket AI ban, which had extremely negative effects on me personally, have made this feel like much less of a friendly place or a community. This new, and as far as I can see, pointless rule is just atomizing the community that's here. People are already leaving and pointlessly censoring themselves. This really doesn't bode well for the future here.
I'm not rushing to leave. I suppose I'll wait to see how this plays out. But I'm gonna have to consider my options if things continue as they are.
I have submitted a second trouble ticket -- and one of my friends has joked "If they answer your ticket before MINE, I'll know you have some sort of special Red Phone to Dragoneer's house!" ... I probably shouldn't share this joke, because I really do want my trouble ticket answered...
There are other websites which will accept you how you are! I hope you'll explore other options
Sadly, all these people ever get to hear are continuous complaints from the ones they have surrounded themselves with, since the other 85% of FA's user-base, that doesn't really care or maybe does in fact approve, don't really speak up about it, as it won't actually affect those very much.
To top it all off, there comes a reasonable voice from within their own little crowd, that says something different to what they are used to. Boy, do they get confused! This must be trolling of course, they are all quick to proclaim. Otherwise they would maybe have to consider that there could be other opinions out there.
What a truly, incredibly silly bunch.
Our bubble, you say.
Nevermind the fact that ALL but 3 people were providing negative feedback on discord with a lock post sitting at 230+ dislike versus 13 like as we speak. Nevermind that every single twitter post regarding this UP gets ratioed. Twitter, a place where all this non-sense is born a few years ago.
Our bubble, you say.
You may very be right to say that probably a lot of the community doesn't really care, or doesn't get impacted. Here's the thing. We are a community. People from the same community tend to support each other, to defend each other when a decent portion of its artist gets unjustly labelled things that are pretty damn serious.
You don't care, and that's your problem. I'm glad to be in that "bubble" that still remembers what this fandom stands for and who don't wish people to get harmed and harassed.
And remember, the fandom goes beyond FA.
Most people think I am being sarcastic but I'm confused and they probably didn't come to my stream today where I was enjoying myself and laughing with the other moderators. It is the end of a website, or at least my presence on it. Why is that such a bad thing?
I was bummed, too, when I moved out of my mom's house to get my first apartment, or when I graduated from college and had to leave all my friends. Goodbyes suck, and I hate breaking out of a comfortable routine. But my life is great now. It would probably be worse if I still lived with my mom and never went to college.
Sometimes change is disastrous and life ruining and sometimes, sometimes it is just a small change. This one is OK
"Why is that such a bad thing"
People have already answered that. It is painting a target on many artists to be labelled incorrectly by some bad actors who are trying to tie their work to illegal and very serious activities. It is showing that the tactics of defaming and mislabeling works, and that it won't stop there as a result. FA, being the large website that it is, will set a precedent.
If it was wildly accepted you would see more people actually defending it in the official communication lines. People who think themselves righteous usually have no problem telling others what to do and pointing fingers. So where are they?
It's your choice to run away, but it very much isn't an "OK" change.
"run away?" FurAffinity is just a website which hosts my art, and I am leaving to do my own thing
if AWS's skyrockets their server costs and I decide "fuck AWS i'm hosting my own servers" i'm not "running away" from AWS. If Tumblr decides "We're banning all adult content next month" and I decide "fuck Tumblr I'll keep drawing the same shit somewhere else" i'm not "running away" from Tumblr. if the Apple Music store decides "we're adding DRM so you can only play our music on Apple Products" and I decide "fuck Apple I am ripping all my music to MP3s and never buying anything else from them", I am not "running away" from Apple
i am just taking my business elsewhere and refusing to support them. I think that's arguably more noble than pumping your fists in the air chanting "Take! My! Money! ...Take! My! Money!"
If you've already made up your mind that I'm on "the other team" or whatever I won't try to change it, but don't frame taking my business elsewhere as cowardice. i won't frame you putting up with the website for another month (or more) as cowardice either. we're just two people fighting against the new rules in our own ways
I hear the "it's not my problem anymore" argument, except it is, because we're all part of the same fandom and the fandom doesn't stop at the gates of FA.
The problem isn't FA per say, it's a growing, recent tendency to draw lines in the sand under arbitrary (and most often hypocritical) pretense.
You think it's pessimistic to assume further changes, yet you can't deny more styles and body types (like ferals) are and have been under attack for a while. For all we know after that, every anthro character with anatomically correct genitalia will also be considered problematic (there's also growing voices against that).
Give an inch and they'll take a mile.
The trend has been very clear theses recent years and Dragoneer & Mods (whether under pressure or not) are now directly contributing to the problem. They care, you say? What about the many artists who get impacted and mislabeled as a result? And for what? To what end? Who is that helping?
Yes, people opinions, values, tastes can change overtime, so is their ability for care and empathy. I was an admin for years on a local website, I'm STILL an admin on a fairly used chatbot. I KNOW it's hard and stressful, I also KNOW that sometimes you got to take a step back, and yes, something the easiest solution is also the better one. Definitely better than going nuclear to weed out a few unwanted people and hurting so many other good people in the process.
It should tell you something that a lot of people here think you were joking, because if you're indeed not agreeing with their rules, with all due respect you sure as hell didn't make it look this way.
Also, some people who don't comply with FA's policies have their galleries purged entirely (images deleted) and I like being able to read through comments or reminisce about my old pictures, even if the pictures do not exist anymore.
It's also nice to answer comments if someone comes to my page and asks "Will There Be A Monster Mind 2?" or something like that. Ha ha~
Alright, thanks for taking the time 👍
Years ago they stopped allowing cub stuff... Which is fair enough, I don't draw or actively look for that stuff.
But now they're choosing to false-flag whole species and especially art styles as "cub", against the better judgement of the artists who actually drew it.
I don't have the data on this so might be wrong, but Pokémon makes up quite a fair majority of the fandom, and not allowing upwards of 50% of pokémon species.. Is a bit shooting self in foot.
You don't draw cub stuff (at least not here, I wouldn't know if you do elsewhere)... I don't draw cub stuff...
But now I'm being accused of doing so and chased from the site.
.. Well.. I know where I'm not wanted.
I can not agree more! I hope you do not stay. Let's go somewhere new! There are a lot of cool websites. Lots of us are going to Itaku, if you haven't checked it out I recommend it. I've even heard they even have a bulk uploader so you can transfer your gallery over.
> You don't draw cub stuff (at least not here, I wouldn't know if you do elsewhere)...
https://e621.net/posts?tags=argon_vile
I draw tons of objectionable stuff! Enter your most loathed search term into e621 and see what comes back, you might be surprised. I probably drew it.
I don't deliberately draw underage characters in underage situations. But some people would look at Spyro, Litleo or Simba and think "That Is Cub Art." For me, I care more about context -- if they are all behaving like adults and enjoying themselves then I am usually fine with it.
I do wanna try Itaku more, it seems alright. Although not a fan of the thumbnails being so huge on screen, and with no immediate indication of content unless you look... Makes it very easy to see stuff I don't wanna see in all its vivid detail, and often times blacklisting won't work without also removing stuff I don't mind...
Other sites on the horizon is SoFurry, although I do hear it's adopting similar anti-cub values that FA started with years ago, and only hope that they learn from what's happening now and not end up doing the same.
InkBunny, although they have a rather strict rule against human art, which as little of that as I do is still like 10% of it, and I can't consider it being my 'main' site if I can't upload everything I do to it.
And Weasyl which genuinely seems like the site I'd most want to be my primary art site... but it's so very small and underused by everyone else.
I'm gonna miss FA purely because of how centralized it made everything. 'Everyone' uploaded here.. But now dudes have got very different choices of where to emigrate to... Gonna take a lot of skipping about to find everything.
Sad.
Those are rookie numbers, we need to get those numbers up! 😈
Seriously though, FA over the past years has made being a furry harder and harder and at this point I honestly wish I wasn't one. Thanks FA
Now that I have officially been given the boot, I'm not really sure what I'm losing by leaving here! I'll just be everywhere else. If all the bad things people say bout FurAffinity are true, then that's not such a bad outcome is it?
We had this great site in the beginning. Then one man got a hold of it all and it's honestly been downhill since. I've been here since 2005, started on an alt that was a raunchy pun I thought was amusing and then I'd commission art and I'd be credited as that name, not LexGoyle as I went by everywhere else. So made this account later on.
Seeing this happen is like seeing an old friend go to a separate direction and turn on his own friends. You even have people banned for not even breaking a rule. Then there's the crap they pulled in the Discord by trying to manipulate the data regarding negative reactions and basically accusing anyone opposed to the new policy of being a pedophile.
FA is technologically obsolete by well over a decade. They've spent time doing the usual server hardware upgrades that tend to be required as time goes on but they've sorely neglected the code itself. I'm told it's such badly written "spaghetti" that's why they can't feasibly do updates. At that point you may as well build up something new from scratch. But yeah that's Dragoneer's business. We can all scream at the top of our lungs saying what needs to be done but we've been doing that for over a decade now with little result.
From my perspective there's too much effort going into policing people's words and content uploads vs getting the site into the modern area. I say that in spite of the fact I prefer the older UI but my complaints are largely related to the backend stuff.
Was kinda thinking on this the past few days and we really are fighting tooth and nail against a lost cause at this point. FA has just been riddled in controversy again and again and again it's starting to feel like wasted energy when there are alternatives out there.
I was considering the FA+ and all that jazz but yeah I don't like the trends that have been going on here. I've been here since nearly the beginning and that really means nothing in the end because once you are politically inconvenient he's got no problem throwing you out as noted by the bans of Zaush, Jasonafex and Kabier, none of whom broke a rule so had to be ousted via the "not a good fit for the community' copout. But as you've said at least there's plenty of alternatives now.
In the end the market will decide if FA will continue on. I don't doubt it will endure this one because most people aren't really affected by it directly. Most of the journals I see on the matter in my feed are people just deleting the bits they think won't pass the rules, expressed their frustration but have decided to remain. Only a few have said they'll leave but we'll see how things go after the 90 day mark past July 1st when they say they will start enforcing it as a penalty.
But man it really has endured so much controversy I'm actually kind of shocked it's still around. I really do think it's time as a furry content hub does need to be finished, though. One man having that much control in the community isn't turning out to be a good thing and I feel it's time for people to break their dependency on FA. I'll need to sort out what that will mean for me.
My trust in FurAffinity was burned about five years ago so I have always kept them at arm's length! To you, it probably feels like a childhood friend stabbed you in the back. To me, it is like a crocodile snapped their teeth at me and I thought, "Yes well that sounds about right" and then I left the crocodile alone
If "standing in solidarity" means something like keeping my art up on FurAffinity, continuing to use the website and attract business by keeping my gallery visible... I'm confused as to why I'd do them so many favors when they are treating me so poorly! I'd rather support websites with better policies which match my interests, and give those websites my money.
Maybe I will understand your viewpoint better some day!
You've said as much that the reason this isn't affecting you very much is because you have already diversified, that you are already in a well enough position that it can't harm you like it's harming so many others. This feels almost directly equivalent to a privileged millionair's advice for saving money being "live cheaper, stop buying so much starbucks" and all that jazz.
I've seen your other responses and it really seems like all you have to say to the people being destroyed by this is "hope it ends well, better luck next time" While in the same breath saying so much more defending those doing the destroying in the first place, how they are well within their right. And that is where that solidarity has died.
As someone who is in a very similar position that you are in, one of financial stability that will not be harmed here, I need you to know how very callous this feels.
I know this will sound brutally cruel but have we ever met? I don't honestly recognize your name
If you have no idea who I am then yes you were wrong to trust me, I'm sorry I let you down! Please be more careful
I guess it would be... if you somehow equate a scarce resource like "money" with an infinite resource like "effort" or "foresight" but that would be kind of a shitty analogy
> I've seen your other responses and it really seems like all you have to say to the people being destroyed by this is "hope it ends well, better luck next time"
I think my advice in general is "prepare yourself for next time" and "go somewhere that will treat you better" and "try to post to more than one site so that it doesn' thappen again"
If there is better advice I could share like "This really sucks for all of us!!" then I think that's... a nicer sentiment but I don't think it's better advice
> I need you to know how very callous this feels.
I'm sorry about that! I can certainly empathize with anyone who feels pressured like they're losing all their customers or having to change their character. But I just feel like there's sort of a silly and obvious solution and they don't have to lose all their customers or change their character. It's a hard problem for me to relate to, and that's probably my fault and I genuinely apologize for not empathizing fully
I like to be concise with what I say, and I think my reply to BF3019 is as concise my perspective on this is, so I'll just copy that here.
> Argon isn't siding with Dragoneer - rather, trying to remain neutral to it all. Still, that neutrality is what draws my ire. Why would you even want to remain on the high ground, when doing so means sharing space with people willing to shove entire communities off the cliff? There's no progress in that.
I'm an activist. 'Tis how I tend to look at things.
As disappointed as I am, I do respect the attempt - but I prefer to judge by results more than intentions. And the results aren't painting a benevolent picture.
If you don't think this is going to set a dangerous precedent for more abuse of art styles in the future and decide to go along with the charade, whatever happens next is also on you.
They would rather allows kids in what is clearly an adult space and antagonize a growing part of their artists than just... make the space adult only. On top of that, they protect their own kinks from that ban hammer. That alone is beyond ridiculous.
I am posting pictures of Bowser Jr on Twitter, do you think they are showering me with praise? Thanks to many helpful strangers, I can now say "pedophile" in six languages ha ha. I will get over it
> They would rather allows kids in what is clearly an adult space and antagonize a growing part of their artists than just... make the space adult only
I disagree with a lot of these decisions and don't understand them! It is their decision to make. It is not my business anymore! There are better websites run by smarter people who make better decisions.
I do my best
I feel like the owner is trying his best with the website, even if some features aren't in (even when they should've, years ago, aka name changes, blacklisting tags, ect.)
I was annoyed and kinda pissed with the announcement but I think being able to brew on it for a few days, I can understand the Why of making it, it's targeting a large group, and a lot is unknown which is the issue. Their wording is also not great.
Felt like getting my word in, happy to see neutrality
I think the most confusing question most people have is "Why couldn't they leave things the same? What was the problem with how they were?" and I'd like to have an answer to that. But, having the answer wouldn't actually change anything. It would just give me something more specific to be angry at. "Grrr, that company! Grrr, that person! That person sucks!" ....Well, I still want the answer anyway, even if it is a little petty of me.
I think it's okay to be angry since it's effecting you and and a lot others, and without much answer, it's limited and only asking for guesses to be made about the making of the policy change. I don't think it's petty to want an answer although it's highly unlikely to receive one.
If you're going to pretend to moderate underage content on the site, at least don't do it while wading through actual child porn, high off your own euphoria from having perfectly debated the finer points of "children in vore is totally not porn" in your favor.
I haven't seen such poor site administration behavior since Elon caused a world wide twitter outage by pulling a random server out of its rack to show how "crash proof" twitter was.
I personally don't think they did this ignorantly either, at least in the sense of how people would react, and I understand that rules and values can change over time, especially with so controversial topics like this one.
What I think is they are just willingly ignoring the real problems behind underage porn art and are just taking a cheap shortcut to avoid consequences without combating the root of the problems they carry, even if that means upsetting and eliminating like half of their total content.
I do think they care; I do think they are obeying new morals and values; and I do think they deliberately decided to make a wrong decision in favor of their own safeness, but that's because they are being lazy in developing a better way to do it without spending too much time and still risking judgement.
Most of the Furry Community is on Furaffinity, Inkbunny, Twitter, Deviantart, and F-List.
Inkbunny requires you to be an adult, and be tolerant of actual cub content.
Twitter requires you to at least turn a blind eye to everything going on there, and in general is a poor site for fostering community or hosting a gallery of art.
F-List requires you to be an adult and be tolerant of not just cub but shota/loli content.
DeviantART is essentially what Furaffinity was, but very poorly moderated.
As a minor, someone new to the fandom, you now have to participate in a community that labels the rest of the fandom as supporting something so abhorrent they argue it should be illegal, or to DeviantART, a very unmoderated space full of content of all kinds and all the same issues Furaffinity currently has.
However, this same community thinks fetishes too spicy for those on F-List (an adult website that allows everything) to openly do, are appropriate not just for minor characters to be featured in, but for minors to be viewing.
Most of the art itself is on e621, another adult site which has very little community engagement.
With the goal of "protecting kids", kids are getting a very wrong message and view. Either that the fetishes the admins like are non-sexual and entirely appropriate where "other" fetishes are even morally wrong, or are pushed to the adult spaces and things are normalized, easily missing the nuances and engaging with explicit content.
All of this with Furaffinity only wanting to hear users' issues with it privately, after only a joke of a Discord thread that only let people rant every 6 hours if they didn't say anything auto-blocked (and had to wait another 6 hours to try again).
But hey, there might be a silver lining to save FA. Maybe see if Dragoneer's interested in selling FA to you and you become the new site owner, think FA would thrive under your claws. Lol I think being site owner to this place would be a nightmare. I know I couldn't handle the pressure of it. Haha
I wish you the best for your future and that something like this doesn't happen again on other sites to you. You definitely deserve better than this. :D
I'm also jealous that they got back to you so quickly; I'm still waiting to hear if Stitch/ my Xeno-9 is illegal now or not after nine days lol
Considering a lot of personal art from staff members also violated these rules from as recent as... well, this month, have been being removed after people went "hey wait", as well as certain members of staff hinting at a NDA, I would probably suggest waiting a bit to see how this situation develops before assuming anything about their rationale here.
It's also really upsetting seeing a lot of the responses pre "clarification" in defense of the staff decision, many of which were doing the usual of implying those who would be banned from posting are pedophiles, and wishing heinous acts of violence against them. The only reason we stopped seeing these as frequently is because it took them 2 days to ruin their reputation with conservatives too thanks to, well, you know what they posted.
Should things calm down and this be accepted as a new normal, it'll get worse for a lot of younger furries that lack the more kink friendly support groups older ones tend to have, which is the really scary part.
The rules presented were made flippantly and, the generous interpretation, ignorance. The not so generous, and rather evident, interpretation being malice towards the community. No one made these rules with the best interests of the community or thinking they would be making a better space within the fandom. They didn't try doing something good by the community in the rules, in the clarifications, in the revision only addressing one of the many things they got universal backlash over, not by making a feedback void in their discord that they promptly shut down without taking to heart, they sure didn't do give it their best with telling lie after lie about how the policy would work or about what would and would not be affected, etc etc.
I'd really love to assume this journal is just a big joke but I'm gonna give this response as though it were serious just in case.
With everything that happens, you always look on the brighter side of things, and that's pretty rad l3
Still, I don't think current management really has the best intentions in mind with this community, not for policy making, nor for implementation, but that's my own take and the bag of worms I could get into with talking about it has already been discussed plenty by other users.
Really? Because in their own words:
> [The announcement] was scheduled to be posted at a time that not all staff were available to help moderate and were not able to provide adequate clarifications.