Rainbow Ark has certainly meant a lot to me

*hugs*

Are you planning to save any of the information such as FA journal entries?

Hello my friend. I had no plans for that personally, but I did want to give everyone plenty of notice in case there was anything they wanted to glean from the various sites. Such as the pdf of the YJLM which is found on the website. Your question has me wondering about something though. Do you think there should be print archives? There might be legalities with personal data though once it's removed from here.

I think a print archive would be nice. I hadn't considered that there might be any legalities.

This makes me legitimately sad. The end of an era. I’m still sorry that I wasn’t more involved in support all along, but I’m grateful for the good that was done. ❤️❤️❤️

*hug* There's so much more to be happy about though. 20 years for any electronic media is like an eternity, and everything has an end at some point.

If you look at when we were alive with activity, it was from the latter part of 2004 to about 2011. Things had already started to be pretty quiet before we were here on FA. I made some mistakes early in our growth, for one thing by allowing too much dialog to stand, in the spirit of free speech and diversity, but which was compromising our safe zone. Social media and the ways younger people interact moved on from LiveJournal, and similarly FA. Plus we are no longer the only advocate and resource for people struggling with their personal balance of LGBT+ and Christian or other faiths.

The old guard we started with have moved on and there were few younger ones with the same original struggles because I think younger people are smarter and are more likely to abandon toxic religion rather than harm themselves over their orientation or gender identity. I think it's also due to there being more affirming resources online than ever before.

So as far as being the end of an era, yes, I think so. But I will always cherish the friends I've met who I've had the pleasure of interacting with these past 20 years. That's one of the things that continues on long after Rainbow Ark.

I certainly miss LJ.

I don't recall a lot of dialog that would have compromised it in terms of a safe zone, but then it is not something I had been looking for. Was it a matter of certain individuals pushing things on a regular basis (do you recall), or more the occasional slip from someone who normally was not controversial?

This was a long time ago, but I remember I was of a mind to let opposing views converse to eventually work out ways to coexist by understanding where each other was coming from, that it wasn't good vs. evil, but two views which might be just as valid. I was wrong about that, because there is evil, and there are those who just want to stir shit and not care who they might hurt, or sometimes thriving on the hurt that they give others. There were a few who trusted us, who thought they could finally relax and be themselves, and because there were others present, they likely felt they were thrust into the same tension they just left from places like U&G--making people defend their stances, like everyone is supposed to be an activist. There are things I'd definitely do differently now. I'm just glad that most members' experience with RA was and is positive. I always had good intentions. I miss the LJ days too. Those were good times--many of them.

My main concern still is that no one here feels compelled to try to change or to harm themselves because to them it seems like their presence offends their faith. Many of you know I'm now an atheist, but when I founded RA, I was very much a Christian. It is now easy for me to say that if your religion says you're an abomination, divorce yourself from that religion. But I recognize it is not such an overly simplistic decision for many people. You can't just tell people to leave the faith of their childhood, because you can just seem like you're the devil confirming scripture that warns against keeping company with faithless "friends" who are only trying to lure you away from God. You have to meet them where they're at. The YJLM shows in scripture where they can find balance to continue on and that God is okay with them being themselves.

Someone within the fandom will create something better, for the younger furries, something fully smartphone compatible, and interactive. An old 64 yo like me can't get it done and we can't keep putting band aids on 15 yo hand coded html and css. Someone who knows how to create aps.

If I were to go back and change it then I think maybe it would have been good to have two separate areas. One that was definitely a safe space and one that could have allowed for opposing views (within limits). If the second one were clearly labeled then that might have worked.

I obviously can't do this and I am just mentioning it because I think there was value to letting people talk about different views, but you would still want to prevent any hate speech.

The other reason why I mentioned this is because I remember Foof had a question at one point that I answered. I didn't know him and thought he might be trolling but decided to give the benefit of the doubt. It turned out that it was meant as an actual question.

In any case, you did the best that you could with the knowledge and wisdom that you had at the time. Yes, you could have improved it, but I am very glad you created it as imperfect as it might have been.

*hugs*