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Feb 13th- Tag FAQ, Memorial Reminder, & Town Hall
9 months ago
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Tag Blocking FAQ, Memorial Reminder, and Town Hall Prep
Hey there! We have a few things we would like to update you on so please read through the journal in its entirety!
Celebration of Life and Memorial Update!
Firstly we would like to remind you all that there are only a couple weeks left to get submissions in on Neer’s memorial here journal link. We will be attending Fur The More from March 6th-9th if you wanna stop by and see us in the Dealer’s Den or meet us during the Celebration of Life on Sunday the 9th at noon. You can pre-reg for the con here Fur the More link but a reminder that the Celebration of Life itself is free to the public!
Tag Blocking Update
Next we want to update you on the FAQ in regards to Tag Blocking and items we are working on from the feedback received! FAQ link
We know we’ve been silent a bit but we’ve had our nose to the grindstone trying to get some updates fleshed out, on-boarding new mods, training, and catching up on tickets that have piled up during the past few months. Things are moving along well in that area and starting to see progress has gotten us very eager and lively again after many months of grief and depression.
Town Hall Announcement
While we are waiting until things are set to push live we want to put together a Town Hall. We realize it’s been a long time since Fur Affinity had one! With all the change that’s happened over the last few months we think it might be a good idea to catch the community up on what all has happened and what our goals are moving forward.
We know this may be a bit of a chaotic idea, so we are going to follow what was done the last time and post a form to collect questions ahead of time that we will then answer live. Form Link
We will collect questions for two weeks, closing on February 27th, then prep time for two weeks with a plan to go live for the event on March 15th around 1pm EST. It will be recorded for those that aren't able to make it and we will see about transcribing as well.
Our hope is to bring a breath of fresh air into FA and get back to supporting the community, planning events, and working together to improve the site. This site means so much to all of us, and with all the community has done to support FA and keep it going, it’s about time FA started supporting the community properly in return. We want to do all we can to keep it going in a positive direction. FA has had an unfortunate history of over promising and under delivering and transparency being something that was sorely lacking. That is something we aim to fix, especially after all the feedback in regards to the previous rules update. We are not at our best yet and still learning and recovering from all that's happened. We're sure mistakes will be made but we want to learn from them and we aim to do better and work with the community.
Fender Journal Comments
The previous journal was a bit of “testing the waters” in regards to having the comments turned back on. We were really pleased with the majority of the comments following the guidelines and not causing trouble. We would like to try leaving them open again and see if we can continue the positivity in being able to communicate there.
Things to keep in mind- Comments need to stay PG-13 at most. We need everyone to remain respectful, on topic, and remember that the rules apply to Fender journals too. If you don't have something nice to say, take it elsewhere.
Be excellent to each other.
...Technically. :v
Because 7, 8, 9!
wait wrong comment my bad
sqrt(49) == 7
(•w-)
NOW HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT ONE PRETTYBOY!?
I rather enjoy a kick of pepperjack myself.
Anyways! Uh. If possible, I'd be happy to see a kind of roadmap for planned updates or something, but that may be difficult right now. Such as, what ideas are being considered, what is going to be implemented, so on. Would be a good way to get the site on track, but IDK
Also (i dont know where else to shoehorn this in - and i know feature requests can be a pain when not asked for(sorry)), as a musician, I would love to just have a "play" button (or playlist) in the corner and it would just play each song consecutively, because it's a bit more of a commitment to go through individual music posts than art posts.
I 100% agree there! For a long time I've disliked the separation on the frontpage. My ideal set up would be a front page that is all inclusive with tabs on it to then sort by specific recent types. Interesting idea of allowing users to pick their "default" view too, I like that.
Please please if you haven't alread add the feature request to the town hall form in the journal so we can keep tabs on it 💖
Music and writing are some of the most neglected areas on the site and I would love to get as much input as possible on what and how to improve that!
Yay, town hall! I love when sites are more transparent with the consumers. I hope it can help improve the site overall for the better!
Thank you for making FA be more open. I think there's been more staff-user interaction in the past few months than I had ever seen before then.
though I've months-old keyword abuse reports that haven't been reviewed yet. I hope y'all find time to go through em
Thanks for all yall do, though <3 FA's always gonna be the best furry site out there.
https://stuff.veekun.com/fa-timeline.html
Definitely a breath of fresh air to see a site taking feedback and openly- positively -communicating with their users for once! Feels like it's been awhile since I've seen that on the web (not just here, ya know, but many sites).
Thanks for all you do!
Here's a link to make it easy: https://www.furaffinity.net/controls/profile/
I've never seen something like that being done so I'm not too sure
The Town Hall system aims to gather as many questions/comments/suggestions (but not insults) together ahead of time, find a series of patterns/topics amongst everything that was submitted, and usually actively answer to those patterns/topics.
While individual questions might not be answered ("Why did you paint the sky red?", "Why are the walls green?", "Did you have to use pink for the floor?"), the general recurring topics ("Here is why we chose this color palette") are approached and given information/explanation/clarifications.
TLDR: Town Hall meetings are usually more involved than suggestion box systems as they directly address some concerns, which is a really good way to answer a community. :3
Might consider renaming it for FA specifically, like "Pride Rock Meeting" or something. X3
(Don't do that - don't want the Disney lawyers on your tail. Everyone fears lawyers, and the lawyers' boogeyman are Disney lawyers. xD)
i think for something larger, like the announcement makes it feel, is something different. This is more of a Community Advancement and Respectful Engagement event.
I haven't got much to add to this discussion but the idea is appreciated.
Question:
I was wondering if there's any way to have the site in other languages? I'm part of the Brazilian community and not everyone understands English very well. It would be nice to have an option to change the language of the site itself (even if, of course, people's posts are in the language they speak).
Best is you open up a ticket for Tech about it so it doesnt get lost. Until we discuss this idea, maybe you can use the site over google translate, or another browser plug-in?
What is done and what needs to be worked on?
(seriously though-- thank you for the tag filtering feature!!! it's made this site a whole lot more usable ^_^)
However, its nice to see some progress being made. It might just take a while before I can really trust the site again. There were some pretty BIG mistakes made over the years that have left some lasting scars, and those dont heal overnight.
Still, keep trucking. This is a step in the right direction, and I hope things continue to improve.
I'm excited for the town hall!!
I sent a feedback ticket in regards to the upcoming plans to implement community tags- pretty much requesting that be a feature that artists can choose to opt-out of, but for the sake of constructive conversation- i'll post that take down below, here.
"It is mine and a few other artists who do not quite trust community imput when deciding what tags our work should have. If you're gonna add a community tag system where other members can add or remove tags- after years of not having to worry about that- Then artists should have the option to opt out of community tagging.
It should not cause any substantial issue if some artist's works can not have other's change the tags- because if it were a substantial enough of a mis-tagging scenario, they could just report that work for mis-tagging instead.
Viewers who are dissatisfied or feel misled with the tags can still report it- and if an artist is confident enough- they should be allowed the option to lock their tags, at the slightly increased risk of being reported for mistagging their works in return. Seems fair enough."
Artists are required to tag their art, and other users can suggest additional tags. It's up to artists to accept suggested tags, and they can turn off the suggestion feature in their settings if desired. It's rare to run into mistagged art there, which is great for doing searches.
Also, I do not participate in "Celebration of Life" rituals.
I mention this on my profile a lot but we only get to really speak on other peoples personal profiles and their spaces. But now there is a chance to speak to and with FA itself, with all it's range of people and all the new quests that come with it.
Since one talks to a lot of artists profiles, it feels like you always talk with and to a shop-front of someones account and their work, including non-artists of course and with something like this you can just ... idk, talk, have a little yap in the puiblic, engage in various mysterious and golly ways :)
All of us have something to give to this world and everyone has something to learn from it and now we have another little door open to it and that is rock'n'roll! ´w ´
I always wanted a somewhat feature that lets you engage in more personal ways with other profile outside of going to an upload or journal, you know like QRTs from social medias but at the same time I wouldn't want this to be LIKE social medias. and something like this is so "that's an FA way of doing something"
... and that is so heartfelt i could cry
be yourself, be a little bit werid and different, that's what makes us so powerful
It's my first time witnessing official journals to be open and I do agree It's a nice change for people to socialize and give their thought or simply be silly and bring joy!
I hope folk will respect FA opening up to us, because I believe it would bring us all closer as one big supportive community <3
Maybe making a word filter of somekind would help preventing trolls to ruin this beautiful moment? 💔
Thank you for the update and kind words your giving us. I don't have any drawings or art to send but I do honor the site owner legacy, dream and passion. Super excited to see how the direction of the site will become soon.
Im asking deckard the real questions
will you only field questions that have been filed in the online form or allow some form of live participation too?
So.. Yeah! Thank you, really. <3
While I am aware that that can be bypassed too by ways of secondary accounts it is more of a peace of mind thing more than anything.
Can't wait to see pics and what not.
I can't say much about tag blocking.
Although. I appreciate helping out with ticket.
Have a cookie c:
Always great to see actual communication from a site than just always in the shadows. Sometimes the smallest things can mean a great amount, even if its answering a few QnA now and then to show there is a clear back and forth happening. I read in the comments road maps are also hopefully being worked on as well, which is also great!
seeing the tag blocking feature getting added and the amount of effort spent trying to make a rule as clear as possible (which, now that I think of it, it's kind of concerning) is just a proof of it
thank you for everything you're doing and you will do ^^ wish yall the best of luck on managing a web site almost old enough to drink!
unrelated: https://files.catbox.moe/dbsqn2.png
heeyy
so.....
theoretically, and this is a lil crazy, how many Monopoly money $20s do I gotta slide you to not show the big boss ya boy forgot to pull her bday ad?
theoretically, of course >_>;;
There's just too many burnt bridges that I don't think a couple small features will fix it.
I wonder if apart from hopefully less draconian rules and restrictions on content, another good idea might be having the system automatically show the names of the moderators that make a decision. Like most things though it's a double edged sword: If moderators know every action toward an user makes their identity public, it might encourage taking better actions... of course if users can see exactly who took actions on them, that could easily encourage harassing mods in private.
So much communication was on lockdown and staff scared of communication. There has been a big shake up recently in staff and I can already feel the difference in energy on our side of things in a positive way. There has been so much more chatter and liveliness that honestly gets me a bit emotional from time to time because I know how much Neer would have loved to have seen that.
I don't know that we will go back to staff actions being known again though or having a staff page...some pretty bad things happened in the past in that regard where staff members were only doing their job and got over the top threatened, targetted, and harassed that caused some serious mental health issues...I've also been doxxed and threated during my time here. Having kids now makes it extra scary for me now. Ultimately our staffs mental and physical well-being is paramount to me and I never want to put them into a position to be targetted like that again if I can avoid it...
That said we have considered other avenues of accountability. One is posting up a staff Code of Conduct which is completely drafted and just going through edit phase for grammar and what not. Also considered the idea of assigning numbers or anon animals similar to how Google does so people can still reference a specific identifier without directly targetting a staff member. If that makes sense 😵💫
I'm a bit full of holes and don't trust easy.
I guess we'll see what you all do.
JamesAlesto You have me blocked o/, and I don't want to type a third honest and nice and flowery paragraph so I'll just say that good luck, you all have a lot of work, it literally cannot get any worse than it was lol
You know how it goes over the years. You block someone and forget WHY years down the line. Just a reminder I needed to purge mine and start fresh as I tend to every few years.
I know it's going to take some feet on the ground, delivery, and time to get back user trust, but I can say that the group of folks staffing the site really care about giving a good experience to the users.
Once upon a time I was an artist complaining about ad turn around times for example. Bless poor Neer, he was always so busy, but it was just Known that ad turn around times were lengthy. Right now I can safely say we are at 48 hours or less, and I'm just using my "department" as an example. :D
There's still much to be done. We finally have tag blacklisting at last, yet the restrictions on art it was supposed to fix remain: People can easily hide what they don't want to see, yet artists still risk having their works deleted for satire or based on their character art style for particular themes. After past experiences I still feel at risk posting or saying anything, been doing less art in general till things settle down; Still have this subtle PTSD where I constantly wonder if I may be suspended again for something completely silly I did even a submission from more than 10 years ago, will never truly understand how we got here from such an open and chill community.
But I'll continue to believe things can get better. I'm sorry Dragoneer won't be around to see it even if they will... always believed what happened was never his will, he just had to struggle to appease an increasingly difficult culture that's affected most of the internet. I know Furaffinity will likely never be what I knew back in 2007, yet if it makes even a few steps back to that direction it would be a blessing I'm sure we could all use.
If you haven't done so already I highly encouraged submitting a question for the town Hall to voice this, so we can better address it and open those lines of communication with users as to what is and isn't permitted.
In my case I've had at least two submissions removed which to my knowledge don't technically break the rules... they may have upset people as they were jokes about fandom or worldly drama, but I didn't see how such silly art actually broke the rules: I didn't file trouble tickets over those takedowns per say, due to the mindset that I'd risk getting into more trouble, I was just glad to have my account back so I left the rest as is. I also remember at least one submission I deleted myself as to not risk my account again, even if to my knowledge it broke no rules but I was worried the mods might interpret it otherwise... not sure which can be recovered or if I should even want it.
I believe most of it happened a few years ago: A lynch mob was established on Twitter to attack an artist I appreciate, over a joke sketch they posted 10 years before and everyone else long forgot about. They mass-reported both their art as well as anyone in the comments who defended the artist from their attacks... which included me, what I described happened right during those days so I know that's where it came from. I was upset the mods seemed to have fully sided with the raiders and helped them go after us, to the point I suspected they may have taken control of the site. I'm over it now and don't expect anything can be fixed, like bringing back the submissions that were wrongfully taken down... if you think it's of interest though I can mention the user and a description of their submission privately.
What I can specify is that in the trouble ticket system there is an option for "Question About site Policy" under the General Super Category. This is the best place to submit a specific question as to whether or not a particular submission you would like to make adheres to FA's policy, or open a discussion about the subject if it would be rejected.
As to other users making tickets regards wrongful removals, while I have seen these - they aren't as helpful, as they don't open the needed dialogue with the original poster or provide proper context. We also can't discuss staff actions with other users due to privacy reasons. The best person to file a ticket for wrongful removal is the Original Poster (OP) under the "Dispute Admin Action" ticket category. We encourage this in the event that incorrect actions were taken, so that we can rectify them or discuss for better understanding between staff and user if they weren't.
In regards to filing trouble tickets for removals: No, no additional actions will be taken to penalize you for filing a ticket to dispute our actions. We want to help users. Sciggles has taken a pretty clear stance of wanting to work with users rather than "throw the book at them", which has unfortunately been all too common in the past. We just ask that if a dispute is made and the outcome remains the same, that the ticket system not be abused by opening multiple tickets on the matter. You can always escalate a ticket if you would like a second or higher up opinion.
We unfortunately can't speak for previous staff or their reasons for submission removals, since they are no longer with us. If you'd like to have these discussions or have your history reviewed by current staff I highly recommend putting a ticket in for one of us to assist you with this. Sciggles remains final authority, and any questions we cannot answer will be escalated appropriately until either another member of the FA staff, or Sciggles herself can answer you.
Sorry for the wordy reply but I hope this can help ease any concerns.
Also wanted to bring up a tag issue that's been around for ages: Tags that are just 2 characters long don't show any search results. (3 seems to be the functional minimum) For example "@keywords 3d" will show no results even though I've seen that tag used frequently.
The tag blocking FAQ mentions that the planned minimum tag amount will need tags to have at least 2 characters, but that doesn't seem useful if those kinds of tags won't work to begin with. I hope the FA team will be fixing this issue as well.
Also, open news comments? Niccccceeee. :P
First, it was implemented in a way that the code change to support it on one layout could've been easily adapted to the other (at least adding a data-tag-blocklist and data-tags attributes to the body and img tags seems like it would've been straightforward)
Second, is how much space was taken away from the main page content on gallery pages in order to move up stats and a less-useful list of related images. And increasing font-sizes on navigation elements. Using "Retro" only changes the colors slightly, which was never the issue.
I can tell you that tech is really open to hearing why you enjoy Classic and what about it is more appealing over the Modern. You're always welcome to put in a feedback ticket so they can read it! I promise you they are very interested in hearing what improvements can be made when it comes to having die-hard Classic users come over.
That would've been enough to satisfy my needs (since having that field available, I could've implemented the rest of the functionality myself via userstyle).
Honestly, though, using the trouble ticket system to send messages about all the changes we would want feels suboptimal, as (i) I would want to include screenshots, (ii) I can already tell from some of the other comments that some of my gripes would get repeated by others, so if we all did that there would be a lot of duplicate tickets for FA staff to to wade through, and (iii) it's not clear which category we should use to report issues.
But if there's feedback with visual guides you'd like to get to tech, go ahead and pop it to accounts@furaffinity.net, and I'll forward it to the team!
But for feedback the category is General > Feedback. I wouldn't worry too much about "clogging the system" when it comes to feedback. We're subdivided into different groups, so say, the team handling harassment tickets won't be impacted by an influx of feedback tickets. :)
and to individual u.s. users, i think we should be saving our favorite art offsite like on mega cloud storage (don't use google drive) and even on external hard drives
i know it's insane to even consider having to do this in the u.s. but i think we should get ahead of this before everything here becomes lost media in a worst case scenario. we've already seen politicians attacking the furry community (like arizona for example), and a stated goal of project 2025 is to ban porn. there's still time for us to act though!
A Town Hall would be very good to have to get a lot of feedback from the users on this site.
I like the tag blocking feature as I had to block quite a lot of tags on here...like a lot. The next thing I hope you guys are working in is blocking the pics entirely we don't want to see to help out everyone's account feed. My biggest issue now is account blocking. When I or anyone blocks someone we shouldn't have to see their account or content they post. I've mostly blocked bot accounts, but have also blocked just only a few real accounts, but I still see them in my feed from the content they post. I strongly recommend this to be looked into and reworked.
If you haven't already done so I would recommend reviewing it and what is covered under it.
Just read the FAQ and it looks like something you guys are working on.
100% agree.
I do not want full blocking because three very popular artists have blocked me, one for a VERY petty reason, the second for an even pettier reason and The third for not being a fan of a series they created, which is pretty petty.
That said; bizarre reasoning.
I'm out of my cat carrier
Sciggles will never put us back in yeehawwww
Edit: Nvm, I didn't see the link to the FAQ until now that answered that question. That's good to know!
Almost worth going to Modern for. If I had a few asks on that, I miss two things from Classic: the Remove Selected button near the top (I imagine most users sort Newest First), and the chronological scroll of the artist's works. The Modetn sidebar is a jumble and not very useful.
I did not see if this was already in consideration, but I wanted to recommend a feature on another site: The ability to suggest tags to other users' submissions. This can be useful for those who did not include a particular fetish or just aren't sure how to tag their art. Same site has it set up so you have to actively approve/decline tag suggestions before they can appear on the submission, and you could disable the ability to receive suggestions altogether - so that all cuts down on malicious uses of the feature.
Thanks for keeping the updates coming!
And maybe an eventual higher minimum tag count than 3. Like at least 5.
I think completely removing stuff would be a great way to go about it. The biggest draw to me is I never want to make anyone uncomfortable and anyone risking accidentally seeing something they don't want to see. completely removing that ability is wonderful.
I will never support such an idea.
I get where you're coming from, trust me, but I don't think it's a solution nor do I believe it's a net positive.
Blocks are about /local/ control, as in you can control which content you see. They should never influence what other people can see or do. You are not in control of the site, you do not have that authority.
That aside, the FA staff control the site, and can grant artists such authority of blocking and what that block entails, so that reasoning is null.
Staff should not use such an ability unless people are deliberately abusing the service, e.g. DDoSing it. Obviously they should not be dictating what art you can see either.
Again, any control you think you have is an illusion. The internet never forgets and it does not care about such things.
Also unfortunately I do not control the crazy-ass people on this site and who they decide to block, so no I am not going to just do whatever they want.
So no, it is a public sidewalk, just as social media is a digital town square.
FA is like a physical art venue. Every artist here has put their artwork on display. You must first be welcomed by the venue, which is FA itself. If you have caused troubles before, the venue (FA) will not welcome you under any circumstances. You are banned from the venue. If the venue welcomes you but an artist does not, then you can enter the building but not go to that exhibit. Again, you are not entitled to that artist's exhibit.
I would also recommend not using big words like False Equivalence. Fallacies are tools used to help discuss issues in one's argument, not deflector shields of dismissal. Your sidewalk is a prime example of such, but we took the time to thoroughly explain, multiple times, the false logic in your equivalence of a website being a sidewalk.
Sone examples include Toyhoise abd Bluesky, which do/did require passcodes to even grant one access to make an account. Sites can, and often, lock out access to those who are not authorized. By all means, attempt to access Comcast Corporate data systems if it's an open sidewalk.
To you bellw point, ignorance and failure to read T&C of an agreement is not a valid defense against the enforcement of the agreement. No court of law will accept "no one reads those" as an excuse.
That said, if you do not have anything productive to contribute to this discussion further, then I am taking my leave. Have a good weekend.
Obviously inconveniencing people is somewhat the point of moderation, but such a power is only reserved for moderation and etc. Users should not have that control as they cannot make sane decisions. This is an art site where people post art publicly to the internet, users should have no control over who can view such things (and they do not). The only things one would moderate around is stuff that harms the service and etc.
At the end of the day if this site did just make it more annoying for users to view publicly posted art people would just flock to actually good sites that don't do that.
You need to drop it and move on. This is a feature that will eventually be added. Period. Feel free to go to another site if you don't like that.
Having to have a second browser open with a burner account just to view art is the kind of thing that will drive the userbase down.
Sometimes people don't understand that what is broken is likely keeping things at a better standing than they would otherwise be. I think once this feature gets implemented I will be slowly making my way away from here.
Sad to see, but it's probably for the better that we never leave comments or opinions out in public again. Hell, just for favouriting 20 pieces from someone I was blocked. Why should I be punished for appreciating peoples work? It's a solid example of why this will destroy interaction of any kind.
We can disagree on something and still appreciate one another.
best of luck to everybody at the memorial and rest in peace dragoneer
I know people mentioned it, but if you block someone it would be great if they could no longer see your submissions. And vice versa - if you block them it would be nice not to see them or their comments or submissions. Maybe like discord does it where it just shows a [message from blocked user] or some such? I don't know anything about coding or websites, so those could just not eeallt be doable or priority!
Either way... I admit I was very guilty of being vocal, hostile, and argumentative in the past of here because of the broken promises, lack of accountability, and shady feeling stuff that happened in the distant and not too distant past. But, I really admire how compassionate and polite you've been. I saw people being pretty nasty to you and the others on discord in the FA chat and on comments and I respect how level you've been in the face of a lot of challenges here while dealing with much bigger and harder challenges in real life. Sincerely, thank you so much to you and the new staff for trying. I won't lie I'm still skeptical and hesitant, but everything you've been trying to do and communicate has made me hopeful because I can really FEEL how much you care. So again, thank you so much for working hard to keep this community together for us all and try to make it better. I am sure it'll be a struggle and won't happen overnight, but it means a lot to me and to many others. Take care of yourself, too. I hope the celebration of life can lend to a lot of healing and ability for those who are hurting and lost to find solace in each other.
As a comment (or some, I zoomed by) has mentioned, an improved block system would be great. Rather than blocked users still being able to watch much less view the other's submissions, there shouldn't be a way for the blocked user nor the one who blocked the former(s) to keep viewing one another's profiles and/or posts.
A block system that prevents both parties (blocked and blocker) from looking through accounts/submissions would help increase other users' privacy.
Will the database ever migrate to a platform more suitable to changes like this, or would that be too deep of a cut into the backend of the site?
I'll throw these into the town hall as well, but are there any plans to implement multi-image submissions, custom thumbnails, and the ability to delete comments and have them fully removed (not just hidden)?
As for the rest of your questions I know there's been talks of the first two but I'm really not sure about the third. I can ask though 💖
I appreciate your response!
The more I explain it, the more I think it's a non issue and date filtering will inevitably solve the problem, but that's sort of what I had in mind. I just hope that there is a good standard for tagging in the future and people do the opposite of what I just described, including all possible elements that could conceivably be in a block list.
Many of the websites that started in 2005 are turning 20 years old this year, including ones from the year 2000 that are turning 25 years old.
Since Furaffinity got its start 20 years back, would there be anything special to show the timeline of where it started all the way up to 2025?
Considering Youtube's 20th anniversary of its founding is February 14th. So I would be happy to hear what FA does for their 20th anniversary.
Also, keep up the good work, even if I'm not active on FurAffinity anymore.
I'm interested in ideas others might have on this! We need something fun and happy 💖
For me I don't have any ideas at this time though....sorry.
Glad you finally put tag blocking after almost 20 years of being online.
Finally, Dragoneer May Rest in Piece.
example hippogryph and hippogriff are different tags but they point to the same thing.
Idk just a thing I thought that was missing.
And maybe a “Disable thanks shouts” option. Those can get spammy/annoying.
Get your minds out of the gutter you young whippersnappers!
That said I'm glad to see things are building up, the site getting much needed and requested tools and the site is no longer turning to a dictatorship where only fetishes approved by some mods are allowed. It's important to remember not to let an angry loud few destroy the large majority. We love this site and want it to succeed. Don't leave us guessing if our galleries will remain or not based on the mood of a zealous moderator.
Thank you.
I have known people that take all my stuff from here for reposting, and it'd be nice to make it even just a little harder for them to do that. Instead they get to even happily watch my account still.
For example, I say something that is misunderstood by someone (which is generally the case with people like myself who have Asperger's) and even though I didn't mean to hurt them, they would block me. Well, now because of something that is, in a sense, out of my control I can't view this guy's artwork, or if we look at it from the perspective of someone who is being harassed, but still likes someone's artwork, it could discourage someone from blocking an individual who is harassing them lest they are unable to view this individual's artwork, thus subjecting themselves to even more harassment, granted this scenario likely wouldn't be very common.
Furthermore, there is also the possibility of people leaving the site if they feel like being blocked would prevent them from doing one of the primary things that they came here to do, which is looking at art; and less people means less ad revenue for the site, which means less money to pay the bills that keep the site active.
As for people who have their artwork stolen and reposted elsewhere without their permission, as Super_Pretendo pointed out, that is covered under US law Title 17 U.S.C. §512© (2). If the theft of intellectual property is occurring, it can be taken to court as a civil lawsuit, if the work is stolen for financial gain, it goes into a criminal investigation; and it's very likely that other countries have a system similar to this as well. The theft of intellectual property should also be strictly dealt with here and violators should be banned if they aren't already, however I am of the opinion it must be proven that the individual in question is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, meaning that no other reasonable explanation can be reached from the evidence provided.
To summarize, a block system that prevents people from viewing someone's work would be detrimental to not just the community of this site as a whole but also the site itself, due to discouraging communication with one another out of fear of not being able to view someone's art, which is why we are all here, and if people can't view someone's art, why would people stay? Although some issues with such a system could be resolved, it comes at the cost of quality of the site, there are better ways to deal with issues such as the one mentioned by Super_Pretendo other than a blanket block system that discourages communication and prevents people from viewing other people's art.
The second problem is that the argument "Most sites that I personally use allow blocking that is either two way or completely hides their posts and account from the person they blocked.", is using anecdotal evidence to justify the proposition, and it is a conflict of interest, which can be detrimental in the long term. Some of the best leaders, like Abraham Lincoln, made decisions that they didn't agree with, and it paid off in the end.
I do not mean to be confrontational. I also want this site and community to prosper which is why I gave my stance on the issue of changing the block system. I believe that we should all voice our stances concerning policy, and debate with one another on what the best decision should be. But at the end of the day, as our new leader, the heavy burden of this this site and it's community rest upon your shoulders, and the decisions you make shall forge your legacy. Rest assured that I will ask God to grant you wisdom so that you can be the best leader that I know you can be.
You do NOT want that toxic ideology spreading onto this site.
Also, stories are harder to distinguish between blocked and unblocked, and the full text still displays for some file types (like .txt) even if there's a blocked tag. At smaller screen widths, one must scroll through that entire text and the description (which might have the text again) to reach the tags!
You can already do that!
Your tag block settings are in your profile settings found here: https://www.furaffinity.net/controls/profile/
I genuinely like the new direction the site is going.
Then again I only followed the account like 3 or 4 months ago, so…
I also have a trouble ticket regarding harassment that I would love to know if anybody on the mod team has had a chance to look at
I also have some people blocked that constantly try to favorite my submissions or watch me, maybe make it so it's not possible if you're blocked?
If people on your block list are spamming you or trying to still cause issue please report them if you haven't already! We don't want users behaving that way even if we don't have a better system in place yet.
On a somewhat less positive note, there is something that brings tear to my eye. I just wish that it didn't take an event of this magnitude for positive change to start being seen. I sincerely hope that things do not fall back to the way they were. Please don't let this opportunity go to waste. I doubt another could nor even should present itself again.
Those things being said, please keep up the good work. So long as things don't revert back to the way they were, I think there is a lot of potential for improvement. Making up for the for the past can be difficult, but things look to be on the right track. I hope you all have a good day/night. And if you read all this, then I greatly appreciate it.
If blocking works as it does now but it hides the blockee's art, then it would be too aggressive if you just don't want to see their art and not aggressive enough if they're actively being a nuisance.
IMO, something like bluesky's mute/block system would probably be good.
Will this be live streamed? Not everyone can make it there due to commitments, but would still like to watch.
It won't be there forever...but currently it is still needed until everything is settled.
If you want to have that forever, put it just under the page where you can click to Advertise/Get FA+/Merch Store. As a site user, I should have an option to not see it on top, not only that, any news. This is so simple. I don't think someone who does not plan to donate, would do it just because you keep that there for more time.
At least it's not wasting screen real estate with how it's overlapping the banner image, the banner image itself though I wish wasn't there on every page as it does take up way too much space imo for no reason, but that's another topic I guess.
You make a good, useful website and add a sub-option with more, I will happily support it but for example, as an animator, this website is maybe the only one left without video support and a 20-year-old tagging system which does not help me at all.
But it would be nice to see the full banner again. I can understand keeping it 1 month or maybe 2, but now this is getting old. Plus, the initial goal was already doubled in the first three hours from what I remember..
Fur Affinity is free to use. We need the funding to keep FA going. Sorry, but for now it stays.
I'm hopeful the new management is taking note of the ~10 years of hard lessons learned since IMVU had purchased the site; the current brisk pace of adjustments has definitely suggested as much. I would like to ask if the administration plans to consider operating Furaffinity as a non-profit, as this is one of many steps that I think should be taken to help keep FA's finances in check. The main advantages are possibly moving state of business, helping alleviate tax burden, and provide rationale for a transparent organization structure and fiscal status.
Much of FA's most notorious holes in its ethics and operations come from choosing a for-profit venture with no formalized outside investment, no formalized business plan, no formalized performance or revenue objectives, no formalized tax preparation bookkeeping (I presume, based on the aforementioned fiscal timebomb for the 2023 and 2024 tax years), and no accountability towards either investors nor community (aka, your uh, 'customers').
There's reason of course to hang onto the current status quo as a for-profit venture, the restructuring is pretty much entirely owed to final say going to the sole owner and that's looked positive from here. There's no telling just what the current presidential administration will do to the internet of free expression that has strained against payment processors and obscenity law these last 20 years, so I'm keeping a spare bottle of nice whiskey in my conceptual alcohol cabinet in the event I'll need to pour one out for FA.
Good luck out there everyone; formal FA staff, moderators, and community included.
The political items coming into play are difficult to navigate. This is all new for me but part of the funding has gone to a business lawyer recently to help us understand and figure out the best course of action on things not just politically but as a proper business organizing too. Previously this was not something we had. We are still working on the back taxes issue and trying to make sure we have proper accounting moving forward. I don't personally know the details of what comes with being non-profit but I think its too soon to shake things up more right now when we are still trying to sort current standings. I'd like to revisit that when things calm a little more.
huh
Say, the gofundme link has been on top of the website for several months now. Are you going to keep FA alive forever using his death to get donations?
I hope you can get to a point where you can heal and not see them getting donations to support the previous owner and the site after a very sudden and unexpected death for what it is. I understand being frustrated at the past or not believing in the future, but this isn't the way to do it to accuse the new person of being poor and alone, come on now...
If you don't believe it, that's your business I guess. It's just sad you can't talk about it/bring up your dissenting opinions without attacking people constantly. Like, you're literally saying I'll have a heart attack and cry like a child over an art site..? Art isn't even my job, it's a side hobby for me. I would be sad if this site went down, but it wouldn't ruin me.
I think you have some growing up of your own to do, because you're the only one acting like a child about this. I saw you've made multiple journals complaining about this to no one, so it's clearly living rent free in your head and you should really work on that. Take care, I wish you all the best that you an heal and learn to be a less miserable and combative person online in the future.
Also, if you mean mobile browsers, gallery folders are there, just way at the bottom underneath the gallery submissions. Hope that helps. ^_^
I decided to give fA a second chance and I havent regretted it. The tag block feature is great.
I have only two suggestions.
1. The option of not seeing anything from the people you blocked (or at most a blurred thing or, if a comment, something like "Blocked user <name>" or so. I know I'd like these comments to just be invisible but that'd make conversations look nonsensical xD But essentially, never seeing anything from people you blocked.
2. The option to prevent people you blocked from seeing anything you did. Sort of like how Twitter was, where all they see is "this comment has been hidden" or something of sorts.
Beyond that, keep the good work. I admit that when 'need passed, I thought this site was going to die a low, annoying death at the hands of some people, and I'm happy being proven wrong this time.
I’m all in for both suggestions!
The block system seriously needs an upgrade. I don’t care if they can’t like, comment, or message. I just want them permanently exiled from my page, as if it were a cursed tomb they can never enter >__>
Hopefully,
'neer. I said 'neer, not need.
would be great to fix mine to my commission business name. I don't wanna have start over with a new account. ^^;
The option to mass tag your own artwork. For example, at the very beginning (back in 2007 or 2008) I didnt tag my items correctly. I would either just ignore tags or would fill in with joke tags. I only started paying more attention to the tags after a while.
Or (for example) having the option to mark all my own artwork with a certain kink as adult, or so on.
I have over 2000 submissions (and that after a cleanup because at some point I had over 4000 iirc) and as you can imagine, doing such work one by one is a horrible chore I don't think anybody would appreciate doing.