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Sofurry 2.0's Upcoming End
9 months ago
General
So, if you're on Sofurry, you've probably seen the news. The furs behind the website made an announcement recently, that the OG website will be coming down, and the new/beta site will now be the main site.
Admittedly, this does make me sad. As I got my start on there over a decade ago now, it's got a lot of memories connected to it. But, I suppose that's why I started uploading on here, to have a bit of a backup. Even if I'll still have my stuffs on the Beta, and should hopefully continue uploading on there.
All of the stories I write are .docx files that I usually just copy and paste onto the Sofurry upload page. And since, from what I can see, the beta currently uses .txt/.html files. So yeah, might need to make this place my main den for the time being, and upload to the Sofurry Beta as a secondary. Which feels weird, now that the turn tables.
Obviously, completely understandable from the furs who run the sites. From the announcement; it seems like, despite this migration being semi-planned for a while, it's more of a forced paw situation from external factors.
So yeah, of course, support the admins/furs who run Sofurry and the Beta. It's definitely not going to be easy for them.
The link to my Sofurry account will stay up until the website goes down on Monday. The link to my Sofurry Beta account is already up on my Bio, so be sure go over there and give me a follow. I've already gotten my stuff imported from the old site, so everything is safe, secure, and should hopefully already sorted into their folders. Thanks to the admins making the transition so damned easy :)
It'll be sad to see the old site go, but gotta look forward. From what I see, it's already got a good feel to it.
Not sure how to end this, so yeah, kinda a bitter sweet situation.
Admittedly, this does make me sad. As I got my start on there over a decade ago now, it's got a lot of memories connected to it. But, I suppose that's why I started uploading on here, to have a bit of a backup. Even if I'll still have my stuffs on the Beta, and should hopefully continue uploading on there.
All of the stories I write are .docx files that I usually just copy and paste onto the Sofurry upload page. And since, from what I can see, the beta currently uses .txt/.html files. So yeah, might need to make this place my main den for the time being, and upload to the Sofurry Beta as a secondary. Which feels weird, now that the turn tables.
Obviously, completely understandable from the furs who run the sites. From the announcement; it seems like, despite this migration being semi-planned for a while, it's more of a forced paw situation from external factors.
So yeah, of course, support the admins/furs who run Sofurry and the Beta. It's definitely not going to be easy for them.
The link to my Sofurry account will stay up until the website goes down on Monday. The link to my Sofurry Beta account is already up on my Bio, so be sure go over there and give me a follow. I've already gotten my stuff imported from the old site, so everything is safe, secure, and should hopefully already sorted into their folders. Thanks to the admins making the transition so damned easy :)
It'll be sad to see the old site go, but gotta look forward. From what I see, it's already got a good feel to it.
Not sure how to end this, so yeah, kinda a bitter sweet situation.
At least FA and IB care enough about their users not to pull this shit. The story interface on FA isn't very good, if they fixed that they would have all the people from SF here. The 2 top furry sites are FA and IB, the reason is they give the people what they want unlike sites such as SF which is one of the main bottom rated furry sites today.
The site was buggy but people loved it and it was writer focused. In those days it was a better site then FA just due to the high grade content and the staff. After 2009 the site owner butchered the site the first time and renamed it Sofurry and people hated it. Rather than admit he fucked up like a man he pressed on but after 6 months half his user base left the site and he was forced to remake Sofurry and scrapped a nearly new site and years of work after less than 2 years. That's where SF2.0 comes in, the old site. He promised he would never design a site without user feedback again.
The site never recovered from that and the best people SF had never came back. Now 12 years later he's done the same thing again with SFX and made a new site with no user input and people hate it. The best staff started to leave after 2009 due to how the site was gutted. Most moved onto FA and IB full time.
This is why you never try and re invent the wheel, IB and FA have been upgreaded over the years but still kept the same, same lay out and feel.
Sofurry has been going down the drain for years because of these changes and refusing to listen to the people who use the site. The way the internet is going to be mointered means rinkydink sites like SF aren't going to last, they don't have the skills to set up age and ID checks or the staff numbers to do it manually.
After 10 stories you earned it.
It could take up to 12 hours for a story to be made public but it meant there was no crap on the site. You missed the golden age of it. SF has been on life support for a long time. The site loses money to the point the owner has to dip into his own pockets to fund it. Unlike FA and IB which earn enough income to be self funding. If SF's owner just listened to people rather than doing his own thing then his site wouldn't be dead and himself less liked than the other site owners. I told him at the time your users are your greatest resource. Still I am glad that despite changing owners FA is still true to it's roots.
And yeah, maybe the owner thinks that he has more authority over SF because he has to use his own money for it. But doesn't realise that if he just gave people what they want, he would actually make money. And yeah, I was worried about the new ownership of FA, especially after a small couple fumbles at the start, but the new owner seems to be keeping with Dragoneer's vision
I fully agree, if SF's owner ran the site the way people wanted then it would earn more money and he wouldn't need to fund it.
It's is Neer's ex wife that is running FA now and she shared his vison.
But yeah, you give the people what they want, more people visit the site, which generates more ad revenue and adds more advertisers in general, and just generally fosters a greater community that would be more willing to help fund the website.
And that's good to hear, I'm glad she's been able to continue Neer's work.
And yeah, I do appreciate IB's more lax rules on uploads, so I have every reason to start up back there. (Hopefully) when I start uploading there, I'll probably do a little journal to hopefully gain a little traction.
If it comes back, it'll be a posting dump for my stuff, just for the few people floating around those haunted halls. But yeah, it's a couple months too late to resuscitate it, a good decade too late for it to be saved.
I'd hate to see a good portion of my stories get lost to the void. And this whole Sofurry situation has kinda got to me with that.
But yeah, am debating even continuing to upload my stuff over there, given how things are.
I let Toumal know to fix the story format to how it was on the old site. As example, Archive of Our Own aka AO3, has the same format as the old Sofurry story submit stories had. AO3 allows furry stuff as original work. It mostly has fanfiction stories on there.
I know FA's story format isn't that good, but at least it doesn't make me wanna rethink my entire existence. Honestly I don't even really wanna upload to SF at all anymore, only really want to so that I can get some form of engagement from it/have people find me on here through Sofurry/see if I can get some commissioners whom are still floating in that void. The old site was shit, but at least it wasn't horseshit.
That is no way to run a site and no wonder SF went from being number 2 spot 16 years ago to number 4 spot today. The site is such a toxic place too.
No wonder few people use that site.
I also think that's why people tend to be toxic on there, most of the good people either left, or use the site as a second/backup. And everyone else just settled in the toxicity and it just consumed pretty much anyone.
I mean, the fact the staff are/have been getting pissy with how the site's been, it makes sense the toxicity trickled down from the staff to the general users.
It's a tale as old as time; things got worse and worse, turned a good portion of their community away, and turned whoever remained bad/worse. Might have been able to turn things around a decade ago, but site's way too far gone now.
You are right add to that the staff ignore trolling unless it is aimed at them.
I agree, I think SF is too far gone. They would be better to make a new site that isn't replacing an existing one and come up with a better name for it.
The alternative is a site like Sofurry, but story friendly and like their old site. Nobody has tried though.
But yeah, 2.0 was at least a semi-decent format let down by management and toxic users. Now SFX doesn't even have the format anymore.
Not that many people would be willing to take a website that's bleeding money. But if they revamp the website to be like 2.0, focus on writers, integrate advertisements/sponsorships, and listen to users. There'll be a pretty good shot of having the site make money. It may not go back to 2nd most popular furry website, or have Yiffstar level users/community, but it'd at least be somewhere people would want to upload and stick around.