This is my first time seeing it. I got a good cackle out of it.

Absolute PEAK
I happily anticipate more peak from you in the future :3

I giggled!!! It's great!

Good work ^^

Never have I ever seen a better representation of the state of this site.

My thoughts on the video ads. "Hey, want to get rid of these? Sign up or log in, it's free! Sorry we set off a nuke in your speakers, though!"

Same, omfg XD

👍💥

This picture is absolutely a mood lmao

O: Update?!

I approve of Fender based War Crimes

It's not a war crime if they were logged out

nor is a warcrime the first time around, Canadian military involvement in 1910s Europe can attest to that

Be Fneder, do crimes

I can get behind that

As do is

❀⸜(˶´ ˘ `˶)⸝❀

Chirp! Geotargeting is cool! Chirp :)

Update nuke

I was wondering what "Meta keywords" were, now there's a little context. Doesn't really give a full idea of what they are, but, alright.

They're just the same as tags, they just have like, a separate list that allows them to be used with those drop down menus that people were obsessing over. I personally don't get the need for it, but eh, never mind.

ah okie dokie.

>The username of the uploader is also a meta tag - eventually we do plan on a full "you can't see them, they can't see you" block system, but in the interim, this provides a way to block submissions from users you don't want to see as well.

I oppose this idea

Yeah, I'm honestly not sure what benefit there is in a block system completely removing someone from the site, on either end.

Not seeing submissions from them - sure. Preventing them from messaging or interacting with you - obviously necessary. But removing each other's entire presence on the site invites asymmetrical warfare.

If I can ultra-block someone and then proceed to go off on tirades about them to thousands of watchers, they would have no way to even find out I'm doing that because entirely selectively to their account, I don't exist. If I'm a stalker, I could make new accounts or just log out to view their page or even try to interact sneakily without them having any chance to see me in return or know I'm doing it. If I wanted to harass someone, I could follow them, un-block them when I see a new submission come up, leave some disturbing comment or badmouth them as the top/first comment everyone will see, and then re-block them so they can't even see a comment was left, or spot it on the submission - meanwhile, everyone else visiting could see it just fine and wonder why OP isn't responding.

IDK what the supposed benefits of a "you can't see them, they can't see you" blocking system is, but it sounds like a whole lot of trouble. Surely there's a reason other sites don't have that functionality.

It's indeed a total waste of time and a hassle for everyone. You cannot block people from viewing (essentially) public content on the internet. That is not what the concept of blocking has ever been about and anyone who says otherwise simply does not understand how the internet or computers work.
Blocking's purpose is to filter interactions with you on the client side, e.g. hiding someone else's posts, preventing them from communicating with you, etc. It cannot be two way because someone can always simply make an alternate account or view something in incognito (if no account wall is there).

Hopefully the staff actually come to their senses so I don't have to go launching an incognito browser every time I want to view an image just because someone decided to block me for some random reason. People's political beliefs and other nonsense like that someone might block you over these days on the internet are absolutely no reason to prevent you from being able to see art.

The fact that you admit to stalking so many people is a problem in itself. You need to learn what consent is and how to handle rejection, dude.

If I wanted to be rotting in an unusable swamp I'd just be on twitter.

There are good reasons no other site works that way. If you don't want other people to see your stuff? Don't post it.

Don't like block buttons? Stop using websites that have them. Deviantart has this feature and is just as ancient. It's nothing new.

Can't respect someone in their space? Stay out of it.

Triggered that an artist wants nothing to do with you and you feel like you can't exist unless you see it? Seek therapy.

To clarify, other art sites have always have 2-way blocking. FA was just behind on the ball. Lots of websites use this when blocking. Even games. So it's extremely silly to try and force people to interact with you.

Final Decision here is a great example of why 2 way blocking should not be allowed, as they are exploiting the feature to ensure their flimsy points remain one-sided and uncontested by preventing me from replying to them. A classic example of the type of people and behavior you invite with these systems.

As for the actual reply: "Stalking" and "so many", bold assumptions there my friend. You do not know the definition of stalking if you think wanting to see an artist's uploads on the public internet while not visibly interacting with them is "stalking". Might as well be complaining about ghosts following you around in your house if you think this is a problem.

ooOoOoo I'm a ghost oooOoo

You actually convinced me of the opposite that you wanted to. I'm perfectly happy with the 2-way system. bye~

I know it's not a real German word, but are you aware of the phenomenon known as Waltersobchakeit?

So stalking and all that aside, what if I just.... I dunno. Decide to steal your art. I'll throw it in an AI. Call it my own. Maybe take your characters.

Do you see the problem? So many other websites have had it for years and years. FA should have implemented it years ago. You say you want to be able to see their stuff, even blocked. Why? Why stalk them? What if I don't want my abuser following me and seeing my stuff?

What about art thieves that come on here, take your stuff, then go to twitter to scam people? Or better yet, what if someone on her makes an account and steals your stuff. Staff bans them. They come back. Steal your stuff again.

At least with blocking I would t have to worry about toxic furs doing stuff like that. Or being reminded Everytime I look at my followers and they're there.

Two way is good to go. I have read every argument here. And some swayed me on not having it. Then I met you. I am so sorry to those artists who have you blocked.

Everyone has their own reasons for wanting and not wanting it. Demanding we keep something based on not having human compassion, lack of empathy, or no understanding is not a valid reason.

I agree. Two-way blocking is a very bad idea and would only cause issues.

idk, if someone is enough of a problem that I want to block them, I also wouldn't want them to see any of my art, they clearly haven't earned the right to look at my stuff.

"People's political beliefs and other nonsense like that someone might block you over these days on the internet"
This sounds oddly self-incriminating.

What's the actual benefit, though? You want to prevent blocked users from doing something they're already going to skirt around in either case by just quietly making a lurker alt or logging out? Genuinely what does it help?

More importantly, how do you address the concerns about how this system could be abused? Why is it that no other site uses a system like this? I'm seeing good reasons not to implement it, but so far every comment in favor of the system sounds rather vindictive and shortsighted, not really making a compelling case for why it would help anything.

If you're so convinced that these weird stalkers are going to go through the trouble of switching to alt accounts anyways, then you should take no issue in this system being adopted in the first place. No harm no foul, right?

"Why is it that no other site uses a system like this?"
VRChat uses this block system, and it works wonderfully to avoid harassment. People can't follow you around and listen in on what you're doing if they can't see you at all.

You have not met my stalkers. I hope you never do.

This sounds safer for them, not for me.

Any particular reason for that?

You can set your account to be non-visible to logged out users. Also, this is the way most social media sites work - when you try to go to the page of someone who has you blocked it's just a blanked-out page that says they have you blocked. If someone is making a bunch of extra accounts to skirt blocks, that's for staff to handle. The fact that people are going to try to break a rule isn't a reason not to have that rule, it's a reason to enforce that rule. It seems like a lot of the people complaining about the idea of the 2-way block system are people who feel they have a right to see others' content whether the other person wants them to see it or not. Height of entitlement and frankly creepy.

Call it whatever you want but when you put content out there, you put it out there. There's never the assumption you're going to have strict control over what kinds of people get to see it outside of the general audience of the site you put it on. That sounds unrealistic, and it sounds entitled. But that's not even my point at all. It sucks that people will block you purely so that they don't see your art, and the addition of a system like this means that in all those scenarios, suddenly those users totally disappear. Nobody's going to go through and try to audit who they're blocking and why - but they didn't intend their block to do something completely different than it does right now. This goes against that user's intention, unless it's implemented as a fully separate new blocking system.

I don't see the sense in adding this feature here. And you haven't made the case for it, either, other than saying some other sites do it. And it's just silly that you're suggesting the admins on here are going to be watching out for new accounts and making sure somehow it's not someone who was blocked trying to skirt around that blocking. We're not talking about bans, here. They can't IP ban you over a simple user block. But this system opens up opportunities for abuse that the current one doesn't, while hurting users who nobody intended to hurt. You act like this is necessary but you can't even support it on a fundamental level - like really, why is this at all important? What individual, theoretical case does this help? You seem to want it a ton but have no reason why except that you want some kind of weird safety blanket (that isn't going to work except in the case of polite, rule-following people you shouldn't be worried about anyway).

I've experienced stalking on here and spread out across other platforms for over a decade. I know this wouldn't help me. And I see no reason it would help anyone. What's the point?

Not every block is going to be a stalking situation, and if it is, that's something else that needs to be addressed and using a 2 way block system or not isn't going to make it worse. People already make block-evading accounts to harass each other and it gets addressed by staff. I'm not saying that staff needs to be somehow patrolling to make sure every new account isn't trying to block evade, but if someone finds out that someone is block evading, at that point they can report it.

The point of it is privacy. That actually does exist online, you aren't just forced to scream everything into the void and accept responses from any passersby or bad actors who decide to show up. X had private accounts, on FA you can block your account from people who aren't logged in, in Discord servers you can set who can and can't DM you, paywalled sites exist, etc etc. Like yeah, someone can set up a telescope to stare into my windows, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't lock my door because 'stalkers exist'. A 2 way block system provides the basics of privacy for users who are uncomfortable with the users they've blocked interacting with their work in any way, including viewing it. Most people that get blocked are not stalkers, they're someone the user had a disagreement with, whose morals they are uncomfortable with, who is a known missing stair that hasn't been addressed adequately by the community, stuff like that. Stalkers are a rare issue, even online, and we shouldn't limit features that many users want, that make them feel more comfortable and safe, because there might be workarounds for really dedicated bad actors.

I doubt most people are blocking so many people that they wouldn't be able to take a quick look through their block list to see if they want to unblock anyone with the new system in place. But why someone would go 'well, I didn't want this person I'm not okay with to comment on my art, but I definitely want to make sure they can SEE it' in the first place? That's way more of an edge case, like, to a ridiculous degree. At that point someone has really unusual priorities and is too fringe to make major policy decisions around.

Just because something wouldn't help you doesn't mean it wouldn't help anyone. This is a refrain I see on these update journals again and again. "Why are you making this feature, I don't need it", "Why are you changing the tagging system, I don't use the blacklist", etc. There are more people using this site than just you, and they have more reasons for using it, and using it the way they prefer to use it, than just what applies to you. I personally would prefer my art not show up on Browse or in Search or in other users' Favorites for the people on my block list. If my work is not visible to them, they have no reason to go to my page to see if they're blocked. I just don't have to worry about them invading my privacy at all. I don't have to worry about them being reminded I exist, or the discomfort I feel with them seeing my intensely personal artwork when I post it. Yeah, some of them will probably block evade. But if we didn't have a 2 way blocking system at all, for those people it wouldn't change anything. They can already see my art. The block system isn't for that. Staff handling trouble tickets about harassment is for that. A 2-way block is to keep out the people who AREN'T aggressively trying to get their stalkery or entitled hands on my art.

It isn't entitled to want to control who sees your work. It's .. normal? When I create things I don't always want to hurl them into the wind. Sometimes I only want to share them with certain people. Sometimes I DON'T want to share them with certain people. It's my art, I get a say in what happens to it. The entitled thing here is thinking you have a right to others' hard work and creative outlet just because you want to see it. And that kind of entitlement would be something that the 2 way block system may or may not be helpful with - it depends on if the person being blocked is someone who is going to go nuts at the idea that they can't see the art they want to see and start making a bunch of extra accounts just to view one person's art, or if they're just a normal entitled brat and will forget about it once they realize they can't see it. If they realize at all. If the block hides your art from someone else's account entirely, unless they're going directly to your profile they'll have no way to know they were blocked in the first place.

This idea that just because someone can break a rule means there shouldn't be a rule, or that because you don't personally care about that rule there shouldn't be one when other people DO want it, doesn't make a lick of sense to me. I can't comprehend the theory of mind issues at play there. You're not the only person using this site.

two-way is stupid, some of the people above are also proving that as well.

its also nice as it helps cut some stalker action out. and you KNOW there are the type to stalk someone

Would the "block" also hide any comment they made on any submission or journal of the person they blocked?

I also don't think not being able to see art from people that block you is a desirable thing.
Not everyone who gets blocked is an abusive asshole. Sometimes it's also niche/taboo kink artists that are actually very nice people.
Preventing them to see (or even fav) art from someone who prefers not to see their content feels kinda unnecessary, unfair and kinkshamey.

Yep. This will basically force everyone to only ever watch and fav nsfw stuff on an anonymous alt with hidden favs, to avoid being randomly blocked for their interests.

I fear the impact this will have on the community, leading to everything becoming way more locked down and prudish. And especially the impact this will have on discoverability for new artists, since favs by other artists are a big vector for that and this site already struggles with it :/

If you only want to hide someone's artwork without actually blocking them you can use the meta tag thing from this current update, presumably that's not going away.

Well, let's hope then everyone who had someone blocked for their content before this update will unblock them now and use the meta tag instead.

Yeah, if I wanted to be on twitter I'd just be on twitter.

I wish we could go somewhere in between the two extremes. Maybe not the full "I can't see you even in general parts of the site" but at least better than"if someone blocks me, I don't get notified if they immediately respond to a comment I've made 10 times in one day" levels of blocking.

(Unless that has changed at some point, because that was ridiculous that it was allowed in the first place.)

I also oppose this, I follow people that love to block willy nilly, I still love to see their art even if I can't interact with it. going this route will cut off a decent chunk of artwork that I like seeing.

edit: and just occurred to me, if a user blocks me then proceeds to make a bitchy journal, how would I even be able to know/see it exists, and then be able to file a mod ticket? staff needs to think this shit through, leave it the way it is, it has worked just fine as is

>The username of the uploader is also a meta tag - eventually we do plan on a full "you can't see them, they can't see you" block system, but in the interim, this provides a way to block submissions from users you don't want to see as well.

If implemented, this would have me using the site so much more- Especially if applied to tags, too. Tired of both users and tags slipping through the SFW filter with clearly NSFW/fetish art.

> eventually we do plan on a full "you can't see them, they can't see you" block system

It would be really cool if it could be done the way Bluesky does it, where if I block someone, it not only prevents me from seeing them (and them from seeing me), but also hides all interactions (e.g. any comments they've left on a submission/journal of mine also get hidden from other users and show up as "user blocked" or something like that). It works wonders on Bsky to prevent dogpiling.

I don't want to see a twitter style blocking system implemented here, but that actually would address a lot of the issues people have raised with such a system.

A block system where neither party can see the other if one person blocks the other is not a good idea. I have already listed points as to why that is the case in a previous discussion. Now I have the graphs to back up what I warned about.

These are graphs of how often Bluesky (which has this block system) is searched and the level of interaction on the site. As you can see, the site peaked during the 2024 election, there was a small increase around the time of Trump's inauguration, and then the graph proceeds to show a downward trend.

https://trends.google.com/trends/ex.....esky&hl=en

https://bsky.jazco.dev/stats

It is also worth mentioning that the second graph likely does not differentiate between actual human users and bots, so it is worth considering that the numbers shown may be higher than the true number of users on the site.

it's literally nothing an art site/archive should ever bother with. why is the focus suddenly on becoming like every garbage mainstream social media platform?

is right.
It's an art site, it doesn't need all that other faffery. That's what Twatter and Bluesky are for.

I wouldn't mind FA taking some cues from other sites when it comes to discoverability and sharing of art. At least, to have the ability to share art you like to your own followers or collect someone else's post on your page - and of course the ability to ignore or skip that stuff and determine on a per-user basis what types of content you want to see from them. People flock to Twitter and Bsky precisely because they allow that kind of easy sharing and exponential growth which frankly benefits both watchers and artists alike. People post there almost in spite of the fact that those sites are horrendous for art and gallery-keeping.

I feel like there are positive lessons that could be learned, but not every feature is an opportunity FA should jump on. This is inherently a different kind of site than Bsky. It's more gallery formatted, more archival-oriented, more media-focused. Features that allow better posting and sharing of media is great. Features that make it surface-level more like a social media site, not so much.

"Features that make it surface-level more like a social media site, not so much. "

And that, I think is the primary issue.

"you can't see them, they can't see you blocking" is something I've been looking forward to for a while, thank you guys for working on it

I don't get why people have such an issue with the block function being useful and acting like an actual block function! I've been wanting a proper system for yearssss!! If I wanted to see a user, or their art, or be able to interact with them, I just wouldn't block them. Blocking exists entirely because some people literally do not want to see another person, or be seen by that person, at all. And in my humble opinion, people have every right to dictate their own online experience in that way. I don't know why people feel to entitled to the artwork and online presence of others. Sometimes another person simply doesn't like you and doesn't want you seeing their account and that's okay. It's digital furry art it's frankly not the end of the world

This!
Stalkers, art thieves and watchbot users pretend it's not a big deal but they are really passionate and stubborn about being able to watch people who want nothing to do with them. I'm surprised they've managed to convince the staff for this long with their argument of "they block me for stupid reasons therefore I should be able to watch them"

Exactly!! A person has gotta be online to a unhealthy degree to think blocking for "stupid reasons" is anything more than a complete non-issue. If I wanna block someone because I don't like the fact that their Profile Picture is the color blue.. Why shouldn't I be able to do that? Who exactly am I harming by doing that? Some random strangers feelings? Lmfaooo

Please do not implement that block system and just leave the current block system in place, thank you.

Good. There are some users that I find absolutely abhorrent, along with their artwork and their attitudes. I look forward to the day I never have to look at their artworks again so I can browse in peace.

Just block the tag, they implemented the system they're talking about right here on this page and you can do exactly what you're asking for right now.

Block the meta tag that's on the submissions page for every submission by that artist. One click and you'll never see them again. Visibility of art should not be linked to the user blocking system.

I am happy to know there will be a way to implement proper blocking in the future! it's awesome to know I will be able to block people to not see them and them not see me which is personally what I always prefer. Also to avoid people like some of the one's shown on this thread that seem to not understand consent.

This is the most gorgeous art in history ahahahahahaha We are waiting for updates!

LETS GOOOOOO Also Fender in that drawing is so cute and funny!! hehehe!!!

I'm curious what's meant by "video ads", I guess?
What's the difference between these and the animated ads we already see?
Will they be in certain locations on a web-page?

Okay, which adds another question:
If they're logged out, how would they see the ads...?
Wouldn't you want people to see them...?

I'm pretty sure they mean "logged out" as in people who either do not have an FA account, or are just not signed into their account. Essentially people viewing the website as a guest or incognito/private mode on some browsers. Those people will see them.

My guess is they are either:
A. Using this as a test to see how it does to potentially add them to the ads for those signed into their accounts.
B. Adding them to signed out users only as they are more generic company ads, and FA does not want to take away ad space from businesses/artists that are part of the fandom and be more targeted to those who are logged into their account.

I see.
Alright, thank you. *^^*

I know sites like TV Tropes have a nasty habit of occasionally (read: most all the time) blasting users in the face with ads that take up the entire screen on mobile devices, in some cases taking control of it. Are there plans to try and keep such ads from FA?

Mostly asking since I like to go incognito for the sake of not cluttering my search history on my devices.

How will the ads be monitored for signed out users? I feel like it'd be harder to get feedback for those especially since wouldn't it require someone to sign in first to report it?

I'm reading it as ads that play silent video to those viewing FA without an account or signed into their account.

Nice

Appreciate the explanation and update! Hopefully things go smoothly.

Epic bbcode error

Nvm, been fixed

Fender

pic is my mood <:D

Awesome :3

Yep, I noticed the keyword changes. Seems good.

bug fixes? is that how mothballs get made

*ba-dum-tsh*!

ads for those who are logged out.
So, like...the same ads we see when logged in? Or are you talking "VISIT TEMU FOR DEALS!" sorta stuff?

From a technical standpoint, the video ads are MP4's and such with the audio stripped out, while community ads are PNG, GIF, and JPG, with the first to being animated.

Secondary questions if you don't mind: Are these ads going to be restricted to a specific size fitting the GUI of the website? Likewise, will there be any risk of ads that will "Commandeer" the visual space, requiring people to click on tiny little X's in order to get out of them? Those are the worst.

No Fender, that's not what they mean by nuking your lasagna!

I'm going for a new record! Almost at 17,000 submissions! :D

Based on prior announcements, I can hear the tears of FA staff already...

Still waiting to hear if FA has a plan should H.R.3297 become law.

It's premature for FA to be putting a plan in place for that. Despite the constant stream of doomerism that pops up in social media spaces every time a Republican introduces an asinine bill into Congress, most of those bills (even in a Congress that is friendly to them) don't gain any traction.

According to Govtrack's prognosis (and they are usually extremely reliable), this bill has only a 2% chance of getting past the committee stage, and a 1% chance of actually becoming law.

Given Project 2025, FA's staff would be wise to already have started planning for the potential need to move the entire operation to a safer harbor. If IODA gets passed, or riders with similar language get injected into future omnibus/spending bills, then there won't be enough runway for such a big operation.

"Move the operation to a safer harbor" is most likely not a feasible option, whether it's a year from now or ten years from now.

Given the comments they've made in the past (and even here in the current journal), FA's database is all physically stored on hardware that they own themselves. "Just move it to a cloud service" doesn't consider the expense (both up-front and running) of doing such a thing. FA is a small operation that has never been profitable; they struggle with the funding just to keep it up and running even in its present state, let alone having to migrate to a cloud service and/or physically pack up and move to another country that isn't threatened by the worldwide rise of right-wing fascism (i.e. a country that doesn't exist).

FA does not have a "plan" for that because there is frankly nothing that can be done about it that is within FA's means. They've certainly given it thought, but ultimately, their priorities have to be on the more immediate problems of overcoming their code debt and modernizing the site. Without that, any discussion of "moving to a safer harbor" is pointless because that is simply not possible in the site's current state.

In addition to the expense, using a cloud service opens FA up to restricting content based on the policies of said service. Also, there are certain liabilities that might be opened up if they try to move the site to a different companies, whether by cloud service or by shipping the servers, as both of those could be counted under export laws / restrictions. It's a messy situation overall, and as you say, not something that really has much of a solution.

If that passes its over, no more FA, no more E621. If you like something, save it and back it up. Keep it hidden, eventually it will be a crime to even have it if these thugs get their way.

this is why politics immediately turns my brain off. Everyone is always going like "the world is fucked" 24/7 and I'm tired of pretending it's not overdone
I don't care if it's true, I don't want to hear it constantly
It's like the Switch 2 price thing. Genuine argument but got way too overdone to where it annoys me to even hear someone mention it now. I'm not a defender, I recognise the price is an issue, but for the first two weeks after reveal everyone was just saying "DROP THE PRICE DROP THE PRICE DROP THE PRICE" and it instantly burnt me out

well it's easy to not care and plug your ears when it's not *your* civil rights being stripped. telling everyone else to shut up about "politics" just because discrimination against them doesn't hurt you is pretty vile, actually

Hi. Gay person here whose civil rights are being stripped. How is saying "it's over, no more FA, run for your lives, we're all doomed" helping to stop those rights from getting taken away?

I'm all for taling politics, even uncomfortable ones, when it serves a purpose. But politicial discussion for the sake of working out a problem (and trying to find a solution) is very different from spiraling into hopelessness and trying to drag everyone else into it with you. (Especially considering that isn't even the topic of this journal)

how do i block this person (I don't mean you trev, you're good)
I mean the fucko that replied to me with total nonsense
Their profile is 18+ do I really have to file a trouble ticket abt this
Edit: Too late I already filed one

Them telling people to save stuff they like because there are multiple ongoing legal attempts to outlaw it is pretty good actionable advice.

The fact FA has no plan and will not even acknowledge the threat is a very good reason for us users and artists to take it seriously, to begin backing up our stuff and establishing a presence on other sites. Not a reason to ignore it.

Bait didn't used to be this obvious, lmao. (There's no way you aren't either baiting or just an incredibly evil person if this is genuinely your worldview. If it's the second case and you're being genuine, please try getting some help)

No.

That's not how it's going to work unfortunately. If it even passes- which it won't.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but even if it does pass, there are various legal standards that have been in place for like 50 or so years at least, that would prevent sites like Fur Affinity from being ruined by the bill (i.e. the freedom of speech, The First Amendment, Miller's test, artistic/literary value, etc). I mean before the 70's in places like Sweden, it was illegal to even own adult material! In America you had theaters dedicated to that material in the 70's lmao. You're not going to lose Fur Affinity, even with the bill. Now that more people have access to the internet than they do toothbrushes and they can complain about things louder, I doubt we'll lose our websites man. Besides, banning alcohol didn't work out when they tried that (over 100 years ago). Why is this going to either, lol? That is, once again, if it passes, which it will not.

Moneyed places like Playboy might be able to fight this in court. FA has to hold fundraisers to even keep the lights on and is now adding limited video ads. You really think they can afford to fight a massive 1A legal battle all the way to the supreme court, which is now also corrupted. They might rule in favor, but FA will fold due to lack of money and legal pressure long before then.

This isn't doomerism, this is a real threat to the site. We might find new places, but losing FA will be a huge blow. Our best hope is that this goes down in congress first.

Even so, it would be a good idea for FA staff to at least have that talk on what the plan is if that or some other bill (whether Republican and Democrat) comes around to screw everyone. Better to have it and not need it than to not have it and need it.

Good updates

I noticed the meta keywords!! Was wondering what was up with them, now I know! How do we *use* them though for search results?

Excited!

I find it hilarious to be able to ban yourself using meta keywords, lol.

Still don't understand why they're needed when the previous search was convenient and as clear as possible. Why complicate something that worked fine before?:/

You couldn't search or blacklist stuff like species if they used the drop-down stuff instead of keywords

i have a bit of a hard time following, what are meta keywords? and how are they utilized on this page?

And what do the letters at the beginning of them mean?

Looks like it's what metadata they represent based on what dropdowns were selected when uploading the art
u_ = the user that uploaded the art
c_ = category, e.g. Artwork (Digital)
t_ = theme, e.g. Fantasy
s_ = species, e.g. Fox

Thanks.

oh, gotcha!

I also hope we'll get community tags eventually, that would be my biggest wish for this site.

BOOM!

HEADSHOT!

Significantly more than a headshot...

One Turn Kill then

Moving General Art put a smile on my face, we unemployed people be winning

Oh my gosh an animation category finally??? Hell yes!

The meta tags is a nice feature.

(also you mentioned potential new paid staff in the future, if you're ever looking fooor a junior software developer, IIII have a computer science degree and some experience via internships :V >w>;; (idk just figured I'd put that out there :vvv ))


(here's some foxes): 🦊🦊🦊🦊🦊🦊🦊🦊🦊🦊🦊🦊🦊

We got video ads before video support lol

Unless there is mp4 support and I'm just silly

Requiring all videos to be AV1 would help minimize the filesize compared to VP9 (and h265 but the royalties for using that are so bad no website dares to touch it), but yeah, I don't blame y'all for not wanting to get 5k of enterprise HDDs for the influx

What's the problem? I can compress a video in h264 to less than 10 megabytes. And by the way, many sites and social networks use mp4 and h264 to reduce the weight of gif files, because gif actually weighs much more (in many cases in my practice).
Although, if we are talking about the fact that you should have a separate storage cluster exclusively for video, then I can understand this. But it would be cool to have clear data about when it will appear, or to do something like raise funds for the purchase of a video storage cluster.

That 10mb adds up quickly at FA's scale. Both in terms of bandwidth, and in terms of storage costs. Right now, FA doesn't have any restrictions on the number of submissions a user can have, and videos would instantly become the highest average sized submissions out there. Combine that with the legal issues that videos have in the USA (they'd likely need to beef up DMCA monitoring over what they do with music), and it becomes a very expensive endeavor.

In fact, I can fit quite a lot of videos in 10mb, so they could make 10mb for those who have a subscription, and 5mb for those who don't have a subscription.
As for the DMCA , I think that they already have communication channels for this case, since anyone can download mp3 files.
Yes, this will increase the amount of work, of course. But damn, we've been waiting for video support for so many years! And now most of the animations on FA are terribly heavy and ugly gifs and a link to e6 for full animation.

Again, what you and I are saying is just our theories. I still haven't seen any specifics from competent people.

H264 is also hella obsolete and requires paying for a codec (compounding the pricing on top of the storage)

AV1 is more efficient of free to use, that 10mb video can probably get squeezed more with no loss in quality

I don't think you need to pay just for having a h264 video on your site.
But yes, modern codecs such as AV1 or VP9 are also a good option. Although their creation is a bit more technically complex than h264.

Last I knew, you had to; there were some cheap-ish codecs, but from talking to people I know it was still 10k a month

VP9 is good enough, but since AV1 is generally better and since cost is a concern, I'd think AV1 only would be the best course of action. (Bonus, it'll make more people aware of that codec and spur other furry sites into supporting it, I think only Sofurry and e621 allow it)

A solid update, hopefully the advertisement update works as intended and brings in money to help keep the site going.

👍💥

when will u add a new feature that give me $50000000 everytiem i post art

I greatly appreciate the new meta tag thing you guys have added.
Finally I can hide art from artists I don't wanna see art from.

Yaaaayyyyyyy

Great job team!!!

Speaking of moving things to the top, I think that "Animal Kingdom" group should be at the top of the species dropdown, given that's what the majority of furry characters are.

Problem with that is that I'm seeing *lots* of submissions marked as "Trans_male" or "Trans_female" when they are just herms/futas rather than what the tags should be used as.

They have said in several previous journals (and the Acceptable Upload Policy) that gender tags are for self-identification. If someone is using trans tags because that is a gender identifier they choose to use for their characters, then they are using the tags correctly.

Thing is, I do not want to see futas, so I have turned to block those terms, even if it means I will miss on otherwise good artwork.

People's rights to self-identification and self-expression take precedent over your right to not see those forms of expression. Blocking those terms (as you've done) is the correct option in this case if it solves your problem, however imperfect the solution might be. Your only other option is to scroll past the things you don't wish to see.

It hasn't been removed. It's just no longer in the dropdown. You can still use it as a tag and search for it to your heart's content.

Look, this has been discussed at length and rehashed numerous times over the last three Fender Journal entries, the last of which is still open for comment. If you think you have the magic words that can finally convince the staff (despite the owner of the site telling you the discussion is over) to put the terms back on the dropdown/checkboxes alongside the ones that or there, or get rid of them altogether (like they already tried, which caused everyone to complain about that too), then maybe try pleading your case on a comment section where that's actually the topic, instead of hijacking a discussion about ads and meta-tags to shoehorn your pet issue into it.

trans male and trans female were there originally. i was using those for ages. intersex is the one that was added. you got mad at the wrong label for some reason.

i've been told that "null" is a slur even though i am trying to find doctors for nullification surgery, which is the literal word for it irl in medical contexts if you're not separating out the surgeries, to become null. null is not a tag that is available. i have NEVER commented to complain about this. i have stated that it bothered me when genders were dumped into tags because i was using non-binary in the dropdown as an umbrella term for my fursona, who is stated as surgically null and genderfluid on eir ref.

i'll fix my tags LATER. i really do not have the time. you can also fix your tags whenever you have the time. this is what everyone is telling you.

It hasn't been removed; it's still an option that you are perfectly free to tag. The site has made no rule against it - it is simply no longer included in the predetermined list, because that has been determined (fairly or unfairly; the owner of the site has said "it's not going to happen," so further opinions on the fairness of it are frankly quite irrelevant here) to be the path of least overall harm.

It's still possible to tag your work with it. It's still possible to tag your character with it. It's still possible to identify yourself with it. There's no algorithm deboosting it; searching for it still yields the same results. You simply have to tag it yourself instead of checking a box. Your right to self-identify is not curtailed in any way.

There are numerous other journals on the topic, and it's been made pretty abundantly clear that the change/reversion you want isn't going to happen. If that's not an acceptable change for you, I would think your time would be better spent searching for alternatives to FA instead of arguing with someone who gave you a flat, clear "No."

The staff here have ruled that hermaphrodite is a slur against intersex people, despite the fact that term was never meant to apply to them and has been a staple term in hentai communities for decades at this point. Also, NBs who use herm characters to represent themselves are less valid I guess. At least we can enter the tags manually still, though tbh I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if at some point in the future that'd become rule-breaking as well.

Also chakats.
Chakats are hermaprodites.

I still think the gender based drop down menu should have returned. This tagging method is annoying and it harms the view ability of older artwork here on the site. Along with that, the advertisement boxes have gotten smaller.

pls gibe me plankton or i will kermit sewer slide

go phoque urself

You made my day with wordplay, thank you!
😭💕
🙏

love the reaction image of fender, our favourite ferrox.

I noticed the Meta keywords the other night and immediately got hyped about em once it clicked what they were, lol.

I used to have to use janky, custom adblocker filters if there were artists that I didn't want to see the work of, and now not only can I free up my filter list, but I can block out specific categories so that people who have a weird aversion to properly tagging sensitive topics won't leak through my tag blocking!

Really good change.

do the meta tags count towards the 3 tag minimum?

ah okay, thank you for answering

Many thanks to y'all for all of your dedicated work, FA crew.
Kudos to the departed IT member, their services were highly appreciated.
Let's also be excellent to each other in journals, perhaps.

Every new feature is welcome, considering there's a gap between other image boards and this site. All of it goes towards the legacy 😁

Weird, I see that there is a fix for replacing thumbnails listed, but the issue that it is solving isn't the issue I remember dealing with a couple years back. I'll have to do an experiment to see if replacing story thumbnails works properly now, or if they are still being transformed into 'artwork' dimensions.

The metadata tags are so nice. I can just block a single tag now and never need to see what that person uploads ever again as opposed to shotgunning 30 million blocked tags and hoping they used at least one of them.

Try not to get hacked or crash this time around.

Thank you for moving general furry art to the top, I've been wanting that forever lol

At last! FA adds video support!

I've desperately wanted the ability to blacklist users, so I was very pleased to see it apparently dropped early. So many people don't tag properly, and this lets me blur out some of the worst offenders.

I'm not even looking for that, I just don't want to see some folks art. Though I have spoken to folks who want blocked items hidden fully to declutter search results.

If you add a two-way block option, can we also get a basic mute option?

If I block someone who posts content that I don't wish to see, that doesn't mean I need or want to block them from having the freedom to see me.

On sites like Bluesky, there is both block and mute options. I mute some people to keep the content I see in line with my interests, but I have no need or desire to interfere with their experience, so I don't block them. I'd only use block if someone were actually trying to cause problems for me.

Ideally, a two-way block, should stop any attempt to fave, shout, note, reply, watch or see any notifications, in either direction from either user. It should be a last resort, and protects users from harassment, abuse, stalking and such.

A mute would be a one-way block, where you don't see notifications or communications from the muted user, but where the muted user can still see, fave and watch you, without being notified that you've muted them. It's a very no-drama option, allowing a user the control who they see, without affecting the other user.

If a user chooses to mute or block a user, they might see something like:

⠀⠀"When you block someone, you will no longer see notifications of the user's submissions, journals, replies, shouts, faves or watches, and, they will also not be able to see you. (Use this if you are being harassed, stalked or abused by a user.)"

⠀⠀"When you mute someone, you will no longer see notifications of this user's submissions, journals, replies, shouts, faves or watches, but, they can still see your content and notifications. (Use this if simply don't wish to see a user's content.)"

⠀⠀"Choose Block, Mute or Cancel"

It's a good idea on paper, but I think this might cause harm in the long run. It could easily make stalking and attacks worse. All it would take is a block and a public spite journal from a large account and the user couldn't do anything about it nor figure out why it's happening ;w; Plus all those alt accounts would be hell ;w;

Not being able to see the images of blocked people is an awesome idea though~

^This right here.
Two way blocking system's are way too easy to abuse, allowing people to easily coordinate hate campaigns to make the website unusable for people they don't like. This was common on Twitter I really hope I never have to deal with that kind of stuff again.

^

Yesss, thank goodness for this!

mmm tasty meta tags

Man, every time I see a site announcement, I get excited over the possibility of favorites folders being added. Not this time I guess...

I keep hearing this mentioned and i didn't use to care but now i really want it ;c;

Cool stuff with the meta keywords. I still have thoughts on the gender keywords from before but guess it's probably better to bring up in the discord. Anyway, it's also nice to see animation categories as someone who occasionally uploads those.

Just as I was thinking there should be a category for 2D and 3D animations they get added lol good timing.

Yo taco recipe? Where?

I was wondering where those meta tags suddenly appeared from, I thought Fender had been left unsupervised again.....
It's always sad when someone leaves the team but hopefully, everything will continue to run smoothly ^^
I have applied to be a part of the team twice (with this account and my old account) but I'm useless at everything so I'm not surprised I got rejected..... :/
Sorry for being depressing again, it's the only thing I'm good at! >_<

awww..... hugs u as tightly as i can does this help? UwU

*hugs tight* Thankies ^^

Thanks for the meta keywords.

Is there any possible means of having our prior animations we uploaded as swf Flash files be viewable in any way? Or can we at least edit those uploads to be .gif or .mov files instead?

Is it possible to just reupload those animations as gif or mov files instead? I don't want to delete and reupload what I had and lose the comments and such I had on them.

Is that possible now? I remember for ages I was stuck being unable to do that as I didn't want to delete it and reupload it while losing all the comments I had years ago.

Oh no, I meant reupload what was a Flash upload as instead a gif or mov file to replace it

ah dang, and I didn't want to erase the comments and history I had when those uploads were new :/

nothing's stopping you from keeping the old submission for comment archival and just linking to it from the new one. you can also move the old submission to scraps if you don't want it cluttering your main gallery.

Question as a UK User on July 25th the OSA will be coming into effect. Will this effect Furaffinity for us Brits? Cheers!

Im wondering this too, I hope not but knowing the government it will absolutely affect the site

I hope the webm format for advertising will be supported someday. Weighs less and is much better than a gif

I also hope my application for advertising will already be approved qwq

For the video ads, is there anything you can do on the website end to make sure nothing malicious/annoying gets through? I know its only for signed out users only, but want to know just incase.

Also, which staff member has the best hair?

I'm intrigued by this "famous taco recipe"

Hm :/ Whenever sites start talking about advertising it really concerns me, because **Gestures vaguely to rest of the internet**. But I suppose if the video ads are logged out only, it shouldn't be too bad. Shows that FA is taking a more cautious/user friendly route, unlike most websites.

Taco recipe, huh? Quick question, tacos on Tuesday or Friday?

The best kind of correct answer.

Tuesday. I mean it's called Taco Tuesday for a reason!

Take your time on answering this- but speaking of thumbnails, as someone who really likes making custom crops [and blurring thumbnails that might be marked for spoiler purposes], how soon is the team planning on tackling the non-working thumbnail system? I knew it was on the roadmap last I checked, but wanted to know if that was planned for the next wave of updates or if it was a further in the future deal.

> We thank them for their many years of service

Heh... unless I've misread the context, that's almost an understatement.

And there's a very high probability that FA wouldn't exist had they not been involved, given the timing and original circumstances of their input which was greatly appreciated. : )

I didn't like how smaller the little ads got. It was hard to show off my art before. I would buy the next size up but it's a bit pricey for me.
I'm interested to see what the new one will be!

Thanks to the staff for all the hard work!

everyone talking about the meta keyword thingy yet i just cackle about the neer taco recipe bugfix

That up there ^ was Fender trying to make the taco recipe...

Oh no Fender found the nukes.

Hopefully that wasn't targetting the hidden messaging system. ^^

(Nope; still on there... ;p~)

Sounds all pretty good to me. Just be careful with those video ads, the last thing you want is more shady stuff like the fake antivirus scam ad that appeared recently. We don't need another of those, even for non-accountholders and logged out users.

I noticed the metatag and even made a post about it lol, I'm glad they are a thing as the one for usernames of uploaders is SUPER handy to blacklist people that don't tag unwanted content

Can even be handy after the "you block, neither can see each other" update goes live, since I only try to block people as an extreme thing, and blacklisting their uploads is still a good compromise

Yeah! I only really block harassers/scammers I'm aware of/general weirdos

Being able to blacklist people that upload things I don't like (bonus if it's untagged, which is CONSTANT for some people) is genuinely a great thing, and I hope it stays on its own instead of being deprecated once the better block is rolled out

I just need to point out something I haven't seen mentioned yet:
the max blocking feature will be a perfect tool for art thieves, among others...
especially those stealing from somewhat smaller artists who can't count on their audience to 1. find those+recognize and 2. bother to inform the artist (I personally find like 99,999% on my own:/ while I heard about those like 3 times in my lifetime if even that, no matter how easy it is to find me back), plus 3. the artist has no normal means to verify the info they got is true and would only be able to send blind takedown reports(especialy if the stolen copy is marked NSFW or theif account as logged users only)... unless they block evade:/ any big reason like this one to consider block evasion also defeats the purpose of the blocking feature.
Some time ago I noticed those scam Notes when someone offers commissions but they aren't the artist and commission an undercharging one insetad with the scammer overcharging to make easy profit - with this max level blocking, scammers of this kind of "ethics" could simply block their target artist/s(if their skill and styles are simiar enough) and maybe even their watchers(!) to upload their work as a fake portfolio to increase their success rate because now they have examples without considerably increasing the risk of getting caught (if they temporarily upload for scraps to skip the front page, the risk gets close to 0). You've seen what they're capable of if given a chance more than I possibly could, so I hope you'll take the scam potiential into account, aside to other ways "they can't see me" blocking can be easly exploited for other reasons. Especially now I potentially gave them ideas (though I bet they already had them if even I could think of them in an instant)

Can we have an opt-in for seeing nsfw ads? There are a ton of them that are really explicit that I frankly just don't want to see, but I'm a nsfw artist so I can't just leave sfw mode on.

thank you so much for this! There's an ad with censors that really aren't censors at all so its just plain sex in the adspace with everything showing 😅

would it be feasible to make the submission keyword policy and blocking system work on ads? then if an ad is tagged with a blocked keyword, the user just gets a different ad.

can yall fix not being able to search terms that contain hyphens?
searching "ho-oh" is impossible because the site just thinks i'm trying to search "ho oh" and then it complains that search words need to be at least 3 characters long. adding quotation marks doesn't help either.

Try "ho_oh" (underscore instead of hyphen, no quotes). They explained in a previous journal that hyphens can no longer be included in tags for technical reasons.

this does not help if the submission uploader tags it as "ho-oh" anyway. im glad new submissions have that rule now but it doesn't apply to old submissions... or meta tags, if your username has a hyphen.

is it possible to have those old tags with hyphen in them alias to underscores so that they're searchable?

by the way, even though new submissions now aren't permitted to have hyphens in the tags/keywords, if the username contains one, the meta tag will still contain one too, making it impossible to search for a particular user's uploads if they have a hyphen in their username.

Hopefully in the future, we will get video uploads, as long as it's creative-based and not just focusing on the YouTube algorithm.

Also, video ads for logged out users...? As long as it's not malicious, then I'm okay with it.

Couple questions!
Ever since the display name update, Users Watching/Watched By is no longer in alphabetical order because it's sorting by username, not the actual displayed name. Can that get fixed?

Any plans to address the malicious ads? Have seen instances of ads trying to hijack/redirect to scam antivirus software.

As far as tagging, any plans to enforce tagging for things like streams, announcements, and paid/subscription content so those can be filtered by tag filtering as well?

And finally, since blocked/filtered content still shows up in the submission list, any way we could get a "Select Filtered" or "Nuke Filtered" button to clean up that inbox a little? (I know journals used to have a "Select Streams" button once upon a time)

The ideal scenario would be to require allow-listing of every ad that exists prior to making it to the web site. I realize this probably isn't the business model for most advertisers, but the only way to guarantee not having malicious content popping up on a web site is to vet it prior to hosting it.

the first time i saw one and it was reported the trouble ticket didn't get responded to for 3 months. is there a specific/faster way to report malicious ads?

thank you SO MUCH for the blacklist-able meta tags, using the search functionality has become so much more tolerable - are they in any way indicative of what future updates to blocking users works like?

An update that even surprized the staff, now that's a rarity.

That said, I feel I should express some worry about the future road map. I know the aim is to do away with the drop down menu's, but seeing how everyone reacted to the last drop down menu removal, I think it would be safer to simply streamline some of the drop downs where possible, like why do we have a Species of "German Shepard" and "Husky" when the drop down option "Dog" would work for both and putting the specific breed in as a keyword. Doing so I think would make the mixture of Keywords and the drop down options work better for browsing in the future, rather than completely scrapping the species drop down.

For UK folks, is there anything we can expect or should be anticipating regarding the recent Online Safety law passed here?
Does FA plan to introduce similar steps to what Bluesky and Discord have done or is this a wip still?