In the context of how things have been going, freedom of speech is non-existent in private services like these. The admins can punish people people for offending them even though if its off site, though, its rather petty to be the ones to drag it on site. That is a major logic fail and should be the most important thing they consider in situations like this in the future.

Unfortunately, the administration is primarily made up of a circle of people who know each other well and are sensitive to criticism. Why they are I can't assume, but their inability to take criticism constructively has become their biggest problem. I suspect it might be due to the culture at the top feels threatened and is driven to follow their their thoughts on handling the situation. That's fine but, its been terrible for their PR and they continue to dig themselves holes. It is only a matter of time before their reactions creates a true storm of controversy, and when that time comes, it likely will be a fatal mistake.

*shakes head and shrugs* Calmly explaining the reason behind something and leaving it at that has worked for me since I ever knew of furries. I've never received a ban,
suspension, and the only time I had something taken down was in the wake of the DMCA action on FA by Allan.

However, as much as people want to scream and rant about the admins, I recall one thing that I had a "how interesting" reaction to some years back. . or maybe it was the Allan situation.

"FA is a semi-public forum/art site that is hosted by a private party" there fore, they can have as arbitrary and ridiculous rules they want or need. So as much as we try to compare or tell them what they should do (most either being just trolling or earnest critique for the good of the site) they really don't have to listen or answer anyone's questions as they have ultimate authority.

So place nice, or take your ball elsewhere. Since then, I've pretty much kept to myself and only asked a question to admins of "Why was this person banned/suspended, as I know the person and missed out why" or "This person has posted adult content of themself (ig; pictures of their testicles) and the content should be taken down"

That is the extent of my interaction with the admins. I handle questions and misunderstandings on my own and never had to get an admin to interfere.

Hmm, I think I'll journal this. I do hate to hear about Kayla-Na. She is a high ranking artist that brings many users to this community. Shutting her down like that could cause her to stay elsewhere. They already blocked her on alot of Sonic art, don't think she ever did Cub, but wasn't there another issue that struck her art too? Maybe it was just the Sonic stuff, but if its a privately owned site, wouldn't they want to keep those that draw members?

The problem with the admins is they're all buddy buddy with each other. Instead of having anyone with different ideas, its more like a hive mind and that is a problem anywhere.

And yeah, the Kayla stuff sucks a lot, but she is over on Weasyl still and doesn't censor her stuff on there. As far as the sonic stuff, I think she just burned herself out on it if I remember right, though FA cracking down on it (for no reason) was timed pretty good for that too. Sucks cause I was a fan of her sonic work too.

True. It happens everywhere, unless there is only one omega-admin.

Its what caused me to first watch her. Saw some of her stuff through Purity. Shame she is gone too.

I recall a journal of Kayla's that they gave her some grief on some of her sonic art that was close. She was one of the people who pointed out that it was all "admin discretion" when it came to deciding if an image was too close to original or not made mature enough compared to the actual copyrighted property.

Which is just dumb. You can't fairly enforce the rules if it comes down to a matter of opinion by whoever is looking at it at the time.

And to this day, there is still stuff that would fall under it. It just mattered if people pointed it out to the admins, because they weren't going to go searching thousands of sonic fan galleries for what would fall under it. Just if reported. So, I think the more popular ones got called out more than a single image in someone's scraps.