Omg....that hilarious. This news need to be spread!

On the look on the sheep's faces xD

but he made the account in 2012 when it first surfaced I do believe

I... I shouldn't laugh.
Really, I shouldn't...
No, sorry, can't help it! XD

I don't get it. wasn't the issue that he is now an admin and in charge of FA's new format here rather then him just being here in general?

That would be one of the many, many issues involved in people moving, yes. Not that he's merely "here" or not.

Yeah, that's what I'm getting from all of this as well. People don't care where he is, rather they care if he has a position of power. You can't stop someone from joining a site, but you can certainly stop them from becoming staff members.

Funny thing is he's not even staff - He's a coder, entirely unrelated!

All the coders are given admin privileges on FA.

Proof?

http://puu.sh/6utF6.jpg

Gee that looks like it reads "TECH STAFF" with zaush nowhere on that list...

Regardless of not being on official staff, he's still developing the future base of the site and has access to the database. That's a position of power no matter how you spin it. That is what is making users uncomfortable. Please don't try to redirect the issue with technicalities.

There's still NO CONFIRMATION that he does or does not. It's people just rumor mongering.

… He already has his own HTML and CSS so no concepts or mock-ups shown here can be used either. The only thing that could be used is the SQL database setup that I was working on, but they're going to be working from the existing database apparently (wow, how did they get that?). …
From the 2013 rewriting attempt thread

Unless they have plans to write a third database (which seems illogical as Myr's offering was more than sufficient), then he would have to have access to the site's database in order to complete the rewrite.

Alright, but it seems people already had access to notes and such because of the hack earlier. Why is the coder doing the work on a new site getting people in such a tiff? You obviously can't just expect them to work on nothing.
(and don't go into the whole allegations thing)

I'm not relying on the allegations for argument as there's not enough proof to make a conclusive decision in either direction. The reason that people are upset, I gather, is that Zaush has a questionable history and his own chat logs didn't exactly paint a pretty picture of him either. Yes, there is a mob mentality right now based off his allegations, but it doesn't change the fact that he's an unpleasant individual to deal with and is has a negative effect on FurAffinity's reputation.

As for his abilities as a coder, there is doubt over his competency. Although mostly to vent, benanderson stated why he's wary of Zaush's competency in this reply.

Even more upsetting is that, although there was not strong communication between the rewrite team and Dragoneer, Dragoneer himself forgot entirely about them, not even bothering to ask if they had progress before taking Zaush on for UI and extending his rights to lead dev. Link here. Neither side was right but it reflects poorly on Dragoneer to have entirely forgotten giving permission to create a backend for FurAffinity.

Actually, as 'neer stated, he NEVER gave them permission to work on a new FA. So... yeah. And we can't really say on Zaush's ability based on one person's account, when he's also working with 2 other people and apparently works in the industry anyways.

As some other people have said - Just because someone's done some shady stuff 5-6 years ago, does that still apply to them now? Microsoft and google both employ ex-con rapists, so should we hound them and use ask.com and linux instead?

All we can do is wait and see, but as for hiring Zaush, it's a very, very risky gamble. People have already lost their faith in FA's promises, if they fail to deliver on this one as well, I'm not sure what impact that will have on the community. All I know is that the competition is becoming stronger and has already overtaken FurAffinity from a development standpoint.

You should already know that taking on someone as infamous as Zaush for a public project is a poor PR move. They desperately need to build trust in their community, but it just feels like they're doing what they like because the admins know what position they're in and that FA will still remain the center of business. I personally find it to be disappointing and highly unprofessional to have shown so little progress after receiving so much from the community that supports them. At most some more hardware to compensate for poor code and some minor cosmetic tweaks.

The only changes we've been given are things easy to implement and patch in. They're not even fully fledged features because they have some obvious limitations. Nuke All Submissions is only able to process a few thousand items at a time, for example. Nothing that's been implemented comes from any form of significant effort beyond what's absolutely necessary to keep the website running. It's almost unheard of to go down for a week or more at a time, much less repeatedly in the history of the website.

At the end of it all, I'm just tired of the lies and lack of transparency. There's no feedback, trouble tickets to some ungodly degree, many of the promises made have been forgotten or considered DOA by this point, and the apathy in the community is what cements it all in place. No one cares much that they're being used, so long as they get what they want. It's going to take a major blow to spur action, and this might be the website's last shot before the alternatives become more viable with features that we may never see here.

Just look at SoFurry's new rework. They're on version 3 of the site already and I personally find it to be highly attractive. They have a better discovery service, popular and random works are shown, written and musical works are displayed prominently, and there is more back-and-forth between community and staff. Weasyl is showing great promise as well with active development, as well as frequent communication from staff about the state of the site and what's planned for the future.

Oh, I do mean to reactivate my SF - It's far better then Weasyl IMO. Guess who's the staff on Weasyl? FA admins that got canned for doing a poor job or dramamongering :P

"he NEVER gave them permission to work on a new FA."

Then 'neer has changed the story. He used to say he gave them permission but then forgot about it. Then he said that he gave permission but they didn't communicate with him. Then he said he gave them permission but they had to do it with Zaush once he was brought in...

Actually no - he flat out never gave them permission, at all

Yeah, that's the current story.

Zing!

already watching him there! :p

Meh. I think it's less "omg zaush" and more "Why does Neer want to hire all his half-capable friends to run FA?"

I mean, whether or not Zaush is the chauvinist he says he is, Neer could have literally hired anyone to do the coding. More so, his actions are only hammered in by his recent actions in the forum. Story is the same, he suddenly hired a new admin, reshuffled much of the hierarchy, and then flat out ignored, banned, and infracted users who wanted a response or answer to the allegations that the new admin (Chase) was both a vocal supporter and participant of zoophilia. Again, a nonpoint to the ability to handle/code a site.

So--let's assume non of it's true. What we still have is a site owner creating a staff not based on ability, but seemingly other vague reasons that might be ranging from simple friendships, or more complex scenarios such as promises or even blackmail. I mean it's all a stretch, but what the hell do you expect when you don't actually let ANYONE on the site have any input, or at the very least keep up a semblance of transparency?

But blah blah. Yanno I think it might be worth moving simply on the basis of site support and transparency. FA is running off of ten year old, half-hacked code, and with a notorious reputation for not giving a shit. Weasyl seems to have, at the very least, seems to adress both of these issues. And that's something, I think.

Then you look at the staff of Weasyl and it's the EXACT SAME THING. Friends of the owner are the admins, with little admin/coding/etc experience on much of them, and some of the staff being known dramamongers/etc. So it's little more then jumping from one burning ship to another.

Mind givin' an example? I mean, I haven't seen that thus far, in all honesty. If so I'd like to be aware of it.

But outside the drama, which I'm making a point to ignore on objective terms, are the two main issues of site transparency and site support. As of late, Weasyl suffered a DDOS attack. Within the few hours, an announcement was made that fully explained the situation, and even BEFORE then, the admins were actively in the forums, responding to user questions and providing explanation. That's a level of interaction I've never seen before, particularly between site admins and users. I mean, we could use the excuse that Weasyl is smaller and more easily micromanaged--but then that means Neer should just hire more people. Instead, he's hired one person. Just one.

That's a difference worth noting, I think. Like I said--outside of the drama, there are some very real reasons I believe.

But in the end--FA/dA/Weasyl/InkBunny/OtherArt/Lit site copy/rehash. It really is all the same. (Except Nabyn--who didn't even bother putting in a lit. submission mode >:C )

The "exact" same thing? There's a rapist on weaysl staff too?

Good lord you're one of the idiots that thinks it's rape instantly. Get out.

Fine with me.

You know, not even the original accuser says that Zaush raped her. That's all from the white knights putting words into her mouth.

Her story was that he manipulated her into having sex with him, which is pretty iffy on the face of it.
Regardless, unless I see a court document, the whole rape thing smells like bullshit.

It's good to know that you think that being manipulated into having sex with someone is different from rape.

" It's good to know that you think that being manipulated into having sex with someone is different from rape. "

I agree, I think it's a very good thing. Rape is a serious charge with a serious definition, throwing more situations into the definition devalues actual rape. Talking someone into having sex with you and having them regret it later is hardly rape.