FA+
Shop
Toxicity Problem: Time for Solutions!
7 years ago
Yesterdays journal blew up. Both comments and notes seem to re-iterate our sentiments that the furry community is in dire states. I mentioned briefly on Twitter around a week ago, but gathered it would be best to re-iterate here. I would like to consider avenues we can take as productive, mature members of our community to invest in our future if we care to have one.
Much like Gab.ai has seriously shaken up the power dynamic of social media, being the first to build it's foundation on free speech rather than hysteria. We have the manpower to build a new foundation for furries that not only incentives civility, co-operation and community, but rewards it. How was FA birthed? The demand for community was there and someone made it happen. Instead of complaining about how much the current hierarchy of the furry community sucks, lets actually do something about it.
"But Jason, aren't their already alternatives to FA? Why not use those?"
Same reason no-one else does, redressing of the familiar rebranded as something new. There is little reason to migrate to another platform when the experience is the same with a few new bells and whistles. I propose completely revamping the way we consume furry content from the ground up. Make it far easier for upcoming artists to get exposure, routine community events that ANYONE can participate in, among other long overdue reworks on how we consume content. Twitter will be less incentivized as the social aspect will be built into the platform as it's foundation. ALL content and views are treated equal, giving extensive tools for creators to moderate their own content, leaving staff to only have to deal with incitements of violence and targeted harassment. Viewers will have extensive filters akin to how Hentai-Foundry works to tailor your content feed exactly how you like it. It would be a small tight-knit community at the start, but that's actually appealing. I would rather start out healthy than to live on life support. Hell, I may not even title it something furry, but something that encapsulates anyone that just wants to enjoy fantasy content without the politics and high-school drama. This means little to no investment in convention culture unless it's a message of tolerance and participation for all.
If you are like me and are ready to step up and do something, send me a note. I'm currently aiming to get people together with experience in web design, server hosting, moderation, advertising or otherwise that can contribute so a discussion can be started. This is not an FA competitor, as we aren't appealing to the same audience. We should do something good before all our genuine talent leaves for greener pastures.
If you are a staff member for a furry platform that already exists, you can still note me.
Much like Gab.ai has seriously shaken up the power dynamic of social media, being the first to build it's foundation on free speech rather than hysteria. We have the manpower to build a new foundation for furries that not only incentives civility, co-operation and community, but rewards it. How was FA birthed? The demand for community was there and someone made it happen. Instead of complaining about how much the current hierarchy of the furry community sucks, lets actually do something about it.
"But Jason, aren't their already alternatives to FA? Why not use those?"
Same reason no-one else does, redressing of the familiar rebranded as something new. There is little reason to migrate to another platform when the experience is the same with a few new bells and whistles. I propose completely revamping the way we consume furry content from the ground up. Make it far easier for upcoming artists to get exposure, routine community events that ANYONE can participate in, among other long overdue reworks on how we consume content. Twitter will be less incentivized as the social aspect will be built into the platform as it's foundation. ALL content and views are treated equal, giving extensive tools for creators to moderate their own content, leaving staff to only have to deal with incitements of violence and targeted harassment. Viewers will have extensive filters akin to how Hentai-Foundry works to tailor your content feed exactly how you like it. It would be a small tight-knit community at the start, but that's actually appealing. I would rather start out healthy than to live on life support. Hell, I may not even title it something furry, but something that encapsulates anyone that just wants to enjoy fantasy content without the politics and high-school drama. This means little to no investment in convention culture unless it's a message of tolerance and participation for all.
If you are like me and are ready to step up and do something, send me a note. I'm currently aiming to get people together with experience in web design, server hosting, moderation, advertising or otherwise that can contribute so a discussion can be started. This is not an FA competitor, as we aren't appealing to the same audience. We should do something good before all our genuine talent leaves for greener pastures.
If you are a staff member for a furry platform that already exists, you can still note me.
β’ Furry-Network is FA but run by the same people who run e621.
β’ Weasyl/Sofurry are competing for the same demographic and suffer for it.
This will be built up as something that is unlike what has become standard for the furry community entirely, it will barely be associated with that title. An antidote for toxicity, not a salad dressing.
As far as I know, "switching" websites relies heavily on catering to the community at large to begin with, not just a niche few. But I suppose that's ultimately what your goal of the website is, really.
Inventions succeed by solving a problem. Your last journal is that you're angry that attending conventions devolves into drama. How is a new site going to combat that?
The chances of getting those developers is about 0 since their market wage will be six figures.
To start it would be a more hard-coded process and use static observations about a user, similar to that of anti-fraud systems. If their score is too high/low (depends on your scaling and if high is better or worse) it'll go into a moderation queue for manual review. After enough time you can expand the static analysis of the user or you can setup a CNN or convolutional neural network which is machine learning/artificial intelligence. With a large enough training set one can make tags be automatically added by the AI. Doing both is possible as well to determine if the added tag is correct.
It works like Google's Recaptcha. When it asks you to select something you're actually training their AI.
An example: https://i.gyazo.com/7f11ad8a6834ec3.....542ad229b3.png
That's a ML algorithm that is trained on normal images. With a training set based on FA/E621/Inkbunny/Pixiv/Danbooru it would be able to learn what is actually in the image.
That is specifically what I mean by auto-tagging. Having suggested tags based on previous uploads would also work quite well if in conjunction with other factors such as color scheme.
And the male/female thing is useless for multiple characters.
And let's not get into how to categorise adult/mature, which seems randomly policed.
How is it not going to be like FA or the other websites like it?
If you've seen my previous endeavors into Fursona Maker, Round Robin etc you'll have a vague idea of the direction I'm taking the platform.
Unfortunately I don't recall much of Fursona Maker or Round Robin.
Combo that with a extensive moderation tools for the creator, robust filters and routine community events and you have yourself a great recipe for a fun environment to create and share.
For example cracking down on scammers or artists that have abused their wait times?
Consistently offer a shoddy service and you'll end up with a bad rating, making 'Artist-beware' irrelevant. Likewise to avoid scammers, the ARTIST can provide a rating for the commissioner. Win-win for everyone, most importantly civility and community health.
We will not take down any artists for poor business practices, the score should speak for itself and it becomes the consumers responsibility.
In the event this goes go somewhere, you then need to moderate or make sure not just anyone can give ratings otherwise it will be abused by artist and consumer alike.You have to moderate it, or regardless of the system, it will be abused by people who attempt to game it.
But at the same time, if you moderate, the people who are negatively affected by that moderation will call favoritism and censorship. You would have to be careful that those calls of favoritism and censorship are not legitimate. What is acceptable and not acceptable on this platform? Are those rules strictly adhered to when moderating?
This is part of the platform that would need careful consideration.
Some things sadly cannot be avoided, and better people who try to abuse it throw a tantrum when found out and punished, than honest hard working artists lose business because people abuse a non-moderated system.
and of course no matter what you do with moderation, people will fear abuse, favoritism etc. But there has to be some degree of trust between the runners and users of a site. The runners make sure everyone is safe and they show when people show concern or potential proof of issues with the site or staff, that they take things seriously. While users make sure to report people if they are shown to break TOS, of course mistakes can happen and unless what they did is very serious, you shouldn't get harsh punishment for a single minor infraction.
In the end there are pro's and cons about everything and it takes work and trust from both parties to keep it working.
Once things have a very high approval rating, folks can mostly moderate their own content feed. Scores will matter only to those that deem it useful. I certainly do not enjoy firing blind when it comes to commissioners at all. That kind of consistent information seems super useful to me. It also helps me not worry about charge-backs from cheap scumbags.
Anyway, some form of moderation will likely be necessary. The other examples that you've listed in other comments (steam,twitch) have had to use moderating teams to answer certain abuses of their platform at times, and as LShadow was saying, some complaints will likely be there and be unavoidable.
For example, you listed earlier that people could monitor their own feeds, leaving staff to deal with violence and targeted harassment. Keep in mind that individuals have VERY different ideas on what "Targeted harassment" means, and these views are usually heavily weighted by political views (sadly, at least at the moment). You obviously don't want people to get doxxed or have violent mobs riled up against them on your platform, but a line has to be drawn somewhere about what is no longer targeted harassment or incitements of violence.
I just want to emphasize the importance of having a clear terms of service, and having moderators that enforce those rules fairly and without going beyond them. It'll be a tough challenge. I'm glad you have it on your radar.
FA has a really bad system of rewarding 'cleaning the slate' and just changing to a new identity. Do that on this platform and lose all your leveling progress. I'm creating a lot of incentive to be consistent and genuine in order to thrive.
Yikes.
While I honestly had no idea things were this bad, a part of me isn't all that surprised, as polarizing issues and general toxicity seem to be rising to the fore in general (like almost everywhere I turn, especially politics, but even just in popular culture) over these past few years.
Which is disheartening, to say the least.
Anyways, the reason I'm commenting -- and replying to you specifically -- is that I've been brainstorming ideas to help prevent exploitation of your idea for a site, and I've come up with quite a few.
(I also kept thinking of more and more as I was noting stuff down, so it became very long. Far longer than I had any expectations of.
It's also possible two or three of the ideas might end up repeating a bit of each-other. Not verbatim, but conceptually. I've been typing this up for...oh, like 60 minutes at this point, so my train of thought has gone down about 15 different rabbit holes, and they didn't all lead back to the same warrens.)
Anyways, the ideas likely won't be simple to establish, but they would probably be an effective base to build off of.
The ideas:
*) Only allow artists and commissioners to officially rate each other if they have confirmed via the system that they've entered a deal with each other. The contents of the deal itself need not be public, (many people would probably prefer that), but the system should keep a record of the terms the parties agreed to (internal messaging system), and should have the same kind of confirmation system which online retailers use to confirm whether people have received their orders. There should also be an internal proof of whatever was commissioned having been completed, so that neither side is allowed to provide a rating for the other until the deal has been confirmed as having been fulfilled. (Would probably be a good idea to make the system require a time limit to be set for completion of a commission, (with the ability to extend it for unforseen circumstances, if both parties agree to the extension). That way, it not only provides a way to track the agreed-upon period in which the deal is to be completed, it also prevents ratings if the deal isn't marked as completed by both parties...until that time period is up. If, however, one party goes back on their end of the deal, and doesn't provide what they said they would within the established period, then the deal wouldn't be marked completed, and would prevent a rating until the time period had elapsed. At that point, the party which was burned would have documented proof of the problem, and would be able to leave an official negative review. The veracity of the review would be backed-up by the requirements listed above -- only someone who had a documented agreement would be able to leave a review, and the chances are pretty high that only an agreement which was not completed to the satisfaction of both parties would be cause for a person to leave a negative review.
bute which was not
**) If there's a dispute, then the agreements made through the messaging system, as well as the subsequently created-content would be submitted to someone impartial with the responsibility of reviewing them, and they would determine which party is at fault. (I'm not sure if there's really any way to establish compensation for libel, though, which is why a lot of the other stuff I came up with aims to prevent it before it happens.)
***) There's a set of downsides to this idea, which is that it would only work if:
1.) People are willing to trust your site with a record of literally everything they commission, as well as it having a temporary copy until the deal is marked complete (as it would have the message records, and would hold a copy of any created files until compensation has been received by the creator and the commissioner has gotten their file) -- which means that if people aren't willing to go through your site, they're kinda screwed, at least in terms of getting assurances of a trustworthy commission process.
2.) Because of all the things you'll need to keep records of, you'll eventually need a lot of accessible data storage, which won't be cheap or convenient.
3.) As a subset of both 1 & 2, you'll need to have excellent site security, to prevent hackers from attempting to steal user information, any temporary copies of commissions being held at the time, or anythingβ else of value.
*) Ideally, something which would allow both parties involved to confirm that they agree to an exchange of services (or payment for services rendered) prior to the actual exchange taking place, in order to establish that each side is able to uphold their end of the agreed-upon deal.
(And I can't really think of a way to set up a middleman service to hold things in Escrow, so...yeah.)
**) For an established (and favorably-tested) example of this process being implemented, I suggest looking at the trading system between players in the MMOFPS Warframe. Specifically, the "trade preview" window which pops up, and allows both players participating in a trade to be certain that the person with whom they are trading does in fact have the thing they agreed to trade.
**) It also has a window which pops up to confirm what is being traded, which forces a 3-second wait before allowing both players to accept the trade.
*) With regards to accounts in general, don't allow anonymous comments, or anonymous votes.
*) In addition to being able to upvote/downvote/flag posts, you should allow people to rate them as "helpful" or "unhelpful", like reviews on Amazon or Newegg. People who frequently post things which are often rated as "unhelpful" (and verified as such, if flagged by the system for review), shouldn't be censored, but they should get some kind of 'anti-badge' next to their name which all but announces their status as a troll.
**) In a related vein to this -- and in order to prevent the subversion of a system designed to reduce trolling -- I suggest a way to prevent people from votebombing or votespamming others. If an account suddenly displays a rapid shift in their ratings, in either direction (across things which they have posted before), or if new content they post routinely gets a large number of heavily-biased numbers of votes either for or against it, within a short period after being posted, it should trigger a flag of some kind, log it separately, and classify the flood of votes as 'pending evaluation', then force a moderator to review the issues.
***) (And you'll have to design the backend of the platform in such a way that it allows moderators to easily 'mass-moderate' the comments/ratings on a post, so that mods can do their jobs quickly and effectively. (Ex: The ability to flag multiple posts at once, the ability to delete groups of posts if they violate community standards on hate-speechΒΉ or violence; the ability to un-delete posts, etc.))
****) ΒΉAnd I do actually mean hate-speech here, like using slurs or making overtly hateful comments. ("fuck you" doesn't qualify, but "the Holocaust wasn't thorough enough" definitely does.) It would have to be made clear that this would be determined by a publicly-available standard, with the ability to update it (ofc), so that it's not a matter of censorship -- it's a matter of people not attacking others. Free speech and honesty are great, but they need tempering with some awareness of civility, and, ideally, a lack of hostile intent. (I doubt we'll be getting quite that far, but it's a nice goal, no?)
*) Another way of possibly making it visually simpler to evaluate trends (for the mods) would be the ability to generate heatmaps for voting averages as a whole. It might even be possible to spot a generalized trolling campaign that way.
*) I'd also suggest the ability to internally flag accounts which, while routinely engaging in flagging/downvoting posts or marking them "unhelpful", rarely or never leave a positive rating, with the result that they have given a disproportionately large number of negative ratings to others, compared to the number of positive ratings they have left. (In general people aren't going to be actively looking for content they don't like, so why the hell would they be leaving so many negative ratings, but so few positive ones?)
*) As a separate, unrelated system, I'd also suggest having some kind of account-creation-rate limit in place, (which could be gradually increased with a rise in popularity over time), as it would prevent account-bots from mass-creating junk accounts that trolls could use later.
*) With regards to 'churn-n-burn' spam, where people keep making a new account, leaving just a few posts, then creating a new account to do it all over, I suggest an 'activity-over-time' based system which assigns less weight to posts from accounts which are not being actively used, but which also 'rewards' users who maintain the same account for a long period of time.
*) Also, provide incentives for the community members to participate in actively leaving ratings -- maybe something like the badges that you can see on Steam or Newgrounds.
The idea here is that the increased participation will:
β ) Provide a greater number of ratings from which to train algorithms for the future.
β ) Get people invested in their community (they feel like they're actually contributing).
β ) Get people into the habit, which will make them more likely to continue to do so.
**) In general, basically, you want to 'Gamify' the community participation system, but in a positive manner. (i.e.: give rewards for honest user participation, but don't penalize those who don't participate.)
**) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamification
*) Also, to prevent people from making stupid ideas like creating a bot to rate stuff for them (so that they always get the maximum 'community participation' per cycle) force people to actually wait between ratingsΒΉ, and limit total ratings per 'cycle'Β² to some value, then alert the users as they get near it. If they exceed it, prevent additional ratings until the next cycle starts. Might also be worth it to consider requiring a confirmation system every 10 or 25 votes (pick a fitting number), that forces users to pass one of those tests in the format of "choose the images in this group of 3x3 images that fit with the requested details". Obviously having it every vote would annoy people, but not having it at all would still allow bots to work easily. A compromise would affect bots far more heavily than humans. (There's no real way to truly prevent humans from trolling like this -- you can only aim to make it too inconvenient for them to put in the effort.)
**) ΒΉA wait between votes on content (as opposed to votes on comments) of 30 seconds or something? idk, it's an example.
**) Β²The cycle could be 8 hours, daily, weekly, monthly, etc. as long as it's effective.
*) A subset of this votecap system could be allowing a gradual increase in a person's votecap based on several different combined factors, like:
β ) Their level of activity in general.
β ) Their level of community participation (as determined by the badges I mentioned above).
β ) How long the account has been active.
β ) How often they post things rated as "helpful" by others.
*) Could also possibly be a valid idea to have a system which lets users queue-up additional votes which would otherwise exceed their single-cycle votecap, to be automatically issued for for them at the start of the next cycle. A system like this should probably be limited to users who have at least some measure of established seniority (like a minimum of 6 months active, or somethingβ).
*) Another possible way to cut down on shitspamming would be an "inactivity timer", which would automatically mark accounts with "reduced activity", or "no activity since (date)". If an account stops being active for more than a certain period, it will flag it, and prevent new posts from that account unless the account's creator reconfirms (probably via email, and maybe even with the requirement of 2FA) that it's their account. This won't outright prevent hacking, but it will make it harder to have an account stolen by an imposter.
**) (Probably best to have the flagging for this be backend-only, at least at first.)
So that's what I've come up with.
I only wish I could help implement ... well, any of it, but I'm shit at coding.
Great at innovation, not so much at implementation.
Hope all of this helps in some way, and I wish you good fortune in achieving your states goals.
I donβt have any experience in web design and all that, but I am an analyst with experience developing business rules (to gude programmers) to meet business needs.
I would love to stay updated on what you decide to do though!β₯
https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/8898349/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmULc5VANsw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDa9w_XoP7Y
Have a good, hard look through these, and reply if you actually examine these thoroughly.
Also, maybe tone down on the hostility? Because you're starting to show behaviour that of being on the wrong side of right.
(I suggest yo listen to Word Crimes, my dude)
Was that pedantic of me? Yes. But I felt it was fair since you accused someone else of being a pedant, then criticized them, basing your own criticism on an incorrect interpretation of how the world works.
Note that when you provide "Evidence", there's a difference between being defensively hostile and aggressively hostile. There is no significant problem with defensive hostility, as it is retaliatory; But aggressive hostility, where he starts arguments himself is problematic.
Go ahead and provide examples of Jason being aggressively hostile, specifically, targeted harassment.
If a new platform is going to be made, then at the door there's going to need to be a good gate-keeping system, otherwise, you're right, it'll be the same problem all over again.
Think of positive re-enforcement as a vine, creators will flourish around a strong foundation or otherwise suffer like here on FA. Someone replacing me as a director wouldn't do much, as the site would need to be changed on every aspect to fall back into the same habits as what we are used to. What we see here is years of neglect and indecision.
Ultimately, what I'm trying to say about the comparison is that it's apt, but double-edged.
In the presence of overwhelming mediocrity, all you need is competent filters to find the content you enjoy. Providing spotlights for upcoming artists so they too can become those community figures.
It just ends up fragmenting the fandom even more, and lo and behold those splinter groups always run into the same problems as the places they've left. You can't recycle the same people & behavior, and expect a different outcome.
You're never going to stop FA from being the main site for the fandom. We all know how shitty it is as a website, both in terms of management & technically. But it's simply where all the traffic is, accept it.
The real answer is to stop the silly passive-aggressive behavior, and stay in the fire. If the fandom matters that much to you, you have to stay. Yeah, there's probably no changing a lot of them, real change has to come from within ultimately.
But most of the pieces of work out there aren't even that brave tbh. They tend to have little going for them, they crumple easily. This is their outlet, their one little slice of popularity. Of course they don't wear it well, they can barely take care of themselves.
Stay, be the good people that you guys claim to be. Let your actions show the way. That's the only real way to change the fandom. All the words, attention grabbing, and splintering off of groups isn't going to do squat.
My point is I WELCOME people to stay on FA. What I will build is not for the passive, it's for active members that actually want to make a difference. Those hungry for community participation will struggle here, the tools simply do not exist. Said platform bears no threat to the furry community, if anything it will finally offer an avenue where people can be proud of the title. Something can't grow with bad soil.
I am not acting at all by doing nothing and complaining. What you are seeing is an attempt to bring out the good those that are willing to try.
I've personally had a handful of bad experiences with artists and customers in the community.
But i support this.
Actually I find itβs a very nice idea, especially since the flaws in the βalternativesβ are very obvious, even if you only glance at it.
DA? A mess with weird rules, hard to search for stuff and overall tough to navigate through.
SF? Little traffic and slow interface. The layout also never failed to confuse me even right to this day.
Weasyl? Again, little traffic and similar to SF.
E621? Well⦠Imageboards⦠no need to say more.
I canβt do anything beyong basic early 90s html lol, but I sure would give this project a closer look to see what itβs like :3
The only place that's sincerely awesome in my book is Aryion / Eka's Portal. Yes, I know... it's a website and gallery for vore fans and not everyone is into that. I've been there for years though, and honestly it's the difference between eating canned food full of poisonous chemicals versus food your grandma cooks as she did back in the day; There's rarely any drama going on there, and when there is conflict it's handled fairly and without using excess force. Not to mention there's nearly no restrictions on what art you can post, they censor nothing for no one regardless of how offended they claim to feel... instead they offer flexible tools to watch and block tags you like or dislike by yourself! If someone hasn't tagged a submission properly anyone can suggest and vote for a correction, thus the community manages the accuracy of submission information. Eka's is a textbook example for how a website should be ran!
Also when it comes to nsfw stuff. I once wanted to publish a drawing of a nude male character there and it got flagged, YET ON THE SAME DAY I stumbled upon a ACTUAL PHOTO of a woman with some liquid oozing out of her vagina, which apparently was perfectly accepted as art. Seriously, what the hell is going on there???
FA apparently has a big problem with mistaking heated debates and discussion with harrassment, as in just name a big content creator and maybe have a negative thought about them for some reason and explain why. It's indeed quite sad that such a dicsussion culture doesn't exist here.
As for the good example you mentioned, I could even see THEM running into the same issues like so many other website once they step out of their specific type of promoted content and opening up to a wider variety of people. People with different ideas will hit each others heads eventually and doing such a thing in a civilised manner is a task not many are capable of, as sad as it is.
I completely support the idea of creating an entirely new community that acts, not just as a new furry Twitter or FA, but as a larger portal. I have experience in web "design," but it has been a long time and I am not a programmer. I am more of a designer and ideas man, and I have tons of ideas on how to make a larger, better furry portal, as well as ideas on how to make things easier for content posters and viewers alike. What I have been envisioning for years, is one stop for all one's furry needs. I also have plenty of mod experience, on forums, in chatrooms, on Telegram, etc and I often joke with my friends that if I were to win the Powerball, I'd just go to IMVU, buy FA, find some programmers and make all my ideas happen. Fat chance of that though. I would be interested in talking with you about these ideas if you desire because I would love a community that revolves around freedom of speech and expression.
Of course, the real challenge is getting people to migrate. It will take a lot of work and innovation.
My view is the same as on most issues in the world: Toxicity exists because everyone has things they're sensitive to but cannot react to accordingly. If someone is offended by something, be it for a legitimate reason or a bad experience, they consider that a free pass to treat other people like garbage as well as using any power they have to cause as much harm to them as possible (I'm mostly looking at site owners, event organizers, etc). Everything needs to be extreme: Either you're with me and you're good, either you're against me and you're bad. People need to understand that no issue is ever going to be solved by finding and crucifying "the bad guy", but by communicating and understanding the source of everyone's views then being willing to accept alternatives!
For my own failures, picking extremes is one thing I refuse to do. Even when it comes to issues like Donald Trump, I hit on the guy when he does something stupid but can admit when he's done something good. Even to you Jasona I've said when I disagree with something, such as those leaked N-word jokes which I still think are very inconsiderate... however I'm not going to go around crying that you're a monster, especially since a lot of what you say and do is very fair and accurate, and at the end of the day don't support any real explicit harm toward others.
As far as the solution goes, there are two things to look at in my opinion. First people need to chill the fuck down, and understand that there's no need to attack everyone whenever they don't agree on a sensitive view; Don't generalize and also ask those people exactly what they support and why they support it. If you want someone to change, correct them instead of insulting then banning them. Case in point: I've met a few folks who are conservative nationalists... while their views on immigrants did bother me quite a bit, I still talk to some of them, and guess what they aren't necessarily different from those on my side of the fence as far as a lot of issues go.
For the second thing, how I believe the fandom should interact online, I will have to tout my favorite tech domain once more: The decentralized internet initiative. A lot of the toxicity on many sites happens not just because of the community, but because of admins abusing people in the community with bad site rules. It strongly feels like the time has come for a decentralized art gallery... one where artists can post whatever they want, without fear of being banned for making an immoral drawing or saying bad comment. Initiatives like BitTube and DTube are already providing exactly such alternatives to Youtube... Diaspora and Mastodon are offering free alternatives to Facebook and Twitter... the time is coming for something to offer such an option for Furaffinity and Inkbunny.
I think the only reason people would move is BECAUSE of the few new bells and whistles, because honestly, you can't get rid of the shitty people. I noticed in one of your comments you said that you can rate artists and then the artist can also rate the commissioner. Your next comment mentions that it will be hard to be shitty and be rewarded. I think what you are missing is that people who want to be shitty are generally rewarded simply by being shitty; they enjoy it and need nothing to encourage it. Also, they don't have to be a commissioner to be shitty, so you would need a system that lets you rate everyone, not just those who buy/sell.
This would most likely encourage exactly what you claim to want to discourage; the hierarchy of this site. Say person A doesn't like person B. Well, if you have an open rating system, person A simply has to rate B as bad and encourage everyone else to do so. If you have a buy/sell system. Person A could have all their followers and such buy the cheapest art possible (many artists have some kind of something that is fairly low) and then give terrible ratings. You might say, oh but at least the artist then gets paid! But unfortunately, especially when the site is new, these ratings could completely tank the artists reputation, leading those who discover them to potentially write them off. Basically, it leaves way more room for abuse then FA does.
I feel like FA doesn't have a huge toxicity problem. Sure, people suck, but people suck everywhere. Ignore them, block them, and if they encourage others to do it, report them (as that is a reportable offence). They don't really have anything but their words to be sucky with though. They can't tank your rating. Because FA isn't a judge a book by it's cover kind of site. I can't go on a profile, see a bad rating, and be like welp, not looking at this artist!
I don't know, just a few ideas. The only problem I have with FA is really the filtering system. If they added filters, I'd be completely happy! Oh, and I think it would be nifty if they had a "browse" option for journals, not just submissions.
β’ You won't be able to mass down-vote someone as a mob because there will be no connection between commissioner and creator. That is a one-time exchange. The weight of ones scoring power would also depend on how consistent they are. If you do nothing but down-vote people you don't like and barely support the community, you'll struggle to unlock additional privileges. Not to mention artists will quickly learn to avoid you if you get a bad track record with everyone you interact with. These abilities will also have cool-downs based on level and time spent on the platform.
β’ There will be multiple metrics at play to determine ones community rating. You can't upvote spam yourself with a bot and expect to see results if you have no viewer engagement or positive community participation. I've been around the block, I know how these systems are abused. Look to e621 for example, they use the downvote feature to hide opinions they disagree with.
People that want to be toxic are going to be fighting a very steep uphill battle that is far easier to achieve on FA. Most act malicious because it's easy and low effort.
Unfortunately, it also sounds like it will be a huge uphill battle for artists like me. The ones with few watchers because their art isn't very great yet. Especially if you need to be social. If that rating is mostly dependent on commissions and socialness, I have a feeling I'll never get anywhere xD
I'm not sure you will ever be able to remove toxicity from the internet. Everyone has their opinions, and nowadays, a lot of people feel the need to vehemently defend their opinions at the cost of denying others their rights to an opinion. You can have a great rating, but if someone wants to call you out (even if what they say is a complete lie) their will always be people who are willing to believe them. Whether because they are friends, don't like the other person, or even because they are jealous for some reason. Just look at this site. You have tons and tons of watchers, you get awesome reviews, many positive comments and favorites. Yet the moment someone opens their mouth about you, whether to say something nice or mean, tons and tons of people jump on either side and cause these huge arguments.
Sorry if I sound all pessimistic, it is definitely not meant that way! If you can pull of the ideals that you are talking about, then I would definitely be on board. I'm just more apprehensive that this will not work quite as it is intended! Maybe you can bring me on board and I'll just play Devil's Advocate xD
I don't think it's so much about removing toxicity from the internet as it is running a platform from a more neutral stance; more like how things were before this far-left hysteria took hold and started actively silencing their opposition through slander/libel and going after their livelihood. On this platform Antifa, despite abundant proof that they are a violent hate group, is allowed to operate freely here. You can identify as antifa and you won't be in trouble. Identify as the opposition, that will not be the case because the owner of this site is a self-professed member of antifa and believes they do some bad things but the end goal is noble. The Nazis used the same argument. Restoring ownership of the lands to the German people while scapegoating the immigrants. The same with the Fascist regime in Italy.
The problem is though it's a matter of perspective. For example, to these people being anti-illegal immigration is somehow equated to being anti-immigrant and therefore we are arbitrarily branded as Nazis accordingly. When you have these major platforms that can hide behind private property law to usurp en mass someone's right to free speech for /any/ reason at all even for reasons not even remotely associated with the platform... we have a very real problem. That power, in my opinion, has allowed extremist voices to have very real power that they won't hesitate to use against anyone they declare an enemy. We need to take away that power or at the very least severely limit it's scope.
A stepping stone to that a platform that is centered on neutrality rather than protecting people's feelings because someone said something mean online or posted a drawing they don't approve of. I'd prefer a legal solution that protects the flow of money such as disallowing banks and payment processors to discriminate to the point they can can affect the political arena to the extent they do today. This whole nonsense of doing business with someone by default implies they support them is why extremist voices have power. It worked in Nazi Germany. It worked in Cuba. It worked in the USSR. It worked in Fascist Italy. It's working today. We really need to take away that power because history has shown us... mankind's worst deeds have been done under the guise of good intentions.
It's hard to achieve neutrality, and one could argue, that neutrality isn't even a good thing. People are inherently biased. And though admitting your biased is great, it's not a solution and doesn't mean you wont act on them, even by accident. Also, neutral is kind of a matter of opinion as well, and has different extremes. While I don't think people should be labeled as Nazis because their opinion is different, I also do not think they should be allowed to go on ahead and shout hate rhetoric. And therein lies a major issue.
Do you want to be on a site that lets people say extremely hateful things? Regardless of side, far left, far right, far topsy turvy whosy whatsy. Most d ont want to see that. Which means the moderator then needs to decide what is too extreme. And boom, right there is bias, right there is going to be silencing that some people will not agree with. It won't be neutral the moment someone steps in and says you c ant say that, even if it is totally valid to block or silence them.
"I've seen plenty of stuff from him that would suggest that this would lead to some extreme bias as well."
Like what? How does free speech twist into some kind of motive? If you are concerned that if you let people speak they will vote against you, then your ideals are flawed and need challenge anyway. 80% of the population disavows Political Correctness and censorship is the only thing keeping it alive here.
Free speech cannot exist so long as you believe hate speech is exempt. Those 'Nazis' have the right to their opinion, no matter how much you detest it. So long as they don't incite violence or harass others, they are entitled to their believes just as much as you are. A truly free platform would challenge bigots anyway. That means the radical lefts are welcome just as much, but they will probably stay on FA for the bubble it provides.
No censorship means exactly that, no censorship. Soon as you define 'hate speech' you welcome the political bias you describe. This is a neutral platform just like Gab for furries. I have never interacted with a 'Nazi-Fur' and it honestly comes off as a political tactic to keep people hostile and paranoid at their own community.
You would need to define what harassment means. You would have to choose what qualifies as inciting violence. You could leave it as ambiguous as you did in the prior comment, but then as soon as you censor someone for something, you'd be defining it. And it would probably cause even more backlash because how would they know what the limits are without you first defining them?
I guess all I'm really trying to say is, you can't make an entire website devoted to art and community without setting some rules, without defining something. And the moment you define anything, it will be biased in some way.
I have never spoke to anyone who was bigoted in any way. Or at least not openly, and to me. Have I run into people who were rude? Sure have. Have I run into random people messaging me to let me know they disagree with some policy I hold? Yep, run into that a few times. But I have never seen any actual evidence of a Nazi-Fur. For that matter, I haven't run into anything Antifa related. Unless you count people in comments calling people out saying they must be Antifa if they talk that way. Just like people will say you must be a Nazi-Fur if you talk that way. Does it mean that these two things don't exist? No, of course not. I imagine they do. What are the chances a community this size doesn't hold people with super-duper bigoted opinions who are willing to attack and defend those beliefs? But I also don't feel like they are nearly as prevalent as some people seem to think.
What kind of time and effort would a little known person, who isn't very good at art as of yet, need to put into this site to actually achieve...well...anything? Those of us that don't get commissions. Those of us who have trouble putting themselves out in a public space for these social event type things you mentioned. What will we do? You make it sound like toxic people will have a really hard time achieving a high score, but wouldn't this also limit people who aren't moving over to a new site and bringing along 1,000s of followers?
I'm also worried that you make this site, get it all up and running, only to find out your system was a good way to shoot yourself in the foot. You say the furry community is mostly leftists, many of whom promote this PC culture. You've also said here in this journal "let the community decide what resonates with them most". This seems like a recipe for disaster in my opinion. Like what will end up happening is people who don't like right, or far right views will just plain outweigh those who do hold those views. You said it'll be hard to abuse the system, that it'll lower your own score. But what if you simply don't like what someone does. What if they put out a piece that is cub, or feral, and people go crazy and suddenly that person has a low score. Or if they make a journal (or whatever the site will have) that holds right leaning views and a bunch of people on the left don't like it? Don't those people on the left have every right to dislike what the person said? Is it abuse for them to use whatever system is in place to lower the person on the right's score? And if a ton of them do it...well, seems like all you will have created is a platform that allows the majority to shoot down whoever goes against them. Not because they are toxic, but simply because the number of people with those beliefs is higher.
I know you said somewhere on here that it isn't targeted for people on FA. But let's be honest here, you are a furry artist. Making a journal calling for other people on a furry community to help you make this site. And once it's up, you, and all the people you recruit will tell their followers, hey check us out over here, or just check out this site! I don't think there are many people out there simply googling art sites that don't specify one type of art. I think what will happen is a ton of people from FA will go over there and give it a shot. And maybe it's amazing and they stick around. But you will still be pulling the vast majority of your numbers from one community that you find toxic, in part, because of how PC it is. Then you are handing that community the tools to publicly downgrade anyone they disagree with...
How will you combat that without coming off as someone right leaning who wants to censor those on the left? If you go in and manually bump up the rating for the people on the right because you feel it's unfair that they got downgraded because of their views...then aren't you just as bad as you claim FA is, only in the other direction? If you leave it alone, as you have said you will be, then all you have done is make a place for the PC crowd to basically enforce being PC because you will be punished by them otherwise. You could make it so that if more people try to lower someone's rating, then it has less and less effect based on the number of people submitting scores. But then, once again, you've shown a huge bias and have taken the power from the community. Basically doing what some governments do and saying, oh well you guys don't really know what you want, so you should have less of an impact!
Sorry for the huge post, I just really want clarification on some stuff :)
To define that better, what you believe or think or have an opinion on, does not create harassment. Like the real world, you must accept people around you who have different beliefs than you.
You can be an SJW or Nazi, yet, still not create or encourage harassment. EVEN THOUGH those beliefs are all about that, if you don't act on it, then it's fine. We already live in a diverse society, and the world isn't burning. Furries just need to accept that fact.
People are free to believe whatever they want, regardless of how toxic or dangerous the belief is. Which is a good thing, history time and again proves that people can live with each other, in peace, without the need of changing everyone's mind. Ironically, acts of trying to change everyone mind creates violence, it's like, humans are diverse by nature, crazy I know. The world will not die if everyone doesn't think like you, but it will definitely die when everyone does think like you.
The current combat to this problem is hating people that are hateful. That is an issue, gives those very people you want gone a reason to keep existing. All that needs to be done to stop the spread of an kind of group that promotes hate, is simply spread your own word how you don't agree with their beliefs. Fabian Tactics. Read a history book. As soon as you declare how they are the enemy and will fight them, not only have you devolved into them, but you also give them a reason to fight day by day. If your ideologies has an enemy, you absolutely need a physical enemy to keep existing. So don't give your enemy, yourself.
In summery, you can and should believe in whatever you want without harassment. If you disagree, well, that sucks for you. You cannot justify hateful ideology to combat hateful ideologies; read a history book and realize how much that utterly fails peace.
_____________________________________________
That being said, creating harassment or encouraging harassment is absolutely unacceptable. Your beliefs does NOT excuse that behavior by any means, there is no justification to for that or for you.
If you are against that idea, just think about what is happening now. Do you honestly believe that all the aggression and hatred being done today to the people you hate, is multiplied by 100, will fix the problem? By 1000x? How much bullying and harassment must be done until the problem is gone? Probably will be gone, when a bloody war starts. Once again, read a history book and mistakes won't be repeated.
_____________________________________________
In second summary, people should be allowed to believe whatever they want and punish anyone who harasses or encourages harassment. Beliefs are not the same as harassment, and there is no proof in the world that would prove that true. There are currently many people who want to fight, and will go around looking for fights. Punish that behavior.
That would be a good start for a healthy community. Create an even field that is very solid for everyone to stand on. In my opinion, that would be a good place to grow. And that's the important part, even. A good base is always even for everyone, regardless of who they are. (Hell, imagine if League of Legends players are not punished ONLY if they play mid-lane, things will get soooo fucking toxic) Not to mention, it will hopefully encourage aggressive furries to change their behaviors being more open, share opinions, block aggression.
"We need to shame bully's. Any behavior that deliberately creates harassment or encourage harassment must be shamed"
This is what a number of the people that you're targeting with this statement think they're already doing. Many SJWs, for example, would love this statement. Oftentimes even the people that take it too far believe that this is just what they're already doing.
I'll also point out two more quotes here:
"As soon as you declare how they are the enemy and will fight them, not only have you devolved into them, but you also give them a reason to fight day by day."
"There are currently many people who want to fight, and will go around looking for fights. Punish that behavior."
Again, I agree with the sentiment behind your post here (and I don't think you're technically contradicting yourself here), but be careful.
I'd like to say "we need to fix and prevent bullies" instead. Shaming and punishing those who are bad may temporarily deter them, but long term it will just further convince them that everyone else is against them thus they should be bullies. There's only so much one can achieve through shunning, force, intimidation, etc... "eye for an eye" doesn't work too well either.
Would be nice to see what comes out of this, however avoiding the internet mob mentality (well, North American internet really), is going to be quite a task xD
I'll start saying that I'm not a Kothorax' follower but I find most of his speech truth.
1. The furry fandom has grown toxic and 'retarded' (pass me the word, I know it's bad).
Whenever you try to meet someone new within the community is like throwing a 100 sided dice hoping to get a 1.
I've met them all: Passive-aggressive people, opportunists, drama-maker, sex-obsessed etc... etc...
2. Let's say you create this site with a lot of people helping you, how do you reduce the number of the toxic-furries?
The only way you could avoid underage people would be forcing people to upload an ID at the registration, that to resolve a problem
But there are absolutely no ways to avoid more than this, I mean what are the possibilities? Ban people from this new furry site, every time they make drama or the likes? That would take an absurd quantity of people dedicated to this project.
Then again could you really ban someone for making drama on FB/twitter/whatever, on your site that has 0 correlations? Because that's the only way to avoid all the furry-scum.
3. Then again (x2 combo) in your brand new site will CP actually accepted? People will always sustain that it is just fantasy | as ferals-arts are not zoophilia with the same reasoning, So creating a new site will already be splitting people even further just because of a so simple decision. (That IMO is totally avoidable with a blacklist)
4. I seriously hope if you create this site any kind of SJW/political group get destroyed and banned immediately, that's no place for it.
5. I seriously hope you find a solution to all this because I seriously have enough of the toxicity around furs.
I don't personally have a preference for cub but I've drawn it for others (using only my mind as reference mind you), to me it's still just mature characters interacting, they just happen to have younger looking bodies. At the same time I can see how the curiosity of a young character can be a draw to some. I like that trait in adult characters too, inexperienced but eager.
I don't really have any interest in feral either, except dragons, dragons are always relevant, but I wouldn't shun people that like more "realistic" feral art either. In most cases the feral characters are mature, sentient beings in control of their actions.
Sadly I think this is something that will never change in people. I have nothing against Jason, I generally think he's a decent guy who just speak his mind a lot, but it's obvious by the first reply to the first comment on this journal that he see cub as actual cp while as we know, being a-ok with feral.
Wouldn't surprise me if a bunch of people see this and add me to some blacklist for not being against cub, or feral for that matter :P But nothing of value would be lost.
It's like how a lot of homophobes are struggling with their sexuality. They want to ban it so they don't get tempted.
http://www.rochester.edu/news/show.php?id=4040
it has a link to the actual study that was done
Also the point has to be made over and over that reality and fantasy are not the same. If someone wants to see gore and vore in fantasy, then everything should be ok. We shouldn't be trying to shame people for having fantasy fetishes that would be immoral if acted out in real life.
At least in this case, you're an ordinary person like myself; We ultimately agree to disagree then forget we ever argued about it. The issue is when in some countries, politicians with those mindsets are still allowed to push for medieval legal proposals, threatening open communications and free thought as much as they can.
There will never be a time when we all get along.
I do not advocate cliquishness, but if there is someone who annoys you, you do have the option to just walk away from them.
Not one here has the right or the authority to make the furry fandom, or any part of it, into their personal plaything.
Please forgive me if I don't hold my breath though.
Or maybe that's just me being my usual cynical and pessimistic self. :)
Regardless, if you do happen to go through with this, I wish you luck.
Considering all the things described in that vid, you'd think a higher authority would've stepped in and shut this site down and all others like it by now.
Nonetheless if his endeavor is successful, awesome. But eventually those same ppl will slide in on that site
But then again. I'm a reallllllly obscure artist after all!
High end guys like Jason must get a random note demanding something free or garbled nonsense every other week.
That being said, I've never really encountered any of it myself.. but I'm more of an outsider.
In regards to this site, I have no idea what the video said.. but I do know this site allied itself with the extreme left a while ago, which is roughly when all the witch hunting started.. or maybe made it worse, I dunno.
I read and agree with a lot of what Jasonafex says about today's political climate/divisiveness/toxicity.. ..I'm just more of a doubting Thomas type in regards to just about everything. A site where everyone's welcome with little to no censorship and the community at large will decide this or that... I'll believe it when I see it, and even then I'm doubting it will work well with so little moderation.
I admire the ideal here, and should it truly be what you're going for, I would applaud it and support it wholeheartedly. I've seen statements from you on your twitter that have been very reasonable regarding political discourse in the country currently.
However, I'm also cynical, and I've also seen a number of things on your twitter and other platforms that are definitely divisive, and... not happy with the political left. It is very clear that you're a right wing political personality, and don't take kindly to those on (at least the far) left.
I worry what's happened is that since the furry community is largely left leaning (with some being far left leaning), you've been a target of harassment because of your views (by the far left), and your response to that is to try to separate from the community, and make your own platform that is more friendly to right leaning views. I worry that this concept gets taken too far, and it turns into a right-leaning community that shuns the left - the opposite of what pushed you out of this one. Echo chambers are what got us into this state of political divisiveness that we're currently in. I would worry about what system you would make to moderate the site, and how it is applied fairly so that you don't become the thing you hate, just on the other political side. I've read some of your ideas thus far, and I would love to ask more questions regarding them, but the reality is that you have no realistic need to respond to my concerns. I'm just a guy (only a sysadmin, not a web developer), and likely not your target audience anyway.
TLDR: I cautiously support your idea.
If you don't consider me liberal, you need to double check what the definition of liberty is.
I would agree that you're a 'classical liberal'. There's a reason that I didn't use the term in my original post though, because "liberal" and "classical liberal" have become different terms in terms of popular usage.
Self Identified "liberals" include a lot of people on the "left" or democratic end of the spectrum. If this term is being used correctly or not, I don't know for sure. It's possible it might be used incorrectly in terms of the book definition. In terms of the popular understanding of the specific term however, it's most commonly used for people on the political left.
Now "Classical Liberals", on the other hand, are people that usually have more right leaning ideas, though a lot of them identify more as libertarians. The movement sources back to people like John Locke, if I remember right, and focuses on absolute freedom and limitation of the power of government (something that libertarians and conservatives mostly have in common). I'll cite Paul Ryan, Jordan Peterson, and Dave Rubin as examples. I've seen a number of sources saying something along the lines of:
'Americans use the term 'classical liberal' very differently then Europeans do. Classical liberalism has more in common with American Conservatism'
I'm not saying that being a 'classical liberal', being right leaning, being a conservative, whatever is a bad thing. To be honest, whether or not you're a liberal wasn't really what I was going for anyway. I was focusing on right versus left. You seem to express a lot of right leaning views, I know that furries are usually pretty far on the left. I worry that even with the best intentions of policing things with equality (or not policing them at all, which counts), if everyone becomes disagreeable, you might unintentionally support the right leaning community more then the left, which I imagine is kinda the same thing that happened over here, just in reverse.
I welcome you to prove me wrong though, and honestly hope you will!
A visual aid for political wings can be seen here. Progressive activists are your SJWs, which has basically become the standard for FA. The other 92% of society is too right wing for the furry community.
Obviously a lot of people are going to say "but what about killers posting photos of people they murder, kidnappers posting child porn, terrorists and Nazis recruiting others in hate crime, massive copyright infringement, bla bla bla". The problem is this: As long as you have a means to moderate a platform for any one reason (no matter how justified or not) it can always be expanded to anything. Today one may say "I promise to only censor harassment and illegal content on my site"... then tomorrow they change their minds, or some twisted Orwellian law passes in their country and they have to. It's happened with many teams and services, which started out as being pretty nice then slowly went bad over the years... heck just look at Google.
The best way is to empower the user to censor whatever they don't want, and have no global moderation system at all. Let the community create and manage blacklists, and of course default to a few trusted ones so your users don't see crazy stuff by default. But make it fully customizable, so if you don't agree with one list you can use your own. Yeah sure, people will watch some CP or terrorist propaganda or whatever... if the FBI thinks they're going to commit a crime, they're always free to monitor them or catch them while preparing for said crime, no one can seriously estimate how what you see on a screen might influence you to act. Besides; Actual criminals posting certain stuff makes it easier for police to catch them!
It already exists. Censorship via corporations is impossible and it can only be censored by a single person (the owner.) It's called Zeronet. The site creator has the sole control of the code and can add/remove freely. It has its own "internal" domain name system so it's not controlled by ICANN. It's not susceptible to takedowns as everyone who views the site is a host (its P2P.) It can also provide privacy by using TOR.
Of course the downside is that due to the extreme anti-censorship method (P2P) it means the site cannot be too advanced in terms of functionality. Everything the site needs to run is stored on every viewers computer. This means no anti-bot protection at the minimum.
So if I can do anything, I will. I'm more of a "in the shadows" kinda guy, but the more bodies the better, eh?
Good luck in your future endeavors! Look forward to seeing more content. Always love seeing your and Kabier's stuff!
There's no easy way I know of here to really drive ideas/projects that people want, keep up with those projects as they make progress, or to reward people for their contributions. You could say just go to Patreon/Indeigogo/etc, but I'd rather those kind of big project features be built-in both to avoid fragmentation (i.e. needing accounts on multiple 3rd-party sites and then somehow tying them together) and also so the fees they take stay in the community. I mean there's a ton of features that could be added or greatly improved upon. We have basically nothing here. It's easy to underestimate convenience until you realize how much time it saves you, and how that affects user engagement on a platform.
What gate keeping measures do you need in place to ensure the community doesn't devolve back into a soup of madness? how do you ensure site staff remain true to the site's mission?
Lastly, funding? what's going to fund this new site? some of you people your trying to get away from will be actively trying to keep you from using the financial system if their vindictive enough.
I don't have any of the experience you need, so I'll not send you a note ('m sure you are sifting through plenty already), but I hope you'll keep us posted, as I'd love to give the place a shot.
The need of the many out way the needs of the few or the one, sometimes the many, the few & the one only want to divide & conquer.
So you're gonna be what? The ideas guy?
As a professional developer, your ideas are worthless. Ideas are worth nothing, and this is not an original idea. You need to build something before you expect people to come and work for you for free.
Haha, because you know, you're currently pulling the "I'm popular, do all the work for me" card.
Is what I've been reading from the post and replies here.
But what exactly?
Thank you beforehand.
Jasonafex is outspoken in saying that politically correct (PC) culture is a negative in society (more specifically furry culture in this case), and it leads to people being silenced that should not be. He has cited previous examples of some furries not allowed to be guests of honor at conventions due to right leaning views that are seen as racist or offensive. When those who do not have the power to silence wish to silence an opposing view, they express hostility, which Jasonafex calls "toxicity" in this case. He argues that this toxicity is a major problem.
Furries in general are left leaning. Jasonafex's case is that this left bias leads them to silence or be hostile toward opposing opinions too liberally (pardon the pun, I love it too much to not say it).
His goal in this venture then, would be to create an alternate site which does not moderate unpopular opinions and allows everyone to speak freely, instead focusing on allowing users to filter what they would not like to see. He's stated his goal is 'No censorship, put the power in the hands of the creators and let the community decide what resonates with them most, offering only positive incentive to be civil and kind to others.'.
Hopefully this explains the concept!
I don't come here as often anymore but every time it feels a little less welcoming.
So I might have to check out this project once completed or as soon as beta is available.
Again thank you for explaining.
I seriously don't care to look like a victim by saying this. But on many occasions I've been outright harassed by both common internet trolls and even some people in the fandom, with threats of violence and the whole set. Yet apart from a few violent idiots on Youtube back in the day, my block list is pretty much empty! Perhaps those "liberals" can tell me how I manage to deal even with actual harassment politely, while they need to jump at someone the moment they feel any opinion they have is being contradicted? Cuz I honestly don't think I have a superpower that allows me to think rationally and try behaving like a fucking decent person for better or worse.
The issue is that the youth will always live with the labels. Either using politics to take you off guard or live under the hood of victimhood to back up their claims.
If you are going to separate yourself from the social media where you also submit your work, it will only alienate yourself from the fandom. Ex: Patreon
People like to voice their opinion to feel close to the person responsible for the creation of content. Its what gives them the force to continue speaking about you or purchasing your services.
Unfortunately, that comes of a price of being exposed to negative kind of attention. And the furry fandom has only been getting worse and worse as many of my fellows who are very kind people, left the fandom by being constant targets of toxic bullies. Leaving the fandom with the majority hate riddling people.
Our goal as people of influence is to help spread the message that this is not the way, its not what the Furry fandom is really about.
I remember the days when being a furry was about as wondrous as being a child first embarking to Disney Land. No hate, no judgement, just pure will to explore the wonderful art and share stories of your characters.
We need to bring back those times.
Now, firstly, I have been following you and Kaiber back as far as when she was still using Gen (the gray/tan? female). So a long, long while. I have supported you both because as content creators, you both have talent and skill in your respective fields, and I have enjoyed a fair bit of the commission work you both have done, and a couple pieces of work you two have collaborated on.
As my comment in the last journal stated, however, having a particular skill set shouldn't excuse you from being, individually speaking, some sort of activist to try to take it upon yourselves to change a whole community by breaking away from the core group as a great many have already before, while trying to coerce others, your fanbase included, to simply pack up and move with you in order to continue support you [and kaiber] through yet another website, and yet another system, and other artists that may/may not be tempted in following.
Secondly, how can you honestly sit there and claim that there is a toxic community (which again, I'm not saying you're wrong that it isn't, as my comment on the last journal did support you in saying), but when half of the stuff that seemingly comes out on social media or through experiences you have had with others which there has been more than one witness to, proves that you, yourself [and/or Kaiber as well] are just as bad, as individuals, as the 'community' you claim is toxic?
In saying that, I'm not taking just by saying "ahah get rek't fgt." I'm talking anything from your personal political stances, your beliefs in whatever, any prior comments and statements that clearly have stirred the shit pot of drama, the supposed and alleged racism that's likely been deleted? I can already see one in particular case in the last week which has been getting a metric SHIT TON of RT's on Twitter pertaining to Kaiber's "Everyone deserves human rights." You're not wrong, once again, but don't you think it is a bit silly to lay that claim out when the larger populace already -has- 'basic' human rights? While the LGBT community does not in a lot of aspects? I mean, I'm a straight, white, middle-aged, CIS male. Does that mean I should have more rights than, say, a trans individual? No. But their rights are being manipulated harder than an electoral vote in congress right now (I am in no way politically inclined on any spectrum, I'm just using that for the sake of the argument).
You see, when you throw material out like that, you are thus becoming a target, you are stirring the pot with not a ladle but a concrete truck mixer instead. You're pouring that same toxic, hateful, spiteful, and slanderous foundation out for your fans and followers to see, build upon, and you wonder why you and Kaiber both get so much flack and hate? You two can hate or love whatever it is you want, but exercise it with a clear head or among your close-knit peers. I'm -not- telling you to restrict your speech because I already sense the "FREE SPEECH" argument boiling, but at the same time, I'm willing to bet six months of you both just doing what you do and venting your views in a more peer-to-peer setting will show huge results in letting the shit pot simmer down.
Granted, my previous journal comment still stands: there will be toxicity no matter what community you go to, no matter what business or field of career you take, no matter where you live or grow up in, no matter the country or state or providence. It doesn't matter what planet or galaxy to move to, no matter what life or era you're born into. There will ALWAYS be toxicity because that's just how humans are. We love, we create, and we're all capable of imaginative wonder and productivity, but there is also the dark to every light. You cannot cast light positively without shadows being cast where hate is bred and seethes. I wish you could see that, really see that it's not just furries. Furries culture in general is just more open about the toxicity and therefore it gets spread around faster than a wildfire in a hurricane-force wind.
You want to create a system that lets people, once again, break away (by definition) from the 'norm,' again, and thus use this system to have a structure where people can be promoted or punished based on their 'performance,' so-to-speak. I can tell you right now that will be abused if it does not have a completely unbiased and unfiltered staff, who are not steered by their beliefs or views. However, you give a mouse a cookie, it will inevitably want a glass of milk, as the old saying goes. You give -anyone- a little bit of power, and it can, and it will be abused. It's no different than someone being empowered by the amount of love or hate they get.
I will say this again so you don't feel like I am completely ragging on you and Kabier as you already have plenty of that already: You both, as creators, are great. I enjoy some aspects of the content you two have produced. I will continue to watch and follow the work you two make. But if you're seriously considering this form of breakaway, then I implore you to invest and dedicate not months, but -years- of dedication, blood, sweat, tears, and expect further backlash over it. But take your time with it, and make sure that if you do put people into admin or moderator positions, they are absolutely and completely disassociated with yourself and Kaiber, and so far removed from the bias over varying arts and fetishes that when it does come time to make a decision, the ruling can be done by more than one person as a group effort instead of leaving it to individual choice.
I wish you both luck, it's all I can provide. I hope it pans out in the image you foresee it to be.
β’ Doesn't matter how long you have been following our creations, loyalty isn't priority.
β’ I am not a furry to be an activist for anything. I don't jack off for political reasons.
β’ You are making justifications for Identity Politics because you serve to benefit from it. Taking greater interest in conflict rather than resolution. Your point can be boiled down to 'Don't rock the boat' by promoting basic human decency like free speech and equality. If the furry community cannot handle those concepts, stick to Twitter where they remain unchallenged.
β’ Toxicity thrives in environments that promote anonymity, a lack of personal responsibility and mob mentality. I never stated that I'm making a safe-space, I'm making a platform where ALL ideas are treated equal. As such, the normal methods of censorship and doxxing will no longer protect you. Those ideas will be challenged and their arbiters will be confronted as to why they hold them. Identity Politics stems from bigotry and the hate of other groups, the cure is education, communication and learning to put yourself in the shoes of others.
β’ It's not a break-away from the norm, it's a return to norm. Freedom of expression, live and let live and common decency are traits platforms such as FA & Twitter long abandoned. It can only be abused if poorly designed. Someone intentionally being toxic will struggle to garner many privileges, notoriety or respect.
β’ Our digital footprint will very well be all over this new platform, that's the point. If you can't handle egalitarians at the helm, don't use it.
- Of course loyalty isn't priority, I was only using that specific information as a footnote towards the later explanation. I have followed you both for such an extended period of time, I have seen both the arrival, the growth, the development, and then with it, the hostilities and creativeness you both have gained or created and gone through.
- Nor am I. The last time I paid any attention to politics was when Regan and the first Bush were in office. Likely well before most of the commenter's time.
- I gain no such benefit from any Identity Politics you speak of. The conflict is just merely evidence of conflict having taken place, and the lack of resolution to said conflict has yet to be found or made. But that is also the point, yes, 'Don't rock the boat.' I served my country in military service, so I have a much broader understanding of the whole "promoting and protecting" any rights that some among the country take for granted. I bled and sweat for others to spout hate speech towards their fellow man or woman. I'd gladly sit down and discuss the finer aspects of what that entails another time. I swore an oath to a system that seethes and bleeds into even the very aspect of what I called a community of creativity and imaginative exploration. But saying that all lives matter or everyone deserves rights majority, or minority excluded, is also as asinine as saying the earth is flat. There are groups so far off the spectrum that they have to fight as hard as women had to back 1960's for equality, or the blacks in 1940's. As a blood relative in Native American ties, I've had to also go through and see it myself, and still am. It's not as simple as saying "Everyone deserves rights." It's why you don't see a straight pride day or a white appreciation month or etc etc etc. Some groups just have to fight to GAIN the same rights you and I have. I don't know what part of that is so hard to see, or understand. Media in general is as skewed. Twitter notwithstanding, the only reason I mentioned that whatsoever was due to the fact that, while information there can be skewed as well, there's still plenty of good that can come from it.
-Toxicity thrives in any environment that is anonymous or lack thereof. You can't just pin it to one specific ideology, since it encompasses all aspects of life from infancy up to adulthood, throughout school, work, friendships, family, news, the world, locally or abroad. We're only talking about FA and the basis of what the 'furry community' is, not the others. It's not just the 'community,' but it's out in everyday interaction with others or the local / broad area you inhabit. You can do things to mitigate it, lessen it, but you will never completely destroy it. But opening Pandora's Box can be a dangerous game. If you sit, for example, yourself and I in the same room and have a one-on-one conversation of this-or-that, there will be disagreements, and agreements, on either side. I get that, I understand it better than most. And here yet again, I do agree. Education and communication is key. But there are complexities above and beyond simply saying "put yourself in my shoes." Unless you are empathetic individual, who can relate, those shoes can either be real tight, or loose as frayed wire. But I sincerely do agree with you that there needs to be better forms of communication.
- If it's not a break away, and a 'return to the norm,' I hope you understand it was nearly as harsh as it was some twenty years ago when I joined as it is today. Back then you could say it was much, much worse because of all the bestiality screamers and individuals claiming that pedophilia was were all that furries were about (aside from the drugs, sex, and alike). The only difference between then and now is that more people have stepped forward to force out members of the 'community' and pushed them off to Inkbunny where they can do that stuff there. That, and with the politics raining down like fire and brimstone in the current era, the furries of the 1990's verses the furries of today are highly unstable, and perhaps a little over-zealous.
- But that's the point. You have to have an unbiased individual judging (or in my opinion, multiple, like a group choice / effort for multiple points of unbiased view) to make a uniform decision on whether or not β¦ say β¦ someone causing drama on your site. If you have a group of these so-called egalitarians, then the unpunished will take root and spread the same amounts of toxicity as they would anywhere else. Because you're offering equality for all groups and all members of your base. By unbiased, I don't mean so empathetic that a black hole would look like rainbow road, I'm talking unbiased in saying "Okay, so, this person A is harassing person B, evidence is sound, let's get Admin XYZ and Moderator ABC in here to clarify that x-resolution is a good call."
In any case, whatever this site holds, this place you wish to create, perhaps it is what the group needs, and just needs to come out of inception and into creation. I'll keep an eye on its progress all the same.
For what it is worth, however, thanks for the response and you did make valid points, and things I'll have to do some of my own searching and exploring on. Wrote a bit down for referencing later on.
'Equality' is only a moot point for those that serve to benefit from perpetuating social divides. People out there WANT to be oppressed, it gives them social points and power. We aren't playing that game with this platform. 80% of the population are sick of Political Correctness and they are just as entitled to a neutral platform as you are to a biased one. We are going to offer everyone the exact same tools and social standard, it's up to them to be personally responsible for their own growth.
Good luck!!
Just uh, prepare yourself for disappointment.
Think of Logan Paul's demographic 'competing' with Vsauce.
FA was and I believe its no bad platform but its layout and design and functionality are outdated it woukd be great to redevelop it and rewamp.
Regarding bans and block contents well I think its important have serious thought where we heding with this. Furry fandom has use to been tolerant and accepting but it getting into extreme pervertness without boundaries to what is advisable to share in public and what is not, its hidden meaning do often operate on the edge of law.
Then I think sone degree of filtering and censorship is and woukd be required.
There is amound of people who are being control by its context and its not anymore seen as artistic expression but unhealthy obsession.
How many years are you willing to wait for FA to fix itself? Websites fail at the same rate that restaurants fail. Supply/Demand, you need to know what makes you different and capitalize on it hard. FA clones will always and forever die.
How do you plan to pay developers? Developers are not cheap. My lowest cost developer for a social media management platform is $80k/year. That's for one person. You'll need several.
How do you plan to pay for services? Also not cheap because you seemingly want to avoid censorship. While I normally recommend a specific route for free bandwith, I'm honestly not really a fan of yours so I have no desire to help you out on that front (and additionally its "silicon valley" companies anyways.) I will however mention that your common recommended routes are insanely expensive.
AWS would cost $2900/month for 30tb which is really nothing for an image site.
GC would be $260/month for 30tb
Azure is $2300/month
That's only bandwith. Nothing of storage requirements and balancing or compute.
Sure you could go with a dedicated server provider but now you have SPF issues without automatic failover.
Colocation? Who's going to pay for the servers themselves, the rack space and still the bandwith?
--
So then we also have cost covering. How are you going to do it? Advertising? Donations?
Who is going to be the project lead assuming you even get developers? You? What do you bring to the table? Ideas are worth $0. Exposure is worth $0.
Everything just points to you wanting other people to do the hard work while you sit at the top.
Bandwidth and labor is not cheap, that's a given. Hence why extensive discussion will be had before business ventures are made. Just because you yourself would not support such a platform, does not mean there isn't a market for it. If the platform fails to maintain it's upkeep, then it wasn't meant to be. Gab ran a Kickstarter to get itself off the ground, asking for $10,000 and generated over a million. The furry community clearly is not on the same scale, however we wouldn't be getting this much of a response if no-one cares for these kinds of values.
The rest of your post is pure speculation. If you don't have confidence, don't support it.
> Who is going to be the project lead assuming you even get developers? You? What do you bring to the table?
Exposure is actually worth several thousands. You can actually measure the net worth of your Twitter account with simple tools available online. I save a lot on advertising by already being an established figurehead.
No, it's not on your profile and I don't care enough about you to look for an autobiography.
I'll let you know now: Either pay the developers market rate or you won't be in control. With assistant manager at a local newspaper being your highest leadership role you don't bring anything to the table that is worth spending time on. The only thing that would keep you as the leader is money.
> Reach also does matter, I'm networked with the majority of the community, and they will not be able to resist talking incessantly about said platform.
I would find it hard to believe you wouldn't know, but I'd wager most find you and Kabier to be a toxic asset. With either of you anywhere near the top you'll have someone else posting exactly what you did here: https://www.furaffinity.net/journal...../#cid:55366055
Except "Its ran by JAF and Kabier".
> Exposure is actually worth several thousands. You can actually measure the net worth of your Twitter account with simple tools available online.
I am aware,
https://webfluential.com/influence-estimator
Puts you at $60-$75 per tweet. So about 30 minutes worth of developer time.
--
In any case, good luck with your kickstarter because it's not going to happen without money.
β’ Again, you consider yourself the leading demographic on FA. One neutral comment that you yourself replied to with hostility, isn't an indication that this kind of service is without demand.
β’ Twitter is my smallest platform, so your efforts come off as a strawman. You can easily see my FA is approaching 4 million page views with x4 the subs. I already have received a plethora of notes voicing interest in the project both from an internal development position and external advertising. Kind of making your point moot.
If you don't like it, don't use it. You're FA experience isn't threatened.
Research on what? You?
> instead just want to throw around accusations
The only thing I've accused you of is being a toxic asset.
> you aren't offering more than antagonism.
I've offered you things to think about when picking your minions and how expensive it is. Like mentioned (even though you probably don't care and/or don't trust me) I run a social media management company on the technical side. I do know what I'm talking about when it comes to websites/apps, scaling and hiring for coding and management.
> Twitter is my smallest platform, so your efforts come off as a strawman.
Really? This is literally what you said: You can actually measure the net worth of your Twitter account with simple tools available online
You brought up twitter, not me. I responded with a "simple tool available online" with your twitter account plugged in.
If you think it's a strawman then don't bring it up as a defense.
> You can easily see my FA is approaching 4 million page views with x4 the subs
I thought you said the platform wouldn't be furry focused or target the FA userbase? Is it now going to?
> I already have received a plethora of notes voicing interest in the project both from an internal development position and external advertising
Congrats I guess? I'll check back with you in say 3 months to see if they're still around. Also you (should) be vetting them to ensure everyone is on the same page in regards to technology and separation of roles.
> If you don't like it, don't use it. You're FA experience isn't threatened.
I won't and I don't really care for FA due to several issues.
I do hope for the best and that the community does get better. In large part, the best solution for this sort of thing is to make it harder and less rewarding to be malicious in the community; as stated in earlier replies, the reason it happens is because the one doing it doesn't care about the consequences that can happen in return for doing something relatively easy and relatively cathartic for whatever would've made them want to be an ass-hat in the first place. I could spit-ball a few ideas, but I'm probably going to breakdown flaws in them rather than talking up positives in them since flaws are going to be the most important parts to notice.
1. No Comments, Just Like Or Dislike - This would be way to vague a way to grade whether someone is doing something right or wrong in the community, especially since it also makes communication difficult. Also, mass down-voting would probably only be worse with only Yes or No options.
2. No Number Votes About Quality, Just Comments - This would end up being huge walls of text trailing down from a submission where people would end up arguing to the heat-death of the universe about any petty issue, like if Tits or Ass is better. Also, it's a bit surprising how there really are a lot of folks who would rant and demean in long-winded tirades that strike deeply and personally to others with very little regard to the thoughts and feelings of others. It'd be horrific with the worst-case scenario being some poor soul getting an overwhelming mountain of (grammar-quality varying) litanies that verbally dog-pile on someone who just wanted to show off something they like. Conversely, imagine some repugnant soul raising a band of worshipers who would be their attack hounds and yes-men to anything they do.
3. Three-Option-Voting - By this, I mean giving submissions a rating of either Like, Dislike, or Indifference. This probably falls under the same issues as the two-option voting as mentioned in entry 1, but at least counting up those who vote Indifferent when the otherwise would have to pick one of two options would bring about slightly more honest. Again, it's still rather vague about what is meant by Indifference towards something, especially if folks decide to not even make a choice.
I'm sure that there's probably a functional solution out there (even if it can't be a perfect solution), but thinking these things through are probably for the best rather than immediately jumping up and making a site without the help of proper staff and plans and all that. Since that does appear to be what you're doing, I can commend on the initiative for going through this wisely.
whats the worst that could happen he say N0000000000!!!!!!
every on gather round the dumpster fire let its warm glow and cringe inducing fumes
sooth us
we made our beds in these cardboard boxes because
it was fake and cardboard everywhere else we just weren't suppose to notice
we were not suppose to stand out or be individuals
we eat shit breed pay taxes and die
george carlin fuck hope https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4W9Cs6KPTus
... just the best way I know how is to throw money at whoever is doing the work for it. Hopefully that could help
I'd be more than willing to try it out, but if so much of the fandom is narrow-minded as you are explaining, and you are creating a new place for members of the furry community to gather without worrying about cult-like thinking and being ostracized, is it really possible to even create such a website?
Hopefully with concerns of narrowmindedness, toxicity & cult-like behavior: this new platform can avoid falling for the same trappings. Because then it becomes The Empire & Stormcloaks xD
Long story short - need help of a writer and a bit of a perspective from me ? Hit me up in any way
All i can do is Graphic Design but a bit rusty. I have done web design but it was lame in college.
They only taught us how to use Adobe Dreamweaver but didnt teach us code or javascript. Dreamweaver you have to have it always have the program running, and open. Once you close it, or reboot, it will stop the website. There is a plug looking icon that does it. Good luck finding one, i hope you get someone.
But if you somehow able to make a site, count me in.
I nearly wanted to wipe my gallery one time in the past, and leave the fandom or just FA. Everyone wants free art, thats what happened to artist kupopo where no one wanted to buy any of his amazing art, and made a journal saying hes leaving the fandom. He said it wasnt worth his time, and wasnt making any money. I am starting to feel the same way. The young crowd seems to over power the regulars here. More regulars who been a furry for 10+ years are starting to leave one by one. Furs get easily offended but the most simplest things, they come to you with their mental problems, when you try to help them it makes it worse or it still keeps going. You cant say anything to make it better, its just negative energy sucking out your positive energy. Im sure you heard of something like that.
I have thought about moving to SoFurry. I noticed a lot of pro popular artists have been moving quietly over there. Some on inkbunny too.
I hate the FA staff so much. I used to think they help but out of all the 20 tickets ive put in, not 1 of them have been resolved. None. I get rude attitudes, excuses to not work on the problem. If you bring up their names, you get banned or suspended. They hid their names so you wont know who you are speaking too if they decide to give you some shit. Which they do..Its like a concentration camp here.
I reported someone who wanted to shoot up MFF who are fursuiters, FA did nothing. I had proof from Telegram, said they cant take that form of evidence even if it was legit. He was a minor 17 who i blocked him from here and TG. He was nuts the moment he found me. I have no idea who he is and he comes to me on TG.
I love my watchers but some are just crazy weird. Mood swings, anger issues, picky, offensive, defensive, drama, spread the drama tell everyone.
The fandom is a multi world of things. Its like a City but in our own minds, and try to re-enact and create the world of furry into conventions, websites, and meets. What new comers see in furry is that its all about the porn. Porn is furry. Its not but its the most popular thing in the fandom. The fandom is what the person wants in it. It has many meanings to it. From lifestyle to just doing it as a hobby to world building, imagination.
It mainly resides as SFW but there is the flip side, NSFW. The popular side everyone goes to is the NSFW, now that minors coming to ruin it, getting artists in trouble or the fandom, young adults coming in not knowing but just the porn aspect of it, it makes Furry look like an abomination. Is why regular people hate us so much and want us to die and burn. Because news media, documentaries only liking the Porn side of it, because its interesting, they could give a shit about the real true definition of what the fandom is, it leaks into the Normal Public, people judging us as perverts, pet raping, pedophiles. Giving the right information instead of being a camera whore and just blabbing how the person thinks, giving the wrong message to people, going murrr paws at normal person, new people coming in not knowing what the fandom is really about, it gives off a bad message to people like PETA, and regular humans.
The best way is to offer (if they even care for it lol) offer a 101 about it, and what to do in the fandom, what not to do in the fandom. Common sense, and what is ethical.
If i had the money to hire a pro developer, i would do it. I would open a site that regulates the rules respectfully, and treat members with respect, and effort. Enforce the birthday verification, really good security for the servers, hire and pay by the hour staff when staff clocks in to work on the site or moderate.
Theres more ideas but yeah i would totally do it.
Furry Network is abandoned. No one goes there. There was hype, and once everyone got on there, it died so quickly. It was like the life it had was vampired up and sucked dry. Now its a zombie site, barely any activity.
Sofurry seems promising but no one seems to wants to make the effort in moving to SF unless FA shuts down. Inkbunny, the main reason is Cub is much hated, so they stay away from the site. Weasyl had its hype as well, same reason with FN. Everyone wanted to be on it because it was invite only, and people felt special to be in and others couldnt. OMG that was so lame lol. So now everyone can join it, its now quiet and dry.
Seems the new trend is Discord. So sad because all they are there for is Sex RP. Fapping basically. Not 100% of them but the majority from what a friend of mine told me when he had a discord group running. He pulled it, and removed it due to rude furries, giving him shit because he had rules on it. He said it would be dead empty if he banned the members. All of the members were doing it lol but he had a rule not to. I told him just make a new one. He removed it. Telegram now has Channels, invite only. Seems thats the go to and not everyone can join. Due to copyright protection, people had to get banned from it because they were stealing, and posting art from artists who was being nice, sharing their art that was fresh new.
All i can do is just not be a quitter and stick with what i like. Its hard though because i keep running into crazies.
Admins dont help, good luck if something happens to you on FA. You know what, actually there was 1, yes 1, admin that was super helpful here but i havent heard from the guy again. Might have left admin role. He was nice and polite. Theeen i got his girl. She was mean :(.
Oh and update, there is furry documentary on CNN on Sundays at 6 or 7pm. Its only that one episode but you can see us furries on their Opening Trailer. Its that show, "This is Life with Lisa Ling". I havent seen it yet but i hope the fursuiter talking to her doesnt give the wrong message. Its documentaries like that that can cause some bad judgement from people if they give the wrong info. They love the camera so much. Well i hope it turns out good.
Anything that tries to soak up crumbs from FA will fail. You can't get ahead being reactionary and operating in the shadows of an already failing structure. It's why my priority is in those that have been ignored and discarded from the community for years. I plan to design a platform I would use even with a userbase of 100. If well made, you'll actually keep the webpage open even after you've wacked off. Proactive, freedom first, fun to use.
Regardless, we don't need a new website, we need a complete re-enlightenment of the human race. We can all see that the current path we are on simply leads towards more hostility, pain and bitterness. Public schools need a complete overhaul and so does our college education system. Hollywood needs to shut up and tone down the rhetoric. Everything we are, including the furry fandom, bleeds into whatever the current "Democrat" party touches. Even being .5% away from the socially accepted liberal scale gets you labeled as a KKK David Duke supporter and every phobia in the book.
Humanity is the problem, not FA.
Can you change humanity? No. Can you vote? Yes.
Can you fix FA? No. Can you make your own efforts? Yes.
Can you change others? No. Can you change yourself for the better? Yes.
That's what is wrong with FA, everyone is pushing a political agenda and driving people away from the fandom through Identity Politics.
We are the Furry Fandom, we shouldn't even be this deep in real world issues.
We are a fantasy based fandom and reality has no real place other than small threads or mentions, the way it used to be.
But after 2008, politics exploded into the fandom and has thusly spiraled out of control over the years.
A lot of us are sick of being targeted, labeled, attacked, Doxxed and harassed. Regardless of political affiliation.
I would, if it could, the new site keep Politics relegated to a single thread or tab. Keep it isolated and contained to one area and rules be set if it were to be posted outside of said designated area.
You know, keep it civil and such.
Because by your comment, you think Free Speech should be abolished because of perceived Hate-speech.
Why don't you ask the person who decided to shoot up a Jewish temple...?
And no, I do not believe in the abolishment of free speech. I beileve in the aboliishment of speech that gets innocent people killed.
Using the deaths of innocents to push a political agenda?
I frown upon that when Republicans try doing that.
But, getting back on track. The very definition of Hate Speech can not coexist in the United States because the 1sr Amendment is completely opposite of what the definition of Hate Speech entails.
hate speech
[hate speech]
NOUN
abusive or threatening speech or writing that expresses prejudice against a particular group, especially on the basis of race, religion, or sexual orientation.
It's all based on perception and that's why it cannot be used.
By that definition alone, I can turn any argument into a form of Hate Speech.
Examples.
The Left targets a particular Political groups, the Republicans and Conservatives.
The Left targets the racial group of Caucasian White people.
The Left targets the Religious group of Christianity,
The Left targets the sexual orientation group of Heterosexuals.
Hate Speech also becomes moot when compared to the definition of Discrimination.
disΒ·crimΒ·iΒ·naΒ·tion
[dΙΛskrimΙΛnΔSH(Ι)n]
NOUN
the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex.
The proper way of doing things is through Discrimination Laws, Hate Speech Laws would oppress and suppress any form of speech that does not fit a particular narrative.
For instance, not seriously, I could say you're perpetrating a form of Hate Speech by targeting the Alt Right.
It's literally that easy.
Hate Speech is used to silence opposition.
The synagogue shooting was terrible, but then again all shootings are terrible and we need to find avenues to prevent things from happening without breaching the Bill of Rights or our beloved Liberties we use daily.
And I'll be frank, I hope they fry the shooter. A monster like that, shooting innocent and unarmed civilians, doesn't deserve to live.
At least we agree on that. But, it's strange that you don't have a problem with someone saying, "I want to go into a Jewish temple and kill everyone." and you do have a problem with the action actually being carried out.
And THAT is a product of hate speech. It's not the words, it is the ACTIONS that come about from those words, and THAT is what must be curbed in our society. We can't TRUST peoples' actions all the time. There are a lot of loony people out there, whether you sit on the left, right, or on the fence post. Again, you're trying to make this political, and it's so not.
It's just wrong - if it leads to horrible violence.
The things you're trying to use is Discrimination Laws and Domestic Terror Laws.
The fact he targeted, explicitly, the religious group of Judaism, is in and of itself Discrimination.
Saying he wants to to shoot up a place filled with said religious group is considered a Domestic Terror Threat,
Considering the information was made public, you need to look at local law enforcement and officials, let alone the site it was published on and question why they did not alert the authorities or take any action to prevent it.
But.
Hate Speech Laws is not the way.
Hate Speech Laws would restrict everyones freedom of speech and expression.
I'm not trying to spin this, bend this or lie. I have no reason to lie or spin this or anything.
If it's wrong, it is wrong. Just like targeting the LGBTQ community or Atheists, even Muslims and Satanists.
We are protected by the 1st and the Amendments an Civil Rights that has been added to it to strengthen it for better use by the People.
Hate Speech Laws would tear all that asunder.
But I was serious. How or why did this slip under the radar when the threat was made public?
That is the real question.
Here's the problem I have, okay? Did anyone try to talk this monster out of doing what he did on that site? Did anyone try...?
This is exactly why we DON'T need a site like Gab that allows sick monsters like him to congregate with other monsters who most likely spurred him on. And that, again, is a result of hate speech.
You're suppressing Speech which in turn can create said monsters.
But I digress, this kind of behavior is on Youtube, Tumblr, Facebook, Gab, Kikr etc.
Political Extremism is everywhere, hence why a portion of us want to move from FA, to get away from it.
Like right now. I'm trying to get you to understand why Hate Speech Laws would undermine YOU in the future if it were to get passed.
I'm taking this political stance for YOU, not against you.
I try to keep from being Politically Polarized, but it's getting harder as days come and go. As TL:DR once said. "I'm not Alt-Right, but soon will be" because of polarized politics has become.
*Here's the problem I have, okay? Did anyone try to talk this monster out of doing what he did on that site? Did anyone try...?*
I could say the same about Eric Clanton and him attacking a guy with a bikelock or Antifa trying to break into Tucker Carlsons house the other night.
By definition, those actions are considered Hate Speech.
I'm done.
Hypocrite.
No argument.
No debate.
Just NPC rhetoric with no base other than Virtue Signalling.
This, this is why people want to leave this site.
To get away from narrow-minded SJWs like you.
Like you said.
We're done here.
Have fun being a Fascist.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C0PJkpPUsAIljBf.jpg
The amount of SJW/NPC BS.
No wonder you want Hate Speech Laws.
I agree now.
I should explain how Republicans can use Hate Speech Laws to oppress Democrats, Liberals and anyone else because the definition is that loose and easy to manipulate and corrupt.
We could use it to harass, sue and silence your party.
Huehuehuehuehuehuehuehuehuehuehue
It'll be beautiful.
The Fascists being suppressed by the very Fascism they spewed.
MAGA.
<3 <3
Remember, we're at "War"
She blocked me, btw, after spouting Leftist Extremist rhetoric about "How Fascism should be eradicated" and how she is "A Revolutionary and a Resistance Fighter"
What she deems Fascist doesn't make it so, and to say you'll eradicate it based on Political view, doesn't make you a Revolutionary or a Resistance Fighter, it makes you an Ideological Extremist.
But I just loved how easy it was to pick her apart.
Which one?
"Lei-Lani
[Comment has been edited by its owner]
#link Posted: half-an-hour ago
Trust me, I know a lot more than you think I know.
I'll end this as well. Stay off my page.
And yes, I am a Revolutionary. I fight for the Resistance and always will.
If you want to stay on the bad-guys side, be my guest. ^^
In the end...you will lose.
"
" As I said before, this was never about politics.
And you clearly proved my point with that little salvo. And you're damned right I'm at war with fascism. It shouldn't exist. I have nothing against those that wish to eradicate it, just like that group once tried to eradicate the whole world.
You should really learn to choose your battles with me. Start by picking one you have a sensible chance of winning."
Well, okay. Good luck to you dude. Yer gonna need it.