Megaplex 2025 / Aug 28-Sept 2 / Pittsburgh, PA


Basic Convention Info
-Where are you staying?
I’m staying in the Hyatt Regency with my hubby  doesnotexist and my friends,  nirvah and  -relux-

-What day are you getting there?
Friday evening.

-How are you traveling?
We'll be driving

-How long are you going?
Friday through Tuesday

-What is the best way to find you?
I’ll likely be frequently hanging out in the board game area, or in the vendor hall, or hanging out with the birds. I’ll be attending the Vore Meet, the Bird meet. I’ll be wearing badges and should have purple tips on my hair.

-If I see you, how should I get your attention?
You can just come up and say hi. There’s really no biggy there. I am going as Gyro at the con.

Personal Info
-What is your gender?
He/him

-How tall are you?
Average…5’6”

-Can I talk to you?
Sure, I’m pretty open for a conversation, vore or normal, its fine. Just don’t be creepy about it.

-Can I touch you?
Please don’t. I don’t like to hug people I don’t know.

-Can I buy you drinks?
Sure, but only if its sealed, or if I’m there while its being served. Random open drinks are a nono for me I’m afraid.

-Can I give you food?
Sure, snacks are fine, if they’re sealed.

-Can I give you stuff?
Yeah, if you’d like! I appreciate art and trinkets and the like. I will have some ribbons of my own.

-Are you nice?
I’d like to think that I’m nice, though I can be a little silent if I don’t know you too well. I’ll do my best to make conversation though.

-Can I come with you for food/fun/etc?
Maybe? I don’t know, depends on if we hit it off well enough before hand. Don’t be hurt if I turn you down though. While I am coming here to make new friends, I may still end up with other plans, or just not feel that comfortable around you yet.

-Can I take your picture?
Depends on the context I guess? Just random photos, no, but I suppose there could be extenuating circumstances.


-Convention Plans
Bird Meet, Vore Meet, a handful of bird events, the bird room party, and the vore roomparty should they happen. Also I'll be hosting the sketchbook swap, and attending my hubby's kobold history panel.

-Are there any panels you might be attending?
Havnt looked, though I’ll be hosting the sketchbook swap that happens, and may attend any art jams. My hubby is hosting the kobold history panel and I'll be there. I’m not usually big on panels, so we’ll see otherwise.

-Will you be suiting?
Nope, I don’t own a suit

-Do you have an artist table?
Nah, I’m not comfortable having a table. Plus cons are a vacation.

-Where will you be most of the time during the day/s?
I’ll likely be frequently hanging out in the board game area, or in the vendor hall. Or perhaps in a group of other artists. Or you know, just about.

-Will you be performing?
Nope.

-What/where will you be eating?
Out, there's a good spot near the convention that's a short walk away.

-Will you be going to parties?
Definitely. Don’t know of any yet, but I’m hoping to find some.

-What's your goal(s) for the con this year?
Hopefully meet a couple of new friends and have some fun~


-Gyro~

It's that time of year again;  doesnotexist and I are putting on our traditional 8/8 raffle stream; show up to our picarto streams for the chance to win some vorish coloured sketches. Stream should be beginning at ~7pm central time on Friday the 8th.

RULES
1) Each sketch will have two raffles; one for pred, and one for prey. Be aware that if you win the first raffle, you will be partnered with somebody at random. If you're not okay with that, this may not be for you. The winner of the 1st roll in each pair will get to choose pred or prey.
2) Entrants can only win one raffle, total.
3) Visual references must be provided, and must have colour.
4) Furries only, no humans. Ferals are permitted.
5) You choose: Oral, anal, or tail vore; pre-vore, mid-swallow, or post-vore; emotions/expressions; size difference. The rest will be artistic freedom.
6) Please be prompt in providing references and preferences. We want to get as many sketches done as possible, which means everything going smoothly. If you and your pred/prey cannot decide on what you both want, we'll pick. If a raffle winner doesn't make themselves known within 3 minutes of winning, the raffle will roll again.

Stream will be https://picarto.tv/gyrotech

Looking for an artist who'd be willing to do a shitpost memey political piece for me. I dont actually know who to ask for it though. Said artist needs to be able to do pokemon, especially birds.

I dont wanna discuss the details outside of with the artist, but It'd have a deadline of about 2 months from now. :)

If anyone knows someone who might be willing to hear me out, let me know.

Just to assure people, given my vagueposting, it is not right wing chuddery, fuck those guys. And once again, if you voted Trump, unfollow me, my page is not fir you.

Trying something different this year in that I'm accepting offsite attacks for artfight if you wanna do something spicier than what they allow on there. I always revenge so go nuts~

If you do, make sure to tag me on Bsky with it, and mention offsite Artfight.
https://bsky.app/profile/gyro.tech

Times are tough, be the change you want to see in the world. If you live in NYC, lets kick Trump's crony out of office and install someone who cares about the citizens.

If you live in NYC, the deadline to register to vote in the upcoming mayoral primary is June 14th, and the primary itself is on the 24th!

Zohran Mamdani is currently getting the most attention from Progressives. He's been endorsed by AOC!

The primary uses Ranked Choice voting! That means you can vote for a preferred candidate like Zohran and rank backup candidates below him in case he loses, without having to worry about vote splitting.

Still, DO NOT rank Andrew Cuomo to ensure he has no path to victory.

https://www.vote.nyc/election/prima.....-election-2025

Just clearing the journal and such.

Friends Raffle
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/60.....#cid:185886018

Just clearing the journal really.

Hope everyone's doing well~

It's that time of year again, this bird's hatchday ~

Alright guys, tag blocking is here and that makes me really excited, because its about damn time. I always felt a little uncomfortable posting my more extreme arts, because people who wouldnt want to see them would, but at the same time, I wanted to post them. And now, well, it seems that that should no longer be an issue.

To that end, the content warnings in titles on my posts will be disappearing going forwards, and I may remove them in hindsight. I will, however give things a cooldown time of a week or two to let people get settled before I start posting any of the more extreme items in my backlog.

One additional note, I made a handy dandy submission that should enable you to block all of the nasty stuff that I use to tag my images. Please block at your liesure. You can see that here.

https://www.furaffinity.net/view/59467834/


Oh ya, as a fun note, I consider myself a reasonable bit responsible for the creation of this feature, considering I drew Sciggles into a conversation with one of the devs on the discord when they were explaining why they couldnt do client side tag blocking. And well, she seemed to think it was important enough to get done. And now its happened, in about 2 months.

Happy New Year everyone! I hope this next year brings brightness and joy.

This was a very productive year in art~

I made 377 Pieces.

84 Pieces fully mine
286 Collab Pieces
And finally 7 Stained glass pieces~

The best-ofs can be found in the following bluesky post.

Personal Arts:
https://bsky.app/profile/gyro.tech/post/3leo6tpi36k2r

All Arts:
https://bsky.app/profile/gyro.tech/post/3leobmwqn4s2r

Posted using PostyBirb

If you're a Trump voter, fuck the hell right off. I don't accept people who endanger me, my friends, my community, the furry community at large, or the world.

This is not a safe space for you. You are thoroughly unwelcome. Leave.

Come get art for 8/8 with my husband (DoesNotExist) doing the lines and me doing the colors. Raffle begins soon! (xx:30)

We hope to get through quite a few tonight.

https://picarto.tv/gyrotech

Posted using PostyBirb

I'm sure everyone has heard the unfortunate news of the passing of  Dragoneer at this point. While I've certainly had my differences with some of his policies, he was quite integral to the running of FA and its sad for the furry community for his loss.

Funding Issues

Perhaps another unfortunate domino in all of this is that reportedly, Dragoneer was funding a good portion of FurAffinity out of pocket and the site has been operating at a loss for a while. Perhaps that explains the lack of development as well. If a new source of funding is not secured, perhaps the whole site might end up going down.

Still I think that this might offer an opportunity for furaffinity as well. I hold the belief that it is deeply weird that not even one of the major furry sites is owned and run by the furry community. We all have a stake here, and it should be the case that we have a say over how the sites we participate in are run.

Part of the funding issue, no doubt, is that furaffinity+ was seen as a way to purchase extra features, and not instead as a way to participate in the community, and if it saw a much larger adoption, I imagine it should provide enough funding to keep the site operating and possibly even see real dev time paid for to improve the site to where it should be by now. Furaffinity should not be a fir profit institution but should reorganize into a nonprofit.

User Coop

To that end, I think that furaffinity needs to become a nonprofit coop run by its users. Paying for Furaffinity+ should give users voting on how the site is run, and what sort of direction we want the development to go, in addition to those features. Making it a membership rather than a benefit helps foster community by being a part of an organization, and makes it owned by all of us. In a scenario like this any additional funding wouldn't go towards some owner's pocketbooks, but rather towards improving the site and making sure that it has funds for years to come.

The other thing that needs to happen is the administration needs to be transparent with us regarding the state of FA's finances, how much its taking in, how much its spending on various things, how much dev time has been paid for and what features are being worked on. What are the state of those features.

How to Help

During this transition phase, this is the time to put that idea forward if we want it to have any traction at all. If you want to help, you can spread this journal, but more importantly, make sure to submit a trouble ticket with the category 'Feedback' and tell the administration that you'd like to see FA be run by the community and transition to a non-profit (501) coop model.

It's that time of year again;  doesnotexist and I are putting on our traditional 8/8 raffle stream; show up to our picarto streams for the chance to win some vorish coloured sketches. Stream should be beginning at ~7pm central time on Thursday the 8th.

RULES
1) Each sketch will have two raffles; one for pred, and one for prey. Be aware that if you win the first raffle, you will be partnered with somebody at random. If you're not okay with that, this may not be for you.
2) Entrants can only win one raffle, total.
3) Visual references must be provided, and must have colour.
4) Furries only, no humans. Ferals are permitted.
5) You choose: Oral, anal, or tail vore; pre-vore, mid-swallow, or post-vore; emotions/expressions; size difference. The rest will be artistic freedom.
6) Please be prompt in providing references and preferences. We want to get as many sketches done as possible, which means everything going smoothly. If you and your pred/prey cannot decide on what you both want, we'll pick. If a raffle winner doesn't make themselves known within 3 minutes of winning, the raffle will roll again.

Stream will be https://picarto.tv/gyrotech

Posted using PostyBirb

Anthrocon 2024 / Aug 4-8 / Pittsburgh, PA


Basic Convention Info
-Where are you staying?
I’m staying in the Etage Executive Living with my hubby  doesnotexist and my friends,  nirvah and  -relux-,  Ebony_The_Umbreon, and his friend

-What day are you getting there?
Wednesday evening.

-How are you traveling?
We’ll be flying

-How long are you going?
Wenesday through Monday

-What is the best way to find you?
I’ll likely be frequently hanging out in the board game area, or in the vendor hall, or hanging out with the birds. I’ll be attending the Vore Meet, the Bird meet. I’ll be wearing badges and should have purple tips on my hair.

-If I see you, how should I get your attention?
You can just come up and say hi. There’s really no biggy there. I am going as Gyro at the con.

Personal Info
-What is your gender?
He/him

-How tall are you?
Average…5’6”

-Can I talk to you?
Sure, I’m pretty open for a conversation, vore or normal, its fine. Just don’t be creepy about it.

-Can I touch you?
Please don’t. I don’t like to hug people I don’t know.

-Can I buy you drinks?
Sure, but only if its sealed, or if I’m there while its being served. Random open drinks are a nono for me I’m afraid.

-Can I give you food?
Sure, snacks are fine, if they’re sealed.

-Can I give you stuff?
Yeah, if you’d like! I appreciate art and trinkets and the like. I will have some stickers of my own that will be handing out. Also, I will have my dakis available if you’re interested. They’ll be 50 at the con.

-Are you nice?
I’d like to think that I’m nice, though I can be a little silent if I don’t know you too well. I’ll do my best to make conversation though.

-Can I come with you for food/fun/etc?
Maybe? I don’t know, depends on if we hit it off well enough before hand. Don’t be hurt if I turn you down though. While I am coming here to make new friends, I may still end up with other plans, or just not feel that comfortable around you yet.

-Can I take your picture?
Depends on the context I guess? Just random photos, no, but I suppose there could be extenuating circumstances.


-Convention Plans
Bird Meet, Vore Meet, a handful of bird events, the bird room party, and the vore roomparty should they happen. Also I'll be at the sketchbook swap.

-Are there any panels you might be attending?
Havnt looked, though I’ll be hosting the sketchbook swap that happens, and may attend any art jams. I’m not usually big on panels, so we’ll see otherwise.

-Will you be suiting?
Nope, I don’t own a suit

-Do you have an artist table?
Nah, I’m not comfortable having a table. Plus cons are a vacation. However, I will have my dakis available.

-Where will you be most of the time during the day/s?
I’ll likely be frequently hanging out in the board game area, or in the vendor hall. Or perhaps in a group of other artists. Or you know, just about.

-Will you be performing?
Nope.

-What/where will you be eating?
Out, there's a good spot near the convention that's a short walk away.

-Will you be going to parties?
Definitely. Don’t know of any yet, but I’m hoping to find some.

-What's your goal(s) for the con this year?
Hopefully meet a couple of new friends and have some fun~


-Gyro~

Request stream is live

https://picarto.tv/gyrotech

1) Have your idea ready and your ref ready, we will wait no longer than 3 minutes before we reroll.
2) The idea must involve only pokemon. Fusions are fine, no fakemon.
3) General ideas only. We will have artistic freedom with no corrections. Vore and NSFW is fine.
4) Refs must include color.
5) If the idea requires a second person, that person must be present . (You may pick someone in chat provided they have not won yet, if they agree. Or either of us.)
6) One win per person, and if you are included in a sketch, that counts as a win.
7) Do not complain about your luck or you will no longer be eligible.

Pokemon day sketch stream will be tomorrow at about 7:00 PM CST.

If you've got pokemon characters you want drawn, feel free to show up for a chance at some free art with lines from  DoesNotExist and colors from me.

Rules are as follows:
1) Have your idea ready and your ref ready, we will wait no longer than 3 minutes before we reroll.
2) The idea must involve only pokemon. Fusions are fine, no fakemon.
3) General ideas only. We will have artistic freedom with no corrections. Vore and NSFW is fine.
4) Refs must include color.
5) If the idea requires a second person, that person must be present . (You may pick someone in chat provided they have not won yet, if they agree. Or either of us.)
6) One win per person, and if you are included in a sketch, that counts as a win.
7) Do not complain about your luck or you will no longer be eligible.

https://picarto.tv/gyrotech

This is a 2 question survey that got much response last year, (Same person collected 3k responses last year.) but this year it would be nice to get even more! You can enter it once for each character you have, though I chose to stick to the ones I identify the most with. (Gyro/Gyro, Blitz/Blitz, and Thunk)

Feel free to fill it out! The survey is located here: https://forms.gle/YHW26DsUrCXqVpr96

Lets make it even more viral. If you want to spread it around, here's the twitter link: https://twitter.com/trashbambi/stat.....78207172538781

Hey, I wanted to remind everyone that the US copyright office is currently taking comments on how to handle AI Generated content. Tomorrow is the last day to comment. Its been extended to the 30th. Please make your voices heard so they dont only hear from AI Bros.

They presently have less than 10k comments, so your comment really does matter.

Issues at stake include:
1) Should artists be compensated for being used in AI models.
2) Whether material produced by AI generation should be allowed to hold copyright, and if so, how much input is required to receive protection.
3) Who is liable for infringing works. Should the algorithm creators be able to wash their hands of any infringement created and leave it all on the user
4) How should AI outputs that identify the style or identity of human artists be handled, eg) AI actors using dead actors and voices and stuff.

https://tinyurl.com/AIOpenComment


My comment is below, if you wish to adapt it to your own.

1) Use of materials without the consent of the artist is unethical and is infringing on an artist's right by default, and seeks to ultimately displace human artists in media. There must be both positive agreement from artists being used, and compensation for artists used in these datasets.

2) AI art is generated by an algorithm and should not be copyrightable, in the same way that you cant use a computer to generate all variations of valid sentences and copyright them. The fact that a human is selecting the outputs that they like does not actually give them control over the image itself, any more than a website curating a bunch of images inherently owns the copyright to those images. Prompting does not actually produce any real creative input into the system, for the system could inherently produce those results without prompting too. Or you could imagine a system where the machine generates a list of prompts to run.

3) Infringement of work generated using AI systems should be liable to the system creating it. That way a company cant just provide infringing works and then just wash their hands of it saying oh it was the client who did it.

4) AI outputs for imitating the identity or style of a human artist is especially problematic, in that it will allow the facilitation of forgeries, and could tarnish an artists name by associating them with themes and works that they would otherwise not produce. Additionally, allowing actors and other artists to exist in perpetuity will deny future human artists the chance to make it big, as they will be competing with now dead actors in the future whom the public is nostalgic for.

The US copyright office has opened a comment period for the public to provide input about how AI generative works should be handled.

Most importantly, they are asking if AI models should be allowed to steal art from artists to use in their models without compensation. Write in a comment and tell them no.

This will have an impact on the industry as a whole, even outside of the US as it is a big driver of how the world handles copyright.

https://www.federalregister.gov/doc.....t#open-comment

This comment period covers more than whether training models constitutes fair use, but also the following things:

• Should AI output be copyrightable? And if so how much effort needs to go in to designing a piece.
• Who is liable for AI violations of copyright in the case of it producing something substantially similar to another work. EG is it the model provider itself, the end user, or both.
• Should AI likeness and voices be allowed? If so in what context.

Also I would appreciate a retweet of this to help bring visibility.
https://twitter.com/TecknoJock/stat.....41345391776003

A further article on this: https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/29/.....ublic-comments

Happy 8/8 Everyone! We're ( doesnotexist and I) doing a YCH raffle stream. Come chill and maybe get some free art.

https://picarto.tv/gyrotech

https://twitter.com/gyrofeather/sta.....46746351955970

Everything of mine was cleared that I asked about. I did also specifically ask for a description of what counts as a 'sexual fetish' for the purposes of fetishizing minors. I have included the transcript of my ticket for posterity.

ThirdSpurs

May 19, 2023 10:34
Since the mods of the discord refuse to provide any real clarification what what they consider prima facia childlike in terms of pokemon being underage if drawn show style, I have a list of everything in my gallery that has a 1st stage pokemon. Please tell me what is acceptable, and what will give me a ban if I leave it. I already have one strike from years ago on my record over something stupid, so I cannot afford another one.

https://www.furaffinity.net/view/44541815/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/43159843/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/43088022/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/41873984/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/41242117/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/40307305/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/40241507/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/40104256/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/39508256/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/39381283/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/37758265/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/36088466/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/35891276/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/35793656/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/35051058/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/32882941/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/32882948/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/29657004/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/29654973/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/46000595/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/45448994/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/45339504/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/44986459/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/44742461/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/50678812/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/50413649/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/48782986/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/48725564/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/48476122/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/48246085/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/47659292/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/47512199/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/47210634/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/47220514/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/46464423/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/46116656/

I have neglected Thunk, the cramorant, who appears in many arts, because I'm reasonably sure feral looking birds are definitely fine. I am unsure about everything else above though.

Additionally the following images are in my postybirb queue. Let me know if they should not end up on this site.


https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachme.....6_18422076.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachme.....6_19572384.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachme.....5_17504122.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachme.....uzzle_Full.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachme.....every_Full.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachme.....ier-Nonine.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachme.....5_17521461.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachme.....5_18242564.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachme.....612/BLitz2.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachme.....18/Blitzy2.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachme.....04306/Nub1.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachme.....R_IMG_1367.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachme.....ted2-color.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachme.....anuary2023.jpg

Looking forwards to a prompt review. Thanks.


Welp, some things i"ve seen how have me worried about my quilava too:

https://www.furaffinity.net/view/51709140/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/51709160/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/50769958/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/47483237/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/44541803/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/44027339/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/43717213/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/42669398/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/41746835/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/41553825/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/41485018/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/40820629/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/40384451/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/37056152/

Fur Affinity Staff

[Staff Member]
05/30/23 04:23 pm
Hello. None of the vore content would be removed as it's not overtly sexualized, and we do not consider vore to be inherently sexual. The sexual content linked in reply is fine as your characters appear to be aged up. Thank you.

Thirdspurs

05/31/23 07:18 am
Just for clarification, the presence of digestion and/or disposal does not make vore overtly sexual?
Or is it that the character of wrong proportions doesn't really exist by that point?
Or I guess more specifically, what would make it sexual? The presence of genitals only? Or are there other criteria? In the case of comics are panels considered individually? What about sequential images?
Also I saw a ticket where the fact that the image was rated as Mature was taken into account? Is that factoring into things? Should I be rating my sexless vore General to be safe?

Thirdspurs

06/29/23 05:16 pm
Stil waiting on an answer to this. Why did everyone else who asked for clarification get it within a day and here I am waiting weeks?

Fur Affinity Staff

[Staff Member]
07/24/23 02:43 pm
"Or I guess more specifically, what would make it sexual? The presence of genitals only? Or are there other criteria? In the case of comics are panels considered individually? What about sequential images?"

Context that could push the limit of what we consider "SFW" or General would be, for example:
- Emoting in such a way that sexual satisfaction is implicit (blushing is not a sole indicator)
- Erections or otherwise sexual gratification
- Innuendos or other sexually implicit content or context

We look at the images, description, tags, comments, and all other context surrounding the submission to make these judgements.

For example, in this image you linked, it's just a character eating another character. There is no context that would lead us to believe that there is anything sexual happening between either of these characters.
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/39381283/

It's not typically one thing, but multiple things, that are taken into consideration when trying to identify if content is intended to be enjoyed in a sexual manner.

No, rating is not considered solely. I don't know what ticket you saw but we do not typically use it as an indicator.

Comics are considered by panel and sequentially. If a comic's plot is NSFW, we'll consider the entirety of it NSFW in most circumstances.

Please reopen if you have additional questions. Thank you.

Drawing for team vampires. All my characters are on it if you need to be able to see people to draw while the site dies the first couple days. As always, I intend to get a paint done a day, and will revenge everyone who attacks me.

https://www.furaffinity.net/view/52665795/

Artfight LInk:
https://artfight.net/~gyro

External character refs:
https://gyro.tech/characters

Feel free to leave your profiles here too!

So FA is taking rating into account in deciding if something violates 2.7 beyond the general content. So if you're posting nonsexual vore with smalls, I guess you need to rate it as general...as odd of a decision as that is.

Here's a ticket response to that effect w/ hypnosis.

Also a friend is compiling support ticket responses, please share yours here if you got it back: https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/10559397/

I am posting this here, both so that it is public and because I am still banned from the furaffinity discord, and I still have roughly 2 days of timeout period, and I will have a friend crosspost the journal link for me. I was banned over trying to discuss a policy when there was no avenue for feedback. And, a place was opened up for it later that day, when they realized it was in fact, an issue that was going to be discussed whether they wanted it or not. I would appeal it, but being timed out means that I cannot react to the bot they use for the purposes of tickets. This is incredibly unprofessional of the staff and needs to be rectified immediately.

A copy of the exchange so that you can see that I was not harassing anyone, and I was later proven right by their list of banned pokemon: https://twitter.com/gyrofeather/sta.....81517369163777

For those not aware, you can submit feedback re: the 2.7 policy change on their discord: https://discord.gg/fur-affinity in the particular channel they made for it: https://discord.com/channels/991855.....78846061543444 or you can submit a ticket, though I feel like the latter they're just trashing. At least the former you can make your voice public. Just note there is a 6 hour timer, so formulate a decent post before hitting enter. Its not a discussion location.

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Now onto the meat of things:

This policy itself is incredibly shortsighted in how it affects the community at large. Furaffinity, like it or not, is the biggest art repository in the furry community, the main market place for people to deal art and make a living, and a major community hub. This means that the admins at furaffinity have an extra responsibility to do good by the members here, because decisions taken here affect the community as a whole.

Cub art does not belong on the site, but this policy is far overreaching and affects many artists who do not deal with cub art. If someone has a clear record of doing such things, that is when action needs to be taken. It needs to be taken in the context of the whole account and not just an individual work or two. You can generally tell when someone is a cub artist, vs a chibi or pokemon NSFW artist, and if you cannot tell, then they're probably not. Ferals, including pokemon and digimon, as well as fictional anthro species often undergo development differently than humans do, and so judging things by human standards immidiately becomes suspect. Even within the animal world, a corgi looks a lot more childlike than a German shepherd, and they are within the same species, let alone when you have something like a fennec fox and compare it to a red fox. Many fictional species are actually timeless in their shape, like pokemon, which can stay the same form over the course of their life. I think its reasonable to depict this as a cartoon shortcut, but what is shown should be taken as the full developmental age, and it should be a question of whether someone has made them younger.

Your banned list of pokemon/digimon has 2 major issues with it. 1st, it is incomplete, and if you are going to force something on the community that paints such a broad stroke, you better damn well have a list of what you consider acceptable or not. 2nd it lacks the nuance of what should be a delicate issue that should be looked on in a case by case basis with heavy favor towards not calling the artist a cub artist.

While you say the new policy doesnt extend to other characters, we've seen plenty of anthro characters or characters of other franchises suddenly being declared underage in the support tickets that were filed, which either means something has changed, OR the community did not understand and does not agree with what you seem to consider cub art. This is a problem. If the staff and the community cannot agree on what is actionable, then it becomes a bit like russian roulette where the loser gets yeeted from the site.

This brings me to the next issue, the chilling effect. If you're not familiar with the concept of a chilling effect, its defined as follows:

The "chilling effect" refers to a phenomenon where individuals or groups refrain from engaging in expression for fear of running afoul of a law or regulation. Chilling effects generally occur when a law is either too broad or too vague. Individuals steer far clear from the reaches of the law for fear of retaliation, prosecution, or punitive action.

Largely artists will not 'age them up' but will rather refuse the characters altogether, leave the site, or abandon artist pursuits. This is especially true of the list of banned pokemon and digimon, where if you don't go far enough, you are handed out a 7 day ban, followed by a permanent one. But it will also leak into the shortstack spaces as well, as seen by how people are reacting to the above mentioned tickets. The consequences of accidentally crossing the line are so dire, that there is no incentive to do anything that even might get within 100 ft of the line, especially when we dont know where the line is. Hell, I personally am just going to stop posting pokemon to FA. I'm lucky that I do not rely on art to make money, because that's not a luxury a number of artists have, and not posting art here is starvation. As we've seen from koopas or corgi OCs, we cant really be reliant on even the list of banned pokemon.

Earlier this year, when vore was briefly included in the underage catch all, I removed some stuff because I had some largely cute pieces that technically ran afoul of the rules, but I think in this instance including fetish content catches more of the intended target than people who are innocent bystanders. I think its really weird for vore to be walked back, after what happened to Strega and Foshu earlier this year and pregnant is very strange given how one becomes pregnant. If you want to include some fetishes under the breast feeding exemption, its probably once again best to just say something like nonsexual interests like some TF, cartoony eating, breast feeding, etc... This is one of those cases where a chilling effect is probably fine because it affects a very small subset, and we know it when we see it.

Moderation:

Furaffinity also has an incredibly archaic in its moderation. It is worth remembering that the site has been around for 18 years and you have no language for the falling off of previous strikes for good behavior. I received a MPS strike way back in 2017 or so, and anyone in a similar boat, especially around previous policy changes where stuff that was once fine was creeped over to no longer being so is, according to the letter of the rule on FA at risk of instantly being banned, no longer how old that strike was. Good behavior should be rewarded, and people who when told off do not continue to be a problem should be seen as a win by furaffinity. Strikes NEED to fall off over a period of time, and that needs to be codified in the enforcement section of FA's rules, like, for example, it is on E6's Records and Feedback policy

It is also clear that FA does not have a moderator team that is both professional and large enough. This could be solved by actually paying staff for working here, and also could be a violation of the FLSA since volunteering for a for profit company, of which I understand FA is, happens to be illegal. Paying staff will ensure that you can get more manhours out of people than volunteers. It helps ensure a level of professionalism because its no longer a hobby, and allows staff to be more invested in the moderation of the site. And it means that someone doesnt have to come home after work to be bombarded with tickets, maintaining a much healthier life balance. Volunteer staff, if you are reading this, please demand pay for what you do, and file a complaint with the US Department of Labor. The company operates in the US even if you do not, so they are bound by US laws. (That said IANAL).

On professionalism, if you're answering questions in a public forum like various mods were, you are wearing your mod hat by default. Anything you say WILL be taken as law. If you want to discuss without it, you needs a separate account. One moderator in particular was said to be providing false information by other mods many times, when the screenshots of quotes circulated around, and that SHOULD NOT be happening. If you are not speaking as a moderator, consider using an alternative account. Discord makes it incredibly easy to swap between the two.

Also you need a better bot on your discord server, if discord issues are supposed to both A) be filed through the discord bot, and B) you cant actually interact with the bot while timed out to file a ticket. You're a big company, you can have someone code a new bot if existing ones do not work.

Policy Discussion:

It is clear from this debacle that FA needs a location in order to discuss policy. The discord server A) requires a phone number, B) forms an effort barrier to entry, and C) is apparently not an appropriate place to discuss policy according to the mods anyways. Trouble tickets are not a valid location, as they are not public, and therefor not accountable to the general public. Either bring back the forums, in a limited scope or otherwise, OR leave comments open on policy journals where things can be discussed. That said the latter is far better, so that things can be discussed that people may think are problems before they are addressed. People should not be banned for discussion policy, and a number of people were from the discord.

Respectability Politics and Adult Spaces:

Already we're seeing LBGT people accused of being child abusers by just existing, and you are not making things better by turning around and labeling the art that they enjoy as cub. Furry will never be seen as mainstream and accepted in society, so taking steps to appeal to the normies will not work. Any time ANY group in history has tried to make strides to appease the oppressors, the goalposts just shift, and the same will happen with the furry community. Please do not cave to the ever shrinking of safe adult spaces. we do not need more of our friends to be labeled as groomer for simply existing and enjoying the things they do. It is insulting and demeaning to be called such a thing and is used to justify a myriad of hate and violence against people.

Honestly I will join the voices of people who say that FA needs to change to an 18+ site. Yes minors will lie about their age, but often they end up leaking it and you cannot know if their account is sfw or not. By making it 18+, you will by default make it so minors can be removed without question. Additionally minors only get groomed by interacting with adults. By making it clear that they are not allowed, they should at least be wary of their participation when they do.

In closing, a summary of my points:

➤ As the largest furry site, you have an obligation to do good by your community.

➤ This does far more harm than good. You are painting too many things with broad strokes in an effort to eliminate edge cases, when just those edge cases should be dealt with.
• Many artists who should not be affected are being so.
• This will have a chilling affect on art posted to FA
• Applying human proportions to furries does not make sense.
• The fetish exemption is odd and needs to be reevaluated.
• The policy accuses artists who obviously are not of being cub artists.

➤ Moderation needs to be imporoved at FA.
• There needs to be more professionalism and communication.
• Strikes need a fall off period, especially considering how old FA is.
• Pay your staffers. It might even be illegal not to.
• Staffers: Demand pay. Not paying you is likely illegal under the FLSA.

➤ There needs to be a place where the community can be involved in policy discussions

➤ Groomer rhetoric and cub accusations are highly damaging to people's mental health and not helpful.
• Ban the minors instead. This is not a safe space for them. Lets stop pretending it is.



Once again, if you have any feedback, make sure to join the discord server and post in the thread. Just note its a 6 hour timeout, so formulate something good before posting it. https://discord.gg/fur-affinity in the particular channel they made for it: https://discord.com/channels/991855.....78846061543444

As an addendum: an archived copy of the 2nd discussion thread (After the 1st was deleted) can be found here: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachme.....3290999839.txt