alt.fan.furry

This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to WikiFur style and standards. For specifics, check the edit history and talk page. Consult the Furry Book of Style for editing help.

alt.fan.furry, also known as a.f.f. or AFF, is a newsgroup for furries and furry fans to gather and discuss various topics revolving around the politics of the fandom. Once the number one furry news source, as time passed it became infamous for its collection of massive flamewars, political and otherwise.

It remains a great place to search for the history of furry fandom, though, and the site has grown more peaceful in recent years.

[edit] History

alt.fan.furry has had a long and convoluted Usenet history. Originally created after Albedo fans gathered in alt.birthright, only to discover it was not a group for fans of the Birthright series by Steve Gallacci.

Several suggestions were made for a separate funny animal comic group, and Peter da Silva created one in November of 1990 under the name alt.fan.albedo. The initial message on a.f.a. reads:

This group is for discussion of funny animal comic books, such as Albedo, Critters, and Quack!. This group was created after a funny-animal discussion started in alt.birthright. Hopefully someone will let the furry mailing list know

At that time, Albedo was suffering from extremely infrequent publication and Critters was already defunct, and several people suggested that alt.fan.furry would be a better group name. The term furry was already beginning to supersede funny animal in various fandom mailing lists.

alt.fan.furry had been suggested before the creation of a.f.a but was not preferred by Mr. de Silva. Tzoq created alt.fan.furry proper about a month later, partially due to low postings in a.f.a.

Some of the posters on alt.fan.albedo in that one month interim were greymuzzles such as Jimmy Chin, mejeep, and Uncle Kage.

alt.fan.furry later spun off other furry newsgroups, the most notable of which is alt.lifestyle.furry.

[edit] rec.arts.furry proposal

rec.arts.furry was a newsgroup proposed by Kay Shapero and Mitch Marmel in early 2000 as a flame-free, moderated alternative to alt.fan.furry.

[edit] History

alt.fan.furry had been repeatedly disrupted by particularly nasty arguments, accusations, and "trolling" to the point where some have taken to calling it alt.flame.furry. Many users were driven away, and the rest tend to keep huge killfiles.

After extensive discussion, it had become clear that moderating the extant newsgroup was undesirable at best, and impossible at worst. Argument does have its place, but there also seems a place for a separate, moderated group, so rec.arts.furry was proposed. (The original RFD for rec.arts.furry)

In July 2000, rec.arts.furry did not get the 100 more yes votes than no votes necessary for creation, falling short by only 8 votes. rec.arts.furry fails (by eight votes)

[edit] External links

• alt.fan.furry at Google Groups
• alt.fan.furry FAQ