PDXFurs
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The PDXFurs is a loosely-organized, often ad hoc, developing community based in the Portland metropolitan area, including Vancouver and southwestern Washington, as well as northeastern Oregon. The name PDXFurs, a portmanteau of the common abbreviation for Portland and furry fandom, was created by Blackberry while collating a list of Portland-based users of FurryMUCK in 1995.
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[edit] History
From 1994 to 1995, Blackberry began compiling a list of Portland-based users of FurryMUCK. Baloo Ursidae was then recruited to host a Unix based mailing list, and from 1995 to 1997 the PDXFurs community and identity began to develop. Events during this period centered around public, often free, gatherings or outdoor activities. There is little preserved or archived from this era. The second mailing list to bear the PDXFurs name was the Yahoo!-based pdxdfurs established on or prior to September 11, 2000[1]. The Yahoo! Groups archive for the pdxdfurs mailing list is incomplete. The oldest message in the list archive is dated September 11, 2000. Several generations of Yahoo! and Google based groups followed, as well as numerous iterations of the #pdxfurs IRC channel followed. Three dozen members of the pdxdfurs Yahoo! group established a mailing list using the new Google Groups tool called PDXFurs SNARK in 2009.
As Facebook became the preferred communication platform for many locals there have been several generations of Facebook-based profiles, pages and groups known to have existed which focused exclusively on the PDXFurs community. The active official group is PDXFurs.
[edit] Ownership
The PDXFurs Group is a registered non-profit organization[2] in the state of Oregon. Licensing is held by Saph, who moderates and controls liability to the group in a legal and event planning capacity. While The PDXFurs has been taken to this direction, it does not encompass the entire Portland area, nor does it represent the local fandom as a voice. To summarize: The PDXFurs remains a developing concept.
[edit] Usage
Many events often tag themselves with the name PDXFurs or PDXFurs SNARK, however this is not exclusive to one group or cadre of locals. Other groups based in the Portland area have adopted similar portmanteaus. However, few remain active via Facebook. While The PDXFurs Group is the dominant social tag within the area, it is not exclusive to the Portland furs, and does not represent the city in a whole.
[edit] Domain Name
Established in January 2008[3] and financially supported by Sardonis, the pdxfurs.com website hosted forums, pages for members, announcements and local history. Recently, Saph began financing the domain, including website hosting, with the intent of producing an open communication hub for the local furry fandom. This concept continues to be discussed.
[edit] IRC Channel
#pdxfurs has existed as an official and unofficial mod-less channel on virtually all known furry-centric IRC networks. The most recent iteration of #pdxfurs has been an active channel on FurNet, moderated by Saph, since January 2011, previous ownership of the Channel was to Polybun, and previous locals in the area.[4].
[edit] Events
Currently PDXFurs is home to dozens of regular/recurring events and meets. The most well known is the bi-weekly event at The Roxy Diner in Portland city center. A companion event at the The Brickhouse Bar & Grill in Vancouver has recently been promoted. A weekly lunch meet, which alternates between El Indio in Halsey and La Hacienda Real in Beaverton, is also exceptionally popular. A new coffee house meet at Ava's Roasteria in Beaverton has recently broken participation records according to many locals. Arts & crafts jam, an art/drawing meet, and long-running women's meet have met mixed success.
Recent special events have included a Thanksgiving dinner, visits to the Oregon Zoo and camping trips to the Oregon coast[citation needed] and Mount Hood[citation needed].
In 2012, the group attempted to host a large monthly recurring event, however social differences and financing prevented gatherings between September and December of 2012, leaving a gap to be filled with limited success by others in the area.
There has been no official events board for announcing events. The Portland Area Furs and PDXFurs Facebook groups have grown into active hubs for planning events, however word of mouth, IRC, email and phone trees remain effective tools for locals to organize events.
[edit] References
- ↑ "PDXFurs Yahoo! group message archive"
- ↑ "[1]"
- ↑ "WHOIS record/history"
- ↑ "GoGloom IRC chat room statistics"