WikiFur:News

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This is news about WikiFur. If you are looking for WikiFur News, see the Front Page.
Note: This page is deprecated and kept for archive purposes only. See WikiFur-specific news.
The news posts below have been moved to the new system.

WikiFur reaches 5,000 articles![edit]

WikiFur officially reached 5,000 articles this week. As always, I would like to thank all of our contributors, our supporters (who aid our efforts to promote WikiFur), and especially our administrators, who have worked tirelessly to clean up after vandals, contribute new articles, help select our featured articles and Comics of the Week, and generally ensure things run smoothly for the 2,000 people who visit every day.

Of course, numbers don't tell the whole story - people don't want to search through a thousand articles to find what they're interested in. Just as important are the pages which collect and organize WikiFur's information, and which link to further articles and resources. I'm excited to see lists of furry media links, furry LiveJournal communities and furry convention resources springing up, as well as further development on topics such as novels, media coverage and multiplayer worlds. WikiFur contributors are also experimenting with new wiki technology, such as our updatable timeline of conventions. We've even made it into print.

As far as we've come, there's still plenty to write about, and a lot more that could be said on existing topics. If you have some time to spare, please consider helping out! Through your contributions, WikiFur can remain a useful resource for years to come. --GreenReaper(talk) 22:09, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

WikiFur referenced in Pittsburgh City Paper[edit]

Not only is Animal Passions (article, scanned pages with pictures) a surprisingly fair article covering Anthrocon 2006 - we actually got a quote in there, referenced from the What is Furry? page! I knew those 15 minutes I spent talking to a reporter wouldn't be wasted . . .

A fursona need not correspond to a person’s attire at a furry event. As described by WikiFur (www.furry.wikia.com), a WikiPedia-like online encyclopedia, “[S]omeone who says they are a Furry is expressing an interest in anthropomorphic animals and/or creatures. How deep or meaningful that interest is varies greatly from person to person. Also, the breadth of a person’s interest in the fandom, and what ultimately makes them Furry, is specific to each individual.”

[and yes, they got the URL wrong - fortunately the Wikia admins are on the ball and had a redirect in minutes after I mentioned it]

I think this calls for some celebration. Warm fuzzies all round! :-) --GreenReaper(talk) 10:05, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

TurriWiki links with WikiFur[edit]

TurriWiki

It is my pleasure to announce that WikiFur is now linked with TurriWiki (website), our Finnish language equivalent!

Many of our contributors (and over 10% of visitors) come from non-English-speaking cultures. While it is great that they choose to contribute here, I have often thought it would be nice if they could develop resources in their native languages as well - and that it would be even better if we could help them as well. We try to cover topics like とらんすふぁ (TransFur) and ČeSFuR, but it is hard to do so without the experience of native speakers, who usually write best in their own language. Having native-language furry wikis allows those who could not contribute in English to add information; those who can write in English are then able to translate the information.

You can create interlanguage links to TurriWiki articles on the same topic using the syntax [[fi:Article name]]. Place this link at the bottom of the page - it will appear on the bottom of the sidebar. To create an inline link to an article, use [[:fi:Article name|link text]] (or [[TurriWiki:Article name|link text]]). Return links to WikiFur can be made using the [[en:, [[:en: and [[WikiFur: prefixes respectively.

WikiFur encourages the creation of open-content furry wikis in a variety of languages. Direct translation of articles is welcome, as long as each wiki is using the GFDL and similar links are used. If you are interested in creating a version of WikiFur in your native language, or if you want to link WikiFur an existing furry wiki in another language, let me know - our host can be your host, if desired. I hope this is only the first of many such collaborations! --GreenReaper(talk) 07:01, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

WikiFur at Anthrocon 2006[edit]

Anthrocon.gif

We're going to Anthrocon! Well, I am, at least, and I suspect a lot of you are as well. Therefore, I'd like to invite you all to come along to the world's first WikiFur Meetup, to he held on Friday 16th June from 8 PM to midnight (compare with AC schedule). We hope to discuss the project's future and answer any questions you may have, as well as just get to know one another outside of the edit summary box. Bring a friend!

The room party will be graciously hosted by Anthrocon's Operations Director, Giza, who has a suite in the Westin hotel. We don't know which suite he'll be in yet, but we'll be putting up flyers with the room number on the meeting board. If there is a need for a pre-party meet for those unable to make a later time (please comment if this is the case), we can arrange that.

There will be some light refreshments available, but there is a limit to how much we can bring with us, and there'll be little time for us to buy stuff there. I would like to encourage anyone who is able to help out by bringing something along, even if it's just a pack of chips or a big bottle of Sprite - I'm sure you can think of something interesting! Compensation for reasonable purchase costs will be available if needed, but please don't bring caviar, or any form of alcohol; we cannot serve it.

I will also be going around at the con and giving my personal thanks to each and every one of you that I can find. Keep an eye out for the dark green norn (or, failing that, the dark green glasses). I have a list, and I'll be checking it twice. You have been warned! :-) --GreenReaper(talk) 12:16, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Email notification installed[edit]

Ever worried that someone's going to come along and start writing inaccurate information on a topic you're interested in, or that someone will leave you a note on your talk page that you'll miss? Worry no more! WikiFur's host, Wikia, has recently installed the ENotif extension which allows email to be sent whenever a message is left, or a page that you are watching is modified.

To receive notification of changes, you must first choose to watch the page concerned by clicking the watch tab (there's a list of unwatched pages if you want to adopt a few). You must also enter and activate an email account in WikiFur's preferences and tick the appropriate notification boxes there. After that, you will be sent email the next time a page is modified. As with most forums, further email will not be sent unless you visit the appropriate page (or view the difference between versions). Enjoy! --GreenReaper(talk) 20:55, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Wikicities is now Wikia[edit]

Just a short note - our hosting provider Wikia has decided that Wikicities is a silly name - perhaps because of their new funding - and changed the site's name to their company name instead. So now you have to type less to get here! Any links to furry.wikicities.com should still work fine - furry.wikia.com will just get people here a little faster. --GreenReaper(talk) 07:25, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Add to the furpile![edit]

Ever thought that there was a page that could do with improvement, but you didn't think you had the know-how or the time to do it justice? Got a worthwhile topic that you think would make a good article, if only someone gave it a start? Now you can add these pages to the WikiFur furpile and let the whole community have a go at improving (or creating) them! Entries will automatically be featured on the front page, one per day; all you have to do is click, add a bolded link, and save. Simple, no?

If you happen to be able to contribute anything to the furpile entry of the day, please consider doing so - and if you have any pages in mind for improvement, please be bold and add them to the furpile! Last, but not least, please give your thanks to Mi'ren Kerris for poking me to implement this. :-) --GreenReaper(talk) 05:14, 3 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Comics featured weekly[edit]

Ozy and Millie was just featured

WikiFur will now be featuring a comic weekly on the front page, in conjunction with the current featured articles. This special section is in recognition of the many fine comics (online and offline) that are appreciated by members of the furry fandom, and the resulting quantity of articles that have been written about them - over 160 so far!

The comic to be featured will be determined by public nomination. Deciding factors will be the quality of the nomination and of the associated WikiFur article, as well as public support for the nomination and availability of a picture. For more information, and to nominate or support a particular comic, visit the above link. --GreenReaper(talk) 08:06, 19 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Rascally raccoons paint WikiFur pink![edit]

Note found at the scene of the crime

I should have known there would be a down side to the great time I had at MFF! I had just come back from watching the latest episode of The Apprentice when I found that the entire site had been painted pink! Seems a family of raccoons snuck home in my luggage, hidden in the laundry bag (no wonder it smelt so bad . . .). Once I was gone, they had the computer to themselves. I guess we should be glad they didn't do anything worse.

This obviously wasn't just some random act of vandalism, though - they must have hidden out in my closet for over a fortnight, just waiting for the right moment to spring this attack. Those raccoons were working for someone. How do I know? They left a note! I'm not yet sure exactly who the criminal mastermind is behind this, but whoever and wherever this mysterious "Babs" is, they've got a lot of explaining to do.

Never fear, though - I got back before they could do too much damage, so it shouldn't take more than a day or so to get things back to normal. Until then . . . well, I hope you like pink! --GreenReaper(talk) 07:44, 9 Dec 2005 (UTC)

WikiFur at Midwest FurFest 2005[edit]

Midwest FurFest

I was lucky enough to be able to attend Midwest FurFest 2005 last weekend, along with several of our contributors. Duncan da Husky was instrumental in this, as he not only printed out the leaflets I helped to distribute at the con, but also advised me on a good overflow hotel - and all while getting the MFF registration setup!

If you're one of those who I talked with at the convention, or just picked up a leaflet, welcome! Be sure to check out our the Community Central for more information, and don't miss our featured articles and the Did you know? page. If you didn't manage to get to MFF this year, you could read my con report and see how things turned out, including more about WikiFur's reception. If you're in the general area, I strongly advise you to consider going next year - I'm glad I did!

Did you know? If you register for MFF 2006 before December, it costs $25 (standard) or $100 (sponsor) vs $30/$120. Online registration is available.

As an aside, we have recently added Google Analytics support to the website. If you're interesting in knowing how people get to this site, where they go, and much more besides, grab a google account of some sort (Gmail, for example) and let me know so I can add you. There may be a short delay, as they've currently disabled additions while they add capacity, but I'll be sure to get you on there when they come back. The other statistics remain operational. --GreenReaper(talk)

Support our hosts by downloading Google Toolbar with Firefox[edit]

I feel a little guilty sometimes. Despite being one of the biggest communities on Wikicities, WikiFur doesn't make much in ad revenue for our hosts - for some reason, we're really bad at clicking on them (perhaps because there aren't very many furry-related ads :-). Fortunately there's now another way to pay them back for their help - and, hopefully, to encourage them to invest more in Wikicities!

Firefox!

I use Firefox every day, and I believe it to be a superior browser to IE. Google obviously does, too, because they're paying our hosts $1 every time someone downloads a copy of it with their new Google Toolbar. I've tried it out, and it offers a lot above and beyond the current search box.

If you're currently using IE, I would strongly suggest you give it a go by clicking the Firefox button at the bottom of the page. It'll only take a few minutes of your time to get it installed. Once you've loaded it up, try middle-clicking (or ctrl+left-clicking) on some wikilinks and see how much easier it is to load up lots of pages at once - no switching between windows! Truly, a much more convenient way of doing things . . .

Did you know?: You can also add WikiFur to your Firefox search box!

WikiFur records births and deaths[edit]

WikiFur contributor Douglas Muth (better known as Giza in the furry fandom) had a neat idea - since we've got all these pages about people, why not record their deaths and births? Well, we gave it a go, and with the help of a little template magic from Wikipedia we had a surprisingly neat record of births and deaths by year in under an hour!

You can easily add articles to the list just by adding a category tag to them:

  • [[Category:1982 births]] (or, for deaths, [[Category:1954 deaths]])

If that turns out to be a red link to an empty category page, please click it and put this in the category page:

  • {{birthyr|198|2}} (or {{deathyr|195|4}})

We later expanded the idea to cover non-people, too, so feel free to put your favourite conventions, chat room or publications in as well! --GreenReaper(talk)

Upcoming events section added[edit]

I was just out promoting WikiFur's 2000th article on LiveJournal when I ran into SciuCaro asking if WikiFur could do more than just record the history and current state of the fandom.

My reply was that sure, it would be nice to have that sort of thing, but I really have my hands full with updating the new Community Central, Did you know?, the featured articles and the like, so it wasn't likely to be happening any time soon.

Of course, the next morning I woke to find out that dedicated wikifurry Rat (RainRat) had created a list of upcoming events for WikiFur. This seemed like such a good idea that it ended up on the front page straight away. I should be lazy more often!

Feel free to add the date of any furry events you know of - preferably with a link to an article about them, so people can learn more. --GreenReaper(talk)

WikiFur contributors start 2000th article[edit]

Today WikiFur - the furry encyclopedia - celebrated the creation of its 2000th article. Founded on 24 July, WikiFur has quickly become one of the most comprehensive sites for furry information on the net, with over 350,000 words of content. More than 23,000 edits have been made since its inception. It remains freely editable by all.

In the last three months, over 150 contributors from around the world have come together to write about their fandom. Guided by the principles of neutral writing set down by Wikipedia, they have created a website that even those critical of the fandom can respect:

"I first cringed at the thought of a furry wikipedia roaming on the net.", commented Nothingkat. "I figured it to be a rather one-sided "don't talk about the bad, only use it as a propaganda site to make furries look good" website. What I found it to be instead was a rather well done unbiased encyclopedia on the fandom."

WikiFur covers the entire spectrum of furry culture and community, from comics and anthropomorphic artwork to multiplayer worlds, fanzines and other publications, television programs and people. In many cases, details are contributed by those directly involved in the topic.

WikiFur is maintained by its administrators, who include prominent convention organizers, artists, writers, and other furry fans. Their duties are shared by every user - to make good contributions to new and existing articles, protect the site from vandalism, and uphold the principles of fair and unbiased writing.

Wikifurmel-vs-1.png

Featured articles - Did you know?
This news post on WikiFur - in HTML (reposting welcome)

Vote on the new name for the Community Portal![edit]

WikiFur is soon to have its Community Portal redesigned to provide more functionality, communication and organisation for projects within the wiki. As such, the Community Portal is going to be given a new name.

What is that name? Well, we don't know yet and we'd like you to vote on the suggested names! You may vote once for each name you approve of (apart from your own). Voting will continue until the 2000th article, or a clear majority, whichever comes first. --GreenReaper(talk)

WikiFur passes 1500 articles[edit]

It's less than two months after launch, and WikiFur has already passed the 1500-article mark, with over 35 of them featured to date. This places us in the top 10 of over 500 Wikicities.

You can read more about the progress of WikiFur at nidonocu's Statistics Record, and compare us to other Wikicities at Almafeta's stats in comparison. Thanks to all our contributors for their continued efforts! --GreenReaper(talk)

Something Awful features WikiFur[edit]

It's only been two days since promotion of WikiFur has begun, but already we've had a great response from our friends at Something Awful, who did us the honour of Awful Link of the Day for 15 August 2005. We're not quite sure exactly what's so awful about it, but nevertheless, welcome to all the new visitors!

Several new administrators have been drafted to handle the new edits, which have reached the level of one every 45 seconds. Best wishes to them, too. :-) --GreenReaper(talk)