Furry.ca

furry.ca was a community site for Canadian furries. Founded by Benjamin on December 8, 2000, it provided forums, resources, a list of mailing lists, events listings and a personal directory for its members.

Prior to its creation, Benjamin had been running a Canadian furry themed web ring, IM listing, and the toronto-furry home page for the Toronto Furry Mailing List. Since this time, the creation of furry.ca itself has expanded to include a banner exchange and message board. The IM listing was later closed down in favor of the citizens listing built directly into the furry.ca site design itself. Merchandise related to the site is available through CafePress.

furry.ca's message boards also had subforums exclusively devoted to the Feral! and Howloween conventions.

History
TorFurICQ (later named TorFurIM) was the first of Benjamin's Canadian furry oriented resources to precede the existence of furry.ca. It was founded on March 14, 1999, and served as a listing of furries' instant messaging information that they would volunteer to have published on the site.

On April 12, 1999, The Canadian Furry Web Ring was founded. Web rings were rather commonplace during this time and viewed as a useful tool to help boost a web site's traffic. The CFWR was founded for the use of Canadian furry artists, writers, fans, and so on.

Using the same basic concept as the TorFurICQ list, the CanuckFurryICQ list was born on September 4, 1999. Initially, it published Canadian furs' ICQ information that was submitted voluntarily by each respective individual. Later, on February 26, 2002, it was expanded to include the four major IMs, and was suitably renamed to CanuckFurryIM. It was later renamed to furry.ca IM, at which the name stayed until the list was shut down on June 19, 2005 in favor of simplifying the furry.ca site overall. At the time it was shut down, the furry.ca citizens listing was expanded in order to publish Canadian furs' contact information, including each of the four major IMs.

Around about December 17, 1999, The Toronto Furry Home Page was passed to Benjamin from its original founder Silfur. At this time, it was moved to Benjamin's current web host and promptly rewritten and redesigned.

The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) assumed regulatory power over the .ca top level domain as of November 8, 2000. Its mandate included making .ca domains available to Canadian citizens.

After being made aware of the change of regulations regarding .ca domains, Benjamin registered furry.ca on December 8, 2000 and published the first design for that site within 24 hours. The CFWR, TorFurICQ, Toronto Furry Home Page, and CanuckFurryICQ sites were promptly ported over to furry.ca, finding permanent homes in subdirectories off the new domain.

The first new Canadian furry service to be released since the founding of furry.ca itself came on December 16, 2000. It was a banner exchange, aptly named the furry.ca exchange, used to help Canadian furs advertise their respective web sites.

On July 29, 2001, the furry.ca forum was born, giving Canadian furs and foreigners alike a perportedly stress-free, friendly place to chat about furry things, Canadianness, and whatnot. It was perhaps the most significant addition to the furry.ca site, since it helped build and strengthen the Canadian furry community and brings everyone together in a single, central location. The initial release of the board used Ikonboard version 2.1.9.

During March 2002, the furry.ca forum was upgraded to Ikonboard version 3.0.2 and underwent a significant design change, giving the board a whole new appearance. The new board skin received much acclaim from fellow Ikonboard staff, designers, and users.

As of June 24, 2002, the furry.ca forum was upgraded to Ikonboard 3.1.0. Not long after this, it was upgraded further to version 3.1.1. The heavy customisation and updating put into the board software prompted Benjamin to keep this stable version as it was.

TorFurICQ evolved into TorFurIM on October 2, 2002, expanding its service to include the four major IM services, like the furry.ca IM listing had done.

Due to continuous member requests, online merchandising was launched using CafePress. This was implimented as of March 17, 2003, allowing furry fans to buy t-shirts and related merchandise which proudly sport the furry.ca logo.

After RL time constraints began to affect Benjamin's internet habits, moderators were assigned on the furry.ca forum. On February 21, 2004, the staff grew to include Silverfang, Wotan, and Sedyah, in an apparently succesful attempt to curb trolling and generally bad behavior by forum users.

On December 20, 2004, the furry.ca main site was given a major design overhaul. This included the complete redesign of the graphics, incorporation of iframes into the layout, and some much-needed content revisions. The new design was intended to improve the visual appeal and ease of use of the furry.ca web site.

In preparation of a change over to a new owner, URL, and site design, the toronto-furry home page was removed from its home on furry.ca on October 13, 2005. Along with it, the TorFurIM list was discontinued.

furry.ca's forum staff expanded slightly with the addition of two female moderators from Canada's west coast. Lady Serpent was appointed to the staff on March 14, 2006, followed by prolific forum poster SheWolf on June 26, 2006. Both appointments have been regarded positively by the community overall. Regrettably, the following January, SheWolf was removed from her staff position due to personal matters from beyond the site.

On April 24, 2008, after a long and successful stint since its inception, the furry.ca forum's database had been destroyed by a hacker. For technical reasons, the old forum was not revived, however it found new life using Simple Machines Forums as the new management software. The forum was reborn on April 28, 2008 with a fresh new database upon which to build.

In September of 2008, due to lack of use and interest, Benjamin made the decision to shut down the Canadian Furry Web Ring after conferring with the community. It had lasted for over nine years before being dismantled.

Furry.ca was re-registered 2013 February 6 and 2014 April 23, apparently by two different cybersquatters. 2014 registrant name is "Oliver Twist Domains".

Furry.ca points to OntarioFurs.com as of December 2, 2014.

Furry.ca