Talk:Helping Pawz

Is the whitewashing of references to Helping Pawz from various articles (1 2 3) really appropriate? It seems to me that replacing the link to Helping Pawz with a vague and unspecific phrase like "a not-for-profit character performance association" is a step backwards in the articles' quality. --Higgs Raccoon 15:15, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I do not feel it is appropriate, no, especially when this is public information. In particular, I have reverted the edits by User:174.1.37.70 and restored information removed by User:70.68.14.93 on this topic.
 * I have been contacted by this person asserting that they are a director of the group, stating the following:
 * Their Board of Directors did not approve the page and would like it taken down.
 * It was not put up by a member of Helping Pawz.
 * Some of Helping Pawz' members belong to the fandom, but Helping Pawz is not a furry organization.
 * Helping Pawz has not been associated with Howloween for three years, and gets no support from that event.
 * My personal feeling is that while corrections are appreciated, it is really none of their business whether or not we have an article about them. It is unfortunate that they see the presence of this article as a negative, but their approval is not required. Personal exclusion does not apply as they are a public registered charity, not an individual. --GreenReaper(talk) 18:14, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

GreenReaper, since Helping Pawz is not a furry organization, and wikifur is a furry-themed site, may I suggest that there is no reason to have the page here in the first place? The directors of Helping Pawz do not see the page as negative, but rather are concerned of event organizers getting conflicting information about the group due to media hype and propaganda. Despite all of our best efforts, Furry is still not widely accepted socially, and it would be unfortunate if a widely used search engine such as wikifur pointed a biased organizer to a theory, that then led to a biased stream of slander towards the Helping Pawz organization. It doesn't help that the popular media has published stories about two furries charged with criminal offenses in the last week alone. Trying to keep a clean image despite public perception is not an easy task. All the group is trying to do is help out people and make them smile, and it's incredible how many people want to find something wrong with doing that. -Aphinity

Deindexing the article
I've posed the question to our editors in another venue. There are some who support Helping Pawz' request for exclusion, and an equal number who seem strongly opposed to it. I don't think we can reconcile these two groups. Therefore I propose a third option which was not possible when we initially formed our personal exclusion policy - search engine deindexing through addition of the noindex meta tag.

The main problem on Helping Pawz' side is that they fear non-furs will search for their name and find this article, leading to an association with furry fandom. We don't care that much if people don't find this article by search (it only gets five hits a month as it is), but we are opposed on principle to the removal of the article. Removing the article from the search index appears to satisfy both of these goals.

Please let me know your thoughts. --GreenReaper(talk) 18:19, 10 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Sounds like a workable solution to me. -- Natasha Softpaw ( talk 19:54, 10 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Fair alternative - Spirou 07:36, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
 * OK. I have implemented this. I'm not sure if it's actually working, though - for some reason the robots directive is not showing up. Still, it will work on the new server (I checked), and the old version here will no longer be available after we move to it, enabling a removal request. --GreenReaper(talk) 07:54, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Apparently by default it's not enabled for content namespaces. I have removed this restriction now that we are on our own server. This page should not be indexed. --GreenReaper(talk) 15:24, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Toronto HP?
Toronto section was added by Thumper on On 25 February 2007 "The Toronto chapter formed in the winter of 2006 and expects to be participating in active events in that area with new member during 2007.". Toronto section deleted in 2007 September by 70.68.213.224 (who also changed Vancouver chapter founding date from 2003 to 2002 .. but HP website says HP was "Started in 2001"). Did the Toronto HP participate in any events? Which years did they participate? --EarthFurst 22:43, 27 April 2010 (UTC)