History of Fur Affinity

2012-09-08T03:51:28Z

50.131.74.239: /* 2012 "aged up" guideline */

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The following is a history of [[Fur Affinity]] and its properties.

==History==
'''[[Fur Affinity]]''' was launched on January 16, 2005 as an alternative to [[SheezyArt]] with the forum going live on that date and the main site being transferred a few days later from [[FurPawz]].<ref>''[http://www.sheezyart.com/journal/view/51100/ Furaffinity.org information]'' - launch of forum on Furaffinity.net. Posted on SheezyArt, 16 January 2005.</ref><ref>''[http://www.sheezyart.com/journal/view/54575/ FurAffinity - note re. transfer of mainsite and 400+ users]''. Posted on [[SheezyArt]], 21 January 2005.</ref> During that time period, Sheezy abruptly changed policies to both remove adult art and take a stronger stance against users and their uploads. Warnings were supposedly issued from the site's service provider, advising SheezyArt that they were not permitted to host adult content on their site.

Much of Sheezy's community was abandoned after the rules change took effect. This migration left many with few alternatives. Many of those burned by SheezyArt went on to sites such as Fur Affinity and [[y!Gallery]]; when the latter decided to ban [[anthro art]] in May 2006 to refocus on its core topic, Fur Affinity gained further traffic.

=== Server problems of 2005 ===

Fur Affinity suffered from major security holes and hacking during Summer 2005. The site was shut down on 1 August due to a disagreement between lead coder [[Jheryn]] and host provider [[Arcturus]], the primary administrators of the site. At that time Fur Affinity had 12,174 user accounts and nearly 100,000 submissions. Arcturus and his supporters went on to found [[ArtPlz]].

Thanks to the community, Fur Affinity was able to build a stronger, faster server than the site originally used for operation. Over the course of 2005, Fur Affinity raised $1,500 in donations towards the purchase of a new primary server, though it did not go online until the middle of 2006.

Fur Affinity returned to operation in December 2005 with a solid backbone and more efficient coding, though full operational status was not reached until December 10 due to a defect in the motherboard which powered the server. Over 10,000 submissions were made in the first 12 hours subsequent to Fur Affinity's official re-opening, including both art from returning users and pieces not previously posted.

=== Fur Affinity: United! ===
{{main|FA: United}}
In August 2007, Fur Affinity held its own [[furry convention]] titled Fur Affinity: United! (commonly abbreviated as FA:U) at the Ramada Newark Airport International (now Wyndham Garden Hotel Newark Airport) in [[Wikipedia:Newark, New Jersey|Newark, New Jersey]]. The convention drew 310 attendees, with 25 fursuiters participating in the fursuit parade. The convention was a success and a hit among con goers, so much that another one followed that next year on August 1-3 2008, meeting with an equal amount of success.

The convention did not come without a flaw:

==== 2007 breach ====
On 11 August 2007, The Dragoneer's admin account was compromised at [[FA: United‎]] when he used the hotel's unencrypted [[Wikipedia:Wi-fi|Wi-Fi]] connection to access it.<ref>http://www.furaffinityforums.net/showthread.php?tid=11488 Thread by Preyfar on the FA forums about the August 2007 breach</ref><ref>http://www.furaffinityforums.net/showthread.php?tid=11484&pid=195037#pid195037 Post by Preyfar on the FA forums with a more elaborate account of the 2007 breach</ref>The first sign of trouble was a note left on the front page that announced the following:
{{q|''Administrator notice: We're sorry, our vaginas are currently full of sand. We're makin' pearls here, folks! :D! FA:U rocks. We all got handjobs from [[Glaide]] and [[Damaratus]]. -- hacked by [[jheryn]]''}}
Assurances were made that the password database had not been compromised, and the main site came back online 48 hours later. The FA forums were not affected.

=== 2008 hardware fault ===
On 1 July 2008, the main site of Fur Affinity was taken offline again due to a "server hardware fault",<ref>[http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=22182 "Server Hardware Fault"] (2008, July 1). Dragoneer, Fur Affinity Forum.</ref> to be replaced by an image of Fender angrily stomping his computer followed by a notice about the failure and a link to that forum thread. By 7 July, Fur Affinity's members had donated $16,000-$18,000 to solve the issue,<ref>FA Forums: [http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=22182&page=120 ''Server Hardware Fault''], page 120, post #1786 by [[Artie]] reads ''"$10,477.15 via Amazon, plus over $6,000 via PayPal. So, '''over $16,477.15 total''' so far."'' on July 6th 2008, 5:35PM EST</ref><ref>FA Forums: [http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=22411 ''Public Donation and Expenditures Log, Please.''], page 1, post #15 by [[Seppel]] (based on an official file published by Dragoneer [http://forums.furaffinity.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=3481&d=0 here]) reads ''"I checked the budget Dragoneer posted. $18,000 is more than twice FA has ever had. ''[...]'' $18,000 will go far. Very far."'' (7 July 2008, 9:03AM EST)</ref> and Dragoneer posted on the FA forums that a new server, an HP ProLiant quad-core Opteron code-named ''Trogdor'' had been ordered.

On July 14, the order for ''Trogdor'' was canceled due to confirmed issues with the vendor. The final hardware order was:
*'''Data Server''' - Dell Poweredge 2970 2U Server, 32GB RAM
*'''Storage Array''' - 14 1TB hard drives
*'''DB Server Upgrades''' - 24GB additional RAM
*'''Web Server''' - Sun Fire x4150 1U Server, 4GB RAM

Fur Affinity resumed operation on 5 August 2008 at 11:30pm EST in read-only mode. The site was stable again with all options and features prior to the outage by 9:20am EST the next day. Since the prolonged outage, admins have gone out of their way to assure users that subsequent outages wouldn't be as bad or as lengthy as "the August incident", or "Augustgate". <ref>[http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/6280557497]</ref>

=== July 2009 outage and IRC bans ===

On 29 July 2009, Fur Affinity suffered a temporary service outage (later found to be due to a power failure caused by lightning<ref>http://forums.furaffinity.net/showpost.php?p=1105765&postcount=3</ref>). During the confusion, FA forum moderator [[Carenath]] accused members of the [[FurNet (IRC)|FurNet]] [[IRC]] channel #hackfurs of causing the outage, resulting in multiple people residing in both #furaffinity and #hackfurs being banned.<ref><pre>(Chat logs truncated to remove noise. More bans than shown were handed out, but not all shown to maintain readability.)
00:40:24 <Carenath> *points a finger at #hackfurs*
00:41:14 <Carenath> Well, put two and two together... people in that channel,
have axes to grind against FA and if it was an outside cause..
I'd blame them first.
00:41:39 <Carenath> Meredith: they did it before.
00:42:37 * Pi (~pi@fur-9F1E9EA1.tcct.nmt.edu) has joined #furaffinity
00:42:38 * ChanServ sets ban on *!*pi@fur-9F1E9EA1.tcct.nmt.edu
00:42:38 * ChanServ has kicked Pi from #furaffinity (User has been banned from the channel)
00:44:26 <Carenath> Meredith: Im not an FA Admin.
00:44:58 <Carenath> FAF forum mod.
00:46:00 * ChanServ has kicked Meredith from #furaffinity (Requested (Pinkatron))
00:46:02 * Meredith (~arcturus@fur-71797932.hsd1.pa.comcast.net) has joined #furaffinity
00:46:02 * ChanServ sets ban on *!*arcturus@fur-71797932.hsd1.pa.comcast.net
00:46:02 * ChanServ has kicked Meredith from #furaffinity (User has been banned from the channel)</pre></ref> FA admin [[Pinkuh]] is believed to have performed the bans, due to the request notice on Meredith's kick message. Despite an admission that the accusation was mere speculation, Pinkuh did not revoke the bans until the following day. Carenath reported apologized for his remarks later.

Some who questioned the decision were temporarily banned from FurNet by network administrator [[Snowpony]],<ref><pre>23:52 -!- Snowpony [admin@alicorn.furnet.org] has joined #furaffinity
23:54 -!- Pi_ [~pi@u15354709.onlinehome-server.com] has quit [User has been banned from FurNet (Ban Evasion)]
23:56 -!- GHDA [~GHDA@pool-173-79-208-221.washdc.fios.verizon.net] has quit [User has been banned from FurNet (Trolling is bad m'kay?)]</pre></ref> who cited "trolling and previous conduct." These bans were initially made without a reason, a violation of the FurNet code of conduct; those questioning them also received threats of being banned.<ref><pre>01:38 < Snowpony> omiiko: for trolling and previous conduct. That enough for you?
01:39 <+AFKobura> Snowpony apparently someone tried private message with the
specific admin and they were turned away with a threat of being klined themselves
01:39 < Snowpony> AFKobura: and?
01:39 <+omiiko> Snowpony: I'd prefer if the Admins followed their own CoC and
placed the ban reason in the actual *line
01:40 < Snowpony> omiiko: Sure - I'll go update the ban then.
01:44 < Snowpony> Bobbluejay: I've answered your questions - they can log back in 24 hours.</pre></ref>

=== November/December 2009 outage ===

Fur Affinity experienced an outage starting on 30 November 2009, when the site's ISP experienced technical difficulties due to broken fiber optic cables.<ref>''[http://community.livejournal.com/furaffinity/211143.html Oh, and you thought your cable outages were annoying?]'' - [[Net-Cat]], {{lj-comm|furaffinity}} (30 November 2009)</ref> By 2 December, the ISP still hadn't responded to FA staff email. The site's Twitter channel noted that staff were to visit the co-location facility later that day to investigate the issue. They also announced tentative plans to switch to a new facility, maybe even in Canada,<ref>''[http://community.livejournal.com/furaffinity/211348.html 02/Dec]'' - [[The Dragoneer]], {{lj-comm|furaffinity}} (2 December 2009)</ref> but eventually settled on a new host offering 25% more bandwidth that is still in Virginia.<ref>''[http://community.livejournal.com/furaffinity/211725.html It looks like we're planning to bring the site up Monday night]'' - [[The Dragoneer]], {{lj-comm|furaffinity}} (4 December 2009)</ref> Fur Affinity has since came back online with the forums first on Tuesday, December 8 <ref>''[http://community.livejournal.com/furaffinity/212707.html 08/Dec]'' - [[thevirtualcat]], {{lj-comm|furaffinity}} (8 December 2009)</ref> and the rest of the site returned to full use at around 12:30 AM EST, Wednesday, December 9. <ref>''[http://community.livejournal.com/furaffinity/212707.html 09/Dec]'' - [[The Dragoneer]], {{lj-comm|furaffinity}} (9 December 2009)</ref><ref>''[http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/6489402972 Furaffinity Tweet Announcing the Site is Back]'' - [[The Dragoneer]] - [http://twitter.com/furaffinity Furaffinity Twitter Page] (9 December 2009)</ref>

===2010 features===
In March 2010, [[DeviantART]]-like profile ID images, in which one could post an image as a persistent identification badge (often containing basic information such as a name, date of birth, and likes/dislikes), were enabled for Fur Affinity user profile pages.

On April 17, the embedding of [[YouTube]] and other external [[wikipedia:Adobe Flash|Adobe Flash]]-based videos within journal posts was enabled. Embeds of videos are visible within post pages but are rendered as their respective URL text links when one sees the most recent journal post in the profile page.

In October 2010, a feature was introduced, which allows the owner of a submission or journal to hide a comment given in that submission, which is also possible for the owner of the comment. In addition, administrators can hide and unhide every comment posted to any submission sitewide.

===2010 December Hack===

On December 17th a hacker was able to use a cross-site scripting (XSS) exploit<ref>''http://community.livejournal.com/furaffinity/213163.html'' FA Livejournal</ref> that existed in the trouble ticket system to take control of an administrator account. The site was taken offline while this was fixed, and resumed normal operations a few hours later. The next day, an administrator's personal email account was compromised, allowing the hacker to request a password reset on FurAffinity. This time, the site was not taken offline, instead the administrators all had their admin permissions pulled, but not before the hacker was able to wipe a number of user's galleries and download the private notes of several high-profile users. The forums were also accessed during this time and had the private Admin boards exposed to the public. FurAffinity has reported a total of 41 accounts were accessed. Dragoneer has since then apologized to those who's accounts were accessed and has offered them a free sponsorship-level membership to [[FA: United]].

It should be noted that former FA developer Eevee had [http://eevee.livejournal.com/329817.html mentioned] the possibility that a XSS exploit existed in the trouble ticket system a few months earlier, after Eevee had demonstrated that the hide comment feature was insecure and would allow anyone to hide any comment. Critics say that FurAffinity was well aware that the site code was vulnerable to attacks like the initial XSS exploits for years but have been slow to fix it.
[[File:NewSonicAgeRules.png|right|thumb|Sonic "age up" guideline diagram|300px]]
=== 2012 "aged up" guideline ===

On February 8, 2012, it was announced by [[Sciggles]] that a new "age up" guideline was now in effect regarding [[Sonic]] characters' "[[cub]] art".<ref>[http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/114609-Sonic-Guidelines-for-Mature-Adult-Images ''Guidelines for Mature/Adult Sonic Images''] (retrieved February 8, 2012)</ref> Sexual artwork of the characters canon image would not be allowed, as they were considered, by FA staff, as cub [[characters]].

No restrictions would be imposed on Sonic sexual material as long as the characters were "aged up" (with a diagram provided).

It was later clarified that [[My Little Pony]] would not be covered by this rule, except for [[Baby Spike]] and the [[Cutie Mark Crusaders]], while [[Tiny Toons]] would. No other animated shows were mentioned further on the post.

[[Pinkuh]] reiterated on FAF that this announcement was a reconfirmation of a "Sonic age up" policy posted on 2010 on the FA's forum.<ref>[http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/88335-A-clarification-on-sonic-underage ''A clarification on sonic/underage''] (retrieved February 13, 2012)</ref>

On September 7, 2012, administrators began banning artists of "aged-up" Sonic adult art.

==Controversies==
=== Pornographic cub art ===

*August 2006 saw the restart of an internal administrative debate over the presence of [[pornographic]] underage furry artwork (or "[[cub]] art").<ref>''"[http://dragonmyr.deviantart.com/journal/10641590/ DA account reactivated -- FA Truths revealed]"''. Posted by [[Myr]] on November 6, 2006 and deleted several days after.</ref> Such art was forbidden by the site's Terms of Service, which specified that "depictions of [[sex|sexually]] immature characters in any sexual situation are not permitted on Fur Affinity", but bans for this rule were not uniformly enforced. As with previous discussions, administrators could not come to an agreement on whether or not to modify site policy.<ref>[http://www.furaffinityforums.net/showthread.php?tid=4335&pid=63174#pid63174 Comment by The Dragoneer on previous attempts to solve the cub debate]. Posted on November 6, 2006.</ref> Over the following months the issue developed into a public debate, with forum polls and discussion suggesting that the site's members were divided on the topic.

*On November 5, it was announced that such work would be allowed, with the requirement of mandatory tagging. The main reasons given for this decision were that no actual minors were harmed during the artwork's creation, and that depictions of many other illegal activities, such as rape, murder, and drug use, were permitted. Conversely, work that depicted [[human]] children, including [[anime characters]], in sexual situations was forbidden.<ref>''"[http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=3965 ''FA Policy Notice - "Cub" Art'']"''. Posted by The Dragoneer on November 5, 2006.</ref> Non-photorealistic art depicting minors is no longer forbidden (current policy on this point is merely that submissions "shall not violate the law of the United States of America, be it State or Federal.") Some artists had threatened to leave the site if it was not forbidden, and some of these did so.{{fact}}

*On November 24th 2010, [[Dragoneer]] officially changed site policy to:
{{q|FA does not permit content containing minors involved in sexual situations. This applies to humans ([[W:Loli|Loli]], [[W:Shota|Shota]]) or otherwise human-like characters (i.e. Cub) who are, without question, under the general legal age (18)}}
This was due to [[W:AlerPay|AlertPay]] (their funding) dropping them, citing mature cub art as the reason. Artists were given 21 days to clean their galleries, and cub artists were given protection from harassment.

This caused an uproar within the cub community, with several artists nuking their galleries, and migrating to [[Sofurry]] or [[Inkbunny]] (although several users and artists alike see the cub porn removal as a positive aspect for FA, some of whom even praised Dragoneer for the decision). It even escalated to the point where [[Dragoneer]] and other admins received death threats from disgruntled artists.{{fact}} The ban also led furry musical comedy act [[Drama Armada]] to record the song [http://www.furaffinity.net/view/5541107 "Where Has All The Cub Porn Gone?"], a parody of [[w:Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?|"Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?"]] by [[w:Paula Cole|Paula Cole]].

=== 2008 Thanksgiving banner ===

[[Image:ThanksgivingFA.jpg|right|300px|thumb|Rednef and Fender's Thanksgiving banner]]
The November 2008 Thanksgiving banner featured pictures of community mascots [[Rednef]] and [[Fender]] depicted as immensely obese after a turkey meal, to the point of resembling [[inflation]] art. Some FA users complained about the nature of the image as being "tasteless", "disgusting", a "fucking fetish", "shit", etc...<ref>[http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=31483 "''New Banner is tastless and disgusting''," original 2008 Thanksgiving banner discussion]</ref>, often referencing the fact that the artist's gallery was full of fat fetish pictures.

Counter-arguments against this initial argument, such as "there are fat people in real life", "fat isn't necessarily a fetish", "eating lots is kinda connected with this time of year", "it's just up for a day anyway," had no effect in dissuading the initial users, so after almost a dozen threads with neither the "for" nor "against" sides of the disagreement demonstrating any ability to come to an acceptable decision over the image, FA administrators replaced the image with the initial November Fall themed banner to stem the bad blood running though the archives and forum.<ref>[http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=31532&highlight=removed Thread discussing the banner removal]</ref>

By late Thanksgiving day, The banner was replaced with plain text reading "FurAffinity.net"; however new threads appeared complaining about the ''removal'' of the banner{{fact}} and, a few hours afterwards, it was reinstated and went on to serve its term the rest of the day.{{fact}} After which the November banner was put back in use.

In contrast, the Thanksgiving 2009 banner was a relatively harmless image of a turkey made to look like Fender being placed into an oven. This banner was still complained about, with users going so far as to claim it depicted the cooking or [[vore]] fetishes, though it is unclear how many of them were genuine complaints and how many were simply jokingly referring to the massive amount of complaints resulting from the 2008 banner.

=== Chewfox's appearance on The Tyra Banks Show ===

:''Main article'': ''[[The Tyra Banks Show]]'' and [[Chew Fox]]

=== [[Furocity]] merger and subsequent staffing issues ===

In July 2011 Dragoneer announced that [[Furocity]] and FurAffinity would be "Joining forces"<ref>http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/103573-Fur-Affinity-Furocity-Merger-Announcement?p=2618095#post2618095</ref>, with many members of Furocity's staff joining FurAffinity. Over a month later, 7 members of Furocity's staff were officially brought on board<ref>https://forums.vivisector.org/index.php/topic,545.0.html</ref> without warning the existing staff<ref>http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/105754-New-Staff-Structure-and-Admins?p=2656512&viewfull=1#post2656512</ref>, some of whom were removed from their administrator positions. New "departments" were created to better serve the users.

In late October, four of the Furocity administrators abruptly resigned<ref>https://forums.vivisector.org/index.php/topic,560.0.html</ref>, citing poor communication, "hostile admins", and a lack of leadership. Within a few weeks, Gavin [[Daemonshyai]] was the only Furocity staff member left on FA, and the "department" system was abandoned. It wasn't until four months later that Gavin was removed from the Fur Affinity staff page as site owner, although his user page indicates that he still retains his admin access.

== April Fools Day ==
On [[wikipedia:April Fools Day|April Fools Day]] 2007, the FA banner depicted site mascot Fender as a busty [[female]] [[dragon]], with similar colourations to the original ferrox form and wearing his signature blue tie. The Fender account's avatar displayed the dragoness as well. Fender's appearance returned to normal after about a week, but in May 2007, it was announced that the female dragon form would become a separate character from Fender, and a second mascot for Fur Affinity, named Rednef, "Fender" backwards. Since then, Rednef has appeared on many of the monthly and holiday-based banners, either alone or with Fender.

For April Fools Day 2009, the homepage of Fur Affinity was snowing [[wikipedia:llama|llamas]]. In addition to this, two spoof additions joined the randomly displayed mini-advertisements, which featured [[wikipedia:Rick Astley|Rick Astley]] and [[wikipedia:Barack Obama|Barack Obama]]. They linked to a [[wikipedia:Rickrolling|Rickroll]] and the [[wikipedia:Rickrolling#Barack_Roll|Barack Roll]] respectively. The banners were made by [[Hiro Judgement]] and [[Alexander Grey]], although they were not credited for the work.

==References==
<references />
{{WikiFurSourced|Fur Affinity}}
{{Fur Affinity topics}}
[[Category:History by website]]

The Goddamned Furry Board

2012-06-18T00:17:05Z

50.131.74.239:

[[File:The Goddamned Furry Board logo.png|right]]
'''The Goddamned Furry Board''' ('''''TGFB''''' for short) is a [[Kusaba]] X-based [[imageboard]] run by [[Sage Freehaven]] and [[Sechs Fuckheaven]], and offers boards for a variety of topics, including [[furry art]].

* '''Website''': http://tgfb.net
* '''Founders and administrators''': Sage Freehaven and Sechs Fuckheaven
* '''Moderators''': [[Ragnarok]]
* '''Special Moderators''': [[Punker]] (for /ddt/)
* '''Ran from/to''': August 8, 2008 - present

== Do Not Post Policy ==

Unlike some [[fchan|furry imageboards]], there is not a strict Do Not Post policy in place at TGFB; most artists' work is free to be posted on the site. There are a few listings on the site's Do-Not-Post list, however; some of the listings are there as a matter of courtesy or habit, some are there as a result of special deals made with the listed artists, and some are there as a result of disputes between the listed artists and the site's administrators. As of February 11, 2011, the site prohibits posting of content from / made by:

* '''[[SexyFur]], Tailheat, and [[Jeremy Bernal]]'''
* '''[[Phillip M. Jackson]]''' - mentioning his name is also a bannable offense
* '''[[Vixine]]'''
* '''Ganador and/or Peach Fuzz'''
* '''[[Jim Hardiman]]'''
* '''[[Fur After Dark|FurAfterDark]]''' - Limited to links of full siterips and images uploaded to the site within the past two months, at the request of the site owner
* '''[[Club Stripes|ClubStripes]]''' - Limited to links of full siterips/massive content dumps
* '''[[HardBlush]] / [[Onta]]'''
* '''[[Miranda Leigh]] / Smokingpen.com''' - Paid content is prohibited at the request of the site owner; her free content is allowed
* '''Richard Helms'''
* '''[[John Martello]]'''
* '''[[Lupine Assassin]]''' - Works featuring his character are off-limits due to the legal threats made against FurAffinity{{fact}}

Additionally, there are generally no rules, either guiding behavior of the users or site staff, of the quality of the work posted. There is a "soft ban" on cub porn, in that while it is not a bannable offense to post such art on TGFB, it will most likely be deleted if it is posted.

The site also offers advertising space to those willing to provide something in exchange (usually artwork made exclusively for the site and/or at the behest of Sage, Sechs, or Ragnarok). Sites and artists who are on the DNP listing are ineligible for this offer.

[[ClubStripes]], [[FurAfterDark]], and [[Smokingpen.com]] are on good terms with TGFB and allow posting of paywalled content from said sites on a limited basis.

== IRC ==

An IRC channel dedicated to the site can be found on the Rizon.net IRC servers at #tgfb

* '''Owner/Lead Administraitor''': Sage Freehaven
* '''Co-Admin''': Sechs Freehaven
* '''Channel Ops''': NekoKatkune, RichardFox, Ragnarok

In general, the channel tends to be more liberally moderated than the boards due to it being an IRC channel; however, it is recommended that you use an IRC client with an auto-rejoin feature to access the room, as sometimes the operators will kick users (and each other) for their amusement.

{{Image boards}}

[[Category:Mature image boards]]

WikiFur - User contributions [en]

History of Fur Affinity

The Goddamned Furry Board