Gulf Coast Furs

2011-03-22T02:29:47Z

98.183.35.153:

'''Gulf Coast Furs''' (often abbreviated as "GCF") is a application-only website and forum for [[furries]] living along the [[Wikipedia:Gulf Coast of the United States|Gulf Coast of the United States]]. The goal of the website is to promote In Real Life ([[IRL]]) interaction among furries in the area. This website exists to provide expansion of the communities original mailing list in addition to better facilitating event planning.
[[File:gcf.jpg|Right|thumb|Logo of Gulf Coast Furs ©Kemmy (resigned)]]

==History==

* Gulf Coast Furs was derived from the Pensacola Furs Google Group, originally ran by [[Shira]]. On '''December 4th, 2009''', [[Selroth]] joined this Google Group and saw the need for a website. On the same night, he created the website for proposal. Shira moved out of the local area, and the group was under administrative reform with [[Carenath]] inheriting ownership of the group. Selroth vigorously proposed a website prototype to Carenath, but received little to no response.

* On '''February 7th, 2010''', Selroth turned the prototype website into a production site and announced it within the Pensacola Furs mailing list. Carenath was designated as a co-administrator. Over the next few months, all activity of Pensacola Furs would migrate to the new website.

* On '''February 28th, 2010''', the name "Gulf Coast Furs" was officially adopted to the community. The name was mentioned by Carenath during discussion of the prototype during a 2009 Christmas party.

* As of '''July 24th, 2010''', the website exploded into a total of 97 members (active within the month), 4112 posts within 343 topics, and 212661 page views. Approximately 65 group events have been organized. The website was looking to be a major success.

* On '''November 1, 2010''', conflict between the administration forced the .com domain to become inoperable when the site was taken down abruptly by Selroth who replaced the html content with a logfile of private emails and discussion with Carenath without consent. The next day, GulfCoastFurs.'''org''' was brought online by Selroth to preserve the community. Carenath's administrator privileges were revoked in this version of the website until he could restore the .com version and guarantee preservation of the community.

* As of '''November 13, 2010''', the .com domain had become operational. In an agreement with Carenath, to prevent a permanent split, Selroth provided the most up-to-date database to the Carenath. Between making the mistake of shutting down the site, Selroth resigned. ''(Note: Carenath became an Administrator due to his prior Owner an Moderator status of the communities prior egroups and his longstanding presence in the community.)''. Selroth shut down the .org domain, and Carenath became the sole administrator of the community.

* Throughout the following winter months after Selroth's resignation, no official events were hosted. This was due to disorganization, and lack of activity, in the staff. Cold weather was partially to blame, but while there were several opportunities for indoor events none were able to be planned. Several members, including Selroth, consistently challenged the idle administration and lack of resolution for outstanding issues.

* As of '''27 February 2011''', due to him losing faith in Carenath's ability to maintain his privacy, Selroth removed all his posts (posts and contributions to the community belong to the user, and not the community). Carenath suspected malicious intent, restored many of the posts and disabled Selroth's account. Following verification of Selroth's actions and clarification of his intent, all posts were removed per his request and his access restored. Selroth has discontinued activity on the site for an indefinite period due to personal reasons.

==Website==

The website was built from [[Wikipedia:Simple Machines Forum|Simple Machines Forum]] technology, featuring discussion boards, instant messaging, chatroom, calendar, gallery, member map, and member profiles.

==Philosophies==

====Gated Community====
Membership of Gulf Coast Furs was taken very seriously. To join the community, one must register on the website with a short biography (one or two sentences). They then must wait to be approved by an Administrator or "Volunteer" (one who has moderation capabilities), who used to personally sponsor them by engaging in chat, meeting IRL, or personalized hand-written email. As opposed to the past, inactive memberships are now placed in a permission-limited status instead of deleted. This practice better accommodates our military members who often may be unable to log in for extended periods of time.

====Open Administration====
Selroth founded the website using an "Open Administration" philosophy, which does not censor information or maintain secrets. All politics, drama, moderation, and administrative participation were dealt with in a sub-forum where members can freely choose to show or hide. Since Selroth's resignation, the administration has been operating as closed administration. This decision was arrived at after several polls were conducted with all resulting in final tally's in favor of closed administration. While "Open Administration" has its idealistic points, the current staff did not feel it was appropriate or viable for the forum. At present the Gulf Coast Furs site is redesigning a more sound Terms of Service to better prevent issues of the past.

====Rule-Free Environment====
There was no set of written rules or a Code of Conduct within the community, aside laws inherited from the State. All drama was dealt with on a case-by-case basis in as real-time as possible. The intention is for the community to adapt to the members, and not the members adapting to the community. However, due to the poor staff and management, drama was allowed to grow within the site resulting in the loss of a large number of members; some of which had been a part of the local community for over a decade.

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External Links==

*[http://www.gulfcoastfurs.com/ Gulf Coast Furs Official Website]
*[http://www.simplemachines.org Simple Machines Forum]

[[Category:Regional groups]]
[[Category:Forums]]
[[Category:Alabama]]
[[Category:Florida]]
[[Category:Louisiana]]
[[Category:Mississippi]]
[[Category:Texas]]

Selroth

2011-03-22T02:28:21Z

98.183.35.153:

{{copyedit}}
Selroth is only partly furry, with a "fursona" of a feral imagination dragon-like creature, of a species he calls 'Roths.

He originally got into the [[otherkin]] community in 1999. He then became the lead Administrator of Draconomicon.com (now known as [[Draconity.org]] in 2003. Around 2008, he started migrating to the furry fandom due to rationalizing nothing supernatural about his imaginary creatures. In 2010, he founded the [[Gulf Coast Furs]] website which he administrated from February 7th, 2010 through November 13th, 2010.

==External links==
{{Contributor}}
*[http://www.draconity.org Draconity.org]
*[http://www.gulfcoastfurs.com Gulf Coast Furs]

[[Category:People]]
[[Category:Otherkin]]
[[Category:Dragon characters]]

WikiFur - User contributions [en]

Gulf Coast Furs

Selroth