WikiFur - User contributions [en]

Corgi Events

2022-02-24T01:40:44Z

Murrypurryfurry: /* Collapse of Corgi Events, LLC */ The Lemonbrat "allegations" are a full-blown court case that's easily found online.

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[[File:Corgieventmedlogo.png|thumbnail|right|Corgi Events' logo since 2019]]
'''Corgi Events, LLC''' (formerly '''Ponyville Bronies, LLC'''), was a [[convention management company]] originally formed/founded in 2013 by [[Treble Vandoren]] ([[W:CEO|CEO]]), and based out of [[W:Kenosha, Wisconsin|Kenosha, Wisconsin]], USA.<ref name="CorgiHistory">[https://www.wdfi.org/apps/CorpSearch/Details.aspx?entityID=P062449&hash=1223945503&searchFunctionID=c6d2942a-8239-4d1a-b2bc-7882370981a6&type=Simple&q=Corgi+Events] Corgi Events' registration with the Wisconsin Secretary of State</ref>

Corgi Event organized and ran multiple [[furry convention]]s (up to four each year),{{cn}} with others that were unannounced, {{clarify}}{{cn}} as well as several other non-furry cons such as [[Ponyville Ciderfest]] and [[Whinny City Pony Con]], among others.

== History ==

Treble was brought into the [[furry community]] fold while working as an assistant for [[fursuit maker]] [[Lemonbrat]] at several furcons. Already running [[Brony]] and [[anime]] conventions{{cn}} under the Ponyville Bronies, LLC label, he decided to get involved with furry conventions as well, with [[AquatiFur]] (a furcon held at a [[W:Water park|water park]]),<ref name="DogpatchInterview">[https://dogpatch.press/2018/11/29/corgi-events/ Corgi Events is the Fandom's First Convention Management Company] Dogpatch Press interview with Treble Vandoren, CEO of Corgi Events. Retrieved June 2, 2019.</ref> being the first one, which resulted in the company changing its name from Ponyville Bronies to Corgi Events in 2017.<ref name="CorgiHistory"/>

==Business model==

Corgi Events shifted from the established furcons in that not only did it manage multiple cons across different communities, but it ran on a [[W:Business|for-profit model]], with the idea being that it allows simpler company structure while also providing for compensation that lets upper management dedicate themselves to the cons as a part-time job.<ref name="DogpatchInterview"/>

The company's convention management strategy was to create conventions in areas that had a convention that closed down but where there is still demand for one, or to create them in areas where the community has expressed interest in a convention but one has not been formed yet. The company received many requests for conventions,{{cn}} which are taken into consideration before research is conducted on each possible convention's local community as part of staff recruitment; the bulk of each convention's staff is recruited from the local community to preserve a local feel for each.<ref name="DogpatchInterview"/>

One noticeable feature of Corgi's unified management had been standardization, with standardized processes such as [[registration]], [[dealer's den]] applications, [[staff]] applications, etc. across all of its conventions. Every convention also has shared expenses at the company level, which allows for less overhead and more money to be spent on convention activities.

== Corgi Events initial furcons ==

* [[AquatiFur]]
* [[DenFur]]
* [[Golden State Fur Con]]
* [[Painted Desert Fur Con]]
* [[Sin City Murr Con]]

==Collapse of Corgi Events, LLC==
{{Flayrah|node1=8573|title1=Corgi Events to disband after staff upheaval following Sin City Murr Con's first year}}
In February 2022, vendors who registered for Denfur's Dealer's Den received an email from a Corgi Events, LLC [[staff member]] claiming that Treble was planning on taking the money paid by [[artist]]s who paid for Dealer's Den spots in upcoming cons, filing for [[W:Bankruptcy|bankruptcy]], and then [[bailing out]].<ref>{{cite web |title= Kikidoodle & Purrmaids on Twitter: "UMMM BEWARE EVERYONE SHIT IS GOING ON WITH DENFUR @DenFurCO 😬 https://t.co/X1eYToOztC" / Twitter |url= https://twitter.com/KikiDoodleTweet/status/1491268497007312896 |date= 2022-02-08 |access-date=2022-02-15}}</ref>

There was also an accusation that Treble had allegedly embezzled $40k from Lemonbrat as well<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nerdandtie.com/2018/12/04/lemonbrat-has-filed-suit-against-former-employee-and-con-runner-corey-wood/|title=Lemonbrat Has Filed Suit Against Former Employee (and Con-Runner) Corey Wood}}</ref>, with Treble denying this allegation,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://twitter.com/TrebleVandoren/status/1491283197447249922|title=Pocket Treble 🔜 MFF on Twitter: "@vileotter @KikiDoodleTweet Is it? Yes. But this is my company. Can't steal from what puts a roof over my daughter's head. Also this: This isn't the case. I just fired their friend, so they quit and had email access of course. The con is still and has been and will be happening. We have contracts til 25'" / Twitter}}</ref> which resulted in Treble both terminating the employee{{who}} who sent out the email,<ref>[https://twitter.com/TrebleVandoren/status/1491269639791587335 "This actually isn't the case. They (the person sending this email) just quit cause I fired @KoiVixen~"] - Treble Vandoren, Twitter (February 8, 2022)</ref>, and releasing an official statement via Corgi Events' [[Twitter]] on February 9, 2022, apologizing for the distress the situation may have caused.{{cn}}

48 hours later, on February 11, 2022, the [[Board of Directors]] of [[Anthropomorphic Events Incorporated Organization United]] released a statement via Corgi Events' Twitter stating that Corgi Events would cease to exist and that all its holdings would be transferred to a new non-profit organization, with DenFur, Golden State Fur Con, Painted Desert Fur Con, and AquatiFur continuing on schedule, with more information regarding Sin City Murr Con to come at a later date.

==References==
<references/>

== External links ==

* [https://corgievents.com Corgievents.com] - Corgi Events, LLC official website
* [https://twitter.com/CorgiEventsLLC?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor Corgi Events, LLC] on [[Twitter]]

[[Category:Organizations]]
[[Category:Companies]]

History of Fur Affinity

2021-02-05T06:41:45Z

Murrypurryfurry: /* Controversy */ 2021 re-acquisition start. lot going on here, folks.

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==History==

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

[http://Furaffinity.net Furaffinity.net] 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 [[FurPaws]].<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 who abandoned 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 (2005) ===

Fur Affinity suffered from major security holes and [[W:hacking|hacking]] during the summer of 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 create [[ArtPlz]].

Thanks to the community, Fur Affinity was able to build a stronger, faster server than the site originally used for the 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 arts from returning users and pieces not previously posted.

=== April Fools Day (2007) ===

On [[wikipedia:April Fools Day|April Fools' Day]] 2007, the FA banner depicted site [[mascot]] [[Fender]] as a busty [[female]] [[dragon]], with similar coloration's to the original ferrox form and wearing his signature blue tie. [[Fender]]'s account avatar displayed the dragoness as well. Fender's appearance returned to normal after about a week. 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" backward). Since then, Rednef has appeared on many of the monthly and holiday-based banners, either alone or with Fender.

=== 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 [[fursuit]]ers participating in the fursuit parade. The convention was a success and a hit among con-goers, so much so that another one followed the next year in August 2008, meeting an equal amount of success.

=== Dragoneer account breach (2007) ===

On 11 August 2007, [[Dragoneer]]'s administrator account was compromised at [[FA: United‎]] when he used the hotel's unsecure, public [[Wikipedia:Wi-fi|Wi-Fi]] connection to access it.{{fact}}
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.

=== Server problems (2008; '''Augustgate''') ===

On 1 July 2008, 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 6, 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, 9:03 AM 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 August 5, 2008, at 11:30 pm (EST), in read-only mode. The site was stable again with all options and features prior to the outage by 9:20 am 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 it, it came to be known, "the August incident". <ref>[http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/6280557497 ''Augustgate''] (Retrieved ?)</ref>

=== April Fools Day (2009) ===

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.

=== Server problems and IRC bans (July 2009) ===

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>

=== Server problems (November/December 2009) ===

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 was 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 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>

=== Server enhancements (2010) ===

In March 2010, [[deviantART]]-like profile ID [[image]]s, 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 [[W:URL|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 could hide and unhide every comment posted to any submission sitewide.

=== Server hack (2010) ===

On December 17, 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 Fur Affinity. 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.
[[File:Simple Warren Bust.png|right|thumb|''Simple Warren Bust'' by Warren Duster]]
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 whose 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 mentioned<ref>[http://eevee.livejournal.com/329817.html Eevee] (Retrieved ?)</ref> 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{{who}} said 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.{{fact}}

=== Furocity staff merge ===

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 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.{{fact}} New "departments" were created to better serve the users.

=== 10.000.000 user posts ===

In February 24, 2013, Fur Affinity reached the milestone of 10,000,000 submitted media.<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4376076 ''10,000,000'' post] by Fender on his Fur Affinity account (Retrieved February 26, 2013)</ref> The file that made this possible was '''''Simple Warren Bust''''', by artist [[Warren Duster]].<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/view/10000000 "Simple Warren Bust" submission] by Warren Duster on his Fur Affinity account (Retrieved February 26, 2013)</ref>

=== Zaush ===

On December 2013, [[furry artist]] [[Zaush]] joins the Fur Affinity staff as a volunteer developer/designer to help on the site's further development,<ref>[https://twitter.com/Zaush/status/415375416405151744 Zaush announcement about joining Fur Affinity] post on [[Twitter]]. Posted December 23, 2013. Retrieved January 17, 2014.</ref> codenamed '''Project Phoenix'''.<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/5417252 ''Banner Update + Project Phoenix''] post by [[Fender]] on Fur Affinity. Posted January 15, 2014. Retrieved January 17, 2014.</ref>

===Ursa Major Awards===
Fur Affinity won the [[2012 Ursa Major Awards|2012]] and [[2012 Ursa Major Awards|2013]] [[Ursa Major Awards]] for Best Anthropomorphic Website.<ref>[http://www.ursamajorawards.org/UMA_2012.htm Ursa Major Awards - 2012] on the UMA website. Retrieved June 2, 2014.</ref><ref>[http://www.ursamajorawards.org/UMA_2013.htm Ursa Major Awards - 2013] on the UMA website. Retrieved June 2, 2014.</ref>

=== DDoS Attack (2014) ===

On Tuesday, October 14th Fur Affinity suffered a major [[Wikipedia:Denial-of-service attack|Distributed Denial of Service attack]], which led to apparent copycat attacks on other furry sites.<ref>[http://www.reddit.com/r/furry/comments/2jikj4/lets_talk_ddos/ "Let's Talk DDOS"] - posting by Dragoneer on Reddit. Dated October 17, 2014. Retrieved October 19, 2014.</ref><ref>''[https://www.flayrah.com/5888/furry-websites-face-broad-denial-service-attacks Furry websites face broad denial-of-service attacks]'' - [[GreenReaper]], [[Flayrah]] (16 October 2014)</ref>

=== IMVU Acquisition ===

In March of 2015, it was revealed that Fur Affinity (along with Ferrox LLC) had been sold in its entirety to [[IMVU]] for an undisclosed sum. The sale had taken place in January but was only revealed two months later. This move has proven to be extremely controversial, with many users expressing their dissatisfaction with the acquisition via submissions and icons. [[Dragoneer]] has publicly stated that IMVU does not plan to change the purpose or contents of Fur Affinity, but in April 2015 it was revealed that IMVU had ordered the admins to place large ads in a sidebar with submission information. This change was universally panned and subsequently reverted in under 24 hours.

=== Server Hack/Source Code Leak (2016) ===

On May 17th, 2016 at approximately 11:44 AM Eastern Time, [[Fur Affinity]] went offline, displaying the temporarily offline message.<ref>[http://i.imgur.com/VuJTzNV.png] - Image of FA offline message.</ref><ref>[https://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/732600847729889281 Fur Affinity on Twitter] - posting by Fur Affinity on Twitter. Posted May 17, 2016. Retrieved May 17, 2016.</ref> Using an exploit in FA's image processing software (ImageMagick), an unknown attacker gained a copy of [[Fur Affinity]]'s source code. The exploit was patched earlier in May. This unknown attacker then distributed USB drives containing the source code at [[Biggest Little Fur Con 2016]].<ref>[https://i.imgur.com/o0gwbetl.jpg] - Photo of one of the USB drives distributed with FA's source code. Posted May 17, 2016. Retrieved May 17, 2016.</ref> At least two of these USBs have been found at [[Biggest Little Fur Con]] Con Ops.<ref>[https://twitter.com/NVCannon/status/732696987624046592 BLFCannon on Twitter] - Posted by BLFCannon on Twitter. Posted May 17, 2016. Retrieved May 17, 2016.</ref> Anyone with information regarding the USBs has been asked to contact [[Dragoneer]]. While a USB that [[Dragoneer]] was given was being analyzed, someone launched a second attack against the site using the information from the source code. The attack targeted the site database, deleting user information, submissions and watches. The attack was stopped before any other damage could be done. <ref>[http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/05-17-2016.1530505/ 5/17 Site Attack] - posted by [[Dragoneer]] on [[Fur Affinity Forums]]</ref> Journals, notes, passwords and personal information were not affected. Backups have been restored to the FA servers.<ref>[http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/05-17-2016.1530505/#post-5471300 5/17 Site Attack Update] - posted by [[Dragoneer]] on [[Fur Affinity Forums]]</ref> All submissions, favorites, watches, and profile updates made between the 11th of May and the time of the breach have been lost.<ref>[https://twitter.com/Sciggles/status/732979538821550081 Sciggles on Twitter] - posted by Sciggles on Twitter. Posted May 18, 2016. Retrieved May 18, 2016.</ref>

Whilst Dragoneer initially posted that "we have no hard evidence to believe that user account data has been compromised",<ref>[https://www.reddit.com/r/furry/comments/4k04oz/fur_affinity_back_online/ Fur Affinity Back Online] - posted by [[Dragoneer]] on Reddit.</ref> on May 20 he admitted that "the attackers have access to personal user data, such as encrypted passwords and email addresses".<ref>[https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/7586466 Announcement] on Fur Affinity. Dated May 20, 2016. Retrieved May 21, 2016.</ref> As a result, all users were forced to reset their passwords.

In late September, the hackers released the contents of Fur Affinity's trouble ticket and suspensions databases.<ref>[https://forums.vivisector.org/index.php?topic=888.msg9837#msg9837 "Re: Oops, FA Got Hacked (Again)"] - message by [[Conan]] on [[Vivisector]]. Dated October 1, 2016. Retrieved October 1, 2016.</ref>

=== Shock troll pictures (2017) ===

On December the 9th, 2017, a massive 600 account bot troll started uploading gore artwork to the front of Fur Affinity, flooding the artwork page. The accounts were created from October the 16th to November the 2nd as a pre-planned attack on Fur Affinity. In response, Fur Affinity shut down the Accounts responsible and the individual who made them. They shut down uploads for a short period. They had 5 minutes of server downtime and conducted maintenance on the server the next day

=== UI update (January 2020) ===

At the start of the new year in January, 2020. '''Fur Affinity''' received its first complete overhaul of the websites UI (User-Interface) since 2007. The update included; a major color change, extra template choices, modern styled graphics, the revival of the top-of-page banner, and many other aspects.

=== DDoS (February 2020) ===

On February the 20th, 2020, Fur Affinity's host '''Cloudflare''' was hit by a massive [[Wikipedia:Denial-of-service attack|Distributed Denial of Service attack]] (DDoS) that left the site offline for 2 days<ref>https://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/feb-20-2020-outage.1665996/</ref>. This attack spread throughout 100+ websites that were attached to Fur Affinity's host. The website came back online on February the 22nd, 2020.

== Controversy ==

=== Pornographic cub art ===

* August 2006 saw the restart of an internal administrative debate over the presence of [[pornographic]] [[W:Underage|underage]] [[furry artwork]] (or "[[cub]] art").{{fact}} Such art was forbidden by the site's [[W:TOS|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.{{fact}} 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, 2006, 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 [[W:Rape|rape]], [[W:Murder|murder]], and [[W:Drug use|drug use]], were not permitted. Conversely, work that depicted [[human]] children, including [[anime characters]], in [[sexual]] situations was also forbidden.<ref>''"[http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=3965 ''FA Policy Notice - "Cub" Art'']"''. Posted by The Dragoneer on November 5, 2006, [http://web.archive.org/web/20120229055619/http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/3965-FA-Policy-Notice-Cub-Art archived] February 29, 2012.</ref> Non-photorealistic art depicting minors is no longer forbidden (current policy on this point is mere that submissions "shall not violate the law of the United States of America, be it State or Federal.") Some artists{{who}} had threatened to leave the site if it was not forbidden, and some of these did so.{{fact}}

*On November 24, 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{{who}} clearing their galleries, and migrating to [[Sofurry]] or [[Inkbunny]] (although several users and artists{{who}} alike saw the cub porn removal as a positive aspect for FA, some of whom even praised Dragoneer for the decision).{{fact}}

It 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 "''Where Has All The Cub Porn Gone?''"<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/view/5541107 "Where Has All The Cub Porn Gone?"] (Retrieved ?)</ref> (a parody of [[w:Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?|"Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?"]] by [[w:Paula Cole|Paula Cole]]).

=== Thanksgiving banner (2008) ===
[[File: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 [[W:Obese|obese]] after a [[W:Turkey meal|turkey meal]], to the point of resembling [[inflation]] art. Some FA users{{who}} complained about the nature of the image as being "tasteless", "disgusting", a "fucking fetish", "shit", etc...,{{fact}} 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 afterward, 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.

=== Thanksgiving banner (2009) ===

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]] [[fetish]]es, 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]]

=== Former Furocity staff departure (2011) ===

In late October 2011, several{{clarify}} of the Furocity administrators brought over after the merge abruptly resigned, citing gross negligence by the original Fur Affinity staff and owner, and the apparent disregard of such by Dragoneer.<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/user/photografuhrer [[Photografuhrer]] (former FA photography administrator) and leaving FA.] Posted on Fur Affinity. Retrieved April 26, 2013.</ref><ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/2855774/ ''good-bye'' post] by [[WritenWren]] on Fur Affinity. Posted October 27, 2011. Retrieved April 26, 2013.</ref>

Within a few weeks, [[Daemonshyai|Gavin Daemonshyai]] was the only Furocity staff member left on staff, and the original "department" system was abandoned. He was eventually removed from the administrative staff.{{clarify}}{{fact}}

Dragoneer countered that the real reason the former admins left was due to [[W:Dox|doxing]] (exposing of one's personally identifiable information) online.<ref>[http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/109202-FA-Furocity-4-months-on.?p=2728631&viewfull=1#post2728631 ''Re: FA + Furocity: 4 months on.''] post on the Fur Affinity Forums. Posted . Retrieved April 26, 2013.</ref>

=== "Aged up" guideline (2012) ===
[[File:NewSonicAgeRules.png|right|thumb|Sonic "age up" guideline diagram|300px]]
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: Friendship is Magic]]'' would not be covered by this rule, except for [[Baby Spike]] and the [[Cutie Mark Crusaders]], while ''[[Tiny Toons]]'' would be. No other animated shows were mentioned further in the post.

Pinkuh reiterated on the FA forums 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.{{fact}}

=== "''Exodus''" ===

On February 16, 2013, user [[Qarrezel]] posted an opinion piece ("''Exodus''"),<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4343379/ ''Exodus''] post on Qarrezel's FA account (Retrieved February 15, 2013)</ref> on her Fur affinity account, where she expressed her frustration towards the apparent non-response of the Fur Affinity staff to deal with user [http://www.furaffinity.net/user/fredriksam/ Fredriksam's] inferred stalking behavior towards her friend and client, [http://www.furaffinity.net/user/tarangryph/ Tarangryph].

On it, Qarrezel presented the case that not only had Fredriksam posted Tarangryph's personal information online, contacted her to try to gain more of it, and wrote disturbing sexual material involving her persona,{{fact}} but that the FA staff actually went out of the way to "punish" her by not banning the user, but by also removing all information Tarangryph had posted about her apparent stalker.<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4337035/ ''Leaving FA.''] post by Tarangryph on her FA account (Retrieved February 16, 2013)</ref>

The FA staff responded to the issue in several ways:

* Admin [[Qoph]] replied on the thread<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4343379/#cid:31837225 Qoph response on the ''Exodus''] journal entry on Fur Affinity (Retrieved February 16, 2013)</ref> that immediate action was not taken regarding Fredriksam because the original ticket was issued by a third party person (user [[Svedge]]) with no evidence, and that they did exchange information about it with Tarangryph, but wanted to discuss the situation with Dragoneer because of the serious nature of the possible offense. On the removal of Tarangryph's journal containing all the "evidence" against Fredriksam, Qoph responded that that was a "''normal action''", in compliance by FA TOS' rules.
* Admin [[Cerberusnl]] inquired Tarangryph further about the subject on her "''Leaving FA.''" journal, and reaffirming that her journal, classified as a "callout journal", was a proper subject for deletion because of the TOS rules.<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4337035/#cid:31835764 Cerberusnl response on the ''Leaving FA.''] journal entry on Fur Affinity (Retrieved February 16, 2013)</ref>
* Dragoneer responded initially to the issue via ticket response saying that:
{{q|The admin took the right course of action in this case. I don't feel it's something to leave FA over, as if it happened on FA, it will happen on /any/ site. It's unfortunate, but a choice they have made. I'll respect that.}}
And that there was not enough solid evidence to ban the user "at that time."<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4344605/#cid:31841971 Dragoneer response on the ''VERY Important! This could Affect ALL FA Users''] journal entry on Fur Affinity. Retrieved February 16, 2013.</ref>

The post generated more than 1900+ responses, most of them critical to the FA staff's response (or lack of it) to the issue. A number of FA users, including Qarrezel and Tarangryph, announced that they would be leaving Fur affinity because of it. Fredriksam was eventually suspended and had his IP address blocked when some evidence of stalking behavior (creating a [[W:Sock puppet|sock puppet]] account, [[Fredriksam|Garageman]], to continue harassing Tarangryph) was posted on FA.<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4337035/#cid:31843461 [[Synwolf]] response on the ''Leaving FA.''] journal entry on Fur Affinity (Retrieved February 16, 2013)</ref>

Dragoneer further expanded on the controversy on two later FA posts: [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4356040/ ''TaranGryph, Stalking, Drama and FA.''] and [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4358019 ''Clarification on Off Site Content''].

=== Exodus II (mid-January 2014) ===

Due to to Zaush's perceived actions,{{fact}} and/or the unnecessary drama some people felt it generated,{{fact}} a large group of user's moved their accounts to [[Weasyl]],{{fact}} either emptying out their archives, leaving them as is but abandoned, or keeping accounts in both FA and Weasyl. Activity on Weasyl spiked at 16,000 daily users (four times the levels at the start of the year), but had slowly descended to 8,000 users by October 2014.<ref>[https://status.weasyl.com/munin/weasyl.com/davaux.i.weasyl.com/weasyl_active_sessions_1d.html Weasyl active sessions over 1d]. Accessed 12 December 2014.</ref>

=== Exodus III, Porn ads (June 2015) ===
[[File:FA Adporn Exodus.jpg|right|thumb|Adult ads examples on [[Chip n'Death]]'s FA page]]
[[File:Furaffinity ads3.png|right|thumb|Samples of adult ads rotated on FA pages]]
[[File:FA Aporn SFWmode.png|right|thumb|Normal ads displayed on the (fixed) SFW mode]]
On June 22, 2015, a new admin post ('''''Banner Update, Ad & Server Updates''''') announced various changes to the banner and advertisement display news and rules.<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6831187 06/22/2015 - Banner Update, Ad & Server Updates] post on Fur Affinity. Dated June 22, 2015, Retrieve June 25, 2015.</ref>

The biggest change was on the section '''''Advertising Changes''''':
{{q|We've enabled mature third-party ads on submissions which contain adult content. These ads will also show up on any page where adult content is visible (such as in a thumbnail). The system was recently updated to detect whether a page has General-rated content or contains adult material, and displays ads accordingly.}}
The ads, which ranged from adult to extremely explicit, were only to be displayed in the NSFW section of FA, where "mature" and above tag, media was displayed. The first issues were the amount, and content of the ads, even their appearance on FA's SFW mode.{{cn}}

This caused a number of artists to move, once more, to various hosting solutions (Weasyl, deviantART, Tumblr, Twitter and others), either cleaning their account or moving them to the "scraps" section.{{cn}}

An updated '''''06/22/2015 - Banner Update, Ad & Server Updates [EDITED]''''' announced that:
{{q|The mature ads have been scaled back while we remove campaigns which violated the limitations we implemented. Users should only see a limited amount per 24 hour period while we evaluate them on our side.}}

Some users pointed out that the ads ran afoul of their own site content rules:<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6831187#cid:46280669 ''Banner Update, Ad & Server Updates [EDITED]''] thread comment by [[Tato]]. Dated June 22, 2015, Retrieve June 25, 2015.</ref>
{{q|1.10 - Do not post links to content that is prohibited by any of Fur Affinity’s rules. This includes links to real life pornography, malware, malicious scripts, websites featuring the illegal streaming of copyrighted content, or content in public (journals, profiles) or General Rated (AUP 1.1) areas that lead to Mature/Adult Rated material that is not behind a warning splash page.{{cn}}}}

By June 25, adult ads are still displayed, but the SFW was fixed.

=== Silver Eagle, the "ClusterFur" and FurryDigital ===
{{main|Silver Eagle}}

In the fall of 2015 and spring of 2016, developer [[Silver Eagle]] worked with FA to build a new version of the site, using open-source software based on his previous [http://ponyvillelive.com/ Ponyville Live] project. This rewrite was code-named "Daedalus", and Silver Eagle would become one of FA's first independent contractors, receiving payment for his time spent working on the project.

In late January 2016, a dispute involving payment for Silver Eagle's services arose, prompting him to release a YouTube video titled "The ClusterFur" describing his experiences, and to publish the unfinished project as a public GitHub repository named "FAOpen". FA's parent company, IMVU, acted quickly to process his payment (which was received less than a week later) and avoid further issues.

Fearing FA would refuse to use his code and his project would become abandonware, Silver Eagle finished the website as a personal hobby project and rebranded it completely, launching it as a new site named "FurryDigital". While the site did not bear FA's name or branding, as it had been based on the FAOpen codebase, many elements of the UI and rules/terms were very similar. IMVU almost immediately took issue with this, contacting Silver Eagle less than a week after the new site's launch and threatening possible legal action if he did not shut the site down. He promptly complied the next day, shutting down FurryDigital after 5 days of operation.

IMVU has not indicated whether shutting down FurryDigital will be sufficient to avoid legal action. The organization's silence on the issue was only interrupted on February 27, 2016, when FurAffinity [https://forums.vivisector.org/index.php?topic=871.20 permabanned] Silver Eagle for "plagiarism and theft of Fur Affinity assets". This response prompted Silver Eagle to panic and fear further legal action, causing his brief hospitalization for [http://silvereaglepvl.tumblr.com/post/140141735522/suicidal-ideation-and-the-er-my-experience suicidal ideation]. He was released the following day, and has not heard further updates from IMVU regarding their plans.

Perhaps ironically, on March 3, 2016, FurAffinity published updates to their beta UI that moved their header navigation below the site-wide banner, added icons next to header items and renamed "Submit" to "Upload". All of these items [http://i.imgur.com/7L0yYP4.png had been previously included] in the FurryDigital alpha prior to its shutdown.

=== Paddington Bear DMCA ===
In December of 2016, a company representing [[wikipedia:StudioCanal|StudioCanal]] contacted Dragoneer and requested the removal of all images relating to their intellectual property, the [[Paddington Bear]] brand. This included all artwork of the character, [[pornography|adult]] or otherwise, drawings of characters wearing clothing similar to the character, drawings in which the word "Paddington" was used but was otherwise unrelated to the character, and photographs of real people standing in front of promotional posters for the ''[[wikipedia:Paddington (film)|Paddington]]'' film.<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/7957878/ "DMCA Overreach"] - Fur Affinity journal by Dragoneer dated December 5th, 2016. Retrieved December 6th, 2016.</ref> The same company also sent a similar request to [[e621]].<ref>[https://e621.net/takedown/show/5246 "Takedown #5246"] - Takedown notice on e621. Retrieved December 7th, 2016.</ref>

Dragoneer later published in a journal a message from Paddington and Company that explained that because a portion of the Paddington-related images on the site was pornographic in nature, which they believed violated [[wikipedia:Fair dealing in United Kingdom law|fair dealing]], they sent DMCA notices regarding ''all'' Paddington images on the site, stating:

{{quote|You have a lot of Paddington images on the site including many pornographic ones and to go through your site image by image to determine which is acceptable and which is offensive is impractical, especially as they change constantly. If you remove the pornographic images then you will find that this problem is easily resolved and you will not hear further from us or Surelock.<ref name="Paddington response">[https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/7964514/ "Paddington Company Response"], Fur Affinity journal entry by Dragoneer. Retrieved December 8, 2016.</ref>}}

In the same journal, Dragoneer stated plans for the userbase "work with [Paddington and Company] to properly come up with a solution".<ref name="Paddington response" />

=== Staffing issues ===

* (Date unknown) - [[Wolfblade]], sponsored by [[DragonMyr]], was made FA Admin, despite a 1 in favour, 13 against vote against him,{{clarify}}{{fact}} prompting calls of [[wikipedia:Cronyism|cronyism]]. .<ref>[https://forums.vivisector.org/index.php?topic=193.msg1523#msg1523 ''FA Retrospectacle (Read 10122 times)''] commeny by former FA admin [[DaveHyena]] ('''A Pigeon''') on Vivisector.org. Posted April 17, 2009. Retrieved April 26, 2013.</ref>

* 2012/2013 - Dragoneer's fiance (and later wife) [[Sciggles]] was appointed to an administrator position - despite having no prior administration or moderation experience - this time prompting calls of [[wikipedia:Nepotism|nepotism]]. Dragoneer had previously stated that Sciggles would not be made an administrator due to their relationship<ref>[http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/113499-Why-is-Sciggles-an-admin-now-despite-Dragoneer-saying-she-would-not-be-one FA forum's thread "Why is Sciggles an admin now, despite Dragoneer saying she would not be one"] echoes these statements</ref>. After a brief absence, she was re-instated as administrator in 2013<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/user/shivadramon ''Shivadramon''] account created January 23, 2013. </ref> as "Team Lead", a position in which she trains new administrators.

* 2013 - [[Chase]], an FA administrator who resigned from the staff in early 2011 following a fight<ref name="dragoneerlog">[http://furaffinityleaks.blogspot.com/2013/04/furaffinity-truth.html ''FurAffinity Leaks''] Posted by former administrator [[SimbaTheLion]].<pre>[04:55] <~Dragoneer> Chase may have had a rocky past previously, but he was a good admin. We're still on great terms. He's basically going to be coming in to help with harassment tickets (and only harassment).
[04:55] <~Dragoneer> Kitashi: He and I got into a fight.
[04:55] <&Kitashi> Ah :x
06[04:55] * @Hendikins twitches
[04:56] <~Dragoneer> Hendikins: ?
[04:56] <@Hendikins> I'm just thinking PR.
[04:56] <~Dragoneer> Again, hence with all admin accounts, why he's on an alt and it's on the downlow. If it comes out, we'll announce it.
</pre></ref> with Dragoneer<ref>[https://forums.vivisector.org/index.php?topic=448.msg5555#msg5555 ''Chase resigns from FA staff''] Pastebin chatlog transposed to Vivisector Forums.</ref>, was re-appointed in 2013, although Dragoneer required him to use a alternate account ('''Carmen''') to hide his identity<ref name="dragoneerlog" />. This particular appointment resulted in the resignation of at least one FA staff member.<ref>[https://www.weasyl.com/journal/12396 ''So, about that other site...''] post by [[Hendikins]] on Weasyl. Posted April 3, 2013. Retrieved April 26, 2013.</ref>

* January 2014 - A month after Zaush joined the Fur Affinity team, users complaints (which had been building up slowly since December 2013){{fact}} for FA's decision to accept his helps reaches a boiling point by January 16, 2014.

:The [[furries|fan based]] and [[non-fur]]s' backlash was based on Zaush's allegations of [[W:Sexual misconduct|sexual misconduct]] and [[W:Sexual bullying|bullying]],{{fact}} and even outright [[W:Rape|rape]]{{fact}} of fellow female furs. These past{{fact}} allegations had been brought up for years, intensifying after Zaush's FA involvement. The result was a tremendous amount online discussion topics, pro/against Zaush,{{fact}} rational and/or [[drama]] (Lulz) based.{{fact}}

:This debate spread to [[W:Social media|social media]], [[critic]], personal, and [[forum]] sites{{fact}}, the focal point being Fur Affinity itself. Regarding the situation and allegations, Dragonner and his staff put their support behind Zaush,{{fact}} with Dragoneer declaring the charges "baseless", "without merit", or "not serious enough"{{fact}} to pursue the idea of relieving or removing Zaush from his position.{{fact}} This decision continued to incise people opposed to the hire, upping the ante, specially on FA, which resulted on the suspension or banning of several individuals, and the removal or hiding of their posts in any topic the FA team feel was detrimental to Zaush or the site.

:This lead to the further creation of discussion posts and entries, especially in social media, the creation of sites dedicated to the subject.{{fact}}, and vandalism, especially of Zaush and Fur Affinity's articles on WikiFur.{{fact}}

* November 2014 - New user [[Zidonuke#Fur Affinity|Starrykitten]] is said to be "joining the Dev/Ops team" and is installed as "Tech Team Lead".<ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6265766 11/13/2014 Site Status, New Coder, Stats]'' - [[Fur Affinity]] (November 13, 2014)</ref> Initial mood is positive, but after pressure reveal himself to be [[Zidonuke]],<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6265766#cid:43154957 Comment to ''Site Status, New Coder, Stats''] - Starrykitten (November 17, 2014). Retrieved Dec 03, 2014.</ref> a former hacker of furry site [[F-list]], and that he's had secret "admin" access for a year; he subsequently resigns.<ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6311970 12/01/2014 Site Status and Community Updates]'' - [[Chase]] and [[Dragoneer]], [[Fur Affinity]] (December 1, 2014)</ref>

=== Hate group bans ===
Fur Affinity's Code of Conduct was updated September 4, 2017.<ref>[https://www.flayrah.com/7081/fur-affinity-updates-code-conduct-disallow-hate-groups "Fur Affinity updates code of conduct to disallow hate groups"] - [[Sonious]] for ''[[Flayrah]]''. Dated September 6, 2017. Retrieved August 30, 2018.</ref> The rule, 2.7, read as follows:

{{quote|Do not identify with or promote hate groups and their ideologies
A hate group is one that advocates and practices hatred, hostility, or violence towards members of a designated sector of society (e.g. Nazism, KKK, ISIS). Symbols specifically associated with these groups will not be permitted in user avatars, non-fictional content, or content intended solely to disrupt the community.

Users who identify with or promote hate groups and their ideologies may be permanently banned from Fur Affinity without warning.}}

Or, in short, "Do not promote hate while on the site."<ref>[https://www.furaffinity.net/coc Code of Conduct] - Fur Affinity. Relevant portion under section "Other Users and You". Retrieved August 30, 2018.</ref>

On May 15, 2018, several dozen{{fact}} FA accounts were banned from the site for presumed violations of this updated policy.<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/8733053 Fur Affinity COC 2.7 Updated]. Post by [[Fender]] on [[FurAffinity]]. Dated May 15, 2018. Retrieved May 17, 2018.</ref> This included personal and group accounts related to [[AltFurry]] ('''FurRight'''), [[Furry Raiders]] and other perceived [[W:Alt-Right|Alt-Right]] connected accounts.

Complaints came in swiftly, from dishonest denials of association by proven members of hate groups,<ref>[http://archive.today/2018.05.17-015328/https://twitter.com/SmartWhitefang/status/996494826324529152 "This its how @furaffinity treat the users."] post on Twitter. Retrieved May 17, 2018.</ref><ref>[http://archive.today/2018.05.15-170408/https://twitter.com/fesothe/status/996424757997441025 "So I got banned from FA for doing nothing."] post on Twitter. Retrieved May 17, 2018.</ref> to banned and not banned users acting in unison with hate groups to argue that biased staff had failed to also strike down [[Wikipedia:Left-wing politics|leftist]] "hate/terrorist" individuals and groups (e.g. [[Deo Tas Devil]], [[W:Antifa|Antifa]], "Far-Left"/"Alt-left" accounts and [[Communist Furs]]).<ref>[http://archive.today/2018.05.18-022449/https://twitter.com/KudaKeileon/status/996592138774286337 "FurAffinity Bans Right Leaning Furries,..."] post on Twitter. Retrieved May 17, 2018.</ref><ref>[http://archive.today/2018.05.18-023026/https://twitter.com/JohnVanStry/status/996794654619156480 "The communists have taken over FurAffinity."] post on Twitter. Retrieved May 17, 2018.</ref> Instructions were passed among the affected and sympathizers to vacate to other sites, specifically, Inkbunny,<ref>[http://archive.today/2018.05.18-024919/https://twitter.com/MajoTiggie2/status/996473977760550912 "Just logged into FA to find this."] post on Twitter. Retrieved May 17, 2018.</ref><ref>[http://archive.today/2018.05.18-025122/https://twitter.com/citrinewarrior/status/996588580670668800 "After seeing what's happened..."] post on Twitter. Retrieved May 17, 2018.</ref><ref>[http://archive.today/2018.05.18-025332/https://twitter.com/legofreak446/status/996439276198944768 "Well, looks like @furaffinity is..."] post on Twitter. Retrieved May 17, 2018.</ref> and baseless accusations were made to pin blame (from Antifa-cowered FA staff to outright ban demands/orders from the online news site [[Dogpatch Press]] that did not occur).<ref>[http://archive.today/2018.05.17-015013/https://twitter.com/lordvictor/status/996861977438892032 "It's because Dogshit Press told them to,..."] post on Twitter. Retrieved May 17, 2018.</ref><ref>[http://archive.today/2018.05.17-231744/https://twitter.com/FurRightDiscord/status/996903527782993920 "Sources say...."] post on Twitter. Retrieved May 17, 2018.</ref> The sources of the accusations were then exposed as working for and tied to alt-right leaders outside the furry fandom. Evidence of these ties included FBI press releases, leaks from media group Unicorn Riot, a call inside the Furry Raiders by Milo Yiannopoulos to destroy furry conventions and instigate street fights with the Proud Boys at Midwest Furfest, and the actions and words of banned users admitting their intentions.<ref>[https://dogpatch.press/2020/04/14/terror-teens-furaffinity/ "Terror, Teens, and Furaffinity — How a chain of violent hate incidents links to furry fandom."] post on Dogpatch Press. Retrieved December 17, 2020.</ref> <ref>[https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2019/09/milos-trolling-reveals-furry-communitys-far-right-problem/ "The furry community is very LGBTQ-inclusive & doesn't tolerate haters like Milo."] post on LGBTQNation. Retrieved December 17, 2020.</ref> <ref>[https://youtu.be/hk2prPP3OMI "Altfurry Origins"] Youtube video. Retrieved December 17, 2020.</ref>

It would be three days after the bans (May 18), when frivolous legal proceedings initiated by [[Roy Calbeck]] were to take the form of a lawsuit against FA's parent company, IMVU, for:
{{q|[[W:Defamation|Defamation]]/[[W:Breach of Contract|Breach of Contract]] against IMVU for actions taken by their wholly-owned subsidiary, @FurAffinity.<ref>[https://archive.fo/WxcGc ''Torpedos Away.''] post on Twitter. Dated May 18, 2018. Retrieved May 21, 2018.</ref><ref>[https://archive.fo/m6l8r ''Getting a lot of offers for help with the lawsuit...''] post on Twitter. Dated May 18, 2018. Retrieved May 21, 2018.</ref>}}
IMVU filed a [[W:Motion (legal)#To dismiss|motion to dismiss]] the complaint on June 22, 2018,<ref name="Docket">[http://www.superiorcourt.maricopa.gov/docket/CivilCourtCases/caseInfo.asp?caseNumber=CV2018-092198 Case number CV2018-092198] docket on the Maricopa County court's website. Retrieved August 30, 2018.</ref><ref name="Dismissal">[http://www.courtminutes.maricopa.gov/docs/Civil/082018/m8426782.pdf "Minute Entry"]. Retrieved August 30, 2018.</ref> and on August 27, 2018, the court granted the [[W:Prejudice (legal term)|motion without prejudice]], finding that Arizona did not have [[W:Jurisdiction|jurisdiction]] in the case.<ref name="Dismissal"/> The case was held up for ridicule by fandom lawyer Boozy Badger and Roy Calbeck was subsequently suspended from Twitter for abuse of service. <ref>[https://twitter.com/BoozyBadger/status/1136751851725053954 "It was filed in the entirely incorrect jurisdiction..."] Post on Twitter. Retrieved December 17, 2020.</ref><ref>[https://twitter.com/BoozyBadger/status/1034910991518257168 "Want to know how many of my cases are dismissed for improper forum?"] Post on Twitter. Retrieved December 17, 2020.</ref>

Days later after the ban, Dragoneer would be [[W:doxxed|doxxed]] on AltFurry's '''Xanadu''' [[W:social media|social media]] chat channel in retaliation for the bans.<ref>[http://archive.today/OK2RF ''I fully expected I might be doxed...''] post on Twitter. Dated May 19, 2018. Retrieved May 21, 2018.</ref><ref>[http://archive.today/0Nx9L ''""We deleted that shit immediately.""''] post on Twitter. Dated May 19, 2018. Retrieved May 21, 2018.</ref>

=== Re-acquisition by [[Dragoneer]] ===
On Monday January 25, 2021, Parent company [[IMVU]] announced that it had completed a round of funding bringing in $35 million, and that it would re-organize under the name ''Together Labs''<ref>''[https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/25/imvu-35-million-funding/ Virtual social network IMVU raises $35M from China’s NetEase and others]'' - TechCrunch (25 January 2021)</ref>. That Friday, Dragoneer tweeted that he had something to announce on Monday<ref>''[https://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/1355013971179417602 Today marks a big change in my life, and a return to my roots. I can't wait to share it with you all on Monday.]'' - @Dragoneer (28 January 2021)</ref>.

On Monday, February 1, 2021, Dragoneer announced that he had regained sole ownership of the site<ref>''[https://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/1356436300166004739 In today's news: I bought back Fur Affinity. It's mine once again. *plops the "site owner" placard back on his desk* I missed you.]'' - @Dragoneer (1 February 2021)</ref> which was being divested by IMVU as a result of the reorganization announced a week prior. As a result of the reacquisition, Dragoneer's employment with IMVU was terminated, which caused him to lose his health insurance. Dragoneer tweeted that due to the loss of his insurance, he "had to drop [his] anti-depressants and bipolar medication cold turkey"<ref>''[https://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/1356473257428463616 My only regret is I no longer have health insurance and had to drop my anti-depressants and bipolar medication cold turkey. Trying to spin up my art game so I can afford them again, as it's gonna be rough without 'em.]'' - @Dragoneer (1 February 2021)</ref> and that the purchase of the site put him in considerable financial distress, saying he "took out loans and spent every dime [he] had on FA"<ref>''[https://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/1356443047635148800 I have zero freakin' money. I literally took out loans and spent every dime I had on FA. XD]'' - @Dragoneer (1 February 2021)</ref> and that it cost him more to buy it back than he sold it for<ref>''[https://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/1356439416114405378 I wish, but... no.]'' - @Dragoneer (1 February 2021)</ref>. Dragoneer offered no explanation for how he planned to repay the loans, only replying to a Twitter user that "FA's fundings and my own are completely separate entities."<ref>[https://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/1356748754607603713] - @Dragoneer (1 February 2021)</ref> and later claimed that he still had "some money", contradicting his earlier statements that he "spent every dime" on FA<ref>''[https://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/1357401154091692032 I've got money. Not a ton, but I do have some cash.]'' - @Dragoneer (4 February 2021)</ref>. Dragoneer has made references to another party that was also interested in acquiring the site, though has not mentioned their identity, and that he did what he did because he felt the other option "wasn't as good"<ref>''[https://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/1356468538618376198 Because the other choice wasn't as good.]'' - @Dragoneer (1 February 2021)</ref>

==== Community Response ====
The response to the news by the furry community was mixed. While many users of FurAffinity saw this as positive news, others expressed concern and alarm that Dragoneer was willing to take on debt and go off of important medications just to re-acquire the site<ref>''[https://twitter.com/orinoxide/status/1356622513015554048 Genuinely alarming foreshadowing going on here.]'' - @orinoxide (2 February 2021)</ref>. Some compared his actions to those made by investors from [[W:Reddit|Reddit]] participating in the [[W:GameStop_Short_Squeeze|GameStop Short Squeeze]] that was ongoing at the time<ref>''[https://twitter.com/fawksnews/status/1356451742984982529 People are saying investing in the Reddit stocks is a bad investment strategy, but let me tell you, throwing all your money into FurAffinity in 2021 is certainly up there in "bad investment strategies"] - @Fawksnews (1 February 2021)</ref>. Others suggested this is nothing more than a continuation of what critics like [[Vivisector_(website)|Vivisector]] have called a "death grip" on the site, in an attempt to remain a figurehead in the community<ref>''[https://twitter.com/technicolorpie/status/1357341109052006401 His agreement with IMVU happened because he could keep being head of the site even though they owned it. A new owner might not want to make him that deal. If his position goes, so does any real relevance he has in the community.] - @TechnicolorPie (4 February 2021)</ref> and that this is the latest link in a chain of events that stems from [http://archive.md/K7lg8 "The Olive Garden Incident"] that took place in 2003.

==References==
<references />

==External links==
* [http://web.archive.org/web/20151030074530/http://help.furaffinity.net/article/AA-00226/0/History-of-the-Site-the-Universe-and-Everything.html History of the Site, the Universe and Everything] - [[Dragoneer]] (10 February 2011), archived using the [[wikipedia:Wayback Machine|Wayback Machine]]
* [http://stuff.veekun.com/fa-timeline.html A brief history of Fur Affinity] - critical timeline by [[Eevee]] focusing on site problems, staff promises, rewrite efforts, and disabled features

{{Fur Affinity topics}}
[[Category:History by website]]
[[Category:Fur Affinity]]

Fur Affinity

2021-02-05T04:38:21Z

Murrypurryfurry: /* Hardware */ This whole article needs a good rewrite. Starting with updating this.

{{update}}
{{Infobox website
| title = Fur Affinity
| image = [[File:Fa logo.png|250px]]
| caption = Fur Affinity logo
| author = '''Owner:''' Frost Dragon Art, LLC<ref name="Feb 1 21">{{cite web|url=https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/9761295|title=New Ownership, Updated Logo, & More|accessdate=2021-02-02|author="[[Fender]]"|date=2021-02-01|work=[[Fur Affinity]]}}</ref>
* '''Lead admin:''' [[Dragoneer]]
* '''Founder:''' [[Alkora]]
* [[#Administrators|Administrators]]
| url = https://www.furaffinity.net/ ([https://sfw.furaffinity.net/ SFW])
* '''Trackers''': [https://trello.com/b/SmYk47aD/furaffinity-feature-requests Requests]
| status =
| began = 16 January–1 August 2005 ([[History of Fur Affinity#Server problems of 2005|staff dispute & server issues]]) 10 December 2005–present
| ended =
| genre = Social media community
| rating = {{Rating-pg-button|center}}{{Rating-nc17-button|right}}
}}
[[File:FAFront Page.png|right|thumb|250px|Fur Affinity's front page, circa 2021]]
'''Fur Affinity''', also known as '''FA''', is the [[furry fandom]]'s largest online community, focusing on the promotion of art, music and stories.

The site was created in 2005 by [[Alkora]] as an alternative to various art community sites such as [[SheezyArt]] and [[DeviantArt]], distinguished by allowing artistic freedom of expression regardless of content rating. It is led by [[Dragoneer]].
<div style=float:left;margin-right:10px>__TOC__</div>
== History ==
{{main|History of Fur Affinity}}
Fur Affinity was launched on 16 January 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]]. Since then, it has suffered a few outages, most notably a month-long downtime over July 2008, but always managed to recover. In 2011, Fur Affinity announced a major revamp in connection to FA: United 4.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/89577-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6! Fur Affinity Turns 6!] - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity forum post (16 January 2011)</ref>

=== Fur Affinity: United! ===
{{main|FA: United}}
In August 2007, Fur Affinity held its own [[furry convention]], Fur Affinity: United! (or FA:U) in [[Wikipedia:Newark, New Jersey|Newark, New Jersey]]. The convention was a success, drawing 310 attendees and 25 [[fursuiter]]s in the [[fursuit parade|parade]], and was followed by another in 2008, drawing 381 attendees. In February 2009, Dragoneer announced FA: United 3 "Games United" for 28-30 May 2010.<ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/621616/ FAU3 Announcement]'' - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity journal (9 February 2009)</ref> No event was scheduled for 2009 due to the economic downturn. [[FA: United 7]], in August 2014, drew 707 attendees.

== Services and features ==

Fur Affinity's features for users include the ability to allow users to track new updates from particular [[artist]]s; highlight favorites; and upload a wide variety of art (images, music and stories). The site attempts to promote community through its comments system and individual journals.

While works of all ratings are accepted (other than ''photographic nudes, images whose intent are to slander or discredit others, and minors in sexual situations''<ref>[http://help.furaffinity.net/article/AA-00205/8/Acceptable-Upload-Policy-AUP.html Acceptable Upload Policy] - Fur Affinity</ref>), art rated as mature or adult is not shown to visitors, or to users who have not specified it as a preference (which requires giving a date of birth indicating an age over 18). Keywords and tags can be added to works, though a feature that allowed blocking based on tags was disabled due to performance issues.

Fur Affinity's search engine was "temporarily disabled" in mid-2006 due to it taking up too many resources.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=1334 Admin mode on june 5th 2006]'' - Alkora, Fur Affinity forums (5 June 2006)</ref> A faux search feature was implemented for April Fool's Day 2007, much to the chagrin of some users.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=7229 Search is up!]'' - Fur Affinity Forums (1 April 2007)</ref> Search was reimplemented on 5 February 2009; it was initially labelled "That Thing You Want" and randomly included [[wikipedia:Rickrolling|rickrolls]].<ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/616339/ SEARCH]'' - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity journal (5 February 2009)</ref>

Privacy features were added in May 2012 with users being able to block guests from seeing their content with messages such as "[Username] has elected to make their content available to registered users only" and being able to hide their adult, mature+adult, or all favorites from public view.<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3490599/ Update Notices, Changelog & Banner] journal posted to Fender's blog on May 24th, 2012. Retrieved 2012 November 25.</ref>

The site's artwork is inaccessible in Russia, as d.facdn.net (which serves the images) is listed on Russia's Internet blacklist. The site itself works fine, and even shows thumbnails.{{fact}}

On 13 September 2015, to coincide with the conclusion of [[FAU 2015]], Fur Affinity unveiled a Gallery folders system<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/7036344/ 09/13/2015 - Folders & Gallery Management Updates] News item dated 13 September 2015. Retrieved 27 October 2015</ref>, which had been promised in one form or another since shortly after the site launched in 2006. Some users{{who}} criticized the way folders were implemented,{{cn}} including disappearing artwork after its implementation (found normally in the scraps folder), and the poor to no documentation regarding them.

==Project Ferrox==
{{main|Ferrox (software)}}
The FA development team was working on a new backend system called [[Ferrox_(software)|Ferrox]] which was to be used for the next major revision of Fur Affinity, and was to be made available as [[Wikipedia:FOSS|FOSS]] (Free and Open Source Software) for other sites to use. By late 2009, the development of Ferrox had stalled, with the last change to the code being made on September 7, 2009. Days earlier, net-cat, who was acting as the lead Ferrox developer after [[Eevee]] had left, announced that the code was to be frozen, citing that "Nobody knows Python."<ref>http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/49368-Code-freeze-on-current-Ferrox-codebase?p=1174129&viewfull=1#post1174129</ref>

== Mascots ==
[[File:Fender.jpg|thumb|right|250px|Fender, drawn by [[Mutley James]]]]
[[Fender]] is the Fur Affinity [[mascot]], created by artist [[K-9]] based on a character concept by [[Preyfar]]. He is half [[fox]] and half [[ferret]], a "ferrox". On April Fool's Day 2007, Fender was depicted in the site's banner as a female dragon. This dragon was made a separate character and an official mascot of the site in May 2007, and named [[Rednef]], or "Fender" spelled backward.

== Controversies ==
{{main|History of Fur Affinity#Controversy}}
Being furry fandom's largest social art site for many years, Fur Affinity has been host to strenuous discussions on various topics, including the presence and later absence of [[cub]] [[pornography]], staff appointments and departures, allegations of staff and user improprieties, and debate over what consists of suitable content for the site banner. Incidents of downtime and unauthorized access have also been discussed, both on Fur Affinity's forums and throughout the fandom.

== Organization ==

Fur Affinity was previously owned by '''Ferrox Art LLC''', a [[Wikipedia:Limited liability company|limited liability company]] founded 25 February 2008, registered in [[Wikipedia:Lenhartsville, Pennsylvania|Lenhartsville, Pennsylvania]].<ref>[https://www.corporations.state.pa.us/corp/soskb/Corp.asp?2644408 Ferrox Art LLC (entity number 3791597)] - Pennsylvania Corporations, PA Department of State. Accessed 20 November 2013.</ref> On March 19, 2015, it was officially announced that Fur Affinity had been acquired by [[IMVU]]; the transaction had occurred in January 2015 but had not been publicly announced.<ref>[https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6588324 "FA Joins the IMVU Family" - Fur Affinity. March 19, 2015.</ref> On February 1, 2021, Fur Affinity became independent again with ownership going back to Dragoneer, who has placed the website under the operation of a new company called '''Frost Dragon Art, LLC'''.<ref name="Feb 1 21"/>

==Staff==
Fur Affinity's staff as of February 2017 include:<ref name="staff">[http://www.furaffinity.net/staff/ "Staff"] - Fur Affinity. Retrieved March 9, 2018.</ref>
{|
|
;Staff Leads
* [[Chase (Fur Affinity administrator)|Chase]] - Director of Operations
* [[Dragoneer]] - Community Manager & Site Lead
* [[Shivadramon]] (Sciggles) - Director of Operations
|
;Administrators
* [[Asia Neko]] - Acceptable Upload Policy Enforcement
* [[Fox Amoore]] - Account Specialist
* [[Monique]] - Content Authenticity Assurance
|valign=top|
;Tech Team
* [[Net-cat]] - Code & Technical Services
* [[Yak (person)|Yak]] - Lead Coder
* [[Pickra]] - Coder
|}
Two pseudonymous moderators, Quetzal and Gazelle, are also listed. A "System Account" is used to send anonymous notices.<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/user/systemaccount/ "Fur Affinity System Account"] - Fur Affinity]</ref>

Past staff include [[Bazeel]], [[Carenath]], [[Cerberusnl|Cerbrus]], [[Glaide]], [[Grammatist]], [[Hendikins]], [[Jasu Fox]],<ref>''[https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/7128400/ Stepping down as Administrator ]'' - [[Jasu Fox]], Fur Affinity (23 October 2015)</ref> [[Keio]], [[Kryphosdrgn]], [[Kyoujin]], [[Luftwoofe]], [[Nero Silent]], [[Oddy]], [[Odin36519]], [[Photographurer]], [[Renashe Tradewind]],<ref>''[https://www.reddit.com/r/furry/comments/3h7tjm/my_experiences_as_a_member_of_fur_affinity_staff/ My experiences as a member of Fur Affinity staff, and my recent removal.]'' - GoingToTheOcean, [[Reddit]] (16 August 2016)</ref> [[QMelon]], [[quoting_mungo]],<ref>[https://www.furaffinity.net/journals/quotingmungo/#jid:8531112 Resigning from FA staff] - quoting_mungo's journal. Retrieved March 9, 2018.</ref> [[Sheepdust]], [[Silver R. Wolfe]], [[SSJ3Mewtwo]], [[Zidonuke|Starrykitten]], [[Summercat]], [[Surgat]], [[Trpdwarf]], [[Tsawolf]], [[Writerwren]] and [[Xaerun]].<ref>''[http://www.flayrah.com/3720/five-fur-affinity-staff-resign-some-citing-leadership-failures Five Fur Affinity staff resign, some citing leadership failures]'' - [[Rakuen Growlithe]], [[Flayrah]] (29 October 2011)</ref>{{cn}}

== Statistics ==

* In late 2010, the monthly hosting bill for Fur Affinity was just under $1,700 <ref>''http://twitpic.com/2g8t5x'' - TwitPic Posted on August 19, 2010
by Dragoneer</ref>. This includes a full equipment rack, bandwidth, and IP addresses. The monthly cost likely increased with the addition of extra bandwidth (Increasing the total to 350Mbit) in early 2012.<ref>https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3484539/</ref>
* In less than a year since the site's re-launch, Fur Affinity gained over 45,000 users and over 300,000 submissions. {{fact}}
* Alexa has previously ranked Fur Affinity in the [http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?site0=www.furaffinity.net&site1=vclart.net&site2=&site3=&site4=&x=75&y=15&h=300&w=610&h=400&w=700&z=3&range=1y&size=medium&y=r&z=3&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.furaffinity.net top 4,000 sites] on the web in 1 November 2007, showing greater traffic than the VCL for most of the previous year. The trend continued through 2008 and 2009. Fur Affinity has ranked as high as 3,475 on individual days, and close to 2,000 in the USA. In October 2010, Fur Affinity's rank fell to 7681.
* Fur Affinity reached its 1,000,000th submission on 11 January 2008. It reached its 2,000,000th submission on 15 February 2009, and its 3,000,000th submission in November 2009.
* As of 20 March 2015, the site had 11,142,451 active submissions (15,995,066 total created), 1,195,253 active users (1,218,456 created), 324,226,064 favorites, and an average of 671 accounts, 8,000+ submissions, 42,462 comments and 10,452 page shouts were created per day.<ref>"[https://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/578970926575931394 For those interested, here's some spiffy FA statistics!
http://pastebin.com/DjsSCcuh"] - Dragoneer, Twitter (20 March 2015)</ref>
* Fur Affinity say they served ~38.8TB of data to over 2.1 million visitors in February 2016.<ref>[https://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/706027275741962240 "In February, FA served up 1,777,662,272 files (over 38.8TB total bandwidth) to 2,173,564 total visitors."] - Fur Affinity, Twitter (5 March 2016)</ref>

== Hardware ==
[[File:Furaffinity Server Farm.jpg|thumb|250px|Former Fur Affinity's servers Bahamut, Tiamat, Novastorm and Trogdor (unlabeled).]]
Fur Affinity owns various server hardware, some of which has been re-purposed or retired over time. Between 2010 and September 2020, the site was hosted out of an InfoRelay<ref>[https://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/523976743263404032 "Our historical uptime has actually been fairly solid since we moved to InfoRelay. Prior to that... yeah. It was bad."] - Fur Affinity, Twitter (20 October 2014)</ref> (later acquired by Atlantic Metro) [[Wikipedia:Data center|data center]] in [[Wikipedia:Reston, Virginia|Reston]], [[Wikipedia:Virginia|Virginia]].<ref>[https://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/15605533053 "The current servers are hosted in a professional colo facility in Reston, VA."] - Fur Affinity, Twitter (7 June 2010)</ref>

In April 2020, FurAffinity announced it was moving to a new "hardware platform" it called "King Ghidora"<ref>''[https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/9468101/ 4/16/20 - New Hardware & Policy Updates]'' - [[Fender]] (16 April 2020)</ref>. FurAffinity did not offer many specifics on this platform other than that it utilized "112 CPU cores, 1,536GB of memory, [and] 153.6TB of enterprise SSD storage" and that it was purchased from income from the FA+ subscription service. On September 9, FurAffinity announced the move was complete.<ref>''[https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/9614588/ 9/9/20 - Site Migration Complete + Known Issues]'' - [[Fender]] (9 September 2020)</ref> This transition relocated the FurAffinity servers to an undisclosed location, with Dragoneer only saying they had to ship a 14 Terrabyte hard drive "cross country" as part of the move.<ref>[https://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/1303960672062058496 "To aid in the data transfer to the new FA host we bought a 14TB hard drive and filled it, shipped it cross country, then uploaded it to the new servers."] - Dragoneer, Twitter (10 September 2020)</ref> It is possible the servers were moved into a facility controlled by then-owner IMVU, which is headquartered in [[California]].

While hosted at an InfoRelay, FA had access to 2Gbps of bandwidth leased as of November 2015.<ref>[https://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/661398015127744512 "Tonight's maintenance was to upgrade FA to a 2 gigabit network link."] - Fur Affinity, Twitter (3 November 2015)</ref>

=== 2014/15 upgrades ===

In September 2014, Fur Affinity bought additional hardware:<ref>''[http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/259XYIXJ8U486/ Fur Affinity Parts Wishlist]'' - [[Dragoneer]] (3 September 2014)</ref><ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6122156 Banner Update, Upcoming Beta & Ad Server Upgrade]'' - [[Fender]] (17 September 2014)</ref>
* File server: Supermicro SuperServer 6017R-72HDP+ 1U with Intel Xeon E5-2603 v2 Quad-Core CPU (1.8GHz, 10MB cache), 128Gb 1600MHz DDR3 ECC RAM, 12 WD 4TB SATAIII drives (7200 RPM, 64 MB cache)
* Application servers (4): Asus RS300-E8-PS4 1U with Xeon E3-1240 v3 Quad-Core CPU (3.4GHz, 8MB cache), 32GB DDR ECC RAM, 2x128Gb SSDs
* Advertising server: Xeon 1270 v3 Quad-Core CPU (3.5 GHz, 8MB cache), 32GB DDR3 ECC RAM and 2xSSDs

In Spring 2015, additional hardware purchases were announced, in connection with the IMVU purchase.

=== Pre-2020 hardware ===
{| class="wikitable sortable" border="1"
|-
! scope="col" | Name
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Purpose
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Hardware Notes
! scope="col" | First Used
! scope="col" | Status
|-
| '''Routezilla''' || Router || Cisco 7301 router || ? || Presumed in use
|-
| '''Switchthulu''' || Network Switch || 48-port [[wikipedia:Cisco|Cisco]] Catalyst 3560. Replaced an older 24-port Cisco 3750, also called "Switchthulu" || ? || Presumed in use
|-
| '''Neo Bahamut''' || Database Backup || Dual-core 2.0GHz Opteron 1212 with 2GB DDR2-667 RAM.<ref name="Feb2013Summary" /> Storage consists of 4x 1TB hard drives in RAID5. Concern expressed by Dragoneer about its worth vs. power draw. || ? || In use
|-
| '''Novastorm''' || Database || a [[Wikipedia:Sun Fire|Sun Fire X4150]] manufactured by [[Wikipedia:Sun Microsystems]] with twin quad-core 2.5Ghz Xeon 5420 processors and 64GB of RAM (as of March 2010).<ref>[http://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/10912188478 Novastorm upgrade tweet] - [[Dragoneer]]'s Twitter (23 March 2010)</ref> Storage consists of 2x 74GB 15K RPM hard drives in RAID1 and 6x146GB 15K RPM hard drives in RAID10. The server was initially purposed as the "Application server" but eventually converted to run the Database. This server was bought with donations following the July 2009 outage. Although Novastorm was replaced by Finn/Jake in September 2013, it is apparently still active, though its use is not clear.<ref>https://trello.com/c/CLruJ1b5/65-upgrade-packages-on-novastorm</ref>|| August 2009 || In use
|-
| '''Figment''' || Virtualization Server Ad server, Email server || Dual quad-core 2.33Ghz Xeon 5345 with 32GB of RAM and 6x1TB<ref name="Feb2013Summary" /> of storage. Figment was purchased with the intent of offering hosting<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10203450025'' - FA Twitter - March 8, 2010</ref> on it "sometime in April... or May, or maybe August" of 2010<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10942579229'' - FA Twitter - March 23 2010</ref> and also served advertisements<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10936829317'' - FA Twitter</ref>. Server was named by [[Sciggles]].<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10585322442'' - FA Twitter</ref> || 2010 || In use/"Spare Servers Pool"<ref>https://trello.com/c/oy0HkfgT/6-repurpose-figment-in-spare-servers-pool</ref>
|-
| '''Sparkz''' || Network Monitoring || Twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. The server was named by FA donator Dax. This server is the only server in a group of four donated servers (The others being Shivan, Tonberry, and Lapse) that is known to have been put into service. || November 30, 2010<ref>[https://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/9825447189680128 @Furaffinity tweet]</ref> || In use
|-
| '''Finn'''* || Database Server || A custom-built server in a Supermicro SuperServer SYS-6027R-WRF chassis with at least one Intel Xeon 6C E5 2620 processor, 64GB of RAM, and 6 15k HDD's in an unknown RAID. This server was built by donations received in February 2013.<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4389184</ref> See note below. || December 16, 2013 || Still in use as of August 2016<ref name="Aug16Maintenance">''[https://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/mainsite-database-maintenance-on-aug-16-2016-at-1pm-utc.1587952/#post-5570287 Mainsite database maintenance on Aug 16, 2016 at 1PM UTC]'' - [[Yak]], [[Fur Affinity Forums]] (16 August 2016)</ref>
|-
| '''Jake'''* || Database Server || A custom-built server in a Supermicro SuperServer SYS-6027R-WRF chassis with at least one Intel Xeon 6C E5 2620 processor, 64GB of RAM, and 6 15k HDD's in an unknown RAID. This server was built by donations received in February 2013.<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4389184</ref> See note below || September 16, 2013 ''(as "Finn") November 2014 || Possibly in use
|-
| '''Smaug''' || App Server || 16-core Xeon, "full SSD", 128GB DDR4 RAM.<ref name="TimatSpace">[https://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/597474071425724417 Filling Tiamat's old space will be Spike (16-core, full SSD, 128GB RAM) and Smaug (48TB storage server).] - Fur Affinity, Twitter (10 May 2015)</ref> || July 29, 2015<ref>[https://twitter.com/furaffinity/statuses/626430475058417664 "Earlier today, we officially rolled the site over to our new app server, Smaug (a 16-core Xeon system running DDR4 and SSDs). Woosh!"] - Fur Affinity, Twitter (29 July 2015)</ref> || Presumed in use
|-
| '''Spike''' || Storage Server || 48TB disk drives<ref name="TimatSpace" /><ref>[https://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/640633455320150016 "Finn, Jake, Spike and Smaug"] - Dragoneer, Twitter (6 September 2015)</ref> || ? || Unknown
|}

* '''Finn''' and '''Jake''' are identical and were bought with the purpose of building a redundant database cluster. For unknown reasons, Finn was brought online first, with Jake supposedly following behind<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/5058966/</ref> later that week. In December 2013, an issue came up that put the site into "Read Only" for a week. FA then moved the database to Jake, which was apparently not put into service yet. However, in November 2014, [[Zidonuke]] said that Jake was sitting idle "for almost a year"<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6265766#cid:43149324</ref>, suggesting that when the database was moved, the names were swapped. As of November 2014, the idle database server was planned to be set as a slave for the purpose of handling notifications.

=== Additional retired hardware ===
{| class="wikitable sortable" border="1"
|-
! scope="col" | Name
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Purpose
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Hardware Notes
! scope="col" | First Used
! scope="col" | Retired
|-
| '''Gecko''' || Web Server || The original FA server, is a dual 3.0Ghz Nocona [[Wikipedia:Xeon|Xeon]] system with 4GB of RAM. Storage consists of 2x 250GB hard drives. The server is still used to host [[W:Team Fortress 2|Team Fortress 2]] servers for the [[Furry Pound]] and [[Wikipedia:Left 4 Dead|Left 4 Dead]] servers for the Fur Affinity Steam Gamers group. || ? || ?
|-
| '''Tiamat''' || Search || Twin dual-core 2.0Ghz [[Wikipedia:Opteron|Opteron 2212]] with 32GB DDR2-533 RAM || ? || August 31, 2010<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/22617961790'' - FA Twitter</ref> Hardware Failure. Removed May 2015.<ref>[https://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/597469579070300160/photo/1 "Tiamat, one of FA's oldest servers (2007), is finally off to greener pastures."] - Fur Affinity, Twitter (10 May 2015)</ref>
|-
| '''Shivan''' || Unused/Unknown || Twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. The server was named by FA donator TlaiLaxu. || ? || ?
|-
| '''Tonberry''' || Unused/Unknown || Twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. The server was named by FA donator YiffyHusky. || ? || ?
|-
| '''Lapse''' || Unused/Unknown || Twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM || ? || ?
|-
| '''Trogdor''' || File/App Server || A [[Wikipedia:Dell|Dell]] Poweredge 2970 2U Server with 32GB RAM and twin AMD Opteron 2212 CPUs.<ref name="Feb2013Summary">http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4383428/#cid:32107771</ref> Storage consists of 6x 1TB hard drives - 4x in a RAID10 array, 1x RAID hotspare and 1x local backups. This server was bought with donations following the July 2009 outage. || August 2009 || October 2011<ref>http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/108936-10-17-2011-File-read-only-mode</ref> Replaced by '''IO'''. Removed May 2015.<ref>[https://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/597481580123283456 "Turns out we are also saying a fond farewell to Trogdor. His days of FA burnination are over."] - Fur Affinity, Twitter (10 May 2015)</ref>
|-
| '''IO''' || File/App Server || An unspecified model which has dual Xeon E5435 CPUs<ref name="Feb2013Summary" />, 16GB RAM, and [https://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/86538088809107456 12 Terrabytes] worth of hard drives in it. This server replaced '''Trogdor'''. || October 2011 || December 25th, 2016<ref>''https://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/813187858731331584'' - Dragoneer, Twitter (Dec. 25 2016)</ref> Replaced by 48tb Storage Server, and replaced due to drive failures.<ref>''https://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/813281978900447236'' - Dragoneer, Twitter (Dec. 26 2016)</ref>
|-
|}

==Confirmed future features==

{| class="wikitable sortable" border="1"
|-
! scope="col" | Feature
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Official Mentions
! scope="col" | Status
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Notes
|-
| On-demand printing || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/371-FA-Funding December 2005] [http://web.archive.org/web/20150822221412/https://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/55797-is-FA-better-off-becoming-a-pay-site#post1347804 November 2009] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Content filtering || [http://web.archive.org/web/20150821170440/https://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/3965-FA-Policy-Notice-Cub-Art November 2006] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented|| Proposed for Ferrox.
|-
| New UI || [http://web.archive.org/web/20141117060336/https://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/7472-FA-Project-UI-Overhaul April 2007] [http://web.archive.org/web/20150822210449/https://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/72193-New-FA-looks-exactly-like-steam-amp-DA-!-WTF!!#post1853302 May 2010] [http://web.archive.org/web/20150323184607/https://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #99ff99" | Implemented<ref>https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/9364332</ref>|| Released from beta on December 31, 2019.
|-
| New "dark" theme || [https://forums.vivisector.org/index.php?topic=588.msg6749#msg6749 May 2012] [https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3887366/ October 2012]||style="background: #99ffff" | Part of new UI|| The new UI contains both "dark" and "light" themes, among others.
|-
| "Character Information" || [https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3887366/ October 2012]||style="background: #ffff99" | In Progress|| A placeholder for a "Character Information" widget is present in the new dark theme.
|-
| Opossums (pss.ms) URL shortener || [https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1648317/ August 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented|| pss.ms is currently down.
|-
| Web hosting || [http://web.archive.org/web/20150822221414/https://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/55797-is-FA-better-off-becoming-a-pay-site/page7#post1353001 November 2009] [https://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10936829317 March 2010] [https://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10936829317] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Supporter ribbons || [https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1836349/ November 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Note/inbox search || [https://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/24023831950 September 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Artist list and reviews ''"Commission Ratings"'' || [http://web.archive.org/web/20150827063155/https://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/1342-Search-Function-User-List June 2006] [http://web.archive.org/web/20150323184607/https://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Improved commenting || [http://web.archive.org/web/20150323184607/https://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|}

== References ==
<references />

== See also ==

* [[FA Rank]]
* [[:Category:Fur Affinity administrators]]

== External links ==
{{WikiFurNews|Fur Affinity access disrupted amid ownership dispute}}
{{WikiFurNews|'Krystal sandwich' meme strikes Fur Affinity}}
{{FlayrahTag|fur-affinity|Fur Affinity}}
* [https://www.facebook.com/furaffinity Fur Affinity] on [[Facebook]]
* [https://twitter.com/furaffinity Fur Affinity] on [[Twitter]]
* [http://community.livejournal.com/furaffinity/ ''Furaffinity Status' Journal''] - Fur Affinity on [[LiveJournal]]
* [https://furaffinity.tumblr.com Fur Affinity] on [[Tumblr]]
* [irc://irc.furnet.org/furaffinity #furaffinity] on [[FurNet (IRC)|FurNet IRC]]
* [https://steamcommunity.com/groups/FurAffinityGamers Fur Affinity Gamers] on [[W:Steam (software)|Steam]]
* [http://irc.netsplit.de/channels/details.php?room=%23furaffinity&net=FurNet #furaffinity statistics] on [http://irc.netsplit.de/ irc.netsplit.de]

{{Fur Affinity topics}}
{{Media archives}}
{{UMAs for Best Website}}
[[Category:Fur Affinity| ]]
[[Category:Mature art archives]]
[[Category:Mature story archives]]
[[Category:2005 births]]
[[Category:Ursa Major Award winners]]
{{featured article}}

[[de:Fur Affinity]]
[[es:Fur Affinity]]
[[fr:Fur Affinity]]
[[hu:Fur Affinity]]
[[it:Fur Affinity]]
[[ko:Fur Affinity]]
[[nl:Fur Affinity]]
[[no:Fur Affinity]]
[[pl:Fur Affinity]]
[[ru:Fur Affinity]]
[[sv:Fur Affinity]]
[[uk:Fur Affinity]]
[[zh:Fur Affinity]]
[[ja:Fur Affinity]]

Vivisector (website)

2020-07-27T03:10:13Z

Murrypurryfurry: /* Closure */ Adding in KiwiFarms creation of "Animal Control" board was directly related to the shutdown of the Vivisector forum.

:''This article is about the website. For other uses, see [[Vivisector]].''
{{update}}
{{Infobox website
| title = The Furliminati
| image = [[File:Vivisector logo.gif|300px]] ''Take this spear and heal thyself''
| author = '''Owners:''' ?
* '''Site Founder:''' ?
* '''Administrators:''' [[Kindrift]], [[ProvincialTwit]], [[Pi (Vivisector moderator)|Pi]]
| url = http://www.vivisector.org/
*'''Forum''': http://forums.vivisector.org/
| status = Defunct
| began = October 2, 2007
| ended = June 2017
| genre = Critic forum
| rating = [[File:Censor panda nyr button.png]]
}}
'''Vivisector''' was a [[Forum|webforum]] for [[furries]], [[critic]]s, and others, to discuss news and philosophy about the [[furry fandom|furry culture]], though it carried an overt anti-furry stance. It was intended to be a blog on the "''weirdest, fruitiest, dumbest, most fucked-up shit the furry scene has to offer.''"<ref>[http://www.vivisector.org/vivblog/index.php?/archives/6-WELCOME-TO-YOUR-DOOM.html "Welcome To Your Doom"] post on the Vivisector's forums. Dated Friday, January 1. 2010. Retrieved ?.</ref> Its mascot was [[Dr. Dos]].<ref>[http://forums.vivisector.org/index.php?action=profile;u=7 ''Official Vivisector Mascot''] post on the Vivisector's forums. Retrieved ?.</ref>

== Site mission ==

Vivisector was founded to fill a perceived gap in [[furry community]] sites.{{clarify}} The FAQ stated that the site was to be a source about the subculture between the biases of the [[anti-furries]] and the furries themselves. Site rules required that all information posted to the site be reasonably accurate, researched, and free of excessive bias.<ref>[http://forums.vivisector.org/index.php/topic,5.0.html ''Terms of Service''] post on the Vivisector's forums. Retrieved ?.</ref> The name was chosen to imply the deconstruction of a living group of [[animal]] [[Human|people]], their society, their motions, and their motives. An overarching goal was to "increase and diffuse world knowledge of furries with reasoned explanations and current news".

Articles on Vivisector dealt with "outdated and incorrect terminology and myths",<ref>[http://forums.vivisector.org/index.php/topic,4.0.html ''Culture, the Sum of Art''] post on the Vivisector's forums. Retrieved ?.</ref> updates and news on what went on in the administration of some furry sites, examples of fans behaving [[drama|badly]], and often opinions on each.

The site did not tolerate [[troll]]ing or activism in the name of Vivisector, and demanded maturity from its participants.<ref>[http://forums.vivisector.org/index.php/topic,9.0.html ''First Rule Is''] post on the Vivisector's forums. Retrieved ?.</ref>

The [[IRC]] channel was operated by Dr. Dos.

== Vivisector acquires CYD ==
[[File:CYDVVAD.png|thumb|right|200px|"''Vivisector acquires CYD''" post]]
On March 31, 2010, Vivisector acquired all of the critic site [[CYD]]'s assets (logos, nomenclature, user lists, databases, and associated content), through a deal with its webmaster [[Mitch (webmaster)|Mitch]]. All traffic to CYD was redirected to Vivisector; this will apparently continue until the backlog is cleared and organized.

The main goal of the deal was to keep the most important posts, blogs, threads, and other items worthy to keep on site.

== Blocking policy ==

Posting "[http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/copypasta copypasta]" could result in a block, and site admin [[ProvincialTwit]] once referred to "blocking all of Poland" in response to one poster who particularly annoyed them.<ref>[http://forums.vivisector.org/index.php/topic,263.msg2664.html#msg2664 ''The one that got away''] post on the Vivisector's forums. Dated 29 June 2010. Retrieved ?.</ref> While such blocks were normally temporary, large regions of eastern Europe were blocked for over a year due to forum spam.

== Closure ==

In late June 2017, the website suddenly became unavailable with no reason given. [[Flayrah]] reached out to the site's Discord chat, where a user by the name of ''Infovorr'' stated:<ref>[https://www.flayrah.com/7013/furry-criticism-site-vivisector-unreachable-likely-done ''Furry "criticism" site Vivisector unreachable, likely done'']. Dated July 11th, 2017. Retrieved July 19th, 2017.</ref>

{{Q|We have no idea, the former owner took everything down and deleted himself from the net. He said he'd be putting up a tarball of the site and its contents, but no one's seen or heard anything more.}}

On July 18th, 2017, the front page of Vivisector was re-established, with a vague announcement that the site would be "coming back eventually", and encouraging people to join their Discord server in the meantime.<ref>[http://archive.is/IdNit Vivisector front page archive.] Dated July 18th, 2017. Retrieved July 19th, 2017.</ref>

By August 2017, troll site KiwiFarms had created a discussion board focused on the Furry community called "Animal Control," with the purpose of filling a perceived void left by the shutdown of the Vivisector forums.<ref>[https://kiwifarms.net/threads/please-enable-a-log-rating-in-animal-control-subforum.33145/post-2500644 ''"As was mentioned when the forum was first opened, we're looking to fill the void that was left by Vivisector"'' - Dated Aug 10th, 2017. Retrieved July 26th, 2020.</ref>

== References ==
<references />

== See also ==

* [[Furfags.com]]
* [[Crush Yiff Destroy]]
* [[LOLfurries]]

== External links ==
{{flayrah|node1=7013|title1=Furry "criticism" site Vivisector unreachable, likely done}}
* [irc://irc.esper.net/vivisector #vivisector](dead/inactive) on [https://www.esper.net/ EsperNet]

{{website-stub}}
{{Critic sites}}

[[Category:Forums]]
[[Category:Ideological groups]]
[[Category:Critics]]
[[Category:2007 births]]
[[Category:2017 deaths]]
[[it:Vivisector (forum)]]

Midwest FurFest 2014

2017-10-25T09:05:23Z

Murrypurryfurry: Made random banner a thumbnail. Added more screenshots to media coverage gallery.

[[File:MFF-2014-Conbook.jpg|right|thumb|250px|The cover of Midwest FurFest's 2014 Convention Book.]]
[[File:MFF-2014-Banner.jpg|thumbnail|right|Promotional artwork for the convention]]
{{Midwest FurFest}}
'''Midwest FurFest 2014''' was a [[convention]] that was held at the [http://www.ohare.hyatt.com/ Hyatt Regency O'Hare] in [[W:Rosemont, Illinois|Rosemont, Illinois]].<ref name="Tweet1">[https://twitter.com/midwestfurfest/status/404785343578537984 "''Thanks also to everyone...''"] post on the [[Midwest FurFest]]'s [[Twitter]]. Dated November 24, 2013. Retrieved November 25, 2013.</ref> from December 5th to December 7th, 2014.<ref name="News1">[http://forum.furfest.org/index.php/topic,724.0.html ''Topic: Midwest FurFest Announces Date Change! December 5-7, 2014''] post on the Midwest FurFest website. Dated January 8, 2014. Retrieved January 8, 2014.</ref> Total attendance was 4,571, including 1,132 participants in the [[fursuit parade]] and 186 staff members.<ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6333665/ December 7, 2014]'' - Perro, Fur Affinity (December 10, 2014)</ref>

The change in dates from its traditional weekend before Thanksgiving (US) was due to scheduling conflicts with the hotel and lack of available rooms.

== Guests of Honor ==
The [[Guest of Honor|Guests of Honor]] were:<ref>[https://twitter.com/midwestfurfest/status/404754854532624384 "''Our Guests of Honor for #MWFF 2014 will be...''"] tweet on the Midwest FurFest account's Twitter. Dated November 24, 2013. Retrieved November 25, 2013.</ref>
* [[Lacy]] and [[CloudPouncer]]
* Novadog/[[D. Walker (Novadog)|D. Walker]]
* [[Sabretoothed Ermine]]

== Charity ==
The convention's [[convention charity|charity]] was [http://www.crittercamp.org Critter Camp Exotic Pet Sanctuary]. Critter Camp is an exotic pet sanctuary which cares for over 300 abandoned abused pets of 30 different types.

Through various fundraisers, including the Poker tournament ($2,610), 2 and Kage show ($2,633), Charity auction ($2,710), table donations ($3,197), and a donation from the convention itself ($20,000)<ref>[https://youtu.be/FDPMd2WVjbk Video] on Youtube. Published December 9, 2014. Retrieved January 13, 2016.</ref>, approximately $31,445.93 was raised.<ref>''[http://www.journalstandard.com/article/20141214/NEWS/141219776/1994/NEWS Local charity receives donation]'' - Freeport ''Journal Standard'' (December 14, 2014)</ref>

== Theme ==
Midwest FurFest 2014's [[Convention theme|theme]] was "Holidays in the City"<ref>[https://twitter.com/midwestfurfest/status/448160221710393344 "''Pirates are so last year.''"] comment on the Midwest FurFest's Twitter. Dated March 24, 2014. Retrieved March 28, 2014.</ref> (originally announced as "Bright Lights Big City").<ref>[https://twitter.com/midwestfurfest/status/404755326047883265 "''Our theme for #MWFF 2014 will be BRIGHT LIGHTS BIG CITY.''"] post on the Midwest FurFest's Twitter. Dated November 24, 2013. Retrieved November 25, 2013.</ref>

[[Sabretoothed Ermine]]'s cover for the Midwest FurFest 2014 [[convention book]] was awarded a [[2014 Ursa Major Awards|2014 Ursa Major Award]] in the category of Best Anthropomorphic Published Illustration.<ref>[http://www.ursamajorawards.org/UMA_2014.htm Award Winners 2014] on the Ursa Major Awards website. Dated May 1, 2014. Retrieved January 15, 2016.</ref>

==Chemical incident==
[[File:MFF2014 WMAQ Live.png|thumbnail|left|Chicago's NBC station (WMAQ-TV) broadcasts a live report from the scene less than an hour after people were allowed back into the hotel.]]
At 12:45 a.m. on the third day of the convention, December 7th, Midwest FurFest's primary hotel was forced to evacuate when somebody dropped a jar of [[W:Calcium_hypochlorite|powdered chlorine]] inside the building.<ref>[https://twitter.com/midwestfurfest/status/541509709212446722 "''We’ve been asked to evacuate the Hyatt...''"] post on the Midwest FurFest's Twitter. Dated December 7, 2014. Retrieved December 7, 2014.</ref><ref>[http://abc7chicago.com/news/furfest-evacuated-after-chemical-leak-at-hyatt-hotel/425553/ ''Furfest Evacuated After Chlorine Leak At Hyatt Hotel''] news segment from [http://abc7chicago.com ABC 7 Eyewitness News Chicago]. Aired December 7, 2014. Retrieved December 7, 2014.</ref><ref>[http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-19-hospitalized-thousands-evacuated-in-gas-leak-at-rosemont-hotel-20141207-story.html?track=rss ''19 hospitalized, thousands evacuated in 'intentional' gas leak at Rosemont hotel''] article on the [http://www.chicagotribune.com Chicago Tribune] website. Dated December 7, 2014. Retrieved December 7, 2014.</ref><ref>[http://chicagosuntimes.com/news/chemical-leak-prompts-evacuation-during-midwest-furfest-at-rosemont-hyatt/ ''Chemical leak at Hyatt Regency deemed intentional''] article from the [http://chicagosuntimes.com Chicago Sun Times]. Dated December 7, 2014. Retrieved December 7, 2014.</ref><ref>[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2864415/Chlorine-gas-leak-sickens-19-furry-convention.html ''Did someone try to POISON a furry convention? Chlorine gas sickens 19 as police reveal leak may have intentionally targeted cosplayers''] article on the [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ Daily Mail Online]. Dated December 7, 2014. Retrieved December 7, 2014.</ref> First responders were called to investigate a noxious odor that was spreading across the ninth and eighth floor of the hotel, where a high level of chlorine powder was discovered in the air. The [http://www.rosemont.com/government/public-safety/ Rosemont Public Safety Department] reported that the chemical was released from a smashed glass container containing [[W:Calcium hypochlorite|powdered chlorine]] found in the 9th floor stairwell.<ref>[http://www.arlingtoncardinal.com/2014/12/glass-jar-with-white-substance-strong-chlorine-smell-causes-firefighter-ems-hazmat-response-evacuation-at-hyatt-regency-rosemont/ ''At Hyatt-Regency, Rosemont: Glass Jar with White Substance, Strong Chlorine Smell Causes Firefighter, EMS Hazmat Response, Evacuation''] article from [http://arlingtoncardinal.com The Cardinal]. Dated December 7, 2014. Retrieved December 7, 2014.</ref> Due to seasonably cool temperatures, the Hyatt and Rosemont Public Safety evacuated attendees, some in [[fursuit]]s, to the [http://www.rosemont.com/desconvention/ Donald E. Stephens Convention Center].

Nineteen people were transported to nearby hospitals after complaining of nausea, dizziness and other medical problems. None were hospitalized and all were released. [[W:HAZMAT|HAZMAT]] technicians decontaminated the area and after conducting several tests deemed the area safe within about two hours. People were allowed back into the building around 4:20 a.m.

A television news [[W:Stringer_(journalism)|stringer]] arrived at the scene during the event and recorded footage of the evacuation in progress, which became the footage used in news reports around the world. News coverage of the evacuation began almost immediately, with two of Chicago's 24-hour news radio stations ([[W:WGN-AM|WGN-AM]] and [[W:WBBM-AM|WBBM-AM]]) mentioning it on the air within minutes of the evacuation beginning, initially as traffic alerts (due to the road closures caused by the emergency response) but quickly moved it into news segments as additional information regarding the scope of the evacuation reached their newsrooms. The incident was a lead story that morning during newscasts on almost all of the Chicago television stations, with [[W:WMAQ-TV|WMAQ (NBC 5)]] and [[W:WLS-TV|WLS (ABC 7)]] sending crews to the hotel for live reports. The incident also [[Mika Brzezinski‎|featured on an episode]] of [[Wikipedia:MSNBC|MSNBC]]'s ''[[Wikipedia:Morning Joe|Morning Joe]]''.

Normal convention operations and events continued on schedule, with the convention staff releasing an official statement about the incident and evacuation later on the day.<ref>[http://www.furfest.org/Evacuation_Statement ''Statement On Sunday Morning's Evacuation''] page on Midwest FurFest 2014's website. Dated December 7, 2014. Retrieved December 7, 2014.</ref>

Vice News followed up with the incident in an article on February 12th, 2016.<ref>[https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/the-mystery-of-who-launched-the-chlorine-gas-attack-at-a-midwest-furry-convention ''The Unsolved Case of the Gas Attack at a Furry Convention'] page on Vice's web site. Dated February 12 2016. Retrieved February 16 2017.</ref> An incident report filed by the Rosemont Police Department shows the case was logged into the system on December 8, 2014, assigned to a detective on December 29 of that year, and closed on July 29, 2015. Detectives from the Rosemont Police Department declined to comment directly on the case, but reports they provided to VICE show that in the days following the incident, officers interviewed at least 30 hotel guests, more than 19 hotel employees, and a number of hospital workers, taxi drivers, and staff employed at local pool and hardware supply stores that sell chlorine. While officers investigated the whereabouts of several individuals, it's unclear how many were considered suspects and during what time.

=== Incident gallery ===
<gallery>
File:ABCNews P353.png|Law enforcement officers with HAZMAT equipment
File:ABCNews P351.png|Medical personnel and affected attendees
File:ABCNews P347.png|Evacuees outside the Hyatt Regency O'Hare
File:FOX News News ticker Midwest FurFest.png|FOX News' crawler about Midwest FurFest attack
File:ResponderUnits.jpg|Responder units and vehicles at convention site
File:MFFEveryoneLetIn.jpg|MFF Attendees being let back in to the main hotel
File:MFF2014 WITI.png|A television station in nearby [[W:Milwaukee|Milwaukee]] covering the incident a day later on December 8th
</gallery>

==References==
{{flayrah|node1=5946|title1=Midwest FurFest hotel evacuated after 'intentional' chlorine release; 19 hospitalized}}
{{reflist|2}}

== External links ==
* [https://www.google.com/search?q=chlorine+gas+attack+furry+convention+hotel+chicago&hl=en&safe=off All news coverages about the attack at MFF 2014] via [[W:Google News|Google News]]
*{{con resources|Midwest FurFest|Midwest FurFest 2014}}
{{con-stub}}

[[Category:Illinois]]
[[Category:2014 events]]

File:MFF2014 WITI.png

2017-10-25T09:02:07Z

Murrypurryfurry: Television station WITI-TV (in the neighboring media market of Milwaukee, Wisconsin) covers the Midwest FurFest 2014 Chlorine incident on 12/8/2014.

== Summary ==
Television station WITI-TV (in the neighboring media market of Milwaukee, Wisconsin) covers the [[Midwest FurFest 2014]] Chlorine incident on 12/8/2014.
== Licensing ==
{{screenshot}}

Midwest FurFest 2014

2017-10-25T08:57:16Z

Murrypurryfurry: /* Theme */

[[File:MFF-2014-Conbook.jpg|right|thumb|250px|The cover of Midwest FurFest's 2014 Convention Book.]]
{{Midwest FurFest}}
'''Midwest FurFest 2014''' was a [[convention]] that was held at the [http://www.ohare.hyatt.com/ Hyatt Regency O'Hare] in [[W:Rosemont, Illinois|Rosemont, Illinois]].<ref name="Tweet1">[https://twitter.com/midwestfurfest/status/404785343578537984 "''Thanks also to everyone...''"] post on the [[Midwest FurFest]]'s [[Twitter]]. Dated November 24, 2013. Retrieved November 25, 2013.</ref> from December 5th to December 7th, 2014.<ref name="News1">[http://forum.furfest.org/index.php/topic,724.0.html ''Topic: Midwest FurFest Announces Date Change! December 5-7, 2014''] post on the Midwest FurFest website. Dated January 8, 2014. Retrieved January 8, 2014.</ref> Total attendance was 4,571, including 1,132 participants in the [[fursuit parade]] and 186 staff members.<ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6333665/ December 7, 2014]'' - Perro, Fur Affinity (December 10, 2014)</ref>

The change in dates from its traditional weekend before Thanksgiving (US) was due to scheduling conflicts with the hotel and lack of available rooms.

== Guests of Honor ==
The [[Guest of Honor|Guests of Honor]] were:<ref>[https://twitter.com/midwestfurfest/status/404754854532624384 "''Our Guests of Honor for #MWFF 2014 will be...''"] tweet on the Midwest FurFest account's Twitter. Dated November 24, 2013. Retrieved November 25, 2013.</ref>
* [[Lacy]] and [[CloudPouncer]]
* Novadog/[[D. Walker (Novadog)|D. Walker]]
* [[Sabretoothed Ermine]]

== Charity ==
The convention's [[convention charity|charity]] was [http://www.crittercamp.org Critter Camp Exotic Pet Sanctuary]. Critter Camp is an exotic pet sanctuary which cares for over 300 abandoned abused pets of 30 different types.

Through various fundraisers, including the Poker tournament ($2,610), 2 and Kage show ($2,633), Charity auction ($2,710), table donations ($3,197), and a donation from the convention itself ($20,000)<ref>[https://youtu.be/FDPMd2WVjbk Video] on Youtube. Published December 9, 2014. Retrieved January 13, 2016.</ref>, approximately $31,445.93 was raised.<ref>''[http://www.journalstandard.com/article/20141214/NEWS/141219776/1994/NEWS Local charity receives donation]'' - Freeport ''Journal Standard'' (December 14, 2014)</ref>

== Theme ==
[[File:MFF-2014-Banner.jpg|thumbnail|left|Promotional artwork for the convention]]
Midwest FurFest 2014's [[Convention theme|theme]] was "Holidays in the City"<ref>[https://twitter.com/midwestfurfest/status/448160221710393344 "''Pirates are so last year.''"] comment on the Midwest FurFest's Twitter. Dated March 24, 2014. Retrieved March 28, 2014.</ref> (originally announced as "Bright Lights Big City").<ref>[https://twitter.com/midwestfurfest/status/404755326047883265 "''Our theme for #MWFF 2014 will be BRIGHT LIGHTS BIG CITY.''"] post on the Midwest FurFest's Twitter. Dated November 24, 2013. Retrieved November 25, 2013.</ref>

[[Sabretoothed Ermine]]'s cover for the Midwest FurFest 2014 [[convention book]] was awarded a [[2014 Ursa Major Awards|2014 Ursa Major Award]] in the category of Best Anthropomorphic Published Illustration.<ref>[http://www.ursamajorawards.org/UMA_2014.htm Award Winners 2014] on the Ursa Major Awards website. Dated May 1, 2014. Retrieved January 15, 2016.</ref>

==Chemical incident==
[[File:MFF2014 WMAQ Live.png|thumbnail|right|Chicago's NBC station (WMAQ-TV) broadcasts a live report from the scene less than an hour after people were allowed back into the hotel.]]
At 12:45 a.m. on the third day of the convention, December 7th, Midwest FurFest's primary hotel was forced to evacuate when somebody dropped a jar of [[W:Calcium_hypochlorite|powdered chlorine]] inside the building.<ref>[https://twitter.com/midwestfurfest/status/541509709212446722 "''We’ve been asked to evacuate the Hyatt...''"] post on the Midwest FurFest's Twitter. Dated December 7, 2014. Retrieved December 7, 2014.</ref><ref>[http://abc7chicago.com/news/furfest-evacuated-after-chemical-leak-at-hyatt-hotel/425553/ ''Furfest Evacuated After Chlorine Leak At Hyatt Hotel''] news segment from [http://abc7chicago.com ABC 7 Eyewitness News Chicago]. Aired December 7, 2014. Retrieved December 7, 2014.</ref><ref>[http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-19-hospitalized-thousands-evacuated-in-gas-leak-at-rosemont-hotel-20141207-story.html?track=rss ''19 hospitalized, thousands evacuated in 'intentional' gas leak at Rosemont hotel''] article on the [http://www.chicagotribune.com Chicago Tribune] website. Dated December 7, 2014. Retrieved December 7, 2014.</ref><ref>[http://chicagosuntimes.com/news/chemical-leak-prompts-evacuation-during-midwest-furfest-at-rosemont-hyatt/ ''Chemical leak at Hyatt Regency deemed intentional''] article from the [http://chicagosuntimes.com Chicago Sun Times]. Dated December 7, 2014. Retrieved December 7, 2014.</ref><ref>[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2864415/Chlorine-gas-leak-sickens-19-furry-convention.html ''Did someone try to POISON a furry convention? Chlorine gas sickens 19 as police reveal leak may have intentionally targeted cosplayers''] article on the [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ Daily Mail Online]. Dated December 7, 2014. Retrieved December 7, 2014.</ref> First responders were called to investigate a noxious odor that was spreading across the ninth and eighth floor of the hotel, where a high level of chlorine powder was discovered in the air. The [http://www.rosemont.com/government/public-safety/ Rosemont Public Safety Department] reported that the chemical was released from a smashed glass container containing [[W:Calcium hypochlorite|powdered chlorine]] found in the 9th floor stairwell.<ref>[http://www.arlingtoncardinal.com/2014/12/glass-jar-with-white-substance-strong-chlorine-smell-causes-firefighter-ems-hazmat-response-evacuation-at-hyatt-regency-rosemont/ ''At Hyatt-Regency, Rosemont: Glass Jar with White Substance, Strong Chlorine Smell Causes Firefighter, EMS Hazmat Response, Evacuation''] article from [http://arlingtoncardinal.com The Cardinal]. Dated December 7, 2014. Retrieved December 7, 2014.</ref> Due to seasonably cool temperatures, the Hyatt and Rosemont Public Safety evacuated attendees, some in [[fursuit]]s, to the [http://www.rosemont.com/desconvention/ Donald E. Stephens Convention Center].

Nineteen people were transported to nearby hospitals after complaining of nausea, dizziness and other medical problems. None were hospitalized and all were released. [[W:HAZMAT|HAZMAT]] technicians decontaminated the area and after conducting several tests deemed the area safe within about two hours. People were allowed back into the building around 4:20 a.m.

A television news [[W:Stringer_(journalism)|stringer]] arrived at the scene during the event and recorded footage of the evacuation in progress, which became the footage used in news reports around the world. News coverage of the evacuation began almost immediately, with two of Chicago's 24-hour news radio stations ([[W:WGN-AM|WGN-AM]] and [[W:WBBM-AM|WBBM-AM]]) mentioning it on the air within minutes of the evacuation beginning, initially as traffic alerts (due to the road closures caused by the emergency response) but quickly moved it into news segments as additional information regarding the scope of the evacuation reached their newsrooms. The incident was a lead story that morning during newscasts on almost all of the Chicago television stations, with [[W:WMAQ-TV|WMAQ (NBC 5)]] and [[W:WLS-TV|WLS (ABC 7)]] sending crews to the hotel for live reports. The incident also [[Mika Brzezinski‎|featured on an episode]] of [[Wikipedia:MSNBC|MSNBC]]'s ''[[Wikipedia:Morning Joe|Morning Joe]]''.

Normal convention operations and events continued on schedule, with the convention staff releasing an official statement about the incident and evacuation later on the day.<ref>[http://www.furfest.org/Evacuation_Statement ''Statement On Sunday Morning's Evacuation''] page on Midwest FurFest 2014's website. Dated December 7, 2014. Retrieved December 7, 2014.</ref>

Vice News followed up with the incident in an article on February 12th, 2016.<ref>[https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/the-mystery-of-who-launched-the-chlorine-gas-attack-at-a-midwest-furry-convention ''The Unsolved Case of the Gas Attack at a Furry Convention'] page on Vice's web site. Dated February 12 2016. Retrieved February 16 2017.</ref> An incident report filed by the Rosemont Police Department shows the case was logged into the system on December 8, 2014, assigned to a detective on December 29 of that year, and closed on July 29, 2015. Detectives from the Rosemont Police Department declined to comment directly on the case, but reports they provided to VICE show that in the days following the incident, officers interviewed at least 30 hotel guests, more than 19 hotel employees, and a number of hospital workers, taxi drivers, and staff employed at local pool and hardware supply stores that sell chlorine. While officers investigated the whereabouts of several individuals, it's unclear how many were considered suspects and during what time.

=== Incident gallery ===
<gallery>
File:ABCNews P353.png|Law enforcement officers with HAZMAT equipment
File:ABCNews P351.png|Medical personnel and affected attendees
File:ABCNews P347.png|Evacuees outside the Hyatt Regency O'Hare
File:FOX News News ticker Midwest FurFest.png|FOX News' crawler about Midwest FurFest attack
File:ResponderUnits.jpg|Responder units and vehicles at convention site
File:MFFEveryoneLetIn.jpg|MFF Attendees being let back in to the main hotel
</gallery>

==References==
{{flayrah|node1=5946|title1=Midwest FurFest hotel evacuated after 'intentional' chlorine release; 19 hospitalized}}
{{reflist|2}}

== External links ==
* [https://www.google.com/search?q=chlorine+gas+attack+furry+convention+hotel+chicago&hl=en&safe=off All news coverages about the attack at MFF 2014] via [[W:Google News|Google News]]
*{{con resources|Midwest FurFest|Midwest FurFest 2014}}
{{con-stub}}

[[Category:Illinois]]
[[Category:2014 events]]

Midwest FurFest 2014

2017-10-25T08:55:43Z

Murrypurryfurry: /* Chemical incident */ Add image, remove random con theme banner (moving elsewhere)

[[File:MFF-2014-Conbook.jpg|right|thumb|250px|The cover of Midwest FurFest's 2014 Convention Book.]]
{{Midwest FurFest}}
'''Midwest FurFest 2014''' was a [[convention]] that was held at the [http://www.ohare.hyatt.com/ Hyatt Regency O'Hare] in [[W:Rosemont, Illinois|Rosemont, Illinois]].<ref name="Tweet1">[https://twitter.com/midwestfurfest/status/404785343578537984 "''Thanks also to everyone...''"] post on the [[Midwest FurFest]]'s [[Twitter]]. Dated November 24, 2013. Retrieved November 25, 2013.</ref> from December 5th to December 7th, 2014.<ref name="News1">[http://forum.furfest.org/index.php/topic,724.0.html ''Topic: Midwest FurFest Announces Date Change! December 5-7, 2014''] post on the Midwest FurFest website. Dated January 8, 2014. Retrieved January 8, 2014.</ref> Total attendance was 4,571, including 1,132 participants in the [[fursuit parade]] and 186 staff members.<ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6333665/ December 7, 2014]'' - Perro, Fur Affinity (December 10, 2014)</ref>

The change in dates from its traditional weekend before Thanksgiving (US) was due to scheduling conflicts with the hotel and lack of available rooms.

== Guests of Honor ==
The [[Guest of Honor|Guests of Honor]] were:<ref>[https://twitter.com/midwestfurfest/status/404754854532624384 "''Our Guests of Honor for #MWFF 2014 will be...''"] tweet on the Midwest FurFest account's Twitter. Dated November 24, 2013. Retrieved November 25, 2013.</ref>
* [[Lacy]] and [[CloudPouncer]]
* Novadog/[[D. Walker (Novadog)|D. Walker]]
* [[Sabretoothed Ermine]]

== Charity ==
The convention's [[convention charity|charity]] was [http://www.crittercamp.org Critter Camp Exotic Pet Sanctuary]. Critter Camp is an exotic pet sanctuary which cares for over 300 abandoned abused pets of 30 different types.

Through various fundraisers, including the Poker tournament ($2,610), 2 and Kage show ($2,633), Charity auction ($2,710), table donations ($3,197), and a donation from the convention itself ($20,000)<ref>[https://youtu.be/FDPMd2WVjbk Video] on Youtube. Published December 9, 2014. Retrieved January 13, 2016.</ref>, approximately $31,445.93 was raised.<ref>''[http://www.journalstandard.com/article/20141214/NEWS/141219776/1994/NEWS Local charity receives donation]'' - Freeport ''Journal Standard'' (December 14, 2014)</ref>

== Theme ==
Midwest FurFest 2014's [[Convention theme|theme]] was "Holidays in the City"<ref>[https://twitter.com/midwestfurfest/status/448160221710393344 "''Pirates are so last year.''"] comment on the Midwest FurFest's Twitter. Dated March 24, 2014. Retrieved March 28, 2014.</ref> (originally announced as "Bright Lights Big City").<ref>[https://twitter.com/midwestfurfest/status/404755326047883265 "''Our theme for #MWFF 2014 will be BRIGHT LIGHTS BIG CITY.''"] post on the Midwest FurFest's Twitter. Dated November 24, 2013. Retrieved November 25, 2013.</ref>

[[Sabretoothed Ermine]]'s cover for the Midwest FurFest 2014 [[convention book]] was awarded a [[2014 Ursa Major Awards|2014 Ursa Major Award]] in the category of Best Anthropomorphic Published Illustration.<ref>[http://www.ursamajorawards.org/UMA_2014.htm Award Winners 2014] on the Ursa Major Awards website. Dated May 1, 2014. Retrieved January 15, 2016.</ref>

==Chemical incident==
[[File:MFF2014 WMAQ Live.png|thumbnail|right|Chicago's NBC station (WMAQ-TV) broadcasts a live report from the scene less than an hour after people were allowed back into the hotel.]]
At 12:45 a.m. on the third day of the convention, December 7th, Midwest FurFest's primary hotel was forced to evacuate when somebody dropped a jar of [[W:Calcium_hypochlorite|powdered chlorine]] inside the building.<ref>[https://twitter.com/midwestfurfest/status/541509709212446722 "''We’ve been asked to evacuate the Hyatt...''"] post on the Midwest FurFest's Twitter. Dated December 7, 2014. Retrieved December 7, 2014.</ref><ref>[http://abc7chicago.com/news/furfest-evacuated-after-chemical-leak-at-hyatt-hotel/425553/ ''Furfest Evacuated After Chlorine Leak At Hyatt Hotel''] news segment from [http://abc7chicago.com ABC 7 Eyewitness News Chicago]. Aired December 7, 2014. Retrieved December 7, 2014.</ref><ref>[http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-19-hospitalized-thousands-evacuated-in-gas-leak-at-rosemont-hotel-20141207-story.html?track=rss ''19 hospitalized, thousands evacuated in 'intentional' gas leak at Rosemont hotel''] article on the [http://www.chicagotribune.com Chicago Tribune] website. Dated December 7, 2014. Retrieved December 7, 2014.</ref><ref>[http://chicagosuntimes.com/news/chemical-leak-prompts-evacuation-during-midwest-furfest-at-rosemont-hyatt/ ''Chemical leak at Hyatt Regency deemed intentional''] article from the [http://chicagosuntimes.com Chicago Sun Times]. Dated December 7, 2014. Retrieved December 7, 2014.</ref><ref>[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2864415/Chlorine-gas-leak-sickens-19-furry-convention.html ''Did someone try to POISON a furry convention? Chlorine gas sickens 19 as police reveal leak may have intentionally targeted cosplayers''] article on the [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ Daily Mail Online]. Dated December 7, 2014. Retrieved December 7, 2014.</ref> First responders were called to investigate a noxious odor that was spreading across the ninth and eighth floor of the hotel, where a high level of chlorine powder was discovered in the air. The [http://www.rosemont.com/government/public-safety/ Rosemont Public Safety Department] reported that the chemical was released from a smashed glass container containing [[W:Calcium hypochlorite|powdered chlorine]] found in the 9th floor stairwell.<ref>[http://www.arlingtoncardinal.com/2014/12/glass-jar-with-white-substance-strong-chlorine-smell-causes-firefighter-ems-hazmat-response-evacuation-at-hyatt-regency-rosemont/ ''At Hyatt-Regency, Rosemont: Glass Jar with White Substance, Strong Chlorine Smell Causes Firefighter, EMS Hazmat Response, Evacuation''] article from [http://arlingtoncardinal.com The Cardinal]. Dated December 7, 2014. Retrieved December 7, 2014.</ref> Due to seasonably cool temperatures, the Hyatt and Rosemont Public Safety evacuated attendees, some in [[fursuit]]s, to the [http://www.rosemont.com/desconvention/ Donald E. Stephens Convention Center].

Nineteen people were transported to nearby hospitals after complaining of nausea, dizziness and other medical problems. None were hospitalized and all were released. [[W:HAZMAT|HAZMAT]] technicians decontaminated the area and after conducting several tests deemed the area safe within about two hours. People were allowed back into the building around 4:20 a.m.

A television news [[W:Stringer_(journalism)|stringer]] arrived at the scene during the event and recorded footage of the evacuation in progress, which became the footage used in news reports around the world. News coverage of the evacuation began almost immediately, with two of Chicago's 24-hour news radio stations ([[W:WGN-AM|WGN-AM]] and [[W:WBBM-AM|WBBM-AM]]) mentioning it on the air within minutes of the evacuation beginning, initially as traffic alerts (due to the road closures caused by the emergency response) but quickly moved it into news segments as additional information regarding the scope of the evacuation reached their newsrooms. The incident was a lead story that morning during newscasts on almost all of the Chicago television stations, with [[W:WMAQ-TV|WMAQ (NBC 5)]] and [[W:WLS-TV|WLS (ABC 7)]] sending crews to the hotel for live reports. The incident also [[Mika Brzezinski‎|featured on an episode]] of [[Wikipedia:MSNBC|MSNBC]]'s ''[[Wikipedia:Morning Joe|Morning Joe]]''.

Normal convention operations and events continued on schedule, with the convention staff releasing an official statement about the incident and evacuation later on the day.<ref>[http://www.furfest.org/Evacuation_Statement ''Statement On Sunday Morning's Evacuation''] page on Midwest FurFest 2014's website. Dated December 7, 2014. Retrieved December 7, 2014.</ref>

Vice News followed up with the incident in an article on February 12th, 2016.<ref>[https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/the-mystery-of-who-launched-the-chlorine-gas-attack-at-a-midwest-furry-convention ''The Unsolved Case of the Gas Attack at a Furry Convention'] page on Vice's web site. Dated February 12 2016. Retrieved February 16 2017.</ref> An incident report filed by the Rosemont Police Department shows the case was logged into the system on December 8, 2014, assigned to a detective on December 29 of that year, and closed on July 29, 2015. Detectives from the Rosemont Police Department declined to comment directly on the case, but reports they provided to VICE show that in the days following the incident, officers interviewed at least 30 hotel guests, more than 19 hotel employees, and a number of hospital workers, taxi drivers, and staff employed at local pool and hardware supply stores that sell chlorine. While officers investigated the whereabouts of several individuals, it's unclear how many were considered suspects and during what time.

=== Incident gallery ===
<gallery>
File:ABCNews P353.png|Law enforcement officers with HAZMAT equipment
File:ABCNews P351.png|Medical personnel and affected attendees
File:ABCNews P347.png|Evacuees outside the Hyatt Regency O'Hare
File:FOX News News ticker Midwest FurFest.png|FOX News' crawler about Midwest FurFest attack
File:ResponderUnits.jpg|Responder units and vehicles at convention site
File:MFFEveryoneLetIn.jpg|MFF Attendees being let back in to the main hotel
</gallery>

==References==
{{flayrah|node1=5946|title1=Midwest FurFest hotel evacuated after 'intentional' chlorine release; 19 hospitalized}}
{{reflist|2}}

== External links ==
* [https://www.google.com/search?q=chlorine+gas+attack+furry+convention+hotel+chicago&hl=en&safe=off All news coverages about the attack at MFF 2014] via [[W:Google News|Google News]]
*{{con resources|Midwest FurFest|Midwest FurFest 2014}}
{{con-stub}}

[[Category:Illinois]]
[[Category:2014 events]]

File:MFF2014 WMAQ Live.png

2017-10-25T08:52:38Z

Murrypurryfurry:

== Summary ==
Screenshot of WMAQ-TV the morning of the [[Midwest FurFest 2014]] evacuation
== Licensing ==
{{screenshot}}

File:MFF2014 WMAQ Live.png

2017-10-25T08:52:17Z

Murrypurryfurry: Screenshot of WMAQ-TV the morning of the Midwest Furfest 2014 evacuation

== Summary ==
Screenshot of WMAQ-TV the morning of the [[Midwest Furfest 2014]] evacuation
== Licensing ==
{{screenshot}}

List of in-person furry conventions by attendance

2017-08-29T07:29:50Z

Murrypurryfurry: /* Ongoing events */

The following is a list of [[furry fandom|furry]] [[convention]]s and [[furmeet]]s from around the world, listed by officially announced attendance figures from the most recent year available. Each convention is listed only once. Historical North American convention figures are available from the [http://www.mustelid.com/otterhall/afcis.html Anthro Fandom Convention Infosheet]. Other information was found on respective convention websites or reports, where available, or entered by attendees.
{{TOCright}}
==Ongoing events==



#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Anthrocon]] [[Anthrocon 2017|2017]]; [[Wikipedia:Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania|Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania]] (7,544)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Midwest FurFest]] [[Midwest FurFest 2016|2016]]; [[Wikipedia:Rosemont, Illinois|Rosemont, Illinois]] (7,075)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Biggest Little Fur Con]] [[Biggest Little Fur Con 2017|2017]]; [[wikipedia:Reno, Nevada|Reno, Nevada]] (5,138)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Furry Weekend Atlanta]] [[Furry Weekend Atlanta 2017|2017]]; [[Wikipedia:Atlanta, Georgia|Atlanta, Georgia]] (4,274)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Further Confusion]] [[Further Confusion 2017|2017]]; [[Wikipedia:San Jose, California|San Jose, California]] (3,515) (peaked at 3,560 in 2014)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Furry Fiesta]] [[Furry Fiesta 2017|2017]]; [[Wikipedia:Dallas, Texas|Dallas, Texas]] (3,325)}}
#{{flagdiv|ger|[[Eurofurence]] [[Eurofurence 22|2016]]; [[Wikipedia:Berlin|Berlin]] (2,573)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Megaplex]] [[Megaplex XVI|2017]]; [[Wikipedia:Orlando, Florida|Orlando, Florida]] (2,430)}}
#{{flagdiv|gbr|[[ConFuzzled]] [[ConFuzzled 2017|2017]]; [[Wikipedia:Birmingham|Birmingham, UK]] (1,645)}}
#{{flagdiv|can|[[Furnal Equinox]] [[Furnal Equinox 2017|2017]]; [[Wikipedia:Toronto|Toronto]], [[Wikipedia:Ontario|Ontario]] (1,587)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Furpocalypse]] 2016; [[Wikipedia:Cromwell, Connecticut|Cromwell, Connecticut]] (1,455)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Califur]] [[Califur 2017|2017]]; [[Wikipedia:Pomona, California|Pomona, California]] (1,393) (peaked at 1,451 in 2016)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Anthro New England]] [[Anthro New England 2017|2017]]; [[Wikipedia:Cambridge, Massachusetts|Cambridge, Massachusetts]] (1,384)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Motor City Furry Con]] [[Motor City Furry Con 2017|2017]]; [[Wikipedia:Novi, Michigan|Novi, Michigan]] (1,291)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[IndyFurCon]] [[IndyFurCon 2017|2017]]; [[Wikipedia:Indianapolis, Indiana|Indianapolis, Indiana]] (1,214)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Fur the 'More]] [[Fur the 'More 2017|2017]]; [[Wikipedia:Tysons Corner, Virginia|Tysons Corner, Virginia]] (1,050)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Furlandia]] [[Furlandia 2017|2017]]; [[wikipedia:Portland, Oregon|Portland, Oregon]] (975)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Fur Squared]] [[Fur Squared 2017|2017]]; [[Wikipedia:Brookfield, Wisconsin|Brookfield, Wisconsin]] (963)}}
#{{flagdiv|can|[[VancouFur (convention)|VancouFur]] [[VancouFur 2017|2017]]; [[Wikipedia:Vancouver, BC|Vancouver, BC]] (941)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Furry Migration]] 2017; [[Wikipedia:Minneapolis, Minnesota|Minneapolis, Minnesota]] (929)}}
#{{flagdiv|jpn|[[Japan Meeting of Furries]] 2017; [[Wikipedia:Toyohashi, Aichi|Toyohashi, Aichi]] (845)}}
#{{flagdiv|swe|[[NordicFuzzCon]] [[NordicFuzzCon 2017|2017]]; [[Wikipedia:Stockholm|Stockholm, Sweden]] (814)}}
#{{flagdiv|can|[[Fur-Eh!]] [[Fur-Eh! 2017|2017]]; [[Wikipedia:Edmonton, Alberta|Edmonton]], [[Wikipedia:Alberta|Alberta]] (734)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Arizona Fur Con]] [[Arizona Fur Con 2015|2015]]; [[Wikipedia:Scottsdale, Arizona|Scottsdale, Arizona]] (725)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Furrydelphia]] 2017; [[w:King_of_Prussia,_Pennsylvania|King of Prussia, Pennsylvania]] (718)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[AnthrOhio]] [[AnthrOhio 2017|2017]]; [[Wikipedia:Columbus, Ohio|Columbus, Ohio]] (647)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[FA: United!]] [[FA United 2017|2017]]; [[Wikipedia:Herndon, Virginia|Herndon, Virginia]] (515) (peaked at 707 in 2014)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Fur Reality]] [[Fur Reality 2016|2016]]; [[Wikipedia:Cincinnati|Cincinnati, Ohio]] (515)}}
#{{flagdiv|aus|[[FurDU]] [[FurDU 2015|2015]]; [[Wikipedia:Gold Coast, Queensland|Gold Coast, Queensland]] (490) (peaked at 563 in 2014)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Mephit Fur Meet]] [[Mephit Fur Meet 2016|2016]]; [[Wikipedia:Olive Branch, Mississippi|Olive Branch, Mississippi]] (453) (peaked at 650 in 2008)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Furry Siesta]] 2016; [[Wikipedia:Dallas, Texas|Dallas, Texas]] (442)}}
#{{flagdiv|can|[[What The Fur]] [[What The Fur 2016|2016]]; [[Wikipedia:Montreal, Quebec|Montreal]], [[Wikipedia:Quebec|Quebec]] (439)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Pacific Anthro Weekend|Pacific Anthropomorphics Weekend]] 2016; [[Wikipedia:San Jose, California|San Jose, California]] (438)}}
#{{flagdiv|rus|[[Rusfurrence|РусФуренция]] 2016; [[Wikipedia:Moscow|Moscow, Russian Federation]] (424) <ref>https://www.rusfurence.ru/2016/reg/list/</ref>}}
#{{flagdiv|jpn|[[Kemoket|けもケット]] 2016; [[Wikipedia:Naka-ku, Yokohama, Japan|Naka-ku, Yokohama, Japan]] (412)}}
#{{flagdiv|jpn|[[Kemocon]] 2015; [[Wikipedia:Kisarazu|Kisarazu, Chiba]] (380) (peaked at ~420 in 2012)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Foxtrot Club]] 2017; [[Wikipedia:Denver, Colorado|Denver, Colorado]] (329)}}
#{{flagdiv|can|[[CanFURence 2016]]; [[Wikipedia:Ottawa|Ottawa, Ontario]] (321)}}
#{{flagdiv|can|[[Howloween]] [[Howloween 2016|2016]]; [[Wikipedia:Burnaby, British Columbia|Burnaby, British Columbia]] (319)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Fangcon]] [[Fangcon 2016|2016]]; [[Wikipedia:Birmingham, Alabama|Birmingham]], [[Wikipedia:Alabama|Alabama]] (316) (peaked at 427 in 2015)}}
#{{flagdiv|gbr|[[Just Fur the Weekend]] 2017; [[Wikipedia:Bristol|Bristol]], [[Wikipedia:England|England]], [[Wikipedia:United Kingdom|UK]] (318)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Great Lakes Fur Con]] [[Great Lakes Fur Con 2016|2016]]; [[Wikipedia:Grand Rapids, Michigan|Grand Rapids, Michigan]] (308) (peaked at 323 in 2015)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[FurryCon (New York)|FurryCon]] 2015; [[Wikipedia: Rochester, New York|Rochester, New York]] (294) (peaked at 313 in 2014)}}
#{{flagdiv|bra|[[Brasil FurFest|Brasil FurFest]] 2017; [[Wikipedia:Santos, Brazil|Santos]], [[Wikipedia:São Paulo (state)|São Paulo]] (287)}}
#{{flagdiv|bra|[[Furboliche|Furboliche 5]] 2016; [[Wikipedia:São_Bernardo_do_Campo|São Bernardo do Campo]], [[Wikipedia:São Paulo (state)|São Paulo]] (261)<ref>http://www.furboliche.com.br/</ref>}}
#{{flagdiv|twn|[[Infurnity]] 2016; [[Wikipedia:Taipei, Taiwan|Taipei, Taiwan]] (235)}}
#{{flagdiv|aus|[[FurJAM]] 2015; [[Wikipedia:Sydney|Sydney]], [[Wikipedia:New South Wales|New South Wales]] (227)}}
#{{flagdiv|esp|[[Furrnion]] 2017; [[Wikipedia:Madrid|Madrid]], [[Wikipedia:Spain|Spain]] (223)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Gateway FurMeet]] 2016; [[Wikipedia:St. Louis|St. Louis]], [[Wikipedia:Missouri|Missouri]] (208) (peaked at 223 in 2015)}}
#{{flagdiv|cze|[[ČeSFuR]] [[ČeSFuR 11|2015]]; [[w:Bystřice nad Pernštejnem|Bystřice nad Pernštejnem]], [[wikipedia:Vysočina Region|Vysočina Regionn]] (202)*}}
#{{flagdiv|sui|[[Golden Leaves Con]] 2016; [[w:Hasliberg, Switzerland|Hasliberg, Switzerland]] (187)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Fur-Xoticon]] 2017; [[w:West Springfield, Massachusetts|West Springfield, Massachusetts]] (180)}}
#{{flagdiv|pol|[[Gdakon]] 2016; Gdańsk, [[wikipedia:Pomorskie Voivodeship|Pomorskie Voivodeship]], [[Wikipedia:Poland|Poland]] (178)}}
#{{flagdiv|gbr|[[ScotiaCon]] [[ScotiaCon 2016|2016]]; [[Wikipedia:Livingston, West Lothian|Livingston, West Lothian]], [[Wikipedia:Scotland|Scotland]], [[Wikipedia:United Kingdom|UK]] (173)}}
#{{flagdiv|mex|[[Furmeet GDL]] 2017; [[Wikipedia:Guadalajara, Jalisco|Guadalajara, Jalisco]] (170)}}
#{{flagdiv|can|[[Camp Feral!]] [[Feral! 2015|2015]]; [[Wikipedia:Algonquin Provincial Park|Algonquin Provincial Park]], [[Wikipedia:Ontario|Ontario]] (163)}}
#{{flagdiv|ger|[[EAST]] 2016; [[wikipedia:Dessau|Dessau]], [[wikipedia:Germany|Germany]] (151)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Micro Fur Con]] 2017; [[Wikipedia:Northborough, Massachusetts|Northborough, Massachusetts]] (150)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Campfire Tails]] 2015; [[Wikipedia:La Pine, Oregon|La Pine, Oregon]] (143)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Tarpaw Furmeet]] 2017; [[Wikipedia:Raleigh, North Carolina|Raleigh, North Carolina]] (141)}}
#{{flagdiv|mys|[[Furs Upon Malaysia]] 2016; [[Wikipedia:Selangor|Selangor]], [[Wikipedia:Malaysia|Malaysia]] (132)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Emerald Fur Con]] 2017; [[Wikipedia:Pensacola, Florida|Pensacola, Florida]] (126)}}
#{{flagdiv|fin|[[FinFur Animus]] 2015; [[Wikipedia:Tuusula|Tuusula]], Uusimaa, Finland (124)}}
#{{flagdiv|nld|[[Dutch Furcon]] 4 (2017); [[Wikipedia:Zevenaar|Zevenaar]], [[Wikipedia:Netherlands|Netherlands]] (116)}}
#{{flagdiv|ger|[[Castle_Con|CastleCon]] 2016; [[Wikipedia:Horb_am_Neckar|Horb am Neckar]], [[Wikipedia:Germany|Germany]] (103)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[ArkConsas]] 2017; [[Wikipedia:Little Rock, Arkansas|Little Rock, Arkansas]] (103)}}
#{{flagdiv|ukr|[[WUFF]] 2016 (formerly known as UA Furence); [[Wikipedia:Kiev|Kiev]], [[Wikipedia:Ukraine|Ukraine]] (100) (peaked at 260 in 2014)}}
#{{flagdiv|nzl|[[FurcoNZ]] 2017; [[Wikipedia:Taupo|Taupo]], [[Wikipedia:New Zealand|New Zealand]] (90)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[LAFF New Year's Eve]] 2016-17; [[Wikipedia:Oak Brook|Oak Brook]], [[Wikipedia:Illinois|Illinois]] (87)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Central Plains Fur Con]] 2015; [[Wikipedia:Wichita|Wichita, Kansas]] (83) (peaked at 97 in 2013)}}
#{{flagdiv|can|[[Surfur]] 2016; [[Wikipedia:Alberni-Clayoquot Regional District|Alberni-Clayoquot Regional District D, British Columbia]] (81)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Furry Ski Weekend]] 2017; [[Wikipedia:Copper Mountain, Colorado|Copper Mountain, Colorado]] (65)}}
#{{flagdiv|ita|[[Zampacon]] [[Zampacon '15|'15]]; [[Wikipedia: Bellaria-Igea Marina, Italy|Bellaria-Igea Marina, Italy]] (58)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Big Sky Paw Camp]] 2017; [[Wikipedia:Lincoln, Montana|Lincoln, Montana]] (40)}}
#{{flagdiv|aut|[[Zillercon]] 2017; [[Wikipedia:Lermoos|Lermoos, Tyrol]], [[Wikipedia:Austria|Austria]] (33)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[FURconsin]] 2016; [[Wikipedia:Necedah, Wisconsin|Necedah, Wisconsin]] (28)}}

<nowiki>*</nowiki> These events typically rotate to a new location each year. 
<nowiki>**</nowiki> Attendance numbers are estimated. Feel free to add more accurate data if available.

==Recent events with no data available==
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Annual JaxFurs Spring Picnic]] 2016; [[Wikipedia:Jacksonville, Florida|Jacksonville, Florida]] (186 in 2013)}}
*{{flagdiv|nor|[[CabinCon]] 2012; [[Wikipedia:Vinstra|Vinstra, Oppland]] (11 in 2010)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Central Midwest Furmeet]] 2012; [[Wikipedia:Clinton Lake (Kansas)|Clinton Lake]], [[Wikipedia:Kansas|Kansas]] (33 in 2011)}}
*{{flagdiv|aus|[[ConFurgence]] [[ConFurgence 2017|2017]]; [[Wikipedia:Melbourne, Victoria|Melbourne, Victoria]] (681 in 2016)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Delaware Furbowl]]; [[Wikipedia:Wilmington Delaware|Wilmington Delaware]] (215 in Jul. 2012)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Elliott's Live Events]] 2012; [[Wikipedia:Kissimmee, Florida|Kissimmee, Florida]] (695 in Spring 2011)<ref>https://elliottsliveevents.org/node/268#comment-318</ref>}}
*{{flagdiv|jpn|[[Fur-st|ふぁ～すと]] 2013; [[Wikipedia:Minato, Tokyo|Minato, Tokyo]], Japan (144; peaked at 270 in March 2012)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Furloween]] [[Furloween 2014|2014]]; [[Wikipedia:Orlando, Florida|Orlando, Florida]] (180){{cn}} (peaked at 196 in 2011)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Furry Cruise]] 2013; [[wikipedia:Liberty of the Seas|Liberty of the Seas]] sailing out of [[Wikipedia:Fort Lauderdale, Florida|Fort Lauderdale, Florida]] (27 in 2012) (peaked at 37 in 2005)}}
*{{flagdiv|mex|[[Furry Summer Mexico]] 2016; [[Wikipedia:Mexico City|Ciudad de México, México D.F.]] (50 in 2014)}}
*{{flagdiv|pol|[[Furstock]] 2016; [[Wikipedia:Kostrzyn nad Odrą|Kostrzyn nad Odrą, Poland]] (45)}}
*{{flagdiv|den|[[Furtastic]] 2013; [[Wikipedia:Copenhagen|Copenhagen, Denmark]] (27 in 2012)}}
*{{flagdiv|can|[[Furthest North]] Summer 2012; [[Wikipedia:Deer Creek Provincial Recreation Area|Deer Creek Provincial Recreation Area]], [[Wikipedia:Alberta|Alberta]] (52 in 2008)}}
*{{flagdiv|aus|[[FurWAG]] [[FurWAG 2014|2014]]; [[Wikipedia:Perth|Perth]], [[Wikipedia:Western Australia|Western Australia]] (177)}}
*{{flagdiv|pol|[[Futerkon]] 2013; [[wikipedia:Dzierżązna, Poland|Dzierżązna]], [[Wikipedia:Poland|Poland]] (93)}}
*{{flagdiv|ger|[[H-Con]] 8 (2012); [[wikipedia:de:Grasellenbach|Grasellenbach, Hesse]] (53 in 2007)}}
*{{flagdiv|ger|[[HerbstCon|Die HerbstCon]] 2012; [[wikipedia:Phillipsthal|Phillipsthal, Hesse]] (20 in 2008)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[LAFF Bowling]]; [[Wikipedia:Downers Grove, Illinois|Downers Grove, Illinois]] (~100)}}
*{{flagdiv|aut|[[Lakeside Furs]] 2013; [[Wikipedia:Grundlsee|Grundlsee, Styria]], [[Wikipedia:Austria|Austria]] (44 in 2012)}}
*{{flagdiv|ger|[[Mephit Mini Con]] 15 (2012); [[Wikipedia:Freusburg|Freusburg, Kirchen]] (200 in 2008)**}}
*{{flagdiv|aus|[[RivFur]] [[RivFur 2013|2013]]; [[Brisbane]], [[Wikipedia:Queensland|Queensland]] (~180)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Western Pennsylvania Furry Weekend]] 2014; [[Wikipedia:Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania|Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania]] (133)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Wild Nights]] [[Wild Nights 2014|2014]]; [[Wikipedia:Robbers Cave State Park|Robbers Cave State Park, Oklahoma]] (302)}}
*{{flagdiv|cze|[[ZodiaCon]] 2013; [[wikipedia:Pardubice|Pardubice]], [[Wikipedia:Czech Republic|Czech Republic]] (74)}}

==Discontinued, devolved, or pended events==
===Discontinued===
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[RainFurrest]] 2007-2015; [[Wikipedia:SeaTac, Washington|SeaTac, Washington]] (2,704 in 2015)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Rocky Mountain Fur Con]] 2007-2016; [[Wikipedia:Denver, Colorado|Denver, Colorado]] (1,677 in 2016)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[FurFright]] 2003-2013; [[Wikipedia:Cromwell, Connecticut|Cromwell, Connecticut]] (1,500 in 2012/2013)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Furry Connection North]] 2008-2013; [[Wikipedia:Novi, Michigan|Novi, Michigan]] (1,259 in [[Furry Connection North 2013|2013]])}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[ConFurence]] 1989-2003; [[Wikipedia:Burbank, California|Burbank, California]] (1,250 in [[ConFurence 9|1998]])}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[ConFurence East]] 1995-1996; [[Wikipedia:Cleveland, Ohio|Cleveland, Ohio]] (estimates for [[ConFurence East 1996|1996]] vary from 500 to 1,100)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Conifur Northwest]] 1998-2006; [[Wikipedia:SeaTac, Washington|SeaTac, Washington]] (525 in [[Conifur Northwest 2005|2005]])}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[NakamaCon]] 2010; [[Wikipedia:Madison, Wisconsin|Madison, Wisconsin]] (~390)**}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Furlaxation]] 2012-2014; [[Wikipedia:Columbus, Ohio|Columbus, Ohio]] (384 in [[Furlaxation_2013|2013]])}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Antheria]] 2010-2011; [[Wikipedia:Los Angeles, California|Los Angeles, California]] (~370 in 2010)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Rocket City FurMeet]] 2003-2012; [[Wikipedia:Huntsville, Alabama|Huntsville, Alabama]] (355 in [[Rocket City FurMeet 2009|2009]])}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Oklacon]] 2003-2014; [[wikipedia:Watonga, Oklahoma|Watonga, Oklahoma]] (peaked at 352 in [[Oklacon 2013|2013]])}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Duckon]] 1991-2015; [[wikipedia:Wheeling, Illinois|Wheeling, Illinois]] (Unknown in 2015 - 350 in furry track in 1999)}}
*{{flagdiv|gbr|[[RBW]] 2006-2010; [[Wikipedia:London|London, UK]] (290 in [[RBW 2008|2008]])}}
*{{flagdiv|can|[[Condition]] 2010-1014; [[Wikipedia:London, Ontario|London]], [[Wikipedia:Ontario|Ontario]] (~270 in 2012)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[FurIdaho]] 2013; [[Wikipedia:Boise, Idaho|Boise, Idaho]] (253 in 2012)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[CritterConDiego]] 2000-2002; [[Wikipedia:San Diego, California|San Diego, California]] (240 in 2001)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Furstivus]] 2011+; [[Wikipedia:Philadephia|Philadelphia]], [[Wikipedia:Pennsylvania|Pennsylvania]] (238)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Furry Unlocked]] 2015; [[Wikipedia:Salt Lake City|Salt Lake City, Utah]] (232)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Furtasticon]] 1994; [[Wikipedia:Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |Philadelphia, Pennsylvania]] (estimates vary from 230 to 300)}}
*{{flagdiv|can|[[C-ACE]] 2002-2007; [[Wikipedia:Ottawa, Ontario|Ottawa, Ontario]] (224 in 2005)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[The Maltese Fur-Con]] 2014; [[Wikipedia:Boston, Massachusetts|Boston, Massachusetts]] (197)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[All Fur Fun]] 2007-2009; [[Wikipedia:Spokane, Washington|Spokane, Washington]] (195 in [[All Fur Fun 2009|2009]])}}
*{{flagdiv|jpn|[[とらんすふぁ]] 2005-2007 (5x); [[Wikipedia:Kawasaki, Kanagawa|Kawasaki, Kanagawa]] (180 in December 2007)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Furry Spring Break]] 2001; [[Wikipedia:Orlando, Florida|Orlando, Florida]] (150)}}
*{{flagdiv|phl|[[Philippine Anthro Festival]]; [[Wikipedia:Manila, Philippines|Manila, Philippines]] (134 in 2014)}}
*{{flagdiv|can|[[Anthrofest]] 2006-2007; [[Wikipedia:Montreal, Quebec|Montreal, Quebec]] (111 in 2007)}}
*{{flagdiv|swe|[[FurryCon (Sweden)|FurryCon]] 2009; [[Wikipedia:Karlstad|Karlstad]] (110)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Texas Furry Con]] 2004; [[Wikipedia:Austin, Texas|Austin, Texas]] (100)}}
*{{flagdiv|ger|[[BerliCon]] 2012; [[wikipedia:Berlin|Berlin]] (89 in 2011)}}
*{{flagdiv|bra|[[Abando]] 2008-2016; [[Wikipedia:Itirapina|Itirapina]], [[Wikipedia:São Paulo (state)|São Paulo]] (87 in 2016)}}
*{{flagdiv|pol|[[Futrzakon]] 2008-2011; Dzierżązna, [[wikipedia:Łódź Voivodeship|Łódź Voivodeship]], [[Wikipedia:Poland|Poland]] (77 in 2011)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Cape May Fur Meet]] 2000?-2014?; [[Wikipedia:Cape May, New Jersey|Cape May, New Jersey]] (peaked at 73 in 2004)}}
*{{flagdiv|nld|[[Furs on Fire]] 2009-2013; [[Wikipedia: Evertsoord|Evertsoord, The Netherlands]] (66 in 2012-2013)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Califur Diego]] 2006-2007, 2009; [[Wikipedia:San Diego, California|San Diego, California]] (65 in 2006)**}}
*{{flagdiv|ita|[[Italian Fur Haven]] 2014; [[Wikipedia: Reggio Emilia, Italy|Reggio Emilia, Italy]] (60)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[ZonieCon]] 1998-2001; [[Wikipedia:Tucson, Arizona|Tucson, Arizona]] (57 in 2001)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[F3 Convention]] 2013; [[wikipedia:Branson, Missouri|Branson, Missouri]] (55) (peaked at 123 in 2012)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Furnival]] 2009; [[Wikipedia:Akron, Ohio|Akron, Ohio]] (53)}}
*{{flagdiv|aus|[[Aussie Gather]] 2002, 2004; [[Wikipedia:Sydney|Sydney]], [[Wikipedia:New South Wales|New South Wales]] (42 in 2004)}}
*{{flagdiv|arg|[[Animales Sueltos]] 2005-2011; [[Wikipedia:Mar del Plata|Mar del Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina]] (41 in 2011)}}
*{{flagdiv|fra|[[FranFurence]] 2003-2004, 2006-2007; [[wikipedia:fr:Chambord (Eure)|Chambord, Haute-Normandie]]* (37 in 2006)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Fur Weekend Camping & BBQ]] 2006-2008 (5x); [[Wikipedia:Gordonsville, Virginia|Gordonsville, Virginia]] (37 in Fall 2007)}}
*{{flagdiv|arg|[[UFACon]] 2004-2009; [[Wikipedia:Rosario|Rosario, Argentina]] (36 in 2009)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Central Midwest Furmeet]] 2012; [[Wikipedia:Topeka, Kansas|Topeka, Kansas]] (33 in 2011)}}
*{{flagdiv|can|[[ConWild]] 2006; [[Wikipedia:Calgary, Alberta|Calgary, Alberta]] (30)**}}
*{{flagdiv|mex|[[ConFurtiva]] 2008; [[wikipedia:Cuernavaca, Morelos|Cuernavaca, Morelos]] (26)}}
*{{flagdiv|nld|[[TreeCon]] 2003-2004; [[Wikipedia:Zandvoort|Zandvoort, Nederland]] (25 in 2004)}}
*{{flagdiv|ger|[[Tropicon]] 2006-2009; [[wikipedia:Berlin|Berlin]], [[wikipedia:Germany|Germany]] (25 in 2009)}}
*{{flagdiv|rsa|[[South Afrifur meet]] 2012; [[Wikipedia:Johannesburg|Johannesburg, South Africa]] (16 in 2008)*}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Camp Furst State]] (2013); [[Wikipedia:Cape Henlopen State Park, Delaware|Cape Henlopen State Park, Delaware]] (16 in 2012) (peaked at 25 in 2011)}}
*{{flagdiv|ger|[[NEP DustPaws]] 2007-2008; [[wikipedia:Solingen|Solingen]] (13 in 2007)}}

<nowiki>+</nowiki> New Year's Eve events, dated here according to the December year.

===Devolved===

==Notes==
{{reflist}}

==See also==
*[[Anthropomorphic Fandom Convention Information Sheet]] by [[Flint Otterhall]]
*[[List of furry convention resources]]
*[[Template:Upcoming events|List of upcoming events]]
*[[:Category:Events]]
*[//en.wikifur.com/FurryConventionMap.html Map of active furry conventions] ([[List of conventions by attendance/Map script|edit]])

{{Conventions}}
{{Discontinued Conventions}}
[[Category:Lists|Conventions listed by attendance]]
[[Category:Conventions| ]]

[[es:Lista de convenciones por asistencia]]

List of in-person furry conventions by attendance

2017-08-29T07:29:15Z

Murrypurryfurry: /* Ongoing events */

The following is a list of [[furry fandom|furry]] [[convention]]s and [[furmeet]]s from around the world, listed by officially announced attendance figures from the most recent year available. Each convention is listed only once. Historical North American convention figures are available from the [http://www.mustelid.com/otterhall/afcis.html Anthro Fandom Convention Infosheet]. Other information was found on respective convention websites or reports, where available, or entered by attendees.
{{TOCright}}
==Ongoing events==



#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Anthrocon]] [[Anthrocon 2017|2017]]; [[Wikipedia:Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania|Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania]] (7,544)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Midwest FurFest]] [[Midwest FurFest 2016|2016]]; [[Wikipedia:Rosemont, Illinois|Rosemont, Illinois]] (7,075)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Biggest Little Fur Con]] [[Biggest Little Fur Con 2017|2017]]; [[wikipedia:Reno, Nevada|Reno, Nevada]] (5,138)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Furry Weekend Atlanta]] [[Furry Weekend Atlanta 2017|2017]]; [[Wikipedia:Atlanta, Georgia|Atlanta, Georgia]] (4,274)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Further Confusion]] [[Further Confusion 2017|2017]]; [[Wikipedia:San Jose, California|San Jose, California]] (3,515) (peaked at 3,560 in 2014)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Furry Fiesta]] [[Furry Fiesta 2017|2017]]; [[Wikipedia:Dallas, Texas|Dallas, Texas]] (3,325)}}
#{{flagdiv|ger|[[Eurofurence]] [[Eurofurence 22|2016]]; [[Wikipedia:Berlin|Berlin]] (2,573)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Megaplex]] [[Megaplex XVI|2017]]; [[Wikipedia:Orlando, Florida|Orlando, Florida]] (2,430)}}
#{{flagdiv|gbr|[[ConFuzzled]] [[ConFuzzled 2017|2017]]; [[Wikipedia:Birmingham|Birmingham, UK]] (1,645)}}
#{{flagdiv|can|[[Furnal Equinox]] [[Furnal Equinox 2017|2017]]; [[Wikipedia:Toronto|Toronto]], [[Wikipedia:Ontario|Ontario]] (1,587)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Furpocalypse]] 2016; [[Wikipedia:Cromwell, Connecticut|Cromwell, Connecticut]] (1,455)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Califur]] [[Califur 2017|2017]]; [[Wikipedia:Pomona, California|Pomona, California]] (1,393) (peaked at 1,451 in 2016)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Anthro New England]] [[Anthro New England 2017|2017]]; [[Wikipedia:Cambridge, Massachusetts|Cambridge, Massachusetts]] (1,384)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Motor City Furry Con]] [[Motor City Furry Con 2017|2017]]; [[Wikipedia:Novi, Michigan|Novi, Michigan]] (1,291)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[IndyFurCon]] [[IndyFurCon 2017|2017]]; [[Wikipedia:Indianapolis, Indiana|Indianapolis, Indiana]] (1,214)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Fur the 'More]] [[Fur the 'More 2017|2017]]; [[Wikipedia:Tysons Corner, Virginia|Tysons Corner, Virginia]] (1,050)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Furlandia]] [[Furlandia 2017|2017]]; [[wikipedia:Portland, Oregon|Portland, Oregon]] (975)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Fur Squared]] [[Fur Squared 2017|2017]]; [[Wikipedia:Brookfield, Wisconsin|Brookfield, Wisconsin]] (963)}}
#{{flagdiv|can|[[VancouFur (convention)|VancouFur]] [[VancouFur 2017|2017]]; [[Wikipedia:Vancouver, BC|Vancouver, BC]] (941)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Furry Migration]] 2017; [[Wikipedia:Minneapolis, Minnesota|Minneapolis, Minnesota]] (929)}}
#{{flagdiv|jpn|[[Japan Meeting of Furries]] 2017; [[Wikipedia:Toyohashi, Aichi|Toyohashi, Aichi]] (845)}}
#{{flagdiv|swe|[[NordicFuzzCon]] [[NordicFuzzCon 2017|2017]]; [[Wikipedia:Stockholm|Stockholm, Sweden]] (814)}}
#{{flagdiv|can|[[Fur-Eh!]] [[Fur-Eh! 2017|2017]]; [[Wikipedia:Edmonton, Alberta|Edmonton]], [[Wikipedia:Alberta|Alberta]] (734)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Arizona Fur Con]] [[Arizona Fur Con 2015|2015]]; [[Wikipedia:Scottsdale, Arizona|Scottsdale, Arizona]] (725)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Furrydelphia]] 2017; [[w:King_of_Prussia,_Pennsylvania|King of Prussia, Pennsylvania]] (718)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[AnthrOhio]] [[AnthrOhio 2017|2017]]; [[Wikipedia:Columbus, Ohio|Columbus, Ohio]] (647)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[FA: United!]] [[FA: United 2017|2017]]; [[Wikipedia:Herndon, Virginia|Herndon, Virginia]] (515) (peaked at 707 in 2014)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Fur Reality]] [[Fur Reality 2016|2016]]; [[Wikipedia:Cincinnati|Cincinnati, Ohio]] (515)}}
#{{flagdiv|aus|[[FurDU]] [[FurDU 2015|2015]]; [[Wikipedia:Gold Coast, Queensland|Gold Coast, Queensland]] (490) (peaked at 563 in 2014)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Mephit Fur Meet]] [[Mephit Fur Meet 2016|2016]]; [[Wikipedia:Olive Branch, Mississippi|Olive Branch, Mississippi]] (453) (peaked at 650 in 2008)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Furry Siesta]] 2016; [[Wikipedia:Dallas, Texas|Dallas, Texas]] (442)}}
#{{flagdiv|can|[[What The Fur]] [[What The Fur 2016|2016]]; [[Wikipedia:Montreal, Quebec|Montreal]], [[Wikipedia:Quebec|Quebec]] (439)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Pacific Anthro Weekend|Pacific Anthropomorphics Weekend]] 2016; [[Wikipedia:San Jose, California|San Jose, California]] (438)}}
#{{flagdiv|rus|[[Rusfurrence|РусФуренция]] 2016; [[Wikipedia:Moscow|Moscow, Russian Federation]] (424) <ref>https://www.rusfurence.ru/2016/reg/list/</ref>}}
#{{flagdiv|jpn|[[Kemoket|けもケット]] 2016; [[Wikipedia:Naka-ku, Yokohama, Japan|Naka-ku, Yokohama, Japan]] (412)}}
#{{flagdiv|jpn|[[Kemocon]] 2015; [[Wikipedia:Kisarazu|Kisarazu, Chiba]] (380) (peaked at ~420 in 2012)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Foxtrot Club]] 2017; [[Wikipedia:Denver, Colorado|Denver, Colorado]] (329)}}
#{{flagdiv|can|[[CanFURence 2016]]; [[Wikipedia:Ottawa|Ottawa, Ontario]] (321)}}
#{{flagdiv|can|[[Howloween]] [[Howloween 2016|2016]]; [[Wikipedia:Burnaby, British Columbia|Burnaby, British Columbia]] (319)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Fangcon]] [[Fangcon 2016|2016]]; [[Wikipedia:Birmingham, Alabama|Birmingham]], [[Wikipedia:Alabama|Alabama]] (316) (peaked at 427 in 2015)}}
#{{flagdiv|gbr|[[Just Fur the Weekend]] 2017; [[Wikipedia:Bristol|Bristol]], [[Wikipedia:England|England]], [[Wikipedia:United Kingdom|UK]] (318)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Great Lakes Fur Con]] [[Great Lakes Fur Con 2016|2016]]; [[Wikipedia:Grand Rapids, Michigan|Grand Rapids, Michigan]] (308) (peaked at 323 in 2015)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[FurryCon (New York)|FurryCon]] 2015; [[Wikipedia: Rochester, New York|Rochester, New York]] (294) (peaked at 313 in 2014)}}
#{{flagdiv|bra|[[Brasil FurFest|Brasil FurFest]] 2017; [[Wikipedia:Santos, Brazil|Santos]], [[Wikipedia:São Paulo (state)|São Paulo]] (287)}}
#{{flagdiv|bra|[[Furboliche|Furboliche 5]] 2016; [[Wikipedia:São_Bernardo_do_Campo|São Bernardo do Campo]], [[Wikipedia:São Paulo (state)|São Paulo]] (261)<ref>http://www.furboliche.com.br/</ref>}}
#{{flagdiv|twn|[[Infurnity]] 2016; [[Wikipedia:Taipei, Taiwan|Taipei, Taiwan]] (235)}}
#{{flagdiv|aus|[[FurJAM]] 2015; [[Wikipedia:Sydney|Sydney]], [[Wikipedia:New South Wales|New South Wales]] (227)}}
#{{flagdiv|esp|[[Furrnion]] 2017; [[Wikipedia:Madrid|Madrid]], [[Wikipedia:Spain|Spain]] (223)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Gateway FurMeet]] 2016; [[Wikipedia:St. Louis|St. Louis]], [[Wikipedia:Missouri|Missouri]] (208) (peaked at 223 in 2015)}}
#{{flagdiv|cze|[[ČeSFuR]] [[ČeSFuR 11|2015]]; [[w:Bystřice nad Pernštejnem|Bystřice nad Pernštejnem]], [[wikipedia:Vysočina Region|Vysočina Regionn]] (202)*}}
#{{flagdiv|sui|[[Golden Leaves Con]] 2016; [[w:Hasliberg, Switzerland|Hasliberg, Switzerland]] (187)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Fur-Xoticon]] 2017; [[w:West Springfield, Massachusetts|West Springfield, Massachusetts]] (180)}}
#{{flagdiv|pol|[[Gdakon]] 2016; Gdańsk, [[wikipedia:Pomorskie Voivodeship|Pomorskie Voivodeship]], [[Wikipedia:Poland|Poland]] (178)}}
#{{flagdiv|gbr|[[ScotiaCon]] [[ScotiaCon 2016|2016]]; [[Wikipedia:Livingston, West Lothian|Livingston, West Lothian]], [[Wikipedia:Scotland|Scotland]], [[Wikipedia:United Kingdom|UK]] (173)}}
#{{flagdiv|mex|[[Furmeet GDL]] 2017; [[Wikipedia:Guadalajara, Jalisco|Guadalajara, Jalisco]] (170)}}
#{{flagdiv|can|[[Camp Feral!]] [[Feral! 2015|2015]]; [[Wikipedia:Algonquin Provincial Park|Algonquin Provincial Park]], [[Wikipedia:Ontario|Ontario]] (163)}}
#{{flagdiv|ger|[[EAST]] 2016; [[wikipedia:Dessau|Dessau]], [[wikipedia:Germany|Germany]] (151)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Micro Fur Con]] 2017; [[Wikipedia:Northborough, Massachusetts|Northborough, Massachusetts]] (150)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Campfire Tails]] 2015; [[Wikipedia:La Pine, Oregon|La Pine, Oregon]] (143)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Tarpaw Furmeet]] 2017; [[Wikipedia:Raleigh, North Carolina|Raleigh, North Carolina]] (141)}}
#{{flagdiv|mys|[[Furs Upon Malaysia]] 2016; [[Wikipedia:Selangor|Selangor]], [[Wikipedia:Malaysia|Malaysia]] (132)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Emerald Fur Con]] 2017; [[Wikipedia:Pensacola, Florida|Pensacola, Florida]] (126)}}
#{{flagdiv|fin|[[FinFur Animus]] 2015; [[Wikipedia:Tuusula|Tuusula]], Uusimaa, Finland (124)}}
#{{flagdiv|nld|[[Dutch Furcon]] 4 (2017); [[Wikipedia:Zevenaar|Zevenaar]], [[Wikipedia:Netherlands|Netherlands]] (116)}}
#{{flagdiv|ger|[[Castle_Con|CastleCon]] 2016; [[Wikipedia:Horb_am_Neckar|Horb am Neckar]], [[Wikipedia:Germany|Germany]] (103)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[ArkConsas]] 2017; [[Wikipedia:Little Rock, Arkansas|Little Rock, Arkansas]] (103)}}
#{{flagdiv|ukr|[[WUFF]] 2016 (formerly known as UA Furence); [[Wikipedia:Kiev|Kiev]], [[Wikipedia:Ukraine|Ukraine]] (100) (peaked at 260 in 2014)}}
#{{flagdiv|nzl|[[FurcoNZ]] 2017; [[Wikipedia:Taupo|Taupo]], [[Wikipedia:New Zealand|New Zealand]] (90)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[LAFF New Year's Eve]] 2016-17; [[Wikipedia:Oak Brook|Oak Brook]], [[Wikipedia:Illinois|Illinois]] (87)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Central Plains Fur Con]] 2015; [[Wikipedia:Wichita|Wichita, Kansas]] (83) (peaked at 97 in 2013)}}
#{{flagdiv|can|[[Surfur]] 2016; [[Wikipedia:Alberni-Clayoquot Regional District|Alberni-Clayoquot Regional District D, British Columbia]] (81)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Furry Ski Weekend]] 2017; [[Wikipedia:Copper Mountain, Colorado|Copper Mountain, Colorado]] (65)}}
#{{flagdiv|ita|[[Zampacon]] [[Zampacon '15|'15]]; [[Wikipedia: Bellaria-Igea Marina, Italy|Bellaria-Igea Marina, Italy]] (58)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[Big Sky Paw Camp]] 2017; [[Wikipedia:Lincoln, Montana|Lincoln, Montana]] (40)}}
#{{flagdiv|aut|[[Zillercon]] 2017; [[Wikipedia:Lermoos|Lermoos, Tyrol]], [[Wikipedia:Austria|Austria]] (33)}}
#{{flagdiv|usa|[[FURconsin]] 2016; [[Wikipedia:Necedah, Wisconsin|Necedah, Wisconsin]] (28)}}

<nowiki>*</nowiki> These events typically rotate to a new location each year. 
<nowiki>**</nowiki> Attendance numbers are estimated. Feel free to add more accurate data if available.

==Recent events with no data available==
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Annual JaxFurs Spring Picnic]] 2016; [[Wikipedia:Jacksonville, Florida|Jacksonville, Florida]] (186 in 2013)}}
*{{flagdiv|nor|[[CabinCon]] 2012; [[Wikipedia:Vinstra|Vinstra, Oppland]] (11 in 2010)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Central Midwest Furmeet]] 2012; [[Wikipedia:Clinton Lake (Kansas)|Clinton Lake]], [[Wikipedia:Kansas|Kansas]] (33 in 2011)}}
*{{flagdiv|aus|[[ConFurgence]] [[ConFurgence 2017|2017]]; [[Wikipedia:Melbourne, Victoria|Melbourne, Victoria]] (681 in 2016)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Delaware Furbowl]]; [[Wikipedia:Wilmington Delaware|Wilmington Delaware]] (215 in Jul. 2012)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Elliott's Live Events]] 2012; [[Wikipedia:Kissimmee, Florida|Kissimmee, Florida]] (695 in Spring 2011)<ref>https://elliottsliveevents.org/node/268#comment-318</ref>}}
*{{flagdiv|jpn|[[Fur-st|ふぁ～すと]] 2013; [[Wikipedia:Minato, Tokyo|Minato, Tokyo]], Japan (144; peaked at 270 in March 2012)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Furloween]] [[Furloween 2014|2014]]; [[Wikipedia:Orlando, Florida|Orlando, Florida]] (180){{cn}} (peaked at 196 in 2011)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Furry Cruise]] 2013; [[wikipedia:Liberty of the Seas|Liberty of the Seas]] sailing out of [[Wikipedia:Fort Lauderdale, Florida|Fort Lauderdale, Florida]] (27 in 2012) (peaked at 37 in 2005)}}
*{{flagdiv|mex|[[Furry Summer Mexico]] 2016; [[Wikipedia:Mexico City|Ciudad de México, México D.F.]] (50 in 2014)}}
*{{flagdiv|pol|[[Furstock]] 2016; [[Wikipedia:Kostrzyn nad Odrą|Kostrzyn nad Odrą, Poland]] (45)}}
*{{flagdiv|den|[[Furtastic]] 2013; [[Wikipedia:Copenhagen|Copenhagen, Denmark]] (27 in 2012)}}
*{{flagdiv|can|[[Furthest North]] Summer 2012; [[Wikipedia:Deer Creek Provincial Recreation Area|Deer Creek Provincial Recreation Area]], [[Wikipedia:Alberta|Alberta]] (52 in 2008)}}
*{{flagdiv|aus|[[FurWAG]] [[FurWAG 2014|2014]]; [[Wikipedia:Perth|Perth]], [[Wikipedia:Western Australia|Western Australia]] (177)}}
*{{flagdiv|pol|[[Futerkon]] 2013; [[wikipedia:Dzierżązna, Poland|Dzierżązna]], [[Wikipedia:Poland|Poland]] (93)}}
*{{flagdiv|ger|[[H-Con]] 8 (2012); [[wikipedia:de:Grasellenbach|Grasellenbach, Hesse]] (53 in 2007)}}
*{{flagdiv|ger|[[HerbstCon|Die HerbstCon]] 2012; [[wikipedia:Phillipsthal|Phillipsthal, Hesse]] (20 in 2008)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[LAFF Bowling]]; [[Wikipedia:Downers Grove, Illinois|Downers Grove, Illinois]] (~100)}}
*{{flagdiv|aut|[[Lakeside Furs]] 2013; [[Wikipedia:Grundlsee|Grundlsee, Styria]], [[Wikipedia:Austria|Austria]] (44 in 2012)}}
*{{flagdiv|ger|[[Mephit Mini Con]] 15 (2012); [[Wikipedia:Freusburg|Freusburg, Kirchen]] (200 in 2008)**}}
*{{flagdiv|aus|[[RivFur]] [[RivFur 2013|2013]]; [[Brisbane]], [[Wikipedia:Queensland|Queensland]] (~180)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Western Pennsylvania Furry Weekend]] 2014; [[Wikipedia:Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania|Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania]] (133)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Wild Nights]] [[Wild Nights 2014|2014]]; [[Wikipedia:Robbers Cave State Park|Robbers Cave State Park, Oklahoma]] (302)}}
*{{flagdiv|cze|[[ZodiaCon]] 2013; [[wikipedia:Pardubice|Pardubice]], [[Wikipedia:Czech Republic|Czech Republic]] (74)}}

==Discontinued, devolved, or pended events==
===Discontinued===
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[RainFurrest]] 2007-2015; [[Wikipedia:SeaTac, Washington|SeaTac, Washington]] (2,704 in 2015)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Rocky Mountain Fur Con]] 2007-2016; [[Wikipedia:Denver, Colorado|Denver, Colorado]] (1,677 in 2016)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[FurFright]] 2003-2013; [[Wikipedia:Cromwell, Connecticut|Cromwell, Connecticut]] (1,500 in 2012/2013)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Furry Connection North]] 2008-2013; [[Wikipedia:Novi, Michigan|Novi, Michigan]] (1,259 in [[Furry Connection North 2013|2013]])}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[ConFurence]] 1989-2003; [[Wikipedia:Burbank, California|Burbank, California]] (1,250 in [[ConFurence 9|1998]])}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[ConFurence East]] 1995-1996; [[Wikipedia:Cleveland, Ohio|Cleveland, Ohio]] (estimates for [[ConFurence East 1996|1996]] vary from 500 to 1,100)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Conifur Northwest]] 1998-2006; [[Wikipedia:SeaTac, Washington|SeaTac, Washington]] (525 in [[Conifur Northwest 2005|2005]])}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[NakamaCon]] 2010; [[Wikipedia:Madison, Wisconsin|Madison, Wisconsin]] (~390)**}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Furlaxation]] 2012-2014; [[Wikipedia:Columbus, Ohio|Columbus, Ohio]] (384 in [[Furlaxation_2013|2013]])}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Antheria]] 2010-2011; [[Wikipedia:Los Angeles, California|Los Angeles, California]] (~370 in 2010)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Rocket City FurMeet]] 2003-2012; [[Wikipedia:Huntsville, Alabama|Huntsville, Alabama]] (355 in [[Rocket City FurMeet 2009|2009]])}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Oklacon]] 2003-2014; [[wikipedia:Watonga, Oklahoma|Watonga, Oklahoma]] (peaked at 352 in [[Oklacon 2013|2013]])}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Duckon]] 1991-2015; [[wikipedia:Wheeling, Illinois|Wheeling, Illinois]] (Unknown in 2015 - 350 in furry track in 1999)}}
*{{flagdiv|gbr|[[RBW]] 2006-2010; [[Wikipedia:London|London, UK]] (290 in [[RBW 2008|2008]])}}
*{{flagdiv|can|[[Condition]] 2010-1014; [[Wikipedia:London, Ontario|London]], [[Wikipedia:Ontario|Ontario]] (~270 in 2012)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[FurIdaho]] 2013; [[Wikipedia:Boise, Idaho|Boise, Idaho]] (253 in 2012)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[CritterConDiego]] 2000-2002; [[Wikipedia:San Diego, California|San Diego, California]] (240 in 2001)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Furstivus]] 2011+; [[Wikipedia:Philadephia|Philadelphia]], [[Wikipedia:Pennsylvania|Pennsylvania]] (238)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Furry Unlocked]] 2015; [[Wikipedia:Salt Lake City|Salt Lake City, Utah]] (232)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Furtasticon]] 1994; [[Wikipedia:Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |Philadelphia, Pennsylvania]] (estimates vary from 230 to 300)}}
*{{flagdiv|can|[[C-ACE]] 2002-2007; [[Wikipedia:Ottawa, Ontario|Ottawa, Ontario]] (224 in 2005)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[The Maltese Fur-Con]] 2014; [[Wikipedia:Boston, Massachusetts|Boston, Massachusetts]] (197)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[All Fur Fun]] 2007-2009; [[Wikipedia:Spokane, Washington|Spokane, Washington]] (195 in [[All Fur Fun 2009|2009]])}}
*{{flagdiv|jpn|[[とらんすふぁ]] 2005-2007 (5x); [[Wikipedia:Kawasaki, Kanagawa|Kawasaki, Kanagawa]] (180 in December 2007)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Furry Spring Break]] 2001; [[Wikipedia:Orlando, Florida|Orlando, Florida]] (150)}}
*{{flagdiv|phl|[[Philippine Anthro Festival]]; [[Wikipedia:Manila, Philippines|Manila, Philippines]] (134 in 2014)}}
*{{flagdiv|can|[[Anthrofest]] 2006-2007; [[Wikipedia:Montreal, Quebec|Montreal, Quebec]] (111 in 2007)}}
*{{flagdiv|swe|[[FurryCon (Sweden)|FurryCon]] 2009; [[Wikipedia:Karlstad|Karlstad]] (110)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Texas Furry Con]] 2004; [[Wikipedia:Austin, Texas|Austin, Texas]] (100)}}
*{{flagdiv|ger|[[BerliCon]] 2012; [[wikipedia:Berlin|Berlin]] (89 in 2011)}}
*{{flagdiv|bra|[[Abando]] 2008-2016; [[Wikipedia:Itirapina|Itirapina]], [[Wikipedia:São Paulo (state)|São Paulo]] (87 in 2016)}}
*{{flagdiv|pol|[[Futrzakon]] 2008-2011; Dzierżązna, [[wikipedia:Łódź Voivodeship|Łódź Voivodeship]], [[Wikipedia:Poland|Poland]] (77 in 2011)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Cape May Fur Meet]] 2000?-2014?; [[Wikipedia:Cape May, New Jersey|Cape May, New Jersey]] (peaked at 73 in 2004)}}
*{{flagdiv|nld|[[Furs on Fire]] 2009-2013; [[Wikipedia: Evertsoord|Evertsoord, The Netherlands]] (66 in 2012-2013)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Califur Diego]] 2006-2007, 2009; [[Wikipedia:San Diego, California|San Diego, California]] (65 in 2006)**}}
*{{flagdiv|ita|[[Italian Fur Haven]] 2014; [[Wikipedia: Reggio Emilia, Italy|Reggio Emilia, Italy]] (60)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[ZonieCon]] 1998-2001; [[Wikipedia:Tucson, Arizona|Tucson, Arizona]] (57 in 2001)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[F3 Convention]] 2013; [[wikipedia:Branson, Missouri|Branson, Missouri]] (55) (peaked at 123 in 2012)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Furnival]] 2009; [[Wikipedia:Akron, Ohio|Akron, Ohio]] (53)}}
*{{flagdiv|aus|[[Aussie Gather]] 2002, 2004; [[Wikipedia:Sydney|Sydney]], [[Wikipedia:New South Wales|New South Wales]] (42 in 2004)}}
*{{flagdiv|arg|[[Animales Sueltos]] 2005-2011; [[Wikipedia:Mar del Plata|Mar del Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina]] (41 in 2011)}}
*{{flagdiv|fra|[[FranFurence]] 2003-2004, 2006-2007; [[wikipedia:fr:Chambord (Eure)|Chambord, Haute-Normandie]]* (37 in 2006)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Fur Weekend Camping & BBQ]] 2006-2008 (5x); [[Wikipedia:Gordonsville, Virginia|Gordonsville, Virginia]] (37 in Fall 2007)}}
*{{flagdiv|arg|[[UFACon]] 2004-2009; [[Wikipedia:Rosario|Rosario, Argentina]] (36 in 2009)}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Central Midwest Furmeet]] 2012; [[Wikipedia:Topeka, Kansas|Topeka, Kansas]] (33 in 2011)}}
*{{flagdiv|can|[[ConWild]] 2006; [[Wikipedia:Calgary, Alberta|Calgary, Alberta]] (30)**}}
*{{flagdiv|mex|[[ConFurtiva]] 2008; [[wikipedia:Cuernavaca, Morelos|Cuernavaca, Morelos]] (26)}}
*{{flagdiv|nld|[[TreeCon]] 2003-2004; [[Wikipedia:Zandvoort|Zandvoort, Nederland]] (25 in 2004)}}
*{{flagdiv|ger|[[Tropicon]] 2006-2009; [[wikipedia:Berlin|Berlin]], [[wikipedia:Germany|Germany]] (25 in 2009)}}
*{{flagdiv|rsa|[[South Afrifur meet]] 2012; [[Wikipedia:Johannesburg|Johannesburg, South Africa]] (16 in 2008)*}}
*{{flagdiv|usa|[[Camp Furst State]] (2013); [[Wikipedia:Cape Henlopen State Park, Delaware|Cape Henlopen State Park, Delaware]] (16 in 2012) (peaked at 25 in 2011)}}
*{{flagdiv|ger|[[NEP DustPaws]] 2007-2008; [[wikipedia:Solingen|Solingen]] (13 in 2007)}}

<nowiki>+</nowiki> New Year's Eve events, dated here according to the December year.

===Devolved===

==Notes==
{{reflist}}

==See also==
*[[Anthropomorphic Fandom Convention Information Sheet]] by [[Flint Otterhall]]
*[[List of furry convention resources]]
*[[Template:Upcoming events|List of upcoming events]]
*[[:Category:Events]]
*[//en.wikifur.com/FurryConventionMap.html Map of active furry conventions] ([[List of conventions by attendance/Map script|edit]])

{{Conventions}}
{{Discontinued Conventions}}
[[Category:Lists|Conventions listed by attendance]]
[[Category:Conventions| ]]

[[es:Lista de convenciones por asistencia]]

FA United 2017

2017-08-29T07:28:54Z

Murrypurryfurry:

[[File:FAUnited2017Logo.jpg|right|300px]]
{{FAUnited}}
'''FA United 2017''' was the tenth iteration of [[FA: United]], and was held over August 25-27, 2017,<ref name="FAUwebsite">[http://www.faunited.org/index.shtml FA United 2017] website. Retrieved May 22, 2017.</ref> at the Hyatt Regency Dulles in [[w:Herndon, Virginia|Herndon, Virginia]], USA.

The convention had 515 attendees<ref>[https://twitter.com/faunited/status/901982719009316868 @FAUnited Twitter account] Retrieved August 29, 2017.</ref>, 114 fursuiters, and raised "$4k" in charity donations<ref>[https://twitter.com/faunited/status/902319659067826176 @FAUnited Twitter account] Retrieved August 29, 2017.</ref>. This was the third year in a row the convention had negative attendance growth, having peaked at 707 attendees in [[FA:_United_7|2014]].

== Theme ==
The theme was "the [[w:Middle Ages|Middle Ages]]",<ref name="FAUwebsite"/> and the [[guests of honor]] were be [[Eyrich]] and [[Artslave]], with Musical Guests [[Fox Amoore]] and [[Pepper Coyote]].<ref name="FAUwebsite"/>

The convention's [[charity]] was Wolf Trap Rescue.<ref>[http://www.faunited.org/charity.shtml Our Charity - Wolf Trap Animal Rescue] on the FA United 2017 website. Retrieved May 22, 2017.</ref>

== Event Staff ==
The convention staff for FA United 2017 are:<ref name="Contact">[http://www.faunited.org/contact-us.shtml Contact Us] page on the FA United 2017 website. Retrieved May 22, 2017.</ref>
* Con Chair: [[Dragoneer]]
* Vice Chair: [[Sciggles]]
* Dealers Den & Artist Alley Director: [[Chase_(Fur_Affinity_administrator)|Chase]]
* Security:
** Director: [[Frost Bight]]
** Assistant Director: [[Hengstolf]]
* Registration:
** Director: [[Glaide]]
** Assistant Director: [[Derf Dragon]]
* Events Director: [[AsiaNeko]]
* Operations & Volunteering:
** Director: [[Yuuki]]
** Assistant Director: [[Trpdwarf]]
* Gaming:
** Director: [[Jack Pandasnake]]
** Assistant Director: [[Rockaway]]
* A.V & Main Events:
** Director: [[Dobie Tanpaw]]
** Assistant Director: [[Kisky]]

==References==
<references/>

==External links==

* [http://www.faunited.org/ FA: United] official website
* [http://www.furaffinity.net/user/faunited FA: United] on [[Fur Affinity]]
* [http://twitter.com/faunited FA: United] on [[Twitter]]

{{future-con-stub}}

[[Category:Virginia]]
[[Category:2017 events]]

FA United 2017

2017-08-29T07:26:20Z

Murrypurryfurry:

[[File:FAUnited2017Logo.jpg|right|300px]]
{{FAUnited}}
'''FA United 2017''' was the tenth iteration of [[FA: United]], and was held over August 25-27, 2017,<ref name="FAUwebsite">[http://www.faunited.org/index.shtml FA United 2017] website. Retrieved May 22, 2017.</ref> at the Hyatt Regency Dulles in [[w:Herndon, Virginia|Herndon, Virginia]], USA.

The convention had 515 attendees, 114 fursuiters, and raised "$4k" in charity donations<ref name="@faunited Twitter">[https://twitter.com/faunited/status/901982719009316868 @FAUnited Twitter account] Retrieved August 29, 2017.</ref>. This was the third year in a row the convention had negative attendance growth, having peaked at 707 attendees in [[FA:_United_7|2014]].

== Theme ==
The theme was "the [[w:Middle Ages|Middle Ages]]",<ref name="FAUwebsite"/> and the [[guests of honor]] were be [[Eyrich]] and [[Artslave]], with Musical Guests [[Fox Amoore]] and [[Pepper Coyote]].<ref name="FAUwebsite"/>

The convention's [[charity]] was Wolf Trap Rescue.<ref>[http://www.faunited.org/charity.shtml Our Charity - Wolf Trap Animal Rescue] on the FA United 2017 website. Retrieved May 22, 2017.</ref>

== Event Staff ==
The convention staff for FA United 2017 are:<ref name="Contact">[http://www.faunited.org/contact-us.shtml Contact Us] page on the FA United 2017 website. Retrieved May 22, 2017.</ref>
* Con Chair: [[Dragoneer]]
* Vice Chair: [[Sciggles]]
* Dealers Den & Artist Alley Director: [[Chase_(Fur_Affinity_administrator)|Chase]]
* Security:
** Director: [[Frost Bight]]
** Assistant Director: [[Hengstolf]]
* Registration:
** Director: [[Glaide]]
** Assistant Director: [[Derf Dragon]]
* Events Director: [[AsiaNeko]]
* Operations & Volunteering:
** Director: [[Yuuki]]
** Assistant Director: [[Trpdwarf]]
* Gaming:
** Director: [[Jack Pandasnake]]
** Assistant Director: [[Rockaway]]
* A.V & Main Events:
** Director: [[Dobie Tanpaw]]
** Assistant Director: [[Kisky]]

==References==
<references/>

==External links==

* [http://www.faunited.org/ FA: United] official website
* [http://www.furaffinity.net/user/faunited FA: United] on [[Fur Affinity]]
* [http://twitter.com/faunited FA: United] on [[Twitter]]

{{future-con-stub}}

[[Category:Virginia]]
[[Category:2017 events]]

FA United 2017

2017-08-29T07:25:19Z

Murrypurryfurry:

[[File:FAUnited2017Logo.jpg|right|300px]]
{{FAUnited}}
'''FA United 2017''' was the tenth iteration of [[FA: United]], and was held over August 25-27, 2017,<ref name="FAUwebsite">[http://www.faunited.org/index.shtml FA United 2017] website. Retrieved May 22, 2017.</ref> at the Hyatt Regency Dulles in [[w:Herndon, Virginia|Herndon, Virginia]], USA.

The convention had 539 attendees, 114 fursuiters, and raised "$4k" in charity donations<ref name="@faunited Twitter">[https://twitter.com/faunited/status/901982719009316868 @FAUnited Twitter account] Retrieved August 29, 2017.</ref>. This was the third year in a row the convention had negative attendance growth, having peaked at 707 attendees in [[FA:_United_7|2014]].

== Theme ==
The theme was "the [[w:Middle Ages|Middle Ages]]",<ref name="FAUwebsite"/> and the [[guests of honor]] were be [[Eyrich]] and [[Artslave]], with Musical Guests [[Fox Amoore]] and [[Pepper Coyote]].<ref name="FAUwebsite"/>

The convention's [[charity]] was Wolf Trap Rescue.<ref>[http://www.faunited.org/charity.shtml Our Charity - Wolf Trap Animal Rescue] on the FA United 2017 website. Retrieved May 22, 2017.</ref>

== Event Staff ==
The convention staff for FA United 2017 are:<ref name="Contact">[http://www.faunited.org/contact-us.shtml Contact Us] page on the FA United 2017 website. Retrieved May 22, 2017.</ref>
* Con Chair: [[Dragoneer]]
* Vice Chair: [[Sciggles]]
* Dealers Den & Artist Alley Director: [[Chase_(Fur_Affinity_administrator)|Chase]]
* Security:
** Director: [[Frost Bight]]
** Assistant Director: [[Hengstolf]]
* Registration:
** Director: [[Glaide]]
** Assistant Director: [[Derf Dragon]]
* Events Director: [[AsiaNeko]]
* Operations & Volunteering:
** Director: [[Yuuki]]
** Assistant Director: [[Trpdwarf]]
* Gaming:
** Director: [[Jack Pandasnake]]
** Assistant Director: [[Rockaway]]
* A.V & Main Events:
** Director: [[Dobie Tanpaw]]
** Assistant Director: [[Kisky]]

==References==
<references/>

==External links==

* [http://www.faunited.org/ FA: United] official website
* [http://www.furaffinity.net/user/faunited FA: United] on [[Fur Affinity]]
* [http://twitter.com/faunited FA: United] on [[Twitter]]

{{future-con-stub}}

[[Category:Virginia]]
[[Category:2017 events]]

Midwest FurFest 2014

2015-11-16T03:09:08Z

Murrypurryfurry: /* Chemical attack */

[[File:MidwestFurFest2014Banner.jpg|right|250px]]
{{Midwest FurFest}}
'''Midwest FurFest 2014''' was the 15th yearly [[Midwest FurFest]] [[convention]], held once again at the [http://www.ohare.hyatt.com/ Hyatt Regency O'Hare] in [[W:Rosemont, Illinois|Rosemont, Illinois]].<ref name="Tweet1">[https://twitter.com/midwestfurfest/status/404785343578537984 "''Thanks also to everyone...''"] post on the [[Midwest FurFest]]'s [[Twitter]]. Dated November 24, 2013. Retrieved November 25, 2013.</ref> It was held on December 5-7, 2014.<ref name="News1">[http://forum.furfest.org/index.php/topic,724.0.html ''Topic: Midwest FurFest Announces Date Change! December 5-7, 2014''] post on the Midwest FurFest website. Dated January 8, 2014. Retrieved January 8, 2014.</ref> The change in dates from its traditional weekend before Thanksgiving (US) was due to scheduling conflicts with the hotel and lack of available rooms. Attendance at the convention was 4,571. The [[fursuit parade]] had 1,132 participants, and the convention raised $31,445.93 for [[convention charity]] [http://www.crittercamp.org Critter Camp Exotic Pet Sanctuary].<ref>''[http://www.journalstandard.com/article/20141214/NEWS/141219776/1994/NEWS Local charity receives donation]'' - Freeport ''Journal Standard'' (December 14, 2014)</ref>

== Theme ==

The convention's theme was "Holidays in the City"<ref>[https://twitter.com/midwestfurfest/status/448160221710393344 "''Pirates are so last year.''"] comment on the Midwest FurFest's Twitter. Dated March 24, 2014. Retrieved March 28, 2014.</ref> (originally announced as "Bright Lights Big City").<ref>[https://twitter.com/midwestfurfest/status/404755326047883265 "''Our theme for #MWFF 2014 will be BRIGHT LIGHTS BIG CITY.''"] post on the Midwest FurFest's Twitter. Dated November 24, 2013. Retrieved November 25, 2013.</ref>

== Guests of Honor ==

The [[Guest of Honor|Guests of Honor]] were [[Lacy]] and [[CloudPouncer]], Novadog/[[D. Walker (Novadog)|D. Walker]], and [[Sabretoothed Ermine]].<ref>[https://twitter.com/midwestfurfest/status/404754854532624384 "''Our Guests of Honor for #MWFF 2014 will be...''"] tweet on the Midwest FurFest account's Twitter. Dated November 24, 2013. Retrieved November 25, 2013.</ref>

== Chemical attack ==

At 12:45 a.m. on the third day of the convention, December 7th, several thousand people were evacuated from the hotel due to an intentional release of [[W:chlorine gas|chlorine gas]] inside the building.<ref>[https://twitter.com/midwestfurfest/status/541509709212446722 "''We’ve been asked to evacuate the Hyatt...''"] post on the Midwest FurFest's Twitter. Dated December 7, 2014. Retrieved December 7, 2014.</ref><ref>[http://abc7chicago.com/news/furfest-evacuated-after-chemical-leak-at-hyatt-hotel/425553/ ''Furfest Evacuated After Chlorine Leak At Hyatt Hotel''] news segment from [http://abc7chicago.com ABC 7 Eyewitness News Chicago]. Aired December 7, 2014. Retrieved December 7, 2014.</ref><ref>[http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-19-hospitalized-thousands-evacuated-in-gas-leak-at-rosemont-hotel-20141207-story.html?track=rss ''19 hospitalized, thousands evacuated in 'intentional' gas leak at Rosemont hotel''] article on the [http://www.chicagotribune.com Chicago Tribune] website. Dated December 7, 2014. Retrieved December 7, 2014.</ref><ref>[http://chicagosuntimes.com/news/chemical-leak-prompts-evacuation-during-midwest-furfest-at-rosemont-hyatt/ ''Chemical leak at Hyatt Regency deemed intentional''] article from the [http://chicagosuntimes.com Chicago Sun Times]. Dated December 7, 2014. Retrieved December 7, 2014.</ref><ref>[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2864415/Chlorine-gas-leak-sickens-19-furry-convention.html ''Did someone try to POISON a furry convention? Chlorine gas sickens 19 as police reveal leak may have intentionally targeted cosplayers''] article on the [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ Daily Mail Online]. Dated December 7, 2014. Retrieved December 7, 2014.</ref>

First responders were called to investigate a noxious odor that was spreading across the ninth and eighth floor of the hotel, where a high level of chlorine gas was discovered in the air. The [http://www.rosemont.com/government/public-safety/ Rosemont Public Safety Department] reported that the chemical gas have been caused by an intentional chemical leak via an smashed glass container containing [[W:Calcium hypochlorite|powdered chlorine]] found in the 9th floor stairwell.<ref>[http://www.arlingtoncardinal.com/2014/12/glass-jar-with-white-substance-strong-chlorine-smell-causes-firefighter-ems-hazmat-response-evacuation-at-hyatt-regency-rosemont/ ''At Hyatt-Regency, Rosemont: Glass Jar with White Substance, Strong Chlorine Smell Causes Firefighter, EMS Hazmat Response, Evacuation''] article from [http://arlingtoncardinal.com The Cardinal]. Dated December 7, 2014. Retrieved December 7, 2014.</ref>

Nineteen people were transported to nearby hospitals after complaining of nausea, dizziness and other medical problems. None were hospitalized and all were released. [[W:HAZMAT|HAZMAT]] technicians decontaminated the area and after conducting several tests deemed the area safe within about two hours. People were allowed back into the building around 4:20 a.m.

During the evacuation, attendees, some in [[fursuit]]s, were evacuated to the [http://www.rosemont.com/desconvention/ Donald E. Stephens Convention Center] nearby to keep out of the cold.

A television news [[W:Stringer_(journalism)|stringer]] arrived at the scene during the event and recorded footage of the evacuation in progress, which became the footage used in news reports around the world. News coverage of the evacuation began almost immediately, with two of Chicago's 24-hour news radio stations ([[W:WGN-AM|WGN-AM]] and [[W:WBBM-AM|WBBM-AM]]) mentioning it on the air within minutes of the evacuation beginning, initially as traffic alerts (due to the road closures caused by the emergency response) but quickly moved it into news segments as additional information regarding the scope of the evacuation reached their newsrooms. The incident was a lead story that morning during newscasts on almost all of the Chicago television stations, with [[W:WMAQ-TV|WMAQ (NBC 5)]] and [[W:WLS-TV|WLS (ABC 7)]] sending crews to the hotel for live reports.

Normal convention operations and events continued on schedule, with the convention staff releasing an official statement about the incident and evacuation later on the day.<ref>[http://www.furfest.org/Evacuation_Statement ''Statement On Sunday Morning's Evacuation''] page on Midwest FurFest 2014's website. Dated December 7, 2014. Retrieved December 7, 2014.</ref>

=== Incident gallery ===
<gallery>
File:ABCNews P353.png|Law enforcement officers with HAZMAT equipment
File:ABCNews P351.png|Medical personnel and affected attendees
File:ABCNews P347.png|Evacuees outside the Hyatt Regency O'Hare
File:FOX News News ticker Midwest FurFest.png|FOX News' crawler about Midwest FurFest attack
File:ResponderUnits.jpg|Responder units and vehicles at convention site
File:MFFEveryoneLetIn.jpg|MFF Attendees being let back in to the main hotel
</gallery>

==References==
{{flayrah|node1=5946|title1=Midwest FurFest hotel evacuated after 'intentional' chlorine release; 19 hospitalized}}
{{reflist|2}}

== See also ==

* [[Mika Brzezinski‎]]

== External links ==

* [https://www.google.com/search?q=chlorine+gas+attack+furry+convention+hotel+chicago&hl=en&safe=off All news coverages about the attack at MFF 2014] via [[W:Google News|Google News]]

{{con-stub}}

[[Category:Illinois]]
[[Category:2014 events]]

Fur Affinity

2015-10-27T09:40:59Z

Murrypurryfurry:

{{update}}
{{Infobox website
| title = Fur Affinity
| image = [[File:FAFront Page.png|208px]]Fur Affinity front page
| author = '''Owner:''' [[IMVU]]
* '''Lead admin:''' [[Dragoneer]]
* '''Founder:''' [[Alkora]]
* [[#Administrators|Administrators]]
| url = https://www.furaffinity.net/ ([https://sfw.furaffinity.net/ SFW])
* [http://help.furaffinity.net/ Help site]
* [http://donations.furaffinity.net/ Donations expenditure]
* '''Trackers''': [https://trello.com/b/f7USczsS/furaffinity-devops DevOps] - [https://trello.com/b/SmYk47aD/furaffinity-feature-requests Requests]
| status =
| began = 16 January–1 August 2005 ([[History of Fur Affinity#Server problems of 2005|staff dispute & server issues]]) 10 December 2005–present
| ended =
| genre = Social media community
| rating = {{Rating-pg-button|center}}{{Rating-nc17-button|right}}
}}

'''Fur Affinity''', also known as '''FA''', is the [[furry fandom]]'s largest online community, focusing on the promotion of art, music and stories.

The site was created in 2005 by [[Alkora]] as an alternative to various art community sites such as [[SheezyArt]] and [[deviantART]], distinguished by allowing artistic freedom of expression regardless of content rating. It is led by [[Dragoneer]].
<div style=float:left;margin-right:10px>__TOC__</div>
{{WikiFurNews|Fur Affinity access disrupted amid ownership dispute}}
{{WikiFurNews|'Krystal sandwich' meme strikes Fur Affinity}}
{{FlayrahTag|fur-affinity|Fur Affinity}}

== History ==
{{main|History of Fur Affinity}}
Fur Affinity was launched on 16 January 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]]. Since then, it has suffered a few outages, most notably a month-long downtime over July 2008, but always managed to recover. In 2011, Fur Affinity announced a major revamp in connection to FA: United 4.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/89577-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6! Fur Affinity Turns 6!] - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity forum post (16 January 2011)</ref>

=== Fur Affinity: United! ===
{{main|FA: United}}
In August 2007, Fur Affinity held its own [[furry convention]], Fur Affinity: United! (or FA:U) in [[Wikipedia:Newark, New Jersey|Newark, New Jersey]]. The convention was a success, drawing 310 attendees and 25 [[fursuiter]]s in the [[fursuit parade|parade]], and was followed by another in 2008, drawing 381 attendees. In February 2009, Dragoneer announced FA: United 3 "Games United" for 28-30 May 2010.<ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/621616/ FAU3 Announcement]'' - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity journal (9 February 2009)</ref> No event was scheduled for 2009 due to the economic downturn. [[FA: United 7]], in August 2014, drew 707 attendees.

== Features and rules ==

Fur Affinity's features for users include the ability to allow users to track new updates from particular [[artist]]s; highlight favorites; and upload a wide variety of art (images, music and stories). The site attempts to promote community through its comments system and individual journals.

While works of all ratings are accepted (other than ''photographic nudes, images whose intent are to slander or discredit others, and minors in sexual situations''<ref>[http://help.furaffinity.net/article/AA-00205/8/Acceptable-Upload-Policy-AUP.html Acceptable Upload Policy] - Fur Affinity</ref>), art rated as mature or adult is not shown to visitors, or to users who have not specified it as a preference (which requires giving a date of birth indicating an age over 18). Keywords and tags can be added to works, though a feature that allowed blocking based on tags was disabled due to performance issues.

Fur Affinity's search engine was "temporarily disabled" in mid-2006 due to it taking up too many resources.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=1334 Admin mode on june 5th 2006]'' - Alkora, Fur Affinity forums (5 June 2006)</ref> A faux search feature was implemented for April Fool's Day 2007, much to the chagrin of some users.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=7229 Search is up!]'' - Fur Affinity Forums (1 April 2007)</ref> Search was reimplemented on 5 February 2009; it was initially labelled "That Thing You Want" and randomly included [[wikipedia:Rickrolling|rickrolls]].<ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/616339/ SEARCH]'' - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity journal (5 February 2009)</ref>

Privacy features were added in May 2012 with users being able to block guests from seeing their content with messages such as "[Username] has elected to make their content available to registered users only" and being able to hide their adult, mature+adult or all favorites from public view.<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3490599/ Update Notices, Changelog & Banner] journal posted to Fender's blog on May 24th, 2012. Retrieved 2012 November 25.</ref>

You cant access artwork from the site in russia, because d.facdn.net is in Russia Internet blacklist. The site itself works fine, and even shows tumbnails.{{fact}}

On 13 September 2015, to coincide with the conclusion of [[FAU 2015]], FurAffinity unveiled a Folders system<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/7036344/ 09/13/2015 - Folders & Gallery Management Updates] News item dated 13 September 2015. Retrieved 27 October 2015</ref>, which had been promised in one form or another since shortly after the site launched in 2006. Some users criticized the way folders were implemented, and have suggested that they were quickly hacked in<ref>https://forums.vivisector.org/index.php?topic=852.msg9200#msg9200</ref> to make up for not meeting a goal set weeks prior to debut a new UI at the conclusion of FAU<ref>[https://twitter.com/faunited/status/634171797492080645 We're adding a panel to FAU for FA developments. We'll be launching the new UI officially during the panel, and showing off Mobile!] - @FAUnited 19 Aug 2015</ref>

==Project Ferrox==
{{main|Ferrox (software)}}
The FA development team was working on a new backend system called [[Ferrox_(software)|Ferrox]] which was to be used for the next major revision of Fur Affinity, and was to be made available as [[Wikipedia:FOSS|FOSS]] (Free and Open Source Software) for other sites to use. By late 2009, development of Ferrox had stalled, with the last change to the code being made on September 7, 2009. Days earlier, net-cat, who was acting as the lead Ferrox developer after [[Eevee]] had left, announced that the code was to be frozen, citing that "Nobody knows Python."<ref>http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/49368-Code-freeze-on-current-Ferrox-codebase?p=1174129&viewfull=1#post1174129</ref>

== Mascots ==
[[File:Fender.jpg|thumb|right|Fender, drawn by [[Mutley James]]]]
[[Fender]] is the Fur Affinity [[mascot]], created by artist [[K-9]] based on a character concept by [[Preyfar]]. He is half [[fox]] and half [[ferret]], a "ferrox". On April Fool's Day 2007, Fender was depicted in the site's banner as a female dragon. This dragon was made a separate character and an official mascot of the site in May 2007, and named [[Rednef]], or "Fender" spelled backwards.

== Controversies ==

{{main|History of Fur Affinity#Controversy}}

Being furry fandom's largest social art site for many years, Fur Affinity has been host to strenuous discussions on various topics, including the presence and later absence of [[cub]] [[pornography]], staff appointments and departures, allegations of staff and user improprieties, and debate over what consists of suitable content for the site banner. Incidents of downtime and unauthorized access have also been discussed, both on Fur Affinity's forums and throughout the fandom.

== Organization ==

Fur Affinity was previously owned by '''Ferrox Art LLC''', a [[Wikipedia:Limited liability company|limited liability company]] founded 25 February 2008, registered in [[Wikipedia:Lenhartsville, Pennsylvania|Lenhartsville, Pennsylvania]].<ref>[https://www.corporations.state.pa.us/corp/soskb/Corp.asp?2644408 Ferrox Art LLC (entity number 3791597)] - Pennsylvania Corporations, PA Department of State. Accessed 20 November 2013.</ref> On March 19, 2015, it was officially announced that Fur Affinity had been acquired by [[IMVU]]; the transaction had occurred in January 2015, but had not been publicly announced.<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6588324 "FA Joins the IMVU Family" - Fur Affinity. March 19, 2015.</ref>

==Staff==
Fur Affinity's staff as of October 2015 include:<ref name="staff">[http://www.furaffinity.net/staff/ "Staff"] - Fur Affinity. Retrieved October 23, 2015.</ref>

{|
|
;Staff Leads
* [[Chase (Fur Affinity administrator)|Chase]] - Director of Operations
* [[Dragoneer]] - Community Manager & Site Lead
* [[Shivadramon]] (Sciggles) - Director of Operations
|
;Administrators
* [[Asia Neko]] - Acceptable Upload Policy Enforcement
* [[Fox Amoore]] - Account Specialist
* [[quoting_mungo|Quoting Mungo]] - Code of Conduct Enforcement
|valign=top|
;Tech Team
* [[Net-cat]] - Code & Technical Services
* [[Yak]] - Lead Coder
|}
Three pseudonymous moderators, Narwhal, Quetzal and Toucan, are also listed. A "System Account" is used to send anonymous notices.<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/user/systemaccount/ "Fur Affinity System Account"] - Fur Affinity]</ref>

Past staff include [[Bazeel]], [[Carenath]], [[Cerberusnl|Cerbrus]], [[Glaide]], [[Grammatist]], [[Hendikins]], [[Jasu Fox]],<ref>''[https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/7128400/ Stepping down as Administrator ]'' - [[Jasu Fox]], Fur Affinity (23 October 2015)</ref> [[Keio]], [[Kryphosdrgn]], [[Kyoujin]], [[Luftwoofe]], [[Nero Silent]], [[Oddy]], [[Odin36519]], [[Photographurer]], [[QMelon]], [[Sheepdust]], [[Silver R. Wolfe]], [[SSJ3Mewtwo]], [[Zidonuke|Starrykitten]], [[Summercat]], [[Surgat]], [[Trpdwarf]], [[Tsawolf]], [[Writerwren]] and [[Xaerun]].<ref>''[http://www.flayrah.com/3720/five-fur-affinity-staff-resign-some-citing-leadership-failures Five Fur Affinity staff resign, some citing leadership failures]'' - [[Rakuen Growlithe]], [[Flayrah]] (29 October 2011)</ref>{{cn}}

== Statistics ==

* In late 2010, the monthly hosting bill for FurAffinity was just under $1,700 <ref>''http://twitpic.com/2g8t5x'' - TwitPic Posted on August 19, 2010
by Dragoneer</ref>. This includes a full equipment rack, bandwidth, and IP addresses. The monthly cost likely increased with the addition of extra bandwidth (Increasing the total to 350Mbit) in early 2012.<ref>https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3484539/</ref>
* In less than a year since the site's re-launch, Fur Affinity gained over 45,000 users and over 300,000 submissions. {{fact}}
* Alexa has previously ranked Fur Affinity in the [http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?site0=www.furaffinity.net&site1=vclart.net&site2=&site3=&site4=&x=75&y=15&h=300&w=610&h=400&w=700&z=3&range=1y&size=medium&y=r&z=3&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.furaffinity.net top 4,000 sites] on the web in 1 November 2007, showing greater traffic than the VCL for most of the previous year. The trend continued through 2008 and 2009. Fur Affinity has ranked as high as 3,475 on individual days, and close to 2,000 in the USA. In October 2010, Fur Affinity's rank fell to 7681.
* Fur Affinity reached its 1,000,000th submission on 11 January 2008. It reached its 2,000,000th submission on 15 February 2009, and its 3,000,000th submission in November 2009.
* As of 20 March 2015, the site had 11,142,451 active submissions (15,995,066 total created), 1,195,253 active users (1,218,456 created), 324,226,064 favorites, and an average of 671 accounts, 8,000+ submissions, 42,462 comments and 10,452 page shouts were created per day.<ref>"[https://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/578970926575931394 For those interested, here's some spiffy FA statistics!
http://pastebin.com/DjsSCcuh"] - Dragoneer, Twitter (20 March 2015)</ref>

== Hardware ==
[[File:Furaffinity Server Farm.jpg|thumb|Fur Affinity's servers Bahamut, Tiamat, Novastorm and Trogdor (unlabeled).]]

=== Planned upgrades ===

In September 2014, Fur Affinity bought additional hardware:<ref>''[http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/259XYIXJ8U486/ Fur Affinity Parts Wishlist]'' - [[Dragoneer]] (3 September 2014)</ref><ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6122156 Banner Update, Upcoming Beta & Ad Server Upgrade]'' - [[Fender]] (17 September 2014)</ref>
* File server: Supermicro SuperServer 6017R-72HDP+ 1U with Intel Xeon E5-2603 v2 Quad-Core CPU (1.8GHz, 10MB cache), 128Gb 1600MHz DDR3 ECC RAM, 12 WD 4TB SATAIII drives (7200 RPM, 64 MB cache)
* Application servers (4): Asus RS300-E8-PS4 1U with Xeon E3-1240 v3 Quad-Core CPU (3.4GHz, 8MB cache), 32GB DDR ECC RAM, 2x128Gb SSDs
* Advertising server: Xeon 1270 v3 Quad-Core CPU (3.5 GHz, 8MB cache), 32GB DDR3 ECC RAM and 2xSSDs

=== Current hardware ===
{| class="wikitable sortable" border="1"
|-
! scope="col" | Name
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Purpose
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Hardware Notes
! scope="col" | First Used
! scope="col" | Status
|-
| '''Routezilla''' || Router || Cisco 7301 router || ? || Presumed in use
|-
| '''Switchthulu''' || Network Switch || 48-port [[wikipedia:Cisco|Cisco]] Catalyst 3560. Replaced an older 24-port Cisco 3750, also called "Switchthulu" || ? || Presumed in use
|-
| '''Neo Bahamut''' || Database Backup || Dual-core 2.0GHz Opteron 1212 with 2GB DDR2-667 RAM.<ref name="Feb2013Summary" /> Storage consists of 4x 1TB hard drives in RAID5. Concern expressed by Dragoneer about its worth vs. power draw. || ? || In use
|-
| '''Novastorm''' || Database || a [[Wikipedia:Sun Fire|Sun Fire X4150]] manufactured by [[Wikipedia:Sun Microsystems]] with twin quad-core 2.5Ghz Xeon 5420 processors and 64GB of RAM (as of March 2010).<ref>[http://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/10912188478 Novastorm upgrade tweet] - [[Dragoneer]]'s twitter (23 March 2010)</ref> Storage consists of 2x 74GB 15K RPM hard drives in RAID1 and 6x146GB 15K RPM hard drives in RAID10. The server was initially purposed as the "Application server" but eventually converted to run the Database. This server was bought with donations following the July 2009 outage. Although Novastorm was replaced by Finn/Jake in September 2013, it is apparently still active, though its use is not clear.<ref>https://trello.com/c/CLruJ1b5/65-upgrade-packages-on-novastorm</ref>|| August 2009 || In use
|-
| '''Figment''' || Virtualization Server Ad server, Email server || Dual quad-core 2.33Ghz Xeon 5345 with 32GB of RAM and 6x1TB<ref name="Feb2013Summary" /> of storage. Figment was purchased with the intent of offering hosting<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10203450025'' - FA Twitter - March 8, 2010</ref> on it "sometime in April... or May, or maybe August" of 2010<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10942579229'' - FA Twitter - March 23 2010</ref> and also served advertisements<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10936829317'' - FA Twitter</ref>. Server was named by [[Sciggles]].<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10585322442'' - FA Twitter</ref> || 2010 || In use/"Spare Servers Pool"<ref>https://trello.com/c/oy0HkfgT/6-repurpose-figment-in-spare-servers-pool</ref>
|-
| '''Sparkz''' || Network Monitoring || Twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. The server was named by FA donator Dax. This server is the only server in a group of four donated servers (The others being Shivan, Tonberry, and Lapse) that is known to have been put into service. || November 30, 2010<ref>[https://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/9825447189680128 @Furaffinity tweet]</ref> || In use
|-
| '''IO''' || File/App Server || An unspecified model which has dual Xeon E5435 CPUs<ref name="Feb2013Summary" />, 16GB RAM, and [https://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/86538088809107456 12 Terrabytes] worth of hard drives in it. This server replaced '''Trogdor'''. || October 2011 || In use
|-
| '''Finn'''* || Database Server || A custom-built server in a Supermicro SuperServer SYS-6027R-WRF chassis with at least one Intel Xeon 6C E5 2620 processor, 64GB of RAM, and 6 15k HDD's in an unknown RAID. This server was built by donations received in February 2013.<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4389184</ref> See note below. || December 16, 2013 || In use
|-
| '''Jake'''* || Database Server || A custom-built server in a Supermicro SuperServer SYS-6027R-WRF chassis with at least one Intel Xeon 6C E5 2620 processor, 64GB of RAM, and 6 15k HDD's in an unknown RAID. This server was built by donations received in February 2013.<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4389184</ref> See note below || September 16, 2013 ''(as "Finn") November 2014 || Presumed in use
|-
| '''Smaug''' || App Server || 16-core Xeon, "full SSD", 128GB DDR4 RAM.<ref name="TimatSpace">[https://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/597474071425724417 Filling Tiamat's old space will be Spike (16-core, full SSD, 128GB RAM) and Smaug (48TB storage server).] - Fur Affinity, Twitter (10 May 2015)</ref> || July 29, 2015<ref>[https://twitter.com/furaffinity/statuses/626430475058417664 "Earlier today, we officially rolled the site over to our new app server, Smaug (a 16-core Xeon system running DDR4 and SSDs). Woosh!"] - Fur Affinity, Twitter (29 July 2015)</ref> || Presumed in use
|-
| '''Spike''' || Storage Server || 48TB disk drives<ref name="TimatSpace" /><ref>[https://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/640633455320150016 "Finn, Jake, Spike and Smaug"] - Dragoneer, Twitter (6 September 2015)</ref> || ? || Unknown
|}

* '''Finn''' and '''Jake''' are identical and were bought with the purpose of building a redundant database cluster. For unknown reasons, Finn was brought online first, with Jake supposedly following behind<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/5058966/</ref> later that week. In December 2013, an issue came up that put the site into "Read Only" for a week. FA then moved the database to Jake, which was apparently not put into service yet. However, in November 2014, [[Zidonuke]] said that Jake was sitting idle "for almost a year"<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6265766#cid:43149324</ref>, suggesting that when the database was moved, the names were swapped. As of November 2014, the idle database server was planned to be set as a slave for the purpose of handling notifications.

=== Retired / unused hardware ===
{| class="wikitable sortable" border="1"
|-
! scope="col" | Name
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Purpose
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Hardware Notes
! scope="col" | First Used
! scope="col" | Retired
|-
| '''Gecko''' || Web Server || The original FA server, is a dual 3.0Ghz Nocona [[Wikipedia:Xeon|Xeon]] system with 4GB of RAM. Storage consists of 2x 250GB hard drives. The server is still used to host [[Wikipedia:Team Fortress 2|Team Fortress 2]] servers for the [[Furry Pound]] and [[Wikipedia:Left 4 Dead|Left 4 Dead]] servers for the Fur Affinity Steam Gamers group. || ? || ?
|-
| '''Tiamat''' || Search || Twin dual-core 2.0Ghz [[Wikipedia:Opteron|Opteron 2212]] with 32GB DDR2-533 RAM || ? || August 31, 2010<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/22617961790'' - FA Twitter</ref> Hardware Failure. Removed May 2015.<ref>[https://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/597469579070300160/photo/1 "Tiamat, one of FA's oldest servers (2007), is finally off to greener pastures."] - Fur Affinity, Twitter (10 May 2015)</ref>
|-
| '''Shivan''' || Unused/Unknown || Twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. The server was named by FA donator TlaiLaxu. || ? || ?
|-
| '''Tonberry''' || Unused/Unknown || Twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. The server was named by FA donator YiffyHusky. || ? || ?
|-
| '''Lapse''' || Unused/Unknown || Twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM || ? || ?
|-
| '''Trogdor''' || File/App Server || A [[Wikipedia:Dell|Dell]] Poweredge 2970 2U Server with 32GB RAM and twin AMD Opteron 2212 CPUs.<ref name="Feb2013Summary">http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4383428/#cid:32107771</ref> Storage consists of 6x 1TB hard drives - 4x in a RAID10 array, 1x RAID hotspare and 1x local backups. This server was bought with donations following the July 2009 outage. || August 2009 || October 2011<ref>http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/108936-10-17-2011-File-read-only-mode</ref> Replaced by '''IO'''. Removed May 2015.<ref>[https://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/597481580123283456 "Turns out we are also saying a fond farewell to Trogdor. His days of FA burnination are over."] - Fur Affinity, Twitter (10 May 2015)</ref>
|}

==Confirmed future features==

{| class="wikitable sortable" border="1"
|-
! scope="col" | Feature
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Official Mentions
! scope="col" | Status
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Notes
|-
| On-demand printing || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/371-FA-Funding December 2005] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/55797-is-FA-better-off-becoming-a-pay-site?p=1347804&viewfull=1#post1347804 November 2009] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Content filtering || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/3965-FA-Policy-Notice-Cub-Art November 2006] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented|| Proposed for Ferrox.
|-
| Gallery folders ||[http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/3969-Newbie-question-but...-folders November 2006] [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1648317/ August 2010] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6!?p=2314401&viewfull=1#post2314401 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented|| Proposed for Ferrox.
|-
| New UI || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/7472-FA-Project-UI-Overhaul April 2007] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/72193-New-FA-looks-exactly-like-steam-amp-DA-!-WTF!!?p=1853302&viewfull=1#post1853302 May 2010] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Canceled?<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3325316#cid:25505803</ref>|| Was in development at the same time as Ferrox.
|-
| New "dark" theme || [https://forums.vivisector.org/index.php?topic=588.msg6749#msg6749 May 2012] [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3887366/ October 2012]||style="background: #ffff99" | In Progress|| This project incorporates a new "dark" theme using some of the elements of the "New UI" that was canceled.
|-
| "Character Information" || [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3887366/ October 2012]||style="background: #ffff99" | In Progress|| A placeholder for a "Character Information" widget is present in the new dark theme.
|-
| Opossums (pss.ms) URL shortener || [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1648317/ August 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented|| pss.ms is currently down.
|-
| Web hosting || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/55797-is-FA-better-off-becoming-a-pay-site?p=1353001&viewfull=1#post1353001 November 2009] [http://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/10936829317 March 2010] [http://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/10936829317] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Supporter ribbons || [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1836349/ November 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Note/inbox search || [http://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/24023831950 September 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Artist list and reviews ''"Commission Ratings"'' || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/1342-Search-Function-User-List June 2006] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Improved commenting || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|}

== References ==
<references />

== See also ==

* [[FA Rank]]
* [[:Category:Fur Affinity administrators]]

== External links ==

* [http://community.livejournal.com/furaffinity/ ''Furaffinity Status' Journal'']. Fur Affinity on [[LiveJournal]]
* [http://furaffinity.tumblr.com Fur Affinity] on [[Wikipedia:Tumblr|Tumblr]]
* [http://twitter.com/furaffinity Fur Affinity] on [[Twitter]]
* [https://www.facebook.com/furaffinity Fur Affinity] on [[Facebook]]
* [irc://irc.furnet.org/furaffinity #furaffinity] on [[FurNet (IRC)|FurNet IRC]]
* [http://steamcommunity.com/groups/FurAffinityGamers Fur Affinity Gamers] on Steam
* [http://irc.netsplit.de/channels/details.php?room=%23furaffinity&net=FurNet #furaffinity statistics] on [http://irc.netsplit.de/ irc.netsplit.de]

{{Fur Affinity topics}}
{{Media archives}}
[[Category:Mature art archives]][[Category:Mature story archives]]
[[Category:2005 births]]
{{featured article}}

[[de:Fur Affinity]]
[[es:Fur Affinity]]
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Talk:FAU 2015

2015-09-19T08:57:08Z

Murrypurryfurry: /* Attendance */

== Name Change 2015 ==
The @faunited account tweeted recently that it's official name was "FAU 2015"

Source: https://twitter.com/faunited/status/593914705242157056

Should we modify this page as a result of this? [[User:Yuukari|Yuukari]] ([[User talk:Yuukari|talk]]) 19:11, 30 April 2015 (EDT)

== Attendance ==

At least one user on Twitter [https://twitter.com/FurAffinityPR/status/644330825916510208] has speculated that the official attendance figure was inflated. The source is not exactly unbiased so it probably doesn't merit addressing in the article, at least not unless and until it is corroborated by other sources. --[[User:Mwalimu|mwalimu]] ([[User talk:Mwalimu|talk]]) 12:52, 17 September 2015 (EDT)

:I found [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BaORTlsnpo a video of the fursuit parade] in which I counted 89 participants (give or take a couple; there are a couple of spots where it was hard to keep track of who I had counted). There is also a group photo in [https://twitter.com/Squid38/status/643496981600542720 this tweet]; I gave up trying to get an accurate count from it but the estimate I came up with from my attempts to count was reasonably close to the 89 figure above.
:So what does this have to do with attendance? Using the reported attendance figure of 658, that gives 89/658 = 13.5% as the fursuit parade participation rate. I ran the same calculation for 18 other furry conventions in the last year (all US or Canada, all with 400+ attendees) and the lowest figure for any other convention was 18.2% at Further Confusion. Three others were below 20%, three were in the 20-22.55% range, seven were in the 22.5-25% range, and four were above 25% (the highest being IndyFurCon with 30.3%). Also note that FAU's own figures for 2013 and 2014 were 18.7% and 20.1% respectively. Which makes one wonder why FAU 2015 has a figure as low as 13.5%.
:While we can't rule out the possibility that for some reason this convention had an unusually low fursuit participation rate, it seems more likely that one of the two numbers is wrong. We can be pretty confident of the 89 figure based on the video and group photo above, though it may be slightly off. That leaves the attendance. To make the numbers a little easier, we'll bump the parade figure up by one to 90. Using hypothetical attendance figures of 500, 450, 400, and 360, we would get participation rates of 90/500 = 18.0%; 90/450 = 20.0%, 90/400 = 22.5%, and 90/360 = 25.0%. In other words, to get a fursuit parade participation rate consistent with other conventions (and FAU itself the two previous years), we'd have to use an attendance figure below 500, possibly below 400.
:I'm going to withhold speculation on how the "official" attendance figure was arrived at, and once again we can't rule out that the fursuit parade participation rate was unusually low for some reason, but based on this analysis, my conclusion is that the assertion that the 658 attendance is inaccurate gets a rating of "plausible". --[[User:Mwalimu|mwalimu]] ([[User talk:Mwalimu|talk]]) 14:08, 18 September 2015 (EDT)
::At least one major event during the con (Friday night's dance) was allegedly [https://twitter.com/mortonfox/status/642551874453905408 canceled due to low turnout] and a video posted by a FAU staffer shows [https://twitter.com/lildobe/status/642523149326790656 five people at it]. The other dances are documented on Twitter with what appears to be very low attendance ([https://twitter.com/lildobe/status/642523149326790656 here] is video of Saturday night's dance with three people on the dance floor.) I find it hard to believe that a relatively small total attendance drop of 60 people would result in major events like dances being virtual ghost towns. I would bet the number Dragoneer stated as the "attendance" was actually the total number of badges sold, not the actual count of people that were there. [[User:Murrypurryfurry|Murrypurryfurry]] ([[User talk:Murrypurryfurry|talk]]) 04:57, 19 September 2015 (EDT)

Fur Affinity

2014-11-26T09:26:59Z

Murrypurryfurry: /* Administrators */ Starrykitten/Zidonuke is past staff already.

{{update}}
{{Infobox website
| title = Fur Affinity
| image = [[File:FAFront Page.png|208px]]Fur Affinity front page
| author = '''Owner/Lead admin:''' [[Dragoneer]] (''via [[#Organization|Ferrox Art LLC]]'')
* '''Founder:''' [[Alkora]]
* [[#Administrators|Administrators]]
| url = https://www.furaffinity.net/ ([https://sfw.furaffinity.net/ SFW])
* '''Forum''': https://forums.furaffinity.net/
* '''Help site''': http://help.furaffinity.net/
* '''Trackers''': [https://trello.com/b/f7USczsS/furaffinity-devops DevOps] - [https://trello.com/b/SmYk47aD/furaffinity-feature-requests Requests]
| status =
| began = 16 January–1 August 2005 ([[History of Fur Affinity#Server problems of 2005|staff dispute & server issues]]) 10 December 2005–present
| ended =
| genre = Social media community
| rating = {{Rating-pg-button|center}}{{Rating-nc17-button|right}}
}}

'''Fur Affinity''', also known as '''FA''', is the [[furry fandom]]'s largest online community, focusing on the promotion of art, music and stories.

The site was created in 2005 by [[Alkora]] as an alternative to various art community sites such as [[SheezyArt]] and [[deviantART]], distinguished by allowing artistic freedom of expression regardless of content rating. It is led by [[Dragoneer]].
<div style=float:left;margin-right:10px>__TOC__</div>
{{WikiFurNews|Fur Affinity access disrupted amid ownership dispute}}
{{WikiFurNews|'Krystal sandwich' meme strikes Fur Affinity}}
{{FlayrahTag|fur-affinity|Fur Affinity}}

== History ==
{{main|History of Fur Affinity}}
Fur Affinity was launched on 16 January 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]]. Since then, it has suffered a few outages, most notably a month-long downtime over July 2008, but always managed to recover. In 2011, Fur Affinity announced a major revamp in connection to FA: United 4.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/89577-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6! Fur Affinity Turns 6!] - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity forum post (16 January 2011)</ref>

=== Fur Affinity: United! ===
{{main|FA: United}}
In August 2007, Fur Affinity held its own [[furry convention]], Fur Affinity: United! (or FA:U) in [[Wikipedia:Newark, New Jersey|Newark, New Jersey]]. The convention was a success, drawing 310 attendees and 25 [[fursuiter]]s in the [[fursuit parade|parade]], and was followed by another in 2008, drawing 381 attendees. In February 2009, Dragoneer announced FA: United 3 "Games United" for 28-30 May 2010.<ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/621616/ FAU3 Announcement]'' - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity journal (9 February 2009)</ref> No event was scheduled for 2009 due to the economic downturn. [[FA: United 7]], in August 2014, drew 707 attendees.

== Features and rules ==

Fur Affinity's features for users include the ability to allow users to track new updates from particular [[artist]]s; highlight favorites; and upload a wide variety of art (images, music and stories). The site attempts to promote community through its comments system and individual journals.

While works of all ratings are accepted (other than ''photographic nudes, images whose intent are to slander or discredit others, and minors in sexual situations''<ref>[http://help.furaffinity.net/article/AA-00205/8/Acceptable-Upload-Policy-AUP.html Acceptable Upload Policy] - Fur Affinity</ref>), art rated as mature or adult is not shown to visitors, or to users who have not specified it as a preference (which requires giving a date of birth indicating an age over 18). Keywords and tags can be added to works, though a feature that allowed blocking based on tags was disabled due to performance issues.

Fur Affinity's search engine was "temporarily disabled" in mid-2006 due to it taking up too many resources.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=1334 Admin mode on june 5th 2006]'' - Alkora, Fur Affinity forums (5 June 2006)</ref> A faux search feature was implemented for April Fool's Day 2007, much to the chagrin of some users.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=7229 Search is up!]'' - Fur Affinity Forums (1 April 2007)</ref> Search was reimplemented on 5 February 2009; it was initially labelled "That Thing You Want" and randomly included [[wikipedia:Rickrolling|rickrolls]].<ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/616339/ SEARCH]'' - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity journal (5 February 2009)</ref>

Privacy features were added in May 2012 with users being able to block guests from seeing their content with messages such as "[username] has elected to make their content available to registered users only" and being able to hide their adult, mature+adult or all favorites from public view.<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3490599/ Update Notices, Changelog & Banner] journal posted to Fender's blog on May 24th, 2012. Retrieved 2012 November 25.</ref>

==Project Ferrox==
{{main|Ferrox (software)}}
The FA development team was working on a new backend system called [[Ferrox_(software)|Ferrox]] which was to be used for the next major revision of Fur Affinity, and was to be made available as [[Wikipedia:FOSS|FOSS]] (Free and Open Source Software) for other sites to use. By late 2009, development of Ferrox had stalled, with the last change to the code being made on September 7, 2009. Days earlier, net-cat, who was acting as the lead Ferrox developer after [[Eevee]] had left, announced that the code was to be frozen, citing that "Nobody knows Python."<ref>http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/49368-Code-freeze-on-current-Ferrox-codebase?p=1174129&viewfull=1#post1174129</ref>

== Mascots ==
[[File:Fender.jpg|thumb|right|Fender, drawn by [[Mutley James]]]]
[[Fender]] is the Fur Affinity [[mascot]], created by artist [[K-9]] based on a character concept by [[Preyfar]]. He is half [[fox]] and half [[ferret]], a "ferrox". On April Fool's Day 2007, Fender was depicted in the site's banner as a female dragon. This dragon was made a separate character and an official mascot of the site in May 2007, and named [[Rednef]], or "Fender" spelled backwards.

== Controversies ==

{{main|History of Fur Affinity#Controversy}}

Being furry fandom's largest social art site for many years, Fur Affinity has been host to strenuous discussions on various topics, including the presence and later absence of [[cub]] [[pornography]], staff appointments and departures, allegations of staff and user improprieties, and debate over what consists of suitable content for the site banner. Incidents of downtime and unauthorized access have also been discussed, both on Fur Affinity's forums and throughout the fandom.

== Organization ==

Fur Affinity is officially owned and run by '''Ferrox Art LLC''', a [[Wikipedia:Limited liability company|limited liability company]] founded 25 February 2008, registered in [[Wikipedia:Lenhartsville, Pennsylvania|Lenhartsville, Pennsylvania]].<ref>[https://www.corporations.state.pa.us/corp/soskb/Corp.asp?2644408 Ferrox Art LLC (entity number 3791597)] - Pennsylvania Corporations, PA Department of State. Accessed 20 November 2013.</ref>

==Administrators==

Fur Affinity's listed "Administration and Support Staff" include [[Asia Neko]], [[Carmen]], [[Dragoneer]] ("Site Owner/Admin"), [[Fox Amoore]], [[Jasu Fox]], [[Kryphosdrgn]] ("Photography Team Lead"), [[Nero Silent]], [[quoting_mungo]], [[SSJ3Mewtwo]], [[Surgat]], and [[Xaerun]].<ref name="staff">[http://www.furaffinity.net/staff/ "Staff"] - Fur Affinity. Retrieved June 20, 2014.</ref><ref>[[Cerberusnl]], [[Helperdog]], and [[Shivadramon]] were listed as of June 20, 2014, but are no longer administrators per their user pages.</ref> A "System Account" also exists, which is used to send anonymous notices.<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/user/systemaccount/ "Fur Affinity System Account"] - Fur Affinity]</ref>

[[Net-cat]], and [[yak]] are listed as Technical Staff.<ref name="staff"/>

Past staff include [[Bazeel]], [[Carenath]], [[Glaide]], [[Grammatist]], [[Hendikins]], [[Keio]], [[Kyoujin]], [[Luftwoofe]], [[Oddy]], [[Odin36519]], [[Photographurer]], [[QMelon]], [[Sheepdust]], [[Silver R. Wolfe]], [[Zidonuke|Starrykitten]], [[Summercat]], [[Trpdwarf]], [[Tsawolf]] and [[Writerwren]].<ref>''[http://www.flayrah.com/3720/five-fur-affinity-staff-resign-some-citing-leadership-failures Five Fur Affinity staff resign, some citing leadership failures]'' - [[Rakuen Growlithe]], [[Flayrah]] (29 October 2011)</ref>{{cn}}

== Statistics ==

* In late 2010, the monthly hosting bill for FurAffinity was just under $1,700 <ref>''http://twitpic.com/2g8t5x'' - TwitPic Posted on August 19, 2010
by Dragoneer</ref>. This includes a full equipment rack, bandwidth, and IP addresses. The monthly cost likely increased with the addition of extra bandwidth (Increasing the total to 350Mbit) in early 2012.<ref>https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3484539/</ref>
* In less than a year since the site's re-launch, Fur Affinity gained over 45,000 users and over 300,000 submissions. {{fact}}
* Alexa has previously ranked Fur Affinity in the [http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?site0=www.furaffinity.net&site1=vclart.net&site2=&site3=&site4=&x=75&y=15&h=300&w=610&h=400&w=700&z=3&range=1y&size=medium&y=r&z=3&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.furaffinity.net top 4,000 sites] on the web in 1 November 2007, showing greater traffic than the VCL for most of the previous year. The trend continued through 2008 and 2009. Fur Affinity has ranked as high as 3,475 on individual days, and close to 2,000 in the USA. In October 2010, Fur Affinity's rank fell to 7681.
* Fur Affinity reached its 1,000,000th submission on 11 January 2008. It later reached its 2,000,000th submission on 15 February 2009, and its 3,000,000th submission in November 2009.

== Hardware ==
[[File:Furaffinity Server Farm.jpg|thumb|Fur Affinity's servers Bahamut, Tiamat, Novastorm and Trogdor (unlabeled).]]

=== Planned upgrades ===

In September 2014, Fur Affinity sought additional hardware:<ref>''[http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/259XYIXJ8U486/ Fur Affinity Parts Wishlist]'' - [[Dragoneer]] (3 September 2014)</ref><ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6122156 Banner Update, Upcoming Beta & Ad Server Upgrade]'' - [[Fender]] (17 September 2014)</ref>
* File server: Supermicro SuperServer 6017R-72HDP+ 1U with Intel Xeon E5-2603 v2 Quad-Core CPU (1.8GHz, 10MB cache), 128Gb 1600MHz DDR3 ECC RAM, 12 WD 4TB SATAIII drives (7200 RPM, 64 MB cache)
* Application servers (4): Asus RS300-E8-PS4 1U with Xeon E3-1240 v3 Quad-Core CPU (3.4GHz, 8MB cache), 32GB DDR ECC RAM, 2x128Gb SSDs
* Advertising server: Xeon 1270 v3 Quad-Core CPU (3.5 GHz, 8MB cache), 32GB DDR3 ECC RAM and 2xSSDs

=== Current hardware ===
{| class="wikitable sortable" border="1"
|-
! scope="col" | Name
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Purpose
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Hardware Notes
! scope="col" | First Used
! scope="col" | Status
|-
| '''Routezilla''' || Router || Cisco 7301 router || ? || Presumed in use
|-
| '''Switchthulu''' || Network Switch || 48-port [[wikipedia:Cisco|Cisco]] Catalyst 3560. Replaced an older 24-port Cisco 3750, also called "Switchthulu" || ? || Presumed in use
|-
| '''Neo Bahamut''' || Database Backup || Dual-core 2.0GHz Opteron 1212 with 2GB DDR2-667 RAM.<ref name="Feb2013Summary" /> Storage consists of 4x 1TB hard drives in RAID5. Concern expressed by Dragoneer about its worth vs. power draw. || ? || In use
|-
| '''Novastorm''' || Database || a [[Wikipedia:Sun Fire|Sun Fire X4150]] manufactured by [[Wikipedia:Sun Microsystems]] with twin quad-core 2.5Ghz Xeon 5420 processors and 64GB of RAM (as of March 2010).<ref>[http://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/10912188478 Novastorm upgrade tweet] - [[Dragoneer]]'s twitter (23 March 2010)</ref> Storage consists of 2x 74GB 15K RPM hard drives in RAID1 and 6x146GB 15K RPM hard drives in RAID10. The server was initially purposed as the "Application server" but eventually converted to run the Database. This server was bought with donations following the July 2009 outage. Although Novastorm was replaced by Finn/Jake in September 2013, it is apparently still active, though it's use is not clear.<ref>https://trello.com/c/CLruJ1b5/65-upgrade-packages-on-novastorm</ref>|| August 2009 || In use
|-
| '''Figment''' || Virtualization Server Ad server, Email server || Dual quad-core 2.33Ghz Xeon 5345 with 32GB of RAM and 6x1TB<ref name="Feb2013Summary" /> of storage. Figment was purchased with the intent of offering hosting<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10203450025'' - FA Twitter - March 8, 2010</ref> on it "sometime in April... or May, or maybe August" of 2010<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10942579229'' - FA Twitter - March 23 2010</ref> and also served advertisements<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10936829317'' - FA Twitter</ref>. Server was named by [[Sciggles]].<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10585322442'' - FA Twitter</ref> || 2010 || In use/"Spare Servers Pool"<ref>https://trello.com/c/oy0HkfgT/6-repurpose-figment-in-spare-servers-pool</ref>
|-
| '''Sparkz''' || Network Monitoring || Twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. The server was named by FA donator Dax. This server is the only server in a group of four donated servers (The others being Shivan, Tonberry, and Lapse) that is known to have been put into service. || November 30, 2010<ref>[https://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/9825447189680128 @Furaffinity tweet]</ref> || In use
|-
| '''IO''' || File/App Server || An unspecified model which has dual Xeon E5435 CPUs<ref name="Feb2013Summary" />, 16GB RAM, and [https://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/86538088809107456 12 Terrabytes] worth of hard drives in it. This server replaced '''Trogdor'''. || October 2011 || In use
|-
| '''Finn'''* || Database Server || A custom-built server in a Supermicro SuperServer SYS-6027R-WRF chassis with at least one Intel Xeon 6C E5 2620 processor, 64GB of RAM, and 6 15k HDD's in an unknown RAID. This server was built by donations received in February 2013<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4389184</ref>. See note below. || December 16,2013 || In use
|-
| '''Jake'''* || Database Server || A custom-built server in a Supermicro SuperServer SYS-6027R-WRF chassis with at least one Intel Xeon 6C E5 2620 processor, 64GB of RAM, and 6 15k HDD's in an unknown RAID. This server was built by donations received in February 2013<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4389184</ref>. See note below || September 16, 2013''(as "Finn") November 2014 || Presumed in use
|}

* '''Finn''' and '''Jake''' are identical and were bought with the purpose of building a redundant database cluster. For unknown reasons, Finn was brought online first, with Jake supposedly following behind<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/5058966/</ref> later that week. In December 2013, an issue came up that put the site into "Read Only" for a week. FA then moved the database to Jake, which was apparently not put into service yet. However, in November 2014, [[Zidonuke]] said that Jake was sitting idle "for almost a year"<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6265766#cid:43149324</ref>, suggesting that when the database was moved, the names were swapped. As of November 2014, the idle database server was planned to be set as a slave for the purpose of handling notifications.

=== Retired / unused hardware ===
{| class="wikitable sortable" border="1"
|-
! scope="col" | Name
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Purpose
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Hardware Notes
! scope="col" | First Used
! scope="col" | Retired
|-
| '''Gecko''' || Web Server || The original FA server, is a dual 3.0Ghz Nocona [[Wikipedia:Xeon|Xeon]] system with 4GB of RAM. Storage consists of 2x 250GB hard drives. The server is still used to host [[Wikipedia:Team Fortress 2|Team Fortress 2]] servers for the [[Furry Pound]] and [[Wikipedia:Left 4 Dead|Left 4 Dead]] servers for the Fur Affinity Steam Gamers group. || ? || ?
|-
| '''Tiamat''' || Search || Twin dual-core 2.0Ghz [[Wikipedia:Opteron|Opteron 2212]] with 32GB DDR2-533 RAM || ? || August 31, 2010<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/22617961790'' - FA Twitter</ref> (Hardware Failure)
|-
| '''Shivan''' || Unused/Unknown || Twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. The server was named by FA donator TlaiLaxu. || ? || ?
|-
| '''Tonberry''' || Unused/Unknown || Twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. The server was named by FA donator YiffyHusky. || ? || ?
|-
| '''Lapse''' || Unused/Unknown || Twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM || ? || ?
|-
| '''Trogdor''' || File/App Server || A [[Wikipedia:Dell|Dell]] Poweredge 2970 2U Server with 32GB RAM and twin AMD Opteron 2212 CPUs.<ref name="Feb2013Summary">http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4383428/#cid:32107771</ref> Storage consists of 6x 1TB hard drives - 4x in a RAID10 array, 1x RAID hotspare and 1x local backups. This server was bought with donations following the July 2009 outage. || August 2009 || October 2011<ref>http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/108936-10-17-2011-File-read-only-mode</ref> (Replaced by '''File Server''')
|}

==Confirmed future features==

{| class="wikitable sortable" border="1"
|-
! scope="col" | Feature
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Official Mentions
! scope="col" | Status
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Notes
|-
| On-demand printing || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/371-FA-Funding December 2005] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/55797-is-FA-better-off-becoming-a-pay-site?p=1347804&viewfull=1#post1347804 November 2009] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Content filtering || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/3965-FA-Policy-Notice-Cub-Art November 2006] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented|| Proposed for Ferrox.
|-
| Gallery folders ||[http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/3969-Newbie-question-but...-folders November 2006] [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1648317/ August 2010] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6!?p=2314401&viewfull=1#post2314401 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented|| Proposed for Ferrox.
|-
| New UI || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/7472-FA-Project-UI-Overhaul April 2007] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/72193-New-FA-looks-exactly-like-steam-amp-DA-!-WTF!!?p=1853302&viewfull=1#post1853302 May 2010] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Canceled?<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3325316#cid:25505803</ref>|| Was in development at the same time as Ferrox.
|-
| New "dark" theme || [https://forums.vivisector.org/index.php?topic=588.msg6749#msg6749 May 2012] [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3887366/ October 2012]||style="background: #ffff99" | In Progress|| This project incorporates a new "dark" theme using some of the elements of the "New UI" that was canceled.
|-
| "Character Information" || [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3887366/ October 2012]||style="background: #ffff99" | In Progress|| A placeholder for a "Character Information" widget is present in the new dark theme.
|-
| Opossums (pss.ms) URL shortener || [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1648317/ August 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented|| pss.ms is currently down.
|-
| Web hosting || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/55797-is-FA-better-off-becoming-a-pay-site?p=1353001&viewfull=1#post1353001 November 2009] [http://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/10936829317 March 2010] [http://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/10936829317] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Supporter ribbons || [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1836349/ November 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Note/inbox search || [http://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/24023831950 September 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Artist list and reviews ''"Commission Ratings"'' || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/1342-Search-Function-User-List June 2006] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Improved commenting || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|}

== References ==
<references />

== See also ==

* [[FA Rank]]
* [[:Category:Fur Affinity administrators]]

== External links ==

* [http://community.livejournal.com/furaffinity/ ''Furaffinity Status' Journal'']. Fur Affinity on [[LiveJournal]]
* [http://furaffinity.tumblr.com Fur Affinity] on [[Wikipedia:Tumblr|Tumblr]]
* [http://twitter.com/furaffinity Fur Affinity] on [[Twitter]]
* [https://www.facebook.com/furaffinity Fur Affinity] on [[Facebook]]
* [irc://irc.furnet.org/furaffinity #furaffinity] on [[FurNet (IRC)|FurNet IRC]]
* [http://steamcommunity.com/groups/FurAffinityGamers Fur Affinity Gamers] on Steam
* [http://irc.netsplit.de/channels/details.php?room=%23furaffinity&net=FurNet #furaffinity statistics] on [http://irc.netsplit.de/ irc.netsplit.de]

{{Fur Affinity topics}}
{{Media archives}}
[[Category:Mature art archives]][[Category:Mature story archives]]
[[Category:2005 births]]
{{featured article}}

[[de:Fur Affinity]]
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[[zh:Fur Affinity]]
[[ja:Fur Affinity]]

Fur Affinity

2014-11-26T09:21:57Z

Murrypurryfurry: /* Current hardware */

{{update}}
{{Infobox website
| title = Fur Affinity
| image = [[File:FAFront Page.png|208px]]Fur Affinity front page
| author = '''Owner/Lead admin:''' [[Dragoneer]] (''via [[#Organization|Ferrox Art LLC]]'')
* '''Founder:''' [[Alkora]]
* [[#Administrators|Administrators]]
| url = https://www.furaffinity.net/ ([https://sfw.furaffinity.net/ SFW])
* '''Forum''': https://forums.furaffinity.net/
* '''Help site''': http://help.furaffinity.net/
* '''Trackers''': [https://trello.com/b/f7USczsS/furaffinity-devops DevOps] - [https://trello.com/b/SmYk47aD/furaffinity-feature-requests Requests]
| status =
| began = 16 January–1 August 2005 ([[History of Fur Affinity#Server problems of 2005|staff dispute & server issues]]) 10 December 2005–present
| ended =
| genre = Social media community
| rating = {{Rating-pg-button|center}}{{Rating-nc17-button|right}}
}}

'''Fur Affinity''', also known as '''FA''', is the [[furry fandom]]'s largest online community, focusing on the promotion of art, music and stories.

The site was created in 2005 by [[Alkora]] as an alternative to various art community sites such as [[SheezyArt]] and [[deviantART]], distinguished by allowing artistic freedom of expression regardless of content rating. It is led by [[Dragoneer]].
<div style=float:left;margin-right:10px>__TOC__</div>
{{WikiFurNews|Fur Affinity access disrupted amid ownership dispute}}
{{WikiFurNews|'Krystal sandwich' meme strikes Fur Affinity}}
{{FlayrahTag|fur-affinity|Fur Affinity}}

== History ==
{{main|History of Fur Affinity}}
Fur Affinity was launched on 16 January 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]]. Since then, it has suffered a few outages, most notably a month-long downtime over July 2008, but always managed to recover. In 2011, Fur Affinity announced a major revamp in connection to FA: United 4.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/89577-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6! Fur Affinity Turns 6!] - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity forum post (16 January 2011)</ref>

=== Fur Affinity: United! ===
{{main|FA: United}}
In August 2007, Fur Affinity held its own [[furry convention]], Fur Affinity: United! (or FA:U) in [[Wikipedia:Newark, New Jersey|Newark, New Jersey]]. The convention was a success, drawing 310 attendees and 25 [[fursuiter]]s in the [[fursuit parade|parade]], and was followed by another in 2008, drawing 381 attendees. In February 2009, Dragoneer announced FA: United 3 "Games United" for 28-30 May 2010.<ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/621616/ FAU3 Announcement]'' - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity journal (9 February 2009)</ref> No event was scheduled for 2009 due to the economic downturn. [[FA: United 7]], in August 2014, drew 707 attendees.

== Features and rules ==

Fur Affinity's features for users include the ability to allow users to track new updates from particular [[artist]]s; highlight favorites; and upload a wide variety of art (images, music and stories). The site attempts to promote community through its comments system and individual journals.

While works of all ratings are accepted (other than ''photographic nudes, images whose intent are to slander or discredit others, and minors in sexual situations''<ref>[http://help.furaffinity.net/article/AA-00205/8/Acceptable-Upload-Policy-AUP.html Acceptable Upload Policy] - Fur Affinity</ref>), art rated as mature or adult is not shown to visitors, or to users who have not specified it as a preference (which requires giving a date of birth indicating an age over 18). Keywords and tags can be added to works, though a feature that allowed blocking based on tags was disabled due to performance issues.

Fur Affinity's search engine was "temporarily disabled" in mid-2006 due to it taking up too many resources.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=1334 Admin mode on june 5th 2006]'' - Alkora, Fur Affinity forums (5 June 2006)</ref> A faux search feature was implemented for April Fool's Day 2007, much to the chagrin of some users.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=7229 Search is up!]'' - Fur Affinity Forums (1 April 2007)</ref> Search was reimplemented on 5 February 2009; it was initially labelled "That Thing You Want" and randomly included [[wikipedia:Rickrolling|rickrolls]].<ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/616339/ SEARCH]'' - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity journal (5 February 2009)</ref>

Privacy features were added in May 2012 with users being able to block guests from seeing their content with messages such as "[username] has elected to make their content available to registered users only" and being able to hide their adult, mature+adult or all favorites from public view.<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3490599/ Update Notices, Changelog & Banner] journal posted to Fender's blog on May 24th, 2012. Retrieved 2012 November 25.</ref>

==Project Ferrox==
{{main|Ferrox (software)}}
The FA development team was working on a new backend system called [[Ferrox_(software)|Ferrox]] which was to be used for the next major revision of Fur Affinity, and was to be made available as [[Wikipedia:FOSS|FOSS]] (Free and Open Source Software) for other sites to use. By late 2009, development of Ferrox had stalled, with the last change to the code being made on September 7, 2009. Days earlier, net-cat, who was acting as the lead Ferrox developer after [[Eevee]] had left, announced that the code was to be frozen, citing that "Nobody knows Python."<ref>http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/49368-Code-freeze-on-current-Ferrox-codebase?p=1174129&viewfull=1#post1174129</ref>

== Mascots ==
[[File:Fender.jpg|thumb|right|Fender, drawn by [[Mutley James]]]]
[[Fender]] is the Fur Affinity [[mascot]], created by artist [[K-9]] based on a character concept by [[Preyfar]]. He is half [[fox]] and half [[ferret]], a "ferrox". On April Fool's Day 2007, Fender was depicted in the site's banner as a female dragon. This dragon was made a separate character and an official mascot of the site in May 2007, and named [[Rednef]], or "Fender" spelled backwards.

== Controversies ==

{{main|History of Fur Affinity#Controversy}}

Being furry fandom's largest social art site for many years, Fur Affinity has been host to strenuous discussions on various topics, including the presence and later absence of [[cub]] [[pornography]], staff appointments and departures, allegations of staff and user improprieties, and debate over what consists of suitable content for the site banner. Incidents of downtime and unauthorized access have also been discussed, both on Fur Affinity's forums and throughout the fandom.

== Organization ==

Fur Affinity is officially owned and run by '''Ferrox Art LLC''', a [[Wikipedia:Limited liability company|limited liability company]] founded 25 February 2008, registered in [[Wikipedia:Lenhartsville, Pennsylvania|Lenhartsville, Pennsylvania]].<ref>[https://www.corporations.state.pa.us/corp/soskb/Corp.asp?2644408 Ferrox Art LLC (entity number 3791597)] - Pennsylvania Corporations, PA Department of State. Accessed 20 November 2013.</ref>

==Administrators==

Fur Affinity's listed "Administration and Support Staff" include [[Asia Neko]], [[Carmen]], [[Dragoneer]] ("Site Owner/Admin"), [[Fox Amoore]], [[Jasu Fox]], [[Kryphosdrgn]] ("Photography Team Lead"), [[Nero Silent]], [[quoting_mungo]], [[SSJ3Mewtwo]], [[Surgat]], and [[Xaerun]].<ref name="staff">[http://www.furaffinity.net/staff/ "Staff"] - Fur Affinity. Retrieved June 20, 2014.</ref><ref>[[Cerberusnl]], [[Helperdog]], and [[Shivadramon]] were listed as of June 20, 2014, but are no longer administrators per their user pages.</ref> A "System Account" also exists, which is used to send anonymous notices.<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/user/systemaccount/ "Fur Affinity System Account"] - Fur Affinity]</ref>

[[StarryKitten]], [[Net-cat]], and [[yak]] are listed as Technical Staff.<ref name="staff"/>

Past staff include [[Bazeel]], [[Carenath]], [[Glaide]], [[Grammatist]], [[Hendikins]], [[Keio]], [[Kyoujin]], [[Luftwoofe]], [[Oddy]], [[Odin36519]], [[Photographurer]], [[QMelon]], [[Sheepdust]], [[Silver R. Wolfe]], [[Summercat]], [[Trpdwarf]], [[Tsawolf]] and [[Writerwren]].<ref>''[http://www.flayrah.com/3720/five-fur-affinity-staff-resign-some-citing-leadership-failures Five Fur Affinity staff resign, some citing leadership failures]'' - [[Rakuen Growlithe]], [[Flayrah]] (29 October 2011)</ref>{{cn}}

== Statistics ==

* In late 2010, the monthly hosting bill for FurAffinity was just under $1,700 <ref>''http://twitpic.com/2g8t5x'' - TwitPic Posted on August 19, 2010
by Dragoneer</ref>. This includes a full equipment rack, bandwidth, and IP addresses. The monthly cost likely increased with the addition of extra bandwidth (Increasing the total to 350Mbit) in early 2012.<ref>https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3484539/</ref>
* In less than a year since the site's re-launch, Fur Affinity gained over 45,000 users and over 300,000 submissions. {{fact}}
* Alexa has previously ranked Fur Affinity in the [http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?site0=www.furaffinity.net&site1=vclart.net&site2=&site3=&site4=&x=75&y=15&h=300&w=610&h=400&w=700&z=3&range=1y&size=medium&y=r&z=3&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.furaffinity.net top 4,000 sites] on the web in 1 November 2007, showing greater traffic than the VCL for most of the previous year. The trend continued through 2008 and 2009. Fur Affinity has ranked as high as 3,475 on individual days, and close to 2,000 in the USA. In October 2010, Fur Affinity's rank fell to 7681.
* Fur Affinity reached its 1,000,000th submission on 11 January 2008. It later reached its 2,000,000th submission on 15 February 2009, and its 3,000,000th submission in November 2009.

== Hardware ==
[[File:Furaffinity Server Farm.jpg|thumb|Fur Affinity's servers Bahamut, Tiamat, Novastorm and Trogdor (unlabeled).]]

=== Planned upgrades ===

In September 2014, Fur Affinity sought additional hardware:<ref>''[http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/259XYIXJ8U486/ Fur Affinity Parts Wishlist]'' - [[Dragoneer]] (3 September 2014)</ref><ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6122156 Banner Update, Upcoming Beta & Ad Server Upgrade]'' - [[Fender]] (17 September 2014)</ref>
* File server: Supermicro SuperServer 6017R-72HDP+ 1U with Intel Xeon E5-2603 v2 Quad-Core CPU (1.8GHz, 10MB cache), 128Gb 1600MHz DDR3 ECC RAM, 12 WD 4TB SATAIII drives (7200 RPM, 64 MB cache)
* Application servers (4): Asus RS300-E8-PS4 1U with Xeon E3-1240 v3 Quad-Core CPU (3.4GHz, 8MB cache), 32GB DDR ECC RAM, 2x128Gb SSDs
* Advertising server: Xeon 1270 v3 Quad-Core CPU (3.5 GHz, 8MB cache), 32GB DDR3 ECC RAM and 2xSSDs

=== Current hardware ===
{| class="wikitable sortable" border="1"
|-
! scope="col" | Name
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Purpose
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Hardware Notes
! scope="col" | First Used
! scope="col" | Status
|-
| '''Routezilla''' || Router || Cisco 7301 router || ? || Presumed in use
|-
| '''Switchthulu''' || Network Switch || 48-port [[wikipedia:Cisco|Cisco]] Catalyst 3560. Replaced an older 24-port Cisco 3750, also called "Switchthulu" || ? || Presumed in use
|-
| '''Neo Bahamut''' || Database Backup || Dual-core 2.0GHz Opteron 1212 with 2GB DDR2-667 RAM.<ref name="Feb2013Summary" /> Storage consists of 4x 1TB hard drives in RAID5. Concern expressed by Dragoneer about its worth vs. power draw. || ? || In use
|-
| '''Novastorm''' || Database || a [[Wikipedia:Sun Fire|Sun Fire X4150]] manufactured by [[Wikipedia:Sun Microsystems]] with twin quad-core 2.5Ghz Xeon 5420 processors and 64GB of RAM (as of March 2010).<ref>[http://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/10912188478 Novastorm upgrade tweet] - [[Dragoneer]]'s twitter (23 March 2010)</ref> Storage consists of 2x 74GB 15K RPM hard drives in RAID1 and 6x146GB 15K RPM hard drives in RAID10. The server was initially purposed as the "Application server" but eventually converted to run the Database. This server was bought with donations following the July 2009 outage. Although Novastorm was replaced by Finn/Jake in September 2013, it is apparently still active, though it's use is not clear.<ref>https://trello.com/c/CLruJ1b5/65-upgrade-packages-on-novastorm</ref>|| August 2009 || In use
|-
| '''Figment''' || Virtualization Server Ad server, Email server || Dual quad-core 2.33Ghz Xeon 5345 with 32GB of RAM and 6x1TB<ref name="Feb2013Summary" /> of storage. Figment was purchased with the intent of offering hosting<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10203450025'' - FA Twitter - March 8, 2010</ref> on it "sometime in April... or May, or maybe August" of 2010<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10942579229'' - FA Twitter - March 23 2010</ref> and also served advertisements<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10936829317'' - FA Twitter</ref>. Server was named by [[Sciggles]].<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10585322442'' - FA Twitter</ref> || 2010 || In use/"Spare Servers Pool"<ref>https://trello.com/c/oy0HkfgT/6-repurpose-figment-in-spare-servers-pool</ref>
|-
| '''Sparkz''' || Network Monitoring || Twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. The server was named by FA donator Dax. This server is the only server in a group of four donated servers (The others being Shivan, Tonberry, and Lapse) that is known to have been put into service. || November 30, 2010<ref>[https://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/9825447189680128 @Furaffinity tweet]</ref> || In use
|-
| '''IO''' || File/App Server || An unspecified model which has dual Xeon E5435 CPUs<ref name="Feb2013Summary" />, 16GB RAM, and [https://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/86538088809107456 12 Terrabytes] worth of hard drives in it. This server replaced '''Trogdor'''. || October 2011 || In use
|-
| '''Finn'''* || Database Server || A custom-built server in a Supermicro SuperServer SYS-6027R-WRF chassis with at least one Intel Xeon 6C E5 2620 processor, 64GB of RAM, and 6 15k HDD's in an unknown RAID. This server was built by donations received in February 2013<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4389184</ref>. See note below. || December 16,2013 || In use
|-
| '''Jake'''* || Database Server || A custom-built server in a Supermicro SuperServer SYS-6027R-WRF chassis with at least one Intel Xeon 6C E5 2620 processor, 64GB of RAM, and 6 15k HDD's in an unknown RAID. This server was built by donations received in February 2013<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4389184</ref>. See note below || September 16, 2013''(as "Finn") November 2014 || Presumed in use
|}

* '''Finn''' and '''Jake''' are identical and were bought with the purpose of building a redundant database cluster. For unknown reasons, Finn was brought online first, with Jake supposedly following behind<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/5058966/</ref> later that week. In December 2013, an issue came up that put the site into "Read Only" for a week. FA then moved the database to Jake, which was apparently not put into service yet. However, in November 2014, [[Zidonuke]] said that Jake was sitting idle "for almost a year"<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6265766#cid:43149324</ref>, suggesting that when the database was moved, the names were swapped. As of November 2014, the idle database server was planned to be set as a slave for the purpose of handling notifications.

=== Retired / unused hardware ===
{| class="wikitable sortable" border="1"
|-
! scope="col" | Name
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Purpose
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Hardware Notes
! scope="col" | First Used
! scope="col" | Retired
|-
| '''Gecko''' || Web Server || The original FA server, is a dual 3.0Ghz Nocona [[Wikipedia:Xeon|Xeon]] system with 4GB of RAM. Storage consists of 2x 250GB hard drives. The server is still used to host [[Wikipedia:Team Fortress 2|Team Fortress 2]] servers for the [[Furry Pound]] and [[Wikipedia:Left 4 Dead|Left 4 Dead]] servers for the Fur Affinity Steam Gamers group. || ? || ?
|-
| '''Tiamat''' || Search || Twin dual-core 2.0Ghz [[Wikipedia:Opteron|Opteron 2212]] with 32GB DDR2-533 RAM || ? || August 31, 2010<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/22617961790'' - FA Twitter</ref> (Hardware Failure)
|-
| '''Shivan''' || Unused/Unknown || Twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. The server was named by FA donator TlaiLaxu. || ? || ?
|-
| '''Tonberry''' || Unused/Unknown || Twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. The server was named by FA donator YiffyHusky. || ? || ?
|-
| '''Lapse''' || Unused/Unknown || Twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM || ? || ?
|-
| '''Trogdor''' || File/App Server || A [[Wikipedia:Dell|Dell]] Poweredge 2970 2U Server with 32GB RAM and twin AMD Opteron 2212 CPUs.<ref name="Feb2013Summary">http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4383428/#cid:32107771</ref> Storage consists of 6x 1TB hard drives - 4x in a RAID10 array, 1x RAID hotspare and 1x local backups. This server was bought with donations following the July 2009 outage. || August 2009 || October 2011<ref>http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/108936-10-17-2011-File-read-only-mode</ref> (Replaced by '''File Server''')
|}

==Confirmed future features==

{| class="wikitable sortable" border="1"
|-
! scope="col" | Feature
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Official Mentions
! scope="col" | Status
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Notes
|-
| On-demand printing || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/371-FA-Funding December 2005] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/55797-is-FA-better-off-becoming-a-pay-site?p=1347804&viewfull=1#post1347804 November 2009] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Content filtering || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/3965-FA-Policy-Notice-Cub-Art November 2006] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented|| Proposed for Ferrox.
|-
| Gallery folders ||[http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/3969-Newbie-question-but...-folders November 2006] [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1648317/ August 2010] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6!?p=2314401&viewfull=1#post2314401 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented|| Proposed for Ferrox.
|-
| New UI || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/7472-FA-Project-UI-Overhaul April 2007] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/72193-New-FA-looks-exactly-like-steam-amp-DA-!-WTF!!?p=1853302&viewfull=1#post1853302 May 2010] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Canceled?<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3325316#cid:25505803</ref>|| Was in development at the same time as Ferrox.
|-
| New "dark" theme || [https://forums.vivisector.org/index.php?topic=588.msg6749#msg6749 May 2012] [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3887366/ October 2012]||style="background: #ffff99" | In Progress|| This project incorporates a new "dark" theme using some of the elements of the "New UI" that was canceled.
|-
| "Character Information" || [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3887366/ October 2012]||style="background: #ffff99" | In Progress|| A placeholder for a "Character Information" widget is present in the new dark theme.
|-
| Opossums (pss.ms) URL shortener || [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1648317/ August 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented|| pss.ms is currently down.
|-
| Web hosting || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/55797-is-FA-better-off-becoming-a-pay-site?p=1353001&viewfull=1#post1353001 November 2009] [http://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/10936829317 March 2010] [http://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/10936829317] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Supporter ribbons || [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1836349/ November 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Note/inbox search || [http://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/24023831950 September 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Artist list and reviews ''"Commission Ratings"'' || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/1342-Search-Function-User-List June 2006] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Improved commenting || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|}

== References ==
<references />

== See also ==

* [[FA Rank]]
* [[:Category:Fur Affinity administrators]]

== External links ==

* [http://community.livejournal.com/furaffinity/ ''Furaffinity Status' Journal'']. Fur Affinity on [[LiveJournal]]
* [http://furaffinity.tumblr.com Fur Affinity] on [[Wikipedia:Tumblr|Tumblr]]
* [http://twitter.com/furaffinity Fur Affinity] on [[Twitter]]
* [https://www.facebook.com/furaffinity Fur Affinity] on [[Facebook]]
* [irc://irc.furnet.org/furaffinity #furaffinity] on [[FurNet (IRC)|FurNet IRC]]
* [http://steamcommunity.com/groups/FurAffinityGamers Fur Affinity Gamers] on Steam
* [http://irc.netsplit.de/channels/details.php?room=%23furaffinity&net=FurNet #furaffinity statistics] on [http://irc.netsplit.de/ irc.netsplit.de]

{{Fur Affinity topics}}
{{Media archives}}
[[Category:Mature art archives]][[Category:Mature story archives]]
[[Category:2005 births]]
{{featured article}}

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Fur Affinity

2014-11-26T09:21:21Z

Murrypurryfurry: /* Current hardware */

{{update}}
{{Infobox website
| title = Fur Affinity
| image = [[File:FAFront Page.png|208px]]Fur Affinity front page
| author = '''Owner/Lead admin:''' [[Dragoneer]] (''via [[#Organization|Ferrox Art LLC]]'')
* '''Founder:''' [[Alkora]]
* [[#Administrators|Administrators]]
| url = https://www.furaffinity.net/ ([https://sfw.furaffinity.net/ SFW])
* '''Forum''': https://forums.furaffinity.net/
* '''Help site''': http://help.furaffinity.net/
* '''Trackers''': [https://trello.com/b/f7USczsS/furaffinity-devops DevOps] - [https://trello.com/b/SmYk47aD/furaffinity-feature-requests Requests]
| status =
| began = 16 January–1 August 2005 ([[History of Fur Affinity#Server problems of 2005|staff dispute & server issues]]) 10 December 2005–present
| ended =
| genre = Social media community
| rating = {{Rating-pg-button|center}}{{Rating-nc17-button|right}}
}}

'''Fur Affinity''', also known as '''FA''', is the [[furry fandom]]'s largest online community, focusing on the promotion of art, music and stories.

The site was created in 2005 by [[Alkora]] as an alternative to various art community sites such as [[SheezyArt]] and [[deviantART]], distinguished by allowing artistic freedom of expression regardless of content rating. It is led by [[Dragoneer]].
<div style=float:left;margin-right:10px>__TOC__</div>
{{WikiFurNews|Fur Affinity access disrupted amid ownership dispute}}
{{WikiFurNews|'Krystal sandwich' meme strikes Fur Affinity}}
{{FlayrahTag|fur-affinity|Fur Affinity}}

== History ==
{{main|History of Fur Affinity}}
Fur Affinity was launched on 16 January 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]]. Since then, it has suffered a few outages, most notably a month-long downtime over July 2008, but always managed to recover. In 2011, Fur Affinity announced a major revamp in connection to FA: United 4.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/89577-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6! Fur Affinity Turns 6!] - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity forum post (16 January 2011)</ref>

=== Fur Affinity: United! ===
{{main|FA: United}}
In August 2007, Fur Affinity held its own [[furry convention]], Fur Affinity: United! (or FA:U) in [[Wikipedia:Newark, New Jersey|Newark, New Jersey]]. The convention was a success, drawing 310 attendees and 25 [[fursuiter]]s in the [[fursuit parade|parade]], and was followed by another in 2008, drawing 381 attendees. In February 2009, Dragoneer announced FA: United 3 "Games United" for 28-30 May 2010.<ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/621616/ FAU3 Announcement]'' - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity journal (9 February 2009)</ref> No event was scheduled for 2009 due to the economic downturn. [[FA: United 7]], in August 2014, drew 707 attendees.

== Features and rules ==

Fur Affinity's features for users include the ability to allow users to track new updates from particular [[artist]]s; highlight favorites; and upload a wide variety of art (images, music and stories). The site attempts to promote community through its comments system and individual journals.

While works of all ratings are accepted (other than ''photographic nudes, images whose intent are to slander or discredit others, and minors in sexual situations''<ref>[http://help.furaffinity.net/article/AA-00205/8/Acceptable-Upload-Policy-AUP.html Acceptable Upload Policy] - Fur Affinity</ref>), art rated as mature or adult is not shown to visitors, or to users who have not specified it as a preference (which requires giving a date of birth indicating an age over 18). Keywords and tags can be added to works, though a feature that allowed blocking based on tags was disabled due to performance issues.

Fur Affinity's search engine was "temporarily disabled" in mid-2006 due to it taking up too many resources.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=1334 Admin mode on june 5th 2006]'' - Alkora, Fur Affinity forums (5 June 2006)</ref> A faux search feature was implemented for April Fool's Day 2007, much to the chagrin of some users.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=7229 Search is up!]'' - Fur Affinity Forums (1 April 2007)</ref> Search was reimplemented on 5 February 2009; it was initially labelled "That Thing You Want" and randomly included [[wikipedia:Rickrolling|rickrolls]].<ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/616339/ SEARCH]'' - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity journal (5 February 2009)</ref>

Privacy features were added in May 2012 with users being able to block guests from seeing their content with messages such as "[username] has elected to make their content available to registered users only" and being able to hide their adult, mature+adult or all favorites from public view.<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3490599/ Update Notices, Changelog & Banner] journal posted to Fender's blog on May 24th, 2012. Retrieved 2012 November 25.</ref>

==Project Ferrox==
{{main|Ferrox (software)}}
The FA development team was working on a new backend system called [[Ferrox_(software)|Ferrox]] which was to be used for the next major revision of Fur Affinity, and was to be made available as [[Wikipedia:FOSS|FOSS]] (Free and Open Source Software) for other sites to use. By late 2009, development of Ferrox had stalled, with the last change to the code being made on September 7, 2009. Days earlier, net-cat, who was acting as the lead Ferrox developer after [[Eevee]] had left, announced that the code was to be frozen, citing that "Nobody knows Python."<ref>http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/49368-Code-freeze-on-current-Ferrox-codebase?p=1174129&viewfull=1#post1174129</ref>

== Mascots ==
[[File:Fender.jpg|thumb|right|Fender, drawn by [[Mutley James]]]]
[[Fender]] is the Fur Affinity [[mascot]], created by artist [[K-9]] based on a character concept by [[Preyfar]]. He is half [[fox]] and half [[ferret]], a "ferrox". On April Fool's Day 2007, Fender was depicted in the site's banner as a female dragon. This dragon was made a separate character and an official mascot of the site in May 2007, and named [[Rednef]], or "Fender" spelled backwards.

== Controversies ==

{{main|History of Fur Affinity#Controversy}}

Being furry fandom's largest social art site for many years, Fur Affinity has been host to strenuous discussions on various topics, including the presence and later absence of [[cub]] [[pornography]], staff appointments and departures, allegations of staff and user improprieties, and debate over what consists of suitable content for the site banner. Incidents of downtime and unauthorized access have also been discussed, both on Fur Affinity's forums and throughout the fandom.

== Organization ==

Fur Affinity is officially owned and run by '''Ferrox Art LLC''', a [[Wikipedia:Limited liability company|limited liability company]] founded 25 February 2008, registered in [[Wikipedia:Lenhartsville, Pennsylvania|Lenhartsville, Pennsylvania]].<ref>[https://www.corporations.state.pa.us/corp/soskb/Corp.asp?2644408 Ferrox Art LLC (entity number 3791597)] - Pennsylvania Corporations, PA Department of State. Accessed 20 November 2013.</ref>

==Administrators==

Fur Affinity's listed "Administration and Support Staff" include [[Asia Neko]], [[Carmen]], [[Dragoneer]] ("Site Owner/Admin"), [[Fox Amoore]], [[Jasu Fox]], [[Kryphosdrgn]] ("Photography Team Lead"), [[Nero Silent]], [[quoting_mungo]], [[SSJ3Mewtwo]], [[Surgat]], and [[Xaerun]].<ref name="staff">[http://www.furaffinity.net/staff/ "Staff"] - Fur Affinity. Retrieved June 20, 2014.</ref><ref>[[Cerberusnl]], [[Helperdog]], and [[Shivadramon]] were listed as of June 20, 2014, but are no longer administrators per their user pages.</ref> A "System Account" also exists, which is used to send anonymous notices.<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/user/systemaccount/ "Fur Affinity System Account"] - Fur Affinity]</ref>

[[StarryKitten]], [[Net-cat]], and [[yak]] are listed as Technical Staff.<ref name="staff"/>

Past staff include [[Bazeel]], [[Carenath]], [[Glaide]], [[Grammatist]], [[Hendikins]], [[Keio]], [[Kyoujin]], [[Luftwoofe]], [[Oddy]], [[Odin36519]], [[Photographurer]], [[QMelon]], [[Sheepdust]], [[Silver R. Wolfe]], [[Summercat]], [[Trpdwarf]], [[Tsawolf]] and [[Writerwren]].<ref>''[http://www.flayrah.com/3720/five-fur-affinity-staff-resign-some-citing-leadership-failures Five Fur Affinity staff resign, some citing leadership failures]'' - [[Rakuen Growlithe]], [[Flayrah]] (29 October 2011)</ref>{{cn}}

== Statistics ==

* In late 2010, the monthly hosting bill for FurAffinity was just under $1,700 <ref>''http://twitpic.com/2g8t5x'' - TwitPic Posted on August 19, 2010
by Dragoneer</ref>. This includes a full equipment rack, bandwidth, and IP addresses. The monthly cost likely increased with the addition of extra bandwidth (Increasing the total to 350Mbit) in early 2012.<ref>https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3484539/</ref>
* In less than a year since the site's re-launch, Fur Affinity gained over 45,000 users and over 300,000 submissions. {{fact}}
* Alexa has previously ranked Fur Affinity in the [http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?site0=www.furaffinity.net&site1=vclart.net&site2=&site3=&site4=&x=75&y=15&h=300&w=610&h=400&w=700&z=3&range=1y&size=medium&y=r&z=3&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.furaffinity.net top 4,000 sites] on the web in 1 November 2007, showing greater traffic than the VCL for most of the previous year. The trend continued through 2008 and 2009. Fur Affinity has ranked as high as 3,475 on individual days, and close to 2,000 in the USA. In October 2010, Fur Affinity's rank fell to 7681.
* Fur Affinity reached its 1,000,000th submission on 11 January 2008. It later reached its 2,000,000th submission on 15 February 2009, and its 3,000,000th submission in November 2009.

== Hardware ==
[[File:Furaffinity Server Farm.jpg|thumb|Fur Affinity's servers Bahamut, Tiamat, Novastorm and Trogdor (unlabeled).]]

=== Planned upgrades ===

In September 2014, Fur Affinity sought additional hardware:<ref>''[http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/259XYIXJ8U486/ Fur Affinity Parts Wishlist]'' - [[Dragoneer]] (3 September 2014)</ref><ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6122156 Banner Update, Upcoming Beta & Ad Server Upgrade]'' - [[Fender]] (17 September 2014)</ref>
* File server: Supermicro SuperServer 6017R-72HDP+ 1U with Intel Xeon E5-2603 v2 Quad-Core CPU (1.8GHz, 10MB cache), 128Gb 1600MHz DDR3 ECC RAM, 12 WD 4TB SATAIII drives (7200 RPM, 64 MB cache)
* Application servers (4): Asus RS300-E8-PS4 1U with Xeon E3-1240 v3 Quad-Core CPU (3.4GHz, 8MB cache), 32GB DDR ECC RAM, 2x128Gb SSDs
* Advertising server: Xeon 1270 v3 Quad-Core CPU (3.5 GHz, 8MB cache), 32GB DDR3 ECC RAM and 2xSSDs

=== Current hardware ===
{| class="wikitable sortable" border="1"
|-
! scope="col" | Name
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Purpose
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Hardware Notes
! scope="col" | First Used
! scope="col" | Status
|-
| '''Routezilla''' || Router || Cisco 7301 router || ? || Presumed in use
|-
| '''Switchthulu''' || Network Switch || 48-port [[wikipedia:Cisco|Cisco]] Catalyst 3560. Replaced an older 24-port Cisco 3750, also called "Switchthulu" || ? || Presumed in use
|-
| '''Neo Bahamut''' || Database Backup || Dual-core 2.0GHz Opteron 1212 with 2GB DDR2-667 RAM.<ref name="Feb2013Summary" /> Storage consists of 4x 1TB hard drives in RAID5. Concern expressed by Dragoneer about its worth vs. power draw. || ? || In use
|-
| '''Novastorm''' || Database || a [[Wikipedia:Sun Fire|Sun Fire X4150]] manufactured by [[Wikipedia:Sun Microsystems]] with twin quad-core 2.5Ghz Xeon 5420 processors and 64GB of RAM (as of March 2010).<ref>[http://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/10912188478 Novastorm upgrade tweet] - [[Dragoneer]]'s twitter (23 March 2010)</ref> Storage consists of 2x 74GB 15K RPM hard drives in RAID1 and 6x146GB 15K RPM hard drives in RAID10. The server was initially purposed as the "Application server" but eventually converted to run the Database. This server was bought with donations following the July 2009 outage. Although Novastorm was replaced by Finn/Jake in September 2013, it is apparently still active, though it's use is not clear.<ref>https://trello.com/c/CLruJ1b5/65-upgrade-packages-on-novastorm</ref>|| August 2009 || In use
|-
| '''Figment''' || Virtualization Server Ad server, Email server || Dual quad-core 2.33Ghz Xeon 5345 with 32GB of RAM and 6x1TB<ref name="Feb2013Summary" /> of storage. Figment was purchased with the intent of offering hosting<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10203450025'' - FA Twitter - March 8, 2010</ref> on it "sometime in April... or May, or maybe August" of 2010<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10942579229'' - FA Twitter - March 23 2010</ref> and also served advertisements<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10936829317'' - FA Twitter</ref>. Server was named by [[Sciggles]].<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10585322442'' - FA Twitter</ref> || 2010 || In use/"Spare Servers Pool"<ref>https://trello.com/c/oy0HkfgT/6-repurpose-figment-in-spare-servers-pool</ref>
|-
| '''Sparkz''' || Network Monitoring || Twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. The server was named by FA donator Dax. This server is the only server in a group of four donated servers (The others being Shivan, Tonberry, and Lapse) that is known to have been put into service. || November 30, 2010<ref>[https://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/9825447189680128 @Furaffinity tweet]</ref> || In use
|-
| '''IO''' || File/App Server || An unspecified model which has dual Xeon E5435 CPUs<ref name="Feb2013Summary" />, 16GB RAM, and [https://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/86538088809107456 12 Terrabytes] worth of hard drives in it. This server replaced '''Trogdor'''. || October 2011 || In use
|-
| '''Finn'''* || Database Server || A custom-built server in a Supermicro SuperServer SYS-6027R-WRF chassis with at least one Intel Xeon 6C E5 2620 processor, 64GB of RAM, and 6 15k HDD's in an unknown RAID. This server was built by donations received in February 2013<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4389184</ref>. See note below. || December 16,2013 || In use
|-
| '''Jake'''* || Database Server || A custom-built server in a Supermicro SuperServer SYS-6027R-WRF chassis with at least one Intel Xeon 6C E5 2620 processor, 64GB of RAM, and 6 15k HDD's in an unknown RAID. This server was built by donations received in February 2013<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4389184</ref>. See note below || September 16, 2013<sm>''(as "Finn")</sm> November 2014 || Presumed in use
|}

* '''Finn''' and '''Jake''' are identical and were bought with the purpose of building a redundant database cluster. For unknown reasons, Finn was brought online first, with Jake supposedly following behind<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/5058966/</ref> later that week. In December 2013, an issue came up that put the site into "Read Only" for a week. FA then moved the database to Jake, which was apparently not put into service yet. However, in November 2014, [[Zidonuke]] said that Jake was sitting idle "for almost a year"<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6265766#cid:43149324</ref>, suggesting that when the database was moved, the names were swapped. As of November 2014, the idle database server was planned to be set as a slave for the purpose of handling notifications.

=== Retired / unused hardware ===
{| class="wikitable sortable" border="1"
|-
! scope="col" | Name
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Purpose
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Hardware Notes
! scope="col" | First Used
! scope="col" | Retired
|-
| '''Gecko''' || Web Server || The original FA server, is a dual 3.0Ghz Nocona [[Wikipedia:Xeon|Xeon]] system with 4GB of RAM. Storage consists of 2x 250GB hard drives. The server is still used to host [[Wikipedia:Team Fortress 2|Team Fortress 2]] servers for the [[Furry Pound]] and [[Wikipedia:Left 4 Dead|Left 4 Dead]] servers for the Fur Affinity Steam Gamers group. || ? || ?
|-
| '''Tiamat''' || Search || Twin dual-core 2.0Ghz [[Wikipedia:Opteron|Opteron 2212]] with 32GB DDR2-533 RAM || ? || August 31, 2010<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/22617961790'' - FA Twitter</ref> (Hardware Failure)
|-
| '''Shivan''' || Unused/Unknown || Twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. The server was named by FA donator TlaiLaxu. || ? || ?
|-
| '''Tonberry''' || Unused/Unknown || Twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. The server was named by FA donator YiffyHusky. || ? || ?
|-
| '''Lapse''' || Unused/Unknown || Twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM || ? || ?
|-
| '''Trogdor''' || File/App Server || A [[Wikipedia:Dell|Dell]] Poweredge 2970 2U Server with 32GB RAM and twin AMD Opteron 2212 CPUs.<ref name="Feb2013Summary">http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4383428/#cid:32107771</ref> Storage consists of 6x 1TB hard drives - 4x in a RAID10 array, 1x RAID hotspare and 1x local backups. This server was bought with donations following the July 2009 outage. || August 2009 || October 2011<ref>http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/108936-10-17-2011-File-read-only-mode</ref> (Replaced by '''File Server''')
|}

==Confirmed future features==

{| class="wikitable sortable" border="1"
|-
! scope="col" | Feature
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Official Mentions
! scope="col" | Status
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Notes
|-
| On-demand printing || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/371-FA-Funding December 2005] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/55797-is-FA-better-off-becoming-a-pay-site?p=1347804&viewfull=1#post1347804 November 2009] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Content filtering || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/3965-FA-Policy-Notice-Cub-Art November 2006] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented|| Proposed for Ferrox.
|-
| Gallery folders ||[http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/3969-Newbie-question-but...-folders November 2006] [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1648317/ August 2010] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6!?p=2314401&viewfull=1#post2314401 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented|| Proposed for Ferrox.
|-
| New UI || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/7472-FA-Project-UI-Overhaul April 2007] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/72193-New-FA-looks-exactly-like-steam-amp-DA-!-WTF!!?p=1853302&viewfull=1#post1853302 May 2010] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Canceled?<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3325316#cid:25505803</ref>|| Was in development at the same time as Ferrox.
|-
| New "dark" theme || [https://forums.vivisector.org/index.php?topic=588.msg6749#msg6749 May 2012] [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3887366/ October 2012]||style="background: #ffff99" | In Progress|| This project incorporates a new "dark" theme using some of the elements of the "New UI" that was canceled.
|-
| "Character Information" || [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3887366/ October 2012]||style="background: #ffff99" | In Progress|| A placeholder for a "Character Information" widget is present in the new dark theme.
|-
| Opossums (pss.ms) URL shortener || [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1648317/ August 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented|| pss.ms is currently down.
|-
| Web hosting || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/55797-is-FA-better-off-becoming-a-pay-site?p=1353001&viewfull=1#post1353001 November 2009] [http://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/10936829317 March 2010] [http://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/10936829317] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Supporter ribbons || [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1836349/ November 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Note/inbox search || [http://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/24023831950 September 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Artist list and reviews ''"Commission Ratings"'' || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/1342-Search-Function-User-List June 2006] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Improved commenting || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|}

== References ==
<references />

== See also ==

* [[FA Rank]]
* [[:Category:Fur Affinity administrators]]

== External links ==

* [http://community.livejournal.com/furaffinity/ ''Furaffinity Status' Journal'']. Fur Affinity on [[LiveJournal]]
* [http://furaffinity.tumblr.com Fur Affinity] on [[Wikipedia:Tumblr|Tumblr]]
* [http://twitter.com/furaffinity Fur Affinity] on [[Twitter]]
* [https://www.facebook.com/furaffinity Fur Affinity] on [[Facebook]]
* [irc://irc.furnet.org/furaffinity #furaffinity] on [[FurNet (IRC)|FurNet IRC]]
* [http://steamcommunity.com/groups/FurAffinityGamers Fur Affinity Gamers] on Steam
* [http://irc.netsplit.de/channels/details.php?room=%23furaffinity&net=FurNet #furaffinity statistics] on [http://irc.netsplit.de/ irc.netsplit.de]

{{Fur Affinity topics}}
{{Media archives}}
[[Category:Mature art archives]][[Category:Mature story archives]]
[[Category:2005 births]]
{{featured article}}

[[de:Fur Affinity]]
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Fur Affinity

2014-11-26T09:20:28Z

Murrypurryfurry: /* Hardware */ Updates based on Trello cards and Zidonuke comments.

{{update}}
{{Infobox website
| title = Fur Affinity
| image = [[File:FAFront Page.png|208px]]Fur Affinity front page
| author = '''Owner/Lead admin:''' [[Dragoneer]] (''via [[#Organization|Ferrox Art LLC]]'')
* '''Founder:''' [[Alkora]]
* [[#Administrators|Administrators]]
| url = https://www.furaffinity.net/ ([https://sfw.furaffinity.net/ SFW])
* '''Forum''': https://forums.furaffinity.net/
* '''Help site''': http://help.furaffinity.net/
* '''Trackers''': [https://trello.com/b/f7USczsS/furaffinity-devops DevOps] - [https://trello.com/b/SmYk47aD/furaffinity-feature-requests Requests]
| status =
| began = 16 January–1 August 2005 ([[History of Fur Affinity#Server problems of 2005|staff dispute & server issues]]) 10 December 2005–present
| ended =
| genre = Social media community
| rating = {{Rating-pg-button|center}}{{Rating-nc17-button|right}}
}}

'''Fur Affinity''', also known as '''FA''', is the [[furry fandom]]'s largest online community, focusing on the promotion of art, music and stories.

The site was created in 2005 by [[Alkora]] as an alternative to various art community sites such as [[SheezyArt]] and [[deviantART]], distinguished by allowing artistic freedom of expression regardless of content rating. It is led by [[Dragoneer]].
<div style=float:left;margin-right:10px>__TOC__</div>
{{WikiFurNews|Fur Affinity access disrupted amid ownership dispute}}
{{WikiFurNews|'Krystal sandwich' meme strikes Fur Affinity}}
{{FlayrahTag|fur-affinity|Fur Affinity}}

== History ==
{{main|History of Fur Affinity}}
Fur Affinity was launched on 16 January 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]]. Since then, it has suffered a few outages, most notably a month-long downtime over July 2008, but always managed to recover. In 2011, Fur Affinity announced a major revamp in connection to FA: United 4.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/89577-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6! Fur Affinity Turns 6!] - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity forum post (16 January 2011)</ref>

=== Fur Affinity: United! ===
{{main|FA: United}}
In August 2007, Fur Affinity held its own [[furry convention]], Fur Affinity: United! (or FA:U) in [[Wikipedia:Newark, New Jersey|Newark, New Jersey]]. The convention was a success, drawing 310 attendees and 25 [[fursuiter]]s in the [[fursuit parade|parade]], and was followed by another in 2008, drawing 381 attendees. In February 2009, Dragoneer announced FA: United 3 "Games United" for 28-30 May 2010.<ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/621616/ FAU3 Announcement]'' - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity journal (9 February 2009)</ref> No event was scheduled for 2009 due to the economic downturn. [[FA: United 7]], in August 2014, drew 707 attendees.

== Features and rules ==

Fur Affinity's features for users include the ability to allow users to track new updates from particular [[artist]]s; highlight favorites; and upload a wide variety of art (images, music and stories). The site attempts to promote community through its comments system and individual journals.

While works of all ratings are accepted (other than ''photographic nudes, images whose intent are to slander or discredit others, and minors in sexual situations''<ref>[http://help.furaffinity.net/article/AA-00205/8/Acceptable-Upload-Policy-AUP.html Acceptable Upload Policy] - Fur Affinity</ref>), art rated as mature or adult is not shown to visitors, or to users who have not specified it as a preference (which requires giving a date of birth indicating an age over 18). Keywords and tags can be added to works, though a feature that allowed blocking based on tags was disabled due to performance issues.

Fur Affinity's search engine was "temporarily disabled" in mid-2006 due to it taking up too many resources.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=1334 Admin mode on june 5th 2006]'' - Alkora, Fur Affinity forums (5 June 2006)</ref> A faux search feature was implemented for April Fool's Day 2007, much to the chagrin of some users.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=7229 Search is up!]'' - Fur Affinity Forums (1 April 2007)</ref> Search was reimplemented on 5 February 2009; it was initially labelled "That Thing You Want" and randomly included [[wikipedia:Rickrolling|rickrolls]].<ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/616339/ SEARCH]'' - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity journal (5 February 2009)</ref>

Privacy features were added in May 2012 with users being able to block guests from seeing their content with messages such as "[username] has elected to make their content available to registered users only" and being able to hide their adult, mature+adult or all favorites from public view.<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3490599/ Update Notices, Changelog & Banner] journal posted to Fender's blog on May 24th, 2012. Retrieved 2012 November 25.</ref>

==Project Ferrox==
{{main|Ferrox (software)}}
The FA development team was working on a new backend system called [[Ferrox_(software)|Ferrox]] which was to be used for the next major revision of Fur Affinity, and was to be made available as [[Wikipedia:FOSS|FOSS]] (Free and Open Source Software) for other sites to use. By late 2009, development of Ferrox had stalled, with the last change to the code being made on September 7, 2009. Days earlier, net-cat, who was acting as the lead Ferrox developer after [[Eevee]] had left, announced that the code was to be frozen, citing that "Nobody knows Python."<ref>http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/49368-Code-freeze-on-current-Ferrox-codebase?p=1174129&viewfull=1#post1174129</ref>

== Mascots ==
[[File:Fender.jpg|thumb|right|Fender, drawn by [[Mutley James]]]]
[[Fender]] is the Fur Affinity [[mascot]], created by artist [[K-9]] based on a character concept by [[Preyfar]]. He is half [[fox]] and half [[ferret]], a "ferrox". On April Fool's Day 2007, Fender was depicted in the site's banner as a female dragon. This dragon was made a separate character and an official mascot of the site in May 2007, and named [[Rednef]], or "Fender" spelled backwards.

== Controversies ==

{{main|History of Fur Affinity#Controversy}}

Being furry fandom's largest social art site for many years, Fur Affinity has been host to strenuous discussions on various topics, including the presence and later absence of [[cub]] [[pornography]], staff appointments and departures, allegations of staff and user improprieties, and debate over what consists of suitable content for the site banner. Incidents of downtime and unauthorized access have also been discussed, both on Fur Affinity's forums and throughout the fandom.

== Organization ==

Fur Affinity is officially owned and run by '''Ferrox Art LLC''', a [[Wikipedia:Limited liability company|limited liability company]] founded 25 February 2008, registered in [[Wikipedia:Lenhartsville, Pennsylvania|Lenhartsville, Pennsylvania]].<ref>[https://www.corporations.state.pa.us/corp/soskb/Corp.asp?2644408 Ferrox Art LLC (entity number 3791597)] - Pennsylvania Corporations, PA Department of State. Accessed 20 November 2013.</ref>

==Administrators==

Fur Affinity's listed "Administration and Support Staff" include [[Asia Neko]], [[Carmen]], [[Dragoneer]] ("Site Owner/Admin"), [[Fox Amoore]], [[Jasu Fox]], [[Kryphosdrgn]] ("Photography Team Lead"), [[Nero Silent]], [[quoting_mungo]], [[SSJ3Mewtwo]], [[Surgat]], and [[Xaerun]].<ref name="staff">[http://www.furaffinity.net/staff/ "Staff"] - Fur Affinity. Retrieved June 20, 2014.</ref><ref>[[Cerberusnl]], [[Helperdog]], and [[Shivadramon]] were listed as of June 20, 2014, but are no longer administrators per their user pages.</ref> A "System Account" also exists, which is used to send anonymous notices.<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/user/systemaccount/ "Fur Affinity System Account"] - Fur Affinity]</ref>

[[StarryKitten]], [[Net-cat]], and [[yak]] are listed as Technical Staff.<ref name="staff"/>

Past staff include [[Bazeel]], [[Carenath]], [[Glaide]], [[Grammatist]], [[Hendikins]], [[Keio]], [[Kyoujin]], [[Luftwoofe]], [[Oddy]], [[Odin36519]], [[Photographurer]], [[QMelon]], [[Sheepdust]], [[Silver R. Wolfe]], [[Summercat]], [[Trpdwarf]], [[Tsawolf]] and [[Writerwren]].<ref>''[http://www.flayrah.com/3720/five-fur-affinity-staff-resign-some-citing-leadership-failures Five Fur Affinity staff resign, some citing leadership failures]'' - [[Rakuen Growlithe]], [[Flayrah]] (29 October 2011)</ref>{{cn}}

== Statistics ==

* In late 2010, the monthly hosting bill for FurAffinity was just under $1,700 <ref>''http://twitpic.com/2g8t5x'' - TwitPic Posted on August 19, 2010
by Dragoneer</ref>. This includes a full equipment rack, bandwidth, and IP addresses. The monthly cost likely increased with the addition of extra bandwidth (Increasing the total to 350Mbit) in early 2012.<ref>https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3484539/</ref>
* In less than a year since the site's re-launch, Fur Affinity gained over 45,000 users and over 300,000 submissions. {{fact}}
* Alexa has previously ranked Fur Affinity in the [http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?site0=www.furaffinity.net&site1=vclart.net&site2=&site3=&site4=&x=75&y=15&h=300&w=610&h=400&w=700&z=3&range=1y&size=medium&y=r&z=3&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.furaffinity.net top 4,000 sites] on the web in 1 November 2007, showing greater traffic than the VCL for most of the previous year. The trend continued through 2008 and 2009. Fur Affinity has ranked as high as 3,475 on individual days, and close to 2,000 in the USA. In October 2010, Fur Affinity's rank fell to 7681.
* Fur Affinity reached its 1,000,000th submission on 11 January 2008. It later reached its 2,000,000th submission on 15 February 2009, and its 3,000,000th submission in November 2009.

== Hardware ==
[[File:Furaffinity Server Farm.jpg|thumb|Fur Affinity's servers Bahamut, Tiamat, Novastorm and Trogdor (unlabeled).]]

=== Planned upgrades ===

In September 2014, Fur Affinity sought additional hardware:<ref>''[http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/259XYIXJ8U486/ Fur Affinity Parts Wishlist]'' - [[Dragoneer]] (3 September 2014)</ref><ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6122156 Banner Update, Upcoming Beta & Ad Server Upgrade]'' - [[Fender]] (17 September 2014)</ref>
* File server: Supermicro SuperServer 6017R-72HDP+ 1U with Intel Xeon E5-2603 v2 Quad-Core CPU (1.8GHz, 10MB cache), 128Gb 1600MHz DDR3 ECC RAM, 12 WD 4TB SATAIII drives (7200 RPM, 64 MB cache)
* Application servers (4): Asus RS300-E8-PS4 1U with Xeon E3-1240 v3 Quad-Core CPU (3.4GHz, 8MB cache), 32GB DDR ECC RAM, 2x128Gb SSDs
* Advertising server: Xeon 1270 v3 Quad-Core CPU (3.5 GHz, 8MB cache), 32GB DDR3 ECC RAM and 2xSSDs

=== Current hardware ===
{| class="wikitable sortable" border="1"
|-
! scope="col" | Name
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Purpose
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Hardware Notes
! scope="col" | First Used
! scope="col" | Status
|-
| '''Routezilla''' || Router || Cisco 7301 router || ? || Presumed in use
|-
| '''Switchthulu''' || Network Switch || 48-port [[wikipedia:Cisco|Cisco]] Catalyst 3560. Replaced an older 24-port Cisco 3750, also called "Switchthulu" || ? || Presumed in use
|-
| '''Neo Bahamut''' || Database Backup || Dual-core 2.0GHz Opteron 1212 with 2GB DDR2-667 RAM.<ref name="Feb2013Summary" /> Storage consists of 4x 1TB hard drives in RAID5. Concern expressed by Dragoneer about its worth vs. power draw. || ? || In use
|-
| '''Novastorm''' || Database || a [[Wikipedia:Sun Fire|Sun Fire X4150]] manufactured by [[Wikipedia:Sun Microsystems]] with twin quad-core 2.5Ghz Xeon 5420 processors and 64GB of RAM (as of March 2010).<ref>[http://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/10912188478 Novastorm upgrade tweet] - [[Dragoneer]]'s twitter (23 March 2010)</ref> Storage consists of 2x 74GB 15K RPM hard drives in RAID1 and 6x146GB 15K RPM hard drives in RAID10. The server was initially purposed as the "Application server" but eventually converted to run the Database. This server was bought with donations following the July 2009 outage. Although Novastorm was replaced by Finn/Jake in September 2013, it is apparently still active, though it's use is not clear.<ref>https://trello.com/c/CLruJ1b5/65-upgrade-packages-on-novastorm</ref>|| August 2009 || In use
|-
| '''Figment''' || Virtualization Server Ad server, Email server || Dual quad-core 2.33Ghz Xeon 5345 with 32GB of RAM and 6x1TB<ref name="Feb2013Summary" /> of storage. Figment was purchased with the intent of offering hosting<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10203450025'' - FA Twitter - March 8, 2010</ref> on it "sometime in April... or May, or maybe August" of 2010<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10942579229'' - FA Twitter - March 23 2010</ref> and also served advertisements<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10936829317'' - FA Twitter</ref>. Server was named by [[Sciggles]].<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10585322442'' - FA Twitter</ref> || 2010 || In use/"Spare Servers Pool"<ref>https://trello.com/c/oy0HkfgT/6-repurpose-figment-in-spare-servers-pool</ref>
|-
| '''Sparkz''' || Network Monitoring || Twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. The server was named by FA donator Dax. This server is the only server in a group of four donated servers (The others being Shivan, Tonberry, and Lapse) that is known to have been put into service. || November 30, 2010<ref>[https://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/9825447189680128 @Furaffinity tweet]</ref> || In use
|-
| '''IO''' || File/App Server || An unspecified model which has dual Xeon E5435 CPUs<ref name="Feb2013Summary" />, 16GB RAM, and [https://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/86538088809107456 12 Terrabytes] worth of hard drives in it. This server replaced '''Trogdor'''. || October 2011 || In use
|-
| '''Finn'''* || Database Server || A custom-built server in a Supermicro SuperServer SYS-6027R-WRF chassis with at least one Intel Xeon 6C E5 2620 processor, 64GB of RAM, and 6 15k HDD's in an unknown RAID. This server was built by donations received in February 2013<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4389184</ref>. See note below. || December 16,2013 || In use
|-
| '''Jake'''* || Database Server || A custom-built server in a Supermicro SuperServer SYS-6027R-WRF chassis with at least one Intel Xeon 6C E5 2620 processor, 64GB of RAM, and 6 15k HDD's in an unknown RAID. This server was built by donations received in February 2013<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4389184</ref>. See note below || September 16, 2013<sm>''(as "Finn") November 2014 || Presumed in use
|}

* '''Finn''' and '''Jake''' are identical and were bought with the purpose of building a redundant database cluster. For unknown reasons, Finn was brought online first, with Jake supposedly following behind<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/5058966/</ref> later that week. In December 2013, an issue came up that put the site into "Read Only" for a week. FA then moved the database to Jake, which was apparently not put into service yet. However, in November 2014, [[Zidonuke]] said that Jake was sitting idle "for almost a year"<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6265766#cid:43149324</ref>, suggesting that when the database was moved, the names were swapped. As of November 2014, the idle database server was planned to be set as a slave for the purpose of handling notifications.

=== Retired / unused hardware ===
{| class="wikitable sortable" border="1"
|-
! scope="col" | Name
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Purpose
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Hardware Notes
! scope="col" | First Used
! scope="col" | Retired
|-
| '''Gecko''' || Web Server || The original FA server, is a dual 3.0Ghz Nocona [[Wikipedia:Xeon|Xeon]] system with 4GB of RAM. Storage consists of 2x 250GB hard drives. The server is still used to host [[Wikipedia:Team Fortress 2|Team Fortress 2]] servers for the [[Furry Pound]] and [[Wikipedia:Left 4 Dead|Left 4 Dead]] servers for the Fur Affinity Steam Gamers group. || ? || ?
|-
| '''Tiamat''' || Search || Twin dual-core 2.0Ghz [[Wikipedia:Opteron|Opteron 2212]] with 32GB DDR2-533 RAM || ? || August 31, 2010<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/22617961790'' - FA Twitter</ref> (Hardware Failure)
|-
| '''Shivan''' || Unused/Unknown || Twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. The server was named by FA donator TlaiLaxu. || ? || ?
|-
| '''Tonberry''' || Unused/Unknown || Twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. The server was named by FA donator YiffyHusky. || ? || ?
|-
| '''Lapse''' || Unused/Unknown || Twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM || ? || ?
|-
| '''Trogdor''' || File/App Server || A [[Wikipedia:Dell|Dell]] Poweredge 2970 2U Server with 32GB RAM and twin AMD Opteron 2212 CPUs.<ref name="Feb2013Summary">http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4383428/#cid:32107771</ref> Storage consists of 6x 1TB hard drives - 4x in a RAID10 array, 1x RAID hotspare and 1x local backups. This server was bought with donations following the July 2009 outage. || August 2009 || October 2011<ref>http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/108936-10-17-2011-File-read-only-mode</ref> (Replaced by '''File Server''')
|}

==Confirmed future features==

{| class="wikitable sortable" border="1"
|-
! scope="col" | Feature
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Official Mentions
! scope="col" | Status
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Notes
|-
| On-demand printing || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/371-FA-Funding December 2005] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/55797-is-FA-better-off-becoming-a-pay-site?p=1347804&viewfull=1#post1347804 November 2009] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Content filtering || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/3965-FA-Policy-Notice-Cub-Art November 2006] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented|| Proposed for Ferrox.
|-
| Gallery folders ||[http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/3969-Newbie-question-but...-folders November 2006] [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1648317/ August 2010] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6!?p=2314401&viewfull=1#post2314401 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented|| Proposed for Ferrox.
|-
| New UI || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/7472-FA-Project-UI-Overhaul April 2007] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/72193-New-FA-looks-exactly-like-steam-amp-DA-!-WTF!!?p=1853302&viewfull=1#post1853302 May 2010] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Canceled?<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3325316#cid:25505803</ref>|| Was in development at the same time as Ferrox.
|-
| New "dark" theme || [https://forums.vivisector.org/index.php?topic=588.msg6749#msg6749 May 2012] [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3887366/ October 2012]||style="background: #ffff99" | In Progress|| This project incorporates a new "dark" theme using some of the elements of the "New UI" that was canceled.
|-
| "Character Information" || [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3887366/ October 2012]||style="background: #ffff99" | In Progress|| A placeholder for a "Character Information" widget is present in the new dark theme.
|-
| Opossums (pss.ms) URL shortener || [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1648317/ August 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented|| pss.ms is currently down.
|-
| Web hosting || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/55797-is-FA-better-off-becoming-a-pay-site?p=1353001&viewfull=1#post1353001 November 2009] [http://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/10936829317 March 2010] [http://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/10936829317] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Supporter ribbons || [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1836349/ November 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Note/inbox search || [http://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/24023831950 September 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Artist list and reviews ''"Commission Ratings"'' || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/1342-Search-Function-User-List June 2006] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Improved commenting || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|}

== References ==
<references />

== See also ==

* [[FA Rank]]
* [[:Category:Fur Affinity administrators]]

== External links ==

* [http://community.livejournal.com/furaffinity/ ''Furaffinity Status' Journal'']. Fur Affinity on [[LiveJournal]]
* [http://furaffinity.tumblr.com Fur Affinity] on [[Wikipedia:Tumblr|Tumblr]]
* [http://twitter.com/furaffinity Fur Affinity] on [[Twitter]]
* [https://www.facebook.com/furaffinity Fur Affinity] on [[Facebook]]
* [irc://irc.furnet.org/furaffinity #furaffinity] on [[FurNet (IRC)|FurNet IRC]]
* [http://steamcommunity.com/groups/FurAffinityGamers Fur Affinity Gamers] on Steam
* [http://irc.netsplit.de/channels/details.php?room=%23furaffinity&net=FurNet #furaffinity statistics] on [http://irc.netsplit.de/ irc.netsplit.de]

{{Fur Affinity topics}}
{{Media archives}}
[[Category:Mature art archives]][[Category:Mature story archives]]
[[Category:2005 births]]
{{featured article}}

[[de:Fur Affinity]]
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Fur Affinity

2014-02-10T08:16:28Z

Murrypurryfurry: /* Hardware */

{{update}}
{{Infobox website
| title = Fur Affinity
| image = [[File:FAFront Page.png|208px]]Fur Affinity front page
| author = '''Owner/Lead admin:''' [[Dragoneer]] (''via [[#Organization|Ferrox Art LLC]]'')
* '''Founder:''' [[Alkora]]
* [[#Administrators|Administrators]]
| url = http://www.furaffinity.net/
* '''SFW link''': http://sfw.furaffinity.net/
* '''Forum''': http://forums.furaffinity.net/
* '''Wiki''': http://wiki.furaffinity.net/
| status =
| began = 16 January–1 August 2005 ([[History of Fur Affinity#Server problems of 2005|staff dispute & server issues]]) 10 December 2005–present
| ended =
| genre = Social media community
| rating = {{Rating-pg-button|center}}{{Rating-nc17-button|right}}
}}

'''Fur Affinity''', also known as '''FA''', is the [[furry fandom]]'s largest online community, focusing on the promotion of art, music and stories.

The site was created in 2005 by [[Alkora]] as an alternative to various art community sites such as [[SheezyArt]] and [[deviantART]], distinguished by allowing artistic freedom of expression regardless of content rating. It is led by [[Dragoneer]] and [[Daemonshyai]].
<div style=float:left;margin-right:10px>__TOC__</div>
{{WikiFurNews|Fur Affinity access disrupted amid ownership dispute}}
{{WikiFurNews|'Krystal sandwich' meme strikes Fur Affinity}}
{{FlayrahTag|fur-affinity|Fur Affinity}}

== History ==
{{main|History of Fur Affinity}}
Fur Affinity was launched on 16 January 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]]. Since then, it has suffered a few outages, most notably a month-long downtime over July 2008, but always managed to recover. In 2011, Fur Affinity announced a major revamp in connection to FA: United 4.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/89577-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6! Fur Affinity Turns 6!] - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity forum post (16 January 2011)</ref>

=== Fur Affinity: United! ===
{{main|FA: United}}
In August 2007, Fur Affinity held its own [[furry convention]], Fur Affinity: United! (or FA:U) in [[Wikipedia:Newark, New Jersey|Newark, New Jersey]]. The convention was a success, drawing 310 attendees and 25 [[fursuiter]]s in the [[fursuit parade|parade]], and was followed by another in 2008, drawing 381 attendees. In February 2009, Dragoneer announced FA: United 3 "Games United" for 28-30 May 2010.<ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/621616/ FAU3 Announcement]'' - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity journal (9 February 2009)</ref> No event was scheduled for 2009 due to the economic downturn.

== Features and rules ==

Fur Affinity's features for users include the ability to allow users to track new updates from particular [[artist]]s; highlight favorites; and upload a wide variety of art (images, music and stories). The site attempts to promote community through its comments system and individual journals.

While works of all ratings are accepted (other than ''photographic nudes, images whose intent are to slander or discredit others, and minors in sexual situations''<ref>[http://help.furaffinity.net/article/AA-00205/8/Acceptable-Upload-Policy-AUP.html Acceptable Upload Policy] - Fur Affinity</ref>), art rated as mature or adult is not shown to visitors, or to users who have not specified it as a preference (which requires giving a date of birth indicating an age over 18). Keywords and tags can be added to works, though a feature that allowed blocking based on tags was disabled due to performance issues.

Fur Affinity's search engine was "temporarily disabled" in mid-2006 due to it taking up too many resources.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=1334 Admin mode on june 5th 2006]'' - Alkora, Fur Affinity forums (5 June 2006)</ref> A faux search feature was implemented for April Fool's Day 2007, much to the chagrin of some users.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=7229 Search is up!]'' - Fur Affinity Forums (1 April 2007)</ref> Search was reimplemented on 5 February 2009; it was initially labelled "That Thing You Want" and randomly included [[wikipedia:Rickrolling|rickrolls]].<ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/616339/ SEARCH]'' - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity journal (5 February 2009)</ref>

Privacy features were added in May 2012 with users being able to block guests from seeing their content with messages such as "[username] has elected to make their content available to registered users only" and being able to hide their adult, mature+adult or all favorites from public view.<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3490599/ Update Notices, Changelog & Banner] journal posted to Fender's blog on May 24th, 2012. Retrieved 2012 November 25.</ref>

==Project Ferrox==
{{main|Ferrox (software)}}
The FA development team was working on a new backend system called [[Ferrox_(software)|Ferrox]] which was to be used for the next major revision of Fur Affinity, and was to be made available as [[Wikipedia:FOSS|FOSS]] (Free and Open Source Software) for other sites to use. By late 2009, development of Ferrox had stalled, with the last change to the code being made on September 7, 2009. Days earlier, net-cat, who was acting as the lead Ferrox developer after [[Eevee]] had left, announced that the code was to be frozen, citing that "Nobody knows Python."<ref>http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/49368-Code-freeze-on-current-Ferrox-codebase?p=1174129&viewfull=1#post1174129</ref>

== Mascots ==
[[File:Fender.jpg|thumb|right|Fender, drawn by [[Mutley James]]]]
[[Fender]] is the Fur Affinity [[mascot]], created by artist [[K-9]] based on a character concept by [[Preyfar]]. He is half [[fox]] and half [[ferret]], a "ferrox". On April Fool's Day 2007, Fender was depicted in the site's banner as a female dragon. This dragon was made a separate character and an official mascot of the site in May 2007, and named [[Rednef]], or "Fender" spelled backwards.

== Controversies ==

{{main|History of Fur Affinity#Controversies}}

== Organization ==

Fur Affinity is officially owned and run by '''Ferrox Art LLC''', a [[Wikipedia:Limited liability company|limited liability company]] founded 25 February 2008, registered in [[Wikipedia:Lenhartsville, Pennsylvania|Lenhartsville, Pennsylvania]].<ref>[https://www.corporations.state.pa.us/corp/soskb/Corp.asp?2644408 Ferrox Art LLC (entity number 3791597)] - Pennsylvania Corporations, PA Department of State. Accessed 20 November 2013.</ref>

==Administrators==

Fur Affinity "Administration and Support Staff" include [[Asia Neko]], [[Bazeel]], [[Carmen]], [[Cerberusnl]], "Site Owner/Admin" [[Dragoneer]], [[Fox Amoore]], [[Helperdog]], [[Jasu Fox]], [[Keio]], [[Kryphosdrgn]] (Photography Team Lead), [[Nero Silent]], [[Oddy]], [[Odin36519]], [[QMelon]], [[quoting_mungo]], [[Sheepdust]], [[Shivadramon]] (Team Lead), [[SSJ3Mewtwo]], [[Surgat]], and [[Trpdwarf]].<ref name="staff">http://www.furaffinity.net/staff/ Retrieved January 5, 2014.</ref>

[[Carenath]], [[Net-cat]], [[Tsawolf]], and [[yak]] are listed as Technical Staff.<ref name="staff"/>

Past staff include [[Glaide]].{{cn}}

== Statistics ==

* In late 2010, the monthly hosting bill for FurAffinity was just under $1,700 <ref>''http://twitpic.com/2g8t5x'' - TwitPic Posted on August 19, 2010
by Dragoneer</ref>. This includes a full equipment rack, bandwidth, and IP addresses. The monthly cost likely increased with the addition of extra bandwidth (Increasing the total to 350Mbit) in early 2012.<ref>https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3484539/</ref>
* In less than a year since the site's re-launch, Fur Affinity gained over 45,000 users and over 300,000 submissions. {{fact}}
* Alexa has previously ranked Fur Affinity in the [http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?site0=www.furaffinity.net&site1=vclart.net&site2=&site3=&site4=&x=75&y=15&h=300&w=610&h=400&w=700&z=3&range=1y&size=medium&y=r&z=3&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.furaffinity.net top 4,000 sites] on the web in 1 November 2007, showing greater traffic than the VCL for most of the previous year. The trend continued through 2008 and 2009. Fur Affinity has ranked as high as 3,475 on individual days, and close to 2,000 in the USA. In October 2010, Fur Affinity's rank fell to 7681.
* Fur Affinity reached its 1,000,000th submission on 11 January 2008. It later reached its 2,000,000th submission on 15 February 2009, and its 3,000,000th submission in November 2009.

== Hardware ==
[[File:Furaffinity Server Farm.jpg|thumb|Fur Affinity's servers Bahamut, Tiamat, Novastorm and Trogdor (unlabeled).]]

=== Current Hardware ===
{| class="wikitable sortable" border="1"
|-
! scope="col" | Name
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Purpose
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Hardware Notes
! scope="col" | First Used
! scope="col" | Status
|-
| '''Routezilla''' || Router || Cisco 7301 router || ? || Presumed in use
|-
| '''Switchthulu''' || Network Switch || 48-port [[wikipedia:Cisco|Cisco]] Catalyst 3560. Replaced an older 24-port Cisco 3750, also called "Switchthulu" || ? || Presumed in use
|-
| '''Neo Bahamut''' || Database Backup || Dual-core 2.0GHz Opteron with 2GB DDR2-667 RAM. Storage consists of 4x 1TB hard drives in RAID5 || ? || Presumed in use
|-
| '''Figment''' || Virtualization Server Ad server, Email server || Dual quad-core 2.33Ghz Xeon 5345 with 32GB of RAM and 4x 1TB of storage. Figment was purchased with the intent of offering hosting<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10203450025'' - FA Twitter - March 8, 2010</ref> on it "sometime in April... or May, or maybe August" of 2010<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10942579229'' - FA Twitter - March 23 2010</ref> and is currently serving advertisments<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10936829317'' - FA Twitter</ref>. Server was named by [[Sciggles]].<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10585322442'' - FA Twitter</ref> || 2010 || In use
|-
| '''Sparkz''' || Network Monitoring || Twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. The server was named by FA donator Dax. This server is the only server in a group of four donated servers (The others being Shivan, Tonberry, and Lapse) that is known to have been put into service. || November 30, 2010<ref>[https://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/9825447189680128 @Furaffinity tweet]</ref> || In use
|-
| ''File Server'' || File/App Server || An unnamed, unspecified model which is only known to have [https://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/86538088809107456 12 Terrabytes] worth of hard drives in it. This server replaced '''Trogdor'''. || October 2011 || In use
|-
| '''Finn'''* || Database Server || A custom-built server in a Supermicro SuperServer SYS-6027R-WRF chassis with at least one Intel Xeon 6C E5 2620 processor, 64GB of RAM, and 6 15k HDD's in an unknown RAID. This server was built by donations received in February 2013<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4389184</ref>. Due to a MySQL misconfiguration leading to a database crash, Finn was swapped with Jake in December 2013. || September 16, 2013 || Unknown
|-
| '''Jake'''* || Database Server || A custom-built server in a Supermicro SuperServer SYS-6027R-WRF chassis with at least one Intel Xeon 6C E5 2620 processor, 64GB of RAM, and 6 15k HDD's in an unknown RAID. This server was built by donations received in February 2013<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4389184</ref>. || December 16, 2013 || In use
|}

* '''Finn''' and '''Jake''' are identical and were bought with the purpose of building a redundant database cluster. For unknown reasons, Finn was brought online first, with Jake supposedly following behind<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/5058966/</ref> later that week. In December 2013, an issue came up that put the site into "Read Only" for a week. FA then moved the database to Jake, which was apparently not put into service yet.

=== Retired / Unused Hardware ===
{| class="wikitable sortable" border="1"
|-
! scope="col" | Name
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Purpose
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Hardware Notes
! scope="col" | First Used
! scope="col" | Retired
|-
| '''Gecko''' || Web Server || The original FA server, is a dual 3.0Ghz Nocona [[Wikipedia:Xeon|Xeon]] system with 4GB of RAM. Storage consists of 2x 250GB hard drives. The server is still used to host [[Wikipedia:Team Fortress 2|Team Fortress 2]] servers for the [[Furry Pound]] and [[Wikipedia:Left 4 Dead|Left 4 Dead]] servers for the Fur Affinity Steam Gamers group. || ? || ?
|-
| '''Tiamat''' || Search || Twin dual-core 2.0Ghz [[Wikipedia:Opteron|Opteron 2212]] with 32GB DDR2-533 RAM || ? || August 31, 2010<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/22617961790'' - FA Twitter</ref> (Hardware Failure)
|-
| '''Novastorm''' || Database || a [[Wikipedia:Sun Fire|Sun Fire X4150]] manufactured by [[Wikipedia:Sun Microsystems]] with twin quad-core 2.5Ghz Xeon 5420 processors and 64GB of RAM (as of March 2010).<ref>[http://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/10912188478 Novastorm upgrade tweet] - [[Dragoneer]]'s twitter (23 March 2010)</ref> Storage consists of 2x 74GB 15K RPM hard drives in RAID1 and 6x146GB 15K RPM hard drives in RAID10. The server was initially purposed as the "Application server" but eventually converted to run the Database. This server was bought with donations following the July 2009 outage.|| August 2009 || September 2013 (Replaced by '''Finn''')
|-
| '''Shivan''' || Unused/Unknown || Twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. The server was named by FA donator TlaiLaxu. || ? || ?
|-
| '''Tonberry''' || Unused/Unknown || Twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. The server was named by FA donator YiffyHusky. || ? || ?
|-
| '''Lapse''' || Unused/Unknown || Twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM || ? || ?
|-
| '''Trogdor''' || File/App Server || A [[Wikipedia:Dell|Dell]] Poweredge 2970 2U Server with 32GB RAM. Storage consists of 6x 1TB hard drives - 4x in a RAID10 array, 1x RAID hotspare and 1x local backups. This server was bought with donations following the July 2009 outage. || August 2009 || October 2011<ref>http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/108936-10-17-2011-File-read-only-mode</ref> (Replaced by '''File Server''')
|}

==Confirmed future features==

{| class="wikitable sortable" border="1"
|-
! scope="col" | Feature
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Official Mentions
! scope="col" | Status
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Notes
|-
| On-demand printing || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/371-FA-Funding December 2005] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/55797-is-FA-better-off-becoming-a-pay-site?p=1347804&viewfull=1#post1347804 November 2009] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Content filtering || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/3965-FA-Policy-Notice-Cub-Art November 2006] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented|| Proposed for Ferrox.
|-
| Gallery folders ||[http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/3969-Newbie-question-but...-folders November 2006] [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1648317/ August 2010] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6!?p=2314401&viewfull=1#post2314401 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented|| Proposed for Ferrox.
|-
| New UI || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/7472-FA-Project-UI-Overhaul April 2007] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/72193-New-FA-looks-exactly-like-steam-amp-DA-!-WTF!!?p=1853302&viewfull=1#post1853302 May 2010] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Canceled?<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3325316#cid:25505803</ref>|| Was in development at the same time as Ferrox.
|-
| New "dark" theme || [https://forums.vivisector.org/index.php?topic=588.msg6749#msg6749 May 2012] [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3887366/ October 2012]||style="background: #ffff99" | In Progress|| This project incorporates a new "dark" theme using some of the elements of the "New UI" that was canceled.
|-
| "Character Information" || [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3887366/ October 2012]||style="background: #ffff99" | In Progress|| A placeholder for a "Character Information" widget is present in the new dark theme.
|-
| Opossums (pss.ms) URL shortener || [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1648317/ August 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented|| pss.ms is currently down.
|-
| Web hosting || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/55797-is-FA-better-off-becoming-a-pay-site?p=1353001&viewfull=1#post1353001 November 2009] [http://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/10936829317 March 2010] [http://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/10936829317] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Supporter ribbons || [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1836349/ November 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Note/inbox search || [http://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/24023831950 September 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Artist list and reviews ''"Commission Ratings"'' || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/1342-Search-Function-User-List June 2006] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Improved commenting || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|}

== References ==
<references />

== See also ==

* [[FA Rank]]
* [[:Category:Fur Affinity administrators]]

== External links ==

* [http://community.livejournal.com/furaffinity/ ''Furaffinity Status' Journal'']. Fur Affinity on [[LiveJournal]]
* [http://furaffinity.tumblr.com Fur Affinity] on [[Wikipedia:Tumblr|Tumblr]]
* [http://twitter.com/furaffinity Fur Affinity] on [[Twitter]]
* [https://www.facebook.com/furaffinity Fur Affinity] on [[Facebook]]
* [irc://irc.furnet.org/furaffinity #furaffinity] on [[FurNet (IRC)|FurNet IRC]]
* [http://steamcommunity.com/groups/FurAffinityGamers Fur Affinity Gamers] on Steam
* [http://irc.netsplit.de/channels/details.php?room=%23furaffinity&net=FurNet #furaffinity statistics] on [http://irc.netsplit.de/ irc.netsplit.de]

{{Fur Affinity topics}}
{{Media archives}}
[[Category:Mature art archives]][[Category:Mature story archives]]
[[Category:2005 births]]
{{featured article}}

[[de:Fur Affinity]]
[[es:Fur Affinity]]
[[fr:Fur Affinity]]
[[hu:Fur Affinity]]
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[[ko:Fur Affinity]]
[[nl:Fur Affinity]]
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[[pl:Fur Affinity]]
[[ru:Fur Affinity]]
[[sv:Fur Affinity]]
[[zh:Fur Affinity]]
[[ja:Fur Affinity]]

Fur Affinity

2014-02-10T08:12:00Z

Murrypurryfurry: /* Hardware */ Updated and reformatted

{{update}}
{{Infobox website
| title = Fur Affinity
| image = [[File:FAFront Page.png|208px]]Fur Affinity front page
| author = '''Owner/Lead admin:''' [[Dragoneer]] (''via [[#Organization|Ferrox Art LLC]]'')
* '''Founder:''' [[Alkora]]
* [[#Administrators|Administrators]]
| url = http://www.furaffinity.net/
* '''SFW link''': http://sfw.furaffinity.net/
* '''Forum''': http://forums.furaffinity.net/
* '''Wiki''': http://wiki.furaffinity.net/
| status =
| began = 16 January–1 August 2005 ([[History of Fur Affinity#Server problems of 2005|staff dispute & server issues]]) 10 December 2005–present
| ended =
| genre = Social media community
| rating = {{Rating-pg-button|center}}{{Rating-nc17-button|right}}
}}

'''Fur Affinity''', also known as '''FA''', is the [[furry fandom]]'s largest online community, focusing on the promotion of art, music and stories.

The site was created in 2005 by [[Alkora]] as an alternative to various art community sites such as [[SheezyArt]] and [[deviantART]], distinguished by allowing artistic freedom of expression regardless of content rating. It is led by [[Dragoneer]] and [[Daemonshyai]].
<div style=float:left;margin-right:10px>__TOC__</div>
{{WikiFurNews|Fur Affinity access disrupted amid ownership dispute}}
{{WikiFurNews|'Krystal sandwich' meme strikes Fur Affinity}}
{{FlayrahTag|fur-affinity|Fur Affinity}}

== History ==
{{main|History of Fur Affinity}}
Fur Affinity was launched on 16 January 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]]. Since then, it has suffered a few outages, most notably a month-long downtime over July 2008, but always managed to recover. In 2011, Fur Affinity announced a major revamp in connection to FA: United 4.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/89577-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6! Fur Affinity Turns 6!] - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity forum post (16 January 2011)</ref>

=== Fur Affinity: United! ===
{{main|FA: United}}
In August 2007, Fur Affinity held its own [[furry convention]], Fur Affinity: United! (or FA:U) in [[Wikipedia:Newark, New Jersey|Newark, New Jersey]]. The convention was a success, drawing 310 attendees and 25 [[fursuiter]]s in the [[fursuit parade|parade]], and was followed by another in 2008, drawing 381 attendees. In February 2009, Dragoneer announced FA: United 3 "Games United" for 28-30 May 2010.<ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/621616/ FAU3 Announcement]'' - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity journal (9 February 2009)</ref> No event was scheduled for 2009 due to the economic downturn.

== Features and rules ==

Fur Affinity's features for users include the ability to allow users to track new updates from particular [[artist]]s; highlight favorites; and upload a wide variety of art (images, music and stories). The site attempts to promote community through its comments system and individual journals.

While works of all ratings are accepted (other than ''photographic nudes, images whose intent are to slander or discredit others, and minors in sexual situations''<ref>[http://help.furaffinity.net/article/AA-00205/8/Acceptable-Upload-Policy-AUP.html Acceptable Upload Policy] - Fur Affinity</ref>), art rated as mature or adult is not shown to visitors, or to users who have not specified it as a preference (which requires giving a date of birth indicating an age over 18). Keywords and tags can be added to works, though a feature that allowed blocking based on tags was disabled due to performance issues.

Fur Affinity's search engine was "temporarily disabled" in mid-2006 due to it taking up too many resources.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=1334 Admin mode on june 5th 2006]'' - Alkora, Fur Affinity forums (5 June 2006)</ref> A faux search feature was implemented for April Fool's Day 2007, much to the chagrin of some users.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=7229 Search is up!]'' - Fur Affinity Forums (1 April 2007)</ref> Search was reimplemented on 5 February 2009; it was initially labelled "That Thing You Want" and randomly included [[wikipedia:Rickrolling|rickrolls]].<ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/616339/ SEARCH]'' - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity journal (5 February 2009)</ref>

Privacy features were added in May 2012 with users being able to block guests from seeing their content with messages such as "[username] has elected to make their content available to registered users only" and being able to hide their adult, mature+adult or all favorites from public view.<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3490599/ Update Notices, Changelog & Banner] journal posted to Fender's blog on May 24th, 2012. Retrieved 2012 November 25.</ref>

==Project Ferrox==
{{main|Ferrox (software)}}
The FA development team was working on a new backend system called [[Ferrox_(software)|Ferrox]] which was to be used for the next major revision of Fur Affinity, and was to be made available as [[Wikipedia:FOSS|FOSS]] (Free and Open Source Software) for other sites to use. By late 2009, development of Ferrox had stalled, with the last change to the code being made on September 7, 2009. Days earlier, net-cat, who was acting as the lead Ferrox developer after [[Eevee]] had left, announced that the code was to be frozen, citing that "Nobody knows Python."<ref>http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/49368-Code-freeze-on-current-Ferrox-codebase?p=1174129&viewfull=1#post1174129</ref>

== Mascots ==
[[File:Fender.jpg|thumb|right|Fender, drawn by [[Mutley James]]]]
[[Fender]] is the Fur Affinity [[mascot]], created by artist [[K-9]] based on a character concept by [[Preyfar]]. He is half [[fox]] and half [[ferret]], a "ferrox". On April Fool's Day 2007, Fender was depicted in the site's banner as a female dragon. This dragon was made a separate character and an official mascot of the site in May 2007, and named [[Rednef]], or "Fender" spelled backwards.

== Controversies ==

{{main|History of Fur Affinity#Controversies}}

== Organization ==

Fur Affinity is officially owned and run by '''Ferrox Art LLC''', a [[Wikipedia:Limited liability company|limited liability company]] founded 25 February 2008, registered in [[Wikipedia:Lenhartsville, Pennsylvania|Lenhartsville, Pennsylvania]].<ref>[https://www.corporations.state.pa.us/corp/soskb/Corp.asp?2644408 Ferrox Art LLC (entity number 3791597)] - Pennsylvania Corporations, PA Department of State. Accessed 20 November 2013.</ref>

==Administrators==

Fur Affinity "Administration and Support Staff" include [[Asia Neko]], [[Bazeel]], [[Carmen]], [[Cerberusnl]], "Site Owner/Admin" [[Dragoneer]], [[Fox Amoore]], [[Helperdog]], [[Jasu Fox]], [[Keio]], [[Kryphosdrgn]] (Photography Team Lead), [[Nero Silent]], [[Oddy]], [[Odin36519]], [[QMelon]], [[quoting_mungo]], [[Sheepdust]], [[Shivadramon]] (Team Lead), [[SSJ3Mewtwo]], [[Surgat]], and [[Trpdwarf]].<ref name="staff">http://www.furaffinity.net/staff/ Retrieved January 5, 2014.</ref>

[[Carenath]], [[Net-cat]], [[Tsawolf]], and [[yak]] are listed as Technical Staff.<ref name="staff"/>

Past staff include [[Glaide]].{{cn}}

== Statistics ==

* In late 2010, the monthly hosting bill for FurAffinity was just under $1,700 <ref>''http://twitpic.com/2g8t5x'' - TwitPic Posted on August 19, 2010
by Dragoneer</ref>. This includes a full equipment rack, bandwidth, and IP addresses. The monthly cost likely increased with the addition of extra bandwidth (Increasing the total to 350Mbit) in early 2012.<ref>https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3484539/</ref>
* In less than a year since the site's re-launch, Fur Affinity gained over 45,000 users and over 300,000 submissions. {{fact}}
* Alexa has previously ranked Fur Affinity in the [http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?site0=www.furaffinity.net&site1=vclart.net&site2=&site3=&site4=&x=75&y=15&h=300&w=610&h=400&w=700&z=3&range=1y&size=medium&y=r&z=3&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.furaffinity.net top 4,000 sites] on the web in 1 November 2007, showing greater traffic than the VCL for most of the previous year. The trend continued through 2008 and 2009. Fur Affinity has ranked as high as 3,475 on individual days, and close to 2,000 in the USA. In October 2010, Fur Affinity's rank fell to 7681.
* Fur Affinity reached its 1,000,000th submission on 11 January 2008. It later reached its 2,000,000th submission on 15 February 2009, and its 3,000,000th submission in November 2009.

== Hardware ==
[[File:Furaffinity Server Farm.jpg|thumb|Fur Affinity's servers Bahamut, Tiamat, Novastorm and Trogdor (unlabeled).]]

=== Current Hardware ===
{| class="wikitable sortable" border="1"
|-
! scope="col" | Name
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Purpose
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Hardware Notes
! scope="col" | First Used
! scope="col" | Status
|-
| '''Routezilla''' || Router || Cisco 7301 router || ? || Presumed in use
|-
| '''Switchthulu''' || Network Switch || 48-port [[wikipedia:Cisco|Cisco]] Catalyst 3560. Replaced an older 24-port Cisco 3750, also called "Switchthulu" || ? || Presumed in use
|-
| '''Tiamat''' || Search || Twin dual-core 2.0Ghz [[Wikipedia:Opteron|Opteron 2212]] with 32GB DDR2-533 RAM || ? || August 31, 2010<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/22617961790'' - FA Twitter</ref> (Hardware Failure)
|-
| '''Neo Bahamut''' || Database Backup || Dual-core 2.0GHz Opteron with 2GB DDR2-667 RAM. Storage consists of 4x 1TB hard drives in RAID5 || ? || Presumed in use
|-
| '''Figment''' || Virtualization Server Ad server, Email server || Dual quad-core 2.33Ghz Xeon 5345 with 32GB of RAM and 4x 1TB of storage. Figment was purchased with the intent of offering hosting<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10203450025'' - FA Twitter - March 8, 2010</ref> on it "sometime in April... or May, or maybe August" of 2010<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10942579229'' - FA Twitter - March 23 2010</ref> and is currently serving advertisments<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10936829317'' - FA Twitter</ref>. Server was named by [[Sciggles]].<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10585322442'' - FA Twitter</ref> || 2010 || In use
|-
| '''Sparkz''' || Network Monitoring || Twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. The server was named by FA donator Dax. This server is the only server in a group of four donated servers (The others being Shivan, Tonberry, and Lapse) that is known to have been put into service. || November 30, 2010<ref>[https://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/9825447189680128 @Furaffinity tweet]</ref> || In use
|-
| ''File Server'' || File/App Server || An unnamed, unspecified model which is only known to have [https://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/86538088809107456 12 Terrabytes] worth of hard drives in it. This server replaced '''Trogdor'''. || October 2011 || In use
|-
| '''Finn'''* || Database Server || A custom-built server in a Supermicro SuperServer SYS-6027R-WRF chassis with at least one Intel Xeon 6C E5 2620 processor, 64GB of RAM, and 6 15k HDD's in an unknown RAID. This server was built by donations received in February 2013<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4389184</ref>. Due to a MySQL misconfiguration leading to a database crash, Finn was swapped with Jake in December 2013. || September 16, 2013 || Unknown
|-
| '''Jake'''* || Database Server || A custom-built server in a Supermicro SuperServer SYS-6027R-WRF chassis with at least one Intel Xeon 6C E5 2620 processor, 64GB of RAM, and 6 15k HDD's in an unknown RAID. This server was built by donations received in February 2013<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4389184</ref>. || December 16, 2013 || In use
|}

* '''Finn''' and '''Jake''' are identical and were bought with the purpose of building a redundant database cluster. For unknown reasons, Finn was brought online first, with Jake supposedly following behind<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/5058966/</ref> later that week. In December 2013, an issue came up that put the site into "Read Only" for a week. FA then moved the database to Jake, which was apparently not put into service yet.

=== Retired / Unused Hardware ===
{| class="wikitable sortable" border="1"
|-
! scope="col" | Name
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Purpose
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Hardware Notes
! scope="col" | First Used
! scope="col" | Retired
|-
| '''Gecko''' || Web Server || The original FA server, is a dual 3.0Ghz Nocona [[Wikipedia:Xeon|Xeon]] system with 4GB of RAM. Storage consists of 2x 250GB hard drives. The server is still used to host [[Wikipedia:Team Fortress 2|Team Fortress 2]] servers for the [[Furry Pound]] and [[Wikipedia:Left 4 Dead|Left 4 Dead]] servers for the Fur Affinity Steam Gamers group. || ? || ?
|-
| '''Tiamat''' || Search || Twin dual-core 2.0Ghz [[Wikipedia:Opteron|Opteron 2212]] with 32GB DDR2-533 RAM || ? || August 31, 2010<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/22617961790'' - FA Twitter</ref> (Hardware Failure)
|-
| '''Novastorm''' || Database || a [[Wikipedia:Sun Fire|Sun Fire X4150]] manufactured by [[Wikipedia:Sun Microsystems]] with twin quad-core 2.5Ghz Xeon 5420 processors and 64GB of RAM (as of March 2010).<ref>[http://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/10912188478 Novastorm upgrade tweet] - [[Dragoneer]]'s twitter (23 March 2010)</ref> Storage consists of 2x 74GB 15K RPM hard drives in RAID1 and 6x146GB 15K RPM hard drives in RAID10. The server was initially purposed as the "Application server" but eventually converted to run the Database. This server was bought with donations following the July 2009 outage.|| August 2009 || September 2013 (Replaced by '''Finn''')
|-
| '''Shivan''' || Unused/Unknown || Twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. The server was named by FA donator TlaiLaxu. || ? || ?
|-
| '''Tonberry''' || Unused/Unknown || Twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. The server was named by FA donator YiffyHusky. || ? || ?
|-
| '''Lapse''' || Unused/Unknown || Twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM || ? || ?
|-
| '''Trogdor''' || File/App Server || A [[Wikipedia:Dell|Dell]] Poweredge 2970 2U Server with 32GB RAM. Storage consists of 6x 1TB hard drives - 4x in a RAID10 array, 1x RAID hotspare and 1x local backups. This server was bought with donations following the July 2009 outage. || August 2009 || October 2011<ref>http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/108936-10-17-2011-File-read-only-mode</ref> (Replaced by '''File Server''')
|}

==Confirmed future features==

{| class="wikitable sortable" border="1"
|-
! scope="col" | Feature
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Official Mentions
! scope="col" | Status
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Notes
|-
| On-demand printing || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/371-FA-Funding December 2005] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/55797-is-FA-better-off-becoming-a-pay-site?p=1347804&viewfull=1#post1347804 November 2009] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Content filtering || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/3965-FA-Policy-Notice-Cub-Art November 2006] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented|| Proposed for Ferrox.
|-
| Gallery folders ||[http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/3969-Newbie-question-but...-folders November 2006] [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1648317/ August 2010] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6!?p=2314401&viewfull=1#post2314401 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented|| Proposed for Ferrox.
|-
| New UI || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/7472-FA-Project-UI-Overhaul April 2007] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/72193-New-FA-looks-exactly-like-steam-amp-DA-!-WTF!!?p=1853302&viewfull=1#post1853302 May 2010] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Canceled?<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3325316#cid:25505803</ref>|| Was in development at the same time as Ferrox.
|-
| New "dark" theme || [https://forums.vivisector.org/index.php?topic=588.msg6749#msg6749 May 2012] [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3887366/ October 2012]||style="background: #ffff99" | In Progress|| This project incorporates a new "dark" theme using some of the elements of the "New UI" that was canceled.
|-
| "Character Information" || [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3887366/ October 2012]||style="background: #ffff99" | In Progress|| A placeholder for a "Character Information" widget is present in the new dark theme.
|-
| Opossums (pss.ms) URL shortener || [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1648317/ August 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented|| pss.ms is currently down.
|-
| Web hosting || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/55797-is-FA-better-off-becoming-a-pay-site?p=1353001&viewfull=1#post1353001 November 2009] [http://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/10936829317 March 2010] [http://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/10936829317] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Supporter ribbons || [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1836349/ November 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Note/inbox search || [http://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/24023831950 September 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Artist list and reviews ''"Commission Ratings"'' || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/1342-Search-Function-User-List June 2006] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Improved commenting || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|}

== References ==
<references />

== See also ==

* [[FA Rank]]
* [[:Category:Fur Affinity administrators]]

== External links ==

* [http://community.livejournal.com/furaffinity/ ''Furaffinity Status' Journal'']. Fur Affinity on [[LiveJournal]]
* [http://furaffinity.tumblr.com Fur Affinity] on [[Wikipedia:Tumblr|Tumblr]]
* [http://twitter.com/furaffinity Fur Affinity] on [[Twitter]]
* [https://www.facebook.com/furaffinity Fur Affinity] on [[Facebook]]
* [irc://irc.furnet.org/furaffinity #furaffinity] on [[FurNet (IRC)|FurNet IRC]]
* [http://steamcommunity.com/groups/FurAffinityGamers Fur Affinity Gamers] on Steam
* [http://irc.netsplit.de/channels/details.php?room=%23furaffinity&net=FurNet #furaffinity statistics] on [http://irc.netsplit.de/ irc.netsplit.de]

{{Fur Affinity topics}}
{{Media archives}}
[[Category:Mature art archives]][[Category:Mature story archives]]
[[Category:2005 births]]
{{featured article}}

[[de:Fur Affinity]]
[[es:Fur Affinity]]
[[fr:Fur Affinity]]
[[hu:Fur Affinity]]
[[it:Fur Affinity]]
[[ko:Fur Affinity]]
[[nl:Fur Affinity]]
[[no:Fur Affinity]]
[[pl:Fur Affinity]]
[[ru:Fur Affinity]]
[[sv:Fur Affinity]]
[[zh:Fur Affinity]]
[[ja:Fur Affinity]]

Furlaxation

2013-09-26T04:00:48Z

Murrypurryfurry: /* Controversy */ The case was dismissed during the preliminary hearing. The first place that publicly posted about this was Vivisector. Tweets from Furlaxation would indicate Lightpaws is still Con Chair despite what he said on Vivisector.

{{Infobox convention
|name = Furlaxation
|logo =
|caption =
|subject = Furry
|location = {{flagdiv|usa|[[Wikipedia:Columbus, Ohio|Columbus]], [[Wikipedia:Ohio|Ohio]], [[Wikipedia:USA|USA]]}}
|url = http://www.furlaxation.org/
|status = Ongoing
|first = September 28-30, 2012
|final =
|organizer = Furlaxation, Inc
|charity =
|resources = {{con resources|Furlaxation}}
}}
{{Furlaxation}}
'''Furlaxation''' is an annual [[furry]] [[convention]] which is held in [[Wikipedia:Columbus, Ohio|Columbus]], [[Wikipedia:Ohio|Ohio]], USA.

== Leadership ==

*Convention Chair, CEO & Executive of Operations: [[Lightpaws]]
*Executive of Programming: [[Husky Crone]]
*Executive of Publications: [[Keeya]]
*Executive of Hospitality: [[Jak the Wuffle]]

==Guests of Honor==

* 2012: [[Yappy Fox]], Special Guest [[Uncle Kage]]
* 2013: [[Vermy Fox]] and [[Revit]]

==Typical programming==
{{unref}}
* [[Opening ceremonies|Opening]] and [[Closing ceremonies]]
* [[Dealers Room]]
* [[Art show]]s (General and Mature)
* Art Show Auctions
* [[Artists' Alley]]
* Stand-up Comedy
* [[Masquerade]]
* [[Charity Auction]]
* [[Supersponsor]] Lounge
* [[Fursuit Dance]]
* [[80's Dance]]
* [[Furry Rave]]
* [[Fursuit parade]]
* Role-playing Games
* Gaming Lounge & Tournaments
* Special-interest Groups
* Art Demonstration

== Incorporation ==

'''Furlaxation, Inc.''' was incorporated as a non-profit organization on April 25, 2011, and registered as a [[Wikipedia:501(c)|501(c)(7) social and recreation club]] in the state of Ohio (entity 2015946).<ref>[http://www2.sos.state.oh.us/pls/bsqry/f?p=100:7:3184632113714217::NO:7:P7_CHARTER_NUM:2015946 Entity 2015946] on the Ohio Secretary of State website. Retrieved September 9, 2013.</ref> This classification differs from a 501(c)(3) status (used by [[Midwest Furry Fandom, Inc.]] and [[Anthropomorphic Arts and Education]]); most notably, donations are not tax-deductible to their donors, but in return the company has more flexibility about its operations, and more leeway to restrict access to non-members (in fact, it is expected to, as otherwise it is not a club).

==Controversy==

In April 2003, Lightpaws was arrested for a [http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/2907.322 2907.322 (Pandering sexually oriented matter involving a minor)], and a [http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/2907.31 2907.31 (Disseminating matter harmful to juveniles)]. The case was dismissed when he took a plea bargain that dropped the charges, but put him on [http://www.icrimewatch.net/index.php?AgencyID=55149 Ohio's Sex Offender Registration list] (pre-[[W:Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act|Adam Walsh Act]]), for a [http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/2907.323 2907.323 (Illegal use of minor in nudity-oriented material or performance)].<ref>[https://forums.vivisector.org/index.php?topic=602.msg6686#msg6686 ''"Furlaxation" convention chair a registered sex offender''] comment on the issue by Lightpaws on [[Vivisector_(website)|Vivisector.org]]. Retrieved September 24, 2013.</ref><ref>[http://www.icrimewatch.net/offenderdetails.php?OfndrID=1552267&AgencyID=55149 Lightpaws' record] on the [http://www.icrimewatch.net/index.php?AgencyID=55149 Ohio's Sex offense list]. Retrieved September 24, 2013.</ref>

This fact was largely unknown until April 2012 when [[Vivisector_(website)|Vivisector.org]] was tipped off and [https://forums.vivisector.org/index.php?topic=602.0 published an investigation] into the matter. Lightpaws responded to the report by claiming he had resigned his position with Furlaxation, however he was still acting as Chairman as recently as August 2013<ref>https://twitter.com/furlaxation/status/373449093692932096 Furlaxation tweet referring someone asking about the Chairman to Lightpaws. Retrieved September 25, 2013.</ref> and is still listed as the Registered Agent for Furlaxation, Inc.<ref>[http://www2.sos.state.oh.us/pls/bsqry/f?p=100:7:0::NO:7:P7_CHARTER_NUM:2015946 Lightpaws' registered agent record] on the [http://www2.sos.state.oh.us/ Ohio's business filling portal]. Retrieved September 24, 2013.</ref>.

After the incident came to light, several staff members{{who}} resigned following the 2012 convention{{Fact}}.

==References==
<references/>

== External links ==
* [http://www.furlaxation.org/ Furlaxation website]
* [http://furlaxation.boards.net/ Furlaxation discussion boards]
* [https://twitter.com/furlaxation Furlaxation] on [[Twitter]]

[[Category:Conventions]]
[[Category:Ohio]]
[[Category:2012 births]]

User talk:Murrypurryfurry

2013-09-25T22:19:55Z

Murrypurryfurry: /* Furlaxation */

== Furlaxation ==

Greetz, Murrypurryfurry; I got a few queries about the Furlaxation's "Controversy" section: Did you intent to mean/imply that the Vivisector "investigation" ousted Lightpaws?. If so, how was it done? (anon or person to person?). Who in the staff listed on the article page left?. What do you mean that "''Nrr, who retained legal council over the matter''". What matter?. Ownership of the con?, the 501(c)(7)?... Any help on these questions will be greatly appreciated. - [[User:Spirou|Spirou]] 23:35, 24 September 2013 (EDT)

:The Vivisector investigation was the first public report on it, after someone tipped them off. The staff that left were all supposedly in "department head"-like positions (Nrr was something like "tech ops") and not listed in the staff on this wiki page. The part about Nrr was taken from a post he made to lulz.net, in which he mentioned retaining a lawyer for a variety of reasons including in case legal action was brought against the convention and it's staff. [[User:Murrypurryfurry|Murrypurryfurry]] 18:19, 25 September 2013 (EDT)

Furlaxation

2013-09-25T01:09:41Z

Murrypurryfurry: /* Controversy */

{{Infobox convention
|name = Furlaxation
|logo =
|caption =
|subject = Furry
|location = {{flagdiv|usa|[[Wikipedia:Columbus, Ohio|Columbus]], [[Wikipedia:Ohio|Ohio]], [[Wikipedia:USA|USA]]}}
|url = http://www.furlaxation.org/
|status = Ongoing
|first = September 28-30, 2012
|final =
|organizer = Furlaxation, Inc
|charity =
|resources = {{con resources|Furlaxation}}
}}
{{Furlaxation}}
'''Furlaxation''' is an annual [[furry]] [[convention]] which is held in [[Wikipedia:Columbus, Ohio|Columbus]], [[Wikipedia:Ohio|Ohio]], USA.

== Leadership ==
*Convention Chair, CEO & Executive of Operations: [[Lightpaws]]
*Executive of Programming: [[Husky Crone]]
*Executive of Publications: [[Keeya]]
*Executive of Hospitality: [[Jak the Wuffle]]

==Guests of Honor==
* 2012: [[Yappy Fox]], Special Guest [[Uncle Kage]]
* 2013: [[Vermy Fox]] and [[Revit]]

==Typical programming==
{{unref}}
* [[Opening ceremonies|Opening]] and [[Closing ceremonies]]
* [[Dealers Room]]
* [[Art show]]s (General and Mature)
* Art Show Auctions
* [[Artists' Alley]]
* Stand-up Comedy
* [[Masquerade]]
* [[Charity Auction]]
* [[Supersponsor]] Lounge
* [[Fursuit Dance]]
* [[80's Dance]]
* [[Furry Rave]]
* [[Fursuit parade]]
* Role-playing Games
* Gaming Lounge & Tournaments
* Special-interest Groups
* Art Demonstration

==Controversy==
Several months prior to the convention's debut, [[Vivisector_(website)|Vivisector.org]] was able to [https://forums.vivisector.org/index.php?topic=602.0 investigate and uncover] that Convention Chairman [[Lightpaws]] is a registered sex offender, a fact that was not mentioned anywhere on the website of the convention or it's Minor Consent Form. Lightpaws later claimed to have resigned from the position<ref>[https://forums.vivisector.org/index.php?topic=602.msg6686#msg6686] "I am not the chairman of Furlaxation. I did help start the convention but because of this issue you all don't know the facts about I resigned the position. "</ref> however still remains as the Registered Agent on [http://www2.sos.state.oh.us/pls/bsqry/f?p=100:7:0::NO:7:P7_CHARTER_NUM:2015946 state registration documents] for Furlaxation, Inc.

Several staff members resigned following the 2012 convention due to the scandal, including [[Nrr]], who retained legal council over the matter.

== Incorporation ==

'''Furlaxation, Inc.''' was incorporated as a non-profit organization on April 25, 2011, and registered as a [[Wikipedia:501(c)|501(c)(7) social and recreation club]] in the state of Ohio (entity 2015946).<ref>[http://www2.sos.state.oh.us/pls/bsqry/f?p=100:7:3184632113714217::NO:7:P7_CHARTER_NUM:2015946 Entity 2015946] on the Ohio Secretary of State website. Retrieved September 9, 2013.</ref> This classification differs from a 501(c)(3) status (used by [[Midwest Furry Fandom, Inc.]] and [[Anthropomorphic Arts and Education]]); most notably, donations are not tax-deductible to their donors, but in return the company has more flexibility about its operations, and more leeway to restrict access to non-members (in fact, it is expected to, as otherwise it is not a club).

==References==
<references/>

== External links ==
* [http://www.furlaxation.org/ Furlaxation website]
* [http://furlaxation.boards.net/ Furlaxation discussion boards]
* [http://ramadaplazacolumbus.com/ Columbus Ramada Plaza & Conference center]
* [https://twitter.com/furlaxation Furlaxation] on [[Twitter]]

[[Category:Conventions]]
[[Category:Ohio]]
[[Category:2012 births]]

Furlaxation

2013-09-25T01:07:27Z

Murrypurryfurry:

{{Infobox convention
|name = Furlaxation
|logo =
|caption =
|subject = Furry
|location = {{flagdiv|usa|[[Wikipedia:Columbus, Ohio|Columbus]], [[Wikipedia:Ohio|Ohio]], [[Wikipedia:USA|USA]]}}
|url = http://www.furlaxation.org/
|status = Ongoing
|first = September 28-30, 2012
|final =
|organizer = Furlaxation, Inc
|charity =
|resources = {{con resources|Furlaxation}}
}}
{{Furlaxation}}
'''Furlaxation''' is an annual [[furry]] [[convention]] which is held in [[Wikipedia:Columbus, Ohio|Columbus]], [[Wikipedia:Ohio|Ohio]], USA.

== Leadership ==
*Convention Chair, CEO & Executive of Operations: [[Lightpaws]]
*Executive of Programming: [[Husky Crone]]
*Executive of Publications: [[Keeya]]
*Executive of Hospitality: [[Jak the Wuffle]]

==Guests of Honor==
* 2012: [[Yappy Fox]], Special Guest [[Uncle Kage]]
* 2013: [[Vermy Fox]] and [[Revit]]

==Typical programming==
{{unref}}
* [[Opening ceremonies|Opening]] and [[Closing ceremonies]]
* [[Dealers Room]]
* [[Art show]]s (General and Mature)
* Art Show Auctions
* [[Artists' Alley]]
* Stand-up Comedy
* [[Masquerade]]
* [[Charity Auction]]
* [[Supersponsor]] Lounge
* [[Fursuit Dance]]
* [[80's Dance]]
* [[Furry Rave]]
* [[Fursuit parade]]
* Role-playing Games
* Gaming Lounge & Tournaments
* Special-interest Groups
* Art Demonstration

==Controversy==
Several months prior to the convention's debut, [[Vivisector (Website)|Vivisector.org]] was able to [https://forums.vivisector.org/index.php?topic=602.0 investigate and uncover] that Convention Chairman [[Lightpaws]] is a registered sex offender, a fact that was not mentioned anywhere on the website of the convention or it's Minor Consent Form. Lightpaws later claimed to have resigned from the position<ref>[https://forums.vivisector.org/index.php?topic=602.msg6686#msg6686] "I am not the chairman of Furlaxation. I did help start the convention but because of this issue you all don't know the facts about I resigned the position. "</ref> however still remains as the Registered Agent on [http://www2.sos.state.oh.us/pls/bsqry/f?p=100:7:0::NO:7:P7_CHARTER_NUM:2015946 state registration documents] for Furlaxation, Inc.

Several staff members resigned following the 2012 convention due to the scandal, including [[Nrr]], who retained legal council over the matter.

== Incorporation ==

'''Furlaxation, Inc.''' was incorporated as a non-profit organization on April 25, 2011, and registered as a [[Wikipedia:501(c)|501(c)(7) social and recreation club]] in the state of Ohio (entity 2015946).<ref>[http://www2.sos.state.oh.us/pls/bsqry/f?p=100:7:3184632113714217::NO:7:P7_CHARTER_NUM:2015946 Entity 2015946] on the Ohio Secretary of State website. Retrieved September 9, 2013.</ref> This classification differs from a 501(c)(3) status (used by [[Midwest Furry Fandom, Inc.]] and [[Anthropomorphic Arts and Education]]); most notably, donations are not tax-deductible to their donors, but in return the company has more flexibility about its operations, and more leeway to restrict access to non-members (in fact, it is expected to, as otherwise it is not a club).

==References==
<references/>

== External links ==
* [http://www.furlaxation.org/ Furlaxation website]
* [http://furlaxation.boards.net/ Furlaxation discussion boards]
* [http://ramadaplazacolumbus.com/ Columbus Ramada Plaza & Conference center]
* [https://twitter.com/furlaxation Furlaxation] on [[Twitter]]

[[Category:Conventions]]
[[Category:Ohio]]
[[Category:2012 births]]

History of Fur Affinity

2013-04-30T05:59:34Z

Murrypurryfurry: /* Staffing issues */

{{cleanup}}
{{wikify}}
{{unref}}
{{TOCright}}
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 [[FurPaws]].<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 (2005) ===

Fur Affinity suffered from major security holes and [[W:hacking|hacking]] during the summer of 2005. The site was shut downed 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 create [[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.

=== April Fools Day (2007) ===

On [[wikipedia:April Fools Day|April Fools' Day]] 2007, the FA banner depicted site [[mascot]] [[Fender]] as a busty [[female]] [[dragon]], with similar coloration's 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.

=== 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 [[fursuit]]ers 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 2008, meeting with an equal amount of success.

=== Server hack (2007) ===

On 11 August 2007, [[Dragoneer]]'s administrator account was compromised at [[FA: United‎]] when he used the hotel's unencrypted [[Wikipedia:Wi-fi|Wi-Fi]] connection to access it.{{fact}}
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.

=== Server problems (2008; '''Augustgate''') ===

On 1 July 2008, 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 6, 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, a 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 August 5, 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, it came to be known, "the August incident". <ref>[http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/6280557497 ''Augustgate''] (Retrieved ?)</ref>

=== April Fools Day (2009) ===

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.

=== Server problems (July 2009)/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>

=== Server problems (November/December 2009) ===

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 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>

=== Server enhancements (2010) ===

In March 2010, [[deviantART]]-like profile ID [[image]]s, 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 [[W:URL|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 could hide and unhide every comment posted to any submission site wide.

=== Server hack (2010) ===

On December 17, 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.
[[File:Simple Warren Bust.png|right|thumb|''Simple Warren Bust'' by Warren Duster]]
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 mentioned<ref>[http://eevee.livejournal.com/329817.html Eevee] (Retrieved ?)</ref> 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{{who}} said 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.{{fact}}

=== Furocity merger ===

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 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.{{fact}} New "departments" were created to better serve the users.

=== 10.000.000 ===

In February 24, 2013, Fur Affinity reached the milestone of 10.000.000 submitted media.<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4376076 ''10,000,000'' post] by Fender on his Fur Affinity account (Retrieved February 26, 2013)</ref> The file that made this possible was '''''Simple Warren Bust''''', by artist [[Warren Duster]].<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/view/10000000 "Simple Warren Bust" submission] by Warren Duster on his Fur Affinity account (Retrieved February 26, 2013)</ref>

== Controversy ==
=== Pornographic cub art ===

* August 2006 saw the restart of an internal administrative debate over the presence of [[pornographic]] [[W:Underage|underage]] [[furry artwork]] (or "[[cub]] art").{{fact}} Such art was forbidden by the site's [[W:TOS|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.{{fact}} 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 [[W:Rape|rape]], [[W:Murder|murder]], and [[W:Drug use|drug use]], were not permitted. Conversely, work that depicted [[human]] children, including [[anime characters]], in [[sexual]] situations was also 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{{who}} had threatened to leave the site if it was not forbidden, and some of these did so.{{fact}}

*On November 24 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{{who}} clearing their galleries, and migrating to [[Sofurry]] or [[Inkbunny]] (although several users and artists{{who}} alike saw the cub porn removal as a positive aspect for FA, some of whom even praised Dragoneer for the decision).{{fact}}

It 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 "''Where Has All The Cub Porn Gone?''"<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/view/5541107 "Where Has All The Cub Porn Gone?"] (Retrieved ?)</ref> (a parody of [[w:Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?|"Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?"]] by [[w:Paula Cole|Paula Cole]]).

=== Thanksgiving banner (2008) ===
[[File: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 [[W:Obese|obese]] after a [[W:Turkey meal|turkey meal]], to the point of resembling [[inflation]] art. Some FA users{{who}} complained about the nature of the image as being "tasteless", "disgusting", a "fucking fetish", "shit", etc...,{{fact}} 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.

=== Thanksgiving banner (2009) ===

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]] [[fetish]]es, 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]]

=== Former Furocity staff departure (2011) ===

In late October 2011, several{{clarify}} of the Furocity administrators brought over after the merge abruptly resigned, citing gross negligence by the original Fur Affinity, and the apparent disregard of such by Dragoneer.<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/user/photografuhrer [[Photografuhrer]] (former FA photography administrator) and leaving FA.] Posted on Fur Affinity. Retrieved April 26, 2013.</ref><ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/2855774/ ''good-bye'' post] by [[WritenWren]] on Fur Affinity. Posted October 27, 2011. Retrieved April 26, 2013.</ref>

Within a few weeks, [[Daemonshyai|Gavin Daemonshyai]] was the only Furocity staff member left on staff, and the original "department" system was abandoned. He was eventually removed from the administrative staff.{{clarify}}{{fact}}

Dragoneer countered that the real reason the former admins left was due to [[W:Dox|doxing]] (exposing of one's personally identifiable information) online.<ref>[http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/109202-FA-Furocity-4-months-on.?p=2728631&viewfull=1#post2728631 ''Re: FA + Furocity: 4 months on.''] post on the Fur Affinity Forums. Posted . Retrieved April 26, 2013.</ref>

=== "Aged up" guideline (2012) ===
[[File:NewSonicAgeRules.png|right|thumb|Sonic "age up" guideline diagram|300px]]
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: Friendship is Magic]]'' would not be covered by this rule, except for [[Baby Spike]] and the [[Cutie Mark Crusaders]], while ''[[Tiny Toons]]'' would be. No other animated shows were mentioned further on the post.

Pinkuh reiterated on the FA forums 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.{{fact}}

=== "''Exodus''" ===

On February 16, 2013, user [[Qarrezel]] posted an opinion piece ("''Exodus''"),<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4343379/ ''Exodus''] post on Qarrezel's FA account (Retrieved February 15, 2013)</ref> on her Fur affinity account, where she expressed her frustration towards the apparent non-response of the Fur Affinity staff to deal with user [[Fredriksam]]'s inferred stalking behavior towards her friend and client, [[Tarangryph]].

On it, Qarrezel presented the case that not only had Fredriksam posted Tarangryph's personal information online, contacted her to try to gain more of it, and wrote disturbing sexual material involving her persona,{{fact}} but that the FA staff actually went out of the way to "punish" her by not banning the user, but by also removing all information Tarangryph had posted about her apparent stalker.<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4337035/ ''Leaving FA.''] post by Tarangryph on her FA account (Retrieved February 16, 2013)</ref>

The FA staff responded to the issue in several ways:

* Admin [[Qoph]] replied on the thread<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4343379/#cid:31837225 Qoph response on the ''Exodus''] journal entry on Fur Affinity (Retrieved February 16, 2013)</ref> that immediate action was not taken regarding Fredriksam because the original ticket was issue by a third party person (user [[Svedge]]) with no evidence, and that they did exchange information about it with Tarangryph, but wanted to discuss the situation with Dragoneer because of the serious nature of the possible offense. On the removal of Tarangryph's journal containing all the "evidence" against Fredriksam, Qoph responded that that was a "''normal action''", in compliance by FA TOS' rules.
* Admin [[Cerberusnl]] inquired Tarangryph further about the subject on her "''Leaving FA.''" journal, and reaffirming that her journal, classified as a "callout journal", was proper subject for deletion because of the TOS rules.<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4337035/#cid:31835764 Cerberusnl response on the ''Leaving FA.''] journal entry on Fur Affinity (Retrieved February 16, 2013)</ref>
* Dragoneer responded initially to the issue via ticket response saying that:
{{q|The admin took the right course of action in this case. I don't feel it's something to leave FA over, as if it happened on FA, it will happen on /any/ site. It's unfortunate, but a choice they have made. I'll respect that.}}
And that there was not enough solid evidence to ban the user "at that time."<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4344605/#cid:31841971 Dragoneer response on the ''VERY Important! This could Affect ALL FA Users''] journal entry on Fur Affinity. Retrieved February 16, 2013.</ref>

The post generated more than 1900+ responses, most of them critical to the FA staff's response (or lack of it) to the issue. A number of FA users, including Qarrezel and Tarangryph, announced that they would be leaving Fur affinity because of it. Fredriksam was eventually suspended and had his IP address blocked when some evidence of stalking behavior (creating a [[W:Sock puppet|sock puppet]] account, [[Fredriksam|Garageman]], to continue harassing Tarangryph) was posted on FA.<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4337035/#cid:31843461 [[Synwolf]] response on the ''Leaving FA.''] journal entry on Fur Affinity (Retrieved February 16, 2013)</ref>

Dragooneer further expanded on the controversy on two later FA posts: [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4356040/ ''TaranGryph, Stalking, Drama and FA.''] and [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4358019 ''Clarification on Off Site Content''].

=== Staffing issues ===

*(Date unknown) - [[Wolfblade]], sponsored by [[DragonMyr]], was made FA Admin, despite a 1 in favour, 13 against vote against him,{{clarify}}{{fact}} prompting calls of [[wikipedia:Cronyism|cronyism]]. .<ref>[https://forums.vivisector.org/index.php?topic=193.msg1523#msg1523 ''FA Retrospectacle (Read 10122 times)''] commeny by former FA admin [[DaveHyena]] ('''A Pigeon''') on Vivisector.org. Posted April 17, 2009. Retrieved April 26, 2013.</ref>

*2012/2013 - Dragoneer's fiance (and later wife) [[Sciggles]] was appointed to an administrator position - despite having no prior administration or moderation experience - this time prompting calls of [[wikipedia:Nepotism|nepotism]]. Dragoneer had previously stated that Sciggles would not be made an administrator due to their relationship<ref>[http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/113499-Why-is-Sciggles-an-admin-now-despite-Dragoneer-saying-she-would-not-be-one FA forum's thread "Why is Sciggles an admin now, despite Dragoneer saying she would not be one"] echoes these statements</ref>. After a brief absence, she was re-instated as administrator in 2013<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/user/shivadramon ''Shivadramon''] account created January 23, 2013. </ref> as "Team Lead", a position in which she trains new administrators.

*2013 - [[Chase]], an FA administrator who resigned from the staff in early 2011 following a fight<ref name="dragoneerlog">[http://furaffinityleaks.blogspot.com/2013/04/furaffinity-truth.html ''FurAffinity Leaks''] Posted by former administrator [[SimbaTheLion]].<pre>[04:55] <~Dragoneer> Chase may have had a rocky past previously, but he was a good admin. We're still on great terms. He's basically going to be coming in to help with harassment tickets (and only harassment).
[04:55] <~Dragoneer> Kitashi: He and I got into a fight.
[04:55] <&Kitashi> Ah :x
06[04:55] * @Hendikins twitches
[04:56] <~Dragoneer> Hendikins: ?
[04:56] <@Hendikins> I'm just thinking PR.
[04:56] <~Dragoneer> Again, hence with all admin accounts, why he's on an alt and it's on the downlow. If it comes out, we'll announce it.
</pre></ref> with Dragoneer<ref>[https://forums.vivisector.org/index.php?topic=448.msg5555#msg5555 ''Chase resigns from FA staff''] Pastebin chatlog transposed to Vivisector Forums.</ref>, was re-appointed in 2013, although Dragoneer required him to use a alternate account ('''Carmen''') to hide his identity<ref name="dragoneerlog" />. This particular appointment resulted in the resignation of at least one FA staff member.<ref>[https://www.weasyl.com/journal/12396 ''So, about that other site...''] post by [[Hendikins]] on Weasyl. Posted April 3, 2013. Retrieved April 26, 2013.</ref>

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

History of Fur Affinity

2013-04-26T07:12:44Z

Murrypurryfurry: /* Controversy */ Staffing Controversies.

{{cleanup}}
{{wikify}}
{{unref}}
{{TOCright}}
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 [[FurPaws]].<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 (2005) ===

Fur Affinity suffered from major security holes and [[W:hacking|hacking]] during the summer of 2005. The site was shut downed 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 create [[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.

=== April Fools Day (2007) ===

On [[wikipedia:April Fools Day|April Fools' Day]] 2007, the FA banner depicted site [[mascot]] [[Fender]] as a busty [[female]] [[dragon]], with similar coloration's 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.

=== 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 [[fursuit]]ers 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 2008, meeting with an equal amount of success.

=== Server hack (2007) ===

On 11 August 2007, [[Dragoneer]]'s administrator account was compromised at [[FA: United‎]] when he used the hotel's unencrypted [[Wikipedia:Wi-fi|Wi-Fi]] connection to access it.{{fact}}
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.

=== Server problems (2008; '''Augustgate''') ===

On 1 July 2008, 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 6, 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, a 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 August 5, 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, it came to be known, "the August incident". <ref>[http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/6280557497 ''Augustgate''] (Retrieved ?)</ref>

=== April Fools Day (2009) ===

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.

=== Server problems (July 2009)/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>

=== Server problems (November/December 2009) ===

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 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>

=== Server enhancements (2010) ===

In March 2010, [[deviantART]]-like profile ID [[image]]s, 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 [[W:URL|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 could hide and unhide every comment posted to any submission site wide.

=== Server hack (2010) ===

On December 17, 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.
[[File:Simple Warren Bust.png|right|thumb|''Simple Warren Bust'' by Warren Duster]]
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 mentioned<ref>[http://eevee.livejournal.com/329817.html Eevee] (Retrieved ?)</ref> 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{{who}} said 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.{{fact}}

=== Furocity merger ===

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 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.{{fact}} New "departments" were created to better serve the users.

Within two months, several of the new administrators from Furocity resigned, with 5 of the 7 quitting within a week<ref>https://forums.vivisector.org/index.php?topic=560.0</ref> while citing a lack of leadership and difficulty working with existing staff. The remaining two Furocity staff members resigned over the course of the next several months.

Gavin, who owned Furocity, was finally removed from FA staff in early 2013 after being inactive for more than a year.

=== 10.000.000 ===

In February 24, 2013, Fur Affinity reached the milestone of 10.000.000 submitted media.<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4376076 ''10,000,000'' post] by Fender on his Fur Affinity account (Retrieved February 26, 2013)</ref> The file that made this possible was '''''Simple Warren Bust''''', by artist [[Warren Duster]].<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/view/10000000 "Simple Warren Bust" submission] by Warren Duster on his Fur Affinity account (Retrieved February 26, 2013)</ref>

== Controversy ==
=== Pornographic cub art ===

* August 2006 saw the restart of an internal administrative debate over the presence of [[pornographic]] [[W:Underage|underage]] [[furry artwork]] (or "[[cub]] art").{{fact}} Such art was forbidden by the site's [[W:TOS|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.{{fact}} 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 [[W:Rape|rape]], [[W:Murder|murder]], and [[W:Drug use|drug use]], were not permitted. Conversely, work that depicted [[human]] children, including [[anime characters]], in [[sexual]] situations was also 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{{who}} had threatened to leave the site if it was not forbidden, and some of these did so.{{fact}}

*On November 24 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{{who}} clearing their galleries, and migrating to [[Sofurry]] or [[Inkbunny]] (although several users and artists{{who}} alike saw the cub porn removal as a positive aspect for FA, some of whom even praised Dragoneer for the decision).{{fact}}

It 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 "''Where Has All The Cub Porn Gone?''"<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/view/5541107 "Where Has All The Cub Porn Gone?"] (Retrieved ?)</ref> (a parody of [[w:Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?|"Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?"]] by [[w:Paula Cole|Paula Cole]]).

=== Thanksgiving banner (2008) ===
[[File: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 [[W:Obese|obese]] after a [[W:Turkey meal|turkey meal]], to the point of resembling [[inflation]] art. Some FA users{{who}} complained about the nature of the image as being "tasteless", "disgusting", a "fucking fetish", "shit", etc...,{{fact}} 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.

=== Thanksgiving banner (2009) ===

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]] [[fetish]]es, 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]]

=== Former Furocity staff departure ===

In late October 2011, four of the Furocity administrators abruptly resigned, citing poor communication, "Hostile admins", and a lack of leadership.{{fact}} 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.{{fact}}

=== "Aged up" guideline (2012) ===
[[File:NewSonicAgeRules.png|right|thumb|Sonic "age up" guideline diagram|300px]]
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 the FA forums 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.{{fact}}

=== "''Exodus''" ===

On February 16, 2013, user [[Qarrezel]] posted an opinion piece ("''Exodus''"),<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4343379/ ''Exodus''] post on Qarrezel's FA account (Retrieved February 15, 2013)</ref> on her Fur affinity account, where she expressed her frustration towards the apparent non-response of the Fur Affinity staff to deal with user [[Fredriksam]] inferred stalking behavior towards her friend and client, [[Tarangryph]].

On it, Qarrezel presented the case that not only had Fredriksam posted Tarangryph's personal information online, contacted her to try to gain more of it, and wrote disturbing sexual material involving her persona,{{fact}} but that the FA staff actually went out of the way to "punish" her by not banning the user, but by also removing all information Tarangryph had posted about her apparent stalker.<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4337035/ ''Leaving FA.''] post by Tarangryph on her FA account (Retrieved February 16, 2013)</ref>

The FA staff responded to the issue in several ways:

* Admin [[Qoph]] replied on the thread<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4343379/#cid:31837225 Qoph response on the ''Exodus''] journal entry on Fur Affinity (Retrieved February 16, 2013)</ref> that immediate action was not taken regarding Fredriksam because the original ticket was issue by a third party person (user [[Svedge]]) with no evidence, but did exchange information about it with Tarangryph, but wanted to discuss the situation with Dragoneer because of the serious nature of the possible offense. On the removal of Tarangryph's journal containing all the "evidence" against Fredriksam, Qoph responded that that was a "''normal action''", in compliance by FA TOS' rules.
* Admin [[Cerberusnl]] inquired Tarangryph further about the subject on her "''Leaving FA.''" journal, and reaffirming that her journal, classified as a "callout journal", was proper subject for deletion because of the TOS rules.<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4337035/#cid:31835764 Cerberusnl response on the ''Leaving FA.''] journal entry on Fur Affinity (Retrieved February 16, 2013)</ref>
* Dragoneer responded initially to the issue via ticket response saying that:
{{q|The admin took the right course of action in this case. I don't feel it's something to leave FA over, as if it happened on FA, it will happen on /any/ site. It's unfortunate, but a choice they have made. I'll respect that.}}
And that there was not enough solid evidence to ban the user "at that time."<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4344605/#cid:31841971 Dragoneer response on the ''VERY Important! This could Affect ALL FA Users''] journal entry on Fur Affinity (Retrieved February 16, 2013)</ref>

The post generated more than 1900+ responses, most of them critical to the FA staff's response (or lack of it) to the issue. A number of FA users, including Qarrezel and Tarangryph, announced that they would be leaving Fur affinity because of it. Fredriksam was eventually suspended and had his IP address blocked when some evidence of stalking behavior (creating a [[W:Sock puppet|sock puppet]] account, [[Fredriksam|Garageman]], to continue harassing Tarangryph) was posted on FA.<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4337035/#cid:31843461 [[Synwolf]] response on the ''Leaving FA.''] journal entry on Fur Affinity (Retrieved February 16, 2013)</ref>

Dragooneer further expanded on the controversy on two later FA posts: Category: [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4356040/ ''TaranGryph, Stalking, Drama and FA.''] and [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4358019 ''Clarification on Off Site Content''].

=== Staffing Controversies ===
FurAffinity has been the target of much criticism related to their practices for selecting staff. Prior to mid to late 2012, the general procedure for adding administration staff to the main site was to promote Fur Affinity Forums moderators. By late 2012, the procedure had shifted to a more common model where interested parties could apply to be on administration<ref>https://forums.vivisector.org/index.php?topic=633.0</ref>.

==== Cronyism ====
While staff is generally appointed via the aforementioned processes, administrators (namely [[Dragoneer]]) continue to arbitrarily appoint friends to administration positions regardless of their qualifications. Several administrators who have resigned have come forward to speak out against FA's [[wikipedia:Cronyism|Cronyism]].
{{q|Wolfblade had been ingratiating himself with Jheryn and Jheryn once proposed that Wolfblade be taken on staff as his "assistant", this was rejected. Wolfblade also ingratiated himself with another admin, DragonMyr and DragonMyr proposed a vote to bring Wolfblade on as an admin. The Vote was 1 in favour, 13 against IIRC. It was certainly decisively against it... Under circumstances which were never really made clear, Wolfblade was taken on staff as a trial admin and then made a full admin, despite the originally vote against him. I think it was Preyfar arbitrarily deciding to do it. }} -Former admin DaveHyena.<ref>https://forums.vivisector.org/index.php?topic=193.msg1523#msg1523</ref>

Another commonly cited example is [[Sciggles]], [[Dragoneer]]'s wife. Sciggles has no publicly known experience moderating an internet community other than her initial appointment to FA staff. She later resigned but was re-appointed as "Team Lead" to train new administrators in late 2012 or early 2013.

Chase, a unpopular administrator who resigned from FA staff in early 2011<ref>https://forums.vivisector.org/index.php?topic=448.0</ref> following a fight with Dragoneer<ref>https://forums.vivisector.org/index.php?topic=448.msg5555#msg5555</ref>, was re-appointed in 2013. Dragoneer required him to use a alternate account ("Carmen") to hide his identity, according to [[http://furaffinityleaks.blogspot.com/2013/04/furaffinity-truth.html leaked chat logs]]. This particular appointment resulted in the resignation of at least one staff member<ref>https://www.weasyl.com/journal/12396</ref>

==== Development Team ====
FurAffinity's Development Team currently consists of four members (Yak, net-cat, tsawolf, and Carenath), with Yak and net-cat being the most involved. There has been many occurrences over the years of FA being interested in adding more development staff in order to improve the site, but that has gone nowhere.

Former lead administrator Kihari, who attempted to help with site development during his time on staff, eventually came forward about the state of the FA development team:
<pre>14:48:14 <Kitashi> catalepsy: There was no working. Only waiting.
...
14:49:32 <Kitashi> When I quit staff, I literally had changes simply waiting to be approved and pushed live
...
14:54:33 <Kitashi> The fact that the smaller changes didn't go through is why I stopped making changes and started poking instead.
14:54:48 <Kitashi> If the small stuff takes half a year to get looked at, the system's not working, and something needs to change
</pre>
-Kitashi on #Weasyl IRC<ref>http://paste.pound-python.org/raw/BWwCYsA55fKgb641m0zf</ref>

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

History of Fur Affinity

2013-04-26T06:21:26Z

Murrypurryfurry: /* Furocity merger */

{{cleanup}}
{{wikify}}
{{unref}}
{{TOCright}}
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 [[FurPaws]].<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 (2005) ===

Fur Affinity suffered from major security holes and [[W:hacking|hacking]] during the summer of 2005. The site was shut downed 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 create [[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.

=== April Fools Day (2007) ===

On [[wikipedia:April Fools Day|April Fools' Day]] 2007, the FA banner depicted site [[mascot]] [[Fender]] as a busty [[female]] [[dragon]], with similar coloration's 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.

=== 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 [[fursuit]]ers 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 2008, meeting with an equal amount of success.

=== Server hack (2007) ===

On 11 August 2007, [[Dragoneer]]'s administrator account was compromised at [[FA: United‎]] when he used the hotel's unencrypted [[Wikipedia:Wi-fi|Wi-Fi]] connection to access it.{{fact}}
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.

=== Server problems (2008; '''Augustgate''') ===

On 1 July 2008, 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 6, 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, a 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 August 5, 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, it came to be known, "the August incident". <ref>[http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/6280557497 ''Augustgate''] (Retrieved ?)</ref>

=== April Fools Day (2009) ===

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.

=== Server problems (July 2009)/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>

=== Server problems (November/December 2009) ===

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 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>

=== Server enhancements (2010) ===

In March 2010, [[deviantART]]-like profile ID [[image]]s, 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 [[W:URL|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 could hide and unhide every comment posted to any submission site wide.

=== Server hack (2010) ===

On December 17, 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.
[[File:Simple Warren Bust.png|right|thumb|''Simple Warren Bust'' by Warren Duster]]
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 mentioned<ref>[http://eevee.livejournal.com/329817.html Eevee] (Retrieved ?)</ref> 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{{who}} said 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.{{fact}}

=== Furocity merger ===

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 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.{{fact}} New "departments" were created to better serve the users.

Within two months, several of the new administrators from Furocity resigned, with 5 of the 7 quitting within a week<ref>https://forums.vivisector.org/index.php?topic=560.0</ref> while citing a lack of leadership and difficulty working with existing staff. The remaining two Furocity staff members resigned over the course of the next several months.

Gavin, who owned Furocity, was finally removed from FA staff in early 2013 after being inactive for more than a year.

=== 10.000.000 ===

In February 24, 2013, Fur Affinity reached the milestone of 10.000.000 submitted media.<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4376076 ''10,000,000'' post] by Fender on his Fur Affinity account (Retrieved February 26, 2013)</ref> The file that made this possible was '''''Simple Warren Bust''''', by artist [[Warren Duster]].<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/view/10000000 "Simple Warren Bust" submission] by Warren Duster on his Fur Affinity account (Retrieved February 26, 2013)</ref>

== Controversy ==
=== Pornographic cub art ===

* August 2006 saw the restart of an internal administrative debate over the presence of [[pornographic]] [[W:Underage|underage]] [[furry artwork]] (or "[[cub]] art").{{fact}} Such art was forbidden by the site's [[W:TOS|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.{{fact}} 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 [[W:Rape|rape]], [[W:Murder|murder]], and [[W:Drug use|drug use]], were not permitted. Conversely, work that depicted [[human]] children, including [[anime characters]], in [[sexual]] situations was also 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{{who}} had threatened to leave the site if it was not forbidden, and some of these did so.{{fact}}

*On November 24 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{{who}} clearing their galleries, and migrating to [[Sofurry]] or [[Inkbunny]] (although several users and artists{{who}} alike saw the cub porn removal as a positive aspect for FA, some of whom even praised Dragoneer for the decision).{{fact}}

It 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 "''Where Has All The Cub Porn Gone?''"<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/view/5541107 "Where Has All The Cub Porn Gone?"] (Retrieved ?)</ref> (a parody of [[w:Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?|"Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?"]] by [[w:Paula Cole|Paula Cole]]).

=== Thanksgiving banner (2008) ===
[[File: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 [[W:Obese|obese]] after a [[W:Turkey meal|turkey meal]], to the point of resembling [[inflation]] art. Some FA users{{who}} complained about the nature of the image as being "tasteless", "disgusting", a "fucking fetish", "shit", etc...,{{fact}} 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.

=== Thanksgiving banner (2009) ===

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]] [[fetish]]es, 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]]

=== Former Furocity staff departure ===

In late October 2011, four of the Furocity administrators abruptly resigned, citing poor communication, "Hostile admins", and a lack of leadership.{{fact}} 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.{{fact}}

=== "Aged up" guideline (2012) ===
[[File:NewSonicAgeRules.png|right|thumb|Sonic "age up" guideline diagram|300px]]
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 the FA forums 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.{{fact}}

=== "''Exodus''" ===

On February 16, 2013, user [[Qarrezel]] posted an opinion piece ("''Exodus''"),<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4343379/ ''Exodus''] post on Qarrezel's FA account (Retrieved February 15, 2013)</ref> on her Fur affinity account, where she expressed her frustration towards the apparent non-response of the Fur Affinity staff to deal with user [[Fredriksam]] inferred stalking behavior towards her friend and client, [[Tarangryph]].

On it, Qarrezel presented the case that not only had Fredriksam posted Tarangryph's personal information online, contacted her to try to gain more of it, and wrote disturbing sexual material involving her persona,{{fact}} but that the FA staff actually went out of the way to "punish" her by not banning the user, but by also removing all information Tarangryph had posted about her apparent stalker.<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4337035/ ''Leaving FA.''] post by Tarangryph on her FA account (Retrieved February 16, 2013)</ref>

The FA staff responded to the issue in several ways:

* Admin [[Qoph]] replied on the thread<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4343379/#cid:31837225 Qoph response on the ''Exodus''] journal entry on Fur Affinity (Retrieved February 16, 2013)</ref> that immediate action was not taken regarding Fredriksam because the original ticket was issue by a third party person (user [[Svedge]]) with no evidence, but did exchange information about it with Tarangryph, but wanted to discuss the situation with Dragoneer because of the serious nature of the possible offense. On the removal of Tarangryph's journal containing all the "evidence" against Fredriksam, Qoph responded that that was a "''normal action''", in compliance by FA TOS' rules.
* Admin [[Cerberusnl]] inquired Tarangryph further about the subject on her "''Leaving FA.''" journal, and reaffirming that her journal, classified as a "callout journal", was proper subject for deletion because of the TOS rules.<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4337035/#cid:31835764 Cerberusnl response on the ''Leaving FA.''] journal entry on Fur Affinity (Retrieved February 16, 2013)</ref>
* Dragoneer responded initially to the issue via ticket response saying that:
{{q|The admin took the right course of action in this case. I don't feel it's something to leave FA over, as if it happened on FA, it will happen on /any/ site. It's unfortunate, but a choice they have made. I'll respect that.}}
And that there was not enough solid evidence to ban the user "at that time."<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4344605/#cid:31841971 Dragoneer response on the ''VERY Important! This could Affect ALL FA Users''] journal entry on Fur Affinity (Retrieved February 16, 2013)</ref>

The post generated more than 1900+ responses, most of them critical to the FA staff's response (or lack of it) to the issue. A number of FA users, including Qarrezel and Tarangryph, announced that they would be leaving Fur affinity because of it. Fredriksam was eventually suspended and had his IP address blocked when some evidence of stalking behavior (creating a [[W:Sock puppet|sock puppet]] account, [[Fredriksam|Garageman]], to continue harassing Tarangryph) was posted on FA.<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4337035/#cid:31843461 [[Synwolf]] response on the ''Leaving FA.''] journal entry on Fur Affinity (Retrieved February 16, 2013)</ref>

Dragooneer further expanded on the controversy on two later FA posts: Category: [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4356040/ ''TaranGryph, Stalking, Drama and FA.''] and [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4358019 ''Clarification on Off Site Content''].

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

History of Fur Affinity

2013-04-26T06:19:48Z

Murrypurryfurry: /* Furocity merger */

{{cleanup}}
{{wikify}}
{{unref}}
{{TOCright}}
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 [[FurPaws]].<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 (2005) ===

Fur Affinity suffered from major security holes and [[W:hacking|hacking]] during the summer of 2005. The site was shut downed 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 create [[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.

=== April Fools Day (2007) ===

On [[wikipedia:April Fools Day|April Fools' Day]] 2007, the FA banner depicted site [[mascot]] [[Fender]] as a busty [[female]] [[dragon]], with similar coloration's 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.

=== 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 [[fursuit]]ers 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 2008, meeting with an equal amount of success.

=== Server hack (2007) ===

On 11 August 2007, [[Dragoneer]]'s administrator account was compromised at [[FA: United‎]] when he used the hotel's unencrypted [[Wikipedia:Wi-fi|Wi-Fi]] connection to access it.{{fact}}
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.

=== Server problems (2008; '''Augustgate''') ===

On 1 July 2008, 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 6, 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, a 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 August 5, 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, it came to be known, "the August incident". <ref>[http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/6280557497 ''Augustgate''] (Retrieved ?)</ref>

=== April Fools Day (2009) ===

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.

=== Server problems (July 2009)/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>

=== Server problems (November/December 2009) ===

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 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>

=== Server enhancements (2010) ===

In March 2010, [[deviantART]]-like profile ID [[image]]s, 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 [[W:URL|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 could hide and unhide every comment posted to any submission site wide.

=== Server hack (2010) ===

On December 17, 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.
[[File:Simple Warren Bust.png|right|thumb|''Simple Warren Bust'' by Warren Duster]]
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 mentioned<ref>[http://eevee.livejournal.com/329817.html Eevee] (Retrieved ?)</ref> 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{{who}} said 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.{{fact}}

=== Furocity merger ===

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 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.{{fact}} New "departments" were created to better serve the users.

Within two months, several of the new administrators from Furocity resigned, with 5 of the 7 quitting within a week<ref>https://forums.vivisector.org/index.php?topic=560.0</ref> and the remaining two departing over the course of the next several months.

Gavin, who owned Furocity, was finally removed from FA staff in early 2013 after being inactive for more than a year.

=== 10.000.000 ===

In February 24, 2013, Fur Affinity reached the milestone of 10.000.000 submitted media.<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4376076 ''10,000,000'' post] by Fender on his Fur Affinity account (Retrieved February 26, 2013)</ref> The file that made this possible was '''''Simple Warren Bust''''', by artist [[Warren Duster]].<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/view/10000000 "Simple Warren Bust" submission] by Warren Duster on his Fur Affinity account (Retrieved February 26, 2013)</ref>

== Controversy ==
=== Pornographic cub art ===

* August 2006 saw the restart of an internal administrative debate over the presence of [[pornographic]] [[W:Underage|underage]] [[furry artwork]] (or "[[cub]] art").{{fact}} Such art was forbidden by the site's [[W:TOS|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.{{fact}} 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 [[W:Rape|rape]], [[W:Murder|murder]], and [[W:Drug use|drug use]], were not permitted. Conversely, work that depicted [[human]] children, including [[anime characters]], in [[sexual]] situations was also 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{{who}} had threatened to leave the site if it was not forbidden, and some of these did so.{{fact}}

*On November 24 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{{who}} clearing their galleries, and migrating to [[Sofurry]] or [[Inkbunny]] (although several users and artists{{who}} alike saw the cub porn removal as a positive aspect for FA, some of whom even praised Dragoneer for the decision).{{fact}}

It 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 "''Where Has All The Cub Porn Gone?''"<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/view/5541107 "Where Has All The Cub Porn Gone?"] (Retrieved ?)</ref> (a parody of [[w:Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?|"Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?"]] by [[w:Paula Cole|Paula Cole]]).

=== Thanksgiving banner (2008) ===
[[File: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 [[W:Obese|obese]] after a [[W:Turkey meal|turkey meal]], to the point of resembling [[inflation]] art. Some FA users{{who}} complained about the nature of the image as being "tasteless", "disgusting", a "fucking fetish", "shit", etc...,{{fact}} 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.

=== Thanksgiving banner (2009) ===

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]] [[fetish]]es, 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]]

=== Former Furocity staff departure ===

In late October 2011, four of the Furocity administrators abruptly resigned, citing poor communication, "Hostile admins", and a lack of leadership.{{fact}} 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.{{fact}}

=== "Aged up" guideline (2012) ===
[[File:NewSonicAgeRules.png|right|thumb|Sonic "age up" guideline diagram|300px]]
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 the FA forums 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.{{fact}}

=== "''Exodus''" ===

On February 16, 2013, user [[Qarrezel]] posted an opinion piece ("''Exodus''"),<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4343379/ ''Exodus''] post on Qarrezel's FA account (Retrieved February 15, 2013)</ref> on her Fur affinity account, where she expressed her frustration towards the apparent non-response of the Fur Affinity staff to deal with user [[Fredriksam]] inferred stalking behavior towards her friend and client, [[Tarangryph]].

On it, Qarrezel presented the case that not only had Fredriksam posted Tarangryph's personal information online, contacted her to try to gain more of it, and wrote disturbing sexual material involving her persona,{{fact}} but that the FA staff actually went out of the way to "punish" her by not banning the user, but by also removing all information Tarangryph had posted about her apparent stalker.<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4337035/ ''Leaving FA.''] post by Tarangryph on her FA account (Retrieved February 16, 2013)</ref>

The FA staff responded to the issue in several ways:

* Admin [[Qoph]] replied on the thread<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4343379/#cid:31837225 Qoph response on the ''Exodus''] journal entry on Fur Affinity (Retrieved February 16, 2013)</ref> that immediate action was not taken regarding Fredriksam because the original ticket was issue by a third party person (user [[Svedge]]) with no evidence, but did exchange information about it with Tarangryph, but wanted to discuss the situation with Dragoneer because of the serious nature of the possible offense. On the removal of Tarangryph's journal containing all the "evidence" against Fredriksam, Qoph responded that that was a "''normal action''", in compliance by FA TOS' rules.
* Admin [[Cerberusnl]] inquired Tarangryph further about the subject on her "''Leaving FA.''" journal, and reaffirming that her journal, classified as a "callout journal", was proper subject for deletion because of the TOS rules.<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4337035/#cid:31835764 Cerberusnl response on the ''Leaving FA.''] journal entry on Fur Affinity (Retrieved February 16, 2013)</ref>
* Dragoneer responded initially to the issue via ticket response saying that:
{{q|The admin took the right course of action in this case. I don't feel it's something to leave FA over, as if it happened on FA, it will happen on /any/ site. It's unfortunate, but a choice they have made. I'll respect that.}}
And that there was not enough solid evidence to ban the user "at that time."<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4344605/#cid:31841971 Dragoneer response on the ''VERY Important! This could Affect ALL FA Users''] journal entry on Fur Affinity (Retrieved February 16, 2013)</ref>

The post generated more than 1900+ responses, most of them critical to the FA staff's response (or lack of it) to the issue. A number of FA users, including Qarrezel and Tarangryph, announced that they would be leaving Fur affinity because of it. Fredriksam was eventually suspended and had his IP address blocked when some evidence of stalking behavior (creating a [[W:Sock puppet|sock puppet]] account, [[Fredriksam|Garageman]], to continue harassing Tarangryph) was posted on FA.<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4337035/#cid:31843461 [[Synwolf]] response on the ''Leaving FA.''] journal entry on Fur Affinity (Retrieved February 16, 2013)</ref>

Dragooneer further expanded on the controversy on two later FA posts: Category: [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4356040/ ''TaranGryph, Stalking, Drama and FA.''] and [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4358019 ''Clarification on Off Site Content''].

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

Fur Affinity

2012-10-03T02:18:09Z

Murrypurryfurry: /* Confirmed future features */

{{Infobox website
| title = Fur Affinity
| image = [[File:FAFront Page.png|208px]]Fur Affinity front page
| author = '''Owner:''' [[Dragoneer]]
* '''Site Founder:''' [[Alkora]]
* '''Lead Admin''': Dragoneer
* '''Admins''': [[Bazeel]], [[Bengaley Summercat]], [[Cerberusnl]], [[Fox Amoore]], [[Glaide]], [[Irreverent]], [[Kitashi]], [[Oddy]] (music), [[Qoph]], [[Ramsay Baggins]], [[SSJ3Mewtwo]], [[Surgat]], [[Trpdwarf]]
* '''Tech Staff''': [[Carenath]], [[Net-cat]], [[Tsawolf]], [[yak]]
| url = http://www.furaffinity.net/
* '''SFW link''': http://sfw.furaffinity.net/
* '''Forum''': http://forums.furaffinity.net/
* '''Wiki''': http://wiki.furaffinity.net/
| status =
| began = 16 January–1 August 2005 ([[History of Fur Affinity#Server problems of 2005|staff dispute & server issues]]) 10 December 2005–present
| ended =
| genre = Social art community
| rating = {{Rating-pg-button|center}}{{Rating-nc17-button|right}}
}}

'''Fur Affinity''', also known as '''FA''', is the [[furry fandom]]'s largest online community, focusing on the promotion of art, music and stories.

The site was created in 2005 by [[Alkora]] as an alternative to various art community sites such as [[SheezyArt]] and [[deviantART]], distinguished by allowing artistic freedom of expression regardless of content rating. It is led by [[Dragoneer]] and [[Daemonshyai]].
<div style=float:left;margin-right:10px>__TOC__</div>
{{WikiFurNews|Fur Affinity access disrupted amid ownership dispute}}
{{WikiFurNews|'Krystal sandwich' meme strikes Fur Affinity}}
{{FlayrahTag|fur-affinity|Fur Affinity}}

== History ==
{{main|History of Fur Affinity}}
Fur Affinity was launched on 16 January 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]]. Since then, it has suffered a few outages, most notably a month-long downtime over July 2008, but always managed to recover. In 2011, Fur Affinity announced a major revamp in connection to FA: United 4.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/89577-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6! Fur Affinity Turns 6!] - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity forum post (16 January 2011)</ref>

=== Fur Affinity: United! ===
{{main|FA: United}}
In August 2007, Fur Affinity held its own [[furry convention]], Fur Affinity: United! (or FA:U) in [[Wikipedia:Newark, New Jersey|Newark, New Jersey]]. The convention was a success, drawing 310 attendees and 25 [[fursuiter]]s in the [[fursuit parade|parade]], and was followed by another in 2008, drawing 381 attendees. In February 2009, Dragoneer announced FA: United 3 "Games United" for 28-30 May 2010.<ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/621616/ FAU3 Announcement]'' - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity journal (9 February 2009)</ref> No event was scheduled for 2009 due to the economic downturn.

== Features and rules ==

Fur Affinity's features for users include the ability to allow users to track new updates from particular [[artist]]s; highlight favorites; and upload a wide variety of art (images, music and stories). The site attempts to promote community through its comments system and individual journals.

While works of all ratings are accepted (other than ''photographic nudes, images whose intent are to slander or discredit others, and minors in sexual situations''<ref>[http://help.furaffinity.net/article/AA-00205/8/Acceptable-Upload-Policy-AUP.html Acceptable Upload Policy] - Fur Affinity</ref>), art rated as mature or adult is not shown to visitors, or to users who have not specified it as a preference (which requires giving a date of birth indicating an age over 18). Keywords and tags can be added to works, though a feature that allowed blocking based on tags was disabled due to performance issues.

Fur Affinity's search engine was "temporarily disabled" in mid-2006 due to it taking up too many resources.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=1334 Admin mode on june 5th 2006]'' - Alkora, Fur Affinity forums (5 June 2006)</ref> A faux search feature was implemented for April Fool's Day 2007, much to the chagrin of some users.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=7229 Search is up!]'' - Fur Affinity Forums (1 April 2007)</ref> Search was reimplemented on 5 February 2009; it was initially labelled "That Thing You Want" and randomly included [[wikipedia:Rickrolling|rickrolls]].<ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/616339/ SEARCH]'' - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity journal (5 February 2009)</ref>

==Project Ferrox==
{{main|Ferrox (software)}}
The FA development team was working on a new backend system called [[Ferrox_(software)|Ferrox]] which was to be used for the next major revision of Fur Affinity, and was to be made available as [[Wikipedia:FOSS|FOSS]] (Free and Open Source Software) for other sites to use. By late 2009, development of Ferrox had stalled, with the last change to the code being made on September 7, 2009. Days earlier, net-cat, who was acting as the lead Ferrox developer after [[Eevee]] had left, announced that the code was to be frozen, citing that "Nobody knows Python."<ref>http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/49368-Code-freeze-on-current-Ferrox-codebase?p=1174129&viewfull=1#post1174129</ref>

== Mascots ==
[[File:Fender.jpg|thumb|right|Fender, drawn by [[Mutley James]]]]
[[Fender]] is the Fur Affinity [[mascot]]. He was primarily created by artist [[K-9]], based upon a character concept by [[Preyfar]]. He is half [[fox]] and half [[ferret]], commonly referring to himself as a 'ferrox'.
On April Fool's Day 2007, Fender was depicted in the site's banner as a busty female dragon, still wearing the trademark blue tie. This dragon was made a separate character from Fender and an official mascot of the site in May 2007, and named [[Rednef]], or "Fender" spelled backwards.

Fender was displayed as a three-toed [[sloth]] for April Fools' Day 2008. So far this sloth form has yet to become an official character.

== Criticisms ==
{{Unreferenced-section}}
FurAffinity is largely criticized in the fandom for a variety of reasons, ranging from what users see as general incompetence among the entire staff to the absence of what many consider "modern" features that a website such as FurAffinity should have.

Other criticisms include alleged favoritism between popular artists/high-profile fandom figures and the site administration, [[wikipedia:Cronyism|Cronyism]] among site staff, and the administration's general disregard of the userbase, failing to make important announcements (such as downtime or entering "read only mode") and communication with the users in general.

The communication problems eventually lead to a disgruntled user creating a [[wikipedia:Parody|parody]] Twitter account called [http://twitter.com/FurAffinityPR FurAffinityPR].

== Controversies ==
{{main|History of Fur Affinity#Controversies}}

== Statistics ==

* In late 2010, the monthly hosting bill for FurAffinity was just under $1,700 <ref>''http://twitpic.com/2g8t5x'' - TwitPic Posted on August 19, 2010
by Dragoneer</ref>. This includes a full equipment rack, bandwidth, and IP addresses. The monthly cost likely increased with the addition of extra bandwidth (Increasing the total to 350Mbit) in early 2012.<ref>https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3484539/</ref>
* In less than a year since the site's re-launch, Fur Affinity gained over 45,000 users and over 300,000 submissions. {{fact}}
* Alexa has previously ranked Fur Affinity in the [http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?site0=www.furaffinity.net&site1=vclart.net&site2=&site3=&site4=&x=75&y=15&h=300&w=610&h=400&w=700&z=3&range=1y&size=medium&y=r&z=3&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.furaffinity.net top 4,000 sites] on the web in 1 November 2007, showing greater traffic than the VCL for most of the previous year. The trend continued through 2008 and 2009. Fur Affinity has ranked as high as 3,475 on individual days, and close to 2,000 in the USA. In October 2010, Fur Affinity's rank fell to 7681.
* Fur Affinity reached its 1,000,000th submission on 11 January 2008. It later reached its 2,000,000th submission on 15 February 2009, and its 3,000,000th submission in November 2009.
* As estimated by a week's worth of statistical data gathered in mid-November 2009, FA is serving an average of 50 page requests/second, from registered and guest users alike. {{fact}}

== Hardware ==
[[Image:Furaffinity Server Farm.jpg|thumb|Fur Affinity's servers Bahamut, Tiamat, Novastorm and Trogdor (unlabeled).]]
As of September 2010, Fur Affinity runs on the following servers:

* '''Tiamat''' is a twin dual-core 2.0Ghz [[Wikipedia:Opteron|Opteron 2212]] with 32GB DDR2-533 RAM. The server was used as the search server until August 31st, 2010 when it was discovered it had suffered a equipment failure<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/22617961790'' - FA Twitter</ref> It is unclear if Tiamat was ever brought back online or if Search was moved to another server. Storage consists of 4x 74GB 10K RPM hard drives in RAID10.
* '''Neo Bahamut''', FA's backup server, is a dual-core 2.0GHz Opteron with 2GB DDR2-667 RAM. Storage consists of 4x 1TB hard drives in RAID5. Nightly backups for both data and DB.
* '''Novastorm''', FA's database server, is a [[Wikipedia:Sun Fire|Sun Fire X4150]] manufactured by [[Wikipedia:Sun Microsystems]] with twin quad-core 2.5Ghz Xeon 5420 processors and 64GB of RAM (as of March 2010).<ref>[http://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/10912188478 Novastorm upgrade tweet] - [[Dragoneer]]'s twitter (23 March 2010)</ref> Storage consists of 2x 74GB 15K RPM hard drives in RAID1 and 6x146GB 15K RPM hard drives in RAID10.
* '''Figment''', an application server, is dual quad-core 2.33Ghz Xeon 5345 with 32GB of RAM and 4x 1TB of storage. Figment was purchased with the intent of offering hosting<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10203450025'' - FA Twitter - March 8, 2010</ref> on it "sometime in April... or May, or maybe August" of 2010<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10942579229'' - FA Twitter - March 23 2010</ref> and is currently serving advertisments<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10936829317'' - FA Twitter</ref>. Server was named by [[Sciggles]].<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10585322442'' - FA Twitter</ref>
* '''Shivan''' is a twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. This server is currently unused. The server was named by FA donator TlaiLaxu.
* '''Sparkz''' is a twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. This server is currently running traffic data graphing software. The server was named by FA donator Dax.
* '''Tonberry''' is a twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. This server is currently unused. The server was named by FA donator YiffyHusky.
* '''Lapse''' is a twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. This server is currently unused. Server is awaiting an official designation.

Fur Affinity also runs a Cisco 7301 router dubbed "Routezilla" as well as a 48-port [[wikipedia:Cisco|Cisco]] Catalyst 3560 switch known as "Switchthulu". This is the second Switchthulu, the original having been a 24-port Cisco 3750.

=== Retired ===

* '''Gecko''', the original FA server, is a dual 3.0Ghz Nocona [[Wikipedia:Xeon|Xeon]] system with 4GB of RAM. Storage consists of 2x 250GB hard drives. The server is still used to host [[Wikipedia:Team Fortress 2|Team Fortress 2]] servers for the [[Furry Pound]] and [[Wikipedia:Left 4 Dead|Left 4 Dead]] servers for the Fur Affinity Steam Gamers group.
* '''Trogdor''', FA's data server, was a [[Wikipedia:Dell|Dell]] Poweredge 2970 2U Server with 32GB RAM. Storage consists of 6x 1TB hard drives - 4x in a RAID10 array, 1x RAID hotspare and 1x local backups. Trogdor was retired in October 2011<ref>http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/108936-10-17-2011-File-read-only-mode</ref> and replaced with an unspecified model which is only known to have [https://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/86538088809107456 12 Terrabytes] worth of hard drives in it.

==Confirmed future features==

{| class="wikitable sortable" border="1"
|-
! scope="col" | Feature
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Official Mentions
! scope="col" | Status
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Notes
|-
| On-demand printing || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/371-FA-Funding December 2005] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/55797-is-FA-better-off-becoming-a-pay-site?p=1347804&viewfull=1#post1347804 November 2009] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Content filtering || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/3965-FA-Policy-Notice-Cub-Art November 2006] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented|| Proposed for Ferrox.
|-
| Gallery folders ||[http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/3969-Newbie-question-but...-folders November 2006] [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1648317/ August 2010] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6!?p=2314401&viewfull=1#post2314401 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented|| Proposed for Ferrox.
|-
| New UI || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/7472-FA-Project-UI-Overhaul April 2007] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/72193-New-FA-looks-exactly-like-steam-amp-DA-!-WTF!!?p=1853302&viewfull=1#post1853302 May 2010] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Canceled?<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3325316#cid:25505803</ref>|| Was in development at the same time as Ferrox.
|-
| New "dark" theme || [https://forums.vivisector.org/index.php?topic=588.msg6749#msg6749 May 2012] [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3887366/ October 2012]||style="background: #ffff99" | In Progress|| This project incorporates a new "dark" theme using some of the elements of the "New UI" that was canceled.
|-
| "Character Information" || [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3887366/ October 2012]||style="background: #ffff99" | In Progress|| A placeholder for a "Character Information" widget is present in the new dark theme.
|-
| Opossums (pss.ms) URL shortener || [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1648317/ August 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented|| pss.ms is currently down.
|-
| Web hosting || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/55797-is-FA-better-off-becoming-a-pay-site?p=1353001&viewfull=1#post1353001 November 2009] [http://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/10936829317 March 2010] [http://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/10936829317] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Supporter ribbons || [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1836349/ November 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Note/inbox search || [http://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/24023831950 September 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Artist list and reviews ''"Commission Ratings"'' || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/1342-Search-Function-User-List June 2006] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Improved commenting || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|}

== References ==
<references />

== See also ==

* [[FA Rank]]
* [[:Category:Fur Affinity administrators]]

== External links ==

* [http://community.livejournal.com/furaffinity/ ''Furaffinity Status' Journal'']. Fur Affinity on [[LiveJournal]]
* [http://furaffinity.tumblr.com Fur Affinity] on [[Tumblr]]
* [http://twitter.com/furaffinity Fur Affinity] on [[Twitter]]
* [https://www.facebook.com/furaffinity Fur Affinity] on [[Facebook]]
* [irc://irc.furnet.org/furaffinity #furaffinity] on [[FurNet (IRC)|FurNet IRC]]
* [http://steamcommunity.com/groups/FurAffinityGamers Fur Affinity Gamers] on Steam
* [http://irc.netsplit.de/channels/details.php?room=%23furaffinity&net=FurNet #furaffinity statistics] on [[http://irc.netsplit.de/ irc.netsplit.de]]

{{Fur Affinity topics}}
{{Media archives}}
[[Category:Mature art archives]][[Category:Mature story archives]][[Category:Mature_websites]][[Category:2005 births]]
{{featured article}}

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History of Fur Affinity

2012-09-29T00:51:03Z

Murrypurryfurry: /* History */ Sept. 2012 outage

{{cleanup}}
{{wikify}}
{{TOCright}}
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.{{fact}}

=== September 2012 outage ===
[[File:FA_Response_Time_Sept_2012.png|left|thumb|Five weeks of statistical data regarding FA page generation and load times around September 2012]]
Some time around 8:30PM (UTC) on September 8th, 2012, FurAffinity suffered a hardware failure that caused the site to go offline. The cause was attributed to a faulty RAID card<ref>http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/124469-09-08-2012-Site-Downtime?p=3032132&viewfull=1#post3032132</ref> in the database server that was not properly responding to a failed drive. FA did not have any spare drives on hand, and as the weekend was beginning, an order for a new drive wouldn't be processed until Monday and the drive wouldn't arrive until Tuesday.

The site came back up Sunday evening (after being down for nearly a day and a half) with extremely limited functionality ("Read-Only Mode" with the notes and notification system turned off) running on spare equipment. The site finally return to normal early Wednesday morning.

[http://habnab.it/fa Independent monitoring] of FurAffinity's response times by [http://www.furaffinity.net/user/Habnabit Habnabit] and other members of [[Vivisector]] showed a noticeable increase in SQL response times and page load times in the days leading up to the outage. It is believed that had FA been more proactive, the outage could have been avoided.

==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]]

Fur Affinity

2012-07-18T23:00:34Z

Murrypurryfurry: Removed extremely outdated statistics. It would be impossible for FA's "bandwidth peak" to still be 30Mbit/s when they recently had to upgrade to 350Mbit because they had hit their peak.

{{Infobox website
| title = Fur Affinity
| image = [[Image:Fender.jpg|150px]] Fender, drawn by [[Mutley James]]
| author = '''Owner:''' [[Dragoneer]]
* '''Site Founder:''' [[Alkora]]
* '''Lead Admin''': Dragoneer
* '''Admins''': [[Bazeel]], [[Cerberusnl]], [[Fay V]], [[Fox Amoore]], [[Oddy]] (music section), [[Skiefire]], [[Surgat]], [[Trpdwarf]], [[WarMocK]], [[Sciggles]]
* '''Support Admins''': [[Bengaley Summercat]], [[SSJ3Mewtwo]]
* '''Tech Staff''': [[Carenath]], [[Net-cat]], [[Tsawolf]], [[yak]]
| url = http://www.furaffinity.net/
http://sfw.furaffinity.net (family/work safe)
*'''Forums''': http://forums.furaffinity.net/
*'''Wiki''': http://wiki.furaffinity.net/
*'''LiveJournal''': http://community.livejournal.com/furaffinity/
*'''Twitter''': http://twitter.com/furaffinity
*'''IRC''': [irc://irc.furnet.org/furaffinity #furaffinity] on [[FurNet (IRC)|FurNet]]
*'''Steam''': [http://steamcommunity.com/groups/FurAffinityGamers FurAffinity Gamers]
| status =
| began = 16 January 2005 - 1 August 2005 (staff dispute & coding/server problems)
* 10 December 2005 - Present
| ended = Ongoing
| genre = Multimedia archive
| rating = {{Rating-nc17-button|center}}
}}

'''Fur Affinity''', also known as '''FA''', is the [[furry fandom]]'s largest online community, focusing on the promotion of art, music and stories.

The site was created in 2005 by [[Alkora]] as an alternative to various art community sites such as [[SheezyArt]] and [[deviantART]], distinguished by allowing artistic freedom of expression regardless of content rating. It is led by [[Dragoneer]] and [[Daemonshyai]].
{{WikiFurNews|Fur Affinity access disrupted amid ownership dispute}}
{{WikiFurNews|'Krystal sandwich' meme strikes Fur Affinity}}
{{FlayrahTag|fur-affinity|Fur Affinity}}
== History ==
{{main|History of Fur Affinity}}
Fur Affinity was launched on 16 January 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]]. Since then, it has suffered a few outages, most notably a month-long downtime over July 2008, but always managed to recover. In 2011, Fur Affinity announced it would be coming out with a new major version in connection to FA: United 4.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/89577-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6! Fur Affinity Turns 6!] - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity forum post (16 January 2011)</ref>

=== Fur Affinity: United! ===
{{main|FA: United}}
In August 2007, Fur Affinity held its own [[furry convention]], Fur Affinity: United! (or FA:U) in [[Wikipedia:Newark, New Jersey|Newark, New Jersey]]. The convention was a success, drawing 310 attendees and 25 [[fursuiter]]s in the [[fursuit parade|parade]], and was followed by another in 2008, drawing 381 attendees. In February 2009, Dragoneer announced FA: United 3 "Games United" for 28-30 May 2010.<ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/621616/ FAU3 Announcement]'' - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity journal (9 February 2009)</ref> No event was scheduled for 2009 due to the economic downturn.

== Features and rules ==
Fur Affinity's features for users include the ability to allow users to track new updates from particular [[artist]]s; highlight favorites; and upload a wide variety of art (images, music and stories). The site attempts to promote community through its comments system and individual journals.

While works of all ratings are accepted (other than ''photographic nudes and images whose intent are to slander or discredit others''<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/faq/ Fur Affinity FAQ]</ref>), art rated as mature or adult is not shown to visitors, or to users who have not specified it as a preference (which requires giving a date of birth indicating an age over 18). Keywords and tags can be added to works, though a feature that allowed blocking based on tags was disabled due to performance issues.

Fur Affinity's search engine was "temporarily disabled" in mid-2006 due to it taking up too many resources.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=1334 Admin mode on june 5th 2006]'' - Alkora, Fur Affinity forums (5 June 2006)</ref> A faux search feature was implemented for April Fool's Day 2007, much to the chagrin of some users.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=7229 Search is up!]'' - Fur Affinity Forums (1 April 2007)</ref> Search was reimplemented on 5 February 2009; it was initially labelled "That Thing You Want" and randomly included [[wikipedia:Rickrolling|rickrolls]].<ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/616339/ SEARCH]'' - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity journal (5 February 2009)</ref>

==Project Ferrox==
{{main|Ferrox (software)}}
The FA development team was working on a new backend system called [[Ferrox_(software)|Ferrox]] which was to be used for the next major revision of Fur Affinity, and was to be made available as [[Wikipedia:FOSS|FOSS]] (Free and Open Source Software) for other sites to use. By late 2009, development of Ferrox had stalled, with the last change to the code being made on September 7, 2009. Days earlier, net-cat, who was acting as the lead Ferrox developer after [[Eevee]] had left, announced that the code was to be frozen, citing that "Nobody knows Python."<ref>http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/49368-Code-freeze-on-current-Ferrox-codebase?p=1174129&viewfull=1#post1174129</ref>

== Mascots ==
[[Fender]] is the Fur Affinity [[mascot]]. He was primarily created by artist [[K-9]], based upon a character concept by [[Preyfar]]. He is half [[fox]] and half [[ferret]], commonly referring to himself as a 'ferrox'.

On April Fool's Day 2007, Fender was depicted in the site's banner as a busty female dragon, still wearing the trademark blue tie. This dragon was made a separate character from Fender and an official mascot of the site in May 2007, and named [[Rednef]], or "Fender" spelled backwards.

Fender was displayed as a three-toed [[sloth]] for April Fools' Day 2008. So far this sloth form has yet to become an official character.

== Criticisms ==
FurAffinity is largely criticized in the fandom for a variety of reasons, ranging from what users see as general incompetence among the entire staff to the absence of what many consider "modern" features that a website such as FurAffinity should have. Other criticisms include alleged favoritism between popular artists/high-profile fandom figures and the site administration, [[wikipedia:Cronyism|Cronyism]] among site staff, and the administration's general disregard of the userbase, failing to make important announcements (such as downtime or entering "read only mode") and communication with the users in general. The communication problems eventually lead to a disgruntled user creating a [[wikipedia:Parody|parody]] Twitter account called [http://twitter.com/FurAffinityPR FurAffinityPR].

== Controversies ==
{{main|History of Fur Affinity#Controversies}}

== Statistics ==
* In late 2010, the monthly hosting bill for FurAffinity was just under $1,700 <ref>''http://twitpic.com/2g8t5x'' - TwitPic Posted on August 19, 2010
by Dragoneer</ref>. This includes a full equipment rack, bandwidth, and IP addresses. The monthly cost likely increased with the addition of extra bandwidth (Increasing the total to 350Mbit) in early 2012.<ref>https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3484539/</ref>
* In less than a year since the site's re-launch, Fur Affinity gained over 45,000 users and over 300,000 submissions. {{fact}}
* Alexa has previously ranked Fur Affinity in the [http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?site0=www.furaffinity.net&site1=vclart.net&site2=&site3=&site4=&x=75&y=15&h=300&w=610&h=400&w=700&z=3&range=1y&size=medium&y=r&z=3&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.furaffinity.net top 4,000 sites] on the web in 1 November 2007, showing greater traffic than the VCL for most of the previous year. The trend continued through 2008 and 2009. Fur Affinity has ranked as high as 3,475 on individual days, and close to 2,000 in the USA. In October 2010, Fur Affinity's rank fell to 7681.
* Fur Affinity reached its 1,000,000th submission on 11 January 2008. It later reached its 2,000,000th submission on 15 February 2009, and its 3,000,000th submission in November 2009.
* As estimated by a week's worth of statistical data gathered in mid-November 2009, FA is serving an average of 50 page requests/second, from registered and guest users alike. {{fact}}

== Hardware ==
[[Image:Furaffinity Server Farm.jpg|thumb|Fur Affinity's servers Bahamut, Tiamat, Novastorm and Trogdor (unlabeled).]]
As of September 2010, Fur Affinity runs on the following servers:

* '''Tiamat''' is a twin dual-core 2.0Ghz [[Wikipedia:Opteron|Opteron 2212]] with 32GB DDR2-533 RAM. The server was used as the search server until August 31st, 2010 when it was discovered it had suffered a equipment failure<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/22617961790'' - FA Twitter</ref> It is unclear if Tiamat was ever brought back online or if Search was moved to another server. Storage consists of 4x 74GB 10K RPM hard drives in RAID10.
* '''Neo Bahamut''', FA's backup server, is a dual-core 2.0GHz Opteron with 2GB DDR2-667 RAM. Storage consists of 4x 1TB hard drives in RAID5. Nightly backups for both data and DB.
* '''Novastorm''', FA's database server, is a [[Wikipedia:Sun Fire|Sun Fire X4150]] manufactured by [[Wikipedia:Sun Microsystems]] with twin quad-core 2.5Ghz Xeon 5420 processors and 64GB of RAM (as of March 2010).<ref>[http://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/10912188478 Novastorm upgrade tweet] - [[Dragoneer]]'s twitter (23 March 2010)</ref> Storage consists of 2x 74GB 15K RPM hard drives in RAID1 and 6x146GB 15K RPM hard drives in RAID10.
* '''Figment''', an application server, is dual quad-core 2.33Ghz Xeon 5345 with 32GB of RAM and 4x 1TB of storage. Figment was purchased with the intent of offering hosting<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10203450025'' - FA Twitter - March 8, 2010</ref> on it "sometime in April... or May, or maybe August" of 2010<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10942579229'' - FA Twitter - March 23 2010</ref> and is currently serving advertisments<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10936829317'' - FA Twitter</ref>. Server was named by [[Sciggles]].<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10585322442'' - FA Twitter</ref>
* '''Shivan''' is a twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. This server is currently unused. The server was named by FA donator TlaiLaxu.
* '''Sparkz''' is a twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. This server is currently running traffic data graphing software. The server was named by FA donator Dax.
* '''Tonberry''' is a twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. This server is currently unused. The server was named by FA donator YiffyHusky.
* '''Lapse''' is a twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. This server is currently unused. Server is awaiting an official designation.

Fur Affinity also runs a Cisco 7301 router dubbed "Routezilla" as well as a 48-port [[wikipedia:Cisco|Cisco]] Catalyst 3560 switch known as "Switchthulu". This is the second Switchthulu, the original having been a 24-port Cisco 3750.

=== Retired ===
* '''Gecko''', the original FA server, is a dual 3.0Ghz Nocona [[Wikipedia:Xeon|Xeon]] system with 4GB of RAM. Storage consists of 2x 250GB hard drives. The server is still used to host [[Wikipedia:Team Fortress 2|Team Fortress 2]] servers for the [[Furry Pound]] and [[Wikipedia:Left 4 Dead|Left 4 Dead]] servers for the Fur Affinity Steam Gamers group.
* '''Trogdor''', FA's data server, was a [[Wikipedia:Dell|Dell]] Poweredge 2970 2U Server with 32GB RAM. Storage consists of 6x 1TB hard drives - 4x in a RAID10 array, 1x RAID hotspare and 1x local backups. Trogdor was retired in October 2011<ref>http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/108936-10-17-2011-File-read-only-mode</ref> and replaced with an unspecified model which is only known to have [https://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/86538088809107456 12 Terrabytes] worth of hard drives in it.

==Confirmed future features==
{| class="wikitable sortable" border="1"
|-
! scope="col" | Feature
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Official Mentions
! scope="col" | Status
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Notes
|-
| On-demand printing || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/371-FA-Funding December 2005] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/55797-is-FA-better-off-becoming-a-pay-site?p=1347804&viewfull=1#post1347804 November 2009] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Content filtering || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/3965-FA-Policy-Notice-Cub-Art November 2006] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented|| Proposed for Ferrox.
|-
| Gallery folders ||[http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/3969-Newbie-question-but...-folders November 2006] [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1648317/ August 2010] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6!?p=2314401&viewfull=1#post2314401 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented|| Proposed for Ferrox.
|-
| New UI || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/7472-FA-Project-UI-Overhaul April 2007] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/72193-New-FA-looks-exactly-like-steam-amp-DA-!-WTF!!?p=1853302&viewfull=1#post1853302 May 2010] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Development Suspended<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3325316#cid:25505803</ref>|| Was in development at the same time as Ferrox.
|-
| Opossums (pss.ms) URL shortener || [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1648317/ August 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented|| pss.ms is currently down.

|-
| Web hosting || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/55797-is-FA-better-off-becoming-a-pay-site?p=1353001&viewfull=1#post1353001 November 2009] [http://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/10936829317 March 2010] [http://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/10936829317] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Supporter ribbons || [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1836349/ November 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Note/inbox search || [http://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/24023831950 September 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Artist list and reviews ''"Commission Ratings"'' || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/1342-Search-Function-User-List June 2006] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Improved commenting || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|}

== References ==
<references />

== See also ==
* [[FA Rank]]
* [[:Category:Fur Affinity administrators]]

== External links ==
*[http://irc.netsplit.de/channels/details.php?room=%23furaffinity&net=FurNet #furaffinity statistics] on irc.netsplit.de

{{Fur Affinity topics}}
{{Media archives}}
[[Category:Mature art archives]][[Category:Mature story archives]][[Category:Mature_websites]][[Category:2005 births]]
{{featured article}}

[[de:Fur Affinity]]
[[es:Fur Affinity]]
[[fr:Fur Affinity]]
[[hu:Fur Affinity]]
[[ko:Fur Affinity]]
[[nl:Fur Affinity]]
[[pl:Fur Affinity]]
[[ru:Fur Affinity]]
[[sv:Fur Affinity]]
[[zh:Fur Affinity]]
[[no:Fur Affinity]]

FA: United

2012-07-18T22:53:29Z

Murrypurryfurry: /* Organization */

{{Infobox convention
| name = Fur Affinity: United (FA: United)
| logo = [[Image:FAUnitedlogo.png|200px]]
| subject = Furry
| location = {{flagdiv|usa|[[wikipedia:New Jersey|New Jersey]], [[wikipedia:United States|United States]]}}
| url = http://www.faunited.org
| status = Ongoing
| first = August 10-12th, 2007
| final =
| organizers = [[Northeast Anthropomorphic Association]]
| resources = {{con resources|Fur Affinity: United!}}
}}
{{FAUnited}}
'''Fur Affinity: United''' (also known as '''FA: United''' or '''FA:U''') is a [[furry]] [[convention]] held in [[Wikipedia:New Jersey|New Jersey]], USA. "United" was chosen as the convention's title to reflect [[Fur Affinity]] and the [[Northeast Anthropomorphic Association]]'s goal to help strengthen the Furry community's bond.

The convention focuses on live music and entertainment, hosting rock bands such as the [http://www.myspace.com/gayblades Gay Blades] during the convention.

==History==

===FA: United===
[[Image:Faushirt.jpg|right|thumb|280px|Fender on the back of the FA: United 2007 shirt, drawn by Sapphire. The front design was created by Thazumi.]]

Headed by [[Shy Matsi]], the [[Northeast Anthropomorphic Association]] (a non-profit 501(c)7 based in New Jersey) partnered with [[Fur Affinity]] began planning for a new convention in the New Jersey region in 2005 following [[Anthrocon]]'s announced move from Philadelphia, PA to Pittsburgh.

The convention was held August 10-12th, 2007 at the Ramada Newark Airport International (now Wyndham Garden Hotel Newark Airport) in [[Wikipedia:Newark, New Jersey|Newark, New Jersey]].<ref>[http://faunited.org/home/hotel/ Hotel Information - Ramada Inn, Elizabeth NJ], posted on 4 Nov 2006 at the FA: United! forum</ref>.

* Attendance: 310
* Fursuit parade count: 25
* Guests of Honor: [[Blotch]] and [[Roxikat]]
* [[Charity]]: $1,600<ref>[http://community.livejournal.com/faunited/10782.html Thanks For an Awesome Time!], posted on 16 Aug 2007 on the FA: United Livejournal</ref> to the [http://www.lakotawolf.com Lakota Wolf Preserve]<ref>[http://faunited.org/conforum/viewtopic.php?t=35 In Which a Charity Is Announced (and other February News)], posted on 22 Feb 2007 at the FA: United! forum</ref>
* Featured bands: [http://www.myspace.com/gayblades The Gay Blades], [http://www.sikamorrooney.com/ Sikamor Rooney], Zsa Zsa Gabortion and the Back Alley McBeals (led by staff member [[Sox Pup]])

Notes:

* More "founding member" sponsorships were purchased than regular sponsorships. "Founding Members" received a free, limited-edition "Fur Affinity" USB flash drive.
* [[Cake]] was the first active fursuit at FA: United.
* The con bag handed out at registration contained "FA Bucks," gift certificates which could be redeemed in the Dealer's Room or convention store for cash.
* All bands performed for free on the condition drinks would be on the house. {{fact}}

===FA: United 2 (2008)===

FA: United 2, "The Power of Rock", (dubbed FA:U2 as a play on the band name) took place August 1-3rd, at the [http://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/ewrap-newark-liberty-international-airport-marriott/ Newark Liberty International Airport Marriott].

* Attendance: 381 (14 international)
* Fursuit parade count: 26
* Guests of Honor: [[Fluke]] and [[SolidASP]]
* Charity: $1,820 to the [http://www.njspca.org/ New Jersey SPCA]<ref>[http://community.livejournal.com/faunited/22045.html You Guys Rock!], posted on 04 Aug 2008 on the FA: United Livejournal</ref>
* Featured bands: [http://www.myspace.com/gayblades Gay Blades] (at [[Opening Ceremonies]]), [http://www.myspace.com/thepress The Press], Shitty Grape Lollipops<ref>[http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?p=490366 Introducing the Bands], posted July 11, 2008 on FA: United! forum</ref>

===(2009)===

Due to financial issues, partly because of the ongoing [[Wikipedia:Financial crisis of 2007–2010|economic recession]], a standard size convention would not be feasible. This was to be compromised, however, with a "weekend party/cook out with music, booze and more" [[furmeet]] (which was considerably cheaper), to be held at the Pine Creek Miniature Golf course in [[Wikipedia:Ringoes, New Jersey|Ringoes, NJ]]. This was given the codename "FA: United 2.5" to bridge the gap between FAU2 and 3. But thanks to unfavorable weather conditions, scheduling problems, and disagreements FA: United 2.5 ultimately did not get off the ground, and thus 2009 was left without any organized activity for FA:U.

== Organization ==
In recent years the convention has shifted from being operated by FA United LLC (A [[Wikipedia:Limited liability company|limited liability company]] in the state of New Jersey (filing no. 0600336301)) to being operated by [[Fur Affinity|Ferrox Art LLC]], who owns and hosts Fur Affinity. This change has been reflected on the convention's website<ref>http://www.faunited.org/about.html</ref> and legal forms<ref>http://www.faunited.org/consent_form.pdf</ref>.

== References ==
<references/>

== See also ==
* [[:Category:FA: United guests of honor]]

== External links ==

* [http://twitter.com/faunited FA: United! official Twitter page]
* [http://community.livejournal.com/faunited/ FA: United! official community] on [[LiveJournal]]
* [http://www.furaffinity.net/user/faunited FA: United] on [[Fur Affinity]]

{{Fur Affinity topics}}
{{Conventions}}
[[Category:Conventions]]
[[Category:New Jersey]]
[[Category:2007 births]]

[[pl:FA: United]]

Fur Affinity

2012-06-17T10:11:10Z

Murrypurryfurry:

{{Infobox website
| title = Fur Affinity
| image = [[Image:Fender.jpg|150px]] Fender, drawn by [[Mutley James]]
| author = '''Owner:''' [[Dragoneer]]
* '''Site Founder:''' [[Alkora]]
* '''Lead Admin''': Dragoneer
* '''Admins''': [[Bazeel]], [[Cerberusnl]], [[Fay V]], [[Fox Amoore]], [[Oddy]] (music section), [[Skiefire]], [[Surgat]], [[Trpdwarf]], [[WarMocK]], [[Sciggles]]
* '''Support Admins''': [[Bengaley Summercat]], [[SSJ3Mewtwo]]
* '''Tech Staff''': [[Carenath]], [[Net-cat]], [[Tsawolf]], [[yak]]
| url = http://www.furaffinity.net/
http://sfw.furaffinity.net (family/work safe)
*'''Forums''': http://forums.furaffinity.net/
*'''Wiki''': http://wiki.furaffinity.net/
*'''LiveJournal''': http://community.livejournal.com/furaffinity/
*'''Twitter''': http://twitter.com/furaffinity
*'''IRC''': [irc://irc.furnet.org/furaffinity #furaffinity] on [[FurNet (IRC)|FurNet]]
*'''Steam''': [http://steamcommunity.com/groups/FurAffinityGamers FurAffinity Gamers]
| status =
| began = 16 January 2005 - 1 August 2005 (staff dispute & coding/server problems)
* 10 December 2005 - Present
| ended = Ongoing
| genre = Multimedia archive
| rating = {{Rating-nc17-button|center}}
}}

'''Fur Affinity''', also known as '''FA''', is the [[furry fandom]]'s largest online community, focusing on the promotion of art, music and stories.

The site was created in 2005 by [[Alkora]] as an alternative to various art community sites such as [[SheezyArt]] and [[deviantART]], distinguished by allowing artistic freedom of expression regardless of content rating. It is led by [[Dragoneer]] and [[Daemonshyai]].
{{WikiFurNews|Fur Affinity access disrupted amid ownership dispute}}
{{WikiFurNews|'Krystal sandwich' meme strikes Fur Affinity}}
{{FlayrahTag|fur-affinity|Fur Affinity}}
== History ==
{{main|History of Fur Affinity}}
Fur Affinity was launched on 16 January 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]]. Since then, it has suffered a few outages, most notably a month-long downtime over July 2008, but always managed to recover. In 2011, Fur Affinity announced it would be coming out with a new major version in connection to FA: United 4.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/89577-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6! Fur Affinity Turns 6!] - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity forum post (16 January 2011)</ref>

=== Fur Affinity: United! ===
{{main|FA: United}}
In August 2007, Fur Affinity held its own [[furry convention]], Fur Affinity: United! (or FA:U) in [[Wikipedia:Newark, New Jersey|Newark, New Jersey]]. The convention was a success, drawing 310 attendees and 25 [[fursuiter]]s in the [[fursuit parade|parade]], and was followed by another in 2008, drawing 381 attendees. In February 2009, Dragoneer announced FA: United 3 "Games United" for 28-30 May 2010.<ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/621616/ FAU3 Announcement]'' - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity journal (9 February 2009)</ref> No event was scheduled for 2009 due to the economic downturn.

== Features and rules ==
Fur Affinity's features for users include the ability to allow users to track new updates from particular [[artist]]s; highlight favorites; and upload a wide variety of art (images, music and stories). The site attempts to promote community through its comments system and individual journals.

While works of all ratings are accepted (other than ''photographic nudes and images whose intent are to slander or discredit others''<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/faq/ Fur Affinity FAQ]</ref>), art rated as mature or adult is not shown to visitors, or to users who have not specified it as a preference (which requires giving a date of birth indicating an age over 18). Keywords and tags can be added to works, though a feature that allowed blocking based on tags was disabled due to performance issues.

Fur Affinity's search engine was "temporarily disabled" in mid-2006 due to it taking up too many resources.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=1334 Admin mode on june 5th 2006]'' - Alkora, Fur Affinity forums (5 June 2006)</ref> A faux search feature was implemented for April Fool's Day 2007, much to the chagrin of some users.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=7229 Search is up!]'' - Fur Affinity Forums (1 April 2007)</ref> Search was reimplemented on 5 February 2009; it was initially labelled "That Thing You Want" and randomly included [[wikipedia:Rickrolling|rickrolls]].<ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/616339/ SEARCH]'' - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity journal (5 February 2009)</ref>

==Project Ferrox==
{{main|Ferrox (software)}}
The FA development team was working on a new backend system called [[Ferrox_(software)|Ferrox]] which was to be used for the next major revision of Fur Affinity, and was to be made available as [[Wikipedia:FOSS|FOSS]] (Free and Open Source Software) for other sites to use. By late 2009, development of Ferrox had stalled, with the last change to the code being made on September 7, 2009. Days earlier, net-cat, who was acting as the lead Ferrox developer after [[Eevee]] had left, announced that the code was to be frozen, citing that "Nobody knows Python."<ref>http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/49368-Code-freeze-on-current-Ferrox-codebase?p=1174129&viewfull=1#post1174129</ref>

== Mascots ==
[[Fender]] is the Fur Affinity [[mascot]]. He was primarily created by artist [[K-9]], based upon a character concept by [[Preyfar]]. He is half [[fox]] and half [[ferret]], commonly referring to himself as a 'ferrox'.

On April Fool's Day 2007, Fender was depicted in the site's banner as a busty female dragon, still wearing the trademark blue tie. This dragon was made a separate character from Fender and an official mascot of the site in May 2007, and named [[Rednef]], or "Fender" spelled backwards.

Fender was displayed as a three-toed [[sloth]] for April Fools' Day 2008. So far this sloth form has yet to become an official character.

== Criticisms ==
FurAffinity is largely criticized in the fandom for a variety of reasons, ranging from what users see as general incompetence among the entire staff to the absence of what many consider "modern" features that a website such as FurAffinity should have. Other criticisms include alleged favoritism between popular artists/high-profile fandom figures and the site administration, [[wikipedia:Cronyism|Cronyism]] among site staff, and the administration's general disregard of the userbase, failing to make important announcements (such as downtime or entering "read only mode") and communication with the users in general. The communication problems eventually lead to a disgruntled user creating a [[wikipedia:Parody|parody]] Twitter account called [http://twitter.com/FurAffinityPR FurAffinityPR].

== Controversies ==
{{main|History of Fur Affinity#Controversies}}

== Statistics ==
* The monthly hosting bill for FurAffinity is just under $1,700 <ref>''http://twitpic.com/2g8t5x'' - TwitPic Posted on August 19, 2010
by Dragoneer</ref>. This includes a full equipment rack, bandwidth, and IP addresses.
* In less than a year since the site's re-launch, Fur Affinity gained over 45,000 users and over 300,000 submissions. {{fact}}
* The site transfers a daily average of nearly 80 GB of data and well over 10,000,000 individual files. The site's peak bandwidth record stands at 33.2Mbit.{{fact}}
* Alexa has previously ranked Fur Affinity in the [http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?site0=www.furaffinity.net&site1=vclart.net&site2=&site3=&site4=&x=75&y=15&h=300&w=610&h=400&w=700&z=3&range=1y&size=medium&y=r&z=3&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.furaffinity.net top 4,000 sites] on the web in 1 November 2007, showing greater traffic than the VCL for most of the previous year. The trend continued through 2008 and 2009. Fur Affinity has ranked as high as 3,475 on individual days, and close to 2,000 in the USA. In October 2010, Fur Affinity's rank fell to 7681.
* Fur Affinity got approximately 2.5 million page hits per day as of mid-January 2007.{{fact}}
* Fur Affinity reached its 1,000,000th submission on 11 January 2008. It later reached its 2,000,000th submission on 15 February 2009, and its 3,000,000th submission in November 2009.
* On average, Fur Affinity receives approximately 4,600 submissions a day. {{fact}}
* As estimated by a week's worth of statistical data gathered in mid-November 2009, FA is serving an average of 50 page requests/second, from registered and guest users alike. {{fact}}
* Fur Affinity receives several million pageviews every day, apparently peaking on September 28th, 2010, at 5.2 million pageviews.

== Hardware ==
[[Image:Furaffinity Server Farm.jpg|thumb|Fur Affinity's servers Bahamut, Tiamat, Novastorm and Trogdor (unlabeled).]]
As of September 2010, Fur Affinity runs on the following servers:

* '''Tiamat''' is a twin dual-core 2.0Ghz [[Wikipedia:Opteron|Opteron 2212]] with 32GB DDR2-533 RAM. The server was used as the search server until August 31st, 2010 when it was discovered it had suffered a equipment failure<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/22617961790'' - FA Twitter</ref> It is unclear if Tiamat was ever brought back online or if Search was moved to another server. Storage consists of 4x 74GB 10K RPM hard drives in RAID10.
* '''Neo Bahamut''', FA's backup server, is a dual-core 2.0GHz Opteron with 2GB DDR2-667 RAM. Storage consists of 4x 1TB hard drives in RAID5. Nightly backups for both data and DB.
* '''Novastorm''', FA's database server, is a [[Wikipedia:Sun Fire|Sun Fire X4150]] manufactured by [[Wikipedia:Sun Microsystems]] with twin quad-core 2.5Ghz Xeon 5420 processors and 64GB of RAM (as of March 2010).<ref>[http://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/10912188478 Novastorm upgrade tweet] - [[Dragoneer]]'s twitter (23 March 2010)</ref> Storage consists of 2x 74GB 15K RPM hard drives in RAID1 and 6x146GB 15K RPM hard drives in RAID10.
* '''Figment''', an application server, is dual quad-core 2.33Ghz Xeon 5345 with 32GB of RAM and 4x 1TB of storage. Figment was purchased with the intent of offering hosting<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10203450025'' - FA Twitter - March 8, 2010</ref> on it "sometime in April... or May, or maybe August" of 2010<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10942579229'' - FA Twitter - March 23 2010</ref> and is currently serving advertisments<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10936829317'' - FA Twitter</ref>. Server was named by [[Sciggles]].<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10585322442'' - FA Twitter</ref>
* '''Shivan''' is a twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. This server is currently unused. The server was named by FA donator TlaiLaxu.
* '''Sparkz''' is a twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. This server is currently running traffic data graphing software. The server was named by FA donator Dax.
* '''Tonberry''' is a twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. This server is currently unused. The server was named by FA donator YiffyHusky.
* '''Lapse''' is a twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. This server is currently unused. Server is awaiting an official designation.

Fur Affinity also runs a Cisco 7301 router dubbed "Routezilla" as well as a 48-port [[wikipedia:Cisco|Cisco]] Catalyst 3560 switch known as "Switchthulu". This is the second Switchthulu, the original having been a 24-port Cisco 3750.

=== Retired ===
* '''Gecko''', the original FA server, is a dual 3.0Ghz Nocona [[Wikipedia:Xeon|Xeon]] system with 4GB of RAM. Storage consists of 2x 250GB hard drives. The server is still used to host [[Wikipedia:Team Fortress 2|Team Fortress 2]] servers for the [[Furry Pound]] and [[Wikipedia:Left 4 Dead|Left 4 Dead]] servers for the Fur Affinity Steam Gamers group.
* '''Trogdor''', FA's data server, was a [[Wikipedia:Dell|Dell]] Poweredge 2970 2U Server with 32GB RAM. Storage consists of 6x 1TB hard drives - 4x in a RAID10 array, 1x RAID hotspare and 1x local backups. Trogdor was retired in October 2011<ref>http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/108936-10-17-2011-File-read-only-mode</ref> and replaced with an unspecified model which is only known to have [https://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/86538088809107456 12 Terrabytes] worth of hard drives in it.

==Confirmed future features==
{| class="wikitable sortable" border="1"
|-
! scope="col" | Feature
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Official Mentions
! scope="col" | Status
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Notes
|-
| On-demand printing || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/371-FA-Funding December 2005] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/55797-is-FA-better-off-becoming-a-pay-site?p=1347804&viewfull=1#post1347804 November 2009] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Content filtering || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/3965-FA-Policy-Notice-Cub-Art November 2006] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented|| Proposed for Ferrox.
|-
| Gallery folders ||[http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/3969-Newbie-question-but...-folders November 2006] [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1648317/ August 2010] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6!?p=2314401&viewfull=1#post2314401 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented|| Proposed for Ferrox.
|-
| New UI || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/7472-FA-Project-UI-Overhaul April 2007] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/72193-New-FA-looks-exactly-like-steam-amp-DA-!-WTF!!?p=1853302&viewfull=1#post1853302 May 2010] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Development Suspended<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3325316#cid:25505803</ref>|| Was in development at the same time as Ferrox.
|-
| Opossums (pss.ms) URL shortener || [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1648317/ August 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented|| pss.ms is currently down.

|-
| Web hosting || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/55797-is-FA-better-off-becoming-a-pay-site?p=1353001&viewfull=1#post1353001 November 2009] [http://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/10936829317 March 2010] [http://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/10936829317] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Supporter ribbons || [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1836349/ November 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Note/inbox search || [http://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/24023831950 September 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Artist list and reviews ''"Commission Ratings"'' || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/1342-Search-Function-User-List June 2006] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Improved commenting || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|}

== References ==
<references />

== See also ==
* [[FA Rank]]
* [[:Category:Fur Affinity administrators]]

== External links ==
*[http://irc.netsplit.de/channels/details.php?room=%23furaffinity&net=FurNet #furaffinity statistics] on irc.netsplit.de

{{Fur Affinity topics}}
{{Media archives}}
[[Category:Mature art archives]][[Category:Mature story archives]][[Category:Mature_websites]][[Category:2005 births]]
{{featured article}}

[[de:Fur Affinity]]
[[es:Fur Affinity]]
[[fr:Fur Affinity]]
[[hu:Fur Affinity]]
[[ko:Fur Affinity]]
[[nl:Fur Affinity]]
[[pl:Fur Affinity]]
[[ru:Fur Affinity]]
[[sv:Fur Affinity]]
[[zh:Fur Affinity]]
[[no:Fur Affinity]]

Fur Paws

2012-06-17T09:31:28Z

Murrypurryfurry:

{{time}}
{{Infobox website
| title = Fur Paws
| image = [[Image:FurPaws.jpg|200px]] The Fur Paws logo, with mascot Connor.
| author = '''Owner:''' [[Alkora]]
* '''Moderators''': [[Aerak]], [[Larus]], [[Kitsunekla]], [[Katmomma]]
* '''Support staff''': [[Bungle Bearskunk]], [[TOS]]
| url = http://www.furpaws.net/
*'''Twitter''': [http://twitter.com/fur_paws fur_paws]
| status = Online
| began = September 2010
| ended = July 2012
| genre = Multimedia archive
| rating = {{Rating-nc17-button}}
}}
'''Fur Paws''' (originally '''Art Paws''') is a "social network for artists" created by [[Alkora]]. Fur Paws allows users to upload mature artwork. The website is still in development; current distinguishing features include multi-picture character profiles and folders.

On June 4th, 2012, Fur Paws announced that the site would shut down on July 1st of that year.<ref>https://twitter.com/fur_paws/status/209826040946753536</ref>

== Mascot ==
The Fur Paws mascot is Connor, a border collie.

{{website-stub}}

[[Category:Mature art archives]]
[[Category:2010 births]]

Fur Affinity

2012-04-16T08:00:42Z

Murrypurryfurry: /* Hardware */

{{Infobox website
| title = Fur Affinity
| image = [[Image:Fender.jpg|150px]] Fender, drawn by [[Mutley James]]
| author = '''Owner:''' [[Dragoneer]]
* '''Site Founder:''' [[Alkora]]
* '''Lead Admin''': Dragoneer
* '''Admins''': [[Bazeel]], [[Cerberusnl]], [[Fay V]], [[Fox Amoore]], [[Oddy]] (music section), [[Skiefire]], [[Surgat]], [[Trpdwarf]], [[WarMocK]], [[Sciggles]]
* '''Support Admins''': [[Bengaley Summercat]], [[SSJ3Mewtwo]]
* '''Tech Staff''': [[Carenath]], [[Net-cat]], [[Tsawolf]], [[yak]]
| url = http://www.furaffinity.net/
http://sfw.furaffinity.net (family/work safe)
*'''Forums''': http://forums.furaffinity.net/
*'''Wiki''': http://wiki.furaffinity.net/
*'''LiveJournal''': http://community.livejournal.com/furaffinity/
*'''Twitter''': http://twitter.com/furaffinity
*'''IRC''': [irc://irc.furnet.org/furaffinity #furaffinity] on [[FurNet (IRC)|FurNet]]
*'''Steam''': [http://steamcommunity.com/groups/FurAffinityGamers FurAffinity Gamers]
| status =
| began = 16 January 2005 - 1 August 2005 (staff dispute & coding/server problems)
* 10 December 2005 - Present
| ended = Ongoing
| genre = Multimedia archive
| rating = {{Rating-nc17-button|center}}
}}

'''Fur Affinity''', also known as '''FA''', is the [[furry fandom]]'s largest online community, focusing on the promotion of art, music and stories.

The site was created in 2005 by [[Alkora]] as an alternative to various art community sites such as [[SheezyArt]] and [[deviantART]], distinguished by allowing artistic freedom of expression regardless of content rating. It is led by [[Dragoneer]] and [[Daemonshyai]].
{{WikiFurNews|Fur Affinity access disrupted amid ownership dispute}}
{{WikiFurNews|'Krystal sandwich' meme strikes Fur Affinity}}
{{FlayrahTag|fur-affinity|Fur Affinity}}
== History ==
{{main|History of Fur Affinity}}
Fur Affinity was launched on 16 January 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]]. Since then, it has suffered a few outages, most notably a month-long downtime over July 2008, but always managed to recover. In 2011, Fur Affinity announced it would be coming out with a new major version in connection to FA: United 4.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/89577-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6! Fur Affinity Turns 6!] - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity forum post (16 January 2011)</ref>

=== Fur Affinity: United! ===
{{main|FA: United}}
In August 2007, Fur Affinity held its own [[furry convention]], Fur Affinity: United! (or FA:U) in [[Wikipedia:Newark, New Jersey|Newark, New Jersey]]. The convention was a success, drawing 310 attendees and 25 [[fursuiter]]s in the [[fursuit parade|parade]], and was followed by another in 2008, drawing 381 attendees. In February 2009, Dragoneer announced FA: United 3 "Games United" for 28-30 May 2010.<ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/621616/ FAU3 Announcement]'' - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity journal (9 February 2009)</ref> No event was scheduled for 2009 due to the economic downturn.

== Features and rules ==
Fur Affinity's features for users include the ability to allow users to track new updates from particular [[artist]]s; highlight favorites; and upload a wide variety of art (images, music and stories). The site attempts to promote community through its comments system and individual journals.

While works of all ratings are accepted (other than ''photographic nudes and images whose intent are to slander or discredit others''<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/faq/ Fur Affinity FAQ]</ref>), art rated as mature or adult is not shown to visitors, or to users who have not specified it as a preference (which requires giving a date of birth indicating an age over 18). Keywords and tags can be added to works, though a feature that allowed blocking based on tags was disabled due to performance issues.

Fur Affinity's search engine was "temporarily disabled" in mid-2006 due to it taking up too many resources.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=1334 Admin mode on june 5th 2006]'' - Alkora, Fur Affinity forums (5 June 2006)</ref> A faux search feature was implemented for April Fool's Day 2007, much to the chagrin of some users.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=7229 Search is up!]'' - Fur Affinity Forums (1 April 2007)</ref> Search was reimplemented on 5 February 2009; it was initially labelled "That Thing You Want" and randomly included [[wikipedia:Rickrolling|rickrolls]].<ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/616339/ SEARCH]'' - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity journal (5 February 2009)</ref>

==Project Ferrox==
{{main|Ferrox (software)}}
The FA development team was working on a new backend system called [[Ferrox_(software)|Ferrox]] which was to be used for the next major revision of Fur Affinity, and was to be made available as [[Wikipedia:FOSS|FOSS]] (Free and Open Source Software) for other sites to use. As of late 2009, development of Ferrox has stalled, with the last change to the code being made on September 7, 2009. FurAffinity has since then decided to upgrade the UI of the existing code instead.

== Mascots ==
[[Fender]] is the Fur Affinity [[mascot]]. He was primarily created by artist [[K-9]], based upon a character concept by [[Preyfar]]. He is half [[fox]] and half [[ferret]], commonly referring to himself as a 'ferrox'.

On April Fool's Day 2007, Fender was depicted in the site's banner as a busty female dragon, still wearing the trademark blue tie. This dragon was made a separate character from Fender and an official mascot of the site in May 2007, and named [[Rednef]], or "Fender" spelled backwards.

Fender was displayed as a three-toed [[sloth]] for April Fools' Day 2008. So far this sloth form has yet to become an official character.

== Controversies ==
{{main|History of Fur Affinity#Controversies}}

== Statistics ==
* The monthly hosting bill for FurAffinity is just under $1,700 <ref>''http://twitpic.com/2g8t5x'' - TwitPic Posted on August 19, 2010
by Dragoneer</ref>. This includes a full equipment rack, bandwidth, and IP addresses.
* In less than a year since the site's re-launch, Fur Affinity gained over 45,000 users and over 300,000 submissions. {{fact}}
* The site transfers a daily average of nearly 80 GB of data and well over 10,000,000 individual files. The site's peak bandwidth record stands at 33.2Mbit.{{fact}}
* Alexa has previously ranked Fur Affinity in the [http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?site0=www.furaffinity.net&site1=vclart.net&site2=&site3=&site4=&x=75&y=15&h=300&w=610&h=400&w=700&z=3&range=1y&size=medium&y=r&z=3&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.furaffinity.net top 4,000 sites] on the web in 1 November 2007, showing greater traffic than the VCL for most of the previous year. The trend continued through 2008 and 2009. Fur Affinity has ranked as high as 3,475 on individual days, and close to 2,000 in the USA. In October 2010, Fur Affinity's rank fell to 7681.
* Fur Affinity got approximately 2.5 million page hits per day as of mid-January 2007.{{fact}}
* Fur Affinity reached its 1,000,000th submission on 11 January 2008. It later reached its 2,000,000th submission on 15 February 2009, and its 3,000,000th submission in November 2009.
* On average, Fur Affinity receives approximately 4,600 submissions a day. {{fact}}
* As estimated by a week's worth of statistical data gathered in mid-November 2009, FA is serving an average of 50 page requests/second, from registered and guest users alike. {{fact}}
* Fur Affinity receives several million pageviews every day, apparently peaking on September 28th, 2010, at 5.2 million pageviews.

== Hardware ==
[[Image:Furaffinity Server Farm.jpg|thumb|Fur Affinity's servers Bahamut, Tiamat, Novastorm and Trogdor (unlabeled).]]
As of September 2010, Fur Affinity runs on the following servers:

* '''Tiamat''' is a twin dual-core 2.0Ghz [[Wikipedia:Opteron|Opteron 2212]] with 32GB DDR2-533 RAM. The server was used as the search server until August 31st, 2010 when it was discovered it had suffered a equipment failure<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/22617961790'' - FA Twitter</ref> It is unclear if Tiamat was ever brought back online or if Search was moved to another server. Storage consists of 4x 74GB 10K RPM hard drives in RAID10.
* '''Neo Bahamut''', FA's backup server, is a dual-core 2.0GHz Opteron with 2GB DDR2-667 RAM. Storage consists of 4x 1TB hard drives in RAID5. Nightly backups for both data and DB.
* '''Novastorm''', FA's database server, is a [[Wikipedia:Sun Fire|Sun Fire X4150]] manufactured by [[Wikipedia:Sun Microsystems]] with twin quad-core 2.5Ghz Xeon 5420 processors and 64GB of RAM (as of March 2010).<ref>[http://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/10912188478 Novastorm upgrade tweet] - [[Dragoneer]]'s twitter (23 March 2010)</ref> Storage consists of 2x 74GB 15K RPM hard drives in RAID1 and 6x146GB 15K RPM hard drives in RAID10.
* '''Figment''', an application server, is dual quad-core 2.33Ghz Xeon 5345 with 32GB of RAM and 4x 1TB of storage. Figment was purchased with the intent of offering hosting<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10203450025'' - FA Twitter - March 8, 2010</ref> on it "sometime in April... or May, or maybe August" of 2010<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10942579229'' - FA Twitter - March 23 2010</ref> and is currently serving advertisments<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10936829317'' - FA Twitter</ref>. Server was named by [[Sciggles]].<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10585322442'' - FA Twitter</ref>
* '''Shivan''' is a twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. This server is currently unused. The server was named by FA donator TlaiLaxu.
* '''Sparkz''' is a twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. This server is currently running traffic data graphing software. The server was named by FA donator Dax.
* '''Tonberry''' is a twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. This server is currently unused. The server was named by FA donator YiffyHusky.
* '''Lapse''' is a twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. This server is currently unused. Server is awaiting an official designation.

Fur Affinity also runs a Cisco 7301 router dubbed "Routezilla" as well as a 48-port [[wikipedia:Cisco|Cisco]] Catalyst 3560 switch known as "Switchthulu". This is the second Switchthulu, the original having been a 24-port Cisco 3750.

=== Retired ===
* '''Gecko''', the original FA server, is a dual 3.0Ghz Nocona [[Wikipedia:Xeon|Xeon]] system with 4GB of RAM. Storage consists of 2x 250GB hard drives. The server is still used to host [[Wikipedia:Team Fortress 2|Team Fortress 2]] servers for the [[Furry Pound]] and [[Wikipedia:Left 4 Dead|Left 4 Dead]] servers for the Fur Affinity Steam Gamers group.
* '''Trogdor''', FA's data server, was a [[Wikipedia:Dell|Dell]] Poweredge 2970 2U Server with 32GB RAM. Storage consists of 6x 1TB hard drives - 4x in a RAID10 array, 1x RAID hotspare and 1x local backups. Trogdor was retired in October 2011<ref>http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/108936-10-17-2011-File-read-only-mode</ref> and replaced with an unspecified model which is only known to have [https://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/86538088809107456 12 Terrabytes] worth of hard drives in it.

==Confirmed future features==
{| class="wikitable sortable" border="1"
|-
! scope="col" | Feature
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Official Mentions
! scope="col" | Status
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Notes
|-
| On-Demand Printing || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/371-FA-Funding December 2005] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/55797-is-FA-better-off-becoming-a-pay-site?p=1347804&viewfull=1#post1347804 November 2009] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Content Filtering || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/3965-FA-Policy-Notice-Cub-Art November 2006] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented|| Proposed for Ferrox.
|-
| Gallery Folders ||[http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/3969-Newbie-question-but...-folders November 2006] [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1648317/ August 2010] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6!?p=2314401&viewfull=1#post2314401 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented|| Proposed for Ferrox.
|-
| New UI || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/7472-FA-Project-UI-Overhaul April 2007] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/72193-New-FA-looks-exactly-like-steam-amp-DA-!-WTF!!?p=1853302&viewfull=1#post1853302 May 2010] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Development Suspended<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3325316#cid:25505803</ref>|| Was in development at the same time as Ferrox.
|-
| Opossums (pss.ms) URL Shortener || [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1648317/ August 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented|| pss.ms is currently down.

|-
| Web Hosting || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/55797-is-FA-better-off-becoming-a-pay-site?p=1353001&viewfull=1#post1353001 November 2009] [http://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/10936829317 March 2010] [http://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/10936829317] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Supporter Ribbons || [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1836349/ November 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Note/Inbox Search || [http://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/24023831950 September 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Artist List and Reviews ''"Commission Ratings"'' || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/1342-Search-Function-User-List June 2006] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Improved Commenting || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffff99" | In Development||
|}

== References ==
<references />

== See also ==
* [[FA Rank]]
* [[:Category:Fur Affinity administrators]]

== External links ==
*[http://irc.netsplit.de/channels/details.php?room=%23furaffinity&net=FurNet #furaffinity statistics] on irc.netsplit.de

{{Fur Affinity topics}}
{{Media archives}}
[[Category:Mature art archives]][[Category:Mature story archives]][[Category:Mature_websites]][[Category:2005 births]]
{{featured article}}

[[de:Fur Affinity]]
[[es:Fur Affinity]]
[[fr:Fur Affinity]]
[[hu:Fur Affinity]]
[[ko:Fur Affinity]]
[[nl:Fur Affinity]]
[[pl:Fur Affinity]]
[[ru:Fur Affinity]]
[[sv:Fur Affinity]]
[[zh:Fur Affinity]]
[[no:Fur Affinity]]

Fur Affinity

2012-04-16T07:07:14Z

Murrypurryfurry: /* Confirmed future features */

{{Infobox website
| title = Fur Affinity
| image = [[Image:Fender.jpg|150px]] Fender, drawn by [[Mutley James]]
| author = '''Owner:''' [[Dragoneer]]
* '''Site Founder:''' [[Alkora]]
* '''Lead Admin''': Dragoneer
* '''Admins''': [[Bazeel]], [[Cerberusnl]], [[Fay V]], [[Fox Amoore]], [[Oddy]] (music section), [[Skiefire]], [[Surgat]], [[Trpdwarf]], [[WarMocK]], [[Sciggles]]
* '''Support Admins''': [[Bengaley Summercat]], [[SSJ3Mewtwo]]
* '''Tech Staff''': [[Carenath]], [[Net-cat]], [[Tsawolf]], [[yak]]
| url = http://www.furaffinity.net/
http://sfw.furaffinity.net (family/work safe)
*'''Forums''': http://forums.furaffinity.net/
*'''Wiki''': http://wiki.furaffinity.net/
*'''LiveJournal''': http://community.livejournal.com/furaffinity/
*'''Twitter''': http://twitter.com/furaffinity
*'''IRC''': [irc://irc.furnet.org/furaffinity #furaffinity] on [[FurNet (IRC)|FurNet]]
*'''Steam''': [http://steamcommunity.com/groups/FurAffinityGamers FurAffinity Gamers]
| status =
| began = 16 January 2005 - 1 August 2005 (staff dispute & coding/server problems)
* 10 December 2005 - Present
| ended = Ongoing
| genre = Multimedia archive
| rating = {{Rating-nc17-button|center}}
}}

'''Fur Affinity''', also known as '''FA''', is the [[furry fandom]]'s largest online community, focusing on the promotion of art, music and stories.

The site was created in 2005 by [[Alkora]] as an alternative to various art community sites such as [[SheezyArt]] and [[deviantART]], distinguished by allowing artistic freedom of expression regardless of content rating. It is led by [[Dragoneer]] and [[Daemonshyai]].
{{WikiFurNews|Fur Affinity access disrupted amid ownership dispute}}
{{WikiFurNews|'Krystal sandwich' meme strikes Fur Affinity}}
{{FlayrahTag|fur-affinity|Fur Affinity}}
== History ==
{{main|History of Fur Affinity}}
Fur Affinity was launched on 16 January 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]]. Since then, it has suffered a few outages, most notably a month-long downtime over July 2008, but always managed to recover. In 2011, Fur Affinity announced it would be coming out with a new major version in connection to FA: United 4.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/89577-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6! Fur Affinity Turns 6!] - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity forum post (16 January 2011)</ref>

=== Fur Affinity: United! ===
{{main|FA: United}}
In August 2007, Fur Affinity held its own [[furry convention]], Fur Affinity: United! (or FA:U) in [[Wikipedia:Newark, New Jersey|Newark, New Jersey]]. The convention was a success, drawing 310 attendees and 25 [[fursuiter]]s in the [[fursuit parade|parade]], and was followed by another in 2008, drawing 381 attendees. In February 2009, Dragoneer announced FA: United 3 "Games United" for 28-30 May 2010.<ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/621616/ FAU3 Announcement]'' - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity journal (9 February 2009)</ref> No event was scheduled for 2009 due to the economic downturn.

== Features and rules ==
Fur Affinity's features for users include the ability to allow users to track new updates from particular [[artist]]s; highlight favorites; and upload a wide variety of art (images, music and stories). The site attempts to promote community through its comments system and individual journals.

While works of all ratings are accepted (other than ''photographic nudes and images whose intent are to slander or discredit others''<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/faq/ Fur Affinity FAQ]</ref>), art rated as mature or adult is not shown to visitors, or to users who have not specified it as a preference (which requires giving a date of birth indicating an age over 18). Keywords and tags can be added to works, though a feature that allowed blocking based on tags was disabled due to performance issues.

Fur Affinity's search engine was "temporarily disabled" in mid-2006 due to it taking up too many resources.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=1334 Admin mode on june 5th 2006]'' - Alkora, Fur Affinity forums (5 June 2006)</ref> A faux search feature was implemented for April Fool's Day 2007, much to the chagrin of some users.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=7229 Search is up!]'' - Fur Affinity Forums (1 April 2007)</ref> Search was reimplemented on 5 February 2009; it was initially labelled "That Thing You Want" and randomly included [[wikipedia:Rickrolling|rickrolls]].<ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/616339/ SEARCH]'' - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity journal (5 February 2009)</ref>

==Project Ferrox==
{{main|Ferrox (software)}}
The FA development team was working on a new backend system called [[Ferrox_(software)|Ferrox]] which was to be used for the next major revision of Fur Affinity, and was to be made available as [[Wikipedia:FOSS|FOSS]] (Free and Open Source Software) for other sites to use. As of late 2009, development of Ferrox has stalled, with the last change to the code being made on September 7, 2009. FurAffinity has since then decided to upgrade the UI of the existing code instead.

== Mascots ==
[[Fender]] is the Fur Affinity [[mascot]]. He was primarily created by artist [[K-9]], based upon a character concept by [[Preyfar]]. He is half [[fox]] and half [[ferret]], commonly referring to himself as a 'ferrox'.

On April Fool's Day 2007, Fender was depicted in the site's banner as a busty female dragon, still wearing the trademark blue tie. This dragon was made a separate character from Fender and an official mascot of the site in May 2007, and named [[Rednef]], or "Fender" spelled backwards.

Fender was displayed as a three-toed [[sloth]] for April Fools' Day 2008. So far this sloth form has yet to become an official character.

== Controversies ==
{{main|History of Fur Affinity#Controversies}}

== Statistics ==
* The monthly hosting bill for FurAffinity is just under $1,700 <ref>''http://twitpic.com/2g8t5x'' - TwitPic Posted on August 19, 2010
by Dragoneer</ref>. This includes a full equipment rack, bandwidth, and IP addresses.
* In less than a year since the site's re-launch, Fur Affinity gained over 45,000 users and over 300,000 submissions. {{fact}}
* The site transfers a daily average of nearly 80 GB of data and well over 10,000,000 individual files. The site's peak bandwidth record stands at 33.2Mbit.{{fact}}
* Alexa has previously ranked Fur Affinity in the [http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?site0=www.furaffinity.net&site1=vclart.net&site2=&site3=&site4=&x=75&y=15&h=300&w=610&h=400&w=700&z=3&range=1y&size=medium&y=r&z=3&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.furaffinity.net top 4,000 sites] on the web in 1 November 2007, showing greater traffic than the VCL for most of the previous year. The trend continued through 2008 and 2009. Fur Affinity has ranked as high as 3,475 on individual days, and close to 2,000 in the USA. In October 2010, Fur Affinity's rank fell to 7681.
* Fur Affinity got approximately 2.5 million page hits per day as of mid-January 2007.{{fact}}
* Fur Affinity reached its 1,000,000th submission on 11 January 2008. It later reached its 2,000,000th submission on 15 February 2009, and its 3,000,000th submission in November 2009.
* On average, Fur Affinity receives approximately 4,600 submissions a day. {{fact}}
* As estimated by a week's worth of statistical data gathered in mid-November 2009, FA is serving an average of 50 page requests/second, from registered and guest users alike. {{fact}}
* Fur Affinity receives several million pageviews every day, apparently peaking on September 28th, 2010, at 5.2 million pageviews.

== Hardware ==
[[Image:Furaffinity Server Farm.jpg|thumb|Fur Affinity's servers Bahamut, Tiamat, Novastorm and Trogdor (unlabeled).]]
As of September 2010, Fur Affinity runs on the following servers:

* '''Tiamat''' is a twin dual-core 2.0Ghz [[Wikipedia:Opteron|Opteron 2212]] with 32GB DDR2-533 RAM. The server was used as the search server until August 31st, 2010 when it was discovered it had suffered a equipment failure<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/22617961790'' - FA Twitter</ref> It is unclear if Tiamat was ever brought back online or if Search was moved to another server. Storage consists of 4x 74GB 10K RPM hard drives in RAID10.
* '''Neo Bahamut''', FA's backup server, is a dual-core 2.0GHz Opteron with 2GB DDR2-667 RAM. Storage consists of 4x 1TB hard drives in RAID5. Nightly backups for both data and DB.
* '''Trogdor''', FA's data server, is a [[wikipedia:Dell|Dell]] Poweredge 2970 2U Server manufactured by [[Wikipedia:Dell, Inc.]] with 32GB RAM. Storage consists of 6x 1TB hard drives - 4x in a RAID10 array, 1x RAID hotspare and 1x local backups.
* '''Novastorm''', FA's database server, is a [[Wikipedia:Sun Fire|Sun Fire X4150]] manufactured by [[Wikipedia:Sun Microsystems]] with twin quad-core 2.5Ghz Xeon 5420 processors and 64GB of RAM (as of March 2010).<ref>[http://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/10912188478 Novastorm upgrade tweet] - [[Dragoneer]]'s twitter (23 March 2010)</ref> Storage consists of 2x 74GB 15K RPM hard drives in RAID1 and 6x146GB 15K RPM hard drives in RAID10.
* '''Figment''', an application server, is dual quad-core 2.33Ghz Xeon 5345 with 32GB of RAM and 4x 1TB of storage. Figment was purchased with the intent of offering hosting<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10203450025'' - FA Twitter - March 8, 2010</ref> on it "sometime in April... or May, or maybe August" of 2010<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10942579229'' - FA Twitter - March 23 2010</ref> and is currently serving advertisments<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10936829317'' - FA Twitter</ref>. Server was named by [[Sciggles]].<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10585322442'' - FA Twitter</ref>
* '''Shivan''' is a twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. This server is currently unused. The server was named by FA donator TlaiLaxu.
* '''Sparkz''' is a twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. This server is currently running traffic data graphing software. The server was named by FA donator Dax.
* '''Tonberry''' is a twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. This server is currently unused. The server was named by FA donator YiffyHusky.
* '''Lapse''' is a twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. This server is currently unused. Server is awaiting an official designation.

Fur Affinity also runs a Cisco 7301 router dubbed "Routezilla" as well as a 48-port [[wikipedia:Cisco|Cisco]] Catalyst 3560 switch known as "Switchthulu". This is the second Switchthulu, the original having been a 24-port Cisco 3750.

=== Retired ===
* '''Gecko''', the original FA server, is a dual 3.0Ghz Nocona [[Wikipedia:Xeon|Xeon]] system with 4GB of RAM. Storage consists of 2x 250GB hard drives. The server is still used to host [[Wikipedia:Team Fortress 2|Team Fortress 2]] servers for the [[Furry Pound]] and [[Wikipedia:Left 4 Dead|Left 4 Dead]] servers for the Fur Affinity Steam Gamers group.

==Confirmed future features==
{| class="wikitable sortable" border="1"
|-
! scope="col" | Feature
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Official Mentions
! scope="col" | Status
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Notes
|-
| On-Demand Printing || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/371-FA-Funding December 2005] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/55797-is-FA-better-off-becoming-a-pay-site?p=1347804&viewfull=1#post1347804 November 2009] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Content Filtering || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/3965-FA-Policy-Notice-Cub-Art November 2006] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented|| Proposed for Ferrox.
|-
| Gallery Folders ||[http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/3969-Newbie-question-but...-folders November 2006] [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1648317/ August 2010] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6!?p=2314401&viewfull=1#post2314401 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented|| Proposed for Ferrox.
|-
| New UI || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/7472-FA-Project-UI-Overhaul April 2007] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/72193-New-FA-looks-exactly-like-steam-amp-DA-!-WTF!!?p=1853302&viewfull=1#post1853302 May 2010] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Development Suspended<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3325316#cid:25505803</ref>|| Was in development at the same time as Ferrox.
|-
| Opossums (pss.ms) URL Shortener || [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1648317/ August 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented|| pss.ms is currently down.

|-
| Web Hosting || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/55797-is-FA-better-off-becoming-a-pay-site?p=1353001&viewfull=1#post1353001 November 2009] [http://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/10936829317 March 2010] [http://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/10936829317] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Supporter Ribbons || [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1836349/ November 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Note/Inbox Search || [http://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/24023831950 September 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Artist List and Reviews ''"Commission Ratings"'' || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/1342-Search-Function-User-List June 2006] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Improved Commenting || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffff99" | In Development||
|}

== References ==
<references />

== See also ==
* [[FA Rank]]
* [[:Category:Fur Affinity administrators]]

== External links ==
*[http://irc.netsplit.de/channels/details.php?room=%23furaffinity&net=FurNet #furaffinity statistics] on irc.netsplit.de

{{Fur Affinity topics}}
{{Media archives}}
[[Category:Mature art archives]][[Category:Mature story archives]][[Category:Mature_websites]][[Category:2005 births]]
{{featured article}}

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[[no:Fur Affinity]]

History of Fur Affinity

2012-01-16T11:04:03Z

Murrypurryfurry: /* Furocity merger and subsequent staffing issues */

{{TOCright}}
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.

==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 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: "''FA does not permit content containing minors involved in sexual situations. This applies to humans (Loli, Shota) or otherwise human-like characters (i.e. Cub) who are, without question, under the general legal age (18). ''", due to 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}}

=== 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]]

=== Protection of bestialists ===

During the December 2010 hack, leaked notes showed Dragoneer giving tipoffs to practicing zoophiles in order to protect them from being reported for banning as recent changes in the FA TOS had stipulated.{{fact}}

=== [[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, [[Daemonshyai]] was the only Furocity staff member left on FA, and the "department" system was abandoned.

== 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]]

History of Fur Affinity

2012-01-16T11:03:50Z

Murrypurryfurry: Adding info about the fall 2011 staffing issues.

{{TOCright}}
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.

==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 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: "''FA does not permit content containing minors involved in sexual situations. This applies to humans (Loli, Shota) or otherwise human-like characters (i.e. Cub) who are, without question, under the general legal age (18). ''", due to 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}}

=== 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]]

=== Protection of bestialists ===

During the December 2010 hack, leaked notes showed Dragoneer giving tipoffs to practicing zoophiles in order to protect them from being reported for banning as recent changes in the FA TOS had stipulated.{{fact}}

=== [[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, [[Daemonshyai]] was the only Furocity staff member left on FA, and the "department" system was abandoned.

== 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]]

Fur Affinity

2011-06-02T06:11:04Z

Murrypurryfurry: /* Confirmed Future Features */ derp

{{LinkingSupporter}}
{{Infobox website
| title = Fur Affinity
| image = [[Image:Fender.jpg|150px]] Fender, drawn by [[Mutley James]]
| author = '''Owners:''' [[The Dragoneer]]
* '''Site Founder:''' [[Alkora]]
* '''Lead Admins''': The Dragoneer
* '''Admins''': [[Ahkahna]], [[Bijoux]], [[Fox Amoore]], [[Glaide]], [[Kyoujin]], [[Pinkuh]], [[Rhainor]], [[Silver R. Wolfe]] and [[Wicht]]
* '''Support Admins''': [[Xaerun]], [[WarMocK]]
* '''Coders''': [[Net-cat]], [[Tsawolf]], [[yak]]
| url = http://www.furaffinity.net/
*'''Forums''': http://forums.furaffinity.net/
*'''Wiki''': http://wiki.furaffinity.net/
*'''LiveJournal''': http://community.livejournal.com/furaffinity/
*'''Twitter''': http://twitter.com/furaffinity
*'''IRC''': [irc://irc.furnet.org/furaffinity #furaffinity] on [[FurNet (IRC)|FurNet]]
*'''Steam''': [http://steamcommunity.com/groups/FurAffinityGamers FurAffinity Gamers]
| status =
| began = 16 January 2005 - 1 August 2005 (staff dispute & coding/server problems)
* 10 December 2005 - Present
| ended = Ongoing
| genre = Multimedia archive
| rating = {{Rating-nc17-button}}
}}

'''Fur Affinity''', also known as '''FA''', is the [[furry fandom]]'s largest online community, focusing on the promotion of art, music and stories.

The site was created in 2005 by [[Alkora]] as an alternative to various art community sites such as [[SheezyArt]] and [[deviantART]], distinguished by allowing artistic freedom of expression regardless of content rating. It is led by [[The Dragoneer]].

{{WikiFurNews|Fur Affinity access disrupted amid ownership dispute}}
{{WikiFurNews|'Krystal sandwich' meme strikes Fur Affinity}}
== History ==
{{main|History of Fur Affinity}}
Fur Affinity was launched on 16 January 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]]. Since then, it has suffered a few outages, most notably a month-long downtime over July 2008, but always managed to recover. In 2011, Fur Affinity annouced it would be coming out with a new major version in connection to FA: United 4.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/89577-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6! Fur Affinity Turns 6!] - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity forum post (16 January 2011)</ref>

=== Fur Affinity: United! ===
{{main|FA: United}}
In August 2007, Fur Affinity held its own [[furry convention]], Fur Affinity: United! (or FA:U) in [[Wikipedia:Newark, New Jersey|Newark, New Jersey]]. The convention was a success, drawing 310 attendees and 25 [[fursuiter]]s in the [[fursuit parade|parade]], and was followed by another in 2008, drawing 381 attendees. In February 2009, Dragoneer announced FA: United 3 "Games United" for 28-30 May 2010.<ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/621616/ FAU3 Announcement]'' - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity journal (9 February 2009)</ref> No event was scheduled for 2009 due to the economic downturn.

== Features and rules ==
Fur Affinity's features for users include the ability to allow users to track new updates from particular [[artist]]s; highlight favorites; and upload a wide variety of art (images, music and stories). The site attempts to promote community through its comments system and individual journals.

While works of all ratings are accepted (other than ''photographic nudes and images whose intent are to slander or discredit others''<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/faq/ Fur Affinity FAQ]</ref>), art rated as mature or adult is not shown to visitors, or to users who have not specified it as a preference (which requires giving a date of birth indicating an age over 18). Keywords and tags can be added to works, though a feature that allowed blocking based on tags was disabled due to performance issues.

Fur Affinity's search engine was "temporarily disabled" in mid-2006 due to it taking up too many resources.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=1334 Admin mode on june 5th 2006]'' - Alkora, Fur Affinity forums (5 June 2006)</ref> A faux search feature was implemented for April Fool's Day 2007, much to the chagrin of some users.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=7229 Search is up!]'' - Fur Affinity Forums (1 April 2007)</ref> Search was reimplemented on 5 February 2009; it was initially labelled "That Thing You Want" and randomly included [[wikipedia:Rickrolling|rickrolls]].<ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/616339/ SEARCH]'' - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity journal (5 February 2009)</ref>

==Project Ferrox==
{{main|Ferrox (software)}}
The FA development team was working on a new backend system called [[Ferrox_(software)|Ferrox]] which was to be used for the next major revision of Fur Affinity, and was to be made available as [[Wikipedia:FOSS|FOSS]] (Free and Open Source Software) for other sites to use. As of late 2009, development of Ferrox has stalled, with the last change to the code being made on September 7, 2009. FurAffinity has since then decided to upgrade the UI of the existing code instead.

== Mascots ==
[[Fender]] is the Fur Affinity [[mascot]]. He was primarily created by artist [[K-9]], based upon a character concept by [[Preyfar]]. He is half [[fox]] and half [[ferret]], commonly referring to himself as a 'ferrox'.

On April Fool's Day 2007, Fender was depicted in the site's banner as a busty female dragon, still wearing the trademark blue tie. This dragon was made a separate character from Fender and an official mascot of the site in May 2007, and named [[Rednef]], or "Fender" spelled backwards.

Fender was displayed as a three-toed [[sloth]] for April Fools' Day 2008. So far this sloth form has yet to become an official character.

== Controversies ==
{{main|History of Fur Affinity#Controversies}}

== Facts ==
=== Statistics ===
* The monthly hosting bill for FurAffinity is just under $1,700 <ref>''http://twitpic.com/2g8t5x'' - TwitPic Posted on August 19, 2010
by Dragoneer</ref>. This includes a full equipment rack, bandwidth, and IP addresses.
* In less than a year since the site's re-launch, Fur Affinity gained over 45,000 users and over 300,000 submissions. {{fact}}
* The site transfers a daily average of nearly 80 GB of data and well over 10,000,000 individual files. The site's peak bandwidth record stands at 33.2Mbit.{{fact}}
* Alexa has previously ranked Fur Affinity in the [http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?site0=www.furaffinity.net&site1=vclart.net&site2=&site3=&site4=&x=75&y=15&h=300&w=610&h=400&w=700&z=3&range=1y&size=medium&y=r&z=3&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.furaffinity.net top 4,000 sites] on the web in 1 November 2007, showing greater traffic than the VCL for most of the previous year. The trend continued through 2008 and 2009. Fur Affinity has ranked as high as 3,475 on individual days, and close to 2,000 in the USA. In October 2010, Fur Affinity's rank fell to 7681.
* Fur Affinity got approximately 2.5 million page hits per day as of mid-January 2007.{{fact}}
* Fur Affinity reached its 1,000,000th submission on 11 January 2008. It later reached its 2,000,000th submission on 15 February 2009, and its 3,000,000th submission in November 2009.
* On average, Fur Affinity receives approximately 4,600 submissions a day. {{fact}}
* As estimated by a week's worth of statistical data gathered in mid-November 2009, FA is serving an average of 50 page requests/second, from registered and guest users alike. {{fact}}
* Fur Affinity receives several million pageviews every day, apparently peaking on September 28th, 2010, at 5.2 million pageviews.

=== Hardware ===
[[Image:Furaffinity Server Farm.jpg|thumb|Fur Affinity's servers Bahamut, Tiamat, Novastorm and Trogdor (unlabeled).]]
As of September 2010, Fur Affinity runs on the following servers:

* '''Tiamat''' is a twin dual-core 2.0Ghz [[Wikipedia:Opteron|Opteron 2212]] with 32GB DDR2-533 RAM. The server was used as the search server until August 31st, 2010 when it was discovered it had suffered a equipment failure<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/22617961790'' - FA Twitter</ref> It is unclear if Tiamat was ever brought back online or if Search was moved to another server. Storage consists of 4x 74GB 10K RPM hard drives in RAID10.
* '''Neo Bahamut''', FA's backup server, is a dual-core 2.0GHz Opteron with 2GB DDR2-667 RAM. Storage consists of 4x 1TB hard drives in RAID5. Nightly backups for both data and DB.
* '''Trogdor''', FA's data server, is a [[wikipedia:Dell|Dell]] Poweredge 2970 2U Server manufactured by [[Wikipedia:Dell, Inc.]] with 32GB RAM. Storage consists of 6x 1TB hard drives - 4x in a RAID10 array, 1x RAID hotspare and 1x local backups.
* '''Novastorm''', FA's database server, is a [[Wikipedia:Sun Fire|Sun Fire X4150]] manufactured by [[Wikipedia:Sun Microsystems]] with twin quad-core 2.5Ghz Xeon 5420 processors and 64GB of RAM (as of March 2010).<ref>[http://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/10912188478 Novastorm upgrade tweet] - [[Dragoneer]]'s twitter (23 March 2010)</ref> Storage consists of 2x 74GB 15K RPM hard drives in RAID1 and 6x146GB 15K RPM hard drives in RAID10.
* '''Figment''', an application server, is dual quad-core 2.33Ghz Xeon 5345 with 32GB of RAM and 4x 1TB of storage. Figment was purchased with the intent of offering hosting<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10203450025'' - FA Twitter - March 8, 2010</ref> on it "sometime in April... or May, or maybe August" of 2010<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10942579229'' - FA Twitter - March 23 2010</ref> and is currently serving advertisments<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10936829317'' - FA Twitter</ref>. Server was named by [[Sciggles]].<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10585322442'' - FA Twitter</ref>
* '''Shivan''' is a twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. This server is currently unused. The server was named by FA donator TlaiLaxu.
* '''Sparkz''' is a twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. This server is currently running traffic data graphing software. The server was named by FA donator Dax.
* '''Tonberry''' is a twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. This server is currently unused. The server was named by FA donator YiffyHusky.
* '''Lapse''' is a twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. This server is currently unused. Server is awaiting an official designation.

Fur Affinity also runs a Cisco 7301 router dubbed "Routezilla" as well as a 48-port [[wikipedia:Cisco|Cisco]] Catalyst 3560 switch known as "Switchthulu". This is the second Switchthulu, the original having been a 24-port Cisco 3750.

==== Retired ====
* '''Gecko''', the original FA server, is a dual 3.0Ghz Nocona [[Wikipedia:Xeon|Xeon]] system with 4GB of RAM. Storage consists of 2x 250GB hard drives. The server is still used to host [[Wikipedia:Team Fortress 2|Team Fortress 2]] servers for the [[Furry Pound]] and [[Wikipedia:Left 4 Dead|Left 4 Dead]] servers for the Fur Affinity Steam Gamers group.

===Confirmed Future Features===
{| class="wikitable sortable" border="1"
|-
! scope="col" | Feature
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Official Mentions
! scope="col" | Status
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Notes
|-
| On-Demand Printing || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/371-FA-Funding December 2005] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/55797-is-FA-better-off-becoming-a-pay-site?p=1347804&viewfull=1#post1347804 November 2009] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Content Filtering || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/3965-FA-Policy-Notice-Cub-Art November 2006] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented|| Proposed for Ferrox.
|-
| Gallery Folders ||[http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/3969-Newbie-question-but...-folders November 2006] [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1648317/ August 2010] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6!?p=2314401&viewfull=1#post2314401 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented|| Proposed for Ferrox.
|-
| New UI || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/7472-FA-Project-UI-Overhaul April 2007] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/72193-New-FA-looks-exactly-like-steam-amp-DA-!-WTF!!?p=1853302&viewfull=1#post1853302 May 2010] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffff99" | In Development|| Was in development at the same time as Ferrox.
|-
| Opossums (pss.ms) URL Shortener || [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1648317/ August 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Web Hosting || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/55797-is-FA-better-off-becoming-a-pay-site?p=1353001&viewfull=1#post1353001 November 2009] [http://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/10936829317 March 2010] [http://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/10936829317] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Supporter Ribbons || [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1836349/ November 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Note/Inbox Search || [http://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/24023831950 September 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Artist List and Reviews ''"Commission Ratings"'' || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/1342-Search-Function-User-List June 2006] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Improved Commenting || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffff99" | In Development||
|}

== References ==
<references />

== See also ==
* [[FA Rank]]

== External links ==
*[http://irc.netsplit.de/channels/details.php?room=%23furaffinity&net=FurNet #furaffinity statistics] on irc.netsplit.de

{{Fur Affinity topics}}
{{Media archives}}
[[Category:Mature art archives]][[Category:Mature story archives]][[Category:Mature_websites]][[Category:2005 births]]
{{featured article}}

[[de:Fur Affinity]]
[[es:Fur Affinity]]
[[fr:Fur Affinity]]
[[hu:Fur Affinity]]
[[nl:Fur Affinity]]
[[pl:Fur Affinity]]
[[ru:Fur Affinity]]
[[sv:Fur Affinity]]
[[zh:Fur Affinity]]

Fur Affinity

2011-06-02T06:10:15Z

Murrypurryfurry: /* Confirmed Futire Features */

{{LinkingSupporter}}
{{Infobox website
| title = Fur Affinity
| image = [[Image:Fender.jpg|150px]] Fender, drawn by [[Mutley James]]
| author = '''Owners:''' [[The Dragoneer]]
* '''Site Founder:''' [[Alkora]]
* '''Lead Admins''': The Dragoneer
* '''Admins''': [[Ahkahna]], [[Bijoux]], [[Fox Amoore]], [[Glaide]], [[Kyoujin]], [[Pinkuh]], [[Rhainor]], [[Silver R. Wolfe]] and [[Wicht]]
* '''Support Admins''': [[Xaerun]], [[WarMocK]]
* '''Coders''': [[Net-cat]], [[Tsawolf]], [[yak]]
| url = http://www.furaffinity.net/
*'''Forums''': http://forums.furaffinity.net/
*'''Wiki''': http://wiki.furaffinity.net/
*'''LiveJournal''': http://community.livejournal.com/furaffinity/
*'''Twitter''': http://twitter.com/furaffinity
*'''IRC''': [irc://irc.furnet.org/furaffinity #furaffinity] on [[FurNet (IRC)|FurNet]]
*'''Steam''': [http://steamcommunity.com/groups/FurAffinityGamers FurAffinity Gamers]
| status =
| began = 16 January 2005 - 1 August 2005 (staff dispute & coding/server problems)
* 10 December 2005 - Present
| ended = Ongoing
| genre = Multimedia archive
| rating = {{Rating-nc17-button}}
}}

'''Fur Affinity''', also known as '''FA''', is the [[furry fandom]]'s largest online community, focusing on the promotion of art, music and stories.

The site was created in 2005 by [[Alkora]] as an alternative to various art community sites such as [[SheezyArt]] and [[deviantART]], distinguished by allowing artistic freedom of expression regardless of content rating. It is led by [[The Dragoneer]].

{{WikiFurNews|Fur Affinity access disrupted amid ownership dispute}}
{{WikiFurNews|'Krystal sandwich' meme strikes Fur Affinity}}
== History ==
{{main|History of Fur Affinity}}
Fur Affinity was launched on 16 January 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]]. Since then, it has suffered a few outages, most notably a month-long downtime over July 2008, but always managed to recover. In 2011, Fur Affinity annouced it would be coming out with a new major version in connection to FA: United 4.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/89577-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6! Fur Affinity Turns 6!] - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity forum post (16 January 2011)</ref>

=== Fur Affinity: United! ===
{{main|FA: United}}
In August 2007, Fur Affinity held its own [[furry convention]], Fur Affinity: United! (or FA:U) in [[Wikipedia:Newark, New Jersey|Newark, New Jersey]]. The convention was a success, drawing 310 attendees and 25 [[fursuiter]]s in the [[fursuit parade|parade]], and was followed by another in 2008, drawing 381 attendees. In February 2009, Dragoneer announced FA: United 3 "Games United" for 28-30 May 2010.<ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/621616/ FAU3 Announcement]'' - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity journal (9 February 2009)</ref> No event was scheduled for 2009 due to the economic downturn.

== Features and rules ==
Fur Affinity's features for users include the ability to allow users to track new updates from particular [[artist]]s; highlight favorites; and upload a wide variety of art (images, music and stories). The site attempts to promote community through its comments system and individual journals.

While works of all ratings are accepted (other than ''photographic nudes and images whose intent are to slander or discredit others''<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/faq/ Fur Affinity FAQ]</ref>), art rated as mature or adult is not shown to visitors, or to users who have not specified it as a preference (which requires giving a date of birth indicating an age over 18). Keywords and tags can be added to works, though a feature that allowed blocking based on tags was disabled due to performance issues.

Fur Affinity's search engine was "temporarily disabled" in mid-2006 due to it taking up too many resources.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=1334 Admin mode on june 5th 2006]'' - Alkora, Fur Affinity forums (5 June 2006)</ref> A faux search feature was implemented for April Fool's Day 2007, much to the chagrin of some users.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=7229 Search is up!]'' - Fur Affinity Forums (1 April 2007)</ref> Search was reimplemented on 5 February 2009; it was initially labelled "That Thing You Want" and randomly included [[wikipedia:Rickrolling|rickrolls]].<ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/616339/ SEARCH]'' - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity journal (5 February 2009)</ref>

==Project Ferrox==
{{main|Ferrox (software)}}
The FA development team was working on a new backend system called [[Ferrox_(software)|Ferrox]] which was to be used for the next major revision of Fur Affinity, and was to be made available as [[Wikipedia:FOSS|FOSS]] (Free and Open Source Software) for other sites to use. As of late 2009, development of Ferrox has stalled, with the last change to the code being made on September 7, 2009. FurAffinity has since then decided to upgrade the UI of the existing code instead.

== Mascots ==
[[Fender]] is the Fur Affinity [[mascot]]. He was primarily created by artist [[K-9]], based upon a character concept by [[Preyfar]]. He is half [[fox]] and half [[ferret]], commonly referring to himself as a 'ferrox'.

On April Fool's Day 2007, Fender was depicted in the site's banner as a busty female dragon, still wearing the trademark blue tie. This dragon was made a separate character from Fender and an official mascot of the site in May 2007, and named [[Rednef]], or "Fender" spelled backwards.

Fender was displayed as a three-toed [[sloth]] for April Fools' Day 2008. So far this sloth form has yet to become an official character.

== Controversies ==
{{main|History of Fur Affinity#Controversies}}

== Facts ==
=== Statistics ===
* The monthly hosting bill for FurAffinity is just under $1,700 <ref>''http://twitpic.com/2g8t5x'' - TwitPic Posted on August 19, 2010
by Dragoneer</ref>. This includes a full equipment rack, bandwidth, and IP addresses.
* In less than a year since the site's re-launch, Fur Affinity gained over 45,000 users and over 300,000 submissions. {{fact}}
* The site transfers a daily average of nearly 80 GB of data and well over 10,000,000 individual files. The site's peak bandwidth record stands at 33.2Mbit.{{fact}}
* Alexa has previously ranked Fur Affinity in the [http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?site0=www.furaffinity.net&site1=vclart.net&site2=&site3=&site4=&x=75&y=15&h=300&w=610&h=400&w=700&z=3&range=1y&size=medium&y=r&z=3&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.furaffinity.net top 4,000 sites] on the web in 1 November 2007, showing greater traffic than the VCL for most of the previous year. The trend continued through 2008 and 2009. Fur Affinity has ranked as high as 3,475 on individual days, and close to 2,000 in the USA. In October 2010, Fur Affinity's rank fell to 7681.
* Fur Affinity got approximately 2.5 million page hits per day as of mid-January 2007.{{fact}}
* Fur Affinity reached its 1,000,000th submission on 11 January 2008. It later reached its 2,000,000th submission on 15 February 2009, and its 3,000,000th submission in November 2009.
* On average, Fur Affinity receives approximately 4,600 submissions a day. {{fact}}
* As estimated by a week's worth of statistical data gathered in mid-November 2009, FA is serving an average of 50 page requests/second, from registered and guest users alike. {{fact}}
* Fur Affinity receives several million pageviews every day, apparently peaking on September 28th, 2010, at 5.2 million pageviews.

=== Hardware ===
[[Image:Furaffinity Server Farm.jpg|thumb|Fur Affinity's servers Bahamut, Tiamat, Novastorm and Trogdor (unlabeled).]]
As of September 2010, Fur Affinity runs on the following servers:

* '''Tiamat''' is a twin dual-core 2.0Ghz [[Wikipedia:Opteron|Opteron 2212]] with 32GB DDR2-533 RAM. The server was used as the search server until August 31st, 2010 when it was discovered it had suffered a equipment failure<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/22617961790'' - FA Twitter</ref> It is unclear if Tiamat was ever brought back online or if Search was moved to another server. Storage consists of 4x 74GB 10K RPM hard drives in RAID10.
* '''Neo Bahamut''', FA's backup server, is a dual-core 2.0GHz Opteron with 2GB DDR2-667 RAM. Storage consists of 4x 1TB hard drives in RAID5. Nightly backups for both data and DB.
* '''Trogdor''', FA's data server, is a [[wikipedia:Dell|Dell]] Poweredge 2970 2U Server manufactured by [[Wikipedia:Dell, Inc.]] with 32GB RAM. Storage consists of 6x 1TB hard drives - 4x in a RAID10 array, 1x RAID hotspare and 1x local backups.
* '''Novastorm''', FA's database server, is a [[Wikipedia:Sun Fire|Sun Fire X4150]] manufactured by [[Wikipedia:Sun Microsystems]] with twin quad-core 2.5Ghz Xeon 5420 processors and 64GB of RAM (as of March 2010).<ref>[http://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/10912188478 Novastorm upgrade tweet] - [[Dragoneer]]'s twitter (23 March 2010)</ref> Storage consists of 2x 74GB 15K RPM hard drives in RAID1 and 6x146GB 15K RPM hard drives in RAID10.
* '''Figment''', an application server, is dual quad-core 2.33Ghz Xeon 5345 with 32GB of RAM and 4x 1TB of storage. Figment was purchased with the intent of offering hosting<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10203450025'' - FA Twitter - March 8, 2010</ref> on it "sometime in April... or May, or maybe August" of 2010<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10942579229'' - FA Twitter - March 23 2010</ref> and is currently serving advertisments<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10936829317'' - FA Twitter</ref>. Server was named by [[Sciggles]].<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10585322442'' - FA Twitter</ref>
* '''Shivan''' is a twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. This server is currently unused. The server was named by FA donator TlaiLaxu.
* '''Sparkz''' is a twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. This server is currently running traffic data graphing software. The server was named by FA donator Dax.
* '''Tonberry''' is a twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. This server is currently unused. The server was named by FA donator YiffyHusky.
* '''Lapse''' is a twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. This server is currently unused. Server is awaiting an official designation.

Fur Affinity also runs a Cisco 7301 router dubbed "Routezilla" as well as a 48-port [[wikipedia:Cisco|Cisco]] Catalyst 3560 switch known as "Switchthulu". This is the second Switchthulu, the original having been a 24-port Cisco 3750.

==== Retired ====
* '''Gecko''', the original FA server, is a dual 3.0Ghz Nocona [[Wikipedia:Xeon|Xeon]] system with 4GB of RAM. Storage consists of 2x 250GB hard drives. The server is still used to host [[Wikipedia:Team Fortress 2|Team Fortress 2]] servers for the [[Furry Pound]] and [[Wikipedia:Left 4 Dead|Left 4 Dead]] servers for the Fur Affinity Steam Gamers group.

===Confirmed Future Features===
{| class="wikitable sortable" border="1"
|+ Sortable table
|-
! scope="col" | Feature
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Official Mentions
! scope="col" | Status
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Notes
|-
| On-Demand Printing || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/371-FA-Funding December 2005] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/55797-is-FA-better-off-becoming-a-pay-site?p=1347804&viewfull=1#post1347804 November 2009] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Content Filtering || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/3965-FA-Policy-Notice-Cub-Art November 2006] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented|| Proposed for Ferrox.
|-
| Gallery Folders ||[http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/3969-Newbie-question-but...-folders November 2006] [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1648317/ August 2010] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6!?p=2314401&viewfull=1#post2314401 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented|| Proposed for Ferrox.
|-
| New UI || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/7472-FA-Project-UI-Overhaul April 2007] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/72193-New-FA-looks-exactly-like-steam-amp-DA-!-WTF!!?p=1853302&viewfull=1#post1853302 May 2010] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffff99" | In Development|| Was in development at the same time as Ferrox.
|-
| Opossums (pss.ms) URL Shortener || [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1648317/ August 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Web Hosting || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/55797-is-FA-better-off-becoming-a-pay-site?p=1353001&viewfull=1#post1353001 November 2009] [http://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/10936829317 March 2010] [http://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/10936829317] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Supporter Ribbons || [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1836349/ November 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Note/Inbox Search || [http://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/24023831950 September 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Artist List and Reviews ''"Commission Ratings"'' || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/1342-Search-Function-User-List June 2006] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Improved Commenting || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffff99" | In Development||
|}

== References ==
<references />

== See also ==
* [[FA Rank]]

== External links ==
*[http://irc.netsplit.de/channels/details.php?room=%23furaffinity&net=FurNet #furaffinity statistics] on irc.netsplit.de

{{Fur Affinity topics}}
{{Media archives}}
[[Category:Mature art archives]][[Category:Mature story archives]][[Category:Mature_websites]][[Category:2005 births]]
{{featured article}}

[[de:Fur Affinity]]
[[es:Fur Affinity]]
[[fr:Fur Affinity]]
[[hu:Fur Affinity]]
[[nl:Fur Affinity]]
[[pl:Fur Affinity]]
[[ru:Fur Affinity]]
[[sv:Fur Affinity]]
[[zh:Fur Affinity]]

Fur Affinity

2011-06-02T06:09:53Z

Murrypurryfurry: New Future Features list.

{{LinkingSupporter}}
{{Infobox website
| title = Fur Affinity
| image = [[Image:Fender.jpg|150px]] Fender, drawn by [[Mutley James]]
| author = '''Owners:''' [[The Dragoneer]]
* '''Site Founder:''' [[Alkora]]
* '''Lead Admins''': The Dragoneer
* '''Admins''': [[Ahkahna]], [[Bijoux]], [[Fox Amoore]], [[Glaide]], [[Kyoujin]], [[Pinkuh]], [[Rhainor]], [[Silver R. Wolfe]] and [[Wicht]]
* '''Support Admins''': [[Xaerun]], [[WarMocK]]
* '''Coders''': [[Net-cat]], [[Tsawolf]], [[yak]]
| url = http://www.furaffinity.net/
*'''Forums''': http://forums.furaffinity.net/
*'''Wiki''': http://wiki.furaffinity.net/
*'''LiveJournal''': http://community.livejournal.com/furaffinity/
*'''Twitter''': http://twitter.com/furaffinity
*'''IRC''': [irc://irc.furnet.org/furaffinity #furaffinity] on [[FurNet (IRC)|FurNet]]
*'''Steam''': [http://steamcommunity.com/groups/FurAffinityGamers FurAffinity Gamers]
| status =
| began = 16 January 2005 - 1 August 2005 (staff dispute & coding/server problems)
* 10 December 2005 - Present
| ended = Ongoing
| genre = Multimedia archive
| rating = {{Rating-nc17-button}}
}}

'''Fur Affinity''', also known as '''FA''', is the [[furry fandom]]'s largest online community, focusing on the promotion of art, music and stories.

The site was created in 2005 by [[Alkora]] as an alternative to various art community sites such as [[SheezyArt]] and [[deviantART]], distinguished by allowing artistic freedom of expression regardless of content rating. It is led by [[The Dragoneer]].

{{WikiFurNews|Fur Affinity access disrupted amid ownership dispute}}
{{WikiFurNews|'Krystal sandwich' meme strikes Fur Affinity}}
== History ==
{{main|History of Fur Affinity}}
Fur Affinity was launched on 16 January 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]]. Since then, it has suffered a few outages, most notably a month-long downtime over July 2008, but always managed to recover. In 2011, Fur Affinity annouced it would be coming out with a new major version in connection to FA: United 4.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/89577-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6! Fur Affinity Turns 6!] - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity forum post (16 January 2011)</ref>

=== Fur Affinity: United! ===
{{main|FA: United}}
In August 2007, Fur Affinity held its own [[furry convention]], Fur Affinity: United! (or FA:U) in [[Wikipedia:Newark, New Jersey|Newark, New Jersey]]. The convention was a success, drawing 310 attendees and 25 [[fursuiter]]s in the [[fursuit parade|parade]], and was followed by another in 2008, drawing 381 attendees. In February 2009, Dragoneer announced FA: United 3 "Games United" for 28-30 May 2010.<ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/621616/ FAU3 Announcement]'' - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity journal (9 February 2009)</ref> No event was scheduled for 2009 due to the economic downturn.

== Features and rules ==
Fur Affinity's features for users include the ability to allow users to track new updates from particular [[artist]]s; highlight favorites; and upload a wide variety of art (images, music and stories). The site attempts to promote community through its comments system and individual journals.

While works of all ratings are accepted (other than ''photographic nudes and images whose intent are to slander or discredit others''<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/faq/ Fur Affinity FAQ]</ref>), art rated as mature or adult is not shown to visitors, or to users who have not specified it as a preference (which requires giving a date of birth indicating an age over 18). Keywords and tags can be added to works, though a feature that allowed blocking based on tags was disabled due to performance issues.

Fur Affinity's search engine was "temporarily disabled" in mid-2006 due to it taking up too many resources.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=1334 Admin mode on june 5th 2006]'' - Alkora, Fur Affinity forums (5 June 2006)</ref> A faux search feature was implemented for April Fool's Day 2007, much to the chagrin of some users.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=7229 Search is up!]'' - Fur Affinity Forums (1 April 2007)</ref> Search was reimplemented on 5 February 2009; it was initially labelled "That Thing You Want" and randomly included [[wikipedia:Rickrolling|rickrolls]].<ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/616339/ SEARCH]'' - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity journal (5 February 2009)</ref>

==Project Ferrox==
{{main|Ferrox (software)}}
The FA development team was working on a new backend system called [[Ferrox_(software)|Ferrox]] which was to be used for the next major revision of Fur Affinity, and was to be made available as [[Wikipedia:FOSS|FOSS]] (Free and Open Source Software) for other sites to use. As of late 2009, development of Ferrox has stalled, with the last change to the code being made on September 7, 2009. FurAffinity has since then decided to upgrade the UI of the existing code instead.

== Mascots ==
[[Fender]] is the Fur Affinity [[mascot]]. He was primarily created by artist [[K-9]], based upon a character concept by [[Preyfar]]. He is half [[fox]] and half [[ferret]], commonly referring to himself as a 'ferrox'.

On April Fool's Day 2007, Fender was depicted in the site's banner as a busty female dragon, still wearing the trademark blue tie. This dragon was made a separate character from Fender and an official mascot of the site in May 2007, and named [[Rednef]], or "Fender" spelled backwards.

Fender was displayed as a three-toed [[sloth]] for April Fools' Day 2008. So far this sloth form has yet to become an official character.

== Controversies ==
{{main|History of Fur Affinity#Controversies}}

== Facts ==
=== Statistics ===
* The monthly hosting bill for FurAffinity is just under $1,700 <ref>''http://twitpic.com/2g8t5x'' - TwitPic Posted on August 19, 2010
by Dragoneer</ref>. This includes a full equipment rack, bandwidth, and IP addresses.
* In less than a year since the site's re-launch, Fur Affinity gained over 45,000 users and over 300,000 submissions. {{fact}}
* The site transfers a daily average of nearly 80 GB of data and well over 10,000,000 individual files. The site's peak bandwidth record stands at 33.2Mbit.{{fact}}
* Alexa has previously ranked Fur Affinity in the [http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?site0=www.furaffinity.net&site1=vclart.net&site2=&site3=&site4=&x=75&y=15&h=300&w=610&h=400&w=700&z=3&range=1y&size=medium&y=r&z=3&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.furaffinity.net top 4,000 sites] on the web in 1 November 2007, showing greater traffic than the VCL for most of the previous year. The trend continued through 2008 and 2009. Fur Affinity has ranked as high as 3,475 on individual days, and close to 2,000 in the USA. In October 2010, Fur Affinity's rank fell to 7681.
* Fur Affinity got approximately 2.5 million page hits per day as of mid-January 2007.{{fact}}
* Fur Affinity reached its 1,000,000th submission on 11 January 2008. It later reached its 2,000,000th submission on 15 February 2009, and its 3,000,000th submission in November 2009.
* On average, Fur Affinity receives approximately 4,600 submissions a day. {{fact}}
* As estimated by a week's worth of statistical data gathered in mid-November 2009, FA is serving an average of 50 page requests/second, from registered and guest users alike. {{fact}}
* Fur Affinity receives several million pageviews every day, apparently peaking on September 28th, 2010, at 5.2 million pageviews.

=== Hardware ===
[[Image:Furaffinity Server Farm.jpg|thumb|Fur Affinity's servers Bahamut, Tiamat, Novastorm and Trogdor (unlabeled).]]
As of September 2010, Fur Affinity runs on the following servers:

* '''Tiamat''' is a twin dual-core 2.0Ghz [[Wikipedia:Opteron|Opteron 2212]] with 32GB DDR2-533 RAM. The server was used as the search server until August 31st, 2010 when it was discovered it had suffered a equipment failure<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/22617961790'' - FA Twitter</ref> It is unclear if Tiamat was ever brought back online or if Search was moved to another server. Storage consists of 4x 74GB 10K RPM hard drives in RAID10.
* '''Neo Bahamut''', FA's backup server, is a dual-core 2.0GHz Opteron with 2GB DDR2-667 RAM. Storage consists of 4x 1TB hard drives in RAID5. Nightly backups for both data and DB.
* '''Trogdor''', FA's data server, is a [[wikipedia:Dell|Dell]] Poweredge 2970 2U Server manufactured by [[Wikipedia:Dell, Inc.]] with 32GB RAM. Storage consists of 6x 1TB hard drives - 4x in a RAID10 array, 1x RAID hotspare and 1x local backups.
* '''Novastorm''', FA's database server, is a [[Wikipedia:Sun Fire|Sun Fire X4150]] manufactured by [[Wikipedia:Sun Microsystems]] with twin quad-core 2.5Ghz Xeon 5420 processors and 64GB of RAM (as of March 2010).<ref>[http://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/10912188478 Novastorm upgrade tweet] - [[Dragoneer]]'s twitter (23 March 2010)</ref> Storage consists of 2x 74GB 15K RPM hard drives in RAID1 and 6x146GB 15K RPM hard drives in RAID10.
* '''Figment''', an application server, is dual quad-core 2.33Ghz Xeon 5345 with 32GB of RAM and 4x 1TB of storage. Figment was purchased with the intent of offering hosting<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10203450025'' - FA Twitter - March 8, 2010</ref> on it "sometime in April... or May, or maybe August" of 2010<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10942579229'' - FA Twitter - March 23 2010</ref> and is currently serving advertisments<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10936829317'' - FA Twitter</ref>. Server was named by [[Sciggles]].<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10585322442'' - FA Twitter</ref>
* '''Shivan''' is a twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. This server is currently unused. The server was named by FA donator TlaiLaxu.
* '''Sparkz''' is a twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. This server is currently running traffic data graphing software. The server was named by FA donator Dax.
* '''Tonberry''' is a twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. This server is currently unused. The server was named by FA donator YiffyHusky.
* '''Lapse''' is a twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. This server is currently unused. Server is awaiting an official designation.

Fur Affinity also runs a Cisco 7301 router dubbed "Routezilla" as well as a 48-port [[wikipedia:Cisco|Cisco]] Catalyst 3560 switch known as "Switchthulu". This is the second Switchthulu, the original having been a 24-port Cisco 3750.

==== Retired ====
* '''Gecko''', the original FA server, is a dual 3.0Ghz Nocona [[Wikipedia:Xeon|Xeon]] system with 4GB of RAM. Storage consists of 2x 250GB hard drives. The server is still used to host [[Wikipedia:Team Fortress 2|Team Fortress 2]] servers for the [[Furry Pound]] and [[Wikipedia:Left 4 Dead|Left 4 Dead]] servers for the Fur Affinity Steam Gamers group.

===Confirmed Futire Features===
{| class="wikitable sortable" border="1"
|+ Sortable table
|-
! scope="col" | Feature
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Official Mentions
! scope="col" | Status
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Notes
|-
| On-Demand Printing || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/371-FA-Funding December 2005] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/55797-is-FA-better-off-becoming-a-pay-site?p=1347804&viewfull=1#post1347804 November 2009] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Content Filtering || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/3965-FA-Policy-Notice-Cub-Art November 2006] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented|| Proposed for Ferrox.
|-
| Gallery Folders ||[http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/3969-Newbie-question-but...-folders November 2006] [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1648317/ August 2010] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6!?p=2314401&viewfull=1#post2314401 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented|| Proposed for Ferrox.
|-
| New UI || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/7472-FA-Project-UI-Overhaul April 2007] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/72193-New-FA-looks-exactly-like-steam-amp-DA-!-WTF!!?p=1853302&viewfull=1#post1853302 May 2010] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffff99" | In Development|| Was in development at the same time as Ferrox.
|-
| Opossums (pss.ms) URL Shortener || [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1648317/ August 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Web Hosting || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/55797-is-FA-better-off-becoming-a-pay-site?p=1353001&viewfull=1#post1353001 November 2009] [http://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/10936829317 March 2010] [http://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/10936829317] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Supporter Ribbons || [http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1836349/ November 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Note/Inbox Search || [http://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/24023831950 September 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Artist List and Reviews ''"Commission Ratings"'' || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/1342-Search-Function-User-List June 2006] [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
|-
| Improved Commenting || [http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011] ||style="background: #ffff99" | In Development||
|}

== References ==
<references />

== See also ==
* [[FA Rank]]

== External links ==
*[http://irc.netsplit.de/channels/details.php?room=%23furaffinity&net=FurNet #furaffinity statistics] on irc.netsplit.de

{{Fur Affinity topics}}
{{Media archives}}
[[Category:Mature art archives]][[Category:Mature story archives]][[Category:Mature_websites]][[Category:2005 births]]
{{featured article}}

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Fur Affinity

2011-01-09T08:07:17Z

Murrypurryfurry: /* Hardware */

{{LinkingSupporter}}
{{Infobox website
| title = Fur Affinity
| image = [[Image:Fender.jpg|150px]] Fender, drawn by [[Mutley James]]
| author = '''Owners:''' [[The Dragoneer]]
* '''Site Founder:''' [[Alkora]]
* '''Lead Admins''': The Dragoneer
* '''Admins''': [[Ahkahna]], [[Bijoux]], [[Fox Amoore]], [[Glaide]], [[Kyoujin]], [[Pinkuh]], [[Rhainor]], [[Silver R. Wolfe]] and [[Wicht]]
* '''Support Admins''': [[Xaerun]], [[WarMocK]]
* '''Coders''': [[Net-cat]], [[Tsawolf]], [[yak]]
| url = http://www.furaffinity.net/
*'''Forums''': http://forums.furaffinity.net/
*'''Wiki''': http://wiki.furaffinity.net/
*'''LiveJournal''': http://community.livejournal.com/furaffinity/
*'''Twitter''': http://twitter.com/furaffinity
*'''IRC''': [irc://irc.furnet.org/furaffinity #furaffinity] on [[FurNet (IRC)|FurNet]]
*'''Steam''': [http://steamcommunity.com/groups/FurAffinityGamers FurAffinity Gamers]
| status =
| began = 16 January 2005 - 1 August 2005 (staff dispute & coding/server problems)
* 10 December 2005 - Present
| ended = Ongoing
| genre = Multimedia archive
| rating = {{Rating-nc17-button}}
}}
'''Fur Affinity''', also known as '''FA''', is the [[furry fandom]]'s largest online community, focusing on the promotion of art, music and stories.

The site was created in 2005 by [[Alkora]] as an alternative to various art community sites such as [[SheezyArt]] and [[deviantART]], distinguished by allowing artistic freedom of expression regardless of content rating. It is led by [[The Dragoneer]].

{{WikiFurNews|Fur Affinity access disrupted amid ownership dispute}}
{{WikiFurNews|'Krystal sandwich' meme strikes Fur Affinity}}
== History ==
{{main|History of Fur Affinity}}
Fur Affinity was launched on 16 January 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]]. Since then, it has suffered a few outages, most notably a month-long downtime over July 2008, but always managed to recover.

=== Fur Affinity: United! ===
{{main|FA: United}}
In August 2007, Fur Affinity held its own [[furry convention]], Fur Affinity: United! (or FA:U) in [[Wikipedia:Newark, New Jersey|Newark, New Jersey]]. The convention was a success, drawing 310 attendees and 25 [[fursuiter]]s in the [[fursuit parade|parade]], and was followed by another in 2008, drawing 381 attendees. In February 2009, Dragoneer announced FA: United 3 "Games United" for 28-30 May 2010.<ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/621616/ FAU3 Announcement]'' - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity journal (9 February 2009)</ref> No event was scheduled for 2009 due to the economic downturn.

== Features and rules ==
Fur Affinity's features for users include the ability to allow users to track new updates from particular [[artist]]s; highlight favorites; and upload a wide variety of art (images, music and stories). The site attempts to promote community through its comments system and individual journals.

While works of all ratings are accepted (other than ''photographic nudes and images whose intent are to slander or discredit others''<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/faq/ Fur Affinity FAQ]</ref>), art rated as mature or adult is not shown to visitors, or to users who have not specified it as a preference (which requires giving a date of birth indicating an age over 18). Keywords and tags can be added to works, though a feature that allowed blocking based on tags was disabled due to performance issues.

Fur Affinity's search engine was "temporarily disabled" in mid-2006 due to it taking up too many resources.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=1334 Admin mode on june 5th 2006]'' - Alkora, Fur Affinity forums (5 June 2006)</ref> A faux search feature was implemented for April Fool's Day 2007, much to the chagrin of some users.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=7229 Search is up!]'' - Fur Affinity Forums (1 April 2007)</ref> Search was reimplemented on 5 February 2009; it was initially labelled "That Thing You Want" and randomly included [[wikipedia:Rickrolling|rickrolls]].<ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/616339/ SEARCH]'' - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity journal (5 February 2009)</ref>

==Project Ferrox==
{{main|Ferrox (software)}}
The FA development team was working on a new backend system called [[Ferrox_(software)|Ferrox]] which was to be used for the next major revision of Fur Affinity, and was to be made available as [[Wikipedia:FOSS|FOSS]] (Free and Open Source Software) for other sites to use. As of late 2009, development of Ferrox has stalled, with the last change to the code being made on September 7, 2009. FurAffinity has since then decided to upgrade the UI of the existing code instead.

== Mascots ==
[[Fender]] is the Fur Affinity [[mascot]]. He was primarily created by artist [[K-9]], based upon a character concept by [[Preyfar]]. He is half [[fox]] and half [[ferret]], commonly referring to himself as a 'ferrox'.

On April Fool's Day 2007, Fender was depicted in the site's banner as a busty female dragon, still wearing the trademark blue tie. This dragon was made a separate character from Fender and an official mascot of the site in May 2007, and named [[Rednef]], or "Fender" spelled backwards.

Fender was displayed as a three-toed [[sloth]] for April Fools' Day 2008. So far this sloth form has yet to become an official character.

== Controversies ==
{{main|History of Fur Affinity#Controversies}}

== Facts ==
=== Statistics ===
* The monthly hosting bill for FurAffinity is just under $1,700 <ref>''http://twitpic.com/2g8t5x'' - TwitPic Posted on August 19, 2010
by Dragoneer</ref>. This includes a full equipment rack, bandwidth, and IP addresses.
* In less than a year since the site's re-launch, Fur Affinity gained over 45,000 users and over 300,000 submissions. {{fact}}
* The site transfers a daily average of nearly 80 GB of data and well over 10,000,000 individual files. The site's peak bandwidth record stands at 33.2Mbit.{{fact}}
* Alexa has previously ranked Fur Affinity in the [http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?site0=www.furaffinity.net&site1=vclart.net&site2=&site3=&site4=&x=75&y=15&h=300&w=610&h=400&w=700&z=3&range=1y&size=medium&y=r&z=3&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.furaffinity.net top 4,000 sites] on the web in 1 November 2007, showing greater traffic than the VCL for most of the previous year. The trend continued through 2008 and 2009. Fur Affinity has ranked as high as 3,475 on individual days, and close to 2,000 in the USA. In October 2010, Fur Affinity's rank fell to 7681.
* Fur Affinity got approximately 2.5 million page hits per day as of mid-January 2007.{{fact}}
* Fur Affinity reached its 1,000,000th submission on 11 January 2008. It later reached its 2,000,000th submission on 15 February 2009, and its 3,000,000th submission in November 2009.
* On average, Fur Affinity receives approximately 4,600 submissions a day. {{fact}}
* As estimated by a week's worth of statistical data gathered in mid-November 2009, FA is serving an average of 50 page requests/second, from registered and guest users alike. {{fact}}
* Fur Affinity receives several million pageviews every day, apparently peaking on September 28th, 2010, at 5.2 million pageviews.

=== Hardware ===
[[Image:Furaffinity Server Farm.jpg|thumb|Fur Affinity's servers Bahamut, Tiamat, Novastorm and Trogdor (unlabeled).]]
As of September 2010, Fur Affinity runs on the following servers:

* '''Tiamat''' is a twin dual-core 2.0Ghz [[Wikipedia:Opteron|Opteron 2212]] with 32GB DDR2-533 RAM. The server was used as the search server until August 31st, 2010 when it was discovered it had suffered a equipment failure<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/22617961790'' - FA Twitter</ref> It is unclear if Tiamat was ever brought back online or if Search was moved to another server. Storage consists of 4x 74GB 10K RPM hard drives in RAID10.
* '''Neo Bahamut''', FA's backup server, is a dual-core 2.0GHz Opteron with 2GB DDR2-667 RAM. Storage consists of 4x 1TB hard drives in RAID5. Nightly backups for both data and DB.
* '''Trogdor''', FA's data server, is a [[wikipedia:Dell|Dell]] Poweredge 2970 2U Server with 32GB RAM. Storage consists of 6x 1TB hard drives - 4x in a RAID10 array, 1x RAID hotspare and 1x local backups.
* '''Novastorm''', FA's database server, is a [[Wikipedia:Sun Fire|Sun Fire X4150]] with twin quad-core 2.5Ghz Xeon 5420 processors and 64GB of RAM (as of March 2010).<ref>[http://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/10912188478 Novastorm upgrade tweet] - [[Dragoneer]]'s twitter (23 March 2010)</ref> Storage consists of 2x 74GB 15K RPM hard drives in RAID1 and 6x146GB 15K RPM hard drives in RAID10.
* '''Figment''', an application server, is dual quad-core 2.33Ghz Xeon 5345 with 32GB of RAM and 4x 1TB of storage. Figment was purchased with the intent of offering hosting<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10203450025'' - FA Twitter - March 8, 2010</ref> on it "sometime in April... or May, or maybe August" of 2010<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10942579229'' - FA Twitter - March 23 2010</ref> and is currently serving advertisments<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10936829317'' - FA Twitter</ref>. Server was named by [[Sciggles]].<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10585322442'' - FA Twitter</ref>
* '''Shivan''' is a twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. This server is currently unused. The server was named by FA donator TlaiLaxu.
* '''Sparkz''' is a twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. This server is currently running traffic data graphing software. The server was named by FA donator Dax.
* '''Tonberry''' is a twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. This server is currently unused. The server was named by FA donator YiffyHusky.
* '''Lapse''' is a twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. This server is currently unused. Server is awaiting an official designation.

Fur Affinity also runs a Cisco 7301 router dubbed "Routezilla" as well as a 48-port [[wikipedia:Cisco|Cisco]] Catalyst 3560 switch known as "Switchthulu". This is the second Switchthulu, the original having been a 24-port Cisco 3750.

==== Retired ====
* '''Gecko''', the original FA server, is a dual 3.0Ghz Nocona [[Wikipedia:Xeon|Xeon]] system with 4GB of RAM. Storage consists of 2x 250GB hard drives. The server is still used to host [[Wikipedia:Team Fortress 2|Team Fortress 2]] servers for the [[Furry Pound]] and [[Wikipedia:Left 4 Dead|Left 4 Dead]] servers for the Fur Affinity Steam Gamers group.

== References ==
<references />

== See also ==
* [[FA Rank]]

== External links ==
*[http://irc.netsplit.de/channels/details.php?room=%23furaffinity&net=FurNet #furaffinity statistics] on irc.netsplit.de

{{Fur Affinity topics}}
{{Media archives}}
[[Category:Mature art archives]][[Category:Mature story archives]][[Category:Mature_websites]][[Category:2005 births]]
{{featured article}}

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[[zh:Fur Affinity]]

History of Fur Affinity

2011-01-08T23:08:02Z

Murrypurryfurry: /* 2010 December Hack */

{{TOCright}}
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.

==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 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: "''FA does not permit content containing minors involved in sexual situations. This applies to humans (Loli, Shota) or otherwise human-like characters (i.e. Cub) who are, without question, under the general legal age (18). ''", due to 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}}

=== 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 Tyra Banks ===

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

=== Protection of Bestialists ===

During the December 2010 hack, leaked notes showed Dragoneer giving tipoffs to practicing zoophiles in order to protect them from being reported for banning as recent changes in the FA TOS had stipulated.

== 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]]

History of Fur Affinity

2011-01-08T23:07:13Z

Murrypurryfurry: /* 2010 December Hack */

{{TOCright}}
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 CSS exploits for years but have been slow to fix it.

==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 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: "''FA does not permit content containing minors involved in sexual situations. This applies to humans (Loli, Shota) or otherwise human-like characters (i.e. Cub) who are, without question, under the general legal age (18). ''", due to 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}}

=== 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 Tyra Banks ===

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

=== Protection of Bestialists ===

During the December 2010 hack, leaked notes showed Dragoneer giving tipoffs to practicing zoophiles in order to protect them from being reported for banning as recent changes in the FA TOS had stipulated.

== 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]]

Fur Affinity

2011-01-08T22:44:17Z

Murrypurryfurry: Updated staff, updated Ferrox, removed "Primary" designation from some servers as it was unnecessary (Can't have a primary without a secondary).

{{LinkingSupporter}}
{{Infobox website
| title = Fur Affinity
| image = [[Image:Fender.jpg|150px]] Fender, drawn by [[Mutley James]]
| author = '''Owners:''' [[The Dragoneer]]
* '''Site Founder:''' [[Alkora]]
* '''Lead Admins''': The Dragoneer
* '''Admins''': [[Ahkahna]], [[Bijoux]], [[Fox Amoore]], [[Glaide]], [[Kyoujin]], [[Pinkuh]], [[Rhainor]], [[Silver R. Wolfe]] and [[Wicht]]
* '''Support Admins''': [[Xaerun]], [[WarMocK]]
* '''Coders''': [[Net-cat]], [[Tsawolf]], [[yak]]
| url = http://www.furaffinity.net/
*'''Forums''': http://forums.furaffinity.net/
*'''Wiki''': http://wiki.furaffinity.net/
*'''LiveJournal''': http://community.livejournal.com/furaffinity/
*'''Twitter''': http://twitter.com/furaffinity
*'''IRC''': [irc://irc.furnet.org/furaffinity #furaffinity] on [[FurNet (IRC)|FurNet]]
*'''Steam''': [http://steamcommunity.com/groups/FurAffinityGamers FurAffinity Gamers]
| status =
| began = 16 January 2005 - 1 August 2005 (staff dispute & coding/server problems)
* 10 December 2005 - Present
| ended = Ongoing
| genre = Multimedia archive
| rating = {{Rating-nc17-button}}
}}
'''Fur Affinity''', also known as '''FA''', is the [[furry fandom]]'s largest online community, focusing on the promotion of art, music and stories.

The site was created in 2005 by [[Alkora]] as an alternative to various art community sites such as [[SheezyArt]] and [[deviantART]], distinguished by allowing artistic freedom of expression regardless of content rating. It is led by [[The Dragoneer]].

{{WikiFurNews|Fur Affinity access disrupted amid ownership dispute}}
{{WikiFurNews|'Krystal sandwich' meme strikes Fur Affinity}}
== History ==
{{main|History of Fur Affinity}}
Fur Affinity was launched on 16 January 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]]. Since then, it has suffered a few outages, most notably a month-long downtime over July 2008, but always managed to recover.

=== Fur Affinity: United! ===
{{main|FA: United}}
In August 2007, Fur Affinity held its own [[furry convention]], Fur Affinity: United! (or FA:U) in [[Wikipedia:Newark, New Jersey|Newark, New Jersey]]. The convention was a success, drawing 310 attendees and 25 [[fursuiter]]s in the [[fursuit parade|parade]], and was followed by another in 2008, drawing 381 attendees. In February 2009, Dragoneer announced FA: United 3 "Games United" for 28-30 May 2010.<ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/621616/ FAU3 Announcement]'' - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity journal (9 February 2009)</ref> No event was scheduled for 2009 due to the economic downturn.

== Features and rules ==
Fur Affinity's features for users include the ability to allow users to track new updates from particular [[artist]]s; highlight favorites; and upload a wide variety of art (images, music and stories). The site attempts to promote community through its comments system and individual journals.

While works of all ratings are accepted (other than ''photographic nudes and images whose intent are to slander or discredit others''<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/faq/ Fur Affinity FAQ]</ref>), art rated as mature or adult is not shown to visitors, or to users who have not specified it as a preference (which requires giving a date of birth indicating an age over 18). Keywords and tags can be added to works, though a feature that allowed blocking based on tags was disabled due to performance issues.

Fur Affinity's search engine was "temporarily disabled" in mid-2006 due to it taking up too many resources.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=1334 Admin mode on june 5th 2006]'' - Alkora, Fur Affinity forums (5 June 2006)</ref> A faux search feature was implemented for April Fool's Day 2007, much to the chagrin of some users.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=7229 Search is up!]'' - Fur Affinity Forums (1 April 2007)</ref> Search was reimplemented on 5 February 2009; it was initially labelled "That Thing You Want" and randomly included [[wikipedia:Rickrolling|rickrolls]].<ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/616339/ SEARCH]'' - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity journal (5 February 2009)</ref>

==Project Ferrox==
{{main|Ferrox (software)}}
The FA development team was working on a new backend system called [[Ferrox_(software)|Ferrox]] which was to be used for the next major revision of Fur Affinity, and was to be made available as [[Wikipedia:FOSS|FOSS]] (Free and Open Source Software) for other sites to use. As of late 2009, development of Ferrox has stalled, with the last change to the code being made on September 7, 2009. FurAffinity has since then decided to upgrade the UI of the existing code instead.

== Mascots ==
[[Fender]] is the Fur Affinity [[mascot]]. He was primarily created by artist [[K-9]], based upon a character concept by [[Preyfar]]. He is half [[fox]] and half [[ferret]], commonly referring to himself as a 'ferrox'.

On April Fool's Day 2007, Fender was depicted in the site's banner as a busty female dragon, still wearing the trademark blue tie. This dragon was made a separate character from Fender and an official mascot of the site in May 2007, and named [[Rednef]], or "Fender" spelled backwards.

Fender was displayed as a three-toed [[sloth]] for April Fools' Day 2008. So far this sloth form has yet to become an official character.

== Controversies ==
{{main|History of Fur Affinity#Controversies}}

== Facts ==
=== Statistics ===
* The monthly hosting bill for FurAffinity is just under $1,700 <ref>''http://twitpic.com/2g8t5x'' - TwitPic Posted on August 19, 2010
by Dragoneer</ref>. This includes a full equipment rack, bandwidth, and IP addresses.
* In less than a year since the site's re-launch, Fur Affinity gained over 45,000 users and over 300,000 submissions. {{fact}}
* The site transfers a daily average of nearly 80 GB of data and well over 10,000,000 individual files. The site's peak bandwidth record stands at 33.2Mbit.{{fact}}
* Alexa has previously ranked Fur Affinity in the [http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?site0=www.furaffinity.net&site1=vclart.net&site2=&site3=&site4=&x=75&y=15&h=300&w=610&h=400&w=700&z=3&range=1y&size=medium&y=r&z=3&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.furaffinity.net top 4,000 sites] on the web in 1 November 2007, showing greater traffic than the VCL for most of the previous year. The trend continued through 2008 and 2009. Fur Affinity has ranked as high as 3,475 on individual days, and close to 2,000 in the USA. In October 2010, Fur Affinity's rank fell to 7681.
* Fur Affinity got approximately 2.5 million page hits per day as of mid-January 2007.{{fact}}
* Fur Affinity reached its 1,000,000th submission on 11 January 2008. It later reached its 2,000,000th submission on 15 February 2009, and its 3,000,000th submission in November 2009.
* On average, Fur Affinity receives approximately 4,600 submissions a day. {{fact}}
* As estimated by a week's worth of statistical data gathered in mid-November 2009, FA is serving an average of 50 page requests/second, from registered and guest users alike. {{fact}}
* Fur Affinity receives several million pageviews every day, apparently peaking on September 28th, 2010, at 5.2 million pageviews.

=== Hardware ===
[[Image:Furaffinity Server Farm.jpg|thumb|Fur Affinity's servers Bahamut, Tiamat, Novastorm and Trogdor (unlabeled).]]
As of September 2010, Fur Affinity runs on the following servers:

* '''Tiamat''' is a twin dual-core 2.0Ghz [[Wikipedia:Opteron|Opteron 2212]] with 32GB DDR2-533 RAM. Storage consists of 4x 74GB 10K RPM hard drives in RAID10.
* '''Neo Bahamut''', FA's backup server, is a dual-core 2.0GHz Opteron with 2GB DDR2-667 RAM. Storage consists of 4x 1TB hard drives in RAID5. Nightly backups for both data and DB.
* '''Trogdor''', FA's data server, is a [[wikipedia:Dell|Dell]] Poweredge 2970 2U Server with 32GB RAM. Storage consists of 6x 1TB hard drives - 4x in a RAID10 array, 1x RAID hotspare and 1x local backups.
* '''Novastorm''', FA's database server, is a [[Wikipedia:Sun Fire|Sun Fire X4150]] with twin quad-core 2.5Ghz Xeon 5420 processors and 64GB of RAM (as of March 2010).<ref>[http://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/10912188478 Novastorm upgrade tweet] - [[Dragoneer]]'s twitter (23 March 2010)</ref> Storage consists of 2x 74GB 15K RPM hard drives in RAID1 and 6x146GB 15K RPM hard drives in RAID10.
* '''Figment''', an application server, is dual quad-core 2.33Ghz Xeon 5345 with 32GB of RAM and 4x 1TB of storage.
* '''Shivan''' is a twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. This server is currently unused. The server was named by FA donator TlaiLaxu.
* '''Sparkz''' is a twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. This server is currently running traffic data graphing software. The server was named by FA donator Dax.
* '''Tonberry''' is a twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. This server is currently unused. The server was named by FA donator YiffyHusky.
* '''Lapse''' is a twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. This server is currently unused. Server is awaiting an official designation.

Fur Affinity also runs a Cisco 7301 router dubbed "Routezilla" as well as a 48-port [[wikipedia:Cisco|Cisco]] Catalyst 3560 switch known as "Switchthulu". This is the second Switchthulu, the original having been a 24-port Cisco 3750.

==== Retired ====
* '''Gecko''', the original FA server, is a dual 3.0Ghz Nocona [[Wikipedia:Xeon|Xeon]] system with 4GB of RAM. Storage consists of 2x 250GB hard drives. The server is still used to host [[Wikipedia:Team Fortress 2|Team Fortress 2]] servers for the [[Furry Pound]] and [[Wikipedia:Left 4 Dead|Left 4 Dead]] servers for the Fur Affinity Steam Gamers group.

== References ==
<references />

== See also ==
* [[FA Rank]]

== External links ==
*[http://irc.netsplit.de/channels/details.php?room=%23furaffinity&net=FurNet #furaffinity statistics] on irc.netsplit.de

{{Fur Affinity topics}}
{{Media archives}}
[[Category:Mature art archives]][[Category:Mature story archives]][[Category:Mature_websites]][[Category:2005 births]]
{{featured article}}

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