Difference between revisions of "FurBid-SF"

Revision as of 22:21, 1 September 2006

FurBid-SF is an active online venue for people to sell and purchase Science Fiction, Fantasy and Anthropomorphic items such as artwork, comic books, clothing and fursuits.

• Website: http://www.furbid.ws/
• Founder: Aatheus
• Administrator: Ayukawataur
• Ran from/to: 1999 - present

FurBid-SF is current of incarnation the worlds first all-furry online auction site. It has been through many changes, but has survived to be the most popular and most stable site of its kind to this day.

History

Aatheus

In late 1999, a young college student, Aatheus, built a tiny online auction service as part of an experiment. Using the quite buggy EveryAuction 1.01 program, he designed FurBid. The original purpose was to create a working server environment. His decision to build it around furry was more a matter of taste than it was an attempt to fill a gap in the community. The creation itself was relatively uneventful and on November 8, 1999 FurBid officially opened.

Shortly after opening it was seen by The Dragon De Monsyne at Transform.to, who offered Aatheus hosting space. On November 18, 1999 FurBid was moved to it's new host (furrybid.transform.to), where it remained until January 27, 2001 when it was moved to Ezzi Net at the suggestion of Gushi.

During that time FurBid suffered from many internal problems. A great deal of downtime caused by outside sources. Script glitches, hard drive problems, a Dec. 26, 2000 DoS prompted by Somethingawful listing FurBid in its "Awful Site of the Day", and file corruption, were just some of many problems faced.

Perhaps the most significant problem was the announcement by Aatheus on December 9, 2000 of the accquisition of furbid.com and loss of the domain to Ragscoon of FurSale who stole it out from under Aatheus due to personal issues between the two and offered to sell it to him on January 20, 2001 for the price of $500.00. This event led to a long time rivalry between FurBid and FurSale.

Other than an issue between FurBid and Jurann (below), the only other significant issue was a complete crash in the summer of 2003 which brought the system down for over a month. During this time the community experimented with other auction services including FurBuy and FurEAuction, but immediately returned as soon as FurBid returned to operational status.

Ayukawataur

At Further Confusion 2003, Aatheus mentioned to Ayukawataur his desire to find another adminstrator to take over FurBid. During this time she was experimenting with the EveryAuction software on her own pet project (the-abcb cafe). Her initial response was quite negative, claiming "You could not pay me enough to take over that [kludge]".

Aatheus continued his search amongst others he felt would be qualified until he again returned to Ayukawataur just shortly before Further Confusion 2004. They agreed to discuss the issue and at the con he revealed to her in private that he had not found an admin to take over and as such FurBid would be shut down in the summer when he left to persue more college. She agreed to consider the problem.

After a lunch and gallery browsingmeeting in Carmel by the Sea in Northern California, Ayukawataur agreed to take over the administration of FurBid. In February of 2004 she was appointed as Assistant Administrator. Despite her title she was acting the role of Admin. and was using the name Assistant Admin to give the community time to adjust to her presence.

This was not without its share of problems as many members of the community disagreed with her appointment. The drama which took place lasted quite some time and was mostly built around her being involved with a prominant furry artist Kacey Miyagami and claims that a conflict of interest would develop. This has not occured.

It was revealed she was the Admin. in late May of 2004, shortly after the revamp of the Discussion Board with a database driven system. Other projects she worked on during that time were a creation of a FAQ, tightening of rules and the ToS, a mascot contest, and a radical departure from the previous stances on bestiality and pedophilia.

In May of 2005 she retired the old EveryAuction system and replaced it with a modern and more efficient mySQL server which she dubbed FurBid-SF. The SF representing ScienceFiction/Fantasy in an attempt to expand the awareness of FurBid users to other genres.
The opening of FurBid-SF was also not entirely smooth. There were numerous rewrites which took place over the period of many months after launch. To better streamline the code she drafted the skills of Ch'marr and Gushi. During this time she also moved the server from its residence at Ezzi Net to be one of the early systems in Gushi's Colo in Jersey.

Part of her plan included the first successful implementation of associated fees for any of the furry auction houses.

Fees

There was a great deal of controversy when she announced that FurBid-SF was including paid features. Though minor, many claimed it was unfair, or that she was nothing more than a money hungry tyrant. Over time these claims have subsided and the fee structure has become an accepted function by the majority of the community.

The purpose of these fees was to provide a symbiotic relationship with those who wished to provide support with FurBid-SF's substatial bill. As a reward for this support a user could have better placement or better visibility. It also provided better accounting records for the IRS than just having donations.

According to the Administaur, the basic functions of FurBid-SF, which include listing, bidding, and buying, shall forever remain free to all users. It is only the additional items which will ever have an associated investment.

For a detailed breakdown of the minor charges which are associated with FurBid-SF, refer to:

• Fees: http://www.furbid.ws/cgi-bin/auction/fees.pl

Current status

As of late August 2006, FurBid-SF has 12,299 unique registered users. This number grows at a steady rate of an average of around thirty a week. At any given time there are between 900 and 1100 auctions open. Of almost 21,000 auctions listed, almost 18,100 successfully closed with bids.

Mascots

Toward the end of 2001, Aatheus proposed a contest for a Furbid Mascot. The idea was well received generating five major Participants and a total of 501 votes. On January 1, 2002 Aatheus tallied all the votes and gave us all a list of things. The winner was Caribou, with her creation Sheckles the Bat with a total of 161 votes. Runner up was Kacey Maltzman, with her character Breeze the Spotted Skunktaur with 122 votes. Flinthoof created Jake and earned 102 votes, Iron Badger submitted Fiona with 61 votes and Silverwyvern created Tyler bringing in 55 votes.

Shortly after Sheckles fell to the wayside due many previous commitments of his creator, and in Sheckles place Kacey created some images that were used on official Furbid merchandise.

On June 17, 2004, Ayukawataur reopened the idea of a mascot for FurBid-SF. Or, to be more precise, as FurBid-SF is a community, so it should have a group of mascots. Of the many submitted, five were selected by community vote. August 15, 2004 Breeze again returned, this time to take the greatest portion of votes (62.04%). Followed by Rachele, Faria, Keesa, and Seru.

Though originally intended to maintain a presence on FurBid-SF itself and to provide a measure of community spirit, the only work using them so far has been by Kacey Miyagami.

Breeze currently graces the Discussion Board banner and the FurBid-SF main banner.

Trivia

• The Administaur of FurBid-SF has constantly fought with PayPal for the right to allow her community to use it for paying their FurBid-SF fees. To date she has been unsuccessful in convincing them that paying for an auction service is not the same as purchasing adult oriented items.
• At Anthrocon 2004 Jurann the Admin of FurBuy approached Ayukawataur with an offer of $50,000 to shut down FurBid-SF. She declined claiming that it was the right of the community to decide which service they wanted to use.
• The Administaur has constantly rejected pressure by a small portion of the community to ban fur from FurBid-SF.
• FurBid-SF now recognizes the Furbid Livejournal as official.
• FurBid-SF has no convention presence. The Administaur prefers FurBid-SF gain new members through word of mouth.
• Only three persons have been permanently banned from using FurBid-SF.

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External links

• FurBid.ws
• FurBid-SF Discussion Board
• FurBid Livejournal
• Ayukawataur's Livejournal

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