History of FurNation

This article covers the history of the FurNation website and associated franchises.

Pre-2004

• November 1996: FurNation website established by Nexxus and Rackett
• 30 March 1998: Nakira reports that Nexxus advised him that upgrades to the FurNation servers failed and that the website would remain offline permanently. The website was accessible again a few days later.
• 9 November 2001: Nexxus temporarily suspended FurNation due to Sibe's actions.
• 25 June 2002: Nexxus states he is transferring complete ownership of the FurNation website to Rackett.

2004

Sometime in 2004, Nexxus established FurPlanet, which served as the official FurNation Multimedia online store for the next four years.

On 28 December 2004, Nexxus announced his intent to convert FurNation to AnthroNation, with the addition of Fantasy and Sci-fi websites. He also announced the FurNation toolbar, which was never released.

2005

In 2005, the Luxor sim was built in the recently-founded virtual world Second Life; it eventually became the central area of FurNation Worlds.

2007

Changes

In mid September 2007, Nexxus and Furnation's administrators made some major updates to the website. These changes were mainly to the gallery system and to the instant messaging shoutbox that is featured at the top of each page on the website. The changes to the gallery system apparently made it very hard for the artists to actually upload their artwork. According to some users, they were also confused at the way the website stored their images, making them harder to view than before. Over time, however, most users have gotten used to the new gallery system.

Criticisms

Around June 2007, Nexxus added a shoutbox to the site, which can be seen as the sole reason many non-furries joined the site. The influx of non-furries, and the departure of many of the more respected members of the site around this time, was seen by a few members of FurNation as the reason that the general quality of posts, art and otherwise, on the site, has been going "downhill" since that period, an assertion disputed by the FurNation administrators.

2008

Hacking

Around March 2008, the website was hacked and all user websites, most of which pre-dated the current incarnation which includes the gallery system and shoutbox, were lost. Because those sites were not backed up on the server, all accounts and information on those sites were lost.

In a post appearing on the front page on March 28, 2008, zerodog posted a message in which he stated "FurNation is not responsible for the maintaining or backup of any data stored on personal websites or any other hosted sites. However FurNation owned sites such as FurNation Forums and FurPlanet are backed up regularly as are their respective databases. It is ultimately the End users responsibility to keep up with there data, not ours. If data is lost we will try to recover it using recovery tools but there is NO assurances that we can."

First announcement of closure

On September 7, 2008, Nexxus sent the following email to FurNation users:

FurNation started in November of 1996 as a simple web hosting site. Since then it has grown to be a center peice of the furry fandom for chatting and finding new friends. Unfortunatly, I have paid out of pocket for the service since its inception. Donations have helped, along with the income that FurPlanet generated to support the service. Since I have sold FurPlanet to Argyll Productions the server fees are once again running me into a lot of debt. We were getting help on the server fees, but the debt I have to pay back is getting way out of control. I would like to keep the server running with donations alone, but last month we managed only 135 dollars toward the total monthly fees of 400 dollars. I do appreciate those who donated, and I put the money towards the fees. Unfortunatly, if the present trend continues, FurNation will have to close its doors as of October 1st, 2008. I do not wish to do this, but the rising debt I am accumulating will force this issue upon me. If you would like to keep FurNation online, please consider a donation for the service. Once again, if we have to close its been a hell of a 12 year run and I have had a great time providing this service to the community. To donate, you can use the quick button link on the main FurNation webpage or visit the following URL: (the URL is a PayPal link) Sincerely, Nexxus FurNation Webmaster

2009

Closure and re-opening

On May 9, 2009, Nexxus announced in an email to users and on FurNation's front page that FurNation would be closing on May 16, 2009:

FurNation, a websystem that I have operated for the furry fandom since 1996, almost 14 years, will be closing and going offline forever on May 16th, 2009 at Midnight. FurNation Worlds, the sims we run on Second Life, will remain for now in name only. FurNation Prime, the main center sim will go offline this week. I am sorry to announce this, but for FN to continue at the present time while paying the debt that I still have for the hosting fees going back to the beginning of operation we would need a little over 2K in cash along with this month's hosting fees of 400 dollars. I do not expect nor wish to ask for further donations to run the service, nor can I afford to continue to add to my current debt. All Supporting Members will be able to keep using the email system (I will provide a new URL for the web interface). I will provide further information later this week. For those hosting sites on FN, the FTP service will remain in operation until the end of this month for all those who need to collect any data they may have stored. I have met many friends in the fandom, and I can say that the last 14 years in the fandom has been one of the greatest experiences of my life. To bring FurNation to a final close is one of the hardest things I have done, and I will always feel a part of myself is missing. So long furs and furrets, and thanks for all the carrots. Nexxus

Later, however, Nexxus revised the date of closure to May 23 at midnight. By May 21, the donation indicator had only reached to 35% of the projected necessary expenses for the continued upkeep of the website.

Beginning the morning of May 23, the front page of the site featured only this simple message:

FurNation is gone. So long, and thanks for all the carrots.

(Many people in the fandom claim the front page statement at one point read "So long, and thanks for all the cocks", also 'So long, and thanks for all the fish", the first of which was taken as blatant disrespect on the part of Nexxus by anyone claiming to have seen it.)

Many people speculate that the shutdown as little more than a severe "temper tantrum" on Nexxus' part.

The site was then re-opened on May 25, with a slightly increased reserve of funds for the server upkeep. This was the second time that the FurNation website had temporarily suspended operations in its 13-year history.

Transfer to community ownership

On May 26, 2009, "The FurNation Support Team" sent an email to FurNation users announcing that the service would continue to operate and would be run by a group:

We have worked out an agreement that will allow FN to stay online. The service is being transfered to the Furry Community as a whole, and will be run and operated as a group effort with voting for the CEO and board of directors like any convention or small public business would be run. Basically, this will be the first web service to be fully owned and operated by the fandom! We will have more details this week as we work out all the plans and create the TOS and Charter for the new FurNation! Please stay tuned. Oh, the Gallery section is going to be offline for a few weeks as we work out how the new system will be set up. We will still need to cover server fees at the present location for one month, so the donation system is still online on the front page. After this month we have several options for free hosting we will be considering for our future expansion. Thanks! Sincerely, The FurNation Support Team

A further email was sent the same day:

Just to let you all know, we are going to host the present service at its current location for another month. This will allow us time to chage the service over (we have several offers for free hosting for FurNation, but it will take time to move). We are over 300 dollars short for next month's hosting fees on our existing service. Please consider throwing us some change if you can to help us while we get all the stuffs in order to move to a free hosting system. Thankies!

These messages were also posted on the site.

On October 2, 2009 an announcement was made, entitled "No Funds to pay Server Fees":

Well, the economy seems to have finally gotten around to us, and the donation drive for the upgrades and server fees has met EPIC FAIL. We have approx 4 more days of service until they pull the plug at our ISP. I blame this economy more than anything right now, as most of my friends are out of work right now. I will shift the site over to a default OUT OF SERVICE screen when we go offline. The new community owned FN worked very well, but unfortunatly there just is not enough interest to keep it community owned. It was a great test though, and I give great thanks to those who helped keep us online this long.

But apparently the site was not taken offline, as there are archives of the site on Oct 6, 15 and November 25 in 2009.

December closure

December 2009 screen (variant #1)

December 2009 screen (variant #2)

On 8 December 2009, Nexxus announced on the site front page and forums that the FurNation PayPal account had been suspended for terms of use violations, and that the site's ISP had also received a complaint. The announcement blamed Fur Affinity staff for the suspension, criticizing The Dragoneer's management of his own site (which was down at the time), and set a closure date of 1 January 2010.

Discussion ensued, one topic of which was the lack of proof for these assertions. The Dragoneer strongly denied the claims on his Twitter account, stating that Fur Affinity had lost its own PayPal account access earlier that year, without blaming FurNation.

Later that day, the FurNation page was replaced with the text: "FurNation is gone. So long, and thanks for all the carrots cocks," as well as "lol bitches" in black-on-black text beneath it. Its Twitter account held the message "FurNation is offline, this time for good. So long and thanks for all the fish."

On 10 December 2009, FurNation's URL address resolved to http://www.furisdead.com/, a site run by PETA. By 12 December it was resolving to a mail portal bearing the FurNation logo.

December reopening

Reyedog took over Furnation around December 23, 2009, with websites due to return on January 1st, 2010. The website is currently hosted on the social network Ning.com (http://furnation.ning.com/). However, in Ning.com's terms of service, adult content (something Furnation has long been known for) is banned.

2010

In early 2010 attempting to look at various websites at FurNation resulted in "If this is your personal website, we have taken it offline temporarily due to low usage. ... If you have not signed in this website will be recycled on June 1st, 2010." Among those recycled were The Official Furronika Gallery on FurNation.

2015

FurNation was hit with a DDoS attack, as was many other furry websites.

On December 10, 2015, FurNation was to be closed permanently. It had become too costly to maintain the site, and after the DDoS attacks, FurNation's ISP refused to bring the site back online for fear of another DDoS attack.

2016

FurNation launched a GoFundMe campaign. As of May 2016, the site is back online.

2020

On March 1 artists Logansryche and PandaJenn got together to discuss fandom history and FurNation came up, which lead to a domain purchase, rebranding FurNation as FurNation Reborn to reduce any impact from FurNation. The site is operated as the image archive it started out as, using a snapshot from the Wayback Machine of Dec 1997.