FAF Down- Is this the end, or maybe a new beginning?

[LazerMaster5]

So I came on this afternoon and found the Fur Affinity Forums were down. This is the message that greeted me. "The forums will be offline for the next while as we sort out a few things. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience." The question is, how long will they remain offline? Will they ever come back online? If they come back online, will everything be lost? Is this truly the death of FAF, or is it possibly a fresh start, where spammers and shitposters will be gone and actual discussion will be encouraged? The future is uncertain, that's for sure.

[SidewalkSurfboard]

I seriously hope it just ends up getting renewed. I love the place, but the spam and shitposting stressed me out, because I kept blaming myself for it all for whatever reason.

[LazerMaster5]

I seriously hope it just ends up getting renewed. I love the place, but the spam and shitposting stressed me out, because I kept blaming myself for it all for whatever reason.

It's not your fault Dragoneer was being an ass. I loved the madness, but too many members left because of the madness. Shame, too. FAF was that one safe spot where there was always conversation going on, and people could express themselves without not worrying about being maimed.

[Wolf-Bone]

I for one have no sweet clue but I think our best bet to watch is probably Flayrah or however it's spelled and perhaps Vivisector. Anyone interested could cross-post anything that looks like it might shed some light on things. There's usually at least a few folks on the inside around those parts. There might be other sources I'm not thinking of off the top of my head. I got one proposal though. Since you started this we make the new furry mascot for the whole fandom a crazy ass lookin' red and black canid who looks like some bad ass pirate or something jumping out the gender attack helicopter like Rambo or somebody.

Yeah, a new beginning means a new furry mascot for the whole fandom because a new beginning means whatever FAF's new mascot be ain't the be all end all. Call it crazy and too ambitious and no one would ever agree on it yeah they said the same thing about the Canadian flag once. Not sure how the red white and blue came about but I doubt that was an overnight success considering the other flag y'all are fighting about. Also Superman was invented in Canada according to some propaganda I watched growing up.

Just hand the fandom over to some Canadians. Trust us. We're good at this shit. Because we don't even gotta be right about anything, just ask Newfoundland, they're still doing pretty damn good for themselves in spite of being, well, Newfoundland. We can idiot our way to success. Look y'all we are professional students and end up becoming the Master Splinters of fucking up forward and upward later in life because we were founded pretty much the same way FA was. A couple hicks got drunk after a fallout with their neighbors who they stole some shit from, started a country, launched a show called Doug and Bob and did nothing but shoot the shit around beer for the rest of their human existence. People idolize them, and us, to this day for that act of bravery and cowardice.

What I'm saying is let's all just get drunk and shoot the shit. Or if you got some hash that's even better.

[WolfNightV4X1]

Weasel doesn't really like when threads pop up to complain about the flaws of other sites, I find. I find this thread will only bring in more argument on the same old topic from the regulars of this site.


Well anyways, I suspect "awhile" may be a very long time.

[Sarukai]

Realistically they would just wipe and ban and claim they have improved the forums with new moderation. Its safe to assume that sweeping it all under the carpet is the best solution.

[Wolf-Bone]

Realistically they would just wipe and ban and claim they have improved the forums with new moderation. Its safe to assume that sweeping it all under the carpet is the best solution.

The guy in charge of all this took a poll, the majority and then some made a pretty good decision, and he suggested he was actually going to reverse a lot of those bans so no, I don't see much being swept under the carpet. I really fucking hope he don't wipe the forums though because some of us really need that shit.

[Mei]

I was just hopping back and forth between the forums. Im glad that someone mentioned this site. I am enjoying making new friends ^^

Wolf-bone: i agree they had better not wipe the forums!! I'm lucky i saved copies of any artwork and things done for me, but im sure a lot of people didnt do the same. What kinda gets me is i was having a PM discussion with a member and i forgot to add them on FA ~.~

[Vae]

because I kept blaming myself for it all for whatever reason.

That's not really the community's responsibility, though, and it shouldn't need to change to cater to your one specific needs.
We should gravitate to places that already accommodate us. Not just barge in and make demands of a place, that's already been established with its own way of doing things.

people could express themselves without not worrying about being maimed.

I don't know if this double negative was intentional.
But if it was, it's actually accurate, and I lol'd.

Weasel doesn't really like when threads pop up to complain about the flaws of other sites, I find. I find this thread will only bring in more argument on the same old topic from the regulars of this site.

Are you kidding? The Furaffinity topics get popular as shit.
We eat this stuff right up.


Speaking personally, I doubt they're taking it down completely.
They might be scrubbing some things down more thoroughly after the most recent shitpost party. They could be doing nothing at all. It's hard to tell.
I haven't used FAF in a long time, so none of it affects me personally, in any case.

[Toshabi]

A quote from Carenath. It seems like the forums weren't even owned by Neer. (this effectively being the last thread on FAF)

So almost a one week ago this whole meltdown kicked off with a more detailed and reasonably accurate review of events written up and published on Flayrah. What began with Kalmor being banned snowballed into the resignation of all but one of the forum moderation staff and concluded with the forums being effectively killed off with new account registrations closed and no updates. This leaves me and others with the question: What will happen to FAF now?
Since 2010 I have been hosting the forums and continue to do so although I've not been a staff member in over a year, primarily for the community but also as a way of keeping them online when FA itself was down (which at the time it was for over a month). With recent events I have been asked by more than one individual if I would consider breaking the forums away into their own independent operation.

I see at least three possible futures and I believe it is the community that should have input into what happens to them.


The status quo is maintained. I am aware that the trio of directors are not fans of the forums, they are considered "hostile" and "unfriendly". Previously they were run and managed largely autonomously with a deserved reputation for not being a hugbox where critical thinking was not discouraged and acting like a "special snowflake" got you chewed up by the regulars. A fear is that the forums will go the way of the IRC channel, abandoned, forgotten and left to its own devices; except when something causes a stir.
The forums are closed down entirely or sanitized to the extent that they end up as nothing but a support board, heavily policed and the community is killed off.
The forums are floated as an independent entity as they used to be before and new or existing staff brought back on board to run them largely as they had been in the past with all private forums and their content purged, current staff defanged and a review and likely reversal of previous bans, particularly those issued unfairly.


Accepting a moderator role here under the current managers will require that you provide them a copy of your legal ID and sign an unenforceable NDA, I do not anticipate many people will be jumping at the chance. In the past, the admin-only areas were once split into an admins-only private forum there is no explicit requirement that these ones host data that FA proper considers proprietary and confidential so I find this NDA/ID requirement utter lunacy.

The forums are not a priority for the current managers as evidenced by the lack of communication during this week, the former staff (including some fired without notice) are willing to come back and run the community.

tl;dr-