June 30th, 2025- Browse, Search, and Keywords Update
Posted 2 weeks agoHey there fuzzies!
We want to let you all know the progress with the “roll back/update” mentioned in the previous announcement. The way we described today’s update in our last communication was considered misleading by some community members and, in turn, caused confusion, which was never our intention and we apologize for this. Some of the changes in our original update were a one-way trip, making it impossible to revert to the previous state the site was in. With this in mind, we heard everyone loud and clear about what we could do to move forward in a better direction. We’d like to thank everyone who gave us clear and constructive feedback, as it was invaluable to understanding what we could do to improve Fur Affinity for everyone!
This new update is the first step in a long transition towards a proper, fully-functioning keyword tagging system and as such is not the final form of this project. As such, we’ve designed this update to work similarly to how Fur Affinity has operated in the past while continuing progress in further development of our keywords system.
Opening the Browse page will display an updated interface, closer to the previous system:
It mostly appears the same, only now you will see that when making a Gender selection you will be automatically redirected to the Search page with filters already in place.
Based on your feedback, the Search page has been reworked, and now includes additional filters that were missing and previously only available on Browse (Category, Species, and Gender):
You will now be able to easily filter for which gender selection you prefer to see.
When selecting more than one option, only submissions containing all of the selected genders will be displayed by default. Alternatively, If you want to perform a standard full-text search for everything that uses any of the keywords (even alone) you can click the “Any of the words” option under the “Match Criteria” section of the search options. As a heads up, the keyword selector will only work in Extended Mode. You can change how the search functions by using additional options, such as “-” to exclude a term (example: “female !non_binary” to search for submissions with the term “female” and exclude “non_binary), or “|” to change the search to look for any of the terms next to it (example: “female | non_binary” to display submissions that have either “female” or “non_binary”).
For more information on options and operators to use for search, please refer to the Help Page.
In addition, we now require all submissions to have at least 3 keywords when submitting and editing previous works. We mentioned we were going to introduce this requirement at a later date when Tag Blocking was launched, and we feel like this is a great opportunity to take a step forward to encourage the change towards a proper tagging system. You will see this help text when submitting new works now:
For submissions that have keywords that don’t match the new requirements, worry not! We will be keeping your keywords in-place on your submissions; however, they will not be able to be searched for in our search system and if you edit an older submission you will be prompted to update keywords. They will only be displayed in the submission sidebar. When adding or editing new keywords, there will be a message that pops up informing you if some of your keywords are invalid.
If you have any problems, bugs, glitches ect. We would ask you to please put all the information you can get in a Trouble Ticket, instead of writing it in the comments. This way our Tech team can keep better track of the issue. You can submit a Ticket by clicking here or going to the “Support” section on the menu bar, and selecting “Report a problem”.
General Changes:
⚙️ Re-introduced the gender selection options to the browse, submission finalize/edit page and the search page.
⚙️ Except for the browse page, genders will now be rendered as a series of checkboxes instead of a dropdown, clicking which would directly modify either the keywords area, or the search query box directly on the page.
⚙️ Adjusted layout, position and spacing of elements at all resolutions and display mode transitions.
⚙️ Added the comment anchor icon (that can be copied to link to the comment directly) to submission and journal comments on mobile view.
⚙️Hiding a comment on a submission or a journal will scroll the page back to its general position on load.
Search Page Changes:
⚙️ Adding Category, Art Type and Species dropdown filters.
⚙️ Adding page and per page options.
⚙️ Search query box will now expand to accommodate larger search queries. Newlines can be added to it for convenience by pressing CTRL + ENTER while typing.
⚙️ Extra "Search" buttons added for convenience at the bottom of the filters lists in the sidebar and on mobile.
⚙️ Adjusted the display of error messages.
⚙️ The Search form HTTP action has been changed from POST to GET, so now all filter options and the search query would be transmitted via URL - which can be copied, shared or bookmarked.
⚙️ Added "Advanced Search Help" section to the "Options" area on mobile view.
⚙️ Restricting pagination to the maximum amount of results the search backend is configured to return (5000), so it doesn't trigger an error trying to go past it.
Submission Edit & Submission Finalize Page Changes:
⚙️ Description and keywords fields will now automatically expand to fit their contents.
⚙️ Finalize submission page, the thumbnail preview will now be visible on small/mobile screens as well.
⚙️ Submission edit page, added the thumbnail preview.
Browse Page Changes:
⚙️ Added the gender dropdown back with our new tagging framework in mind.
⚙️ If a gender filter from it is selected, the Browse page will redirect to the Search page while transmitting all of the other selected filter options.
FA+ Users-Only Changes:
⚙️ Extra “results per page” dropdown options that are available only for FA+ will have a different background to make them stand out.
Keywords Related Changes:
Entering/updating submission keywords is now done in accordance with new parsing rules:
* Only a-z,0-9,_ (underscore) are allowed.
* Keyword must be minimum 3 characters long (subset of 2 characters are supported)
* There must be at least 3 keywords provided.
The "Note" section under keywords input fields on submission finalize and edit pages updated to reflect this.
Existing keywords that are invalid according to new rules:
* Will be converted to new format ("/" and "-" replaced with "_") when editing a submission, and saved when the edit page is submitted. User will be warned/prompted when this happens.
* Displayed as they are on the submission view page, but visually "disabled" and unable to be interacted with.
Again we would like to remind you all that this is not a completely finished product. Much of the updates coming into FA from the start of the year are building the groundwork for final solutions, as we are working with an ancient infrastructure with limitations that restrict who is able to work on it in its current state. There are plans in motion for a recode as mentioned in our previous Town Hall announcement, but that takes time. In the meanwhile we hope to be making quality of life stop-gap solutions to the current site. We’ve been making great progress in these areas, such as our initiatives with Tag Blocking as well as Display Names. We made a mistake in how we handled this update, and we are actively working to resolve how this happened to prevent it from occurring again by moving forward with more communication, and proper testing.
We feel it is important to note that we have enjoyed having comments on journals open to communicate with our community members and get feedback from others when we are both doing things right as well as wrong. We unfortunately had to lock the comments on the previous two journals as much of the conversation seemed to be turning into unhealthy arguments against our trans/non-binary/gender fluid community members, as well as being gynophobic and we will not tolerate this behavior.
Fur Affinity is woman and LGBTQIA+ owned and operated. We’re very proud of the community of inclusivity we’ve fostered, and implore(and to some degree expect) everyone to help us preserve those values.
Lastly, we wanted to update you all on where we are with this year's Roadmap. There is currently a lot in “Code Review” that we hope will start coming out swiftly over the next couple months. We have side projects we are also working on that we hope you will all enjoy.
Main ticket items
⭐ Tag Blocking Part 1- Completed ✅
⭐ Display Names (FA+ Launch)- Completed ✅
⭐ Display Names (Everyone Launch) - Completed ✅
⭐ Technical Debt Fixes- In Code Review ⏳
⭐ Large Bugfixes Round 1- In Code Review ⏳
⭐ Implementing Cloudflare Turnstile (Tool to verify users and block bots) - In Code Review ⏳
⭐ IPv6 Support - In Code Review ⏳
⭐ User Block Improvements - In Development ✏️
⭐ 2FA (Two-Factor Authentication) - In Development ✏️
⭐ Audio Player Updates - Researching 📖
⭐ Writing Upgrades - Researching 📖
⭐ Fixing Thumbnails - Researching 📖
⭐ Dev Friendly Initiative - Not Started 🍃
Side Projects
✏️ Site page “Banner Museum”: Featuring all previously used site banners with links to artists (for modern AND classic banners)
✏️ Site page “I Was Here”: A memorial page for all users who are no longer with us.
✏️ Site page “Wall of Awesome”: A way to track and shout out people who donate to the site! This will be an “opt-in” page for donors and not required if you prefer to remain anonymous!
✏️ Moved ads to Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) standard sizes.
✏️ Added a Mature rating to ads, making a total of three ratings: General, Mature and Adult.
Thanks to everyone for being patient with us while we sort through this and helping us make FA a better place for our community as a whole! Please keep comments within our Code of Conduct rules and a reminder to be excellent to each other! ❤️
We want to let you all know the progress with the “roll back/update” mentioned in the previous announcement. The way we described today’s update in our last communication was considered misleading by some community members and, in turn, caused confusion, which was never our intention and we apologize for this. Some of the changes in our original update were a one-way trip, making it impossible to revert to the previous state the site was in. With this in mind, we heard everyone loud and clear about what we could do to move forward in a better direction. We’d like to thank everyone who gave us clear and constructive feedback, as it was invaluable to understanding what we could do to improve Fur Affinity for everyone!
This new update is the first step in a long transition towards a proper, fully-functioning keyword tagging system and as such is not the final form of this project. As such, we’ve designed this update to work similarly to how Fur Affinity has operated in the past while continuing progress in further development of our keywords system.
Browse Page Update
Opening the Browse page will display an updated interface, closer to the previous system:
It mostly appears the same, only now you will see that when making a Gender selection you will be automatically redirected to the Search page with filters already in place.
Search Page Update
Based on your feedback, the Search page has been reworked, and now includes additional filters that were missing and previously only available on Browse (Category, Species, and Gender):
You will now be able to easily filter for which gender selection you prefer to see.
When selecting more than one option, only submissions containing all of the selected genders will be displayed by default. Alternatively, If you want to perform a standard full-text search for everything that uses any of the keywords (even alone) you can click the “Any of the words” option under the “Match Criteria” section of the search options. As a heads up, the keyword selector will only work in Extended Mode. You can change how the search functions by using additional options, such as “-” to exclude a term (example: “female !non_binary” to search for submissions with the term “female” and exclude “non_binary), or “|” to change the search to look for any of the terms next to it (example: “female | non_binary” to display submissions that have either “female” or “non_binary”).
For more information on options and operators to use for search, please refer to the Help Page.
Keyword Update
In addition, we now require all submissions to have at least 3 keywords when submitting and editing previous works. We mentioned we were going to introduce this requirement at a later date when Tag Blocking was launched, and we feel like this is a great opportunity to take a step forward to encourage the change towards a proper tagging system. You will see this help text when submitting new works now:
For submissions that have keywords that don’t match the new requirements, worry not! We will be keeping your keywords in-place on your submissions; however, they will not be able to be searched for in our search system and if you edit an older submission you will be prompted to update keywords. They will only be displayed in the submission sidebar. When adding or editing new keywords, there will be a message that pops up informing you if some of your keywords are invalid.
If you have any problems, bugs, glitches ect. We would ask you to please put all the information you can get in a Trouble Ticket, instead of writing it in the comments. This way our Tech team can keep better track of the issue. You can submit a Ticket by clicking here or going to the “Support” section on the menu bar, and selecting “Report a problem”.
🖥️ Tech Changelog 🖥️
General Changes:
⚙️ Re-introduced the gender selection options to the browse, submission finalize/edit page and the search page.
⚙️ Except for the browse page, genders will now be rendered as a series of checkboxes instead of a dropdown, clicking which would directly modify either the keywords area, or the search query box directly on the page.
⚙️ Adjusted layout, position and spacing of elements at all resolutions and display mode transitions.
⚙️ Added the comment anchor icon (that can be copied to link to the comment directly) to submission and journal comments on mobile view.
⚙️Hiding a comment on a submission or a journal will scroll the page back to its general position on load.
Search Page Changes:
⚙️ Adding Category, Art Type and Species dropdown filters.
⚙️ Adding page and per page options.
⚙️ Search query box will now expand to accommodate larger search queries. Newlines can be added to it for convenience by pressing CTRL + ENTER while typing.
⚙️ Extra "Search" buttons added for convenience at the bottom of the filters lists in the sidebar and on mobile.
⚙️ Adjusted the display of error messages.
⚙️ The Search form HTTP action has been changed from POST to GET, so now all filter options and the search query would be transmitted via URL - which can be copied, shared or bookmarked.
⚙️ Added "Advanced Search Help" section to the "Options" area on mobile view.
⚙️ Restricting pagination to the maximum amount of results the search backend is configured to return (5000), so it doesn't trigger an error trying to go past it.
Submission Edit & Submission Finalize Page Changes:
⚙️ Description and keywords fields will now automatically expand to fit their contents.
⚙️ Finalize submission page, the thumbnail preview will now be visible on small/mobile screens as well.
⚙️ Submission edit page, added the thumbnail preview.
Browse Page Changes:
⚙️ Added the gender dropdown back with our new tagging framework in mind.
⚙️ If a gender filter from it is selected, the Browse page will redirect to the Search page while transmitting all of the other selected filter options.
FA+ Users-Only Changes:
⚙️ Extra “results per page” dropdown options that are available only for FA+ will have a different background to make them stand out.
Keywords Related Changes:
Entering/updating submission keywords is now done in accordance with new parsing rules:
* Only a-z,0-9,_ (underscore) are allowed.
* Keyword must be minimum 3 characters long (subset of 2 characters are supported)
* There must be at least 3 keywords provided.
The "Note" section under keywords input fields on submission finalize and edit pages updated to reflect this.
Existing keywords that are invalid according to new rules:
* Will be converted to new format ("/" and "-" replaced with "_") when editing a submission, and saved when the edit page is submitted. User will be warned/prompted when this happens.
* Displayed as they are on the submission view page, but visually "disabled" and unable to be interacted with.
Again we would like to remind you all that this is not a completely finished product. Much of the updates coming into FA from the start of the year are building the groundwork for final solutions, as we are working with an ancient infrastructure with limitations that restrict who is able to work on it in its current state. There are plans in motion for a recode as mentioned in our previous Town Hall announcement, but that takes time. In the meanwhile we hope to be making quality of life stop-gap solutions to the current site. We’ve been making great progress in these areas, such as our initiatives with Tag Blocking as well as Display Names. We made a mistake in how we handled this update, and we are actively working to resolve how this happened to prevent it from occurring again by moving forward with more communication, and proper testing.
We feel it is important to note that we have enjoyed having comments on journals open to communicate with our community members and get feedback from others when we are both doing things right as well as wrong. We unfortunately had to lock the comments on the previous two journals as much of the conversation seemed to be turning into unhealthy arguments against our trans/non-binary/gender fluid community members, as well as being gynophobic and we will not tolerate this behavior.
Fur Affinity is woman and LGBTQIA+ owned and operated. We’re very proud of the community of inclusivity we’ve fostered, and implore(and to some degree expect) everyone to help us preserve those values.
Lastly, we wanted to update you all on where we are with this year's Roadmap. There is currently a lot in “Code Review” that we hope will start coming out swiftly over the next couple months. We have side projects we are also working on that we hope you will all enjoy.
🗺️Roadmap for 2025!🗺️
Main ticket items
⭐ Tag Blocking Part 1- Completed ✅
⭐ Display Names (FA+ Launch)- Completed ✅
⭐ Display Names (Everyone Launch) - Completed ✅
⭐ Technical Debt Fixes- In Code Review ⏳
⭐ Large Bugfixes Round 1- In Code Review ⏳
⭐ Implementing Cloudflare Turnstile (Tool to verify users and block bots) - In Code Review ⏳
⭐ IPv6 Support - In Code Review ⏳
⭐ User Block Improvements - In Development ✏️
⭐ 2FA (Two-Factor Authentication) - In Development ✏️
⭐ Audio Player Updates - Researching 📖
⭐ Writing Upgrades - Researching 📖
⭐ Fixing Thumbnails - Researching 📖
⭐ Dev Friendly Initiative - Not Started 🍃
Side Projects
✏️ Site page “Banner Museum”: Featuring all previously used site banners with links to artists (for modern AND classic banners)
✏️ Site page “I Was Here”: A memorial page for all users who are no longer with us.
✏️ Site page “Wall of Awesome”: A way to track and shout out people who donate to the site! This will be an “opt-in” page for donors and not required if you prefer to remain anonymous!
✏️ Moved ads to Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) standard sizes.
✏️ Added a Mature rating to ads, making a total of three ratings: General, Mature and Adult.
Thanks to everyone for being patient with us while we sort through this and helping us make FA a better place for our community as a whole! Please keep comments within our Code of Conduct rules and a reminder to be excellent to each other! ❤️
June 19th, 2025- Gender Dropdown Roll Back/Update
Posted 4 weeks agoHey there everyone,
Fur Affinity staff has heard your feedback loud and clear, and have spent last night and this morning trying to find ways to better serve our users’ needs following yesterday’s removal of the gender dropdowns. It had additional consequences that had not been taken into account, which in turn negatively affected the browsing experience of many users. Following a lengthy analysis of the issues raised, we plan to re-introduce the gender dropdowns back while updating their behavior. We really cannot apologize enough for how this was pushed out.
Gender dropdown selections will now work as a convenient shortcut for adding the gender-specific keywords into the keywords field on submissions, or the search box on the Search page. We will be adding a limited subset of genders onto the dropdown menu to recreate previous functionality while still allowing users to search via keywords for any gender desired that’s listed on submissions. Any gender identities can still be added manually to the keywords, use of the dropdown isn’t required.
Additionally, the Category/Art Type/Species filters that are currently on the browse page will be added to the Search page as well. This allows for searches to now use a combination of filters that were previously only possible on the Browse page. After these changes have been implemented, we plan to merge the functionality of the Search and Browse pages (now virtually identical) together into a single page that can work as either, or both at the same time.
We will be pushing this update as soon as we can, and we are still open to feedback on this!
Lastly, Fur Affinity is staffed in large by volunteers. That said, that should not be an excuse for poor behavior. We do expect all our staff to respond to users with constructive and polite comments at all times. This did not happen yesterday in a few replies, and we apologize greatly for this as well. The moderators in question have been spoken to, and it has been reiterated to our entire staff that they are here to serve the community as a whole.
We once again want to thank the community for your feedback. We have been listening and we’re working hard to continue improving and to own when mistakes are made. We encourage you to continue sharing your constructive feedback. Thank you for helping make Fur Affinity an even better place!
Fur Affinity staff has heard your feedback loud and clear, and have spent last night and this morning trying to find ways to better serve our users’ needs following yesterday’s removal of the gender dropdowns. It had additional consequences that had not been taken into account, which in turn negatively affected the browsing experience of many users. Following a lengthy analysis of the issues raised, we plan to re-introduce the gender dropdowns back while updating their behavior. We really cannot apologize enough for how this was pushed out.
Gender dropdown selections will now work as a convenient shortcut for adding the gender-specific keywords into the keywords field on submissions, or the search box on the Search page. We will be adding a limited subset of genders onto the dropdown menu to recreate previous functionality while still allowing users to search via keywords for any gender desired that’s listed on submissions. Any gender identities can still be added manually to the keywords, use of the dropdown isn’t required.
Additionally, the Category/Art Type/Species filters that are currently on the browse page will be added to the Search page as well. This allows for searches to now use a combination of filters that were previously only possible on the Browse page. After these changes have been implemented, we plan to merge the functionality of the Search and Browse pages (now virtually identical) together into a single page that can work as either, or both at the same time.
We will be pushing this update as soon as we can, and we are still open to feedback on this!
Lastly, Fur Affinity is staffed in large by volunteers. That said, that should not be an excuse for poor behavior. We do expect all our staff to respond to users with constructive and polite comments at all times. This did not happen yesterday in a few replies, and we apologize greatly for this as well. The moderators in question have been spoken to, and it has been reiterated to our entire staff that they are here to serve the community as a whole.
We once again want to thank the community for your feedback. We have been listening and we’re working hard to continue improving and to own when mistakes are made. We encourage you to continue sharing your constructive feedback. Thank you for helping make Fur Affinity an even better place!
June 18th, 2025- Hardware and Drop Down Updates
Posted a month agoHey there fuzzies!
We have a few updates we want to let you all know about, namely the following:
- New Hardware
- Removing the Gender Field for Submissions in favor of keywords
Fur Affinity is getting a much needed hardware upgrade to help prevent issues like what happened in May. This won’t prevent all possible issues but it will help!
This upgrade includes additional backup storage for user uploads (effectively doubling what we currently have), a new server to increase compute and storage capacity, and additional bandwidth to help during peak times of usage.
There may be potential downtime when installing new equipment but we will do our best to give enough notice before it happens. We are all incredibly excited for this and are able to afford to do this due to all those who helped contribute to the GoFundMe last year. Because of your generosity, we had the funds on hand this time to make this happen and we cannot thank you enough!
In keeping with our goal to always be more inclusive, and considering how important self-identification is to many in our Community, we have removed the gender field drop down for submissions. It was outdated with regards to terminology, causing some issues and concerns. We wanted to resolve this sooner than later.
We very much underestimated how big of a change this might be for some users, and we pushed the change to the site before giving our Community a proper heads-up on this modification not knowing the concerns it would cause. We apologize for this mistake, and you can rest assured that our team has learned what went wrong in this situation and have modified our internal processes to address this specific issue moving forward. We never want to shock or concern our users with sudden unexpected changes if we can help it.
Why we did this- While the drop down was easy to use, society is evolving and so must Fur Affinity. Our goal is for submissions to be tagged using the keyword system when it comes to gender, which many users are already doing. The biggest immediate benefit will be for pieces with multiple characters, as they will no longer be restricted to a single option. Now every character’s gender can now be added to the keyword list. Having gender marked via the keyword system also allows freedom for users to completely self-label how they see fit for their gender identities, ensuring more flexibility than the previous limited, curated, and potentially inaccurate list that was previously in place.
To ease the transition, we have automatically copied the old 'Gender' field (except for Any, Multiple Characters, etc) into the keywords of submissions that didn't have it already - over 15 million of them.
This allows us to prepare the field for further, more sweeping changes when it comes to the keyword/tag system, and gauge how best to implement new features that this system will impact in the future.
If you come across any bugs related to this change, make sure to send us a ticket with the “Bug/Glitch” category!
To filter search results by gender, include a term such as "@keywords male" at the end of your search query. Multiple genders can be searched for at once. Example:
@keywords gender1 gender2
For example: "fender @keywords male" will search for all submissions containing "fender" in the title, keywords, description or username, and with "male" in the keywords specifically.
You can exclude by using! or -, for example by appending "@keywords !male" or "@keywords -male". This only works when at least one non-exclusion search term is provided. Examples:
fox @keywords !male
@title rednef @keywords !male
For more information, see the Search Help page: https://www.furaffinity.net/help/#search
Since the last journal update we’ve also made these small changes that you might have noticed!
⭐ Banner is now fully visible and scales to the width of your browser, revealing the entire image instead of just the center when viewed on smaller screens.
⭐ Comments highlighting now scrolls to a viewable point on most if not all resolutions.
⭐ Comments colors have been updated and standardized.
⭐ Removed Skype and added SubscribeStar, Instagram, Reddit, TikTok, Toyhouse, AO3, Wattpad, and FanFiction as contact options!
⭐ The contact page now has a client-side validator to help with setting those values.
⭐ Using sfw.furaffinity.net now forces the SFW toggle to enable, making it more obvious why your art has been unceremoniously ejected.
⭐ Re-added Neer’s world famous taco recipe after it was mistakenly replaced by Neer’s world infamous burrito recipe. (Please do not attempt to construct and cook the burrito recipe - you have been warned.)
⭐ Sakuri still hasn't gotten any of said tacos >:C I need the press to know this.
We know not all the updates here are exciting ones but we hope to be able to field questions related to these below for you the best we can. Comments spreading false information or purely inflammatory comments may be removed by Staff. Reminder that our Code of Conduct applies to announcements as well. Please remember to be excellent to each other!
We have a few updates we want to let you all know about, namely the following:
- New Hardware
- Removing the Gender Field for Submissions in favor of keywords
New Hardware!
Fur Affinity is getting a much needed hardware upgrade to help prevent issues like what happened in May. This won’t prevent all possible issues but it will help!
This upgrade includes additional backup storage for user uploads (effectively doubling what we currently have), a new server to increase compute and storage capacity, and additional bandwidth to help during peak times of usage.
There may be potential downtime when installing new equipment but we will do our best to give enough notice before it happens. We are all incredibly excited for this and are able to afford to do this due to all those who helped contribute to the GoFundMe last year. Because of your generosity, we had the funds on hand this time to make this happen and we cannot thank you enough!
Changes to Drop Downs
In keeping with our goal to always be more inclusive, and considering how important self-identification is to many in our Community, we have removed the gender field drop down for submissions. It was outdated with regards to terminology, causing some issues and concerns. We wanted to resolve this sooner than later.
We very much underestimated how big of a change this might be for some users, and we pushed the change to the site before giving our Community a proper heads-up on this modification not knowing the concerns it would cause. We apologize for this mistake, and you can rest assured that our team has learned what went wrong in this situation and have modified our internal processes to address this specific issue moving forward. We never want to shock or concern our users with sudden unexpected changes if we can help it.
Why we did this- While the drop down was easy to use, society is evolving and so must Fur Affinity. Our goal is for submissions to be tagged using the keyword system when it comes to gender, which many users are already doing. The biggest immediate benefit will be for pieces with multiple characters, as they will no longer be restricted to a single option. Now every character’s gender can now be added to the keyword list. Having gender marked via the keyword system also allows freedom for users to completely self-label how they see fit for their gender identities, ensuring more flexibility than the previous limited, curated, and potentially inaccurate list that was previously in place.
To ease the transition, we have automatically copied the old 'Gender' field (except for Any, Multiple Characters, etc) into the keywords of submissions that didn't have it already - over 15 million of them.
This allows us to prepare the field for further, more sweeping changes when it comes to the keyword/tag system, and gauge how best to implement new features that this system will impact in the future.
If you come across any bugs related to this change, make sure to send us a ticket with the “Bug/Glitch” category!
To filter search results by gender, include a term such as "@keywords male" at the end of your search query. Multiple genders can be searched for at once. Example:
@keywords gender1 gender2
For example: "fender @keywords male" will search for all submissions containing "fender" in the title, keywords, description or username, and with "male" in the keywords specifically.
You can exclude by using! or -, for example by appending "@keywords !male" or "@keywords -male". This only works when at least one non-exclusion search term is provided. Examples:
fox @keywords !male
@title rednef @keywords !male
For more information, see the Search Help page: https://www.furaffinity.net/help/#search
Other changes
Since the last journal update we’ve also made these small changes that you might have noticed!
⭐ Banner is now fully visible and scales to the width of your browser, revealing the entire image instead of just the center when viewed on smaller screens.
⭐ Comments highlighting now scrolls to a viewable point on most if not all resolutions.
⭐ Comments colors have been updated and standardized.
⭐ Removed Skype and added SubscribeStar, Instagram, Reddit, TikTok, Toyhouse, AO3, Wattpad, and FanFiction as contact options!
⭐ The contact page now has a client-side validator to help with setting those values.
⭐ Using sfw.furaffinity.net now forces the SFW toggle to enable, making it more obvious why your art has been unceremoniously ejected.
⭐ Re-added Neer’s world famous taco recipe after it was mistakenly replaced by Neer’s world infamous burrito recipe. (Please do not attempt to construct and cook the burrito recipe - you have been warned.)
⭐ Sakuri still hasn't gotten any of said tacos >:C I need the press to know this.
We know not all the updates here are exciting ones but we hope to be able to field questions related to these below for you the best we can. Comments spreading false information or purely inflammatory comments may be removed by Staff. Reminder that our Code of Conduct applies to announcements as well. Please remember to be excellent to each other!
May 4th, 2025- Progress Report!
Posted 2 months agoHey there fuzzies! Update for all of you comin in hot!
To read up on the "how we got here" you can find it in our previous announcement!
We are at about 75% in our process, given there are extra steps involved at this point it may be a bit harder/fuzzier getting an accurate percentage but we will still be doing our best to give updates on our socials!
We posted this onto our socials last night for those wondering if there are things they could do to assist, and it may seem like something small, but it does add up over time!
After getting a lot of feedback on "The Great Notification Purge of 2025"we are bringing these ideas to the table to see if there is something that we can do in regards to:
▪️Regular automated 6 months or older purge of notifications (was previously mentioned to be implemented in 2019 at year old notifications but not followed through on)
▪️Looking into ways of organizing our notification system better, like by artist, oldest/newest, and possibly category types (writing, audio, visual, etc)
▪️Looking into abandoned zero content account clean ups (It would not apply to accounts that have comments, faves, profile info, are active, etc!)
▪️Folders in favorites for better organizing
This doesn't mean we can easily implement or WILL implement all of these things but they are up for discussion and we greatly appreciate all your help and hope you all continue to help with notification clean ups while we sort on our end as well! Notifications are not the reason this all happened. It is just something that, at this time, users can assist us with to make some extra space for things we need to do. This is absolutely something that should have already been in place on our end, but with the recent updates and changes we’ve been making to the site we are absolutely making sure this one gets followed through on this time around!
We are also looking to expand our storage once this is done. Fret not, we have been preparing for something like this, it just came sooner than anticipated! We already have funding in place 💖But if you would like to send any extra support or some love to our tech crew you can do so via Fender shinies or our ko-fi link!
Thanks for hanging tight with us! We appreciate you all 💖
To read up on the "how we got here" you can find it in our previous announcement!
We are at about 75% in our process, given there are extra steps involved at this point it may be a bit harder/fuzzier getting an accurate percentage but we will still be doing our best to give updates on our socials!
We posted this onto our socials last night for those wondering if there are things they could do to assist, and it may seem like something small, but it does add up over time!
After getting a lot of feedback on "The Great Notification Purge of 2025"we are bringing these ideas to the table to see if there is something that we can do in regards to:
▪️Regular automated 6 months or older purge of notifications (was previously mentioned to be implemented in 2019 at year old notifications but not followed through on)
▪️Looking into ways of organizing our notification system better, like by artist, oldest/newest, and possibly category types (writing, audio, visual, etc)
▪️Looking into abandoned zero content account clean ups (It would not apply to accounts that have comments, faves, profile info, are active, etc!)
▪️Folders in favorites for better organizing
This doesn't mean we can easily implement or WILL implement all of these things but they are up for discussion and we greatly appreciate all your help and hope you all continue to help with notification clean ups while we sort on our end as well! Notifications are not the reason this all happened. It is just something that, at this time, users can assist us with to make some extra space for things we need to do. This is absolutely something that should have already been in place on our end, but with the recent updates and changes we’ve been making to the site we are absolutely making sure this one gets followed through on this time around!
We are also looking to expand our storage once this is done. Fret not, we have been preparing for something like this, it just came sooner than anticipated! We already have funding in place 💖But if you would like to send any extra support or some love to our tech crew you can do so via Fender shinies or our ko-fi link!
Thanks for hanging tight with us! We appreciate you all 💖
April 30th, 2025- We're back! Kind of.
Posted 2 months agoWelcome back to Fur Affinity! You’ll notice that we are in a version of read-only mode with the following limitations:
🚫 Uploads are currently disabled
🚫 Avatar changes and uploads are disabled
🚫 Profile banners cannot be edited
🚫 Submissions cannot be edited/replaced or deleted
🚫 New Account Creation has been disabled
A lot has happened in the last two days. Our original maintenance window was due to a sharp increase in storage usage for uploaded works that required us to expand our storage capacity on short notice. We are extremely happy so many of you are using Fur Affinity, and this took us a bit by surprise how quickly this happened!
However, once we brought the website back online we noticed missing images and gallery errors on uploads. Out of a concern for potential data loss or corruption, we took the site offline again to investigate and validate our systems. Upon further inspection, we identified the root cause and began the process of repairing our user uploads system.
You can read more about the technicals and timeline further below!
This is our current timeline of tasks for restoration at the moment:
⚆ Finish copying User Uploads to the newly mounted filesystem (We are here)
⚆ Verify that the content copied is correct and uncorrupted using hash comparison
⚆ Cleanup debugging tools and remount everything to their original states, which will require a properly brief downtime
⚆ Once everything is mounted and tested, we will bring Fur Affinity back online to full working order
As for the reason for our downtime, below is a technical recap of what happened to get us to this point, our process for troubleshooting, and our takeaways straight from our Tech Team:
After we took Fur Affinity offline a second time, we began investigating what went wrong in our planned maintenance.
Almost immediately, we began noticing issues with our filesystem that houses user uploads. We mount our user uploads to the website using a protocol called NFS, or Network File Share, which allows the website to access content hosted by another server, in this case it allows our Website Server to communicate with our Data Storage Server. When we attempted to investigate the seemingly inaccessible content on the Website Server, we were greeted with “Stale NFS Pointer” errors. Not good. We logged into the Data Storage Server to verify the content was still there, which in fact it was. To put it simply, while the User Uploads were present in the Data Storage Server, the Website Server was unable to access them.
This began an almost 15 hour discord call between our tech triage team, management, and constant debugging and research from our infrastructure and development teams. What we found was:
⚆ Checking NFS client logs and lock logs on both servers yielded no errors
⚆ Checking Kernel and Syslog messages on both servers yielded no errors
⚆ Files that existed before we expanded the Storage Server Capacity were not corrupted; however, at random they were inaccessible by the Website Server.
⚆ Accessing files directly from the Storage Server that were inaccessible by the Website Server showed the data was valid and intact.
⚆ Unmounting and remounting the NFS Share yielded no changes in the behavior.
⚆ Mounting the Storage Server NFS Share to a different server yielded no change in behavior, which narrowed the search down to just the Storage Server.
⚆ File System Verification Checks on both the Website Server and Storage Server came back positive, with the exception of the partition that housed User Uploads, which showed an incorrect and negative count of inodes
The mismatch of inodes, especially with the count showing a negative number, lead us to investigate the filesystem expansion process further, which led us to believe that an errant bug in the filesystem resizing process during Monday’s maintenance pushed the inode count on the newly resized file system beyond the maximum number of inodes a file system is allowed to have, overflowing it into the negative numbers, as reported by `df -i`, leading to random errant behavior when trying to allocate space for new data.
This mismatch can manifest itself in many different ways: data instability, ghosting and, in our case, creating accessor mismatches for protocols that rely on healthy INode data like NFS.
After 24 hours we had our culprit, and weighing all our options we decided to begin the process of organizing our storage cluster resources to create a new data partition that was properly sized and contained enough storage to copy the valid files out of the unstable filesystem. Fur Affinity’s Data Storage Partition is not small, so this operation has the potential to take a long time.
Which is where we are right now. Fur Affinity user uploads are currently being rehomed in the newly created data partition, which is not a quick process, and due to the length of this procedure we have decided to open FurAffinity in “File Read Only Mode” which allows for everything except User Uploads, Avatar Changes, Profile Banner Changes, and anything that would utilize the User Upload Partition (see the list at the start of this journal for an exhaustive list of unavailable features at this time). At the moment we have an estimate that this may take up to a week to resolve.
We know this is not ideal for the majority of users. We are hoping at least having the site accessible for everything else will help in regards to artists doing business as well as keeping communication flowing.
Throughout this process we have identified several takeaways that the tech team will be processing and digesting to improve our internal reporting of resource usage rate, as well as our processes for handling complex operations, such as resizing, in the future.
We will be making a regular maintenance schedule moving forward in addition to improving our internal reporting and metric tracking so that you can all be aware when maintenance is coming up again with more than 24 hours notice and more robust and meaningful updates if issues escalate, like we are doing with this update journal!
This won't cover all downtime needs to be clear. There may still be emergencies that come up that require unscheduled downtime. But we want to work with the community as much as possible with things we can predict so you stay informed and prepared!
We are all very tired but happy to know there is a light at the end of the long tunnel here. We know this didn’t go well and was completely unexpected on our end too but let’s try to keep criticism constructive.
Thank you for your patience and sticking with us through this!
**EDIT**
If you experienced upload issues between the first offline maintenance and the second, you may have issues loading images in your gallery. Don't panic! The files are still there, and we can restore it for you after our migration is completed. Please open a trouble ticket to let us know!
🚫 Uploads are currently disabled
🚫 Avatar changes and uploads are disabled
🚫 Profile banners cannot be edited
🚫 Submissions cannot be edited/replaced or deleted
🚫 New Account Creation has been disabled
A lot has happened in the last two days. Our original maintenance window was due to a sharp increase in storage usage for uploaded works that required us to expand our storage capacity on short notice. We are extremely happy so many of you are using Fur Affinity, and this took us a bit by surprise how quickly this happened!
However, once we brought the website back online we noticed missing images and gallery errors on uploads. Out of a concern for potential data loss or corruption, we took the site offline again to investigate and validate our systems. Upon further inspection, we identified the root cause and began the process of repairing our user uploads system.
You can read more about the technicals and timeline further below!
This is our current timeline of tasks for restoration at the moment:
⚆ Finish copying User Uploads to the newly mounted filesystem (We are here)
⚆ Verify that the content copied is correct and uncorrupted using hash comparison
⚆ Cleanup debugging tools and remount everything to their original states, which will require a properly brief downtime
⚆ Once everything is mounted and tested, we will bring Fur Affinity back online to full working order
⚠️At the moment, we do not have an ETA on this timeline’s completion, we are actively working on it as fast as we can.⚠️As for the reason for our downtime, below is a technical recap of what happened to get us to this point, our process for troubleshooting, and our takeaways straight from our Tech Team:
(art by 
artdecade)After we took Fur Affinity offline a second time, we began investigating what went wrong in our planned maintenance.
Almost immediately, we began noticing issues with our filesystem that houses user uploads. We mount our user uploads to the website using a protocol called NFS, or Network File Share, which allows the website to access content hosted by another server, in this case it allows our Website Server to communicate with our Data Storage Server. When we attempted to investigate the seemingly inaccessible content on the Website Server, we were greeted with “Stale NFS Pointer” errors. Not good. We logged into the Data Storage Server to verify the content was still there, which in fact it was. To put it simply, while the User Uploads were present in the Data Storage Server, the Website Server was unable to access them.
This began an almost 15 hour discord call between our tech triage team, management, and constant debugging and research from our infrastructure and development teams. What we found was:
⚆ Checking NFS client logs and lock logs on both servers yielded no errors
⚆ Checking Kernel and Syslog messages on both servers yielded no errors
⚆ Files that existed before we expanded the Storage Server Capacity were not corrupted; however, at random they were inaccessible by the Website Server.
⚆ Accessing files directly from the Storage Server that were inaccessible by the Website Server showed the data was valid and intact.
⚆ Unmounting and remounting the NFS Share yielded no changes in the behavior.
⚆ Mounting the Storage Server NFS Share to a different server yielded no change in behavior, which narrowed the search down to just the Storage Server.
⚆ File System Verification Checks on both the Website Server and Storage Server came back positive, with the exception of the partition that housed User Uploads, which showed an incorrect and negative count of inodes
The mismatch of inodes, especially with the count showing a negative number, lead us to investigate the filesystem expansion process further, which led us to believe that an errant bug in the filesystem resizing process during Monday’s maintenance pushed the inode count on the newly resized file system beyond the maximum number of inodes a file system is allowed to have, overflowing it into the negative numbers, as reported by `df -i`, leading to random errant behavior when trying to allocate space for new data.
This mismatch can manifest itself in many different ways: data instability, ghosting and, in our case, creating accessor mismatches for protocols that rely on healthy INode data like NFS.
After 24 hours we had our culprit, and weighing all our options we decided to begin the process of organizing our storage cluster resources to create a new data partition that was properly sized and contained enough storage to copy the valid files out of the unstable filesystem. Fur Affinity’s Data Storage Partition is not small, so this operation has the potential to take a long time.
Which is where we are right now. Fur Affinity user uploads are currently being rehomed in the newly created data partition, which is not a quick process, and due to the length of this procedure we have decided to open FurAffinity in “File Read Only Mode” which allows for everything except User Uploads, Avatar Changes, Profile Banner Changes, and anything that would utilize the User Upload Partition (see the list at the start of this journal for an exhaustive list of unavailable features at this time). At the moment we have an estimate that this may take up to a week to resolve.
We know this is not ideal for the majority of users. We are hoping at least having the site accessible for everything else will help in regards to artists doing business as well as keeping communication flowing.
Throughout this process we have identified several takeaways that the tech team will be processing and digesting to improve our internal reporting of resource usage rate, as well as our processes for handling complex operations, such as resizing, in the future.
⚠️There are no current concerns about storage or gallery corruption issues at this time, and should any further issues be discovered we have a full separate backup available to restore from that was taken roughly 5 hours before the outage just in case.⚠️
We will be making a regular maintenance schedule moving forward in addition to improving our internal reporting and metric tracking so that you can all be aware when maintenance is coming up again with more than 24 hours notice and more robust and meaningful updates if issues escalate, like we are doing with this update journal!
This won't cover all downtime needs to be clear. There may still be emergencies that come up that require unscheduled downtime. But we want to work with the community as much as possible with things we can predict so you stay informed and prepared!
We are all very tired but happy to know there is a light at the end of the long tunnel here. We know this didn’t go well and was completely unexpected on our end too but let’s try to keep criticism constructive.
Thank you for your patience and sticking with us through this!
**EDIT**
If you experienced upload issues between the first offline maintenance and the second, you may have issues loading images in your gallery. Don't panic! The files are still there, and we can restore it for you after our migration is completed. Please open a trouble ticket to let us know!
April 17th, 2025- Display Names Official Launch!
Posted 3 months agoHey there fuzzies!
We are here to officially announce that Display Names have moved out of FA+ beta testing and are now available for all users!
"What are Display Names?"
We first announced the soft launch on this journal! link
Reminder that Display Name changes are only on Modern Theme, Classic is not being updated with new features.
Current restrictions on naming are pretty straightforward:
* No hate speech or slurs.
* No NSFW content.
* Display Names can only accept alphanumeric input as well as " " (space), "." (dot) , "_" (underscore), "-" (dash) and "~" (tilde).
* Emojis and non-latin characters are disallowed.
* Display Names must be between "3" and "30" characters in length. (for the time being.)
* Site policies still apply. (For example, impersonating other users/staff is not allowed.)
FA+ members will have the perk of being able to change every 24 hours. Non-FA+ members will be able to change their Display Name every week (7 days).
The Display Name field can be found on your Profile Info page. All changes will be logged and the last 10 Display Names will be publicly viewable via a dropdown next to the username below the site banner.
If you find any bugs or issues with display names please report them here: Display Name Feedback
Enjoy and remember to be excellent to each other!
We are here to officially announce that Display Names have moved out of FA+ beta testing and are now available for all users!
"What are Display Names?"
We first announced the soft launch on this journal! link
Reminder that Display Name changes are only on Modern Theme, Classic is not being updated with new features.
Current restrictions on naming are pretty straightforward:
* No hate speech or slurs.
* No NSFW content.
* Display Names can only accept alphanumeric input as well as " " (space), "." (dot) , "_" (underscore), "-" (dash) and "~" (tilde).
* Emojis and non-latin characters are disallowed.
* Display Names must be between "3" and "30" characters in length. (for the time being.)
* Site policies still apply. (For example, impersonating other users/staff is not allowed.)
FA+ members will have the perk of being able to change every 24 hours. Non-FA+ members will be able to change their Display Name every week (7 days).
The Display Name field can be found on your Profile Info page. All changes will be logged and the last 10 Display Names will be publicly viewable via a dropdown next to the username below the site banner.
If you find any bugs or issues with display names please report them here: Display Name Feedback
Enjoy and remember to be excellent to each other!
April 4th, 2025- Comedic Sanctuary
Posted 3 months agoHey there fuzzies!
We wanted to pop in and say we had a lot of fun with our April Fools this year and ALSO…we heard you loud and clear.
Comic Neue (similar to Comic Sans) is now available for all users to select in their Account Personalization section of the Account Settings page found here! Settings Link
We received quite a lot of feedback from people who struggle with dyslexia and those who just preferred the font in general. This was a quick add-on that we were able to do for you! We have no plans to add any other additional fonts at this time.
PLEASE KEEP IN MIND
Overrides are generally not supported, maintained, or tested beyond their initial implementation. They come with no guarantee that they will work in all cases, now or into the future.
We need to get back to working on our other to-do items, enjoy and be excellent to each other!
We wanted to pop in and say we had a lot of fun with our April Fools this year and ALSO…we heard you loud and clear.
Comic Neue (similar to Comic Sans) is now available for all users to select in their Account Personalization section of the Account Settings page found here! Settings Link
We received quite a lot of feedback from people who struggle with dyslexia and those who just preferred the font in general. This was a quick add-on that we were able to do for you! We have no plans to add any other additional fonts at this time.
PLEASE KEEP IN MIND
Overrides are generally not supported, maintained, or tested beyond their initial implementation. They come with no guarantee that they will work in all cases, now or into the future.
We need to get back to working on our other to-do items, enjoy and be excellent to each other!
April 1st 2025- We did a thing plus update!
Posted 3 months agoHey there!
We hope you enjoy our amazing new banner designed by the ever talented
We also have redesigned our mascots to be more helpful than ever thanks to
Happy April Fools, Fuzzies!
April 1st 2025 Update- Town Hall, Roadmap, and Changelog
March was a wild ride for us with things happening. Be sure to read through to see what all has been going on!
Town Hall
On March 22nd we tackled the Town Hall! If you missed it you can find the video here-We also have the(mostly accurate) transcript available here! Transcript Link
While we couldn’t answer every question sent in, we feel we hit a lot of important ones sent in and threw in some lighthearted ones at the end. This went really well and we’re all very grateful for the turn out and look forward to doing more in the future!
Roadmap for 2025!
Main ticket items
⭐ Tag Blocking Part 1- Completed
⭐ Display Names (FA+ Launch)- Completed
⭐ Display Names (Everyone Launch) - In Code Review (Launching this month!)
⭐ Technical Debt Fixes- In Code Review
⭐ Large Bugfixes Round 1- In Code Review
⭐ Implementing Cloudflare Turnstile (Tool to verify users and block bots) - In Code Review
⭐ IPv6 Support - In Code Review
⭐ User Block Improvements - In Development
⭐ 2FA (Two-Factor Authentication) - In Development
⭐ Audio Player Updates - Researching
⭐ Writing Upgrades - Researching
⭐ Fixing Thumbnails - Researching
⭐ Dev Friendly Initiative - Not Started
Tech Changelog
-Added new trouble ticket categories to the system
-Banners now change automatically for the seasons and certain holidays
-Added anchors to our Terms of Service, Acceptable Upload Policy, Code of Conduct, and Privacy Policy for easier linking
-Updated the “account creation” workflow with explicit agreements to our Terms of Service, Acceptable Upload Policy, Code of Conduct, and Privacy Policy as well as fixed visual issues with e-mail validation
-Submission keywords field now accepts 500 characters
-Fixed visual issues with the Block Button on user pages wrapping to a new line when it shouldn’t
-Added a new "Search Page" section to the "Help" page- Search Help
-Added Neer’s world famous taco recipe to the source code
Another update coming soon! Thanks for tuning in and remember to be excellent!
March 14th 2025- Event Recap and General Update!
Posted 4 months ago-March 14th 2025 Update Announcement-
We want to thank everyone for attending the Celebration of Life whether in person or virtually! It was a beautiful event that brought many together to celebrate all that Dragoneer did for us and the community. We are still working on assigning everyone’s badges from the event so if you don't have yours yet, don't worry, we'll get to you ASAP! Over 1,200 requests for the badge have been sent so far and we've applied just over 400!! As a reminder, the link to fill out the application for the badge is here: Form link. It was very heartwarming to hear the shared stories with all of you.
We also want to give a huge shout out to Fur the More for helping to host this! To AV, Programming, and Marketplace for helping things go smoothly for our crew and in general to all Fur the More staff. We couldn’t have done this without your generosity and support! Much thanks to our own staff as well for stepping up to help during the event in person and virtually as well as others that joined in to volunteer. It was incredible how many showed up and helped.
*We had over 135 in attendance at the con as well as 4,557 unique viewers during the virtual event!
We have an edited recording of the event posted here:
There will be another upload coming of just the "I was here" song and video. Just waiting on final edits! Huge thanks to
novetrix and 
PepperCoyote for the live music!
We underestimated how much the event was going to take out of us and many of the staffers needed for the Town Hall are still in “recovery mode” from the convention. With that in mind, it is with regret that we will need to postpone the Town Hall by a week so that we can be at our best for it and properly prepared. The new date is March 22nd at 1pm EST via Sciggles’ twitch.
We received many compliments on our booth at the convention but also were told that many had no idea we had merch! The Fur Affinity merch shop opened back in 2021 during the pandemic, you can visit it here: Shop link! If you’re on desktop, a link to the shop can be found at the top of the page via the shopping cart icon. For mobile users, the link can be found in the hamburger menu.
Here are some of merch items we have to offer-
The beta launch of Display Names to FA+ members went over very well! While display names themselves didn’t have issues, they did cause some other minor bugs that our team quickly took care of and resolved.
In addition to the launch of Display Names, we took the time to make some fixes in regards to the fit and function of the site!
Changelog of things recent
*The shop link and FA+ page are now visible to guests.
●Two new categories added:
∘"3D Models"- For submissions involving 3D models.
∘"Virtual Photography"- Includes 3D renders, VR scenes, virtual world photography (Second Life, VRC, etc.), and more.
●Fixed an issue where links on some notifications were unable to be clicked.
●Changes to how bot crawlers use data from our webpages in an attempt to squash spam bots.
●Fuzzy timestamps are now more cursed as of half-o-bit ago.
●Changed the display of user information in the user navigation bar on smaller screens to accommodate the new, longer display name functionality.
Unless any other issues come up in regards to Display Names we will aim to launch it to everyone some time in April! We really appreciate all the support from our FA+ members. It goes a long way in helping us have funding for the site. We hope to have some more features for you to help beta test for us soon. We will have a roadmap started by the time we have the Town Hall so you can have a preview of what's in store!
It has been brought to our attention that there are third party services that are being used to crawl Fur Affinity, among many other sites, for information. We would like to encourage our users to be mindful of any information they post publicly. Anything on your profile, journals, and General-rated submissions are publicly visible unless you have your account set to “block guests” via https://www.furaffinity.net/control.....site-settings/. In addition, any shouts or comments you make on other people's profile pages, journals or General-rated submissions will be visible unless the page owner has disabled guest access as well. For your own safety we advise you to not post anything that could publicly identify you, or any sensitive information about yourself. This is good advice not just for FA, but the internet as a whole, too!
Reminder to be excellent to each other in the comments and keep them on topic ❤️
Celebration of Life Recap
We want to thank everyone for attending the Celebration of Life whether in person or virtually! It was a beautiful event that brought many together to celebrate all that Dragoneer did for us and the community. We are still working on assigning everyone’s badges from the event so if you don't have yours yet, don't worry, we'll get to you ASAP! Over 1,200 requests for the badge have been sent so far and we've applied just over 400!! As a reminder, the link to fill out the application for the badge is here: Form link. It was very heartwarming to hear the shared stories with all of you.
We also want to give a huge shout out to Fur the More for helping to host this! To AV, Programming, and Marketplace for helping things go smoothly for our crew and in general to all Fur the More staff. We couldn’t have done this without your generosity and support! Much thanks to our own staff as well for stepping up to help during the event in person and virtually as well as others that joined in to volunteer. It was incredible how many showed up and helped.
*We had over 135 in attendance at the con as well as 4,557 unique viewers during the virtual event!
We have an edited recording of the event posted here:
There will be another upload coming of just the "I was here" song and video. Just waiting on final edits! Huge thanks to
Town Hall
We underestimated how much the event was going to take out of us and many of the staffers needed for the Town Hall are still in “recovery mode” from the convention. With that in mind, it is with regret that we will need to postpone the Town Hall by a week so that we can be at our best for it and properly prepared. The new date is March 22nd at 1pm EST via Sciggles’ twitch.
MERCH
We received many compliments on our booth at the convention but also were told that many had no idea we had merch! The Fur Affinity merch shop opened back in 2021 during the pandemic, you can visit it here: Shop link! If you’re on desktop, a link to the shop can be found at the top of the page via the shopping cart icon. For mobile users, the link can be found in the hamburger menu.
Here are some of merch items we have to offer-
Display Names
The beta launch of Display Names to FA+ members went over very well! While display names themselves didn’t have issues, they did cause some other minor bugs that our team quickly took care of and resolved.
In addition to the launch of Display Names, we took the time to make some fixes in regards to the fit and function of the site!
Changelog of things recent
*The shop link and FA+ page are now visible to guests.
●Two new categories added:
∘"3D Models"- For submissions involving 3D models.
∘"Virtual Photography"- Includes 3D renders, VR scenes, virtual world photography (Second Life, VRC, etc.), and more.
●Fixed an issue where links on some notifications were unable to be clicked.
●Changes to how bot crawlers use data from our webpages in an attempt to squash spam bots.
●Fuzzy timestamps are now more cursed as of half-o-bit ago.
●Changed the display of user information in the user navigation bar on smaller screens to accommodate the new, longer display name functionality.
Unless any other issues come up in regards to Display Names we will aim to launch it to everyone some time in April! We really appreciate all the support from our FA+ members. It goes a long way in helping us have funding for the site. We hope to have some more features for you to help beta test for us soon. We will have a roadmap started by the time we have the Town Hall so you can have a preview of what's in store!
Internet Safety
It has been brought to our attention that there are third party services that are being used to crawl Fur Affinity, among many other sites, for information. We would like to encourage our users to be mindful of any information they post publicly. Anything on your profile, journals, and General-rated submissions are publicly visible unless you have your account set to “block guests” via https://www.furaffinity.net/control.....site-settings/. In addition, any shouts or comments you make on other people's profile pages, journals or General-rated submissions will be visible unless the page owner has disabled guest access as well. For your own safety we advise you to not post anything that could publicly identify you, or any sensitive information about yourself. This is good advice not just for FA, but the internet as a whole, too!
Reminder to be excellent to each other in the comments and keep them on topic ❤️
March 3rd 2025- Memorial Badge, Update, and Display Names
Posted 4 months agoHappy Monday!
We wanted to stop in with brief updates and announcement.
Forms and submissions for the Community Video project as well as questions for the Town Hall are officially closed! Thank you to everyone who participated in these. We are eager to share what we have all been working on.
Entries to the Furry Musician's contest have also closed! You can follow their page for more updates on things on their page over at
Some of the FA staff will be at Fur The More this week to sell merch in the dealers room as well as host Dragoneer’s Celebration of Life on March 9th at 12pm EST.
REMINDER: The Celebration of Life is FREE to attend, you do not need to register for the con to be there. You will only need to register if you plan on visiting other areas of the convention outside of the Celebration.
That said, we have put together a profile badge for those that have stepped up to help or shown support through all this.
Requirements needed to qualify for the badge are to have done at least ONE of these things:
* Donated to the GFM
* Purchased merch Neer stickers or pins from the Shop
* Submitted art to the Community Video Project
* Sent in other media or stories for the Celebration of Life event
* Attend the Celebration of Life in person
* Attend the Celebration of Life virtually
* Volunteered/helped with the event (even if just online prep)
You can fill out the form to get your badge here: Form Link
We cannot fully express how grateful we are to the community for all your help over these past few months. We would not be able to continue without all your help and support. We know this badge is a very small token in comparison to all you’ve done for the site but we hope it can convey our appreciation.
There will be another reminder for the event day of, so those who cannot attend in person can still stop by virtually if they’d like. It will be hosted on Sciggles’ Twitch account. We also still have items from Neer’s inventory that his mother asked us for assistance with selling, those will be posted in the next few weeks. Once we get through these last few hurdles we promise there won’t be so many posts and reminders on this. It’s been a loooong 7 months. Thank you guys for being so patient with us through this.
We have some really good things lined up to talk to you all about once we return home from the event. A lot of good questions came in for the Town Hall. Reminder that the Town Hall will be on Sciggles’ Twitch as well on March 15th at 1pm EST.
On an unrelated but exciting note, we're happy to officially release Display Names for FA+ members!
As part of our current approach to providing progress milestones for our development flow, we've also brewed up Display Names to act as a stop gap for renames. Renames is by far the #1 requested feature on FA after Tag Blocking. This, unfortunately, is not a full rename system due to infrastructure limitations, but we encourage you to stay tuned for future information regarding our next steps in that area!
Display Names are non-unique alternative names for your account.
FA+ members will have early access to this feature for a couple months to help us test the system and gather feedback so we can make it the best it can be for public release!
If you are interested in trying it out and sending valuable feedback please consider subscribing to FA+ here. We've also added in multi-month AND lifetime FA+ options for purchase on our official shop page!
Current restrictions on naming are pretty straightforward:
* No hate speech or slurs.
* No NSFW content.
* Maximum of 30 characters and alphanumeric (for the time being.)
* Site policies still apply. (For example, impersonating other users/staff is not allowed.)
The Display Name field can be found on your Profile Info page. All changes will be logged and the last 10 Display Names will be publicly viewable. If you find any bugs or issues with display names please report them here: Display Name Feedback
We hope you all have a good week and if you are traveling stay safe! We look forward to seeing you around.
FAQ
Q: Why are you paywalling a basic feature?
A: One of the perks of supporting the site with FA+ is getting to "beta test" new features. This will be pushed to public to all users as soon as any bugs are worked out!
Q: Why did you change how mobile looks? We prefer the previous design!
A: This was an unintended change! We are working with the tech team to get the layout style changed back while keeping the display names on them.
Q: Will there be a cooldown on changing display names?
A: There is a 24 hour cooldown currently!
Reminder to be excellent to each other in the comments and keep them on topic ❤️
Feb 14th 2025- Furry Musicians Contest
Posted 5 months agoOur friends at 
furry_musicians are back with their annual Express Yourself contest, and we're happy to once again host their announcement! There so many talented musicians in our community and we love seeing the entries entered each year! Keep in mind that this contest is run by them, Fur Affinity is just hosting and promoting the event!
Hello, folks! Puppy here from Furry Musicians with an announcement for the 2025 Express Yourself Contest. We’re going bigger and better this year, with over $800 worth of prizes and some fresh, unique opportunities for big promotion.
Everything you need to know is below, so get reading, critters!
WHAT IS THE EXPRESS YOURSELF CONTEST? WHAT IS THE PROCESS?
The contest is to express yourself through a minute-twenty (1:20) musical piece. The first round is a Public Submission Round, meaning anyone can submit a song and so long as it follows the rules, be considered.
The contest then undergoes a private voting round, where the songs from the Public Submission Round are placed on a rating criteria and at least twelve are selected to move on by our panel of judges (Myself, Yangwatanabe & Felix the Coyote (guest judge)). The remaining twelve, those that scored the highest on our rating criteria, will be moved directly into the Semifinal Rounds. The Semifinal Rounds will be publicly voted on by you, the community.
After the Semifinal Rounds, a Final Round consisting of 5 submissions will occur to pick this year's winning 3, and prizes will be distributed! This is also a public voting round.
THE RULES / RATING CRITERIA
Can be found on our original journal over here >>> https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/11062378
Make sure you read them before submitting!
A UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY FOR NON-MUSICIANS
ARTISTS: As always, we are looking for new artists to contribute to the prize pool! If you are interested in having your very own placement prize promoted like this, reply to the designated comment on the submission journal. Yes, you will be paid.
-Reminder to be excellent to each other in the comments and keep them on topic ❤️
To Submit to the 2025 Express Yourself Contest, please follow this link to our home journal, where we have set up a place to do so!
https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/11062378 Hello, folks! Puppy here from Furry Musicians with an announcement for the 2025 Express Yourself Contest. We’re going bigger and better this year, with over $800 worth of prizes and some fresh, unique opportunities for big promotion.
Everything you need to know is below, so get reading, critters!
WHAT IS THE EXPRESS YOURSELF CONTEST? WHAT IS THE PROCESS?
The contest is to express yourself through a minute-twenty (1:20) musical piece. The first round is a Public Submission Round, meaning anyone can submit a song and so long as it follows the rules, be considered.
The contest then undergoes a private voting round, where the songs from the Public Submission Round are placed on a rating criteria and at least twelve are selected to move on by our panel of judges (Myself, Yangwatanabe & Felix the Coyote (guest judge)). The remaining twelve, those that scored the highest on our rating criteria, will be moved directly into the Semifinal Rounds. The Semifinal Rounds will be publicly voted on by you, the community.
After the Semifinal Rounds, a Final Round consisting of 5 submissions will occur to pick this year's winning 3, and prizes will be distributed! This is also a public voting round.
THE RULES / RATING CRITERIA
Can be found on our original journal over here >>> https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/11062378
Make sure you read them before submitting!
A UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY FOR NON-MUSICIANS
ARTISTS: As always, we are looking for new artists to contribute to the prize pool! If you are interested in having your very own placement prize promoted like this, reply to the designated comment on the submission journal. Yes, you will be paid.
Again, submission for the 2025 Express Yourself Contest should be sent to the journal found on Furry Musicians -Reminder to be excellent to each other in the comments and keep them on topic ❤️
Feb 13th- Tag FAQ, Memorial Reminder, & Town Hall
Posted 5 months agoTag Blocking FAQ, Memorial Reminder, and Town Hall Prep
Hey there! We have a few things we would like to update you on so please read through the journal in its entirety!
Celebration of Life and Memorial Update!
Firstly we would like to remind you all that there are only a couple weeks left to get submissions in on Neer’s memorial here journal link. We will be attending Fur The More from March 6th-9th if you wanna stop by and see us in the Dealer’s Den or meet us during the Celebration of Life on Sunday the 9th at noon. You can pre-reg for the con here Fur the More link but a reminder that the Celebration of Life itself is free to the public!
Tag Blocking Update
Next we want to update you on the FAQ in regards to Tag Blocking and items we are working on from the feedback received! FAQ link
We know we’ve been silent a bit but we’ve had our nose to the grindstone trying to get some updates fleshed out, on-boarding new mods, training, and catching up on tickets that have piled up during the past few months. Things are moving along well in that area and starting to see progress has gotten us very eager and lively again after many months of grief and depression.
Town Hall Announcement
While we are waiting until things are set to push live we want to put together a Town Hall. We realize it’s been a long time since Fur Affinity had one! With all the change that’s happened over the last few months we think it might be a good idea to catch the community up on what all has happened and what our goals are moving forward.
We know this may be a bit of a chaotic idea, so we are going to follow what was done the last time and post a form to collect questions ahead of time that we will then answer live. Form Link
We will collect questions for two weeks, closing on February 27th, then prep time for two weeks with a plan to go live for the event on March 15th around 1pm EST. It will be recorded for those that aren't able to make it and we will see about transcribing as well.
Our hope is to bring a breath of fresh air into FA and get back to supporting the community, planning events, and working together to improve the site. This site means so much to all of us, and with all the community has done to support FA and keep it going, it’s about time FA started supporting the community properly in return. We want to do all we can to keep it going in a positive direction. FA has had an unfortunate history of over promising and under delivering and transparency being something that was sorely lacking. That is something we aim to fix, especially after all the feedback in regards to the previous rules update. We are not at our best yet and still learning and recovering from all that's happened. We're sure mistakes will be made but we want to learn from them and we aim to do better and work with the community.
Fender Journal Comments
The previous journal was a bit of “testing the waters” in regards to having the comments turned back on. We were really pleased with the majority of the comments following the guidelines and not causing trouble. We would like to try leaving them open again and see if we can continue the positivity in being able to communicate there.
Things to keep in mind- Comments need to stay PG-13 at most. We need everyone to remain respectful, on topic, and remember that the rules apply to Fender journals too. If you don't have something nice to say, take it elsewhere.
Be excellent to each other.
Jan 16th 2025- Dragoneer Memorial Community Project
Posted 6 months agoHey there everyone!
Specifically
Sciggles here to make some announcements regarding 
Dragoneer's public Celebration of Life.
First note- We WILL have comments turned on for this journal...it is the first time in years we've done this. So please, I need everyone to remain respectful, on topic, and remember that the rules apply to Fender journals too. If you don't have something nice to say, take it elsewhere. Staff will be monitoring replies.
Secondly- I know many of you have feedback for tag blocking! We've been collecting them and are putting together some bug fixes and add-ons that will hopefully be ready to go in the next couple weeks. This journal isn't about that either though so let's try to keep it on topic for this one ❤️ You can send your feedback if you haven't yet via trouble ticket FA trouble tickets under "feedback".
On to the community project!
This song was written and performed by our very own Sakuri Rainne novetrix
Additional vocalists are
Palikui
Manic Knux (URL linktr.ee/Manicknux )
Tygre (URL hyperfollow.com/Tygre )
(background is an edit from a Bluey episode with a quote I hold dear)
"...sometimes special people come into our lives, stay for a bit and then they have to go"
"...but that's sad!"
"It is...But the bit where they were here was happy, wasn't it?"
We wanted to give people the opportunity to submit art to slide show in this video while it was played live at his public Celebration of Life. Which will be hosted at FurTheMore on March 9th at 12pm EST in Herndon, VA. https://furthemore.org/ for more information and location of the event.
To clarify some things, FurTheMore has been gracious to allow us space during their convention to help save on funding and in return we will be making a donation to their non-profit. You do NOT need to register to FurTheMore to attend this specific event. It is free to the public. However, if you wish to attend or access any other part of the convention YOU WILL NEED TO REGISTER. We are looking into options on how to stream this for those who can't make it.
If you don't have art but still want to contribute to the celebration you may also submit a SHORT video or recording sharing kind words, memories, stories you have of Neer.
**EDIT** art of Preyfar and Wren (his hyena and eevee character) are also acceptable to submit! The art can feature others too so long as its SFW
Reference Sheets
Dragoneer
Preyfar
Wren
All submissions accepted will be listed in a master post with credits to each contributor
Please fill out this form or comment below with what you would like to share https://forms.gle/z3uB3PEG9msdz8vFA (must be SFW only). It can be art already done in the past or something new. You can also email submissions to info[at]sciggles[dot]com. Submissions and writings will be reviewed before accepted into the project.
We hope many of you will join us in creating this community piece of art to celebrate the life of Neer as a friend, family member, and pillar of the furry community.
Please have all submissions in by March 1st so that we have time to piece it all together!
There will be another update with the finished project as well as "estate sale" items being posted to help conclude some of the final affairs lingering, this is a request from Momma Neer but I promise the GoFundMe link and posts of the like will be ending soon. We just need to get through these last few hurdles. We are all incredibly grateful for all your support through this. We literally would not be online right now if not for the generosity of this community.
Thank you and I can't wait to see what we can pull together!
~Sciggles
Specifically
First note- We WILL have comments turned on for this journal...it is the first time in years we've done this. So please, I need everyone to remain respectful, on topic, and remember that the rules apply to Fender journals too. If you don't have something nice to say, take it elsewhere. Staff will be monitoring replies.
Secondly- I know many of you have feedback for tag blocking! We've been collecting them and are putting together some bug fixes and add-ons that will hopefully be ready to go in the next couple weeks. This journal isn't about that either though so let's try to keep it on topic for this one ❤️ You can send your feedback if you haven't yet via trouble ticket FA trouble tickets under "feedback".
On to the community project!
This song was written and performed by our very own Sakuri Rainne
Additional vocalists are
Manic Knux (URL linktr.ee/Manicknux )
Tygre (URL hyperfollow.com/Tygre )
(background is an edit from a Bluey episode with a quote I hold dear)
"...sometimes special people come into our lives, stay for a bit and then they have to go"
"...but that's sad!"
"It is...But the bit where they were here was happy, wasn't it?"
We wanted to give people the opportunity to submit art to slide show in this video while it was played live at his public Celebration of Life. Which will be hosted at FurTheMore on March 9th at 12pm EST in Herndon, VA. https://furthemore.org/ for more information and location of the event.
To clarify some things, FurTheMore has been gracious to allow us space during their convention to help save on funding and in return we will be making a donation to their non-profit. You do NOT need to register to FurTheMore to attend this specific event. It is free to the public. However, if you wish to attend or access any other part of the convention YOU WILL NEED TO REGISTER. We are looking into options on how to stream this for those who can't make it.
If you don't have art but still want to contribute to the celebration you may also submit a SHORT video or recording sharing kind words, memories, stories you have of Neer.
**EDIT** art of Preyfar and Wren (his hyena and eevee character) are also acceptable to submit! The art can feature others too so long as its SFW
Reference Sheets
Dragoneer
Preyfar
Wren
All submissions accepted will be listed in a master post with credits to each contributor
Please fill out this form or comment below with what you would like to share https://forms.gle/z3uB3PEG9msdz8vFA (must be SFW only). It can be art already done in the past or something new. You can also email submissions to info[at]sciggles[dot]com. Submissions and writings will be reviewed before accepted into the project.
We hope many of you will join us in creating this community piece of art to celebrate the life of Neer as a friend, family member, and pillar of the furry community.
Please have all submissions in by March 1st so that we have time to piece it all together!
There will be another update with the finished project as well as "estate sale" items being posted to help conclude some of the final affairs lingering, this is a request from Momma Neer but I promise the GoFundMe link and posts of the like will be ending soon. We just need to get through these last few hurdles. We are all incredibly grateful for all your support through this. We literally would not be online right now if not for the generosity of this community.
Thank you and I can't wait to see what we can pull together!
~Sciggles
Jan 9th, 2025 - Tag Blocking and Policy Update
Posted 6 months agoTag Blocking and Policy Update
Happy New Year!!
We are excited to start the year off by announcing some updates we’ve been working on for the last few months!
Client Side Tag Blocking
The new Tag Blocking feature will allow users to censor artwork that contain specific tags. There are two ways you can add and remove tags to your blocklist:
*You can access the page the offending artwork is on and select the tags you'd like to block/unblock in the future.
*You can add/remove them manually on the Profile Info page: "Profile Info"
There is also an option to hide content that has no tags you can adjust the setting on your "Profile Info".
Currently the system only filters exactly what is tagged. For example, blocking "dog" will not filter out something like "canine" or "hotdog". This is intended to avoid accidentally blocking unrelated content.
This is new so there may still be some lingering bugs or fixes as we find them. If you encounter anything please be sure to put in a ticket with a screenshot so we can address it! This is a short term stopgap solution for a long time requested system. The hope is that this will provide users with the basic functions while we work on a more robust system.
⚠️PLEASE NOTE⚠️- Classic theme is no longer being updated. Tag blocking is only available on modern themes.
Contacts Update
We’ve updated the contacts system! This will be a mostly invisible backend change, but you will notice a range of new contact options that will include popular requested services such as; Bluesky, Cara, Mastodon, Piczel, Itaku, Pixiv, and personal emails have been added to the roster. With help adding your Mastodon contact you can link your account with FA by using this: Link.
The update is meant to allow us to add requested contacts more easily moving forward. We want users to be able to keep in contact with each other as much as possible by keeping up and staying current in regards to new services.
New 2.7 Write Up
Many have been anxiously awaiting a follow up to the 2.7 policy we placed on hold a few months ago. We took a bit longer than we ideally wanted but we hope the time and efforts put into trying to resolve this that best works for all will be seen.
As a recap, a few months ago there was a major issue that involved the ABDL and babyfur community, they were the targets of a deliberate mass-reporting incident and our response to the matter was not handled with the proper care and attention it deserved. A rushed policy change happened without enough consideration to what it would mean to these communities was implemented and then put on hold soon after hearing community feedback.
During that time many hours have been put into discussions, meetings, and feedback about this subject from our community discord, social media, trouble ticket feedback, fellow art sites, as well as meetings with lawyers, our host, and community members directly in these affected communities. With all this we feel we have put together a solid rewrite that works for all in the safest way.
We would also like to remind everyone of two things: first, malicious mass reporting is an abuse of the trouble ticket system and will not be tolerated. Second, harassment of anyone is not allowed on Fur Affinity; this includes attaching negative implications to people because they enjoy particular types of art. If this is happening to you on Fur Affinity, please report it. We mentioned both of these things in previous updates but would like to reiterate them, since nothing in this update changes that. If there is content that you don’t want to see, use the new tag blocking system.
The new policy:
2.7 Baby, Juvenile, and Non-Adult Appearing CharactersBaby, juvenile, or otherwise "non-adult" appearing characters, henceforth referred to simply as "juvenile characters", are defined as either:
Explicitly being stated in the submission as under the age of 18,
Or:
Having features or appearances of that of a child or young animal/creature, real or fictional.
Context will be carefully considered for submissions that include stylized content such as chibis, “shortstack” characters, or mental regression of adult characters. See section 2.7.3 for more information.
2.7.1 Rules Related to Juvenile Characters
Juvenile characters ARE permitted in higher rated submissions (mature, adult) so long as the submissions meet all the following requirements:
*Juvenile characters are not permitted to be in the same scene (such as sharing a comic panel, contiguous image, reference sheet, specific section of a story, etc.) where characters are engaging in sexual activity.
*Depictions of birth or breastfeeding with no sexual activity in the presence of a juvenile is permitted.
*Juvenile characters are not permitted to be depicted with visible genitalia or anus.
*Juvenile characters are not permitted in works depicting them as pregnant.
*Juvenile characters are not permitted to appear in heavily fetishized content or sexually based attire, including but not limited to lingerie, BDSM gear, bondage, and overly gratuitous (“hyper”) depictions of soiled or leaking undergarments that are typically unfeasible for an average person (for further information on ABDL and “babyfur” content, see section 2.7.2.)
Furthermore, Fur Affinity does NOT permit sexual submissions with content featuring or tagged with Loli, Shota, or Cub.
2.7.2 ABDL and “Babyfur” Content
Diaper and ageplay scenarios are not subject to the prohibitions above as long as all characters in the scene are depicted as adults. All juvenile characters in "babyfur" art are, unless categorized for any other reason above, allowed so long as no other violations exist (e.g., a juvenile character wearing a diaper is allowed, but a juvenile character wearing a diaper in the same scene as sexual activity, as outlined in section 2.7.1 for instance, would not be, independently of the undergarment as a factor).
All soiled or leaking undergarments (diaper, underwear, etc.) must be rated mature or adult regardless of whether the character is a juvenile (per section 2.7.1) or an adult, per Fur Affinity's rating guidelines in our upload policy, section 1.1 regarding depictions of bodily waste.
2.7.3 Art Style Subjectivity
Art is very subjective and certain art styles can sometimes make it difficult to determine the age of a character. Fur Affinity must moderate the site fairly with regard to its users, its partners, and the law. As such moderator discretion will be required in uncertain or edge cases. There are no special exceptions based on lore or fantasy worlds. To determine if reported content meets our guidelines, we will examine the artist's previous works, user history, and general style. If you have works removed that you disagree with, please appeal the decision via appeals[at]furaffinity.net or via our trouble ticket system.
Grace Period
We know repeated revisions to this rule have likely caused some confusion, and we would like to give users time to bring their galleries in line with rule 2.7. Therefore, there will be a 6 month grace period (ending on 07/09/2025 ) during which any violations reported will receive warnings only. Blatantly sexual submissions featuring obviously-juvenile characters, along with sexual submissions tagged as loli, shota, or cub, may still result in harsher punishment, since these things have been against the rules since long before any updates to 2.7 were considered.
Please note that this grace period applies ONLY to existing submissions; any NEW submissions uploaded after this announcement (as of now) will be enforced as usual. The purpose of this grace period is for users to bring their existing galleries into compliance with the rule without feeling pressured or rushed. If you have any questions about these changes or about the guidelines themselves, please file a ticket under the "Question About Site Policy" category here
FAQ
Q: What about regression?
A : Mental regression with an adult appearing character is fine. Physical regression will need to follow juvenile guidelines listed above.
Q: Will staff be automatically suspending users for all 2.7 related offenses?
A : Not how it was happening previously. We feel that the previous system was too harsh and confusing for many users. Suspensions won’t be given for most first time offenses. Extreme cases (such as sexual depictions with loli, shota, or cub) could possibly still escalate to a 4th level offense. Even then we will still take into account user history to determine if that is needed. We want to avoid auto suspensions or bans unless absolutely necessary. These extreme cases will be reviewed by multiple staff members before action is taken unless it involves real life CSAM such as photos that needs immediate action. Our goal is to build community trust and hold team members accountable to avoid abuse. Users will not be auto suspended for submissions they’ve posted previous to this update and will have a grace period to bring their galleries in line without penalty.
Q: 2.7.1: Is it correct to interpret this section as “adult characters are prohibited from being depicted laying eggs in NSFW uploads?”
A: No. I can only see one possible edge case at the moment in regards to that and it would be if it was purposefully showing an internal/x-ray shot of babies inside of the egg(s) in some kind of sexual sense. But just eggs, egg laying, or anything oviposition isn't included in this. This is a very weird edge case situation and no one should actually be worried about their egg art.
Q: "There are no special exceptions based on lore or fantasy setting." Does this mean franchise lore? Or an OC's established lore?
A: It means no special exceptions, period. It doesn’t matter if the user created the lore or it's a show/video game. If it falls within what we define as a juvenile in the document we would need to remove it. If it appears to be an adult we leave it. Staff can't be expected to know the lore on every character in the world. In my meetings with lawyers, the law doesn't care so long as it doesn't look like a child or that it's not stated as being a child. They aren't going to dig up the lore on everything either. They are gonna go off visuals and descriptions.
Q: What are you going to do to prevent staff abuse?
A : The staff managing 2.7 moving forward are all completely new members and one current member that was not part of the original issue. With that department being rebuilt with THESE new rules we hope this will have a better outcome over all. On top of that we are working on a forward facing staff code of conduct. This will help users know the standards we hold our staff to. It will also be a reference point so users know if and how they should dispute or report staff actions to management for review.
Q: I am concerned about x character or y franchise. Why doesn't the policy explicitly say who is and isn't okay???
A: We are bringing the policy in line with other major art gallery sites. To try to go through and include an exhaustive list is not a realistic option. On top of that, the artist’s style needs to be taken into account. Blanket banning characters when people draw them differently than the originals wouldn’t make sense or be fair to users. When staff and moderator discretion is required, we will do our best to extend the uploader the benefit of the doubt.
Q: It's too vague! / What about (particular example of a character)?
A : If you believe the current draft needs revisions, please provide specific examples of how you would like to see the revised policy worded in the discord discussion thread or feedback ticket. This way we can better understand what might be missing from this and how to improve the policy’s wording.
Jan 3rd, 2025 - 2.7 Draft Review
Posted 6 months ago**EDIT 01/07**
While originally we planned for the update to be pushed live on the 6th, tech needs more time to review the code. We are hoping it wont take much longer but there isn't a solid ETA. We'll keep checking in and keep you updated. In the meantime the discussion thread is still open!
----
Hey there and Happy New Year everyone! We have been pretty busy on our end of things but wanted to let you all know that the 2.7 feedback channel is open again with a draft rewrite in place to review on our discord here https://discord.com/channels/991855.....48429739393104
For those without discord you can read it here https://docs.google.com/document/d/.....it?usp=sharing and leave feedback via FA trouble tickets under "feedback"
https://www.furaffinity.net/control.....roubletickets/
Thank you for your patience and we are eager to get things moving in a positive direction!
While originally we planned for the update to be pushed live on the 6th, tech needs more time to review the code. We are hoping it wont take much longer but there isn't a solid ETA. We'll keep checking in and keep you updated. In the meantime the discussion thread is still open!
----
Hey there and Happy New Year everyone! We have been pretty busy on our end of things but wanted to let you all know that the 2.7 feedback channel is open again with a draft rewrite in place to review on our discord here https://discord.com/channels/991855.....48429739393104
For those without discord you can read it here https://docs.google.com/document/d/.....it?usp=sharing and leave feedback via FA trouble tickets under "feedback"
https://www.furaffinity.net/control.....roubletickets/
Thank you for your patience and we are eager to get things moving in a positive direction!
Nov 17th, 2024 - Addressing the Greg in the Room
Posted 8 months agoWe are aware of the compromised accounts happening on FA and would like to keep the confusion to a minimum. Currently, there is no evidence of a breach on our end but we are still investigating the matter. We believe it's likely an attack using leaked passwords from other non-FA-related breaches where users are using the same passwords.
We always encourage users to use strong passwords and avoid reusing passwords across various sites. Also, we recommend checking https://haveibeenpwned.com/ to see if you've been unknowingly affected by a past breach. If you haven't updated your passwords in a while, it would be beneficial to do so.
We also ask that you not "feed the trolls". If you see an issue please file a ticket to help us look into the matter. Engaging them or the pages they have compromised only makes it worse. If you see suspicious activity please report it here for us https://www.furaffinity.net/control.....roubletickets/
Thank you and we hope to have this resolved as soon as possible.
We always encourage users to use strong passwords and avoid reusing passwords across various sites. Also, we recommend checking https://haveibeenpwned.com/ to see if you've been unknowingly affected by a past breach. If you haven't updated your passwords in a while, it would be beneficial to do so.
We also ask that you not "feed the trolls". If you see an issue please file a ticket to help us look into the matter. Engaging them or the pages they have compromised only makes it worse. If you see suspicious activity please report it here for us https://www.furaffinity.net/control.....roubletickets/
Thank you and we hope to have this resolved as soon as possible.
Nov 13th, 2024 - Update on Mod Applications and Advertisi...
Posted 8 months agoHey there everyone!
With over 500 amazing applications in we are now officially closing the form! We are going to need time to completely get through all of these. We appreciate everyone being so willing to help!
We also want to let everyone know that there is still a current backlog on community advertising. We are working to get caught up with it but if you are sending in requests it may be a bit of a wait until we can get to them.
Thank you for all your continued support and understanding while we get back on our feet!
With over 500 amazing applications in we are now officially closing the form! We are going to need time to completely get through all of these. We appreciate everyone being so willing to help!
We also want to let everyone know that there is still a current backlog on community advertising. We are working to get caught up with it but if you are sending in requests it may be a bit of a wait until we can get to them.
Thank you for all your continued support and understanding while we get back on our feet!
Nov 4th, 2024 - Clearing Up Data Rumors
Posted 8 months agoRecently, we were made aware of a possible data breach that had been circulating online. After investigation we concluded that this is neither recent nor a breach, rather a compilation of past attacks, leaks and breaches mostly elsewhere.
We have been able to identify two relevant accounts where listed passwords matched provided usernames or email addresses, and proactively taken care of them by having those passwords reset and users notified. All user data on FA is safe and un-compromised.
We have been able to identify two relevant accounts where listed passwords matched provided usernames or email addresses, and proactively taken care of them by having those passwords reset and users notified. All user data on FA is safe and un-compromised.
Oct 30th, 2024 - 2.7 Hold, Apology, and Open Letter
Posted 8 months ago2.7 Temporary Hold and Apology
Over the last few months a lot has changed for Fur Affinity, and throughout this change we have been trying to adjust our policy in a way that was fair to everyone. After hearing the overwhelming feedback on the site, community discord, social media, and in private conversations we’ve had with voices within the community, it is very clear that we’ve failed to do this in the recent update. We would like to apologize to the communities negatively affected including the ABDL/babyfur community, who were the targets of a deliberate mass-reporting incident that was not handled with the proper care. We are incredibly sorry for this, and the undue stress it’s caused our entire community, and we are going to do everything within our power to make it right.
In order to accomplish this, we are going back to the drawing board to put this together the proper way. We want to take the first step in correcting this by putting a pause on all moderation actions involving Upload Policy 2.7 (with the noted exception of egregious or non-artistic violations) for the time being. We would like to remind everyone that malicious mass reporting is an abuse of the trouble ticket system and will not be tolerated. Going forward we will be making sure that abuse of the reporting system does not lead to individuals or communities being unfairly targeted. We would also like to remind everyone that harassment of anyone is not allowed on Fur Affinity; this includes attaching negative implications to people because they enjoy particular types of art. If you encounter this on Fur Affinity, please report it.
We know that many of you likely have unanswered questions in regards to the previous announcement, and on the nature of policy 2.7 as a whole. We know that for many of you, trust in us has been severely shaken or broken altogether; hopefully, with time and positive action, we may be able to regain that trust. Our lack of transparency is a large part of what has led to this entire unfortunate situation. This is something that has long been an issue with Fur Affinity and we are working diligently to correct, developing a plan of action that will allow us to address these and other concerns. Working these things out will take time, community outreach, and careful consideration - all things that we should have been doing better the first time around - but before anything else, we felt it was very important to issue an apology and assure those of you who’ve been affected most by this that your voices are being heard, and that we are taking the feedback we receive very seriously. We are going to do everything we can to make sure that everyone in our community can feel safe, comfortable, and welcome. We very much would like to humbly ask for patience while we develop newer, fairer policies that accurately reflect the input of everyone who calls Fur Affinity home.
Open Letter
This is from
It’s been over two months since Dragoneer passed. In some ways it feels like yesterday and sometimes it feels like it’s been forever. It is something that has shaken the entire community. With that it has also shaken staff and inner workings. We’ve all been grieving and trying to figure out our way forward in the chaos. There has been an overwhelming amount of stress on all of us. I am still fumbling to figure out all the pieces and fill his shoes. He carried a ton of responsibilities on his own. More than one person SHOULD. And there is no guidebook for it. Majority of the Fur Affinity staffers are volunteer based. They dedicate hours upon hours of their free time to try to make FA a better place for all of us. We have lost some staffers during this transitional process, the growing pains and uncertainties can be a lot when we are all trying to figure out the best step forward. We are all human. None of us are perfect, and regardless of personal opinion it is a very difficult position and they do deserve respect for their efforts.
With all this said, I am wholeheartedly under a ton of pressure and stress and overwhelmed with all of this.
In trying to catch up with all I need to learn and do I was presented with an issue in regards to bans happening due to a malicious mass reporting situation that was specifically targeting Babyfurs and the ABDL communities here on Fur Affinity. I felt an obligation to do community outreach and try to fix it. I acknowledge and agree that the “solution” made was not a good one. It was one made out of a huge amount of stress and pressure to rush out something. Which is not okay. I'm really sorry for that. I know saying I'm sorry won't fix it. I am very aware that people are RIGHTFULLY angry. But that's also why I am still trying to take in feedback and listening to see what we can do to make it better. There is no making everyone happy...but I know we can do better than what was pushed out. And I take responsibility for not doing more and spending more time working on it before this.
I need help with this. We were short staffed to begin with and now even more so. If you have ever wanted to lend a hand in making Fur Affinity a better place for all, please fill out this form to start the process of applying to become a mod or part of the support team. https://forms.gle/NbgqvdtxGo5RGqx97
It may take a little time to get through applications, and not everyone will be approved, but I have hopes we will be able to get Fur Affinity where it needs to be with community help.
I appreciate all of your time and consideration in this. I hope I can do better moving forward.
Oct 22, 2024 - Upload Policy 2.7 Revision and New Feature
Posted 9 months agoUpload Policy, Section 2.7 Policy Revision and Clarification Update
After much time and consideration on the matter, as well as community outreach, we have decided to make an update and announcement in regards to recent incidents involving 2.7.
A few weeks ago, Babyfur/ABDL accounts and submissions were mass reported. We investigate every report and take action accordingly. While many of the reported submissions violated policies and were correctly removed, a few were mistakenly taken down. These were reviewed during the appeals process and restored with explanations and apologies.
As per our Upload Policy, violations of Section 2.7 were highlighted to warn users that violations under that category may automatically be escalated to a 4th Level Offense which states: 4th Level Offense - You will be temporarily suspended for 1 week, and will receive a final warning to cease violating the relevant section. For more information on our penalty system, please see Section 7, Enforcement, of our UP.
The Current Upload Policy
Upload Policy, Section 2.7 - Content Involving MinorsContent featuring minors is not allowed when the minor is in the presence of sexual activity, sexual objects, or nudity, though exceptions may be made for non-sexual depictions of birth and breastfeeding. Presence is defined as being in the same scene, such as sharing a comic panel, contiguous image, reference sheet, or specific section of a story where characters are engaging each other.
Minors may not have detailed bulges or outlines of normal or hyper genitalia, clothed or otherwise. Minors may not be fetishized. Minors may not be depicted as pregnant. Minors are defined as real or fictional humanoids with a childlike body or younger than 18 years old, and any adolescent animals or fantasy creatures.
The removed content that caused confusion and sparked debate was content that featured minor appearing characters with messy/dirty diapers and age regression that was either labeled under kink accounts or showed fetish content. When making decisions on those types of works we refer to and use the dictionary definition for fetish and kinks.
• Fetish is defined as a specific sexual fixation (objects, body parts, activities).
• Kink is defined as uncommon sexual activity.
Feedback and Enforcement Changes
We received a lot of feedback from users who felt the rules were unclear and the punishments too harsh. Rumors also spread that Fur Affinity was unfairly targeting people in the Babyfur/ABDL community. Many users were unsure how their content violated our policies. After reviewing the situation, reports, policies, and staff procedures, we realized that automatically giving a 4th-level offense to accounts in good standing that didn't post explicit sexual content, nor intended to post kink/fetish, was too strict. We apologize and will make changes to handle these situations better in the future. However, we want to be clear that content featuring minors in sexual situations will still result in an automatic 4th-level offense, as we have a zero-tolerance policy on this.Part of the feedback we received was that while we go by the dictionary definitions of fetishes and kinks, many people in those communities do not consider them sexual. They did not like the rule being put into the suspension message accusing them of sexualizing minors. We spent time speaking to many members of the babyfur/ABDL community trying to clarify our rules better in a way that is understood without using harsh accusations.
While we were speaking to members of the ABDL/Babyfur community, we found that while some do not find messy diapers sexual, some do, and some only if the messing is to a certain extent. There was not a good consensus on where the line is because the content matter is too subjective and open to interpretation to be able to properly moderate. So while no rule change had happened to start all of this, we are making one now in hopes of bringing further clarification and fairness to our rules. We want to be clear. We are not pushing out or removing the babyfur or ABDL community. You are welcome to still post your content on Fur Affinity so long as it abides by our Upload Policy.
Content Featuring Minors (New Policy)
Along with the clarifications to Upload Policy, Section 2.7, we have also decided that no minors will be allowed in mature or adult-rated content. This means that minors may now only appear in General-rated content. You can read full rating guide here: Content GuidelinesWe feel that this covers the issue in the most fair and equally enforceable way without asserting a subjective intent or meaning behind the submissions.
The New Upload Policy
Upload Policy, Section 2.7 - Content Involving MinorsContent featuring minors is not allowed when the minor is in Mature or Adult content outlined by our Content Guidelines (Section 1.1) nor the presence of sexual activity, sexual objects, sexual language, adult themes, nudity, fetish or kink content, or other prohibited content (examples detailed below); however, exceptions may be made for non-sexual depictions of birth and breastfeeding.
Definitions:
• Presence is defined as directly being in or the implication of being in the same scene, such as sharing a comic panel, contiguous image, reference sheet, or specific section of a story where characters are engaging each other.
• Minors are defined as real or fictional humanoids, animals, or fantasy creatures with a childlike body, the consciousness of a child, or younger than 18 years of age.
• Fetish is defined as a specific sexual fixation (objects, body parts, activities).
• Kink is defined as uncommon sexual activities.
Enforcement of this section is done on a case-by-case basis and upon the totality of the content being reviewed, including the upload, submission description, tags, artist/uploader’s comments, profile page, intent, style, and more.
Minors are also not allowed in the following content:
• Genital Bulges. Minors may not have detailed bulges or outlines of normal or hyper genitalia, clothed or otherwise.
• Pregnancy. Minors may not be depicted as pregnant.
• Messy Diapers. Minors may not be shown wearing messy (depicted as brown, yellow, leaky, lumpy with excrement, visible wetness/soiled indicator, etc.) diapers. This does not apply to big or puffy clean diapers.
• Restroom Activity. Minors may not be depicted relieving themselves or in content focused on them using the restroom.
• Body Part Emphasis. The focus (e.g. zoomed in, primary part of the content) of the content may not be on specific body parts of a minor, such as their feet, groin, butts, clothed or otherwise. This does not apply to content where the focus on these parts is coincidental.
• Regression. Characters that have been regressed to being minors, physically or mentally, may not be depicted breastfeeding, being born/unbirthed, or having their diapers changed.
We hope that this clears things up in a way that is better understood in regards to content under 2.7 that is not allowed on Fur Affinity.
In regards to the escalated 4th level offense: Escalations will only happen with 2.7 if it is pornographic content with minors. The rest will follow the typical warning and escalation system.
Grace Period
We hear the members of these communities when they say that previously 2.7 was unclear and punishment too harsh. With these clarifications now in place we wish to give users that have this kind of content featured in their galleries 6 months to remove violations and bring their galleries in line. During those six months, any reports made on content posted before this announcement will receive warnings only unless it falls under clearly sexual situations. Those will stay the same in enforcement. Anything posted that violates these rules after the posting of this announcement will be enforced as it should be and will not receive the same grace period. Please do your best to bring your galleries up to date with these guidelines and if you have any questions about these changes or the guidelines themselves, please file a ticket under the Question About Site Policy category here https://www.furaffinity.net/control.....roubletickets/.TL;DR
• Upload Policy 2.7 was not new and has not been changed in the past year until this journal. The processes staff followed was consistent with internal policy.• Staff are not permitted to "witch hunt" and moderation must only act on content reported in Trouble Tickets. We received an influx of tickets relating to babyfur/ABDL content. While some content featured adults and was not removed, other submissions featured characters depicted as minors in NSFW content and resulted in penalties.
• UP 2.7 is being changed now to no longer allow any characters depicted as minors in Mature or Adult-rated submissions per community feedback.
• UP 2.7 enforcement is being revised to be more lenient for users in good standing, while remaining strict on severe violations.
• Minors involved in General rated content (non-sexualized images) are permitted.
• The Babyfur and ABDL communities are still welcome on Fur Affinity, and no rogue moderator targeted them for removal.
• We've added two members from these subcommunities to our team for advice and perspective on related issues.
• Staff has not been ignoring or ghosting users, and we apologize for extended wait times. We are all still recovering from the loss of Dragoneer and hospitalization of Sciggles. We are working hard to get things back on track and we appreciate your patience during this time.
• Fur Affinity is not being cleansed for sale, despite rumors. These claims come from someone who hasn't been involved with staff for nearly 10 years. Please be cautious of social media rumors.
As we live in the age of social media, information is as abundant as misinformation. Please be vigilant and take a moment to validate claims made by individuals in regards to what is or isn't happening with Fur Affinity instead of taking their claims at face value. While everyone is entitled to their own thoughts and opinions, when those thoughts and opinions are presented as fact, it can cause unnecessary tension for both us at Fur Affinity and for our users.
We understand emotions can run high in regards to these topics, but we do not condone or tolerate any attempts to harass or dox/wichhunt our staff for responding to user tickets.
🔞 New Feature: Disable Access To Minors 🔞
We recognize that many in our community have been using our rating system as a way to restrict access to their content by increasing the rating to Mature or Adult. While this has helped in limiting access for users under 18, it has also led to content not being rated appropriately according to our guidelines.
With our recent update focusing on ensuring that minors are entirely removed from being in Mature or Adult-rated content—and to emphasize the importance of proper content rating—we’ve introduced a new feature. This can be found under your Global Settings and allows you to restrict access to your userpage, gallery, scraps, favorites, commissions, submissions, journals, and watch lists specifically from users under the age of 18.
Please keep in mind that anyone who is logged out of Fur Affinity can still access your page and general content unless you have disabled access to guests, which is also a feature currently available and directly accessible above this new feature.
You can find these settings here https://www.furaffinity.net/control.....site-settings/
Sept 6th, 2024 - GoFundMe Update
Posted 10 months agoYou can read more about the update and details here GoFundMe Update
Summary of Update:
We want to apologize for the delay in providing this update. The hijacking incident and subsequent investigations, along with the heartbreaking loss of Dragoneer, have been overwhelming for our small team. We’ve worked tirelessly, and we're grateful for the community's support in reaching our GoFundMe goal. Here’s a breakdown:
Funds Raised: $216,668.12 after fees.
Major Expenses Paid So Far:
$40,000 for Dragoneer’s mother to handle medical.
$11,250 for afterlife affairs
$19,350 to keep operations running
$5,200 for lawyer fees
No GoFundMe Goal Increase: Despite more debt discovered, we have no plans to raise the goal further but encourage continued support and donations.
You can read more about the update and details here GoFundMe Update
Summary of Update:
We want to apologize for the delay in providing this update. The hijacking incident and subsequent investigations, along with the heartbreaking loss of Dragoneer, have been overwhelming for our small team. We’ve worked tirelessly, and we're grateful for the community's support in reaching our GoFundMe goal. Here’s a breakdown:
Funds Raised: $216,668.12 after fees.
Major Expenses Paid So Far:
$40,000 for Dragoneer’s mother to handle medical.
$11,250 for afterlife affairs
$19,350 to keep operations running
$5,200 for lawyer fees
No GoFundMe Goal Increase: Despite more debt discovered, we have no plans to raise the goal further but encourage continued support and donations.
You can read more about the update and details here GoFundMe Update
Aug 22nd - All Our Base Are Belong To Us
Posted 11 months agoGood Afternoon!
Yesterday, after meeting for several hours with Network Solutions (our domain registrar), they finally agreed to our demands to lock our account and revert changes made to our domain name’s NAMESERVER configuration. This lock also prevents anyone from signing in and making further changes. A fraud investigation has been launched on their part, and upon conclusion, our account will be fully released to us and we will receive more information on how this hijacking occurred. Our domain is directing traffic correctly.
While the bad actor was in control of our domain between Tuesday, August 20th at 12:47AM ET and Wednesday, August 21st at 2:28PM ET, they redirected our traffic to other websites and they set up an email server to receive any emails that were sent to any of our furaffinity.net accounts. If you sent any emails to our furaffinity.net accounts during that time, then the bad actor has those emails, we did not receive them, and you should act appropriately to secure and protect your information. Furthermore, any emails sent from furaffinity.net during that time would have been sent by the bad actor and should not be trusted. The bad actor never had access to our actual email accounts, any previous emails, nor data we have previously received.
It is important to stress that the Fur Affinity web server itself was never compromised, and the bad actor never had access to any private information therein such as our user and server data (It's as if someone stole your home address and had your mail and visitors routed somewhere else. Your house and everything inside is fine, only the address and incoming/outgoing mail were affected). As a precautionary measure during the incident, we invalidated all current login sessions and you will need to log back into your account.
✨🌟🎉 FUR AFFINITY IS NOW ONLINE AND MAY BE ACCESSED SAFELY! 🎉🌟✨
Furthermore, as of last night (August 21st at 9:53PM ET), we have regained access to our Twitter account, and with the help of
Whanos, reclaimed our username (@FurAffinity). And as of this morning (August 22nd at 10:45AM ET), we also secured Dragoneer's personal Twitter account.
We have also been made aware of various sources claiming to have identified the bad actor responsible for this attack. We have no way to verify that these accusations are accurate, but will continue to share all information with the FBI. With that said, we want to remind everyone that we have a zero-tolerance policy toward harassment, no matter the circumstances. Recently, there have been instances where speculation has led to individuals being harassed, even if they have no proven connection to the incident.
It is important to note that Fur Affinity, with direct insight into the situation, has not conducted its own investigation. We are leaving that responsibility to law enforcement. Speculation only spreads misinformation and causes harm, so please be cautious about what you share or believe online.
We kindly urge everyone to avoid engaging in further speculation or harassment. It is the role of law enforcement to determine the facts and make decisions, not ours.
Finally, we want to extend our deepest gratitude to all of you for your unwavering support during this incredibly difficult time. Your kindness, patience, and understanding have meant the world to us as we've navigated these challenges together. We are committed to continuing to foster a creative and welcoming environment for all, and it is your strength and solidarity that make our community truly special. Thank you for standing with us.
Yesterday, after meeting for several hours with Network Solutions (our domain registrar), they finally agreed to our demands to lock our account and revert changes made to our domain name’s NAMESERVER configuration. This lock also prevents anyone from signing in and making further changes. A fraud investigation has been launched on their part, and upon conclusion, our account will be fully released to us and we will receive more information on how this hijacking occurred. Our domain is directing traffic correctly.
While the bad actor was in control of our domain between Tuesday, August 20th at 12:47AM ET and Wednesday, August 21st at 2:28PM ET, they redirected our traffic to other websites and they set up an email server to receive any emails that were sent to any of our furaffinity.net accounts. If you sent any emails to our furaffinity.net accounts during that time, then the bad actor has those emails, we did not receive them, and you should act appropriately to secure and protect your information. Furthermore, any emails sent from furaffinity.net during that time would have been sent by the bad actor and should not be trusted. The bad actor never had access to our actual email accounts, any previous emails, nor data we have previously received.
It is important to stress that the Fur Affinity web server itself was never compromised, and the bad actor never had access to any private information therein such as our user and server data (It's as if someone stole your home address and had your mail and visitors routed somewhere else. Your house and everything inside is fine, only the address and incoming/outgoing mail were affected). As a precautionary measure during the incident, we invalidated all current login sessions and you will need to log back into your account.
✨🌟🎉 FUR AFFINITY IS NOW ONLINE AND MAY BE ACCESSED SAFELY! 🎉🌟✨
Furthermore, as of last night (August 21st at 9:53PM ET), we have regained access to our Twitter account, and with the help of
We have also been made aware of various sources claiming to have identified the bad actor responsible for this attack. We have no way to verify that these accusations are accurate, but will continue to share all information with the FBI. With that said, we want to remind everyone that we have a zero-tolerance policy toward harassment, no matter the circumstances. Recently, there have been instances where speculation has led to individuals being harassed, even if they have no proven connection to the incident.
It is important to note that Fur Affinity, with direct insight into the situation, has not conducted its own investigation. We are leaving that responsibility to law enforcement. Speculation only spreads misinformation and causes harm, so please be cautious about what you share or believe online.
We kindly urge everyone to avoid engaging in further speculation or harassment. It is the role of law enforcement to determine the facts and make decisions, not ours.
Finally, we want to extend our deepest gratitude to all of you for your unwavering support during this incredibly difficult time. Your kindness, patience, and understanding have meant the world to us as we've navigated these challenges together. We are committed to continuing to foster a creative and welcoming environment for all, and it is your strength and solidarity that make our community truly special. Thank you for standing with us.
Aug 15th - Update on GoFundMe for Dragoneer's Legacy
Posted 11 months agoImportant: We have been made aware of fake fundraising pages. Please check the source before donating. The only official fundraisers are linked on furaffinity.net and Fur Affinity’s official social media.
Offical GoFundMe link- https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-.....goneers-legacy
Thank you all so much for the outpouring of support. Dragoneer’s family, Fur Affinity’s staff, and even many of you, are all shocked at just how many have shown up to support the cause. The initial goal was met in THREE HOURS and DOUBLED within 48 hours. Though we have to admit, we did make a mistake when adding up the costs on the original post. We set it at $75k, but then someone pointed out that we made a mistake with the math. We checked it again, and sure enough, the total of the listed expenses was actually $92.6k. But regardless, we still hit AND surpassed that goal overnight! Many of us were in tears, including Rita and myself. She especially just cannot thank you all enough, and neither can I. It is truly heartwarming and something to celebrate during this difficult time.
We apologize for taking so long for this update. We are all very worn down and still grieving the unexpected loss of Dragoneer. As a team we are working hard to make progress on sorting everything while continuing to serve the Fur Affinity community. Individually, we still need to take time to try to catch up on some much needed rest and make sure we are taking care of ourselves too. Speaking for myself, I know I have been on the phone pretty much from the moment I wake up until I eventually knock out for the night. It’s been exhausting trying to sort all of this out, but this has been such an inspiring and humbling moment. I hope that Neer can see how many of you have come together to keep things going and take care of his mom and the community he worked so hard to nurture.
As we continue to sort through the finances, we have unfortunately found more debts. We have added what we’ve found so far to the total. To continue being transparent, we’ve also included a quick explanation for why each one has been added. I hope we can keep pushing forward together on this. We don’t know what the future will hold. But right now, we feel optimistic and eager to not only keep Fur Affinity going but also secure its future through this transition. Dragoneer put his all into making sure our community went back to being independent. Unfortunately, the debt and burden are large because of it. Your support and kindness help ensure we can keep Fur Affinity going without being weighed down by any large debts.
Notes for any extra funds:
As we continue to go through and audit Dragoneer's personal and business finances, we will continue to update. The goal is to cover as much as we can so that Rita has nothing to worry about and Fur Affinity has a clean slate moving forward. If Rita encounters any road bumps or further legal fees through any of this, we will give the funding to her first. Excess funding will be saved in an emergency backup fund to cover unexpected expenses such as hardware issues, surprise bills, etc. We will be transparent about where the excess goes if there is any, but the goal is to keep our community safe from any surprises and out of debt.
One thing we have seen people raise concern about, and we do want to address, is why fundraising is also going to Dragoneer's debts. The legal process includes selling off the assets of the estate to pay for any outstanding debts. Unfortunately, Fur Affinity is an asset. To be clear, we have no plans nor desire to sell Fur Affinity. As such we need to pay those debts off to keep our community running.
In the interest of continuing transparency, here are some quick explanations of the new additions to the goal and why they are here.
$38.4k - Fur Affinity past contract services owed (expense found after GFM launch)
This covers contract work that was already completed for Fur Affinity but wasn’t yet paid for. While these are not an immediate need they are a required expense.
$32k - Working capital loan (expense found after GFM launch)
This is the remaining balance for a loan that was taken out to cover Fur Affinity expenses.
$20k - Second month estimated FA running costs during legal transition
Legally transferring everything takes some time. A second month of costs ensures we keep Fur Affinity safe during this time.
$11.3K - Additional medical expenses (expense found after GFM launch)
We were notified of more medical bills from early July through early August since our initial post. This brings the medical expense total to $38.3k.
July 6th ER $4.7k (CT, Ekg, ER, IV, Labs, Pharmacy)
July 6th ER $356 (Ecg, CT chest w/contrast)
July 30th PFT Procedure $2.4k
July 30th PFT continued $635 (Spmtry, Co Diffusing, Outpatient)
Aug 1st Surgery $917
Aug 1st Anesthesia $1.3k
Date unknown Acute Care- $985
$10k Fur Affinity back-up savings for any emergency hardware cost (expense noted after GFM launch)
As we are all painfully aware, unexpected things happen. We want to ensure any unforeseen situations don’t negatively impact Fur Affinity and the community.
$6.5k - Additional estimate for medical examiner and cremation (notified of extra expense after GFM launch)
We were notified of an additional $6.5k more than we originally anticipated for these services. This brings the total for them to $9.5k. This may need to be adjusted as we learn more.
$6k - IRS (2022) (expense found after GFM launch)
This is the remaining amount for his owed taxes in 2022. As stated previously, these need to be paid off to keep Fur Affinity in the hands (and paws, claws, and tentacles) of the community.
??? - IRS 2023
We are still working on finding further information on this. We’re listing it to be transparent since it will likely be another debt.
$3.5k - Deed Transferral (expense discussed after GFM launch, this is an estimate based off past cost)
This covers the deed to Neer’s house being transferred legally.
$1k - Bereavement home services (expense discussed after GFM launch)
This assists Rita in handling the affairs involving Dragoneer’s home.
$500 - Estate Lawyer Retainer (expense discussed after GFM launch)
Lawyers aren’t free. Having legal assistance in making sure everything is done properly is required. This is the initial cost to bring a lawyer in for handling Dragoneer’s affairs.
??? - Estate attorney fees
We know there will be additional costs associated with the legal assistance; however, we do not have an estimate of the total costs.
And finally, here is a breakdown with the TOTAL of all the known expenses. Many are estimates until we have specifics; however, we will be posting the Fur Affinity transactions as they happen. Anything sent to Rita will just be shown as a lump deposit out of respect for her privacy.
Personal
These are necessary for taking care of Dragoneer’s family and affairs during this difficult time. As previously mentioned, personal debts must be paid to ensure the smooth transition of Fur Affinity from Dragoneer’s estate. These are listed from most to least expensive.
$38.3k - Medical expenses
$12.6k - Six months mortgage on Dragoneer's house so Rita has time to sort things
$8k - Public celebration of life (estimated)
$9.5k - Medical examiner and cremation (updated estimate)
$3.5k - Deed transfer fees
$3k - Family’s funeral (estimated)
$1k - Urn (estimated)
$1k - Rita’s travel costs (estimated)
$1k - Bereavement home services (added cost)
$500 - Estate Lawyer Retainer
??? - Estate attorney fees
Site Specific
These are for keeping Fur Affinity going for the time being. As previously mentioned, personal debts must be paid to ensure the smooth transition of Fur Affinity from Dragoneer’s estate. These are listed in order of priority.
$20k - First month estimated FA running costs during legal transition
$20k - Second month estimated FA running costs during legal transition
$6k - IRS (2022)
??? - IRS 2023 (unknown total at this time)
$32k - Working capital loan
$10k - Fur Affinity contingency savings for emergency hardware costs
$17k - Balance due to IMVU for FA’s buyback (confirmed)
$38.4k - Fur Affinity prior contract services owed
Total: $221,800
I know the new total may feel a little intimidating after blowing the last goal out of the water. But I want to reiterate how amazing and positive that was (and still is!) Some of these new added costs are also for securing longer term goals. We have hit the base needs for keeping the lights on and current bills paid, so we are confident we can keep things going at this time. We are getting closer to getting everything caught up, putting us in a much better position to keep all assets secured for not only the site but his family as well.
At this time nothing has been transferred out of the GFM, the moment we make withdrawals or payments we will make sure we let you all know. Again, thank you so, so much for all of your support. The loss of Dragoneer is difficult for all of us. With that in mind, we are taking the opportunity to move forward with a clean slate. We are working to be more transparent with the community, and of course we are still working hard to keep the site a safe place and to bring new features to you all. The community is what makes Fur Affinity such a cherished place. We are so thankful to be a part of it.
Offical GoFundMe link- https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-.....goneers-legacy
Offical GoFundMe link- https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-.....goneers-legacy
Thank you all so much for the outpouring of support. Dragoneer’s family, Fur Affinity’s staff, and even many of you, are all shocked at just how many have shown up to support the cause. The initial goal was met in THREE HOURS and DOUBLED within 48 hours. Though we have to admit, we did make a mistake when adding up the costs on the original post. We set it at $75k, but then someone pointed out that we made a mistake with the math. We checked it again, and sure enough, the total of the listed expenses was actually $92.6k. But regardless, we still hit AND surpassed that goal overnight! Many of us were in tears, including Rita and myself. She especially just cannot thank you all enough, and neither can I. It is truly heartwarming and something to celebrate during this difficult time.
We apologize for taking so long for this update. We are all very worn down and still grieving the unexpected loss of Dragoneer. As a team we are working hard to make progress on sorting everything while continuing to serve the Fur Affinity community. Individually, we still need to take time to try to catch up on some much needed rest and make sure we are taking care of ourselves too. Speaking for myself, I know I have been on the phone pretty much from the moment I wake up until I eventually knock out for the night. It’s been exhausting trying to sort all of this out, but this has been such an inspiring and humbling moment. I hope that Neer can see how many of you have come together to keep things going and take care of his mom and the community he worked so hard to nurture.
As we continue to sort through the finances, we have unfortunately found more debts. We have added what we’ve found so far to the total. To continue being transparent, we’ve also included a quick explanation for why each one has been added. I hope we can keep pushing forward together on this. We don’t know what the future will hold. But right now, we feel optimistic and eager to not only keep Fur Affinity going but also secure its future through this transition. Dragoneer put his all into making sure our community went back to being independent. Unfortunately, the debt and burden are large because of it. Your support and kindness help ensure we can keep Fur Affinity going without being weighed down by any large debts.
Notes for any extra funds:
As we continue to go through and audit Dragoneer's personal and business finances, we will continue to update. The goal is to cover as much as we can so that Rita has nothing to worry about and Fur Affinity has a clean slate moving forward. If Rita encounters any road bumps or further legal fees through any of this, we will give the funding to her first. Excess funding will be saved in an emergency backup fund to cover unexpected expenses such as hardware issues, surprise bills, etc. We will be transparent about where the excess goes if there is any, but the goal is to keep our community safe from any surprises and out of debt.
One thing we have seen people raise concern about, and we do want to address, is why fundraising is also going to Dragoneer's debts. The legal process includes selling off the assets of the estate to pay for any outstanding debts. Unfortunately, Fur Affinity is an asset. To be clear, we have no plans nor desire to sell Fur Affinity. As such we need to pay those debts off to keep our community running.
In the interest of continuing transparency, here are some quick explanations of the new additions to the goal and why they are here.
$38.4k - Fur Affinity past contract services owed (expense found after GFM launch)
This covers contract work that was already completed for Fur Affinity but wasn’t yet paid for. While these are not an immediate need they are a required expense.
$32k - Working capital loan (expense found after GFM launch)
This is the remaining balance for a loan that was taken out to cover Fur Affinity expenses.
$20k - Second month estimated FA running costs during legal transition
Legally transferring everything takes some time. A second month of costs ensures we keep Fur Affinity safe during this time.
$11.3K - Additional medical expenses (expense found after GFM launch)
We were notified of more medical bills from early July through early August since our initial post. This brings the medical expense total to $38.3k.
July 6th ER $4.7k (CT, Ekg, ER, IV, Labs, Pharmacy)
July 6th ER $356 (Ecg, CT chest w/contrast)
July 30th PFT Procedure $2.4k
July 30th PFT continued $635 (Spmtry, Co Diffusing, Outpatient)
Aug 1st Surgery $917
Aug 1st Anesthesia $1.3k
Date unknown Acute Care- $985
$10k Fur Affinity back-up savings for any emergency hardware cost (expense noted after GFM launch)
As we are all painfully aware, unexpected things happen. We want to ensure any unforeseen situations don’t negatively impact Fur Affinity and the community.
$6.5k - Additional estimate for medical examiner and cremation (notified of extra expense after GFM launch)
We were notified of an additional $6.5k more than we originally anticipated for these services. This brings the total for them to $9.5k. This may need to be adjusted as we learn more.
$6k - IRS (2022) (expense found after GFM launch)
This is the remaining amount for his owed taxes in 2022. As stated previously, these need to be paid off to keep Fur Affinity in the hands (and paws, claws, and tentacles) of the community.
??? - IRS 2023
We are still working on finding further information on this. We’re listing it to be transparent since it will likely be another debt.
$3.5k - Deed Transferral (expense discussed after GFM launch, this is an estimate based off past cost)
This covers the deed to Neer’s house being transferred legally.
$1k - Bereavement home services (expense discussed after GFM launch)
This assists Rita in handling the affairs involving Dragoneer’s home.
$500 - Estate Lawyer Retainer (expense discussed after GFM launch)
Lawyers aren’t free. Having legal assistance in making sure everything is done properly is required. This is the initial cost to bring a lawyer in for handling Dragoneer’s affairs.
??? - Estate attorney fees
We know there will be additional costs associated with the legal assistance; however, we do not have an estimate of the total costs.
And finally, here is a breakdown with the TOTAL of all the known expenses. Many are estimates until we have specifics; however, we will be posting the Fur Affinity transactions as they happen. Anything sent to Rita will just be shown as a lump deposit out of respect for her privacy.
Personal
These are necessary for taking care of Dragoneer’s family and affairs during this difficult time. As previously mentioned, personal debts must be paid to ensure the smooth transition of Fur Affinity from Dragoneer’s estate. These are listed from most to least expensive.
$38.3k - Medical expenses
$12.6k - Six months mortgage on Dragoneer's house so Rita has time to sort things
$8k - Public celebration of life (estimated)
$9.5k - Medical examiner and cremation (updated estimate)
$3.5k - Deed transfer fees
$3k - Family’s funeral (estimated)
$1k - Urn (estimated)
$1k - Rita’s travel costs (estimated)
$1k - Bereavement home services (added cost)
$500 - Estate Lawyer Retainer
??? - Estate attorney fees
Site Specific
These are for keeping Fur Affinity going for the time being. As previously mentioned, personal debts must be paid to ensure the smooth transition of Fur Affinity from Dragoneer’s estate. These are listed in order of priority.
$20k - First month estimated FA running costs during legal transition
$20k - Second month estimated FA running costs during legal transition
$6k - IRS (2022)
??? - IRS 2023 (unknown total at this time)
$32k - Working capital loan
$10k - Fur Affinity contingency savings for emergency hardware costs
$17k - Balance due to IMVU for FA’s buyback (confirmed)
$38.4k - Fur Affinity prior contract services owed
Total: $221,800
I know the new total may feel a little intimidating after blowing the last goal out of the water. But I want to reiterate how amazing and positive that was (and still is!) Some of these new added costs are also for securing longer term goals. We have hit the base needs for keeping the lights on and current bills paid, so we are confident we can keep things going at this time. We are getting closer to getting everything caught up, putting us in a much better position to keep all assets secured for not only the site but his family as well.
At this time nothing has been transferred out of the GFM, the moment we make withdrawals or payments we will make sure we let you all know. Again, thank you so, so much for all of your support. The loss of Dragoneer is difficult for all of us. With that in mind, we are taking the opportunity to move forward with a clean slate. We are working to be more transparent with the community, and of course we are still working hard to keep the site a safe place and to bring new features to you all. The community is what makes Fur Affinity such a cherished place. We are so thankful to be a part of it.
Offical GoFundMe link- https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-.....goneers-legacy
Aug 12th, 2024- Honoring Dragoneer's Legacy
Posted 11 months agohttps://gofund.me/2c131578
"Sometimes the most important thing a person can ever say is 'I was here.'" -Dragoneer 2024
I am sorry to be coming to you all like this. As the majority know, Dragoneer passed away on August 6th. I have been asked to keep Fur Affinity going in his stead. I will be honest. It is terrifying. I've lost my best friend. Someone that I always thought would be there for me and lift me up. The grief is monumental, and this was not a position I ever thought we would be in.
I know that Dragoneer wanted Fur Affinity to keep going after his passing. And that is exactly what we want to make sure happens. But we cannot do it on our own. We are calling on the community to come together during this hard time to keep our online home going. Not just for ourselves but for everyone else that considers FA as such. He was a good man and always put the community before himself. He would rather go into debt or go without than let FA close. He knew what it meant to the community. So many people still rely on Fur Affinity. It's where many of us started out nearly two decades ago. People have built friendships, relationships, families, communities, and careers on FA.
We are also here to ask for assistance for his mother, Rita. She has been going through such a difficult time. Dragoneer's father passed away two years ago, she recently lost her sister, and now her only son has also passed. She is devastated. I have known her for 14 years, and never once has she asked for any kind of help... but she needs it now.
We need help covering a variety of unforeseen expenses: the medical bills left behind, funeral costs (there will be a private family and public celebration of life), and making sure Rita has the means to get by while she manages his affairs. We also need help keeping the lights on at Fur Affinity during this unanticipated transition.
The goal is high, but please understand that it has all these things in mind. The minimum goal of $75k* ensures these unexpected needs are met for her and covers one month of the expenses Fur Affinity requires. We will be fundraising for as long as possible. If you've ever used Fur Affinity, or if Dragoneer/Preyfar/Wren has ever touched your heart with friendship, please share this around. Please help make his passing a little easier by taking care of his family and legacy. He put his all into FA; it's time we show him how much it all means to us, hold it high as a community, and keep it thriving.
Thank you for every bit of help.
With love,
Sciggles, Rita, and the Fur Affinity team.
*In the interest of transparency, the following is a breakdown of the costs. Many are estimates until we have specifics; however, we will be posting the Fur Affinity transactions as they happen. Anything sent to Rita will just be shown as a lump deposit out of respect.
$27k - Medical expenses
$20k - One month estimated FA costs to help with legal transition
$17k - Balance due to IMVU for FA’s buyback (estimated)
$12.6k - Six months mortgage on Dragoneer's house so Rita has time to sort things
$8k - Public celebration of life (estimated)
$3k - Medical examiner and cremation (estimated)
$3k - Family’s funeral (estimated)
$1k - Urn (estimated)
$1k - Rita’s travel costs (estimated)
??? - IRS (unknown total at this time)
https://gofund.me/2c131578
"Sometimes the most important thing a person can ever say is 'I was here.'" -Dragoneer 2024
I am sorry to be coming to you all like this. As the majority know, Dragoneer passed away on August 6th. I have been asked to keep Fur Affinity going in his stead. I will be honest. It is terrifying. I've lost my best friend. Someone that I always thought would be there for me and lift me up. The grief is monumental, and this was not a position I ever thought we would be in.
I know that Dragoneer wanted Fur Affinity to keep going after his passing. And that is exactly what we want to make sure happens. But we cannot do it on our own. We are calling on the community to come together during this hard time to keep our online home going. Not just for ourselves but for everyone else that considers FA as such. He was a good man and always put the community before himself. He would rather go into debt or go without than let FA close. He knew what it meant to the community. So many people still rely on Fur Affinity. It's where many of us started out nearly two decades ago. People have built friendships, relationships, families, communities, and careers on FA.
We are also here to ask for assistance for his mother, Rita. She has been going through such a difficult time. Dragoneer's father passed away two years ago, she recently lost her sister, and now her only son has also passed. She is devastated. I have known her for 14 years, and never once has she asked for any kind of help... but she needs it now.
We need help covering a variety of unforeseen expenses: the medical bills left behind, funeral costs (there will be a private family and public celebration of life), and making sure Rita has the means to get by while she manages his affairs. We also need help keeping the lights on at Fur Affinity during this unanticipated transition.
The goal is high, but please understand that it has all these things in mind. The minimum goal of $75k* ensures these unexpected needs are met for her and covers one month of the expenses Fur Affinity requires. We will be fundraising for as long as possible. If you've ever used Fur Affinity, or if Dragoneer/Preyfar/Wren has ever touched your heart with friendship, please share this around. Please help make his passing a little easier by taking care of his family and legacy. He put his all into FA; it's time we show him how much it all means to us, hold it high as a community, and keep it thriving.
Thank you for every bit of help.
With love,
Sciggles, Rita, and the Fur Affinity team.
*In the interest of transparency, the following is a breakdown of the costs. Many are estimates until we have specifics; however, we will be posting the Fur Affinity transactions as they happen. Anything sent to Rita will just be shown as a lump deposit out of respect.
$27k - Medical expenses
$20k - One month estimated FA costs to help with legal transition
$17k - Balance due to IMVU for FA’s buyback (estimated)
$12.6k - Six months mortgage on Dragoneer's house so Rita has time to sort things
$8k - Public celebration of life (estimated)
$3k - Medical examiner and cremation (estimated)
$3k - Family’s funeral (estimated)
$1k - Urn (estimated)
$1k - Rita’s travel costs (estimated)
??? - IRS (unknown total at this time)
https://gofund.me/2c131578
Aug 6, 2024- Dragoneer Has Passed Away
Posted 11 months agoIt is with heavy hearts that we announce the sudden loss of Fur Affinity's owner, Dragoneer. He was our friend, family, and a pillar of this community. We ask for your patience and respect for his family’s privacy. We remain committed to supporting each other and the community. Updates will follow when appropriate. Thank you for your kindness.