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Virus infects Furres after latest update

Edited as of Sun 24 Jul 2011 - 22:32
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The Fluff Pit

Those entering Furcadia's Vinca got more than they bargained for today, swiftly falling prey to the transformational virus sweeping the dream.

Over 100 furres have been infected as of press time.

Furcadia has a history of problems after seemingly minor spring updates.

Comments

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Y'know... ONE of these April Fools gags is funny. Half-a-dozen of them is a bit much and feels more like an overload of misinformation. I mean, a joke's a joke and that's cool -- but there's such a thing as overdoing it. I enjoy reading the Onion, but I also like KNOWING that I'm reading the Onion. I read Flayrah for some info about what's going on around the fandom, not to be fed a lot of misinformation. Most news outlets will admit when they're pulling a gag. Please have the fairness to say "April Fool's" at the end of these articles.

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But this is what's happening in the fandom.

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As Kakurady notes, the last two stories are coverage of what's going on around the fandom - and the one before that is based on a real "feature" provided by FA (I wish I had made it up . . .).

Where linked sources are provided, I suggest reading them, as with all news articles.

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Then how does one tell the difference? It only underscores the point: identify the gag posts so as to not create confusion.

Seriously, whether it's genuine or not the Furcadia post sounds as phony as the Las Vegas Pafcon post.

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By reading the linked sources. Like I said. Or perhaps you could try visiting for yourself. :-)

If no independent sources are provided for a post made on April 1, you should probably treat it with suspicion.

This piece is accurate but not serious. As for PafCon, who knows? I do actually have a flyer for it.

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Why would I have to read the linked sources in order to know whether or not it's a gag, when any disclaimers should be included in the article? That's generally common practice.

I don't often read the links in any given article unless it's a subject that I'm especially interested in following up. Otherwise, I just scan through them.

And, yeah, I do treat all posts on April 1 with a heightened wariness, regardless of sources. But I think a large number of gag posts through a single outlet at any one given time, regardless of the occasion (except of course for something like The Onion), is an abuse of the journalistic privilege.

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We're going to have to disagree on common practice. The original intent of this site was to be a "furry Slashdot", and as you can see, they have nothing in the way of a disclaimer today.

I'm not quite sure where you're going with journalistic privilege. Perhaps you mean that because we have the right not to disclose our sources, it's our duty to be truthful about what they said?

This would be a reasonable argument if Flayrah actually relied on that, but we usually don't. Instead, we cite sources so you can make up your own mind. If the sources are lacking, beware!

You are welcome to login and submit alternative news, or vote existing news down if you dislike it.

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I wish it were 'common practice', then Fox News would have such disclaimers at then end of half of their stories...

That and War of the Worlds wouldn't have caused people to commit suicide.

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If I can't trust the information coming out of Flayrah, then how 'unusually good' is it?

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I did actually consider changing the motto to "unusually good misinformation". Perhaps for next year.

This is the day when the Internet gets to be silly. It makes up for all the others when we have to be Serious Business. Google alone is running 17 different hoaxes. If this bothers you, perhaps you shouldn't use the net on April 1.

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A good April Fool's spoof always has a giveaway within it; a sly mention of "Lirpa Loof" or some obvious absurdity that hasty readers overlook.

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Hey, at least he didn't do something that caused the website to be inoperable 2 days later... like /f/chan did...

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If I can't trust the information coming out of Flayrah, then how 'unusually good' is it?


This is a question folks should be asking themselves the other 364 days of the year and not just April 1. Folks need to realize that while Flayrah claims to be a Furry news site, these days it's little more than GreenReaper's personal blog with his own personal interpretations of Furry events, and should be treated as such. I know I do.
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Because there is such a large wealth of furry news sites that are good. Xy, surely someone out there is criticizing the fandom. Usually lamenting the fact that we're a bunch of freaks. Why aren't you there protecting against the fursecution, instead of here.
Ell Oh Ell

Anyway this web actually has frequent updates AND a decent interface. The NEWS articles that are plastered up are gudly ritten and at least have links for convenience. It does need more contributes though, I will give you that.

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Should you feel like helping out, the Submit button is right there. :-)

It's fine to want more and better coverage, but few people seem willing or able to step up and provide it.

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Pfft, if I had the talent I would in a heart beat. Hell, I might try and submit my s**t anyway since you're taking the time to call me out. :P

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It's largely a skill, not talent. Do it for long enough, and you'll probably get a lot better.

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Oiy, one can hope.
I'm going to try and dig up some writing resources soon. If not tonight. I'd like to try my hand at some furry reviews sometime.

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Ah but what is actual news but a LOG of events? Saying a blog (or a log) is not news oriented in its own right is false.

Yes logs can be journal-istic, however they also record events.\

But all information SHOULD be questioned, especially from those that call themselves "the news". For example I was informed that the mainstream media said the NO Republicans voted Yes on the healthcare bill, because both sides want you to believe that (democrats want to paint the entire republican party as obstructionist, Republicans want to be seen as opposing something they deemed 'socialist). However the FACT is that the republicans did have ONE defector.

But I look at numbers more then words, I'm a stats whore.

Back to this, however, it was merely a recording of the prank Furcadia played on their users for April 1st, nothing more, nothing less. Why so much stress if this is true or not? If it is Furcadia was playing an April Fools prank, if not then he's playing a fools prank, if you wanted proof, how about going on Furcadia? If you don't use Furcadia, why care at all?

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So wait? Furcadia DIDN'T do an April fools where people started turning into fuzzballs?

I think you're confusing information about a prank with an actual prank. That's like saying news about an accident is the accident itself.

If you believe that news about an april fool is a fool, then truly it is not merely the day that is foolish.

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(Sorry, Sonious... I tried to reply directly to your post but the reply button was glitchy.)

"Ah but what is actual news but a LOG of events? Saying a blog (or a log) is not news oriented in its own right is false."

A news item should not only be factual but as neutral as possible. It should not reflect the bias of the writer, the staff or the publisher. Otherwise it then becomes an editorial and calls in questions about any conflict-of-interests. Frankly, an editorial position would be all right if that is supposed to be the intent. But I think there's enough opinion generated in the comments section as is.

"Back to this, however, it was merely a recording of the prank Furcadia played on their users for April 1st, nothing more, nothing less. Why so much stress if this is true or not? If it is Furcadia was playing an April Fools prank, if not then he's playing a fools prank, if you wanted proof, how about going on Furcadia? If you don't use Furcadia, why care at all?"

I care that facts are presented. I also care about HOW they're presented. I didn't really mind that there was an April Fool style gag post earlier on; what I minded was that there was about a half-dozen of them in short order, and half of them appear to be reports on pranks elsewhere, without identifying them as such in the posted article. I don't recall any of those articles stating that they were either gags or that a gag was being perpetrated on another website, and that's info that should be stated up-front at some point within the post itself. Rather, the reader was left to make assumptions. Relying on readers to verify a report by clicking on supplied links is lazy -- it's essentially telling the reader to do the reporter's fact-checking for him -- and is far different from simply supplying a source for his info.

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Ok, here are some facts:

FACT: News and opinion are not antonyms, in fact the only antonym of news is the word "history".

CONJECTURE: By the above fact it appears that your thoughts that news only deals with fact, is in fact, an opinion. One I happen to agree with, I think the uneducated such as myself before researching this, generally think of news as fact and thus should be to avoid misinformation, but its an opinion none the less. However, if it were a logical fact that news is NOT opinion wouldn't they be antonyms?

FACT: The etymology of News is actually just a plural of the word new, so in essence it simply means new things.

FACT: A report has etymology in the 1660s meaning "formal statement of results of an investigation" this changed from its meaning in the 1400s which, ironically, "an account brought by one person to another, rumor."

FACT: News still is synonymous with rumor, however it is also synonymous with report at the same time. http://thesaurus.com/browse/news.

OPINION based on these facts: News is a broad word which encompasses both rumor and reports, however people who dislike misinformation tend to latch 'their' definition of news to include only the subset of news which are reports while rejecting the subset of news that is rumor.

OPINION based upon these facts: I think many people are confusing the word "news" with the word "report" which are usually used together these days as "News Report" , so closely related that I feel the etymology of the word news is changing to simply mean 'a report'. Words change meaning all the time, but as it currently stands news does not mean report, though it can. But it seems that the more I look up these words, the more I notice the lack of the word "FACT" anywhere.

I think it'd be a good step though, to signify reports versus editorials, however nowhere in this website did I see the words that said it's editorial free. That is a fact.

On the other hand, slashdot was a nice goal for a site... in the late 90s. Digg changed the whole scheme as it was a slashdot where users voted on content that was separated into subgroups. However furryne.ws got that already. I do think Flayrah could be more then just a slashdot, and it's a learning process.

Despite your obsessive compulsive for the facts, the fact that "news" isn't always factual isn't a new problem, and probably won't be one that will ever be extinguished. The term "Yellow Journalism" was coined in the late 1800s, over the news' behavior in reporting the Spanish-American War.

Surely though, a war is a better use of time to complain about journalism facts, then whether or not some avatars turned into fuzz balls on a particular day.

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Surely though, a war is a better use of time to complain about journalism facts, then whether or not some avatars turned into fuzz balls on a particular day.

Which they did. That purple and green one in the corner is me!

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"News and opinion are not antonyms"

No, but fact and opinion are.

"News still is synonymous with rumor, however it is also synonymous with report at the same time. "

True, but in all such cases rumors are identified as rumors. No reporter is going to go and pass a rumor as a solid news story if he cannot verify it through two or more independent sources. And he's only going to report a rumor (identifying it as such) if there's some solid reason to do so: some element of truth or some inherent importance to the overall story.

"The term "Yellow Journalism" was coined in the late 1800s, over the news' behavior in reporting the Spanish-American War."

Which was 120 or so years ago. Surely we expect any professional or ethical standards to be consistent with present day journalistic practices? If we're going to compare ourselves to standards of 'yellow journalism', then we're certainly making a statement there!

And I'm not even insisting upon strict Woodward-Bernstein journalistic practices here; I realize this is just a blog/newsite kind of thing rather than the Washington Post. But even so I do expect a common-sense approach and attitude to posts. Whatever the intent may be, this IS the closest thing the fandom has to a standard newssource, and as such there is an expectation that the posts be delivered fairly and without bias. And with maybe a few less April Fools' jokes. (One was sufficient.)

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You'd be surprised how little things actually fundamentally change in the human condition. I'm sure you could find yellow journalism back to the point of where Jesus was sold out by Judas (staying in season here). Just yelling "news is all about facts" I'm saying is an ideal, it's not a fact, because yellow journalism exists and will probably continue to exist. It is something people should be aware of anywhere.

Because when you start saying "News is all about facts" people on the other end start to believe it's all about facts, the people watching the slanted reports will believe what they are viewing is "fact" and not just "news", because you just made the claim, news is all fact not opinion. Therefore news that is opinion is also fact now, because it's called news.

I think the ideal "news is fact" is a fine one to have, for the journalist, as an assumption in the mind of the audience, it's dangerous. The reason most dislike fox news is not because they give their opinion on things, it's because they call themselves "news" and people for some reason have made that word equivalent to the word fact. And thus, people take their opinion as fact. Which by claiming news is fact, then news that is opinion will be seen as its fact.

The only really way to have an informed public is to do one of two things. Make all news fact, or make sure people realize that all news is not fact.

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News covers a lot. Not for nothing is The Onion called "America's Finest News Source." ;-)

I think aiming for fairness is a worthy goal. But what is fair is always going to be a matter of opinion. Is it fair to criticise a busy website owner for not following their policies all the time? To point out that a convention's fursuit parade count included included someone with a paper bag over their head?

The question of bias is also a tricky one. Long experience with wiki editing leads me to believe that even the best articles on some topics are viewed as biased – often by people on both "sides." *grin*

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'The question of bias is also a tricky one. Long experience with wiki editing leads me to believe that even the best articles on some topics are viewed as biased – often by people on both "sides."'

This is why I always felt, if people aren't yelling at me from both sides, I'm doing something wrong.

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To start, it's worth noting Flayrah has had its share of opinion in the past, explicit and otherwise.

The fact that I currently contribute a large proportion of the content is a problem. The solution must include greater contribution from others. Unfortunately most people just aren't interested in putting in the time.

Expecting objective reporting is itself an opinion on what "news" should be. It's one I broadly agree with, but there are always going to be tricky decisions about what stories are reported, what facts are used to report them, and what wording is used to present such facts. I personally hope to improve in this area over time.

At Flayrah, we assume our story posters will not achieve complete objectivity; not through lack of trying, but because most are laymen and don't know how. This is one reason we don't have anonymous posts. (However, it's not a license to assume a post is biased just because there's a potential conflict of interest.)

Because of this, it's a good idea to test the assertions made in each post – trust, but verify. This is true of any news source. People can "get it wrong" for a variety of reasons, most entirely innocent. When they have limited time to report the news, or are not expert in a given topic, they are more likely to get it wrong.

When I link sources, I'm not saying "this is where I got the story, it might be true or not." I'm saying "here's the sources I chose to base the article on; you may find them useful in evaluating its accuracy and forming your own opinion of the situation." Usually I link a wiki page describing the source, too.

As for April Fools Day, all bets are off. Stories may be serious or silly, factual or fake. Sources may be biased, misleading, or fabricated. I disagree with the opinion that such things must be stated up-front; figuring out what is true and what is a hoax is part of the fun. If you don't enjoy that, skip a day. :-)

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Agreed the best tricks and fools are based on lies. And as Mr. Kain from Diablo 2 says, the best lies are often hidden within the truth. Though, maybe now that it's over it would be best to reveal what was factual, what were the fools, and what were just news about fools. Cause the point of April fools isn't to leave people trying to figure out its a hoax, it's eventually revealing that it was a hoax so the person doesn't drive themselves nuts. That's what governments and conspiracy theorist do on a regular basis ;p

It'd be like my mom not letting my dad that when she told him she got fired Thursday she was joking, and he'd still be stressing unnecessarily.

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I've edited my comment in the April 1 poll to reveal the truth (as far I know it).

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Study Says 52% Of Bloggers Think They Are Journalists – Now That’s Funny!

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Xydexx, if you're going to post here, please do so under a consistent name. The field is not there for commentary.

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About the author

GreenReaper (Laurence Parry)read storiescontact (login required)

a developer, editor and Kai Norn from London, United Kingdom, interested in wikis and computers

Small fuzzy creature who likes cheese & carrots. Founder of WikiFur, lead admin of Inkbunny, and Editor-in-Chief of Flayrah.