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Dragoneer buys back Fur Affinity from IMVU

Edited by GreenReaper as of Mon 15 Feb 2021 - 08:15
Your rating: None Average: 4.1 (14 votes)

FA Logo Fur Affinity is now independent once again after five years under the management of social gaming company IMVU. This comes as IMVU is looking to restructure their company to be called Together Labs, and take on major investment from Chinese company NetEase. Dragoneer repurchased Fur Affinity, for more than he originally sold it for, and now owns it under his own company (Frost Dragon Art LLC) once again.

They also made a new logo for the occasion.

A fear of management change

One of the main reasons that Dragoneer said that he decided to take back the site was because of the fear of what the new company’s goals were going to be under new management. According to VentureBeat, the company seems to be targeting a youthful, more tech-savvy audience. They wish to push more into the virtual world and digital currency spaces. Together Labs are turning to unite their platforms under a new crypto currency named VCoin.

Given their target for the youth, and a push toward crypto, it may have come down the line that if Fur Affinity was going to continue down the route of monetization of content creation through the use of “shinies”, one of the only major updates implemented under IMVU, then the refurbished curators may have an interest in implementing the conceptualized universal digital currency as the main financial transaction. And if the investors saw Fur Affinity as not in line with their goals of monetization and targeting the youth, it may have been restructured or sold off.

It is uncertain if that is how things would have developed, or that they would have just sold the Fur Affinity property, which Dragoneer feared.

Question: What would have occurred if you did not buy FurAffnity back?

Dragoneer: I assume it potentially would have gone up to sale for other parties, and I can’t guarantee they’d have had the community’s interests at heart.

Fiscal sacrifice

Response to the suggestion that FA:U was sacrificed

Dragoneer let it be publicly known that when it came to the deal of buying back the site, he got the short end of the stick. He ended up paying more for the site this year then he sold it to IMVU back in 2015. He even indicated that it harmed his personal finance and is now spreading out his medications in order to keep himself above water.

It can also be noted that this manoeuvre to protect the integrity of Fur Affinity’s roots of being a place for adult furry content is likely to be a behind the scenes reason that Fur Affinity: United was shuttered. Closure of the convention was announced only a few months before Dragoneer announced his reacquisition of the site. So it seems in order to save his site, Dragoneer had to sacrifice the convention. [Dragoneer has since denied this; see right.]

There were some that were pleased with the decision, not having to worry about trying to have fandom activities be appealing to outsiders anymore. However, others saw it as a selfish act on Dragoneer’s part and that he made the decision based on the fear of losing power he holds over the furry site rather than any moral sense of keeping furry weird.

There is certainly a risk here in that now that he owns it once again. Dragoneer’s company will be fronting the monthly maintenance expenses for the site and have lost resources to implement major updates. It was assumed when IMVU took over then major updates would have been made and the site improved, but in the end the only user visible update that was facilitated was the shinies feature. Hopefully they were at least able to clean up and modernize the backend code to make it easier to maintain and update in the future.

Unless Dragoneer finds support in the community to help keep the site independent, then he may find himself in a position where most of the efforts are to keep his site maintained, rather than improved. Hopefully the sacrifice of buying it back will not be in vain.

Comments

Your rating: None Average: 3.4 (5 votes)

Linking FA:U's demise to FA's repurchase is an interesting supposition, but many conventions have struggled – and, as you noted in your original piece, FA:U was never in the strongest of positions. (Dragoneer has since suggested that he "never wanted [FA:U] to be a big con".) Perhaps it was a coincidence brought on by worldwide events.

It's possible that FA's original sale was made on the condition of right of first refusal for a change in ownership or reorganization. Either way, it'll be tough to pay for its running costs. FA is probably not any cheaper to run now than it was five years ago, especially assuming it remains on their new monster server. And if it needed to be sold then, what's different now?

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The people assuming this was just a power grab by Dragoneer are crazy. It was a decision he had a limited amount of time to make. What did they want him to do? Do these people really think that if it hadn't been Dragoneer, IMVU would have turned to someone else in the fandom to buy it?

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He has a hate-fan-club that goes with whatever is the worst possible assumption. He might give them reasons to do that sometimes. It's still lazy.

Assumption: buying it for more than he sold it is bad.
Alternative: He got paid for years of running it and value rises with time, work and content put in.

Assumption: He sacrificed by buying it.
Alternative: They were cutting assets and laying off anyways, and who else would?

Assumption: Fa:U died from this and it's in a bad position to run itself now.
Alternative: Covid affects everything, some artists may use it more than ever now, are there more available helpers, and how much does it make from ads?

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The people on Twitter who think Sonious speculating with too much confidence about the connection between this and FA:U's closure means that GreenReaper is trying to smear FA in Inkbunny's favor are also crazy.

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I actually shied away from writing a piece on it due to the obvious conflict of interest, waiting to see if someone else would submit one. In retrospect, that may have been a mistake, as it got posted before I had the chance to look at it.

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It's not crazy to assume a news site with an editorial control has actual editorial control, and when it does not it's not crazy to assume the owner of said news site, who also owns a competing product against the target of the story, MIGHT have a conflict of interest. The fact that one wasn't stated is problematic in itself with regards to journalistic integrity.

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Please explain, in the least crazy way possible, how the speculation that these two events were connected, without even a value judgement, would have drawn FA's userbase away from it and to Inkbunny.

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It's okay, Equivamp. Let'em go.

As everyone knows, baseless conspiracy theorists are completely harmless!

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When I write an article, like this one about FA's shiny new server, my positions here and at IB are noted in the author section in the page footer. In that case I put my analysis in the comments to separate it from the actual story. I've been writing about FA for a while; years before IB was a thing.

When someone else writes a piece, like this one touching on FA, it's not so obvious. But both the staff credits and the about page suggest my involvement; they're linked on every page, and my name there links to the same information. (I should add a feature where the editors of a particular piece are automatically listed on the byline - wouldn't be too hard, as they're in the revision list. Update (16 Feb): This is now live, and hopefully understandable.)

In this case the piece went out before I could edit it. I'm not the only publishing editor (similar to LiveJournal's moderator role plus post editing). I corrected a date and added a bunch more links, but nothing substantive since it was already up and I had other things to do. I think what people got most up about was the tweet, which I didn't see until later; it doesn't show up here.

In theory, I could pick sub-editors biased towards IB. But that vastly overestimates the number of people who want the job. In practice, I don't think most use it at all. Even contributor-wise, I think Rakuen likes SF more than IB. All have accounts on FA and opinions of their own.

Likewise, I don't choose topics. People write about what they want. FA is a popular topic because it's the biggest furry website, and impacts almost everyone in the community. Sonious knew FA:U had ended because he wrote the story about it - and, you know, he's from New York, so it's relatively close. He knew COVID alone was an unusual reason to declare permanent closure because he's maintaining our ongoing story about that, too. I guess he had the sense that there was a more of a story there - and turns out, he was right, just not the one he thought.

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In terms of all the community features, I prefer SoFurry. In terms of performance, Inkbunny wins, which contributes to me browsing more there. I'm also frustrated because SoFurry's development has slowed to a crawl, at best. That's really sad because they used to be quite active when it came to fixing issues.

"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
~John Stuart Mill~

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Yes we know why you like Inkbunny.
All the cub smut

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But that vastly overestimates the number of people who want the job.

He had me do it for a while! I know, right?

(GR added the art's FA link in the top story; I just did Deviant Art, and didn't even think to look for Fur Affinity or others. Also, somehow, I'm the e621 partisan, because I'm naughty.)

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It seems as one of the very few things he's done for the right reasons. Though it's important to note the obvious fact that he sold it to IMVU in the first place. There were those from our own community who offered to purchase it, but Dragoneer wanted to maintain control. The deal he worked out with IMVU allowed him to remain as such. This would not have been offered by the other furries in our community. Dragoneer has a reputation for a reason, many of them. Even the original sale to him was a sh*tty situation.

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I hope people cut him some slack. Given the amount of crap he's had to put up with over the years, had it been me, I'd have ridden the paychecks while farming out my resume and simply walked away when the time came. This was a decision of the heart, not of sound financial planning. I really hope he's got a plan for making it at least cover it's own cost or this is just going to be a temporary reprieve.

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I said it on Twitter and I'll say it here-it's really bad form (not to mention a tad unethical) to go making baseless accusations. Not only does it make Flayrah look bad it could be considered libel if indeed it's false. Stick to accusations you've got the proof to back up.

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So why are you making one?

There isn't any accusation in this article; that would imply Sonious made a negative value judgement on Dragoneer's decision. He didn't. He speculated (incorrectly) that Dragoneer had to choose between Fur Affinity or FA:United. He never said Dragoneer made the wrong decision.

Hell, in choosing a still important online furry hub over a relatively small con held in a con-crowded portion of the country, seems to me like if anything, Dragoneer's being accused of making the correct decision. As it stands, from what I can tell, Dragoneer made two separate calls that were probably the correct decision; FA:United definitely needed to be canceled in the short term at the very least, and taking FurAffinity out of the hands of a giant corporation that probably didn't give a shit about it was also the correct decision.

The article literally ends with a hope that everything works the fuck out for Dragoneer; that last paragraph is also, if you were paying attention (instead of getting pissed off about nothing) a plea for help on Dragoneer's behalf. Guy's going to need help if he's going to keep the site running; not "white knighting his Internet honor" help. He's gonna need money.

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We've published many stories about FA before, some better-received than others; but I've always been reasonably satisfied with what was posted. I was not super-happy with this. Perhaps it doesn't contain accusation, but it does suppose too much.

It's an important topic and it was right to have a story on it (just as for IMVU's original purchase); but it was not necessary or helpful to attach so much theory to a factual story – if there is any, it should come as part of attributed quotes from others.

It might be right to discuss third-party views, if they are representative of those held by a number of people. But a fact-led news story should probably not be the origin of novel theories or involved analysis unless there is clear evidence to justify it, within the author's area of expertise – even then, it might be best to devote a comment to it instead, so it is clearer that it is the author's opinion, not Flayrah's.

The associated tweet needlessly amplified the weakest part of the story, making the writer's own supposition out to be its main part – and the only one people wanted to talk about (at least as far as Twitter was concerned). I'm not sure that was the intent, but it was the result, and subsequent tweets compounded the issue. For that reason, I've removed it. It didn't properly represent the story, let alone Flayrah.

I've said a fair bit more to the author. Most of what I said was already in the contribution and editorial guidelines, so I won't repeat it here. They've said to me that they intend to improve the article; and it's getting very late for me, so I'm going to let them deal with that tonight.

Ultimately, I'm responsible for what goes down here; so I've apologized to Dragoneer privately, outlining certain relevant aspects of Flayrah's operation which are non-obvious to non-contributors – and, as you say, wishing him good fortune with what will doubtless be an uphill task.

Your rating: None Average: 2 (6 votes)

I think the thing a lot of people need pointed out is that this article is not an attack on Dragoneer or Fur Affinity or anyone. There was a mistake made in the form of some speculation that turned out to be totally incorrect. Which is, to be clear, totally bad. But as soon as it was pointed out, it was acknowledged by everyone responsible, apologized for and corrected.

I'm not the only Flayrah regular to point out in these comments that, in our opinion, Dragoneer did the right thing (and furthermore, that the buyback is some kind of "power play" is ridiculous even if it wasn't the right thing).

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The article isn’t an attack, no, but the questionable line here is:

So it seems in order to save his site, Dragoneer had to sacrifice the convention.

I would categorize this as an assertion given the context of the article, not a speculation. Yes, “it seems...” makes it a weak assertion, but it’s essentially “this appears to be what happened.”

But , even setting that aside, the editorial addition is, as far as I can tell in its entirety: “Dragoneer has since denied this; see right [the sidebar]”, with a sidebar showing Dragoneer’s tweeted response. That’s it.

So, you know, it seems that you are wrong when you say this was “apologized for and corrected”. Maybe Sonious apologized on Twitter later rather than continuing to fight with Dragoneer over it, but if so, that apology hasn’t made it into this article; the tweets I saw from them had very much of an “it’s your fault for not providing more details about why FA:U closed, not my fault for making assumptions without checking” air.

— Chipotle

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Sonious tweeted some stuff. He also blocked some people, which I don't think was the right move, there. So, yes, that wasn't perfect there either. But, just to be catty, so much for your assertion no one apologized.

The thing is, I don't get the fight, here. Or at least the continued fight. It's over, you won, I guess you want more, but ... that's how it works. Sorry? Again?

As far as "speculation" versus "assertion" versus "accusation" (I mean, good Lord, but I did start it), well, it was what appeared to have happened. The guy is talking about spacing out his medications (nobody's said that bit of the article is false) and you, like, shouldn't do that if you don't have to! It makes sense he couldn't afford both. It turns out, "correlation is not causation" and all that. Once again, it was a mistake; not malicious.

I'm not saying "no harm, no foul". I'm saying the foul has been called and free shots have been taken. (Did Dragoneer make them?) Except that's not a good metaphor because we're not opposing teams, and you know what, thanks to Dragoneer for clearing it up, that's one thing we haven't done.

We didn't thank him for correcting the situation. Now the full story's out there, we know what happened, it's all good. GG guys. We got it. Okay. Go team! Yay!

Now that that's out of the way, I do have a bone to pick with you personally, Chipotle; seriously, how the fuck do you pick J.R.R. Tolkien's hobbits as the example to go against my opinion that furries maybe could stand a little more worldbuilding in their writing? He literally begins The Lord of the Rings with a prologue entitled "Concerning Hobbits" because fucking Christ that book is a life's time worth of worldbuilding with a story tacked on.

I guess you got me on the feet, though.

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Okay, I'm going, shhhh, you just got hold on to something and hope none of it gets in your eyes or mouth, but, okay, the feet.

See, Tolkein earned the feet because he spent so much time worldbuilding. Yes, he never explains why the fucking hobbits have big hairy feet. Maybe he's like a foot fetishist? Maybe he thought it was cute? (The Hobbit was a kid's book.) But he spends so much time explaining everything else that, like, one weird little detail doesn't really have an explanation, it's okay. You don't need to over-explain, sure, but, the guy literally started with the languages because that's what he did for fun. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings basically exist because he spent so much time making up the history and lore and shit of Middle Earth, he had to come up with a story to justify it's existence.

I mean, have you not read the Silmarillion? Actually, no one's read the Silmarillion, because that book is the opposite of Generic Bad Furry Novel, and is all worldbuilding, no story, and therefore kind of boring. But my point is, Tolkein thought that part was fun. So it's weird to use him as an example to justify the belief that explaining things is not necessary to fantasy fiction, since his writing is the opposite. He uses fantasy fiction as justification to explain things.

Okay, there's this Flash game, it's called Space Paws, it's a porn game. Visual novel-ish type. Basic premise; colony ship, you're supposed to repopulate the human race with your partner. Furry aspect comes in with all the planets you visit are inhabited by furries; so dog planet, cat planet, fox planet and lizard planet. And of course you can date and fuck all of them. It doesn't seem to have actually been made by anyone active in the fandom, mostly the art just doesn't look like a furry would do it, and also far and away most of the sex scenes actually involve your human partner. Seems if anything like a small group who decided "hey, these furry guys, they look exploitable."

But, anyway, actually getting to the point, ironically, if you choose, in the end, to stick with your human partner, you get an ending that explains why these planets are populated by Earth animals, or furry equivalents thereof. (It involves black hole time travel and genetic engineering. Spoiler.) And I'm playing this stupid jerk off game, and I'm like, "Holy shit, they just justified almost everything in this game." Why are they Earth animals? They're from Earth! Why are they domesticated dogs, not wolves? They sent dogs, not wolves! Why do they have vaguely Earth-like cultures? They're from Earth! Why can the protagonist fuck and impregnate all these creatures, including the lizards? They were designed that way!

They didn't justify the magical genie, though. That's the equivalent of the hobbit's feet. It's a porn game.

But that's my point, it's a fucking porn game, and it took the effort to explain itself! The fucking goal is to make me horny, not make me think! And yet more effort was put into the fucking backstory of this fucking masturbation fodder than way too much of furry "literature."

Why did they do that? Because it's fun! Because it's fun for the reader, and it's fun for the writer! Worldbuilding and lore are some of the chief pleasures of the fantasy genre. That's fucking why!

Also, it's just lazy not too; the hobbit's feet aren't important to the story of The Lord of the Rings. The fact that Frodo is a hobbit is. The fact that he's small and from a group with little political or military power in his world greatly effects the quest. So Tolkien explained what a fucking hobbit is. Likewise, if you're going to make a piece of fiction starring a talking fox or whatever, the fact that he or she is a talking fox or whatever should probably effect the story. And furthermore, it's also nice if we know a little bit about their backstory.

In conclusion ... oh, shit, I just realized the top article is by me and about Redwall.

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Tolkien never gave them big hairy feet. That was something unique to Peter Jackson's interpretation of the books. Tolkien ONLY said that they had thick, leathery soles-which makes sense given they live in a climate that affords them the ability to spend all day walking around in bare feet. The only other physical attributes he gave them were their shortness, their thick curly hair and their predilection towards round tummies due to their love of food & drink.

As far as the Silmarillion goes you obviously haven't read it or put much effort into reading it as it's chock full of awesome stories. The best of those being the tale of Beren & Luthien & their faithful hound Huon.

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Okay, first off, confession, I did just Google your Twitter (that's kind of shitty, but we're all in shitty moods about this whole thing and being shitty, so forgive me ... or be offended, whatever), and of course this whole subthread would begin with a reply to someone who significant portions of their Twitter timeline consist of Lord of the Rings posts. (Didn't see the Tweet about Sonious however, so ... please tell me there's not another furry Zidders who just happens to be a pretty big Tolkien fan, I don't think I could take it.) I'll let you take the floor on matters Tolkein.

Yeah, sorry, couldn't take the Silmarillion, just a bit much for me; I would kill for a good animated adaptation of Farmer Giles of Ham. In fact, yeah, I'll straight up admit, The Hobbit is more my speed; even parts of The Lord of the Rings gets a little thick. Need a little leavening of humor. Silmarillion: not a laugh riot.

I think Jackson, though, maybe got the hairy thing from Ralph Bakshi's animated version, because they were hairy there.

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Afaik I'm the only Tolkien-loving Zidders out there lol. As far as Peter Jackson I'm pretty sure he went with big Hobbit feet for the same reason you suppose-Bakshi's LotR was his first introduction to Tolkien. Plus there are moments throughout both his Tolkien trilogy's that serve as callbacks to both Bakshi and Rankin-Bass's Lotr and Hobbit/Return of the King. Specifically the look of the black riders, the bit in Fellowship where they're hiding under the tree & the Ringwraith is snuffling about and the bit in the Prancing Pony where the wraiths all gather in Frodo's room & discover they've stuffed the beds with pillows.

Fun fact-Sean Astin so hated having to put on the feet every day he not only pointed out that it never says they have big feel anywhere in Tolkien's works he kept a daily record of how much time he had to spend in the chair getting them put on vs how little time they were in that days scenes.

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I noted that there might be an apology on Twitter that, at that point, I hadn't seen. I wasn't attempting to pick a fight with you, I was attempting to say, "No, look, the way that article was written didn't frame it as speculation, and the update didn't contain either a correction or an apology, it just contained a note that Dragoneer disputed a claim in the article." As for assertion vs. speculation, well, I wasn't trying to be catty. The original claim didn't come across like it was framed as speculation, and I think that was the source of a lot of the drama. If it had been written more like "We don't know whether FA: United had to be shut down in order for Dragoneer to afford to be able to buy back Fur Affinity" or "It's possible that FA: United was shut down in order for Dragoneer to afford to be able to buy back Fur Affinity, although this is just speculation," it's at least plausible that everybody's day would have been better.

Beyond that, I wasn't aware you've been nursing a serious greivance against me since August 2012 for a four-sentence paragraph in which I wrote "Tolkien has a lot of unexplained hobbits running around, yet as impossible as this may be to believe, the story seems to work anyway." I don't think from the context of my article that you can say I was arguing against the very concept of worldbuilding; I was arguing against the idea that a furry story has to, in its own text, explain why it's a furry story. A story only needs to do that if it's important to the story it needs to tell. If my flippant reference to Tolkien specifically undercut my point, I'm sorry; I had a tendency toward abrasiveness in my writing then that I try to at least tamp down now.

I will say that, given in that article when I contrasted your position with Sparf's and said "these positions aren't mutually exclusive; in fact, they're probably both right," it seems super weird to be this angry at me for nine years over a short article whose conclusion—that the interesting question for a furry story is how you show that the characters being furry matters—is to a large degree supportive of your position.

— Chipotle

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I don't really give a shit about Fur Affinity and am basically just, you know, partisanly defending Flayrah, so I'm moving down to the hobbits. Hobbits are funner.

I google myself sometimes and, uh, I don't get a lot of results. You know. So you stick out. Also, Tolkien in general and hobbits in particular as a defense against worldbuilding; I mean, come on. That sticks. I can't think of a worse counter-example to my argument. It's less a grudge and more I've been waiting for an opportunity to dunk on something that obvious for ... nine years, was it? I mean, that's what I'm saying; "Tolkien has a lot of unexplained hobbits running around", are you fucking kidding me! The first thing you read when you open a copy of The Fellowship of the Rings is literally a long, tedious explanation of hobbits! THEY COULD NOT BE MORE EXPLAINED. I would wait 90 years to dunk on that shit!

But, like you, I've mellowed since then, and in the context of the original comment you were quoting, that was in the time period Fred Patten was alive stuck in his bed and had nothing better to do than flood Flayrah's inbox with reviews of everything, and just about every other review was "the characters being furry had no impact whatsoever on anything". I think it was a bigger problem then you thought because you weren't either a. Fred, b. stuck with a constant stream of Fred and weren't reading literally everything published as furry. Fred's situation was pretty unique, so even if you were trying to read everything, he had you beat. And given he was usually a very forgiving reviewer, I mean, if he was getting kind of annoyed, it was probably pretty bad.

Yes, giving me a complete rundown of how your furry world evolved is probably overkill (though could also be fun!), and I get hung up on the worldbuilding aspect at times. Kyell Gold is not part of the problem. The characters being animals is important to the story in his writing (and, for that matter, Jacques Redwall books), even if there's no "explanation". What I was railing (badly? Probably.) against at the time was that a lot of "furry authors" weren't even at that level. There were a lot of "the main character is a tiger" only effecting the cover illustration from other authors, and let's just not find examples right now, how about that?

If I had to guess why, I'd say its medium confusion. Let's face it, a lot of furry inspiration comes from non-literary sources, and lot of them are visual mediums. It's not so bad the main character of Aggretsuko being a red panda effects the story, her characterization or her setting fuck all, because she's the main character in an animated television show, so we can see her. She looks nice. That's justification enough in that medium. Since we can't actually see the fucking character (outside of the aforementioned cover illustration), it needs a bit more justification in a novel. People were trying to turn animated cartoons into novels without understanding that there's a difference.

I didn't actually write a lot about hobbits this time, sorry.

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Actually, random thought, this might not be as off topic as I thought.

We're talking about "justification" in writing, and the thing is, that's part of the problem with Sonious' speculation. I mean, the big thing is still that it's, you know, wrong. But it's also pretty unjustified, and there's no reason for it.

A lot of the dramatic theorizing about the speculation is due to this; there's not a clear reason for it to exist, so there's room for speculation as to why it does. I mean, my theory is that Sonious just likes to speculate, and the speculation exists for the sake of speculation, but there you go. It's not appropriate for the, uh, "genre", if you will. So many, less familiar with Sonious' rather rambling style, may assume a motive.

Edit: "rather rambling style" ha, ha, that's not hypocritical at all ...

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Many seeing this article may be aware of a hostile exchange between myself and Dragoneer.

After a day of thinking over the actions I took and the means under which I took them, there was no real value in how the emotional situation of Glaide’s passing came to light. That information is personal, and at this time raw, and the tweet that was used to promote this story was unnecessarily snarky and demonsterous given those personal situations Dragoneer was dealing with.

There were more ethical and professional ways to go about doing this, and this was a moral failing on my part. We would see a cop that got evidence without a warrant as unethical on the rules under which they should operate, and similarly the way this was brought to light should be seen in that same light.

In the interest of ensuring that this action does not go unheeded, I will be putting into place that I will not be writing any articles to publish under my name until I read through one college level journalism ethics book from cover to cover, and review my back catalog for points where I had faltered in that. If I can’t be bothered to do this work, I should not be bothered to write here.

This was my decision, while GreenReaper did contact me about the article it was mostly a copy paste of the Flayrah webpage on editing. Which to be fair, is fine given that I was too quick on many articles to hit the submit article and not wait upon peer review. If I had done so in this case he would have noted the obvious citation needed to the indication that there was any connection between FurAffinity’s buyback and FurAffinity United’s closure.

Impatience is not a virtue when it comes to putting things down as a matter of record. Especially given the story of the buy back was already two weeks out.

I need to reassess the directions I intend to go, and get back to providing a service to the fandom and not a grievance. I used to cover obits in the fandom, and that has been deralicted over time as I became an editor. The fact I was unaware of a FA:U staffer’s passing and the plausible impact it could have had shows the amount of disconnect I have grown over time on this subject matter.

I will continue to edit the articles of others including bringing the monthly Digging up Positivity segment (under the anon tag since it is Mr. Meerkat’s content). Just none will be written by myself until that review of myself is complete.

In the meanwhile as far as some furry new organizations I would recommend, I find that Global Furry Television has been doing a great job in informing their audience with a modicum of professionalism. I think in time we will have more people doing good work, which is great should some of us falter in that duty.

Somewhere along the past 4 years as an editor my emotional intelligence has eroded, particularly in the past year. We sometimes see gatherings and conventions as a want and not a need. But my first convention was in 2011, and I think that once I had started to see people, with the joy and hard work and dedication they put into these things, I became less cynical about the world and was able to understand some of the difficult decisions and trials they had to deal with with more respect and candore.

It’s too easy to forget as time goes on and the only interaction you have with people is through wire that these are people dealing with difficult decisions, and the last thing they need is someone giving the appearance of at best being cold to their trials, and at worst dancing on their grave.

Forgiveness is not asked of, it is earned, and I will spend the next few months doing what I can to earn it. Either I fail and leave the future of furry news to another, or succeed and come back better for it.

Thank you for your time and support of the past decade.

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For what it's worth I think there were mistakes made but things were not nearly as bad as some are making it out to be and that you are being perhaps a bit too hard on yourself. I can't remember the exact wording of the story tweet so I will only talk about the article itself.

I don't think there is anything wrong with speculation per se. Part of writing news is to put things in context and sometimes that will require speculation where exact evidence is missing. As the comment in question was a small aside, I don't think it was anything like trying to start some sort of conspiracy and it was clear that it was just speculation. If you really want to write the sort of news articles that are perfectly neutral and only informative, then it was a problem but I think few really take that line and not doing so is hardly a failing.

If one is going to speculate, one has to work with the information that is available and, in this case, that was what had been publicly stated. It turns out that was incomplete and the speculation was wrong. It happens. There were factors that were unknown but, as Glaide's death was not part of the announcement, even if you had learned that he had died, it would have also been speculation to attribute the closure of the convention to that.

Edit: Something I forgot to mention earlier. There has been some criticism about Sonious not getting a comment from Dragoneer. While that is valid, I will note that I have tried to get comment from Dragoneer in the past and he refused to make one due to his own personal grudges against Flayrah. With no reasons to suspect a change, it is unlikely that asking Dragoneer for comment would've changed the situation.

"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
~John Stuart Mill~

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Dragoneer is not at fault here, the first statement from in the block quote I had obtained from him. I didn't ask him directly about the ties between his action to buy back FA and the closure of FA:U. I inferred this from the fact of the public statement he said of how much buying FA had put him out.

Many convention leaders do help contribute to their conventions out of their own pocket to make up for differences.

This could have been asked directly, and he could have declined that right then and there instead of having to do the public retraction. I had that opportunity and blew it.

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I'm not a Dragoneer fan (although I think over the years I've come to understand why he is the way he is a bit better) but I'm also not a fan of outside, corporate control over furry sites. The move of so much furry stuff onto Twitter is quite depressing (and bad for art). So in that sense, I'd rather have Dragoneer in charge of FA than IMVU.

"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
~John Stuart Mill~

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I was not a Dragoneer Cheerleader myself either, I definitely preferred the 2006 version:

https://web.archive.org/web/20150821170440/https://forums.FurAffinity.net/thread...

The version who understood Separation of Fiction & Reality. The version who fought hard for Artistic Freedom.

The version who said that art and the artist should not be blamed for the actions of a deranged fan.

https://web.archive.org/web/20150821170436/https://forums.furaffinity.net/thread...

I liked THAT version of 'Neer quite a lot, seemed very Neil Gaiman-esque... very PRO-FICTION, much like the late great Near / Byuu of the emulation and rom hacking scene....

https://archive.fo/2010.02.23-165707/http://byuu.org/articles/thoughtcrimes

But sadly, somewhere along the course of time, Dragoneer changed and Furry Fandom itself changed...

It became a lot more "Puritanical" with its views concerning artwork and fiction....

........

Despite all the shifts in beliefs, and the weird rule changes at Fur Affinity, I never HATED Dragoneer as a person.

I just felt like he was rolling over too easy for the Twitter Puritans... I never outright wished ill will on the guy.

e621 recently has made some questionable decisions, but do I ~hate~ anyone there? No... I don't...

I just think that they are caving too easily and not putting up enough of a fight against outright censorship.

........

We can have different beliefs and different attitudes, but it doesn't mean that I wish ill fortune on anyone....

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That said, it's absolutely horrific what happened to the guy.

The American Healthcare System sucks major ass...

https://en.wikifur.com/wiki/Dragoneer#Illness_and_death

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I can't believe Dragoneer is gone.

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Seems like he's not gone. he just updated his wikifur with "trashyfurry@proton.me on top"

https://en.wikifur.com/wiki/User_talk:Preyfar

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How do you know if it’s him or not?
Not trying to argue, I just need evidence.

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https://en.wikifur.com/wiki/Dragoneer
"This person is a WikiFur user:

Preyfar's user page
Preyfar's talk page
"
smoothbrain

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Your blatant trolling and callous attitude is not appreciated.

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Also, real cute vandalizing a DEAD PERSON'S wikifur page, you friggin' empathy lacking sociopath.

Take your bitch ass back to Kiwi Farms or 4chan. Your particular brand of "humor" is not needed...

Your rating: None Average: 2 (2 votes)

"Hurr-durr, he's not actually dead!"

Oh of course, of course, of course.... just like how "Near / Byuu totally isn't dead, he just moved to Cuba with 2pac and Biggie."

Please leave, go back to 4chan and KF where you belong, griefer troll.

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Dude... that's too far. please have some empathy

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Says the shitbag 4channer / KF-er who went and deliberately vandalized Preyfar's wikifur page?

Go fuck yourself, lol.... you're lucky I didn't screen shot what you did before the janitors at wikifur were able to UNDO THE DAMAGE YOU CAUSED... you left your FRIGGIN' NAME on the page edits, you absolute DUMB ASS.....

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Actually wait, I think I ~DID~ screen cap it....

https://ibb.co/3S8kgQ4

So what's your deal, dipshit?

Didja really think that the wikifur mods weren't just gunna REVERT YOUR CHANGES????

And didja really think that they weren't gunna LOG YOUR I.P.

You better ~HOPE~ you were using a VPN when you did that shit...

Fuckin' 4chan troll, Fruit Farm Freak...

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1. Why are you so mad? It's a blessing in disguise that someone disgusting like this has finally left.
2. I don't go to those sites
3. Idc, go issue a subpoena on me or hop off of me lil dude https://ibb.co/6Phd0cp | https://ibb.co/dWjsWy2

im done replying to your corny replies🤦‍♂️

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So you ain't even denyin' it, huh homie...

I mean you plastered your email all over your handiwork...

So you musta wanted some attention from it, lol...

"it's a blessing when someone like that dies"

Bro, it's Dragoneer, not Jeff Epstein or Ian Watkins.

He wuddn't as "monstrous" as you make him out to be.

And I'm sure you 4chan / Kiwi freaks got skeletons in YOUR OWN closets too...

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I hate to ask but is anyone gonna cover what happened to him recently? IDK I am still new here.

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I would assume Sonious will. But that's a fair bit of work. Dragoneer's death wasn't even announced 24 hours ago and it was unexpected. It's not like anyone was working on a memorial post.

"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
~John Stuart Mill~

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Sorry. It was a stupid comment anyway.

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I had a few thoughts about it but I fear any piece I did might be a little dry and it might be better for me to edit someone else's post and/or make a comment to it instead.

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No worries in asking. I'll definitely be looking to do a rough draft and have it up sometime this weekend.

It's a matter of being "overemployed" and at the same time it's best to take time on writing this. I mean, if there's any lesson that this article that you're commenting on proves it's that it's best not to be to hasty with the publish button. Especially as more information comes out concerning the situation.

Flayrah tends to be a bit slower. It's a volunteer organization as it were. There is no way we can defeat social media in expediency, what we offer is retention.

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