Why FA was down, but is up again now

[foxystallion]

RE: Why FA is down

http://preyfar.livejournal.com/667354.html

Fur Affinity is offline temporarily.

Upon coming home tonight, Alkora approached me in IM and said he was having monetary issues due to college and, apparently, an unfortunate case of black mold. He then proceeded to inform me he was considering selling Fur Affinity to the highest bidder and was looking for $10,000, but would "make me a deal" for about $7-8,000.

Naturally, I took great offense to that. It almost felt like extortion. "Here, you pay me a $8,000, or I'll sell it to the highest bidder and you and everybody else will lose!" A rather damned if you do, damned if you don' moment.

I have dumped thousands of my own dollars into Fur Affinity, and all that Alkora has paid for... is the domain registration fee. That's it. Yes, we've all sunk hard earned time and money into the site, but he decided he wanted to sell the site for profit. Profit off of massive money I, and countless contributers put into the site. Over $15,000 worth of donations since June 2006, and that's nothing to laugh at.

Naturally, I hate two words for that, and they both ended with explicitives.

Alkora decided to re-direct his DNS for the site and post a rather nasty message, blaming me. Well, that's right. The blame all lies in me, because I refuse to pay thousands of dollars for what I have been primarily supporting financially by myself since December 2005. Alkora has barely spent a single penny on things, and I have the bills to prove it. I have the invoices for servers and hosting fees in my name. He created it, and for that I am thankful, but I am not going to bend over and pay to keep the community's site alive.

FA is not dead, and will return.

We're working on restoring services right now. Rest assured, your data is safe. I own the servers and they're currently in a secure position, and there's no worry of loss. As co-owner, I have kept the site secure, and as co-owner for FA, I am not going to see the site go under for one person's greed.

The site is a community site, not a business. I intend to keep it that way. I will not see Fur Affinity go under because somebody wants to auction it off to the highest bidder.

thats a bit of relief to know whats going on i was afraid that the site got hacked big time ,i was a bit alarmed at the thought of fa going down for good so shortly after i had joined it and got to thinking of it as my home away from home *so to speak*

Thank you very much for this information. I didn't have a clue!

 

[Arcturus]

Let's just say you have an understandable bias, Arc.
That's not the whole story, nor was/is the situation as simple as might be inferred from the evidence you're providing.

(Agreed w/Arshes re. FA1, though, as you know).

The situation IS that simple. Jheryn needs to be given the cold hard boot. A new domain bought if needed. And everything can go on as is.

Not making Dave Hyena an admin, as he's a pompous, arrogant, self-aggrandizing jackass who power trips would be a bonus, but I don't have my hopes up. Admin choices aren't exactly overflowing with sensibilities around here. (Damaratus, Wolfblade, Pinkuh..)

And that, uncia, is my .02 kilos of gold (troy weight)

 

[robomilk]

Look! A journal about it! To collect all the information available together into one place, so people can make their own decisions. http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/170626/

 

[Arshes Nei]

There is mention that Dragoneer quit, confirm/deny?

 

[uncia]

> And that, uncia, is my .02 kilos of gold (troy weight)
~$480? Thanks for investing so much in the discussion.

Sure and FA "needs" better leadership/administration, some people might also say. Just as easy to magic that one?
(nm) on the rest of that, anyhow.

d.

 

[uncia]

There is mention that Dragoneer quit, confirm/deny?

Given that I'm still waiting even for confirmation on the veracity of the other half of the original backstory, that might take some time.
Or not... *shrugs and looks around again*

 

[Arcturus]

Dragoneer has proved to be a competant head admin. He's invested thousands and thousands in this place.

He was good enough to swallow his pride and let me back onto FA. That took a lot of guts to do.

He doesn't seem to jump right into banning random folks for no reason. He's fairly level-headed.

And HE doesn't try and extort nigh on ten grand from someone.

'nuff said, Dragoneer rocks. At least, at controlling the site.

'neer, if you're reading this, remind me at FA:U. I owe you a drink. You deserve one.

 

[uncia]

Heh... Sorry, I thought we were talking about the same person there. My mistake, Arc.

 

[*morningstar]

I apologize, Yak. I know there are many more faces to the FA staff than a single one, but please understand that to me, as a normal site user, he is the only one I see. I check the forums very rarely. In my mind, the forums are a totally separate community of people. As someone who uses FA the vast majority of the time, I really only see Dragoneer acting as an admin. I understand that the coders don't really have anything to do with the community, but at the same time it's also frustrating as a user to see a lot of features on the site that don't really get fixed or addressed.

There is a staff page for the site, but it doesn't have any real information about the administrators and what they do for the site. I'm also aware there's a lot of backstabbing and behind the scenes politics that goes on the administration group. I don't mean to be rude, but perhaps if the other admins, including yourself, would like the credit and thanks for the site that you deserve, then it might make help to make yourselves more visible to normal users who don't go to the forum. I know that without the entire team working to keep this site up, FA would not exist.

 

[Arshes Nei]

Look! A journal about it! To collect all the information available together into one place, so people can make their own decisions. http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/170626/

Get your facts right.

 

[Bluefire Dragonz]

Its really unfair of people to just jump up and say 'I'm for such and such!' when no one knows the whole story.

There are no heroes or villains here, just different people or groups of people with different opinions about what should be done. It also seems to me that some people are being real pricks by tearing down one or the other side with negative comments.

Instead, shouldn't we be saying, "How can we solve this? How can we work out a solution that benefits the most people?"

Yes, if someone has sunk a lot of time and money into a site, he deserves to have a say in what's done with it. On the flip side, someone who's spent hours upon hours hard coding an entire site has a right to ask to be compensated for his efforts.

Think about it... as an example, say you made a logo for a friend, or even just an acquaintance, and it becomes a integral part of their site and/or business. Isn't it fair to ask for a small fee, in order to give up all rights of ownership of the image to that person?

But it doesn't really matter what I say here, because I highly doubt that what they do or don't do will be affected in any way by the BS people are posting in this thread. If you have a legitimate idea or comment that might help settle the issue, post it. If you're just posting to tell everyone how much of an asshole-pothead one or the other side is... grow up.

 

[cesarin]

There is mention that Dragoneer quit, confirm/deny?

Given that I'm still waiting even for confirmation on the veracity of the other half of the original backstory, that might take some time.
Or not... *shrugs and looks around again*

let's be honest unciaa, Mfwolf already as been mentioned as "close buddy" of jheryn-alkora..
I wouldn't be surprised if he and his furry inflation fans do the "come together to battle, doesn't matter how ridiculous it is"

 

[robomilk]

Look! A journal about it! To collect all the information available together into one place, so people can make their own decisions. http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/170626/

Get your facts right.

<corrected>
So I misread one line of one piece of information. I still did a hell of a lot better than your average tabloid newspaper.

 

[themocaw]

<corrected>
So I misread one line of one piece of information. I still did a hell of a lot better than your average tabloid newspaper.

Eggplants have more journalistic integrity than tabloid newspapers, so that's not saying much.

 

[foxystallion]

Why do I have an overpowering suspicion that FA just sort of grew organically, with various people doing various things - and that there never were any contracts as to who owned what? No wonder there is so much entropy! When FA was a cub with a two digit budget, ownership issues could be settled over a kitchen table. With a four digit annual budget, things are getting rather sticky. When annual expenditures get to 5 figures - which is inevitable - over 600,000 furry pictures and stories to date - a lack of clear ownership agreements will likely create even nastier drama.

I'd suggest mediation leading to a written contract, except that I doubt that there would be any major parties who would agree to it, let alone everyone who has a dog in this fight.

Without a written contract, FA's future will become more and more unstable as the operating costs and the value of the franchise continue to rise.

 

[Arshes Nei]

Without a written contract, FA's future will become more and more unstable as the operating costs and the value of the franchise continue to rise.

Franchise the furry opera...


Welcome MurrDonalds...may I help you, may I help you...may I...
Help you?

I'll have a large sac,
hermaphrodites...
... and a dong, and a dong...and a
dong

 

[Summercat]

Yak -

As people said, Dragoneer is the visible face of the FurAffinity staff. As such, when people say 'Thank you Dragoneer' they don't neccessarily mean just Dragoneer, but what he represents - the guy in charge of a team of people that run the place.

It's what I mean, anyhow...

...although I've never once thought that Dragoneer was doing this alone. @.@

And there may very well be two sides to this story. However, what evidence I've seen leads me to conclude that Alkora needs a boot to the head.

 

[rayvenredfield]

Ummm.... is anyone else having trouble with the mirror sites that Dave posted? Cause all i get is a white screen of nothingness... >.>

 

[Fox Glove]

Yeah I'm getting the white screen of death too, what's going on? is the site down again?

 

[robomilk]

<corrected>
So I misread one line of one piece of information. I still did a hell of a lot better than your average tabloid newspaper.

Eggplants have more journalistic integrity than tabloid newspapers, so that's not saying much.

That's why I said a hell of a lot better.

 

[rayvenredfield]

No more white screen of death! the real FA is back up again.

 

[foxystallion]

Without a written contract, FA's future will become more and more unstable as the operating costs and the value of the franchise continue to rise.

Franchise the furry opera...


Welcome MurrDonalds...may I help you, may I help you...may I...
Help you?

I'll have a large sac,
hermaphrodites...
... and a dong, and a dong...and a
dong

LOL - some welcome levity. I can just imagine a ferrox speaker box at the drive through...

Nevertheless, the financial investments by various parties are increasing every month, and hence the risk of legal meltdown without some sort of dispute resolving agreement...

 

[Janglur]

I know a lot of people have said that this is a non-profit site, but remember folks, it's not. It's not an actual NPO with real bookkeeping and all that fun jazz. As a matter of fact, they've said before that they wouldn't mind making a few bucks off of the community . . . "with perhaps enough left over to buy us a few beers", I believe was Dragoneer's words. I don't think any of us would begrudge them a few beers or even a minimal salary for their work here if it was actually documented and a business that all funds were reportable, and "bells and whistles" subscriptions that would keep the site self-sustained and even perhaps turn some profit (for staff or charity use) has been suggested by dozens of people.

Obviously not the same thing as "gimmie $8k to solve my life problems", but making money off the site for personal use wasn't out of the question from either party.

I just hope this is a wakeup call to the FA staff that it's time to stop treating this place as a private diversion and it's time to start treating it like the web community that affects thousands of people that it really is. "The site is a community site, not a business. I intend to keep it that way. I will not see Fur Affinity go under because somebody wants to auction it off to the highest bidder" doesn't work, Dragoneer. You can't have it both ways. You say you own the servers THAT WE PAID FOR, and this is a site that a good deal of us donated to in the past. That makes it a community site, but you (in the plural, in this case, staff) make the rules that drive off the community members that donate the money to keep the place running and then whine when you don't get enough (which I'll remind you has been echoed before, a lot of people stopped donating when their place here was threatened by the staff itself).

"I gave a lot of money and now because I don't give more, I can't use the site any more" is a call a LOT of the community has heard here recently because of server space and bandwidth. Sucks to hear it, doesn't it, Dragoneer, when the tide is turned? Kind of makes you feel like your place in the community isn't appreciated or the money you gave was only good for someone else's fun?

First off, stop hiding stuff on these forums, especially stuff that was posted publically and then you take away. A few of you *glares at "no more drama to see here folks" staff members* seem to think that editing stuff when it suits you is a good idea. We gave our dues to what got threatened too and it's worth our while to be able to know what is going on. All this "lulzdrama" affects our investment as well. Second, as a community site, let the community actually pull together and solve the problems. Get off your high horses and stop treating this place like it's YOURS. Because if it is YOURS, then what you brought on yourselves with Alkora is well deserved and kudos for them. But if it's OURS and Alkora tried to take it away . . . .

Make your choice. Because if FA is a COMMUNITY site, you have a hell of a lot of community members willing and ready to pull together to make sure the home for ALL of us stays. But if it's just the staff's playground for egos . . . dig yourselves out of this one.

Let's just say you have an understandable bias, Arc.
That's not the whole story, nor was/is the situation as simple as might be inferred from the evidence you're providing.

(Agreed w/Arshes re. FA1, though, as you know).

The situation IS that simple. Jheryn needs to be given the cold hard boot. A new domain bought if needed. And everything can go on as is.

Not making Dave Hyena an admin, as he's a pompous, arrogant, self-aggrandizing jackass who power trips would be a bonus, but I don't have my hopes up. Admin choices aren't exactly overflowing with sensibilities around here. (Damaratus, Wolfblade, Pinkuh..)

And that, uncia, is my .02 kilos of gold (troy weight)

QFT

 

[DigitalMan]

Its really unfair of people to just jump up and say 'I'm for such and such!' when no one knows the whole story.

I think that's what bothers me the most. Whatever's going on brought down the website. At that point, it became a public issue. So any crap about "oh, it doesn't need to be made public" is total BS. We all deserve to know what the heck is going on with our community.

 

[kamunt]

:shock: S**T, Dragoneer is Preyfar?!? God damn it, I must be frigging oblivious, then, or something if almost everyone else here (involved in this thread, w/e etc.) seemed to know this except for me. Do I even want to know exactly why two admins go by two different names? :?: :!:
Oi. This is making my soul(s) cringe. *shakes his head*

I don't feel like going back and quoting Bokracroc now, but HOLY FURIJOLE, that "black mold" crap makes me sick just looking at it....No wonder he wants to get the hell up out'ta there...