So, these are some mindless ramblings about groups within the furry fandom. Mostly about how community maintenance is important. A lot of it focuses on what happens when you don't maintain standards within social groups. Feel free to ignore this. If you're going to read it though, please make sure you read the last few sentences, right at the end. There is a very specific message that I'm hoping to convey with this journal.

With that being said, I've been stewing on a few of these thoughts for a while. This journal isn't targeted at anyone in particular, but a few people may be able to guess at some names. While I won't go out of my way to name names, I also won't stop people from putting pieces together.

This brings me to the interesting bit, the reason I decided to write this journal; community maintenance. You can see community issues everywhere, not just among furries. Sometimes communities can be wonderful, and sometimes they can be toxic. It's my opinion that due to the online nature of many furry social groups, it's easier than normal for a furry community to become toxic. I mean, look at FA's administration for example. It's possible to write books about how toxic that group is. And people put up with it. I'm not trying to dig at them, mind you, just making an example here. If that group didn't benefit from the anonymous nature of the internet, do you really think they would have gotten away with half the things they've done?

"Okay, so the internet lets people be awful because they can be somewhat anonymous, what's your point?" I hear you saying. It's a good question, a fair question. I consistently see people who won't really maintain any standards inside their social groups. What I mean by that is kind of simple, but kind of complex at the same time. The essence of what I'm trying to say here is that I've noticed people in furry communities are slow to do anything about people being rude, obnoxious, overbearing, weird, or creepy. Usually, this means calling people out on their nonsense. Usually this means kicking people out for going too far with things. Usually this means being clear about what is and is not acceptable inside different social groups.

I've been guilty of this myself by the way. There was certain furry-centric group that I used to hang out with a lot more than I currently do. At the start it was great, everybody was nice and people helped each other out. But then it started to deteriorate. Eventually I found myself in a Skype chat with a few of these guys, which was awesome at the start. However, over time things started to sour. Boring details aside, it eventually became a chat where people would vent and complain and moan and bitch more than anything else. It got to the point where there were times I felt uncomfortable sharing anything positive.

There's one incident that sticks out in my memory in particular. I had gotten a new job and was really excited about it. (Not my current job, but the one before it.) It was my first desk job, the pay was good, and everything was amazing. I went online to this Skype chat to share the news and....... Well the first thing I saw was a particularly intense bitch-fest where everyone was complaining about how awful their lives were. Everything sucked, nobody seemed happy, one or two people were close to being evicted over rent. it was just not a place to be sharing anything positive. So, I waited until later when people calmed down and the conversation had moved on. (I think it was a day or two later.) When I shared the news about getting a new job, I was surprised by the reaction. Instead of hearing "congratulations" or "good for you" for getting a better job, the response was (essentially) "Fuck you for being happy".

Fuck me for having some success in life.

That incident really stuck with me. To be honest, this was the point where I stopped hanging out with this group. There are certain people I don't talk to anymore explicitly because of this incident. There are also a few livestreams that I don't attend as much, because of incidents like this one. (People might be able to guess which ones. So, for those of you that can, I just want to say it's not because of anything the artists have done. They're wonderful people.) It made me thing about how others had been leaving the group, around that time. To be honest, It was one of those things I didn't notice until I thought about it. I can think of three or four people who left in the weeks leading up to that incident. The funny thing is that I specifically remember them each saying something to the effect of, "I don't like how much drama there is here."

So, why am I sharing all this negative shit? What does this have to do with community maintenance? Why do you care?

I want you to learn from this. This is what happens when you don't put in some effort. This is what happens when you don't call out the shenanigans when you see them. Something really nice becomes unbearable. Don't let the communities you hold dear fall apart because you didn't want to be the one to say something.