(NOTE TO WEASYL STAFF: If this is breaking any rules, feel free to remove. You are cool guys I hear)

This journal is the one that got removed on fa - http://i.imgur.com/S03IuNI.png

This may come as a surprise to some of you, but I am now resigning from the moderator position on the Fur Affinity forums.

My reasoning behind is this that I now don't see all that much hope in the future for FA, the first half of this year has shown me that. Sure, there have been some good points, the UI beta coming out is one of them. Though the bad has outweighed the good by far. Sneaky IMVU buyout (with associated go fund me drama), little progress on the UI, huge staff bottlenecks and management issues meaning that simple things take waaaaaaaay too long to get done (if ever) (not limited to getting new mods and forum software on the forums side of things at least), right up until the current leaks and drama regarding a super hardworking, dedicated and community driven staff member getting the boot and upper management's behaviour towards that staff member. - http://i.imgur.com/Cpkyn7D.png

I do not know the details of any agreements or contracts made, but IMVU.... Oh dear. I do fear they'll just make FA into a cash cow. There has been occasion (details I will not disclose) where IMVU has basically ignored the advice of FA staff members and just... Did their own thing. It was really scary to hear about (I wasn't directly involved in the discussion and don't know most of the details, but still). I hope it doesn't set a precedent but I fear it will.

There also seems to be a "shoot first, ask questions later" policy regarding.....a lot of things. I hate it. There seems to be no thought about possible community reactions to things. This may be amplified by IMVU since they basically have no experience with the fandom. I also feel that management consider community feedback as not that high on the priority list. Both Ren and I suggested polling the community when it came to some decisions but those ideas were shot down. This is one of a multitude of issues we found when it came to the often promised notion of “transparency”. When we gave management suggestions regarding transparency, they were shot down.

There's so much more I can say about FA (especially from early in my mod "career" here), but I do not want to rant too long and I also do not want to get into trouble with this journal. I'm just detailing my experiences, not leaking sensitive information to the public or making personal attacks. I also urge you to be reasonable and civil in the comments of this journal.

Pretty much all of the enthusiasm I once had for the site has vanished. Not the users, no, you deserve better. I just feel like I and many others are bashing our heads against a brick wall. I tried to do my job while "dealing with it", but I've had too many frustrating and eye rolling moments to continue.

My personal aim is to help the community to the best of my ability and this is also the case for the vast majority of my fellow staff members, I can say that for sure. They are not the bad guys here. Spare them the abuse. I just don't believe the upper management is acting in the interests of the community, not anymore anyway. They may think they are, but I see almost no practical evidence that supports them.

I do want to continue supporting the community in some form, but under FA, it becomes almost impossible.

I'll definitely still be around these parts, especially the forums - or not depending if the management is heavy handed with this journal. However, I am becoming more active on sites like:

Weasyl - https://www.weasyl.com/~kalmor
SoFurry - https://kalmor.sofurry.com/

Maybe greener pastures await. Who knows? I'm determined to support the community in some way or another, just not in the position with FA I have been over the past two years. We'll see.

Thanks for reading,

Kalmor (formerly Raptros)

p.s I just want to say a big thank you to all of the forum mods and site moderators I've worked with over the time I've been here. You guys are awesome. I still love you. <3333