I'm not sure why, but I felt like posting something, a follow-up of sorts. This really isn't directed at anyone or due to any specific incident. With that being said, maybe someone will have some interest in my thoughts.

It has been a while sense I left Furaffinity. By and large the transition has been good. I will admit that I've peeked over there to see if anything has changed. Believe me, I really do hope that things improve over there. It's still the largest hub for furries and, for better or worse, the health of the fandom has ties to the health of that site. It wasn't long ago that I learned an artist by the name of Renashee had stepped down as an admin. More specifically she was a "hidden" or "secret" admin that the general public wasn't told about. I don't really want to open that can of worms, but it does seem odd that the identity of a person who sorts through trouble tickets /needs/ to be kept secret. It also struck me as odd how swiftly she was banned from Furaffinity. There's a post somewhere on Reddit with a copy of the journal that got her banned, if anyone feels like digging that up. The odd thing is that what she said really wasn't all that offensive. You would really have to do some mental gymnastics in order to make what she said into an offense worth a permanent ban. Honestly it was a few paragraphs worth of "Hi, I used to be a secret admin. I stepped down though because of differences between myself and those above me in administration." There was no public shaming, no private conversations shared, no screenshots that would embarrass someone. There were only a few really well known events cited as flashpoints between herself and other admins.

Why do I dredge that up, of all things? Well, honestly it goes to show how toxic things are over there. Getting banned because you let people know that you stepped down is some bullshit.

As long as I'm talking about the news that keeps flowing from FA, why not have a few words about the state of their forums. How much pure, concentrated nonsense does it take for literally all of a forum's moderators to quit at the same time? That was some impressive news to hear, let me tell you. On the heels of that was something that I really struggled to believe my ears on. There was a poll shortly after the mods stepped down asking if the forums should be associated with the main site. 80% of the people using the forums wanted the Furaffinity forums to split off and stop being associated with Furaffinity. (Give or take 3%, depending on what day it was and who you believed. The poll was taken down, from what I understand.). Now here's a question, how do you mess things up so bad that 80% of a community wants no affiliation with a website anymore? Seriously how do you even manage that? In the end, from what I can determine, the forums were taken down. There seems to be some issue about the physical server being located at one of the ex-moderator's home. There were also talks about who had the license for the software that the forums were built off of. To hear some people tell it, the moderator who was housing the physical server had purchased the license for the software and the license was never properly transferred to the company that owns FA. (Ferrox LLC and later IMVU). Statements have been made by FA admins that they wish to improve upon the forums before putting them back online. Having only used them a few times, I'm not sure if improvement was needed or not.

As long as I'm talking about the forums, can I ask another question? Please anyone who knows the answer feel free to answer. Do we honestly believe that the forums are getting improved any time soon? Before you answer, consider the following:

1. Project Phoenix, the latest iteration of an attempt to improve the user interface of Furaffinity is about two years old. (The journal announcing it is dated January of 2014. So one year and nine months at this point if you want to be exact.)

2. The user interface has been in open beta for close to six months. (The Twitter message announcing it is dated April 5th of this year.)

3. Furaffinity has this well known record of not delivering on things. Project Phoenix is what, the sixth attempt at a UI update? How exactly is it we are expecting a forum revamp to be different?

Having considered these things, the answer I arrived as was "We have currently got no forums over at FA and no particular reason to believe that they will return any time soon.

I'm sure by now you're wondering why I care about any of this nonsense. Every so often I like to reevaluate things. I like to take a solid look at my decisions and see if I made any serious mistakes. This journal was prompted by me taking a look back at my decision to leave Furaffinity. I've said before and will say again that I sincerely hope that things improve over there. However, given the things that were discussed in this journal, I have no reason to believe that substantial changes have been made. It's the same mess over there now that I remember seeing when I left. If anything it's worse because there isn't even a forum over there anymore. That being said, I am content with my decision to move here to Weasyl. I honestly can't find a thing that the people running this site have done which would be worthy of the negative attention FA has received from any number of incidents. As an aside, it doesn't hurt that they made folders a couple years before FA did. It also doesn't hurt that they work better and don't feel like they were rushed.

TL,DR:
I went to reevaluate my decision to leave Furaffinity and determined that the same nonsense that prompted me to leave is still in full force over there. I am content to stay here on Weasyl.