Difference between revisions of "Fur Affinity"

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m (→‎Server problems: Removed reference, as I don't see that information within the docuemnt, which seems to be something of a rant, and is no longer online (viewed through the Wayback Machine))
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[[Image:Fender.jpg|right|350px|Fender, drawn by Mutley James]]
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{{Infobox website
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'''Fur Affinity''' (commonly known as '''FurAffinity''') is one of the [[furry fandom]]'s largest communities, and the second largest [[furry]]-specific [[:Category:Art archives|art gallery]] after the [[VCL]]. It was created as an alternative to art community sites such as [[SheezyArt]] and [[deviantART]], promoting itself as allowing people from the furry/[[Anthropomorphic|anthro]] fandom to upload art, music and stories regardless of rating.
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| title = Fur Affinity
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| image = [[File:Fa logo.png|250px]]
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| caption = Fur Affinity logo
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| author = '''Owner:''' Frost Dragon Art, LLC<ref name="Feb 1 21">{{cite web|url=https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/9761295|title=New Ownership, Updated Logo, & More|accessdate=2021-02-02|author="[[Fender]]"|date=2021-02-01|work=[[Fur Affinity]]}}</ref>
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* '''Lead admin:''' [[Dragoneer]]
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* '''Founder:''' [[Alkora]]
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* [[#Administrators|Administrators]]
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| url = https://www.furaffinity.net/ ([https://sfw.furaffinity.net/ SFW])
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* '''Trackers''': [https://trello.com/b/SmYk47aD/furaffinity-feature-requests Requests]
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| status =
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| began = 16 January–1 August 2005 ([[History of Fur Affinity#Server problems of 2005|staff dispute & server issues]])<br>10 December 2005–present
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| ended =
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| genre = Social media community
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| rating = {{Rating-pg-button|center}}{{Rating-nc17-button|right}}
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}}
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[[File:FAFront Page.png|right|thumb|250px|Fur Affinity's front page, circa 2021]]
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'''Fur Affinity''', also known as '''FA''' or '''FurAffinity''', is the [[furry fandom]]'s largest online community, focusing on the promotion of art, music and stories.
  
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* '''Addresses''':
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The site was created in 2005 by [[Alkora]] as an alternative to various art community websites such as [[SheezyArt]] and [[DeviantArt]], distinguished by allowing artistic freedom of expression regardless of content rating. It is led by [[Dragoneer]].
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** '''Website''': http://www.furaffinity.net/
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<div style=float:left;margin-right:10px>__TOC__</div>
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** '''Forums''': http://www.furaffinityforums.net/
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** '''Wiki''': http://www.wikiffinity.net/
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** '''LiveJournal''': http://community.livejournal.com/furaffinity/
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** '''IRC''': [irc://irc.furnet.org/furaffinity #furaffinity] on [[FurNet (IRC)|FurNet]]
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** '''Frapper''': http://www.frappr.com/furaffinity
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** '''Second Life''': http://slurl.com/secondlife/Critter_Valley/158/130/28
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* '''Administrators''':
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** '''Owners:''' [[The Dragoneer]]
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** '''Site Founder:''' [[Alkora]]
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** '''Lead Admins''': [[Damaratus]], The Dragoneer
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** '''Admins''': [[Ahkahna]], [[Bijoux]], [[Dave Hyena]], [[Fox Amoore]], [[Glaide]], [[Kyoujin]], [[Pinkuh]], [[Silverwolfe]], [[Wicht]] and [[Wolfblade]]  
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** '''Coders''': [[Crypto]], [[Ice-Wolf]], and [[yak]]
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** '''Server Administrator''': [[Gushi]]
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* '''Ran from/to''':
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** January 2005 - 1 August 2005 (coding/server problems)
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** 10 December 2005 - present
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{{WikiFurNews|Fur Affinity access disrupted amid ownership dispute}}
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{{WikiFurNews|'Krystal sandwich' meme strikes Fur Affinity}}
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== History ==
 
== History ==
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{{main|History of Fur Affinity}}
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Fur Affinity was launched on 16 January 2005 as an alternative to [[SheezyArt]], with the forum going live on that date and the main site being transferred a few days later from [[FurPawz]]. Since then, it has suffered a few outages, most notably a month-long downtime over July 2008, but always managed to recover. In 2011, Fur Affinity announced a major revamp in connection to FA: United 4.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/89577-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6! Fur Affinity Turns 6!] - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity forum post (16 January 2011)</ref>
  
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Fur Affinity was launched on January 16, 2005 as an alternative to SheezyArt with the forum going live on that date and the main site being transferred a few days later from [[FurPawz]].<ref>''[http://www.sheezyart.com/journal/51100/ Furaffinity.org information]'' - launch of forum on Furaffinity.net. Posted on SheezyArt, 16 January 2005.</ref><ref>''[http://www.sheezyart.com/journal/54575/ Furaffinity - note re. transfer of mainsite and 400+ users]''.  
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=== Fur Affinity: United! ===
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{{main|FA: United}}
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In August 2007, Fur Affinity held its own [[furry convention]], Fur Affinity: United! (or FA:U) in [[Wikipedia:Newark, New Jersey|Newark, New Jersey]]. The convention was a success, drawing 310 attendees and 25 [[fursuiter]]s in the [[fursuit parade|parade]], and was followed by another in 2008, drawing 381 attendees. In February 2009, Dragoneer announced FA: United 3 "Games United" for 28-30 May 2010.<ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/621616/ FAU3 Announcement]'' - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity journal (9 February 2009)</ref> No event was scheduled for 2009 due to the economic downturn. [[FA: United 7]], in August 2014, drew 707 attendees.
  
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Posted on [[SheezyArt]], 21 January 2005.</ref> During that time period, Sheezy abruptly changed policies to both remove adult art and take a stronger stance against users and their uploads. Warnings were supposedly issued from the site's service provider, advising Sheezy Art that they were not permitted to host adult content on their site.
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== Services and features ==
  
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Much of Sheezy's community was abandoned after the rules change took effect. This migration left many with few alternatives. Many of those burned by SheezyArt went on to sites such as Fur Affinity and [[y!Gallery]]; when the latter decided to ban [[anthro art]] in May 2006, Fur Affinity gained further traffic.
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Fur Affinity's features for users include the ability to allow users to track new updates from particular [[artist]]s; highlight favorites; and upload a wide variety of art (images, music and stories). The site attempts to promote community through its comments system and individual journals.
  
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==== Server problems ====
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While works of all ratings are accepted (other than ''photographic nudes, images whose intent are to slander or discredit others, and minors in sexual situations''<ref>[http://help.furaffinity.net/article/AA-00205/8/Acceptable-Upload-Policy-AUP.html Acceptable Upload Policy] - Fur Affinity</ref>), art rated as mature or adult is not shown to visitors, or to users who have not specified it as a preference (which requires giving a date of birth indicating an age over 18). Keywords and tags can be added to works, though a feature that allowed blocking based on tags was disabled due to performance issues.
  
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Fur Affinity had suffered from major security holes and a hacking in during Summer of 2005. The site was shut down on 1 August 2005 due to a disagreement between lead coder Jheryn and host provider [[Arcturus]], the primary administrators of the site. At that time Fur Affinity had 12,174 user accounts and nearly 100,000 submissions. Arcturus and supporters went on to found [[ArtPlz]].
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Fur Affinity's search engine was "temporarily disabled" in mid-2006 due to it taking up too many resources.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=1334 Admin mode on june 5th 2006]'' - Alkora, Fur Affinity forums (5 June 2006)</ref> A faux search feature was implemented for April Fool's Day 2007, much to the chagrin of some users.<ref>''[http://forums.furaffinity.net/showthread.php?t=7229 Search is up!]'' - Fur Affinity Forums (1 April 2007)</ref> Search was reimplemented on 5 February 2009; it was initially labelled "That Thing You Want" and randomly included [[wikipedia:Rickrolling|rickrolls]].<ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/616339/ SEARCH]'' - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity journal (5 February 2009)</ref>
  
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Over the course of 2005, Fur Affinity was able to raise $1,500 in donations towards the purchase of new hardware for its primary server; a server which would, unfortunately, not realize itself until the middle of 2006. Thanks to the community, Fur Affinity was able to build a stronger, faster server than the site originally used for operation.
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Privacy features were added in May 2012 with users being able to block guests from seeing their content with messages such as "[Username] has elected to make their content available to registered users only" and being able to hide their adult, mature+adult, or all favorites from public view.<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3490599/ Update Notices, Changelog & Banner] journal posted to Fender's blog on May 24th, 2012. Retrieved 2012 November 25.</ref>
  
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On August 11 2007, The Dragoneer's admin account was compromised at [[FA: United‎]] when he used the hotel's unencrypted [[Wikipedia:Wi-fi|Wi-Fi]] connection to access it.<ref>http://www.furaffinityforums.net/showthread.php?tid=11488 Thread by Preyfar on the FA forums about the August 2007 breach</ref><ref>http://www.furaffinityforums.net/showthread.php?tid=11484&pid=195037#pid195037 Post by Preyfar on the FA forums with a more elaborate account of the 2007 breach</ref>The first sign of trouble was a note left on the front page that announced the following:
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The site's artwork is inaccessible in Russia, as d.facdn.net (which serves the images) is listed on Russia's Internet blacklist. The site itself works fine, and even shows thumbnails.{{fact}}
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{{q|Administrator notice: We're sorry, our vaginas are currently full of sand. We're makin' pearls here, folks! :D! FA:U rocks. We all got handjobs from Glaide and Damaratus. -- hacked by jheryn}}
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Assurances were made that the password database had not been compromised, and the main site came back online 48 hours later. The FA forums were not affected by this breach.
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==== New allocation ====
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On 13 September 2015, to coincide with the conclusion of [[FAU 2015]], Fur Affinity unveiled a Gallery folders system<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/7036344/ 09/13/2015 - Folders & Gallery Management Updates] News item dated 13 September 2015. Retrieved 27 October 2015</ref>, which had been promised in one form or another since shortly after the site launched in 2006. Some users{{who}} criticized the way folders were implemented,{{cn}} including disappearing artwork after its implementation (found normally in the scraps folder), and the poor to no documentation regarding them.
  
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Fur Affinity returned to operation in December 2005 with a solid backbone and more efficient coding, although full operational status would not be reached until December 10 due to a defect in the ASUS motherboard which powered the server. During Fur Affinity's official re-opening on December 10th, over 10,000 submissions for music, art and writing were submitted to the site during its initial 12 hours. These submissions included imported art from returning users and pieces not previously posted.
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At the start of the new year in January, 2020. FA received its first complete overhaul of the websites UI (User-Interface) since 2007. The update included; a major color change, extra template choices, modern styled graphics, the revival of the top-of-page banner, and many other aspects.  
  
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Fur Affinity is assisting in the planning of a [[convention]] known as [[United!]], tentatively scheduled for August 2007.
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=== Fur Affinity Plus ===
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In addition, the site announced Fur Affinity Plus (FA+), a 5$ paid tier for membership which allows users to opt out of third-party advertising and use an FA+-only icon next to their username to show support. This was announced as a means for the site to rely less on advertisements to sustain site management costs.<ref>[https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/9364332/]</ref> The paid tier was launched on February 11, 2020.<ref>[https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/9406201/]</ref> The paid tier was updated with more perks in March 2021, including allowing subscribers to browse 128 submissions per page on browse, search, and gallery views; thumbnails up to 300px; increased maximum caps on folders (75) and folder groups (30); and shortcuts around flood protections for uploading posts, comments and notes.<ref>[https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/9800466/]</ref>
  
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== Features and rules ==
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==Project Ferrox==
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{{main|Ferrox (software)}}
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The FA development team was working on a new backend system called [[Ferrox_(software)|Ferrox]] which was to be used for the next major revision of Fur Affinity, and was to be made available as [[Wikipedia:FOSS|FOSS]] (Free and Open Source Software) for other sites to use. By late 2009, the development of Ferrox had stalled, with the last change to the code being made on September 7, 2009. Days earlier, net-cat, who was acting as the lead Ferrox developer after [[Eevee]] had left, announced that the code was to be frozen, citing that "Nobody knows Python."<ref>http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/49368-Code-freeze-on-current-Ferrox-codebase?p=1174129&viewfull=1#post1174129</ref>
  
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Fur Affinity's features for users include the ability to allow users to track new updates from particular [[artist]]s; highlight favorites; and upload a wide variety of art (images, music and stories). The site attempts to promote community through its comments system and individual journals.
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== Mascots ==
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[[File:Fender.jpg|thumb|right|250px|Fender, drawn by [[Mutley James]]]]
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[[Fender]] is the Fur Affinity [[mascot]], created by artist [[K-9]] based on a character concept by [[Preyfar]]. He is half [[fox]] and half [[ferret]], a "ferrox". On April Fool's Day 2007, Fender was depicted in the site's banner as a female dragon. This dragon was made a separate character and an official mascot of the site in May 2007, and named [[Rednef]], or "Fender" spelled backward.
  
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While works of all ratings are accepted (other than ''photographic nudes, "[[cub]]" related [[pornography]] and images whose intent are to slander or discredit others''<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/faq/ Fur Affinity FAQ]</ref>), art rated as mature or adult is not shown to visitors, or to users who have not specified it as a preference (which requires giving a date of birth indicating an age over 18). In addition, a tagging system is in use, but in the current version of the website software it doesn't have any effect on the site functionality, being used only as a visual addition to the submission page. Previously, users could browse and block the display of art based on these tags, but much like the search feature it was disabled due to performance issues, and haven't been brought back since.
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== Controversies ==
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{{main|History of Fur Affinity#Controversy}}
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Being furry fandom's largest social art site for many years, Fur Affinity has been host to strenuous discussions on various topics, including the presence and later absence of [[cub]] [[pornography]], staff appointments and departures, allegations of staff and user improprieties, and debate over what consists of suitable content for the site banner. Incidents of downtime and unauthorized access have also been discussed, both on Fur Affinity's forums and throughout the fandom.
  
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Fur Affinity used to have a search feature that allowed users to search for specific art on the site, but this feature became disabled in mid-2006, listed as 'temporarily disabled', and a faux search feature was temporarily implemented on April Fool's Day, much to the chagrin of some users.
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== Organization ==
  
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==== Pornographic cub art ====
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Fur Affinity was previously owned by '''Ferrox Art LLC''', a [[Wikipedia:Limited liability company|limited liability company]] founded 25 February 2008, registered in [[Wikipedia:Lenhartsville, Pennsylvania|Lenhartsville, Pennsylvania]].<ref>[https://www.corporations.state.pa.us/corp/soskb/Corp.asp?2644408 Ferrox Art LLC (entity number 3791597)] - Pennsylvania Corporations, PA Department of State. Accessed 20 November 2013.</ref> On March 19, 2015, it was officially announced that Fur Affinity had been acquired by [[IMVU]]; the transaction had occurred in January 2015 but had not been publicly announced.<ref>[https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6588324 "FA Joins the IMVU Family" - Fur Affinity. March 19, 2015.</ref> On February 1, 2021, Fur Affinity became independent again with ownership going back to Dragoneer, who has placed the website under the operation of a new company called '''Frost Dragon Art, LLC'''.<ref name="Feb 1 21"/>
  
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August 2006 saw the restart of an internal administrative debate over the presence of [[pornographic]] underage furry artwork (or "cub art").<ref>''"[http://dragonmyr.deviantart.com/journal/10641590/ DA account reactivated -- FA Truths revealed]"''. Posted by [[Myr]] on November 6, 2006 and deleted several days after.</ref> Such art was forbidden by the site's Terms of Service, which specified that "depictions of sexually immature characters in any sexual situation are not permitted on Fur Affinity", but bans for this rule were not uniformly enforced. As with previous discussions, administrators could not come to an agreement on whether or not to modify site policy.<ref>[http://www.furaffinityforums.net/showthread.php?tid=4335&pid=63174#pid63174 Comment by The Dragoneer on previous attempts to solve the cub debate]. Posted on November 6, 2006.</ref> Over the following months the issue developed into a public debate, with forum polls and discussion suggesting that the site's members were divided on the topic.
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==Staff==
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Fur Affinity's staff as of February 2017 include:<ref name="staff">[http://www.furaffinity.net/staff/ "Staff"] - Fur Affinity. Retrieved March 9, 2018.</ref>
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{|
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|
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;Staff Leads
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* [[Chase (Fur Affinity administrator)|Chase]] - Director of Operations
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* [[Dragoneer]] - Community Manager & Site Lead
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* [[Shivadramon]] (Sciggles) - Director of Operations
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|
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;Administrators
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* [[Asia Neko]] - Acceptable Upload Policy Enforcement
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* [[Fox Amoore]] - Account Specialist
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* [[Monique]] - Content Authenticity Assurance
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|valign=top|
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;Tech Team
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* [[Net-cat]] - Code & Technical Services
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* [[Yak (person)|Yak]] - Lead Coder
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* [[Pickra]] - Coder
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|}
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Two pseudonymous moderators, Quetzal and Gazelle, are also listed. A "System Account" is used to send anonymous notices.<ref>[http://www.furaffinity.net/user/systemaccount/ "Fur Affinity System Account"] - Fur Affinity]</ref>
  
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On November 5, it was announced that such work would be allowed, with the requirement of mandatory tagging. The main reasons given for this decision were that no actual minors were harmed during the artwork's creation, and that depictions of many other illegal activities, such as rape, murder, and drug use, were permitted. Conversely, work that depicted [[human]] children, including [[anime characters]], in sexual situations was forbidden.<ref>''"[http://www.furaffinityforums.net/showthread.php?tid=4257&page=1 FA Policy Notice - "Cub" Art]"''. Posted by The Dragoneer on November 5, 2006.</ref> Some artists had threatened to leave the site if it was not forbidden, and some of these did so.
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Past staff include [[Bazeel]], [[Carenath]], [[Cerberusnl|Cerbrus]], [[Glaide]], [[Grammatist]], [[Hendikins]], [[Jasu Fox]],<ref>''[https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/7128400/ Stepping down as Administrator ]'' - [[Jasu Fox]], Fur Affinity (23 October 2015)</ref> [[Keio]], [[Kryphosdrgn]], [[Kyoujin]], [[Luftwoofe]], [[Nero Silent]], [[Oddy]], [[Odin36519]], [[Photographurer]], [[Renashe Tradewind]],<ref>''[https://www.reddit.com/r/furry/comments/3h7tjm/my_experiences_as_a_member_of_fur_affinity_staff/ My experiences as a member of Fur Affinity staff, and my recent removal.]'' - GoingToTheOcean, [[Reddit]] (16 August 2016)</ref> [[QMelon]], [[quoting_mungo]],<ref>[https://www.furaffinity.net/journals/quotingmungo/#jid:8531112 Resigning from FA staff] - quoting_mungo's journal. Retrieved March 9, 2018.</ref> [[Sheepdust]], [[Silver R. Wolfe]], [[SSJ3Mewtwo]], [[Zidonuke|Starrykitten]], [[Summercat]], [[Surgat]], [[Trpdwarf]], [[Tsawolf]], [[Writerwren]] and [[Xaerun]].<ref>''[http://www.flayrah.com/3720/five-fur-affinity-staff-resign-some-citing-leadership-failures Five Fur Affinity staff resign, some citing leadership failures]'' - [[Rakuen Growlithe]], [[Flayrah]] (29 October 2011)</ref>{{cn}}
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More then half of those who left, however, have decided to give FA another chance.
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==== Ferrox code update ====
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== Statistics ==
  
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As of June 21, 2006 the site announced an impending upgrade to the site. FA opted to shed their previous naming convention (v1, v2 and v3) and go by codename for the major upgrade, known as "Ferrox". The code reached an estimated 60% completion before being pushed back to an early Winter/Spring 2007 release in effort to follow new quality and coding standards.
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* In late 2010, the monthly hosting bill for Fur Affinity was just under $1,700 <ref>''http://twitpic.com/2g8t5x'' - TwitPic Posted on August 19, 2010
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by Dragoneer</ref>. This includes a full equipment rack, bandwidth, and IP addresses. The monthly cost likely increased with the addition of extra bandwidth (Increasing the total to 350Mbit) in early 2012.<ref>https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3484539/</ref>
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* In less than a year since the site's re-launch, Fur Affinity gained over 45,000 users and over 300,000 submissions. {{fact}}
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* Alexa has previously ranked Fur Affinity in the [http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?site0=www.furaffinity.net&site1=vclart.net&site2=&site3=&site4=&x=75&y=15&h=300&w=610&h=400&w=700&z=3&range=1y&size=medium&y=r&z=3&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.furaffinity.net top 4,000 sites] on the web in 1 November 2007, showing greater traffic than the VCL for most of the previous year. The trend continued through 2008 and 2009. Fur Affinity has ranked as high as 3,475 on individual days, and close to 2,000 in the USA. In October 2010, Fur Affinity's rank fell to 7681.
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* Fur Affinity reached its 1,000,000th submission on 11 January 2008. It reached its 2,000,000th submission on 15 February 2009, and its 3,000,000th submission in November 2009.
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* As of 20 March 2015, the site had 11,142,451 active submissions (15,995,066 total created), 1,195,253 active users (1,218,456 created), 324,226,064 favorites, and an average of 671 accounts, 8,000+ submissions, 42,462 comments and 10,452 page shouts were created per day.<ref>"[https://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/578970926575931394 For those interested, here's some spiffy FA statistics!
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http://pastebin.com/DjsSCcuh"] - Dragoneer, Twitter (20 March 2015)</ref>
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* Fur Affinity say they served ~38.8TB of data to over 2.1 million visitors in February 2016.<ref>[https://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/706027275741962240 "In February, FA served up 1,777,662,272 files (over 38.8TB total bandwidth) to 2,173,564 total visitors."] - Fur Affinity, Twitter (5 March 2016)</ref>
  
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The effective release date is "when it's ready". Ferrox is not going to be released until the coding team feels it has undergone sufficient testing and bug hunting.
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== Hardware ==
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[[File:Furaffinity Server Farm.jpg|thumb|250px|Former Fur Affinity's servers Bahamut, Tiamat, Novastorm and Trogdor (unlabeled).]]
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Fur Affinity owns various server hardware, some of which has been re-purposed or retired over time. Between 2010 and September 2020, the site was hosted out of an InfoRelay<ref>[https://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/523976743263404032 "Our historical uptime has actually been fairly solid since we moved to InfoRelay. Prior to that... yeah. It was bad."] - Fur Affinity, Twitter (20 October 2014)</ref> (later acquired by Atlantic Metro) [[Wikipedia:Data center|data center]] in [[Wikipedia:Reston, Virginia|Reston]], [[Wikipedia:Virginia|Virginia]].<ref>[https://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/15605533053 "The current servers are hosted in a professional colo facility in Reston, VA."] - Fur Affinity, Twitter (7 June 2010)</ref>
  
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Features announced as introduced or improved upon are:
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In April 2020, FurAffinity announced it was moving to a new "hardware platform" it called "King Ghidora"<ref>''[https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/9468101/ 4/16/20 - New Hardware & Policy Updates]'' - [[Fender]] (16 April 2020)</ref>. FurAffinity did not offer many specifics on this platform other than that it utilized "112 CPU cores, 1,536GB of memory, [and] 153.6TB of enterprise SSD storage" and that it was purchased from income from the FA+ subscription service. On September 9, FurAffinity announced the move was complete.<ref>''[https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/9614588/ 9/9/20 - Site Migration Complete + Known Issues]'' - [[Fender]] (9 September 2020)</ref> This transition relocated the FurAffinity servers to an undisclosed location, with Dragoneer only saying they had to ship a 14 Terabyte hard drive "cross country" as part of the move.<ref>[https://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/1303960672062058496 "To aid in the data transfer to the new FA host we bought a 14TB hard drive and filled it, shipped it cross country, then uploaded it to the new servers."] - Dragoneer, Twitter (10 September 2020)</ref> It is possible the servers were moved into a facility controlled by then-owner IMVU, which is headquartered in [[California]].
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* A new user interface supporting better web programming standards, user-requested features and more streamlined navigation for ease-of-use
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* Revised submission interfaces for art, music and stories to allow for faster, more accurate uploads and provide unique features for each artistic area
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While hosted at an InfoRelay, FA had access to 2Gbps of bandwidth leased as of November 2015.<ref>[https://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/661398015127744512 "Tonight's maintenance was to upgrade FA to a 2 gigabit network link."] - Fur Affinity, Twitter (3 November 2015)</ref>
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* Re-written server back-end to better support scalability and future upgrades
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* Time-limited editable user comments
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* Flood detection to prevent spam and abuse
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* Enhanced site security focusing on account creation and content delivery
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* A flexible keyword-based search system
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* Communities, allowing users to post art directly to themed submission groups
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* Community-sponsored error messages inspired by [[VCL]]
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* Monthly themes and mini-contests where users can obtain ranks and profile enhancements
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* Better integrated help and site information.
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== Mascots ==
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=== 2014/15 upgrades ===
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[[Image:Fender2.jpg|right|thumb|280px|Fender, drawn by [[Mutley James]]]]
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==== Fender ====
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[[Fender]] is the Fur Affinity [[mascot]]. He was primarily created by artist [[K-9]] (one of the people behind the [[comic]] ''[[Circles]]'',) based upon a character concept by [[Preyfar]].  
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In September 2014, Fur Affinity bought additional hardware:<ref>''[http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/259XYIXJ8U486/ Fur Affinity Parts Wishlist]'' - [[Dragoneer]] (3 September 2014)</ref><ref>''[http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6122156 Banner Update, Upcoming Beta & Ad Server Upgrade]'' -  [[Fender]] (17 September 2014)</ref>
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* File server: Supermicro SuperServer 6017R-72HDP+ 1U with Intel Xeon E5-2603 v2 Quad-Core CPU (1.8GHz, 10MB cache), 128Gb 1600MHz DDR3 ECC RAM, 12 WD 4TB SATAIII drives (7200 RPM, 64 MB cache)
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* Application servers (4): Asus RS300-E8-PS4 1U with Xeon E3-1240 v3 Quad-Core CPU (3.4GHz, 8MB cache), 32GB DDR ECC RAM, 2x128Gb SSDs
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* Advertising server: Xeon 1270 v3 Quad-Core CPU (3.5 GHz, 8MB cache), 32GB DDR3 ECC RAM and 2xSSDs
  
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The site currently displays a version of Fender (which can be found on the page header) as drawn by various guest artists to reflect the monthly theme of the site.
+
In Spring 2015, additional hardware purchases were announced, in connection with the IMVU purchase.
  
−
Half [[fox]] and half [[ferret]], Fender was born in an attempt to give the site a unique figurehead to whom people could turn for questions and answers regarding the site.  
+
=== Pre-2020 hardware ===
−
[[Image:RednefMuzz.jpg|right|thumb|280px|Rednef, drawn by [[Muzz]]]]
+
{| class="wikitable sortable" border="1"
−
This was done in an attempt to dissuade grandstanding by admins using the site as a pedestal for their own popularity.
+
|-
 +
! scope="col" | Name
 +
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Purpose
 +
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Hardware Notes
 +
! scope="col" | First Used
 +
! scope="col" | Status
 +
|-
 +
| '''Routezilla''' || Router || Cisco 7301 router || ? || Presumed in use
 +
|-
 +
| '''Switchthulu''' || Network Switch || 48-port [[wikipedia:Cisco|Cisco]] Catalyst 3560. Replaced an older 24-port Cisco 3750, also called "Switchthulu" || ? || Presumed in use
 +
|-
 +
| '''Neo Bahamut''' || Database Backup || Dual-core 2.0GHz Opteron 1212 with 2GB DDR2-667 RAM.<ref name="Feb2013Summary" /> Storage consists of 4x 1TB hard drives in RAID5. Concern expressed by Dragoneer about its worth vs. power draw. || ? || In use
 +
|-
 +
| '''Novastorm''' || Database || a [[Wikipedia:Sun Fire|Sun Fire X4150]] manufactured by [[Wikipedia:Sun Microsystems]] with twin quad-core 2.5Ghz Xeon 5420 processors and 64GB of RAM (as of March 2010).<ref>[http://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/10912188478 Novastorm upgrade tweet] - [[Dragoneer]]'s Twitter (23 March 2010)</ref> Storage consists of 2x 74GB 15K RPM hard drives in RAID1 and 6x146GB 15K RPM hard drives in RAID10. The server was initially purposed as the "Application server" but eventually converted to run the Database. This server was bought with donations following the July 2009 outage. Although Novastorm was replaced by Finn/Jake in September 2013, it is apparently still active, though its use is not clear.<ref>https://trello.com/c/CLruJ1b5/65-upgrade-packages-on-novastorm</ref>|| August 2009 || In use
 +
|-
 +
| '''Figment''' || Virtualization Server<br><small>Ad server, Email server</small> || Dual quad-core 2.33Ghz Xeon 5345 with 32GB of RAM and 6x1TB<ref name="Feb2013Summary" /> of storage. Figment was purchased with the intent of offering hosting<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10203450025'' - FA Twitter - March 8, 2010</ref> on it "sometime in April... or May, or maybe August" of 2010<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10942579229'' - FA Twitter - March 23 2010</ref> and also served advertisements<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10936829317'' - FA Twitter</ref>. Server was named by [[Sciggles]].<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10585322442'' - FA Twitter</ref> || 2010 || In use/"Spare Servers Pool"<ref>https://trello.com/c/oy0HkfgT/6-repurpose-figment-in-spare-servers-pool</ref>
 +
|-
 +
| '''Sparkz''' || Network Monitoring || Twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. The server was named by FA donator Dax. This server is the only server in a group of four donated servers (The others being Shivan, Tonberry, and Lapse) that is known to have been put into service. || November 30, 2010<ref>[https://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/9825447189680128 @Furaffinity tweet]</ref> || In use
 +
|-
 +
| '''Finn'''* || Database Server || A custom-built server in a Supermicro SuperServer SYS-6027R-WRF chassis with at least one Intel Xeon 6C E5 2620 processor, 64GB of RAM, and 6 15k HDD's in an unknown RAID. This server was built by donations received in February 2013.<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4389184</ref> See note below. || December 16, 2013 || Still in use as of August 2016<ref name="Aug16Maintenance">''[https://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/mainsite-database-maintenance-on-aug-16-2016-at-1pm-utc.1587952/#post-5570287 Mainsite database maintenance on Aug 16, 2016 at 1PM UTC]'' - [[Yak]], [[Fur Affinity Forums]] (16 August 2016)</ref>
 +
|-
 +
| '''Jake'''* || Database Server || A custom-built server in a Supermicro SuperServer SYS-6027R-WRF chassis with at least one Intel Xeon 6C E5 2620 processor, 64GB of RAM, and 6 15k HDD's in an unknown RAID. This server was built by donations received in February 2013.<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4389184</ref> See note below || September 16, 2013 <small>''(as "Finn")</small><br>November 2014 || Possibly in use
 +
|-
 +
| '''Smaug''' || App Server || 16-core Xeon, "full SSD", 128GB DDR4 RAM.<ref name="TimatSpace">[https://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/597474071425724417 Filling Tiamat's old space will be Spike (16-core, full SSD, 128GB RAM) and Smaug (48TB storage server).] - Fur Affinity, Twitter (10 May 2015)</ref><!--What was Spike is later referred to as Smaug--> || July 29, 2015<ref>[https://twitter.com/furaffinity/statuses/626430475058417664 "Earlier today, we officially rolled the site over to our new app server, Smaug (a 16-core Xeon system running DDR4 and SSDs). Woosh!"] - Fur Affinity, Twitter (29 July 2015)</ref> || Presumed in use
 +
|-
 +
| '''Spike''' || Storage Server || 48TB disk drives<ref name="TimatSpace" /><ref>[https://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/640633455320150016 "Finn, Jake, Spike and Smaug"] - Dragoneer, Twitter (6 September 2015)</ref> || ? || Unknown
 +
|}
  
−
Fender is most often mistaken as being a [[raccoon]].
+
* '''Finn''' and '''Jake''' are identical and were bought with the purpose of building a redundant database cluster. For unknown reasons, Finn was brought online first, with Jake supposedly following behind<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/5058966/</ref> later that week. In December 2013, an issue came up that put the site into "Read Only" for a week. FA then moved the database to Jake, which was apparently not put into service yet. However, in November 2014, [[Zidonuke]] said that Jake was sitting idle "for almost a year"<ref>http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6265766#cid:43149324</ref>, suggesting that when the database was moved, the names were swapped. As of November 2014, the idle database server was planned to be set as a slave for the purpose of handling notifications.
  
−
==== Rednef ====
+
=== Additional retired hardware ===
 +
{| class="wikitable sortable" border="1"
 +
|-
 +
! scope="col" | Name
 +
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Purpose
 +
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Hardware Notes
 +
! scope="col" | First Used
 +
! scope="col" | Retired
 +
|-
 +
| '''Gecko''' || Web Server || The original FA server, is a dual 3.0Ghz Nocona [[Wikipedia:Xeon|Xeon]] system with 4GB of RAM. Storage consists of 2x 250GB hard drives. The server is still used to host [[W:Team Fortress 2|Team Fortress 2]] servers for the [[Furry Pound]] and [[Wikipedia:Left 4 Dead|Left 4 Dead]] servers for the Fur Affinity Steam Gamers group. || ? || ?
 +
|-
 +
| '''Tiamat''' || Search || Twin dual-core 2.0Ghz [[Wikipedia:Opteron|Opteron 2212]] with 32GB DDR2-533 RAM || ? || August 31, 2010<ref>''http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/22617961790''  - FA Twitter</ref><br><small>Hardware Failure.<br>Removed May 2015.<ref>[https://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/597469579070300160/photo/1 "Tiamat, one of FA's oldest servers (2007), is finally off to greener pastures."] - Fur Affinity, Twitter (10 May 2015)</ref></small>
 +
|-
 +
| '''Shivan''' || Unused/Unknown || Twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. The server was named by FA donator TlaiLaxu. || ? || ?
 +
|-
 +
| '''Tonberry''' || Unused/Unknown || Twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. The server was named by FA donator YiffyHusky. || ? || ?
 +
|-
 +
| '''Lapse''' || Unused/Unknown || Twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM || ? || ?
 +
|-
 +
| '''Trogdor''' || File/App Server || A [[Wikipedia:Dell|Dell]] Poweredge 2970 2U Server with 32GB RAM and twin AMD Opteron 2212 CPUs.<ref name="Feb2013Summary">http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4383428/#cid:32107771</ref> Storage consists of 6x 1TB hard drives - 4x in a RAID10 array, 1x RAID hotspare and 1x local backups. This server was bought with donations following the July 2009 outage. || August 2009 || October 2011<ref>http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/108936-10-17-2011-File-read-only-mode</ref><br><small>Replaced by '''IO'''.<br>Removed May 2015.<ref>[https://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/597481580123283456 "Turns out we are also saying a fond farewell to Trogdor. His days of FA burnination are over."] - Fur Affinity, Twitter (10 May 2015)</ref></small>
 +
|-
 +
| '''IO''' || File/App Server || An unspecified model which has dual Xeon E5435 CPUs<ref name="Feb2013Summary" />, 16GB RAM, and [https://twitter.com/#!/furaffinity/status/86538088809107456 12 Terabytes] worth of hard drives in it. This server replaced '''Trogdor'''. || October 2011 || December 25th, 2016<ref>''https://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/813187858731331584''  - Dragoneer, Twitter (Dec. 25 2016)</ref><br><small>Replaced by 48tb Storage Server, and replaced due to drive failures.<ref>''https://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/813281978900447236''  - Dragoneer, Twitter (Dec. 26 2016)</ref></small>
 +
|-
 +
|}
  
−
On April 1st, 2007, the FA header and Fender account avatar showed a female anthro [[dragon]] that bore a resemblance to Fender in terms of coloration, markings, and attire. This was widely believed to be an [[wikipedia:April_Fools|April Fool's]] joke. 
+
==Confirmed future features==
  
−
The banner was used as a placeholder banner for the newly released dark theme until May when FA announced that there would be TWO mascots and that the new dragon character would be named Rednef.   
+
{| class="wikitable sortable" border="1"
 +
|-
 +
! scope="col" | Feature
 +
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Official Mentions
 +
! scope="col" | Status
 +
! scope="col" class="unsortable" | Notes
 +
|-
 +
| On-demand printing || <small>[http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/371-FA-Funding December 2005]<br>[http://web.archive.org/web/20150822221412/https://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/55797-is-FA-better-off-becoming-a-pay-site#post1347804 November 2009]<br></small> ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
 +
|-
 +
| Content filtering || <small>[http://web.archive.org/web/20150821170440/https://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/3965-FA-Policy-Notice-Cub-Art November 2006] </small>||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented|| Proposed for Ferrox.
 +
|-
 +
| New UI || <small>[http://web.archive.org/web/20141117060336/https://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/7472-FA-Project-UI-Overhaul April 2007] <br> [http://web.archive.org/web/20150822210449/https://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/72193-New-FA-looks-exactly-like-steam-amp-DA-!-WTF!!#post1853302 May 2010]<br>[http://web.archive.org/web/20150323184607/https://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011]</small> ||style="background: #99ff99" | Implemented<ref>https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/9364332</ref>|| Released from beta on December 31, 2019.
 +
|-
 +
| New "dark" theme || <small>[https://forums.vivisector.org/index.php?topic=588.msg6749#msg6749 May 2012] <br> [https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3887366/ October 2012]||style="background: #99ffff" | Part of new UI|| The new UI contains both "dark" and "light" themes, among others.
 +
|-
 +
| "Character Information" || [https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3887366/ October 2012]||style="background: #ffff99" | In Progress|| A placeholder for a "Character Information" widget is present in the new dark theme.
 +
|-
 +
| Opossums (pss.ms) URL shortener ||<small> [https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1648317/ August 2010] </small> ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented|| pss.ms is currently down.
 +
  |-
 +
| Web hosting ||<small> [http://web.archive.org/web/20150822221414/https://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/55797-is-FA-better-off-becoming-a-pay-site/page7#post1353001 November 2009]<br>[https://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10936829317 March 2010] [https://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10936829317]<br> </small> ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
 +
|-
 +
| Supporter ribbons || <small> [https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1836349/ November 2010] </small> ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
 +
|-
 +
| Note/inbox search || <small> [https://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/24023831950 September 2010] ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
 +
|-
 +
| Artist list and reviews<br>''"Commission Ratings"'' || <small>[http://web.archive.org/web/20150827063155/https://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/1342-Search-Function-User-List June 2006]<br> [http://web.archive.org/web/20150323184607/https://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011]</small> ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
 +
|-
 +
| Improved commenting || <small>[http://web.archive.org/web/20150323184607/https://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/90879-Fur-Affinity-Turns-6 January 2011]</small> ||style="background: #ffcccc" | Not Implemented||
 +
|}
  
−
The May 2007 banner is the first non-gag banner to feature Rednef. She has also appeared on the July 2007 banner.
+
== References ==
 +
<references />
  
−
== Facts ==
+
== See also ==
−
* In less than a year since the site's re-launch, Fur Affinity gained over 45,000 users and over 300,000 submissions.
+
−
* The site transfers a daily average of nearly 80 GB of data and well over 10,000,000 individual files. The site's peak bandwidth record stands at 33.2Mbit.
+
−
* Alexa ranked Fur Affinity in the [http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?site0=www.furaffinity.net&site1=vclart.net&site2=&site3=&site4=&x=75&y=15&h=300&w=610&h=400&w=700&z=3&range=1y&size=medium&y=r&z=3&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.furaffinity.net top 4,000 sites] on the web as of 1 November 2007, showing greater traffic than the VCL for most of previous year. Fur Affinity has ranked as high as 3,475 on individual days.
+
−
* Account import strings began and ended with <tt>!pie!</tt>
+
−
* Fur Affinity gets approximately 2.5 million page hits per day (estimated on 01/11/2007).
+
  
−
==== The hardware ====
+
* [[FA Rank]]
−
There are currently two servers in use by Fur Affinity:
+
* [[:Category:Fur Affinity administrators]]
−
* The primary server, Gecko, is a dual processor Intel Xeon 3.0Ghz system with 4GB of RAM. It acts as both a storage and as an HTTP server.
+
−
* The backend DB server, Tiamat, is a dual CPU, dual core Opteron 2212 with 4x2GB DDR2-533(ECC) memory, 4x74GB 10k SATA WD740ADFD hard drives on 3ware 9650SE-4LPML hardware raid card, running in RAID10 configuration.
+
−
Gecko is planned to be replaced by it's successor, Bahamut, which is a single CPU, dual core 2.0GHz Opteron, with 2x1GB DDR2-667 and an I/O subsystem of 4x500GB Seagate drives on 3ware 9650SE-4LPML hardware RAID card in RAID5 configuration.
+
−
 
+
−
 
+
−
== References ==
+
−
<references />
+
  
 
== External links ==
 
== External links ==
−
*[http://irc.netsplit.de/channels/details.php?room=%23furaffinity&net=FurNet statistics of #furaffinity on FurNet IRC network] on irc.netsplit.de
+
{{WikiFurNews|Fur Affinity access disrupted amid ownership dispute}}
 +
{{WikiFurNews|'Krystal sandwich' meme strikes Fur Affinity}}
 +
{{FlayrahTag|fur-affinity|Fur Affinity}}
 +
* [https://www.facebook.com/furaffinity Fur Affinity] on [[Facebook]]
 +
* [https://twitter.com/furaffinity Fur Affinity] on [[Twitter]]
 +
* [http://community.livejournal.com/furaffinity/ ''Furaffinity Status' Journal''] - Fur Affinity on [[LiveJournal]]
 +
* [https://furaffinity.tumblr.com Fur Affinity] on [[Tumblr]]
 +
* [irc://irc.furnet.org/furaffinity #furaffinity] on [[FurNet (IRC)|FurNet IRC]]
 +
* [https://steamcommunity.com/groups/FurAffinityGamers Fur Affinity Gamers] on [[W:Steam (software)|Steam]]
 +
* [http://irc.netsplit.de/channels/details.php?room=%23furaffinity&net=FurNet #furaffinity statistics] on [http://irc.netsplit.de/ irc.netsplit.de]
  
−
[[Category:Mature art archives]][[Category:Mature story archives]][[Category:2005 births]]
+
{{Fur Affinity topics}}
 +
{{Media archives}}
 +
{{UMAs for Best Website}}
 +
[[Category:Fur Affinity| ]]
 +
[[Category:Mature art archives]]
 +
[[Category:Mature story archives]]
 +
[[Category:2005 births]]
 +
[[Category:Ursa Major Award winners]]
 
{{featured article}}
 
{{featured article}}
  
 
[[de:Fur Affinity]]
 
[[de:Fur Affinity]]
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[[es:Fur Affinity]]
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[[fr:Fur Affinity]]
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[[hu:Fur Affinity]]
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[[it:Fur Affinity]]
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[[ko:Fur Affinity]]
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[[nl:Fur Affinity]]
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[[no:Fur Affinity]]
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[[pl:Fur Affinity]]
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[[ru:Fur Affinity]]
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[[sv:Fur Affinity]]
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[[uk:Fur Affinity]]
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[[zh:Fur Affinity]]
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[[ja:Fur Affinity]]

Latest revision as of 16:52, 26 April 2024

Clock.png This article may be out of date and in need of updating to include more recent information.
For specifics, check the edit history and talk page. Consult the Furry Book of Style for editing help.
Fur Affinity
Fa logo.png
Fur Affinity logo
Author(s) Owner: Frost Dragon Art, LLC[1]
Website
https://www.furaffinity.net/ (SFW)
Launch date 16 January–1 August 2005 (staff dispute & server issues)
10 December 2005–present
Genre Social media community
Rating(s)
Web PG
Web NC-17
Fur Affinity's front page, circa 2021

Fur Affinity, also known as FA or FurAffinity, is the furry fandom's largest online community, focusing on the promotion of art, music and stories.

The site was created in 2005 by Alkora as an alternative to various art community websites such as SheezyArt and DeviantArt, distinguished by allowing artistic freedom of expression regardless of content rating. It is led by Dragoneer.

History[edit]

Main article: History of Fur Affinity

Fur Affinity was launched on 16 January 2005 as an alternative to SheezyArt, with the forum going live on that date and the main site being transferred a few days later from FurPawz. Since then, it has suffered a few outages, most notably a month-long downtime over July 2008, but always managed to recover. In 2011, Fur Affinity announced a major revamp in connection to FA: United 4.[2]

Fur Affinity: United![edit]

Main article: FA: United

In August 2007, Fur Affinity held its own furry convention, Fur Affinity: United! (or FA:U) in Newark, New Jersey. The convention was a success, drawing 310 attendees and 25 fursuiters in the parade, and was followed by another in 2008, drawing 381 attendees. In February 2009, Dragoneer announced FA: United 3 "Games United" for 28-30 May 2010.[3] No event was scheduled for 2009 due to the economic downturn. FA: United 7, in August 2014, drew 707 attendees.

Services and features[edit]

Fur Affinity's features for users include the ability to allow users to track new updates from particular artists; highlight favorites; and upload a wide variety of art (images, music and stories). The site attempts to promote community through its comments system and individual journals.

While works of all ratings are accepted (other than photographic nudes, images whose intent are to slander or discredit others, and minors in sexual situations[4]), art rated as mature or adult is not shown to visitors, or to users who have not specified it as a preference (which requires giving a date of birth indicating an age over 18). Keywords and tags can be added to works, though a feature that allowed blocking based on tags was disabled due to performance issues.

Fur Affinity's search engine was "temporarily disabled" in mid-2006 due to it taking up too many resources.[5] A faux search feature was implemented for April Fool's Day 2007, much to the chagrin of some users.[6] Search was reimplemented on 5 February 2009; it was initially labelled "That Thing You Want" and randomly included rickrolls.[7]

Privacy features were added in May 2012 with users being able to block guests from seeing their content with messages such as "[Username] has elected to make their content available to registered users only" and being able to hide their adult, mature+adult, or all favorites from public view.[8]

The site's artwork is inaccessible in Russia, as d.facdn.net (which serves the images) is listed on Russia's Internet blacklist. The site itself works fine, and even shows thumbnails.[citation needed]

On 13 September 2015, to coincide with the conclusion of FAU 2015, Fur Affinity unveiled a Gallery folders system[9], which had been promised in one form or another since shortly after the site launched in 2006. Some users[who?] criticized the way folders were implemented,[citation needed] including disappearing artwork after its implementation (found normally in the scraps folder), and the poor to no documentation regarding them.

At the start of the new year in January, 2020. FA received its first complete overhaul of the websites UI (User-Interface) since 2007. The update included; a major color change, extra template choices, modern styled graphics, the revival of the top-of-page banner, and many other aspects.

Fur Affinity Plus[edit]

In addition, the site announced Fur Affinity Plus (FA+), a 5$ paid tier for membership which allows users to opt out of third-party advertising and use an FA+-only icon next to their username to show support. This was announced as a means for the site to rely less on advertisements to sustain site management costs.[10] The paid tier was launched on February 11, 2020.[11] The paid tier was updated with more perks in March 2021, including allowing subscribers to browse 128 submissions per page on browse, search, and gallery views; thumbnails up to 300px; increased maximum caps on folders (75) and folder groups (30); and shortcuts around flood protections for uploading posts, comments and notes.[12]

Project Ferrox[edit]

Main article: Ferrox (software)

The FA development team was working on a new backend system called Ferrox which was to be used for the next major revision of Fur Affinity, and was to be made available as FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) for other sites to use. By late 2009, the development of Ferrox had stalled, with the last change to the code being made on September 7, 2009. Days earlier, net-cat, who was acting as the lead Ferrox developer after Eevee had left, announced that the code was to be frozen, citing that "Nobody knows Python."[13]

Mascots[edit]

Fender, drawn by Mutley James

Fender is the Fur Affinity mascot, created by artist K-9 based on a character concept by Preyfar. He is half fox and half ferret, a "ferrox". On April Fool's Day 2007, Fender was depicted in the site's banner as a female dragon. This dragon was made a separate character and an official mascot of the site in May 2007, and named Rednef, or "Fender" spelled backward.

Controversies[edit]

Main article: History of Fur Affinity#Controversy

Being furry fandom's largest social art site for many years, Fur Affinity has been host to strenuous discussions on various topics, including the presence and later absence of cub pornography, staff appointments and departures, allegations of staff and user improprieties, and debate over what consists of suitable content for the site banner. Incidents of downtime and unauthorized access have also been discussed, both on Fur Affinity's forums and throughout the fandom.

Organization[edit]

Fur Affinity was previously owned by Ferrox Art LLC, a limited liability company founded 25 February 2008, registered in Lenhartsville, Pennsylvania.[14] On March 19, 2015, it was officially announced that Fur Affinity had been acquired by IMVU; the transaction had occurred in January 2015 but had not been publicly announced.[15] On February 1, 2021, Fur Affinity became independent again with ownership going back to Dragoneer, who has placed the website under the operation of a new company called Frost Dragon Art, LLC.[1]

Staff[edit]

Fur Affinity's staff as of February 2017 include:[16]

Staff Leads
Administrators
Tech Team

Two pseudonymous moderators, Quetzal and Gazelle, are also listed. A "System Account" is used to send anonymous notices.[17]

Past staff include Bazeel, Carenath, Cerbrus, Glaide, Grammatist, Hendikins, Jasu Fox,[18] Keio, Kryphosdrgn, Kyoujin, Luftwoofe, Nero Silent, Oddy, Odin36519, Photographurer, Renashe Tradewind,[19] QMelon, quoting_mungo,[20] Sheepdust, Silver R. Wolfe, SSJ3Mewtwo, Starrykitten, Summercat, Surgat, Trpdwarf, Tsawolf, Writerwren and Xaerun.[21][citation needed]

Statistics[edit]

  • In late 2010, the monthly hosting bill for Fur Affinity was just under $1,700 [22]. This includes a full equipment rack, bandwidth, and IP addresses. The monthly cost likely increased with the addition of extra bandwidth (Increasing the total to 350Mbit) in early 2012.[23]
  • In less than a year since the site's re-launch, Fur Affinity gained over 45,000 users and over 300,000 submissions. [citation needed]
  • Alexa has previously ranked Fur Affinity in the top 4,000 sites on the web in 1 November 2007, showing greater traffic than the VCL for most of the previous year. The trend continued through 2008 and 2009. Fur Affinity has ranked as high as 3,475 on individual days, and close to 2,000 in the USA. In October 2010, Fur Affinity's rank fell to 7681.
  • Fur Affinity reached its 1,000,000th submission on 11 January 2008. It reached its 2,000,000th submission on 15 February 2009, and its 3,000,000th submission in November 2009.
  • As of 20 March 2015, the site had 11,142,451 active submissions (15,995,066 total created), 1,195,253 active users (1,218,456 created), 324,226,064 favorites, and an average of 671 accounts, 8,000+ submissions, 42,462 comments and 10,452 page shouts were created per day.[24]
  • Fur Affinity say they served ~38.8TB of data to over 2.1 million visitors in February 2016.[25]

Hardware[edit]

Former Fur Affinity's servers Bahamut, Tiamat, Novastorm and Trogdor (unlabeled).

Fur Affinity owns various server hardware, some of which has been re-purposed or retired over time. Between 2010 and September 2020, the site was hosted out of an InfoRelay[26] (later acquired by Atlantic Metro) data center in Reston, Virginia.[27]

In April 2020, FurAffinity announced it was moving to a new "hardware platform" it called "King Ghidora"[28]. FurAffinity did not offer many specifics on this platform other than that it utilized "112 CPU cores, 1,536GB of memory, [and] 153.6TB of enterprise SSD storage" and that it was purchased from income from the FA+ subscription service. On September 9, FurAffinity announced the move was complete.[29] This transition relocated the FurAffinity servers to an undisclosed location, with Dragoneer only saying they had to ship a 14 Terabyte hard drive "cross country" as part of the move.[30] It is possible the servers were moved into a facility controlled by then-owner IMVU, which is headquartered in California.

While hosted at an InfoRelay, FA had access to 2Gbps of bandwidth leased as of November 2015.[31]

2014/15 upgrades[edit]

In September 2014, Fur Affinity bought additional hardware:[32][33]

  • File server: Supermicro SuperServer 6017R-72HDP+ 1U with Intel Xeon E5-2603 v2 Quad-Core CPU (1.8GHz, 10MB cache), 128Gb 1600MHz DDR3 ECC RAM, 12 WD 4TB SATAIII drives (7200 RPM, 64 MB cache)
  • Application servers (4): Asus RS300-E8-PS4 1U with Xeon E3-1240 v3 Quad-Core CPU (3.4GHz, 8MB cache), 32GB DDR ECC RAM, 2x128Gb SSDs
  • Advertising server: Xeon 1270 v3 Quad-Core CPU (3.5 GHz, 8MB cache), 32GB DDR3 ECC RAM and 2xSSDs

In Spring 2015, additional hardware purchases were announced, in connection with the IMVU purchase.

Pre-2020 hardware[edit]

Name Purpose Hardware Notes First Used Status
Routezilla Router Cisco 7301 router  ? Presumed in use
Switchthulu Network Switch 48-port Cisco Catalyst 3560. Replaced an older 24-port Cisco 3750, also called "Switchthulu"  ? Presumed in use
Neo Bahamut Database Backup Dual-core 2.0GHz Opteron 1212 with 2GB DDR2-667 RAM.[34] Storage consists of 4x 1TB hard drives in RAID5. Concern expressed by Dragoneer about its worth vs. power draw.  ? In use
Novastorm Database a Sun Fire X4150 manufactured by Wikipedia:Sun Microsystems with twin quad-core 2.5Ghz Xeon 5420 processors and 64GB of RAM (as of March 2010).[35] Storage consists of 2x 74GB 15K RPM hard drives in RAID1 and 6x146GB 15K RPM hard drives in RAID10. The server was initially purposed as the "Application server" but eventually converted to run the Database. This server was bought with donations following the July 2009 outage. Although Novastorm was replaced by Finn/Jake in September 2013, it is apparently still active, though its use is not clear.[36] August 2009 In use
Figment Virtualization Server
Ad server, Email server 		Dual quad-core 2.33Ghz Xeon 5345 with 32GB of RAM and 6x1TB[34] of storage. Figment was purchased with the intent of offering hosting[37] on it "sometime in April... or May, or maybe August" of 2010[38] and also served advertisements[39]. Server was named by Sciggles.[40] 2010 In use/"Spare Servers Pool"[41]
Sparkz Network Monitoring Twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. The server was named by FA donator Dax. This server is the only server in a group of four donated servers (The others being Shivan, Tonberry, and Lapse) that is known to have been put into service. November 30, 2010[42] In use
Finn* Database Server A custom-built server in a Supermicro SuperServer SYS-6027R-WRF chassis with at least one Intel Xeon 6C E5 2620 processor, 64GB of RAM, and 6 15k HDD's in an unknown RAID. This server was built by donations received in February 2013.[43] See note below. December 16, 2013 Still in use as of August 2016[44]
Jake* Database Server A custom-built server in a Supermicro SuperServer SYS-6027R-WRF chassis with at least one Intel Xeon 6C E5 2620 processor, 64GB of RAM, and 6 15k HDD's in an unknown RAID. This server was built by donations received in February 2013.[45] See note below September 16, 2013 (as "Finn")
November 2014 		Possibly in use
Smaug App Server 16-core Xeon, "full SSD", 128GB DDR4 RAM.[46] July 29, 2015[47] Presumed in use
Spike Storage Server 48TB disk drives[46][48]  ? Unknown
  • Finn and Jake are identical and were bought with the purpose of building a redundant database cluster. For unknown reasons, Finn was brought online first, with Jake supposedly following behind[49] later that week. In December 2013, an issue came up that put the site into "Read Only" for a week. FA then moved the database to Jake, which was apparently not put into service yet. However, in November 2014, Zidonuke said that Jake was sitting idle "for almost a year"[50], suggesting that when the database was moved, the names were swapped. As of November 2014, the idle database server was planned to be set as a slave for the purpose of handling notifications.

Additional retired hardware[edit]

Name Purpose Hardware Notes First Used Retired
Gecko Web Server The original FA server, is a dual 3.0Ghz Nocona Xeon system with 4GB of RAM. Storage consists of 2x 250GB hard drives. The server is still used to host Team Fortress 2 servers for the Furry Pound and Left 4 Dead servers for the Fur Affinity Steam Gamers group.  ?  ?
Tiamat Search Twin dual-core 2.0Ghz Opteron 2212 with 32GB DDR2-533 RAM  ? August 31, 2010[51]
Hardware Failure.
Removed May 2015.[52]
Shivan Unused/Unknown Twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. The server was named by FA donator TlaiLaxu.  ?  ?
Tonberry Unused/Unknown Twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM. The server was named by FA donator YiffyHusky.  ?  ?
Lapse Unused/Unknown Twin dual-core 2.4Ghz Opteron 2216 system with 48GB of RAM  ?  ?
Trogdor File/App Server A Dell Poweredge 2970 2U Server with 32GB RAM and twin AMD Opteron 2212 CPUs.[34] Storage consists of 6x 1TB hard drives - 4x in a RAID10 array, 1x RAID hotspare and 1x local backups. This server was bought with donations following the July 2009 outage. August 2009 October 2011[53]
Replaced by IO.
Removed May 2015.[54]
IO File/App Server An unspecified model which has dual Xeon E5435 CPUs[34], 16GB RAM, and 12 Terabytes worth of hard drives in it. This server replaced Trogdor. October 2011 December 25th, 2016[55]
Replaced by 48tb Storage Server, and replaced due to drive failures.[56]

Confirmed future features[edit]

Feature Official Mentions Status Notes
On-demand printing December 2005
November 2009
 		Not Implemented
Content filtering November 2006 Not Implemented Proposed for Ferrox.
New UI April 2007
May 2010
January 2011 		Implemented[57] Released from beta on December 31, 2019.
New "dark" theme May 2012
October 2012		 Part of new UI The new UI contains both "dark" and "light" themes, among others.
"Character Information" October 2012 In Progress A placeholder for a "Character Information" widget is present in the new dark theme.
Opossums (pss.ms) URL shortener August 2010 Not Implemented pss.ms is currently down.
Web hosting November 2009
March 2010 [4]
 		Not Implemented
Supporter ribbons November 2010 Not Implemented
Note/inbox search September 2010 Not Implemented
Artist list and reviews
"Commission Ratings" 		June 2006
January 2011 		Not Implemented
Improved commenting January 2011 Not Implemented

References[edit]

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Fender". "New Ownership, Updated Logo, & More". February 1, 2021. Fur Affinity. Retrieved on February 2, 2021.
  2. ↑ Fur Affinity Turns 6! - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity forum post (16 January 2011)
  3. ↑ FAU3 Announcement - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity journal (9 February 2009)
  4. ↑ Acceptable Upload Policy - Fur Affinity
  5. ↑ Admin mode on june 5th 2006 - Alkora, Fur Affinity forums (5 June 2006)
  6. ↑ Search is up! - Fur Affinity Forums (1 April 2007)
  7. ↑ SEARCH - Dragoneer, Fur Affinity journal (5 February 2009)
  8. ↑ Update Notices, Changelog & Banner journal posted to Fender's blog on May 24th, 2012. Retrieved 2012 November 25.
  9. ↑ http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/7036344/ 09/13/2015 - Folders & Gallery Management Updates] News item dated 13 September 2015. Retrieved 27 October 2015
  10. ↑ [1]
  11. ↑ [2]
  12. ↑ [3]
  13. ↑ http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/49368-Code-freeze-on-current-Ferrox-codebase?p=1174129&viewfull=1#post1174129
  14. ↑ Ferrox Art LLC (entity number 3791597) - Pennsylvania Corporations, PA Department of State. Accessed 20 November 2013.
  15. ↑ [https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6588324 "FA Joins the IMVU Family" - Fur Affinity. March 19, 2015.
  16. ↑ "Staff" - Fur Affinity. Retrieved March 9, 2018.
  17. ↑ "Fur Affinity System Account" - Fur Affinity]
  18. ↑ Stepping down as Administrator - Jasu Fox, Fur Affinity (23 October 2015)
  19. ↑ My experiences as a member of Fur Affinity staff, and my recent removal. - GoingToTheOcean, Reddit (16 August 2016)
  20. ↑ Resigning from FA staff - quoting_mungo's journal. Retrieved March 9, 2018.
  21. ↑ Five Fur Affinity staff resign, some citing leadership failures - Rakuen Growlithe, Flayrah (29 October 2011)
  22. ↑ http://twitpic.com/2g8t5x - TwitPic Posted on August 19, 2010 by Dragoneer
  23. ↑ https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3484539/
  24. ↑ "[https://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/578970926575931394 For those interested, here's some spiffy FA statistics! http://pastebin.com/DjsSCcuh"] - Dragoneer, Twitter (20 March 2015)
  25. ↑ "In February, FA served up 1,777,662,272 files (over 38.8TB total bandwidth) to 2,173,564 total visitors." - Fur Affinity, Twitter (5 March 2016)
  26. ↑ "Our historical uptime has actually been fairly solid since we moved to InfoRelay. Prior to that... yeah. It was bad." - Fur Affinity, Twitter (20 October 2014)
  27. ↑ "The current servers are hosted in a professional colo facility in Reston, VA." - Fur Affinity, Twitter (7 June 2010)
  28. ↑ 4/16/20 - New Hardware & Policy Updates - Fender (16 April 2020)
  29. ↑ 9/9/20 - Site Migration Complete + Known Issues - Fender (9 September 2020)
  30. ↑ "To aid in the data transfer to the new FA host we bought a 14TB hard drive and filled it, shipped it cross country, then uploaded it to the new servers." - Dragoneer, Twitter (10 September 2020)
  31. ↑ "Tonight's maintenance was to upgrade FA to a 2 gigabit network link." - Fur Affinity, Twitter (3 November 2015)
  32. ↑ Fur Affinity Parts Wishlist - Dragoneer (3 September 2014)
  33. ↑ Banner Update, Upcoming Beta & Ad Server Upgrade - Fender (17 September 2014)
  34. ↑ 34.0 34.1 34.2 34.3 http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4383428/#cid:32107771
  35. ↑ Novastorm upgrade tweet - Dragoneer's Twitter (23 March 2010)
  36. ↑ https://trello.com/c/CLruJ1b5/65-upgrade-packages-on-novastorm
  37. ↑ http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10203450025 - FA Twitter - March 8, 2010
  38. ↑ http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10942579229 - FA Twitter - March 23 2010
  39. ↑ http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10936829317 - FA Twitter
  40. ↑ http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/10585322442 - FA Twitter
  41. ↑ https://trello.com/c/oy0HkfgT/6-repurpose-figment-in-spare-servers-pool
  42. ↑ @Furaffinity tweet
  43. ↑ http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4389184
  44. ↑ Mainsite database maintenance on Aug 16, 2016 at 1PM UTC - Yak, Fur Affinity Forums (16 August 2016)
  45. ↑ http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4389184
  46. ↑ 46.0 46.1 Filling Tiamat's old space will be Spike (16-core, full SSD, 128GB RAM) and Smaug (48TB storage server). - Fur Affinity, Twitter (10 May 2015)
  47. ↑ "Earlier today, we officially rolled the site over to our new app server, Smaug (a 16-core Xeon system running DDR4 and SSDs). Woosh!" - Fur Affinity, Twitter (29 July 2015)
  48. ↑ "Finn, Jake, Spike and Smaug" - Dragoneer, Twitter (6 September 2015)
  49. ↑ http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/5058966/
  50. ↑ http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6265766#cid:43149324
  51. ↑ http://twitter.com/furaffinity/status/22617961790 - FA Twitter
  52. ↑ "Tiamat, one of FA's oldest servers (2007), is finally off to greener pastures." - Fur Affinity, Twitter (10 May 2015)
  53. ↑ http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/108936-10-17-2011-File-read-only-mode
  54. ↑ "Turns out we are also saying a fond farewell to Trogdor. His days of FA burnination are over." - Fur Affinity, Twitter (10 May 2015)
  55. ↑ https://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/813187858731331584 - Dragoneer, Twitter (Dec. 25 2016)
  56. ↑ https://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/813281978900447236 - Dragoneer, Twitter (Dec. 26 2016)
  57. ↑ https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/9364332

See also[edit]

External links[edit]

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