PDXFurs
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The PDXFurs is a loosely organized, often ad hoc, furry regional community based in the Portland metropolitan area, including Vancouver and southwestern Washington, as well as northeastern Oregon, USA.
The name PDXFurs, a portmanteau of the common abbreviation for "Portland" and "furry fandom", was created by Blackberry.
Contents
History
From 1994 to 1995, Blackberry began compiling a list of Portland-based users of FurryMUCK. Baloo Uriza was then recruited to host a Unix based mailing list, and from 1995 to 1997, the PDXFurs community and identity began to develop.
Events during this period centered on public, often free, gatherings or outdoor activities. There is little preserved or archived from this era. The second mailing list to bear the PDXFurs name was the Yahoo!-based Pdxdfurs group, established on or prior to September 11, 2000[1]. This Yahoo! Groups archive is incomplete. The oldest message in the list archive is dated September 11, 2000.
Several generations of Yahoo! and Google based groups followed, as well as numerous iterations of the #pdxfurs IRC channel.
In 2009, three dozen members of the original PDXFurs Yahoo! Group established a mailing list using the new Google Group tool called PDXFurs SNARK.
As Facebook became the preferred communication platform for many locals, there's been several generations of communities, pages and/or groups known to have existed which focused exclusively on the PDXFurs community (such as the Portland Area Furs).
On July 2013, the PDXFurs' website splash page displayed the message "The PDXFurs is(sic) disbanded until further notice." The Twitter account was deleted by the end of the same month.
Ownership
The PDXFurs Group is a registered non-profit organization[2] in the state of Oregon. The license is held by Saph, who moderates and controls liability to the group in a legal and event planning capacity.
While The PDXFurs has been taken to this direction, it does not encompass the entire Portland area, nor does it represent the local fandom as a voice. To summarize: The PDXFurs remains a developing concept.
Name
Many local events have often tag themselves with the name "PDXFurs" or "PDXFurs SNARK", however this is not exclusive to one group or cadre of locals. Other groups based in the Portland area have adopted similar portmanteaus. However, few remain active via the Facebook groups.
While the Saph controlled PDXFurs Group is the dominant social tag within the area, it is not exclusive to the Portland furs, and does not represent the city in a whole.
Domain Name
The PDXFurs's website (Pdxfurs.com), established in January 2008[3] and financially supported by Sardonis, it hosted forums, pages for members, announcements and local history. Recently, Saph began financing the domain, including website hosting, with the intent of producing an open communication hub for the local furry fandom. On July 2013, the site went offline due to unknown reasons.
IRC Channel Name
#pdxfurs has existed as an official and unofficial mod-less channel on virtually all known furry-centric IRC networks. The most recent iteration of #pdxfurs since January 2011 is an active channel on FurNet, moderated by Saph. Previous owners of the channel were Polybun and area locals.
Meets and events
PDXFurs is home to dozens of regular/recurring events and meets. The most well known is the bi-weekly event at The Roxy Diner in Portland City center. A companion event sometimes takes place at the The Brickhouse Bar & Grill in Vancouver.
A weekly lunch meet, which alternates between el Indio in Halsey and La Hacienda Real in Beaverton, Oregon, is also popular. A coffee house meet at Ava's Roasteria in Beaverton has a high participation rate among locals. Arts & crafts jam, an art/drawing meet, and long-running women's meet have met mixed success, but following Furlandia, have grown significantly in size.
Other special events include Thanksgiving dinners, visits to the Oregon Zoo and camping trips to the Oregon coast and Mount Hood.
There is no official events board for announcing events. The Portland Area Furs and PDXFurs' Facebook groups have grown into active hubs for planning events, however word of mouth, tweets, IRC, email, Skype and texting remain effective tools for locals to organize events.
References
- ↑ PDXFurs Yahoo! Group message archive on Yahoo! Groups. Retrieved ?.
- ↑ "THE PDXFURS GROUP" Business Entity Data at the Oregon Secretary of State, Corporate Division. Retrieved ?.
- ↑ Pdxfurs.com WHOIS at the Domain Tools website. Retrieved ?.
External Links
- Pdxfurs.com official website (offline)
- PDXFurs on Facebook (official)
- Portland Area Furs on Facebook (unofficial)
- PDXFurs on Yahoo! Groups
- PDXFurs Snark on Google Groups