Talk:TeenageFurs
There are two sides to every story, of course, but here's the deal on this from the group this one broke off of. At Furry Teens, we go to great lengths to provide an atmosphere where people are free to express themselves, and at the same time, malicious/predatory users are kept away from minors. The site is hosted in the US, so we have to abide by all US laws, and thus far, we haven't had any real problems with this, except in the IRC channel. It is constantly visited by trolls, predators, and other folks who jeopardize our mission. We don't have the manpower to keep an eye on it like we do on the forum/website and Yahoo group, but we do our best, which means that sometimes, the rules are enforced more strongly than others. That's just the way it goes when you don't see everything that goes on. Additionally, we have a lack of training/supervisions for our staff members (forum mods, IRC ops, etc), a problem that we're working to correct.
Prior to the formation of this second group, there was a small faction of members on the forum (mostly from outside the US) who wanted a completely rule-free site, and who felt that we were too restrictive. This sentiment was particularly strong in the IRC channel, and they gained additional supporters from some IRC chatters who seemed highy suspicious to the Furry Teens staff members. There was a pretty big argument, but I wasn't present for it, so I can't comment on the details of what happened. But, following that incident, the more rebellious members of Furry Teens left for good, and a few others frequent both sites.
I have no grudges over what happened, and I don't have a problem with this group being formed. However, I also have a strong committment to the safety of the fandom's children and teenagers, which is why I've put so many of my own resources into running Furry Teens, and I don't want there to be any ambiguity over which site is which. Furry Teens may be "boring" to some people, but not everyone wants to discuss how much pot was smoked last weekend, or have yiffy RPs every day with someone who may be 2-3x their age (there are several members of TeenageFurs who I banned from Furry Teens because of reports of predatory activity). In my opinion, the lack of leadership at TeenageFurs makes it a dangerous place for everyone who goes there.
I hope this statement is appropriate for this section of the site, because I've wanted to draft something like this for awhile. If anyone has any further questions, and doesn't want to post them here, feel free to contact me.
Natasha Softpaw 00:25, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Furry Teens Administrator and Hosting Provider
Very, very overdue reply...
Do you know what I don't even *remember* whatever occurred!
I was quite surprised to see myself credited as the creator of the channel/forum when I came back to the fandom after a long break, although I do remember the censorship argument a little and in hindsight, it got out of hand!
To be fair, it is a little unfair to tar a place as dangerous though, when I was an admin on that channel I do remember that I actively tried to monitor for predatory behaviour and banned people at the time for exactly that! I also left as soon as I wasn't a teenager and believe that the site is now down (2014 now!) and the channel is under new management - should probably reflect this in the wiki but I have no idea who to point to as the current owner/operator!
FuzzyTic 14:55, 23 July 2014 (GMT)
Apparent TeenageFurs founder and former Furry Teens member!