Vivisector
Daggers and Spears and Songs => ImvuAffinity => Topic started by: Conan on February 24, 2015, 05:44:27 am
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This is probably a sign of desperation: In the past, there have been stories about people having their FA ads rejected. Sometimes, these were because the ad was too commercial in nature for their purpose, which is stated as "by our members, for our members (http://help.furaffinity.net/article/AA-00210/7/Advertising.html)". That has changed. Dragoneer has given ad space to the online "instant messaging client" IMVU (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMVU), an 11 year old online service that looks like it'd be popular amongst people who weren't born yet when it was founded. The ads are specifically tailored to furries, pitching the ability to "build your own fursona".
(http://i.imgur.com/r40w1TR.jpg)
IMVU makes it's money by having you fork over real cash for fake merchandise. I have to wonder how long until we see "Fursuit makers HATE him!!! The one weird trick for Fursuit Success" and "Make Cash Fast! Sell Dragon Dongs From Home!" ads.
No word on whether or not it took him a month to reply to their ad inquiries.
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it will not take that long when scam ads will pop up
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I like how this news goes hand in hand with even more reports of people not having their ads put up on a timely basis. Don't forget the free ad he gave to the FNAF guy.
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Do wonder about Princess Piche's financial situation esp. with his recent declaration per this
https://forums.vivisector.org/index.php?topic=822.msg8695#msg8695
that FA will never donations again. It looks like Dragoneer has been spending a lot of money of late: last year he bought a house, and in Jan. of this year he was complaining on twitter that he won't be able to go to a convention unless he's a dealer: https://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/557292023095365632
It also looks like he recently bought a great dane dog (not noted for being cheap to look after):
https://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/572541759898693634
And I noticed that he's started commissioning again. I did a search on FA for "Dragoneer" and I found 18 commissions since Jan. 2015, and from the artists prices at a minimum he's spent $1,046 on commissions so far this year.
At the start of Feburary 2015 he referred to "us poor people" : https://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/562052618097557504
So presumably he hasn't won the lottery or came into loadsa money or anything.
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This explains all:
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6588324
https://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/1353961-FA-IMVU-Discussion
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This explains all:
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6588324
https://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/1353961-FA-IMVU-Discussion
So Dragoneer sold FA to IMVU in January. So much for transparency!
He's is no longer the owner of FA:
And I am no longer the owner, but I am in charge of the site, direction and improvements. The difference is I now have the resources to make the improvements that have always been needed.
^
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6588324#cid:44892881
However he's dodging answering people when they ask what IMVU is getting out of this or what IMVU's relevancy to the furry community is and esp. if/how IMVU is going to monetize FA:
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6588324#cid:44892893
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6588324#cid:44892823
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6588324#cid:44893002
More hardware:
Well, given I've got about $20K worth of new hardware going into the site this weekend, we'll also get paid coding help, additional resources to expand, grow and make the site everything it's needed to be.
^
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6588324#cid:44892959
A very interesting comment:
I have been on IMVU for a number of years, and feel that this was one of the worst ideas ever. =/. What is this? Is this going to turn FA into another site where you have to pay to access "adult" material, which is not even close to adult material? IMVU's business practices are sketchy at least, and that is saying things lightly. As a previous dev on IMVU, they had no issues throwing the banhammer for making "adult material" Can anyone assure us that IMVU's business practices of making you pay out the ass for everything is not going to float over to here? Are they going to get a say in what content can be uploaded to FA? If this is the case, I am packing up now and finding another furry site.
^
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6588324#cid:44893374
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Pigeon says:
However he's dodging answering people when they ask what IMVU is getting out of this or what IMVU's relevancy to the furry community is:
Well its in my eyes just a big monopoly:
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6588324#cid:44893261
Edit: They claim they have a "BIG furry userbase"
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I actually had to double check the fucking date when I saw the IMVU announcement.
Satire is dead.
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I guess that explains why I have been waiting four months for a response to my advertising request.
And this (http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6588324#cid:44892922) smells weird to me, too. IMVU is going to be not only funding the site's expansion with more hardware, but adding in professional programming work too (http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6588324#cid:44892841), and all they want in return is... what, advertising?
That's a tough sell.
edit: hahaha welp (http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6588505/#cid:44894969)
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I guess that explains why I have been waiting four months for a response to my advertising request.
And this (http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6588324#cid:44892922) smells weird to me, too. IMVU is going to be not only funding the site's expansion with more hardware, but adding in professional programming work too (http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6588324#cid:44892841), and all they want in return is... what, advertising?
That's a tough sell.
edit: hahaha welp (http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6588505/#cid:44894969)
I just read through a series of twitchie Journals about IMVU buying FA from neer and vows of people leaving because now all the porn will be deleted... heh heh
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Explains the hasty trip to the Bay Area where he got the chance to get to FC.
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First time post, hope its decent. Ill probably mostly just stay lurking.
As far as FC, I saw on the FAF thead about this that IMVU had a table at FC. So, maybe now we know why Dragoneer said he HAD to go. Maybe to sign the contract? Though I suppose that could have been done without an in person meetup.
Also, caught this on Twitter: https://twitter.com/panderp/status/578647385976500224
Anyone know if Arcturus really still owns part of FA? They said they will be contacting legal counsel to see if they have a case.
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First time post, hope its decent. Ill probably mostly just stay lurking.
As far as FC, I saw on the FAF thead about this that IMVU had a table at FC. So, maybe now we know why Dragoneer said he HAD to go. Maybe to sign the contract? Though I suppose that could have been done without an in person meetup.
Also, caught this on Twitter: https://twitter.com/panderp/status/578647385976500224
Anyone know if Arcturus really still owns part of FA? They said they will be contacting legal counsel to see if they have a case.
Lets all get the popcorn!
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Oh lawdy...
https://twitter.com/panderp/status/578647385976500224
https://twitter.com/panderp/status/578706116458242048
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Oh lawdy...
https://twitter.com/panderp/status/578647385976500224
https://twitter.com/panderp/status/578706116458242048
(https://i.imgur.com/8G5vFFN.gif)
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(http://i.imgur.com/zsw7kil.png)
http://new.spring.me/#!/dragoneer/q/207732784?
So much for that!
I can't wait for him to get screwed over. The schadenfreude will be off the charts.
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http://new.spring.me/#!/dragoneer/q/207732784?
I forgot I even asked that. Rereading it, his answer is pretty funny considering that the folks who inves^Wdonated probably deserve more equity than anyone else for having been duped, without any tangible recompense in return[0], into giving money to keep the site running.
That said, I wonder how well they were represented in the sale to IMVU. I'm willing to hedge a bet on "not at all."
0: This goes with those ornaments actually being delivered notwithstanding. That was billed as some sort of holiday product sale, albeit with a product that shipped some several months too late, which follows different rules.
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WELP
Expect a sudden influx of users on Weasyl.
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As is usual for him, Dragoneer has been misleading people, in this case about who wanted to buy the site and why. He claimed that some people wanted to buy the site and shut it down and some people wanted to buy it and replace all the existing staff (not a bad idea to be honest!) however someone who had tried to buy the site spoke up and said that he only wanted to buy into FA and would have left the staff in place with a board of directors.
Here's Dragoneer's misleading statements:
Through December, I received many offers to sell FA. Some wanted the site just to turn it into a store front, but in doing so wanted to dismantle the site. Others wanted to buy it LITERALLY just to shut it down. I didn't want any of that. Money was good, and some really high figures were thrown out, but I legitimately care about the community. I haven't done this for 10 years out of my own time and energy just to see someone come in and rip it apart.
IMVU offered to help the site with funding and support the site as is. They're the only group who didn't want to tear it down, but help build it up.
^
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6588505/
Honestly, I got a lot of offers to buy the site. Some people offered me a LOT of cash to buy the site, and I and every staffer involved would walk away. But that's not what I wanted.
^
https://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/1353961-FA-IMVU-Discussion?p=5109503&viewfull=1#post5109503
And here's the truth:
BULLSHIT!
My offer EXPLICITLY was insistent on keeping Yourself and your staff In place, while creating a board of directors who could help with the management, future planning and growth of the site.
To clarify for those not in the know;
Myself and those backers with me (who will remain unnamed for their privacy) offered to buy-into (not outright purchase) FA at the valuation of $50,000.00 where the following things would happen. A board of directors would be created, where Dragoneer and his silent partner Chase together would keep 46% of voting rights, while the new players involved each would get 9%.
What this percentage of ownership would mean is that if Dragoneer and Chasewanted to do something the way it has been, all they needed was one of the new investors to agree to do it. However, if the new investors wanted to make a change that was contrary to Drgaoneer and XYZ it literally would have to be every single one of the new owners voting together to veto it.
The second part of this buy in would be to create a board of directors like all the furry conventions out there. That is what Myself and the new players would be bringing to the table. My experience with conventions and planning, as well as the ability to organize many different departments and sub comittee's. In addition to being able to fundraise and steer the long term direction of FA.
There was details still to be discussed and agreed upon, but the talks didn't get any further than the money and some obviously meaningless chitchat with Dragoneer, since my offer was either right on top of , or after the IMVU timing.
^
https://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/1353961-FA-IMVU-Discussion?p=5109610&viewfull=1#post5109610
Also, someone made this good summing up post:
From the looks of things at this point, bearing all of the known facts in mind with no presumptions or assumptions, this is what we have.
IMVU, a company that admittedly plays fast and loose with user data and will sell and/or give it to anyone they please, has bought Furaffinity.
IMVU restricts creativity on their site, and charges people for every aspect of use, from keeping your registered name so nobody else can use it, to uploading new creative content and more.
IMVU is seen as a low-quality Second Life rip-off by most of the people who actually know what it is.
IMVU advertises constantly on facebook in order to gain a larger user base, of mostly females and teens.
Many people in the furry community have never heard of IMVU, which brings me to believe that their advertising is not effective.
There was a fundraiser for Furaffinity during the time that the offer was being made to purchase FA by IMVU.
Many offers were made to purchase FA during this time, one of which included maintaining the power structure and control of FA, and forming a cohesive and organized board of directors for the site. All other offers were declined.
FA attempted to combine/partner with another site previously, and that process fell apart quickly due to incompatibilities between the sites and management styles.
Furaffinity was sold to IMVU months before the user base was informed.
The sale of Furaffinity changed the TOS for Furaffinity in specific but vital ways.
Changing the TOS of Furaffinity without notifying the users of Furaffinity immediately upon said change is a violation of Furaffinity's TOS and user agreement.
______________________
With this all in mind, what it looks like to me is that IMVU is scrambling to try to grow it's user base and make more money off of unsuspecting people who are willing to pay to play a lesser version of Second Life (a free game). Based on the facts and their policies and recent advertising behavior, IMVU is struggling as a company and is making a mad grasp at a different advertising method in order to keep their company afloat.
All in all, I do not like it, and it seems very, very shady.
^
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6588505/#cid:44905165
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WELP
Expect a sudden influx of users on Weasyl.
https://forums.weasyl.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?7082-March-Madness!&p=78810#post78810
Oh it's already here. lmao
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Check out who owns IMVU. 'best buy capital' is the one that made me snicker. Dragoneer is now glorified Geek Squad lmao
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Dragoneer has a Q&A journal going, but is contradicting himself by claiming that IMVU will be hands off and not interfere with FA while admitting that IMVU now controls all of FA's finances:
5) Who is the site admin now?
Dragoneer, and he has been given complete independence and authority by IMVU to run the site as he sees fit, and has been given budget to make the improvements the site has sorely needed.
[...]
IMVU is hands-off
^
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6592316
The site's funding is a separate pool. I no longer have access to any of FA's financials. My business is not handling the finances (we have finance teams now) but focusing n the site, and only the site.
^
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6592316#cid:44920347
Q&A time:
Why did it take two months to announce this?
^
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6592316#cid:44918886
Because while the site was sold, both groups (FA and IMVU) were drafting discussion, planning the future of the site. We weren't trying to hide things from the community, but make sure that both communities were on the same path across the board.
^
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6592316#cid:44918899
I don't find that very believable exactly because I have experience in mergers and acquisitions. You said that IMVU acquired FA in January, which means that unless this deal materialized overnight, there was a discovery and due diligence process prior to January during which metrics (such as the frequently touted "many furries") and financials are reviewed. If you didn't hash out a continuance plan during this stage and was doing the planning during the two months after the acquisition, what were you doing? Clearly not planning, given the absolutely ineptitude of your readiness to respond to the community's concerns since this announcement.
Speaking of community, you say that you were "[making] sure that both communities were on the same path." Who was making sure? You? It's absolutely insulting to think that tens of thousand of users with their intellectual creativity and property was kept utterly in the dark so that one person could decide what path the "community" wants to go.
^
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6592316#cid:44919181
And Dragoneer stopped responding.
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Dragoneer has a Q&A journal going, but is contradicting himself by claiming that IMVU will be hands off and not interfere with FA while admitting that IMVU now controls all of FA's finances:
5) Who is the site admin now?
Dragoneer, and he has been given complete independence and authority by IMVU to run the site as he sees fit, and has been given budget to make the improvements the site has sorely needed.
[...]
IMVU is hands-off
^
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6592316
The site's funding is a separate pool. I no longer have access to any of FA's financials. My business is not handling the finances (we have finance teams now) but focusing n the site, and only the site.
^
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6592316#cid:44920347
Q&A time:
Why did it take two months to announce this?
^
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6592316#cid:44918886
Because while the site was sold, both groups (FA and IMVU) were drafting discussion, planning the future of the site. We weren't trying to hide things from the community, but make sure that both communities were on the same path across the board.
^
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6592316#cid:44918899
I don't find that very believable exactly because I have experience in mergers and acquisitions. You said that IMVU acquired FA in January, which means that unless this deal materialized overnight, there was a discovery and due diligence process prior to January during which metrics (such as the frequently touted "many furries") and financials are reviewed. If you didn't hash out a continuance plan during this stage and was doing the planning during the two months after the acquisition, what were you doing? Clearly not planning, given the absolutely ineptitude of your readiness to respond to the community's concerns since this announcement.
Speaking of community, you say that you were "[making] sure that both communities were on the same path." Who was making sure? You? It's absolutely insulting to think that tens of thousand of users with their intellectual creativity and property was kept utterly in the dark so that one person could decide what path the "community" wants to go.
^
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6592316#cid:44919181
And Dragoneer stopped responding.
Neer's stupider than I was giving him credit for. That IMVU left him in charge is the first blow to their credibility.
BTW, what does Yak think of our new Ant Overlords?
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BTW, what does Yak think of our new Ant Overlords?
I think he's too busy playing TF2 to care.
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Wait, shouldn't all the planning for the future and making sure both ends are on the same terms come BEFORE making the sale? I feel that's a bit backwards to buy something before being entirely certain what the acquisition will entail in the long run.
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I don't think it's the buyer that failed to do their due diligence in this case. At the very least it's probably far more likely our dear mister piche, much like some manner of furry Gregor Samsa, will awaken one morning to find he has transformed into a nobody, with the site entirely removed from his grasp and no recourse.
Also I have to wonder if this means he's somehow a full-time employee of IMVU now; like the whole thing was just a scheme to get himself a paying job doing fuck-all but "maintaining" the site. And if that's the case, does that mean he can't even hold down a simple computer janitor position any more?
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I don't think it's the buyer that failed to do their due diligence in this case. At the very least it's probably far more likely our dear mister piche, much like some manner of furry Gregor Samsa, will awaken one morning to find he has transformed into a nobody, with the site entirely removed from his grasp and no recourse.
Also I have to wonder if this means he's somehow a full-time employee of IMVU now; like the whole thing was just a scheme to get himself a paying job doing fuck-all but "maintaining" the site. And if that's the case, does that mean he can't even hold down a simple computer janitor position any more?
The more he opens his mouth, the more painfully obvious it becomes that he does not understand what he has done. Like most of the other tech jargon he blurts out on a regular basis, I don't think he understands what an "acquisition" means, or perhaps he is just having a really hard time adapting to the fact that he no longer owns the site. His stomping around and yelling "NO! They won't!" almost comes off as if he's in denial, shouting to drown out the thought that his decade long ego trip is about to come to it's conclusion.
I think the extent of IMVU's due diligence was realizing they found a complete sucker who was going to give them what they want without a fight. His due diligence was huffing around thinking he's smart enough and know's what's "good" and "bad". It's been mentioned before, but the fact he wasn't sure what the transaction documents involved and had to ask the CEO of IMVU for clarification is a giant fucking red light itself. He clearly did not run it past a Lawyer or bother to read it very carefully.
The site is now owned by a company with a Board of Directors that represent various venture capital groups, all with an immense amount of experience running businesses. The idea they'd keep Piche in any position where he is directly in charge of a product for any period of time is absolutely ludicrous. I expect that once they figure out how they want to "move the community forward" and notice the site is costing much more to run than it's making, they will start putting people above him until he moves far enough down the totem pole that he's nothing. I suspect he will quit "in protest" over whatever they do before they can fire him, his one last gasp before becoming irrelevant and returning to his career as Computer Janitor.
Based on what he was saying when he was working at Amazon, which was along the lines of "I have to work 12 hour shifts" etc, he may have finally reached the point where FA was costing more than he could afford. What with the constant moving, new house, and surprise trips to pick up cats that Sciggles collected. He saw an out and jumped on it without thinking, much like he's done in the past with just about every choice he's ever been given. I would suspect that he's getting paid for the time being to fuck around and create an excuse for them to get rid of him later. I just wonder what he will do when he finally realizes he fucked himself, his "friends", and his community over
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Also I have to wonder if this means he's somehow a full-time employee of IMVU now; like the whole thing was just a scheme to get himself a paying job doing fuck-all but "maintaining" the site.
He has previously referenced "his boss" on IMVU, so presumably this is the case. Now that running FA is his only job these days, and he can't use "busy doing work" as an excuse, does this mean we'll finally get the new UI updahahahaha I can't do it. If the sale was completed about 2 months ago, what have they been paying him to do these past 2 months? Is he engaging the community by posting shit on twitter?
I hope he's enjoying these care-free days of getting paid to fuck with FA to his heart's content, because there's no way it can last. Eventually IMVU will want FA to be something more than just a tremendous money sink, and then it will all fall down around him.
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And the art theft by IMVU has officially begon:
http://www.imvu.com/shop/web_search.php?keywords=furry&cat=107-1027-1446&page=1
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(http://i.imgur.com/zsw7kil.png)
http://new.spring.me/#!/dragoneer/q/207732784?
Dragoneer is denying having written that, despite the fact that anyone can go to the link and see what he wrote. Check out his response to being confronted with that screenshot of his formspring answer:
https://twitter.com/aldude999/status/579341464905199616
(http://i.imgur.com/VkvWxKQ.png)
Also, it turns out that people on IMVU are stealing art from artists on FA and selling it as content on IMVU (IMVU profits from this because you buy the art with in-game credits you have to buy from them) and have been doing so for years, and dragoneer says he will "discuss it" with his boss at IMVU:
Spectacular failure of due diligence & disclosure by @Dragoneer that @IMVU users have profited from stolen art from @furaffinity for years!
^
https://twitter.com/Novemurr/status/579317710313689088
@KravenBlueberry @Dragoneer @IMVU @furaffinity http://www.imvu.com/shop/web_search.php?keywords=furry+poster&within=all_products&page=1&cat=&bucket=&tag=&sortorder=desc&quickfind=new&product_rating=0&offset=&narrow=&manufacturers_id=&derived_from=0&derivable=0&sort=score … Have fun: 370,545 products found
^
https://twitter.com/Novemurr/status/579318740485058561
@Novemurr Protecting furry art *is* what I do, and it's not something I accept. Period. I will discuss it and bring it up.
^
https://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/579331964047613953
Dragoneer also took shots at e621:
@JefferyCore @leviwolstrom @Novemurr @furaffinity Are you going to ask Bad Dragon to financially reimburse artist posted to e621, too?
^
https://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/579341234545823746
And white knighted IMVU:
@Foxxel @Novemurr @duskdargent I worked at Amazon. Amazon has listings with items with stolen art. It's the users, NOT the company.
^
https://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/579341049602117632
Dragoneer made and then very quickly deleted this tweet:
(http://i.imgur.com/bsfKyoJ.jpg)
Apparantly IMVU also makes it very hard to remove your art from their site requiring a lengthy process and a DMCA, and if your artwork being sold is adult it will be behind their paywall so you have to register and pay $20 for an adult account. Discussion here:
https://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/1353961-FA-IMVU-Discussion?p=5111915&viewfull=1#post5111915
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(http://i.imgur.com/hPlxAOV.png)
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He has previously referenced "his boss" on IMVU
That alone is what makes this whole IMVU thing worth it. Not only will he be accountable to the furries to maintain any of his social capital at all, but he'll also be accountable to someone at IMVU, for whom this will become a game of grading against metrics. Which metrics in particular remain to be seen, but I do suspect it will begin to involve balancing a budget, keeping support ticket counts down, and giving the site an overhaul as it has since several years so sorely needed.
Like I mentioned here (https://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/1353961-FA-IMVU-Discussion?p=5110805&viewfull=1#post5110805) (in response to PheagleAdler), he has a lot of political equity in FA currently within IMVU in exchange for the financial equity he cashed out in the sale. The thing about that resource is that it's very finite.
See, but here's the thing, Neer is still part of FA, he still controls it. That's a bit different from "letting it go."
OK, so, I think you're confusing financial equity with social or political equity. Dragoneer currently has none of the former since he cashed it in with IMVU, and it's currently disputed exactly what share of the equity in FA he had at the time of sale. On the other hand, since IMVU has granted him a position controlling the direction in which FA drifts, he happens to have a lot of social and political equity.
In simpler terms: Dragoneer doesn't own FA any longer, but he does still happen to dictate how it works.
On the financial equity front, the disputes come down to who has what documents, who can substantiate which claims, and with whom what agreements were made. If Arcturus did the legwork to document that, yes, they were the owner of the claimed 50% legal interest in FA (by whatever instrument, be it stock or any other commodity), there may be a good case to be had. At this juncture, though, any litigation to come out of it will be purely on principle since the costs involved will very likely outweigh any of the benefit.
His livelihood depends on it now. There's no turning back. Also, I wonder if he and the ladyperson will be moving to California at some point. It's implied that he's in the management chain there somewhere, and even SV companies tend to keep their managers close.
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Dragoneer made and then very quickly deleted this tweet:
(http://i.imgur.com/bsfKyoJ.jpg)
Sean's going to get fired before he even gets to CA with comments like that, whether by "mistake" or otherwise. I'm surprised he hasn't gone for the old plan A when drama comes along - more often of his own making than not - which was to try to go into hiding for a few days until it boiled over.
Heck, a couple of days in and he's still not even getting the meatshield admins to help put up a concerted "defense". Distributed management was never really his strong point...
At least the fandom as a whole is in a better place than it was online ten years back, IMO, despite all the obvious issues around and about.
(Oh, and hiya again, y'all. Yes; I know most of the details behind the transfer of FA over to Sean in the first place, too - and right back to the start on FA1 - but that's another story which other parties probably don't wish to be dragged out again.)
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Well I've been banned finally, from both the forums and the main site.
Is it time to post all the information I've promised him I wouldn't reveal?
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I came here immediately to ask why you were banned. And my answer is yes.
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I came here immediately to ask why you were banned. And my answer is yes.
Forums say
You have been banned for the following reason:
Account has been closed for disruptive commentary, posting rumors-as-facts and attempting to intentionally spur further drama on the site.
Date the ban will be lifted: Never
and the main site says
Your account has been permanently banned for the following reason:
Account has been closed for disruptive commentary, posting rumors-as-facts and attempting to intentionally spur further drama on the site.
The suspension will be lifted after the amount of time specified below.
Should you feel that this is a mistake, please send an email to our accounts department
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I came here immediately to ask why you were banned. And my answer is yes.
I must be getting slow nowadays...
==
@Rowedahelicon: Someone has thin skin on FA but suspensions and bans do seem to be handed out far more freely than they used to be, these past few years.
Just as well you didn't post facts like staff hacking into PMs (https://forums.vivisector.org/index.php?topic=193.msg1575#msg1575) and causing years worth of drama of the back of that, then, rather than "whispers and gossip"? ;)
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Sean's going to get fired before he even gets to CA with comments like that
Damn, I missed you. (:
(Oh, and hiya again, y'all. Yes; I know most of the details behind the transfer of FA over to Sean in the first place, too - and right back to the start on FA1 - but that's another story which other parties probably don't wish to be dragged out again.)
You know, actually, you should chronicle that somewhere.
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An interesting comment (check out the stuff about IMVU being a "lean" company!) which has been doing the rounds on twitter, I don't know where it is located on FA though:
(http://i.imgur.com/6UoQ36t.jpg)
(Oh, and hiya again, y'all. Yes; I know most of the details behind the transfer of FA over to Sean in the first place, too - and right back to the start on FA1 - but that's another story which other parties probably don't wish to be dragged out again.)
Oh! How wonderful to see you again. I found that little book you sent me, long ago, recently when I was sorting out my books.
(http://i.imgur.com/AZhlBU1.jpg)
Heck, a couple of days in and he's still not even getting the meatshield admins to help put up a concerted "defense"
From what I've seen over the past few years, he can't get them to do that any more. The only one I've seen stick her head above the parapets in the past year or so is one Quoting Mungo (who sticks to the blandest and easiest things). Chase styles himself "Über Admin" & "Dragoneer's First Officer" on his FA profile:
http://www.furaffinity.net/user/chase
And even more grandly: "Director of FA" on his twitter profile, and yet I've not seen him say anything about this current IMVU thing or indeed anything admin'y in public for a long time.
An interesting little thing is that Chase has abused his admin powers to give himself a custom avatar which is over 500kb in size (the limit for everyone else being 550kb):
http://a.facdn.net/1424255659/chase.gif
while that might be considered a mere bagatelle I feel it indicates what qualities he brings to the table as the "Uber admin" of the site. I'm sure a lean company won't be happy with persons of such quality.
Edit:
Chase also gave his own boyfriend a rules breaking 301kb avatar:
http://a.facdn.net/20150321/dyluck.gif
^
http://www.furaffinity.net/user/dyluck
So the 2nd in command of IMVU's FA is someone who breaks the sites rules for himself and his BF. Good job.
Edit Edit
(http://i.imgur.com/MXywNs7.jpg)
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Heck, a couple of days in and he's still not even getting the meatshield admins to help put up a concerted "defense".
I wonder what their opinions of the sale are, and when they found out about it. Kind of makes me think Yak delaying the new UI is a "fuck you, pay me." thing.
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Heck, a couple of days in and he's still not even getting the meatshield admins to help put up a concerted "defense".
I wonder what their opinions of the sale are, and when they found out about it. Kind of makes me think Yak delaying the new UI is a "fuck you, pay me." thing.
I wouldn't be surprised, I've really wanted to see what his take on all of this is so far.
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That alone is what makes this whole IMVU thing worth it. Not only will he be accountable to the furries to maintain any of his social capital at all, but he'll also be accountable to someone at IMVU, for whom this will become a game of grading against metrics. Which metrics in particular remain to be seen, but I do suspect it will begin to involve balancing a budget, keeping support ticket counts down, and giving the site an overhaul as it has since several years so sorely needed.
His livelihood depends on it now. There's no turning back.
It sounds good, but I have major doubts that he is remotely capable of pulling it off. For the last 10 years, the site has been run somewhere between a charity and a hobby; doing as little as possible to keep the site running, and using his spare time to indulge in his fetishes and playing king furry. Now suddenly he's got a boss to report to, perhaps some performance reviews to endure, targets to meet, and if it hasn't come up already, he'll be tasked with actually trying to turn some sort of profit. Long forgotten and neglected features like premium accounts and print-on-demand will now become lifelines. After 10 years of slacking off, making false promises, and wasting money, he'll have to not just put real time and effort into FA, but turn his whole lifestyle around.
The problems will no doubt be compounded by how vastly different these two different companies operate, as noted earlier. An interview (http://readwrite.com/2010/01/13/turn-your-startup-into-a-lean) with their co-founder reads like the exact opposite of how 'neer runs FA.
"A lean startup is one that takes advantage of open-source technologies"
Dragoneer once spent money on a licence for (poorly-made) wiki software instead of a free alternative.
"Timothy Fitz, a software engineer at IMVU, says the developers average 50 new code iterations per day."
FA barely updates more than a few times a year, and even then just minor bug fixes or pointless UI changes.
"Ries says it came from books like Lean Thinking, which outlines ways companies can reduce waste and boost revenue"
FA has servers that do nothing, new ones purchased that are way over-spec, and potential revenue sources like advertising are frequently ignored.
He's off to a great start by accomplishing precisely zero since the deal was made two months ago. I would love to see this be the push 'neer so sorely needs to actually do something with FA, but if anything I think it will just break him.
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Speaking of new servers...
(http://i.imgur.com/u8M5ZGo.png)
New servers won't keep people from leaving if IMVU fucks up, Sean.
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https://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/579725560521318400
So here Neer states that FA could pay its own operating costs. I guess no one can claim that regular operation of the site was a big burden on him then.
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It sounds good, but I have major doubts that he is remotely capable of pulling it off.
I hate to be the pessimist, but I have those same major doubts. Nevertheless, I also have faith that he'll find a way to make it work and turn his life around. This whole exercise is going to test his ability to maintain the relationships required to keep the trust of the furries who make use of FA as well as the management above him at IMVU.
It's a net win for everybody involved, frankly, no matter how it turns out from here. The worst thing that could happen is that FA gets melted down for scrap without any consideration for the cultural value of it all, which means that the past 10 years of furry history wind up being a wash. I can just see Jason Scott foaming at the mouth about it now…
Now suddenly he's got a boss to report to, perhaps some performance reviews to endure, targets to meet, and if it hasn't come up already, he'll be tasked with actually trying to turn some sort of profit.
I think the emphasis is going to be less on graded for being able to turn the site net-positive and more on turning the site into a loss leader. Think drug dealers and companies like Slack (https://slack.com/). First hit's free, but it gets you hooked.
He'll be dragged through performance reviews and quarterly meetings notwithstanding, and his competency as a manager of this particular property may or may not be questioned.
Long forgotten and neglected features like premium accounts and print-on-demand will now become lifelines. After 10 years of slacking off, making false promises, and wasting money, he'll have to not just put real time and effort into FA, but turn his whole lifestyle around.
I'm hoping that he actually does and that he proves us all wrong.
The problems will no doubt be compounded by how vastly different these two different companies operate, as noted earlier. An interview (http://readwrite.com/2010/01/13/turn-your-startup-into-a-lean) with their co-founder reads like the exact opposite of how 'neer runs FA.
Frankly, it's the exact opposite model employed by several companies, my current employer included. The fact that FA didn't run lean is just a testament to the same sort of non-accountable management worms eating into the brains of everyone there.
He's off to a great start by accomplishing precisely zero since the deal was made two months ago. I would love to see this be the push 'neer so sorely needs to actually do something with FA, but if anything I think it will just break him.
I hope not. Like I said, I do hope that he ends up proving us all wrong.
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I think the emphasis is going to be less on graded for being able to turn the site net-positive and more on turning the site into a loss leader. Think drug dealers and companies like Slack (https://slack.com/). First hit's free, but it gets you hooked.
You'll have to expand a bit on that one for me. Do you mean they might see FA as nothing more than an advertising platform to get people to join IMVU? If so, they were already advertising IMVU on FA anyway. Unless of course that advertising actually worked far better than most people imagined, and they want to squeeze it dry.
Edit: I just realised the ads started after FA was already sold, so I assume they were going by FA's popularity alone as a guide. It seems to me they wouldn't get too many users from FA, since anyone remotely interested in something like IMVU would have already joined SL, which is far superior.
No word on whether or not it took him a month to reply to their ad inquiries.
If the site was sold in Jan and these ads started late Feb, that might not actually be far from the truth after all.
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https://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/579725560521318400
So here Neer states that FA could pay its own operating costs. I guess no one can claim that regular operation of the site was a big burden on him then.
The funny thing is the inability to pay for infrastructure could have easily been resolved by... I don't know... having not-dirt-cheap ad rates or some sort of premium functionality...
Oh well. IMVU will take care of that. I can't wait to see the only "community" ads be for Bad Dragon and one of the scam "furry dating" websites next to "ARTISTS HATE HIM! Learn do draw using this one weird trick!" ads.
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Oh well. IMVU will take care of that. I can't wait to see the only "community" ads be for Bad Dragon and one of the scam "furry dating" websites next to "ARTISTS HATE HIM! Learn do draw using this one weird trick!" ads.
"ARTISTS HATE HIM! Learn to sell out your 'community' using this one weird trick!"
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More proof that Piche does not care.
http://puu.sh/gLUBJ/d87ec9bf2e.png
https://www.furaffinity.net/user/shadydude/
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Dragoneer comes clean in this exclusive interview.
https://youtu.be/tDRsPE1BbB8
I don't know who made this but I had to wipe the Red Bull I was drinking off of my screen.
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one Onta (26,000+ watchers, operates numerous furry and non-furry pay-sites) made a journal saying:
I have no fucking idea what's going on with this IMVU bullshit but if you like the art on my gallery you should start saving it now. I have zero interest in policing the IMVU fuckery and even less interest in having my art & content leverage imvu fuckery.
Get this shit handled NOW or deal with people ditching your site.
^
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6603906/
Cue more discussion of the IMVU art theft issues and crap damage control from Dragoneer:
(http://i.imgur.com/jCl4sdQ.jpg)
^
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6603906/#cid:44992213
Also, I think Dragoneer's stilted cargo-cult pr attempts are getting worse and worse:
Onta,
We're working directly with artists who violate IMVU policy. Worry not. When users report art theft to me that takes place on IMVU I'm working directly with the artists to help file reports against the users who stole art.
But in the unfortunate reality, any marketplace where users can submit this kind of content is prone to theft -- be it eBay, Amazon, Redbubble and more. This isn't an IMVU-specific issue, but the difference is I work for IMVU, and part of my goals is easing the issues for artists.
^
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6603906/#cid:44992190
"Worry not"? "But in the unfortunate reality"? It's like he's communicating in Engrish from a 90s Mega Drive game or something.
A response to Dragoneer:
That is unfortunate. It's also unfortunate that your employers are actively working against artists who are trying to even see if their art has been stolen in the AP section by refusing to even allow them to browse it without paying, providing their SSN, credit card in-name and photo ID. Not to mention the only method for takedown is DMCA, which is the least possible effort required by law to police copyright.
Most sites, including Amazon, offer a way to report products for various reasons, but IMVU does not. Even flagging (which accomplishes little) requires an account on the site, which many artists don't want. And to top it all off, some of this stuff has been on there for years, and a lot of it violates IMVU's own ToS. That should go to show you how much they actually care about policing their store, at least not so long as they continue to make money from it.
^
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6603906/#cid:44993119
And from the FA forums, Dragoneer admits that even as an IMVU employee he can't do anything about rampant art theft and how IMVU handles it + "we're working on it":
IMVU is aware of the issue that their requirements to register to view adult content is causing some artists. I do not have a good answer. Suffice to say, some parts of my day are spent browsing looking for copyright content, and I will be contacting artists I can identify and let them know how to get their content removed.
I've never been for art theft. I'm an artist, my wife's an artist, pretty much all of my friends and family are. I get there are some issues now, but we are working on trying to smooth them out.
^
https://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/1353961-FA-IMVU-Discussion?p=5114750&viewfull=1#post5114750
Edit:
I've posted in a lot of journals to help discuss and relay issues to users.
^
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6603906/#cid:44993835
Amazing.
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Onta's popular, and it's the big popular artists leaving that threatens FA the most. It's like a mall losing it's anchor stores, the other stores can't keep it afloat. It's really interesting to see if Neer's attempt to 'save' FA is what leads it to go 'Full MySpace' and sink within a year.
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https://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/1353961-FA-IMVU-Discussion/page41
This is so hilarious.
That's solely to verify age, nothing more. I've been sending some users links to their art on the marketplace to help them identify what needs to be removed.
The response
Just an FYI, even if an AP user finds the link to an AP product and sends that to a non AP user, the non AP user cannot view the product or the page. All they will have to go on is your word and if you also provide a screen shot of the actual product page for them. No one, whatsoever, who is NOT AP cannot see anything AP in the catalog, store, game, ect, even if they have a direct link, they will get a blank page and told they must log in, and without AP next to your name you cannot see anything.
Less important, but equally funny reply
I find this beautiful.
Dragoneer has been helping people for days by doing something that can't in any way help unless the artist buys access. That's it guys, it's all been completely pointless. This is it, nothing we can say or do can beat this level of terrible.
Seriously, go home. It's over.
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Ya know, I've been watching this clusterfuck for days now, and I dont recall seeing anyone connected with FA besides Skiggles say anything about this acquisition. Usually they're around trying to protect Needs ass when shit goes down, but this time they've been totally silent. Maybe Need has absolutely no support from even his own buttbuddies at this point. Or maybe I just haven't been paying enough attention to notice them comment.
Anyone seen anything from other Admins/Mods/Anyone?
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The only staff I've seen get involved with this are Lizardking and he's on the side of the community and Mr. I'll-Resign-If-I-Don't-See-A-New-UI-In-A-Vague-Allotted -Timeframe (Kalmor) to do a late and half assed job of thread moderation.
I don't even think dogfucker has spoken his piece on this debacle.
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I don't even think dogfucker has spoken his piece on this debacle.
(http://puu.sh/gOCEO/3d1c3e293e.png)
https://twitter.com/ConeOfFire/status/579359820311998464
I think Chase's quiet support says enough for his piece.
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So a couple of days ago, FA posted this journal.
Thank you all for raising the concerns about products you have seen in IMVU's catalog. Its important to remember that IMVU's shop has over 16 million items and all of them are user-generated (not created by IMVU). Products are submitted to the catalog and reviewed by peers before they are made available for sale. Of course as with any UGC (user-generated content) situation, this means inappropriate or copied content may get through.
IMVU community has a large segment of customers who like furry-themed products - avatars, furry outfits, posters etc. Some of their creators have accounts on FA as well and may be selling their own artwork on both sites. Some of the content may be copied. Do note that the content being there is not related to IMVU's acquisition of FA and has not been added to the catalog as a result.
There is a process to deal with this that is followed by IMVU. It is called DMCA process and details of that process can be found in their TOS toward the end. IMVU must comply with the DMCA process exactly as it is specified and therefore all required information is needed before products can be taken down. Do remember that the original content must be yours before you can initiate a DMCA takedown request - you may not file it on someone else's behalf.
We may have stated before that you can flag and report products if you believe them to be copied from you, however, that is not correct information. DMCA is the only way to request action on such content.
We have heard your concerns about not being able to view content that is AP-rated in IMVU's catalog and therefore not available for viewing to the general public. FA is currently with IMVU to figure out a solution for that issue.
We understand and appreciate everyone is reacting to the news and there is a lot of information going around - facts as well as rumors. We are doing our best to monitor your feedback and concerns, respond to them and sometimes work with IMVU to get you the appropriate response.
Emphasis is mine. Since then, Dragoneer has maintained that DMCA is the only way to take down the stolen art.
In steps Strype, a former FAU Guest of Honor (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/FA:_United_6) and someone who appears to be generally buddy-buddy with Princess Piche. Earlier, he posted a journal.
So, the other day I found someone selling my art on IMVU. I asked him to take it down, and he said he did. Then I saw the thread in the forum that showed the Access Pass Only stuff, and my stuff was still there. So, I poked Dragoneer about it. I -JUST got this PM
RE: IMVU Account
From: [USER REDACTED]
To: Strype
15 minutes ago
You know...I was trying to remove any and all work of yours from my catalog on IMVU, but now that you reported the two pieces of yours that I accidentally missed, I'm down several hundred dollars that I put into that account myself. I have never received a single dollar back from IMVU for what I did and contributed to that community, and now it's all gone and permanently banned. That's a pretty harsh outcome that I was trying to prevent and be nice with you about. Hope you're happy.
Permanently banned from IMVU,
[USER REDACTED]
PS, don't bother to reply to this, I don't check this account.
WE SHIT, MAYBE YOU SHOULDA TAKEN IT ALL DOWN, THEN INSTEAD OF LEAVING UP ALL THE STUFF YOU THOUGHT I WOULDNT FIND OUT ABOUT.
So yeah, my stance on all this? I REALLY don't like IMVU, but this art theft thing has gone from LOOOONG before the buyout. But hey, a bit of help from another site to help whip this one into shape ain't a bad thing, and it'll be a lot easier than FA bobbing along on its own. With the extra support we can probably get the UI updates and all the fancy stuff we've been hoping to get around here.
And as for Dragoneer, yeah, things haven't been perfect, and sadly it seems that hating on the guy is the thing all the "cool kids' are doing nowadays. I know it's easier to imagine him as a money-grubbing incompetent nincompoop and not a human being that's trying to do whats best for the site, but I've met the dude, and he's always come off to me as a genuine guy that's trying to help the community and eats WAY too much shit for it.
And I know you guys are probably gonna give me shit for defending the guy, too. You can keep that to yourselves.
Look, point is, look up there. The thieves are getting their asses banned, and we have Dragoneer to thank for it. Maybe we should consider putting down the torches and pitchforks and help the guy out. If you spot thefts, tell the artists. And artists, take note of who's selling your stuff and note Dragoneer about it. That's what I did less than 12 hours ago, and we're starting to see results. This theft has been going on for YEARS before the buy-out, but now we have a chance to scrub it all out, which will be good for everyone.
Now, if you don't mind, I'mma go chill for the next 23 hours and have a kickass day to myself, and then get back to work on all that art you homies seem to really dig.
You can see Strype simply messaged Piche, which is the exact opposite of "DMCA is the only way to request action on such content." Some people are claiming they need to send in physical DMCA paperwork (https://twitter.com/artbyEtuix/status/580568900292767745), which is actually the only legal way it's valid even though most reputable businesses honor online copies. Not sure if this is confusion amongst the users or IMVU's doing.
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I joined after a long time lurking because this recent drama just really made me go 'what?'
On the whole 'what does staff say' I saw some dude who claims he's an admin 'behind the scenes' reply to a journal of someone I watch. Dude's name is Kyoujin and says
I still work behind the scenes as an admin here and there, and although I probably will be leaving soon (not related in any way to the IMVU change).. I can say that this won't be the case. We have our own rules on FA, and they're not being changed at all. FA isn't going to be run any differently, which is why the admin team is still the same. I can't go into every detail due to an NDA, but it seriously won't change the site like people are worrying about.
I understand the concern, and even when I first heard I was worried.. but it's natural to worry. No one likes change. But art theft will still be dealt with the same way, and the rules we have in place are not changing in any bad way.
- http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6605552/#cid:45008865
Can these guys really be that dense?
And the Strype post... so a close popufur friend of Piche messaged himabout a guy who was plagiarizing him on IMVU, and the situation was solved. Whoopee? So, how does that change the fact that anyone who is not riding Dragoneer's cock favor has to shell out and go through the DMCA process instead of getting a Speshul Favor? Doesn't he see that his post is basically showing how favoritist the FA infrastructure still is? Piche will end over backwards for his favor pr0nzter, but if you're not one of the people bringing in the cash, you can go to the line with the rest of the plebes.
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K-jin was at one point an admin. Last I heard they had taken an extended absence and they were complaining that Neer wouldn't let them take up their admin role again, even though they were told the position was always open to them.
I guess they got that issue worked out then.
Course, if K-jin doesn't have that @ next to their account name, they're operating under a secret account. TRANSPARENCY!
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Can these guys really be that dense?
Kyoujin's extremely lengthy reply there is interesting, I think, because it illustrates the attitude of the FA staff who are loyal to Dragoneer and stick around down the years, and of people who relentlessly defend/brown-nose Dragoneer.
He really is that dense and repeatedly blames "conspiracy theories", declares that there just aren't enough people willing to volunteer as admins because of "trolls" and mindlessly defends FA's set up without ever questioning how Dragoneer let it get like that, and simply asserts that FA will always be as bad as it currently is, and flatly states at the end that he won't respond to any further comments because what he's said is the truth and that is that:
There's not enough people who truly want to help, or they aren't willing to step out into the crossfire because they're afraid if they help, they'll be targeted by trolls [...]
These conspiracy theorists will never be satisfied. People just LOVE to play the blame game. That's why people attack the site and start conspiracies [...] they just make up their own conspiracies. Hell, I've heard plenty of ridiculous conspiracies about the site [...]
IMVU is not going to ruin the site. Our new system is going to improve our huge issues with tickets, and things will be much better. However, it takes time.. and sadly, people aren't patient, and again, people like to point fingers and create drama. That's how it always is, and how it always will be.
[...] nothing I, or anyone else says, will change how people want to think.
[...] If you want to reply to my comment, that's fine, just please don't take anything out of context. I may or may not read the response, but either way I probably wont' respond [...] There's not much more reason for me to respond again because, I put up the truth
^
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6605552/#cid:45009307
Kyoujin's ignorant claims about people being afraid to volunteer for FA is contradicted by evidence such as this staff recruitment journal where hundreds of people demonstrate interest and state they've applied and no one says "Gee, I'd love to apply but I'm afraid of trolls":
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/5122085/
I think the repeatedly invocation of conspiracy theories demonstrates his absolutely contempt for, ignorance of and disconnect from the FA community and his bootlicking loyalty to Dragoneer. There are so many documented fuck ups, failures, lies &c. of Dragoneer documented in this forum and all Koujin can do is to invoke conspiracy theories and blame people for wanting to be disgusted with how FA is run, as if Dragoneer's constant fuck ups were non-existent:
"nothing I, or anyone else says, will change how people want to think".
Sadly, If he ever becomes aware of this post I believe he'd simply take it as "ugh, those damn dirty trolls hatin' on the FA staff and inventing conspiracy theories" and never stop to think that Dragoneer doesn't have to run FA as he does.
Last thought I had: If one is talking about conspiracy theories, surely Dragoneer's selling FA to IMVU and keeping it a secret for several months is closer to a genuine conspiracy (against the community and users) than anything anyone else has come up with.
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If I may, allow me to indulge in WILD SPECULATION
You know what would be funny?
I assume everyone heard how Alkora left FA after the sale was announced.
Wouldn't it be funny if Alkora and Arcturus decided to let bygones be bygones and doctor up that paperwork stating that Arcturus has 50% stake in FA?
Well I think it would be funny.
But back in reality, looks like there was a QA with the IMVU CEO. First I heard about it was when they posted the journal. Nothing new in it, just the same PR speak we've already been getting. CEO pretty much told artists that they can go to hell and file DMCAs to remove their stolen content.
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And now a long interview on Penguin?Random House (the publishing company) blog about FA and IMVU:
http://penguinrandomhouse.ca/hazlitt/blog/fur-trade-when-niche-community-goes-corporate
Man, then the interviewer even says "That kind of describes a frighteningly large chunk of the Internet: People squabbling on a platform that doesn’t really work, and is probably run by somebody evil and/or stupid."
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I left Amazon AWS after being transferred to a manager who was openly passing the blame onto other employees who didn't deserve it. I refused to work for him, and put in my resignation.
Explains why the sale happened so fast. Also, didn't the same thing happen at his last job? Weird how he keeps getting moved to shitty managers and dead weight groups before getting laid off or quitting (or in this case, probably in line to get fired).
I'm sure the irony of quitting because a manager was passing the blame onto people who didn't deserve it is certainly lost on him.
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Explains why the sale happened so fast. Also, didn't the same thing happen at his last job? Weird how he keeps getting moved to shitty managers and dead weight groups before getting laid off or quitting (or in this case, probably in line to get fired).
What are the odds of hearing the same thing from him about IMVU in a few months?
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This is interesting, the first time I've seen someone try going over Dragoneer's head to IMVU, two shouts from his page:
(http://i.imgur.com/VgCa6Ja.jpg)
Dragoneer chose to interpret that as a threat (despite the person saying it wasn't) and left two shouts on that persons page:
I've passed your ticket up. In the mean time, please don't threaten me. IMVU is aware there is a ticket backlog and we're working on it.
We are working to close the backlog and have brought on new mods to help. IMVU is aware of that.
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November, who is a pretty well-known "art whore"-tier "popufur" has published a letter (https://twitter.com/Novemurr/status/583680764564344834) he wrote to Dragoneer about the sale. Allegedly, he sent this to Dragoneer and received no response (not a huge surprise there)
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1o3X3AC9vIWx877VWyWyJu8_q964oqo6dxDu_N6JrUcE/preview?sle=true
To Dragoneer:
I know you’ve gotten mountains of feedback from the FA community in recent days now that the sale to IMVU was publicly revealed. Many people have voiced legitimate concerns about this acquisition because they care about their community. Yet among the thousands of comments and opinions, you specifically reached out to me on Saturday with a very personal statement. I wanted to discuss it with you in private but you didn’t respond back. So instead of continuing my public expression, I took the last two weeks to try to calm my emotions and think rationally. However, with the numerous announcements, clarifications, and Q&As issued in the wake of the acquisition, my feelings about this deal have only solidified.
I’ve been part of the fandom for over half my living life with nine of those years on FA, growing into the fandom as the fandom grew into me. Through ups and downs, glitches and storms, I’ve been distinctly mute on any criticism on you or FA because I recognized that you and the volunteer staff had exceptionally difficult tasks. Despite the unfulfilled promises and errors in judgment, I stayed quiet. But do not mistake my silence as forgiveness or implicit agreement with your decisions in the past. And now, with the acquisition by IMVU, everything has changed.
On Saturday, I tweeted that the sale of FA was “a spectacular failure of due diligence and disclosure” by you and IMVU. These words were not plucked from the air but picked with purpose and intent. It is in these words that you directly expressed disappointment that I did not contact you first and privately. However, the irony is deep: two years ago, I gave you everything I had on DMK in the hopes that you would take action behind the scenes to get rid of a leeching pest from our community; instead, nothing happened for over a month and I was forced to release my findings publicly. If you didn’t act on matters of fact despite my credibility and reputation being on the line, then I had no reason to believe that contacting you on matters of opinion would result in a different outcome.
Fundamentally, I didn’t contact you because you are no longer a furry protecting furry interests anymore. You and FA are now corporate entities who answer to stakeholders with financial interests, not the community for our well-being, and I have no qualms about voicing my opinion publicly on an entity whose goal is to monetize people for profit. I have stayed quiet in the past because we could rely on you having our best interests at heart, but don’t expect the benefit of my doubt or silence now that you and FA are part of the corporate chain and system.
That corporate system is at the heart of this discontent. Furry was the one last vestige where a fandom is truly free from corporate influence: Star Trek belongs to Paramount, Star Wars belongs to Disney, even MLP belongs to Hasbro. The Wikipedia entry for “Fandom” lists over a dozen notable ones, of which furry is the only one that is not derived from someone else’s ideas or creation. Furry has thrived on independence and creativity as we built ourselves, almost exclusively free from external influence. Although no entity can ever own our community, you alone sold our most populous platform not only to an outside corporation, but to one whose association with furry is so non-existent that their outlook for a #furrific union instantly became a universal point of derision on Twitter.
Such is the chasm between IMVU and Furaffinity, as stark as the difference between the fandom’s creative design in anthropomorphism versus the sculpturing of stereotypical Southern Californian fashion models. To make things worse, you hid the acquisition from the community for two months, miring this acquisition in public distrust and suspicion. Despite how many times you repeat it, I will never lend credence to your claim that IMVU acquired FA just for ad space and to “grow the community,” especially given how you and ownership were still and continue to be woefully unprepared for the community’s questions and concerns. What remaining shreds of your credibility have been strewn across eight journals about this deal, each of which only regurgitates the same non-answers that spawns further confusion and concern.
What is most damning, though, is that despite having two months to put together a comprehensible rollout plan, the community had to find out for ourselves that the very entity that acquired FA is profiting off our intellectual property! People know that IMVU corporate is not stealing, but it is the failure of due diligence to identify that FA was being sold to an enabler of theft who has already reaped unquestionable profits with highly questionable methods. You and IMVU then insisted that artists must and can only go through the DCMA process to remove copyright material, squandering a prime opportunity to create and build rapport and trust with the community. Even worse, there is still no resolution to how our community can monitor the rampant violations in IMVU’s pay-only adult section. In a business transaction supposedly to create synergy, you’ve created none, and from the get-go, it’s clear that you and IMVU wanted our trust on a silver platter when you neither earned nor deserve any.
I’ve kept my opinions strictly on the acquisition itself so far and have refrained from speculating on the future impact of IMVU’s ownership. That said, I believe the process to turn FA from a creative community to a corporate commodity has already begun: you and IMVU are so eager to convince us of this acquisition by touting about how many active accounts are on each site and how its traffic ranks, yet you can’t even quantify your assertion of just how “many furries” share the two communities. Furthermore, IMVU’s repeated intention to stay hands-off but only change advertising is the most direct reflection of FA as a financial and commercial commodity. It will be a matter of time of when, not if, the foundation of the website dissolves and the ugly heads of monetization will rear on FA.
At the end of the day, regardless of how much you want to sugarcoat your rhetoric, the future of FA as the largest online furry website in the world belongs to IMVU and not the community that built it, of which you were once a part. You owned FA and had every right to do whatever you wanted, but that doesn’t absolve you from criticism from a community who’s just as invested as you, especially if you nixed consideration of keeping this website within the fandom purely based on whether or not you would maintain control. Now, you’ve become merely a figurehead for IMVU, despite what you or ownership want us to believe. It’s a matter of when, not if, your tenure with IMVU ends and responsibility this website gets passed off to someone else who’s possibly as clueless about our community and fandom as their social media team. I can only wonder if you’ll sign another NDA to leave the community to fend for ourselves for months on end when this eventually happens.
For years, the community could always count on you to have our best interests in mind, but now, we face a future of corporate ownership who’s demonstrated interests are not so much creativity itself but the commercialism derived from that creativity. In the end, you spurned numerous efforts to keep the world’s largest furry community within the fandom, instead ironically selling to a company whose ad-stricken freemium service hosts users who had already been stealing and profiting off of our very community for years. Despite having two months of preparation, you absolutely failed to anticipate or prepare for the community’s skepticism of the acquisition and remain utterly inept in addressing those concerns. The community is not bound to a website and can always move, but it should have never come to this if not for years of mismanagement, ultimately leading to this unceremonious and bastardized transaction to sell out to a bidder whose motives for our fandom lives on corporate balance sheets and not the hearts and minds of our community.
Note: This letter was provided to Dragoneer for review before dissemination. The recipient declined any comment.
Of course, Dragoneer shows up to people replying to November's tweets to remind everyone of how much he CARES.
(http://i.imgur.com/HADSuzF.png)
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yes let's watch this man's grandstanding about the latest bullshit in furry and ignore the (likely) thousands of dollars he's shoved into adam wan's paypal account
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I wish IMVU wasn't as dumb as they seem to be. Tuesday night PHP-FPM crashed and Princess Piche and Co.'s incompetence was put on display for all to see.
At about 10:16PM EST, people start reporting the site is down and redirecting to the offline page.
FA is Down?
Am I the only one getting this message?
23 minutes later, a tweet from @furaffinity acknowledges the outage.
We are investigating the current site issues with FA.
Shortly after, an announcement is made on the forums.
We are currently investigating an issue resulting in a site outage.
Here's where it gets good. At 10:48 the site had returned to normal status. Dragoneer claims the "issue" was a fault with their internal monitoring (despite the fact the offline page was showing up) and reminds everyone that the server's uptime is 290 days. Why that means anything is something he only knows, since most people realize server uptime is worthless when your service uptime is shit.
Internal networks reported one of the servers as being offline. After looking into the issue, the server was up and operational (290 days uptime) and no issues were found. We believe it may have been a networking/routing issue, and are currently monitoring.
40 minutes later, the outage cause is revised. Turns out the monitoring was working fine, and the site fell over because PHP-FPM shit itself (Do they still not have redundant app servers???), restating on it's own.
After further inspection, php-fpm halted and caused the server to stop responding. Service recovered on its own.
We are still monitoring.
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Wow, that's not a half bad postmortem, compared to the previous gaping silence after every outage.
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40 minutes later, the outage cause is revised. Turns out the monitoring was working fine, and the site fell over because PHP-FPM shit itself (Do they still not have redundant app servers???), restating on it's own.
This is why process supervision is a thing.
Either way, dare I say it, but this is actually a marked improvement over their past behavior of simply skirting the entire thing, incompetence be damned.
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The complaints about the porn ads are coming in
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What does Neer have to say about all this?
https://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/613062886315982848
Screenshot: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3dA_YfnaxpnMzZEWnJoamRqa0U/edit?usp=docslist_api
OH LOL
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Dragoneer confirms that it's IMVU who handles the third party ads. This was pretty much assumed, but its good to know for certain.
https://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/613492061908692992
Screenshot: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3dA_YfnaxpnRGlTOUt2SV93Mlk/edit?usp=docslist_api
The official FA Twitter hasnt posted anything at all since May 29th. That post was about how more staff will be added in June. Not much time left for that one to come true.
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There's a petition to get rid of porny ads. This was posted on FurryMUCK's bulletin board:
13) LeiLani Today -- Please Sign the Petition to Get Rid of Porn Ads on Furaffinity?
From: LeiLani 08:09:05 06/24/15 PDT
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http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/fa-remove-adult-ads
I am appalled that IMVU, and its CEO Brett G. Durrett (@bdurrett), have labeled the furry fandom unfairly as an "adult site", and lent credence to naysayers and haters that the fandom is nothing but porn. Furaffinity is not a place for human porn, nor sexual gratification with, as one ad proclaims, "bitches". It is shocking that IMVU would blatantly host porn ads in a place that is not only used by adults, but children under 16 as well. THAT is a huge concern.
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/fa-remove-adult-ads
To lodge a formal complaint with IMVU investors:
http://www.menlovc.com/contact#
http://www.allegiscapital.com/contact.html
http://www.bridgescale.com/contact
Criswell predicts: this will accomplish what Internet petitions always accomplish, i.e., jack shit.
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There's a petition to get rid of porny ads. This was posted on FurryMUCK's bulletin board:
13) LeiLani Today -- Please Sign the Petition to Get Rid of Porn Ads on Furaffinity?
From: LeiLani 08:09:05 06/24/15 PDT
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http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/fa-remove-adult-ads
I am appalled that IMVU, and its CEO Brett G. Durrett (@bdurrett), have labeled the furry fandom unfairly as an "adult site", and lent credence to naysayers and haters that the fandom is nothing but porn. Furaffinity is not a place for human porn, nor sexual gratification with, as one ad proclaims, "bitches". It is shocking that IMVU would blatantly host porn ads in a place that is not only used by adults, but children under 16 as well. THAT is a huge concern.
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/fa-remove-adult-ads
To lodge a formal complaint with IMVU investors:
http://www.menlovc.com/contact#
http://www.allegiscapital.com/contact.html
http://www.bridgescale.com/contact
Criswell predicts: this will accomplish what Internet petitions always accomplish, i.e., jack shit.
true, it wont do anything cause it would mean IMVU actually cared but shown they dont with their own community.
its fine though, we have ads for beastiality showing up now
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its fine though, we have ads for beastiality showing up now
Someone, somewhere, is excited to see a spike in traffic to their seedy website
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Leilani, queen of drown-porn, making that petition is, as the kids say, top lel.
Though I recall she likes stirring the pot even more than underwater antics, so that fits.