Furaffinity leaks - An Ex-Admin speaks out about the terrible state of FA

[Arche Kruz]

You know, I have to wonder what you would realistically hope to accomplish with this. Arcturus' FALeaks site was far more damning, and yet it did nothing to kick Dragoneer's ass into gear. There is no saving him or FA, all you can do now is to point and laugh whenever FA and its admin team fucks up.

[nrr]

You know, I have to wonder what you would realistically hope to accomplish with this.

Judging by the goings-on over at FD2, I'd wager that it was all for attention.

There is no saving him or FA, all you can do now is to point and laugh whenever FA and its admin team fucks up.

I don't even do that anymore. I did, at one point in my life, find all of this quite hilarious, and even I wanted to throw some energy into the effort to get an art site up that didn't leave such a terrible taste in my mouth. Somewhere along the line, though, I grew up, and I saw fit to focus my energy elsewhere.

The entire landscape is horrendous. Maybe I'm just jaded?

[Conan]

9/10 times something like this happens, it's for attention. Still, at least the information is getting out and that's what's needed.

There's not going to be some mass departure overnight, but the more this happens, the more cracks appear in the already leaky wall that's keeping the users in.

[SimbaTheLion]

You know, I have to wonder what you would realistically hope to accomplish with this.

Judging by the goings-on over at FD2, I'd wager that it was all for attention.

Haha - the people over there seem more focused on whether you use "extend paw" in a document than the mass of content released. I've made it clear from the start what the goal was . There's been progress. Given the sheer blockheadedness of Dragoneer despite all of what's happened (I honestly did not think it was that bad - I was naive!), even the direct approach, I fully believe now there's no hope for FA.

The blog will go quiet for now though, with the final post as I planned being a sorrowful exposition of how even when the exact steps were laid out for him to get the improvement FA needs, and to finally be brave enough to apologise and come clean - with support and backup offered, he still was not able to do it. Nothing but a coward.

Also - they managed to code and release something in a day! He changed the submissions as suspected to try to break Kitashi's script as was suspected . Haha, guess it was laziness rather than incompetence after all. A fix is already coming for Kitashi's script.

Half-tempted to buy FA from him, but firstly - lol - "over $50k" - no, unrealistic valuation. And secondly, apparently he won't accept any price for it.

[Kirune]

Haha - the people over there seem more focused on whether you use "extend paw" in a document than the mass of content released.

Yeah, about that. You really would see more "progress" come out of this if you just stick all your logs in a .rar and let people comb through them, without commentary. Most of the things you've put logs to are things that are already well known. Like with the note leak, the most damning evidence was found when released to the masses.

[nrr]

Haha - the people over there seem more focused on whether you use "extend paw" in a document than the mass of content released. I've made it clear from the start what the goal was . There's been progress. Given the sheer

What you say explicitly at the outset could be wildly different from what your non-verbal cues say. The way you carried yourself through all of this seemed to indicate that you were accepting and even welcoming the newfound attention, very much like a celebrity would welcome it.

This is contrary to someone who is striving simply to be informative, who most often dumps the information and then retreats into the shadows

Half-tempted to buy FA from him, but firstly - lol - "over $50k" - no, unrealistic valuation. And secondly, apparently he won't accept any price for it.

His responses to my questions on Formspring really made his intent quite unmistakably clear, and that's right about when I stopped caring about this whole mess.

(Yes, I'm that StamenWhiskers fellow.)

[SimbaTheLion]

Haha - the people over there seem more focused on whether you use "extend paw" in a document than the mass of content released.

Yeah, about that. You really would see more "progress" come out of this if you just stick all your logs in a .rar and let people comb through them, without commentary. Most of the things you've put logs to are things that are already well known. Like with the note leak, the most damning evidence was found when released to the masses.

Haha - the people over there seem more focused on whether you use "extend paw" in a document than the mass of content released.

Yeah, about that. You really would see more "progress" come out of this if you just stick all your logs in a .rar and let people comb through them, without commentary. Most of the things you've put logs to are things that are already well known. Like with the note leak, the most damning evidence was found when released to the masses.

The thing is, as has been noted by some people, there are lots of things in the logs that are completely unrelated, like dealing with users' cases where they've submitted tickets, that sort of thing - those users haven't done anything wrong and I don't want them being brought out like that - it wouldn't be fair on them. I'd manually edit all that stuff out but the logs are around 2,000,000 lines - it simply isn't feasible.

Also, I've received comments such as (after releasing the second):

[09/04/2013 20:00:16] KJ: *click*
[09/04/2013 20:19:25] KJ: lol @ authoritay
[09/04/2013 20:21:50] Simba: .
[09/04/2013 20:22:12] KJ: This one was shorter.
[09/04/2013 20:22:27] KJ: I have to say, the chats can be ... Very confusing, and I'm not sure how much of that is missing context and how much of it is stupidity
[09/04/2013 20:22:28] Simba: Indeed, more focused on one thing .
[09/04/2013 20:22:32] KJ: so thanks for the narration

Using précis and providing the relevant logs allows this to be done far more efficiently. There are ~2,000,000 words in the logs I've got - this is the best way to lay things out without a massive amount of verbosity and exposure of innocent site users who have done not a thing wrong. As Hendikins wrote in this thread:

"It wouldn't really be sensible to post a raw, unedited transcript of the channel in question due to discussion of unrelated issues, along with information about moderation activities that are not the business of the public at large (private data about user accounts and moderation actions should stay that way)."

The logs as provided are not edited or fabricated in any way, shape or form, and all discussions are clear from what is given.

Haha - the people over there seem more focused on whether you use "extend paw" in a document than the mass of content released. I've made it clear from the start what the goal was . There's been progress. Given the sheer

What you say explicitly at the outset could be wildly different from what your non-verbal cues say. The way you carried yourself through all of this seemed to indicate that you were accepting and even welcoming the newfound attention, very much like a celebrity would welcome it.

This is contrary to someone who is striving simply to be informative, who most often dumps the information and then retreats into the shadows

Half-tempted to buy FA from him, but firstly - lol - "over $50k" - no, unrealistic valuation. And secondly, apparently he won't accept any price for it.

His responses to my questions on Formspring really made his intent quite unmistakably clear, and that's right about when I stopped caring about this whole mess.

(Yes, I'm that StamenWhiskers fellow.)

Hehe - that's more from shock/surprise than anything else! As I've mentioned several times, I'm a quiet and shy person when it comes down to it, have never done anything quite like this in my life. I expected the response would be positive and I'd get some attention, but as I've said, it was a little overwhelming and I wanted it to be clear I was grateful and once the thing got motion, it was obviously correct to run with it - the first blog entry got a lot of hits, but the 2nd and 3rd got more.

At the end of the day, the more people who see it, the better. If I'd just gone away, it would've been just cast aside immediately, was my thinking. I perhaps didn't run with the attention quite how someone completely extroverted might well have done, but it was one hell of a ride and opened my eyes to the fact that although I'm just a quiet, reserved individual, it's good to stand up for what I believe in and really go for it.

[graeme]

I've got to admit, I'm glad you did this.  This was important, germane , and key information.

I wish you'd just done a log dump instead of the commentary, though... it kind of put you in an odd position.  See, I am involved with a few projects in furry software engineering, and had you just posted the logs I would have thought you didn't have a motive. 

But now..  I gotta admit.. I probably won't ever consider you for dev teams for any of the projects I have going.  I don't think you're someone who can be trusted.    I know what you say your motives are.  But your actions and your motives seem to be at cross purposes.

On Reddit, you claim you were impersonated.. but then at the end of your first post,  you almost beg Weasyl to hire you and you act as though you're already "going over there."   

So, yeah.  Good job in doing the right thing somewhat.  Sorry that it pretty much means the end of you in any serious dev team capacity in fandom.

But then again, it's fandom.  A name change, and you're right back in the mix

[winserv03fan]

I've got to admit, I'm glad you did this.  This was important, germane , and key information.

I wish you'd just done a log dump instead of the commentary, though... it kind of put you in an odd position.  See, I am involved with a few projects in furry software engineering, and had you just posted the logs I would have thought you didn't have a motive. 

But now..  I gotta admit.. I probably won't ever consider you for dev teams for any of the projects I have going.  I don't think you're someone who can be trusted.    I know what you say your motives are.  But your actions and your motives seem to be at cross purposes.

On Reddit, you claim you were impersonated.. but then at the end of your first post,  you almost beg Weasyl to hire you and you act as though you're already "going over there."   

So, yeah.  Good job in doing the right thing somewhat.  Sorry that it pretty much means the end of you in any serious dev team capacity in fandom.

But then again, it's fandom.  A name change, and you're right back in the mix

Hey, this guy gets it.

To be honest, I have to agree with most of the people here. Yeah it needed to be done, but it seems you did it for attention, and that puts people off. There could have been better ways to get the word out there had you not wanted attention, but it's pretty clear that you did.

(P.S. if you wanted to do it right, you would have waited a while before posting part 2 and part 3. Leaving people with the want for more will get you way more attention. What people can't have, people want. It's called Psychological Reactance Theory and it may be a good read if you ever want to pull a stunt like this again for attention.)

[SimbaTheLion]

I've got to admit, I'm glad you did this.  This was important, germane , and key information.

I wish you'd just done a log dump instead of the commentary, though... it kind of put you in an odd position.  See, I am involved with a few projects in furry software engineering, and had you just posted the logs I would have thought you didn't have a motive. 

But now..  I gotta admit.. I probably won't ever consider you for dev teams for any of the projects I have going.  I don't think you're someone who can be trusted.    I know what you say your motives are.  But your actions and your motives seem to be at cross purposes.

On Reddit, you claim you were impersonated.. but then at the end of your first post,  you almost beg Weasyl to hire you and you act as though you're already "going over there."   

So, yeah.  Good job in doing the right thing somewhat.  Sorry that it pretty much means the end of you in any serious dev team capacity in fandom.

But then again, it's fandom.  A name change, and you're right back in the mix

A direct log dump was always going to be a dodgy thing to do as Hendikins has pointed out. I didn't want to victimise users who legitimately had done nothing wrong - there's a large amount of stuff in the logs that is entirely unrelated to the corruption. It wouldn't be fair to just put all that up, but the logs are far too large to manually hack through.

I've had a very interesting conversation tonight with someone I hadn't spoken with previously. Some very interesting points have come from that, though there are still unanswered questions. Interesting new lead.

The Reddit impersonation I honestly was a little impressed by - whoever it was had taken some time to look at my typing patterns to try to imitate them. There were differences, but more subtle than most people would perhaps notice. Though perhaps the main "oops" that poster made was that they posted throughout the night UK time. I'm not really sure who it was (the person I suspected has said it wasn't them and I believe them) - though it seems the one who did it was moreso focusing on creating some tension directly between FA and Weasyl. That's not what I wanted - indeed I have spoken with the directors of Weasyl on multiple occasions and have been careful (especially in part 1) to make it extremely clear that this is not Weasyl-driven. Some of the people there really have a good grip of things - it's respectable, though I suspect Weasyl is not the best place for me either at the current moment .

Hehe, you are not at all the first one to suggest a name change. But doing that would just be the same as hiding things, and withholding the truth, just like Dragoneer and co have done. I categorically refuse to become that of which I have exposed; to do so would be disgraceful in my opinion. I would never do this.

You're not correct about it being the end of any serious dev team stuff - I've already been approached. I need to assess the situation though to determine the best route for me to take from here. I've received backing and encouragement also (including from the new source tonight) to start something entirely new from scratch, but in my opinion it's a bit redundant to reinvent the wheel when there are perfectly functional cars I can make shinier. I'm not in a rush to decide - shall have a good think through of the best course of action.

Hey, this guy gets it.

To be honest, I have to agree with most of the people here. Yeah it needed to be done, but it seems you did it for attention, and that puts people off. There could have been better ways to get the word out there had you not wanted attention, but it's pretty clear that you did.

(P.S. if you wanted to do it right, you would have waited a while before posting part 2 and part 3. Leaving people with the want for more will get you way more attention. What people can't have, people want. It's called Psychological Reactance Theory and it may be a good read if you ever want to pull a stunt like this again for attention.)

People are free to interpret things however they wish ^^ I don't mind that. My conscience is very clear. But take it from me as a shy, quiet guy: I'd be a thousand times happier sat here at my desk writing modules and code for enhancements than standing up on a pedestal. A politician can do that until they're blue in the face. I'm a software engineer. In a perfect world I'd have never had to come out with all this; there would have been nothing to come out with. Maybe this is the sort of thing you just kind of 'get' after doing it a few times - I look back now and think "wow... I did that?" and feel a little shy blush with a smile creeping across my face. I believe strongly in doing the right thing, but never before have I stood up like that and said "stop" when no one else would.

Yes indeed - I didn't wish to post part 3 so soon. Gave in too easily to hounds about that. Thanks for the link - shall make for some good reading over breakfast!

Thanks everyone for the comments and such by the way - it's really interesting to hear from a variety of sides. There are some who love me, some who hate me, and some who think I'm a bit crazy and don't really get me! Regardless of that though, the blog has around 25,000 views now and that's the important thing. It's all out in the open. ^^

[nrr]

Maybe this is the sort of thing you just kind of 'get' after doing it a few times - I look back now and think "wow... I did that?" and feel a little shy blush with a smile creeping across my face.

Stop talking.

[BaconQuicheWithSpinach]

The mere fact that you're flaunting each post's pageviews just screams to me you did it for attention. I'm sure you had noble motives as well, and it's always interesting when this sort of thing happens, but it feels to me the main driving force was to be the center of attention.

[Eevee]

So, yeah.  Good job in doing the right thing somewhat.  Sorry that it pretty much means the end of you in any serious dev team capacity in fandom.

There are serious dev teams in the fandom?

fwiw, a project actively run in the open would have no qualms about taking him on.  Maybe that was the idea all along...

...or maybe he just loves attention, sure.

[Ketsuban]

A direct log dump was always going to be a dodgy thing to do as Hendikins has pointed out. I didn't want to victimise users who legitimately had done nothing wrong - there's a large amount of stuff in the logs that is entirely unrelated to the corruption. It wouldn't be fair to just put all that up, but the logs are far too large to manually hack through.

You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs. Yes, by carefully pruning your logs down to "relevant" snippets you've managed to remove anything which might put innocent people out, but you've also eliminated any chance that something interesting about failures in administrative technique, interpersonal relationships clouding good judgment etc. would crop up which we otherwise wouldn't know about due to all the discussion being behind closed doors.

When it comes to FurAffinity, nothing ever moves forward while secrecy remains the order of the day and "professionalism" continues to be a codeword for "not rocking the boat". Things like Dragoneer actively working to assist people known to sexually abuse animals in avoiding detection rather than reporting them to the relevant authorities would never have come to light if not for note leaks and observant people joining together dots. We don't need carefully selected quotes to bolster a familiar narrative - we need gunpowder.

[SimbaTheLion]

So, yeah.  Good job in doing the right thing somewhat.  Sorry that it pretty much means the end of you in any serious dev team capacity in fandom.

fwiw, a project actively run in the open would have no qualms about taking him on.  Maybe that was the idea all along...

Mmhmm! This is what I was hoping with Weasyl initially, though politics between FA and Weasyl seem to make that one tricky, unfortunately. There's a Benchilla fellow who seems to have grabbed the boat and given it a real good shake, so Weasyl seem very cautious to keep things on good terms. As I mentioned, I've been approached, though I'm still thinking what's the best route to take, and would be totally open to talking with others who are cool with the idea of me helping in honestly-run areas ^^ .

When it comes to FurAffinity, nothing ever moves forward while secrecy remains the order of the day and "professionalism" continues to be a codeword for "not rocking the boat". Things like Dragoneer actively working to assist people known to sexually abuse animals in avoiding detection rather than reporting them to the relevant authorities would never have come to light if not for note leaks and observant people joining together dots. We don't need carefully selected quotes to bolster a familiar narrative - we need gunpowder.

Mmm. Before I became an FA admin, I heard plenty of crap about them being biased/corrupt/liars etc., but I'm a mod/admin in three other places, and I attributed those comments basically to "users who probably broke the rules then got poked for it". I'm sorry for being naive in that sense but with all the moderation/administration experience I had, that's just the impression you get from hearing that kind of comment. Never has that kind of thing actually been the case in other places I've helped out at (and continue to do so). I hadn't seen leaked logs from others regarding FA. Hopefully by making sure such a large number of people have seen mine, it will be clear now that this isn't just some nonsense sparked up by users who broke rules and got banned for it.

[nrr]

Hopefully by making sure such a large number of people have seen mine, it will be clear now that this isn't just some nonsense sparked up by users who broke rules and got banned for it.

Here's to hoping that none of this gets lost in the din of furry history.

[quantityorama]

Things like Dragoneer actively working to assist people known to sexually abuse animals in avoiding detection rather than reporting them to the relevant authorities would never have come to light if not for note leaks and observant people joining together dots. We don't need carefully selected quotes to bolster a familiar narrative - we need gunpowder.

But again: To what end? Arcturus' FALeaks archive has already provided some pretty hard evidence of what goes on behind the scenes, and 2+ years on nothing's really changed: There's been no mass exodus of users from the site and there have been no sweeping changes in regard to the way the site is run (SimbaTheLion's logs seem to back that up). The prevailing sentiment around this incident seems to be "it'll blow over", regardless of the valid (but not new) issues that have been raised. Is there really anything that Dragoneer could possibly do, from a PR standpoint, that could possibly drive users away from the site en-masse (short of shutting the site down entirely)?

[SimbaTheLion]

Things like Dragoneer actively working to assist people known to sexually abuse animals in avoiding detection rather than reporting them to the relevant authorities would never have come to light if not for note leaks and observant people joining together dots. We don't need carefully selected quotes to bolster a familiar narrative - we need gunpowder.

But again: To what end? Arcturus' FALeaks archive has already provided some pretty hard evidence of what goes on behind the scenes, and 2+ years on nothing's really changed: There's been no mass exodus of users from the site and there have been no sweeping changes in regard to the way the site is run (SimbaTheLion's logs seem to back that up). The prevailing sentiment around this incident seems to be "it'll blow over", regardless of the valid (but not new) issues that have been raised. Is there really anything that Dragoneer could possibly do, from a PR standpoint, that could possibly drive users away from the site en-masse (short of shutting the site down entirely)?

It seems most people are focusing moreso on the destructive approach, with gunpowder and whatever. To achieve that sort of thing, the honesty, openness and stuff exposing the disastrous state of affairs is very useful, but there also needs to be an alternative that is altogether superior, otherwise it can feel like necessity to stay, even if not ideality. This is feasible certainly - there are already sites that offer similar functionality. But there are many more enhancements and such that can be made. Quite a number of users have changed sites from this, but for a real "mass exodus", the 'casual user' who doesn't feel very relevant in all of this, there needs to be a clearly superior alternative.

I think Weasyl is probably the closest currently to said solution - that's why I initially chose to offer my help there, but there's absolutely no reason why other places could not also rise to the challenge and succeed (and I'm willing to help with this, even for a place that does not yet exist - as long as the right views are shared - a foundation of doing this for the community's benefit rather than dickstroking and incompetence). Not everyone agrees with the way I talk and go about doing this stuff, but hey - at least I'm willing to get out there and give it my best shot - both in exposing the utter bullshit on FA and also being willing to give my time and effort to help with a solution.

I'm not saying it will be easy, nor is it something that can be done overnight. But it can be done - you can see thousands of examples of it both online and in the real world. The users are vocal about what they want. Dragoneer, Yak and friends time and time again fail to provide it or even listen. That's not stopping someone else providing and marketing it. Indeed, even now Dragoneer and Yak could choose to get off their arses, change and do it themselves. They won't. But that's not stopping anyone else from doing so.

[BaconQuicheWithSpinach]

Until FA implodes upon itself and the site completely and totally dies, I see no compelling reason why a regular user should choose to move to Weasyl or any other site from FA. The only reason FA is still standing despite its aged code amidst a handful of other more competent competitors is simply from the fact that most of the community is centered around FA. This is something that not even internal admin drama (such as this) will change, unless a major shift in leadership occurs as a result of it.

[Pi]

Until FA implodes upon itself and the site completely and totally dies, I see no compelling reason why a regular user should choose to move to Weasyl or any other site from FA.

That's a rather defeatist attitude, but I can see where it springs from.