On September 7th, 2011, in the midst of FA's
disastrous staff merger with Furocity,
DDoS and equipment failures,
questionable addition of an affiliate link service, and yet
another embarrassing exploitation of site bugs, a journal was posted by a FA user named Kihari announcing the "Fergal Project". Less than two months later, around the same time FA had more issues, a demonstration of Fergal was made publicly available for those interested.
While much of the early history (including that first post) of the Fergal project was scrubbed from the internet for unknown reasons, things pick up again in early 2012 when the project became known as Weasyl (A combination of We and Easy and Easel!) and began appointing staff. Among some of the first additions was Benchilla, who had previously made a (rather controversial) name for himself while on FA staff. Ben was instrumental in growing Weasyl's brand, promoting it at conventions (FWA and Anthrocon) and online, operating the Twitter and Tumblr accounts and building hype for the site. Ben was officially made a co-owner when he and Kihari formed Weasyl, LLC.
Another staff appointment made at this time worth mentioning is Prawst/pr0stsh0cker. Prawst was (and still is) rather infamous from his behavior at conventions, something that earned him a warning, then a
ban from Anthrocon. It would later become known through conversations on the Vivisector IRC channel that Prawst was brought on staff to use his clout to bring "popufurs" onto the website.
A lot of Weasyl's promotion was made to make it feel like it was the complete opposite of FA. This new website listened to you! It was more open and friendly! This was especially evident at FWA 2012, where
pamphlets and a video asking people what kind of art sites they use and
what kind of features they'd like was shot. Between the video and pamphlet, a lot of big important features are mentioned, including premium accounts, multi-upload, a "platform to sell your work", and a proper groups feature.
Months later, Weasyl hosted a panel at Anthrocon. Among the topics discussed in
the presentation were group features, governance, and the ability to sell prints. The Anthrocon panel coincided with a fundraiser with a goal of $5,000. Common with these types of fundraisers was the addition of perks, which included access to the site's premium features for anywhere between one month to a lifetime. The goal was easily met.
On September 30th, 2012, just over a year since the project began, Weasyl entered closed beta.
Botched LaunchWhen closed beta access began, the site was in a poor state. Outside of the very basic core features, things were either half finished or not available. For example, you could create a group, but that was it. Nothing else could be done with it. Less than 24 hours after coming online, the closed beta was shut down for a couple of days after several exploits and other problems were uncovered. While the site saw initial success, things soon began to slow down. Unfinished or non-functioning features were quietly removed so more work could be done. Usage began to slow as Weasyl failed to live up to the promises that were made.
It should be obvious at this point what happened: The site was pushed out the door way too early, trying to cash in on the hype that had built until that point. Arguably the most important point in the site's history was botched in an effort to hype it even more.
Weasyl experienced it's first burst of user outrage when an
effort was made to get anthro art tagged with "furry".
It BeginsIn February of 2013, Weasyl entered open beta. Still missing almost all of the key features mentioned just a year earlier, the site experienced yet another surge of traffic before tapering off rather quickly.
Weeks later, Ben would leave Weasyl for reasons that are still not quite known to this day. Rumors about his departure spread, ranging from sockpuppeting on FA to his bizarre behavior at conventions reflecting poorly on the site. Around the same time, Prawst was also removed from staff. Both Ben and Prawst are involved with the "Adventure Cru", a group of friends who attended conventions together and caused generally juvenile mischief. Prawst's removal has previously been attributed to an
unauthorized use of the Weasyl logo on parody t-shirts.
Despite leaving staff, Ben reportedly still remains as a legal co-owner on the LLC.
It was around this point that Weasyl hit the brakes. With their primary source of advertising gone, news posts began coming irregularly, only to mention new features or updates that had been made. The staff structure became muddled, and eventually it was understood that, despite the "directors" structure and the presence of at least one of the legal owners (Kihari) that Fiz was the one "in charge".
And that's about it up until the present. Not much has happened. Despite having a large development team displayed on the site, only a handful of comparatively minor new features have come out. There is a clear lack of leadership and direction. A website that once excelled at communicating on social media has become quiet. The site still lacks the majority of the features that were promised, and there's been little to no word about whether or not they even plan to add them in the future.
Is Weasyl Dead?At this point, the future of Weasyl does not look promising. The messy staff structure is an incubator for future infighting. With the lack of clarity regarding the ownership of the site and the people in charge, it's entirely possible we could see a repeat of
what happened between Jheryn and Arcturus in the early days of FA. The staff code of conduct also provides evidence that there is a lot of unnecessary bureaucracy involved with the site staff, which will likely cause problems if the site ever grows.
With usage stagnating (you can typically view a days uploads in under two "browse" pages) time may be running out before Weasyl has lost it's chance to become what it thought it could be. Ultimately, at this point Weasyl offers basically nothing that other sites don't already offer. It's only selling point is that it's not the other art sites, and that's not going to be enough.
FutureWeasyl has not hit rock bottom. There is somewhere to go but up. However, if they want to reverse the current trend, drastic changes need to be made, and fast.
Someone has to step up and take responsibility and ownership. Kihari needs to either take control, or find someone who will. Things like the situation with Ben need to be addressed and the public (the public who donated over five thousand dollars to get the site online) must be the ones who hear about it. Staff need to be brought on board who know how to run communities. Roadmaps must be made. Developers must be found. Business plans must be written.
It's been said that "No one will take you seriously if you don't take yourself seriously." At this point, Weasyl does not seem to be taking itself seriously. It has slid into the same "hobby project" thing that FA has going. Nothing will change as long as the status quo is maintained.
Weasyl still has great potential, but the clock is ticking.
