Day: January 24, 2014

The following was posted on Fur Affinity 2 days ago by Fender

Our primary goal in 2014 is to give a breath of fresh air to the site, the administration, and the community. Over the course of the next twelve months, we plan on overhauling many aspects of the site, as we have started recently by improving transparency and openness with the community.

Over the last several days there have been a number of concerns raised by members of the community, and we wanted to address them in an open format for community review and discussion. Your feedback continues to be important to us as we grow and change, and we look forward to reading it.

We apologize for the delay in posting this article, however we had to come together as a team to ensure that all parties were on the same page as we approached the community.

Rules, Consistency, and Trouble Tickets

At the moment, we understand that there’s a lot of concern with the consistency of moderation, as well as the time taken to respond to Trouble Tickets. Over the next few months, we hope to tackle these issues using a multi-pronged approach.

First, we plan on eliminating much of the ambiguity that currently exists within the Terms of Service and other policy documents on the site. We will be rewriting, condensing, and simplifying many aspects of the rules in order to make them clearer and easier to understand for the community.

Once this is complete, we will begin recruiting new administrative staff. This will include new staff to help with Trouble Tickets, as well as staff to assist in site moderation. We hope to include new procedures and guidelines for training staff that will help to ensure consistency, clarity, and a more positive experience.

By improving clarity, training, and bringing on additional team members, we can work to lower ticket wait times in a consistent and sustainable manner.

Project Phoenix Rumors

Some rumors have circulated regarding a team of coders working on a new version of the site prior to the announcement of Phoenix. While they did ask permission to help, they were not a part of site staff and were working independently on their own project. They were not in communication with site staff, nor involved in site developments.

Additionally, there have been a number of concerns regarding one of our staff members and alleged incidents in his past. Sexual assault is a serious topic, and we encourage anyone who has been a victim of sexual assault to contact authorities or a crisis hotline. We understand the community’s concerns, and we have heard you on this topic. However, there is no criminal background on this topic, nor a violation of Fur Affinity policy, and we cannot make staffing decisions based on allegations alone. We would not knowingly bring someone onto the team with an alleged criminal background without reviewing the situation carefully.

Initially we hid and removed content that brought up these allegations. Our intention was not to stifle users’ ability to bring up criticisms or discussion, but was intended to ensure discussion stayed within the confines Code of Conduct. We will not remove content related to this issue so long as it remains civil and in line with the Code of Conduct.

Site Staff and Data Access

Another concern has related to what staff can access what data. How Fur Affinity collects and handles data, as well as who has access to it, has been subject to a great deal of rumor and speculation over time. Therefore we have started work on a Privacy Policy that will become part of Fur Affinity’s policy documents in the coming weeks. This will outline what data is collected, how it is used to enhance your browsing experience, and how to remove your data from our systems if you wish.

As for staff data access, it should be noted that none of the Project Phoenix developers have access to the production database, where user information is securely stored. Nor do they have administrative access on the site. As for user information, anything not publicly accessible is restricted to trusted administrators, some content only allowing specific administrators to see it, and only under certain circumstances. Fur Affinity does not share your data without your permission except under certain circumstances, such as a valid legal request.

On Old Projects

One concern that has been brought up is the number of old projects we’ve had in the past. We acknowledge that there have been quite a few and we apologize for this, as none came to fruition. Many of these were simply a refresh of the user interface, which often times didn’t pan out due to complications with the site’s existing code that needed to be fixed. Project Phoenix aims to function as a complete transformation of the site, allowing us to rework the user experience as part of a greater whole.

Some have also brought up that they liked old designs better than the new one. We understand, some of them were pretty nice! Unfortunately, a design that looks great for one page won’t always translate well to another, which we found to be the case with our older designs. The way we approached the redesign this time was different, it’s still not final and we’re working on incorporating your feedback, but we can better ensure that it works across our entire application.

2014 and Beyond

Our end goal in 2014 is to improve all aspects of the site. Again, we don’t anticipate this will happen overnight and we ask that you be patient with us. These changes will take time and we’ll continue to update you as they are rolled out. Any questions or comments can be directed to this article, and we’ll be responding to them regularly.