Author Topic: Change Is Necessary  (Read 3868 times)

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Offline Chewy, God of Rats

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Change Is Necessary
« on: May 30, 2022, 07:03:47 am »
Change comes in due time and is inevitable. Time is always marching forward. Furtopia, like many forums' seems to be on a decline especially since the rise in popularity of platforms like Discord. Although, to be fair, it seems Furtopia has been declining long before Discord ever took off. Which brings me to my point of debate here.

As I mentioned, change is inevitable, you can either adapt to change or you will be replaced. Old communities are forums like Furtopia is no different. The writing is the wall here folks, other communities are adapting to changes and working on reviving/rebuilding their community on said platforms like Discord. While Furtopia sits here idling along. Can changes be made to revive this community or will it fade into oblivion?

Personally, I think that the admins should get together and well, first off decide if they still believe in this community and want to attempt a revive, or if they want to let it fade away. And based on their decision either make an announcement on potential changes or make an announcement stating their reasoning for wanting to sit in idle.

Would love to hear your guys thoughts
Please be civil, this is in no way shape or form an attack on this community and or the admins.
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Offline Loc

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Re: Change Is Necessary
« Reply #1 on: June 06, 2022, 07:10:11 am »
The staff have been having ideas on similar topics.

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Offline Chewy, God of Rats

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Re: Change Is Necessary
« Reply #2 on: June 13, 2022, 02:01:05 am »
It's great that the staff is having discussions on these topics, would love for other members of staff to chime in on what they would like. Either way, thank you for your reply.
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Offline Kobuk

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Re: Change Is Necessary
« Reply #3 on: June 17, 2022, 01:02:15 pm »
Website forums come and go for a variety of reasons. They all succeed or fail on the following. This can include, but is not limited to the following:

Good or bad membership
Good or bad Moderation and Administration
Good or bad rules and regulations
Good or bad staff
Good or bad website design and functionality

You're right. Furtopia has slowed down considerably in the last several years. It's not necessarily because of any single thing. The Internet and social media platforms have changed drastically over the last 20+ years. Nowadays, people want things better, faster, and easier. They want instant access and they want to connect with other people in real time. Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and many others are all the rage right now. Furtopia is a product of a bygone age.

Can Furtopia improve? Can it be updated to keep pace with new changes and developments in the 21st century? I don't know. The only real person who could answer that is WhiteShepherd who created Furtopia so long ago.

While I wish Furtopia could get better and continue longer, I often find myself thinking that maybe it should just close down. It's had a remarkable run of a little over 20+ years and I'm glad to be a part of it. But I just can't help but think that it's now time to retire the place.  :'(  Sorry to say that. But it's true and how I feel.
Furtopia was great in it's heyday. We had things like:
Furtopia IRC (Is this still working or not?)
Furtopia Radio
Free web hosting for furry arts
Furtopia tshirts (I still have about 4 of them.)
I even remember times when WS and Kada-ru had set up visits to hospitals where Furtopian members could visit sick children and give out free artwork and have fursuiters present. Furtopia even contributed to Hurricane Katrina efforts too.

But those "good old days" are long gone. I don't know what, if anything, could be added to keep Furtopia going. But I have lots of ideas on what could be "deleted" from Furtopia. But those ideas I will not share here. Only privately with WS or other staff.

Offline Kay Alett

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Re: Change Is Necessary
« Reply #4 on: June 18, 2022, 01:55:53 am »
Personally I'd like Furtopia to hang around but at the same time I don't think I can justify it.
I used to have a ball here but i don't really chat with the people here like I used to, i miss everyone. But it's also an old site and the days when I visited frequently are gone. And that's sad. But that's life.

Life is change.
Change is the essence of life.
You cannot fight it.
I don't want furtopia to close but it doesn't feel like it will go back to what it was when I arrived and even then, that still wasn't the site's heyday. I came in after what many older members might have called the golden age.

I don't even know if I'm trying to make a point heh.
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Offline Storm Fox

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Re: Change Is Necessary
« Reply #5 on: June 19, 2022, 01:56:11 am »
I guess I try to hold on to the idea of this place. The nostalgia or whatever.
It probably is time to just let things go, but I really don't want to do that. I'd rather press on, succeed, and say we did it our way.

The Discord idea is good, but we need more than that. We need more things to do here. More reasons to actually be here. Because Discord will bring new people here, but then what?
Furtopia was once a mix of different things. Art, stories, contests, radio, IRC, RP, special events, web hosting, charity events, that centered around a web forum. Now it's pretty much just that forum.

I'd like to see this place revitalized and get back to what we had, though sometimes I think instead of chasing what we were, we need to try something new, something different and unique. Just not sure what that should be.

In some ways I'm just not sure at all.
« Last Edit: June 19, 2022, 02:07:53 am by Storm Fox »
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Offline cause the rat

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Re: Change Is Necessary
« Reply #6 on: June 19, 2022, 02:51:52 pm »
I've belonged to forums on line from the mid 1990's. Everything from genetics to Halloween props. What forums have over places like facebook is the sharing and storing of information. Where's places like facebook is more for 'Looky wat I'z did'. With lots of quick replies from people who will support you no matter what dumb thing you just did. If I ask a question on a forum that is centered around my interest I get real answers. On a facebook page I get emojis. They like or love my question.

If change is necessary than my I make a few suggestions.

The over all physical look of this forum is about as unfriendly as you can get.
Better the ability to share photos direction from the computer.

Rarely have I ever seen a forum go down because of it's members. It's usually bad mods or owners. Seen two huge forms go from 100's of posts a day to 0 in a matter of a few days because of this. One Halloween forum I belonged to had well over 10.000 members. With hundreds of posts a day. If you have ever watched the pro Halloween haunt walk through shows on the Travel Channel you've seen the caliber of the people who were posting there daily. Had advertisers supporting the forum as well. Everything from craft suppliers to big box stores like Lowe's and Home Depot. Out of the blue the owner posted that the forum was meant for people to discuss what he is doing. Not what everyone else is doing. So from this day forward no one is allowed to talk about anything else than what he's doing. Gone in 60 seconds.

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Offline Kobuk

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Re: Change Is Necessary
« Reply #7 on: June 19, 2022, 09:07:15 pm »
What made Furtopia great in the past so long ago was the free web hosting of furry arts that WS provided "free of charge" and "free of ads". That was one of Furtopia's biggest strong points. But the old web hosting is gone and WS seems to have something new as described here:
https://forums.furtopia.org/index.php?topic=51885.0
https://forums.furtopia.org/index.php?topic=51960.0

The other thing that made Furtopia great (Though some furs will disagree on this.) was the family friendly nature of the place. I'm really only guessing here, but when WS and Kada-ru created this place, they wanted it to be more friendly and geared toward a more PG type audience. Unlike a lot of other sites that had "mature" art, stories and such. I guess they were hoping to show a more "positive" aspect of the fandom by creating this place instead of all the negative stuff that was being reported by the media and such.


Cause: As far as the physical look of the forums, yeah, I'd say some changes could possibly be made. I'm not sure what though. One thing that drastically hurt Furtopia in the past was when it got hacked in early 2008. Since then, there are still some functions and stuff that haven't quite been the same so to speak.
As for the photo sharing directly from the computer, I'm guessing that WS opted out of that as it would have required large amounts of storage/server space and/or additional costs, some of which could have been passed directly to members themselves which WS didn't want to do. So.........when it came time for members to post photos on the forums of artwork they did or fursuiting projects, etc., people had to host their photos somewhere else like Flickr, Photobucket, or their own website, and then link to it.

Offline Chewy, God of Rats

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Re: Change Is Necessary
« Reply #8 on: June 21, 2022, 10:27:44 pm »

The Discord idea is good, but we need more than that. We need more things to do here. More reasons to actually be here. Because Discord will bring new people here, but then what?
Furtopia was once a mix of different things. Art, stories, contests, radio, IRC, RP, special events, web hosting, charity events, that centered around a web forum. Now it's pretty much just that forum.

Appreciate your feedback, especially since you seem to be the main/only active admin on this forum.
I think that a revamp on Discord could integrate all if not most of the "mix of different things" you mentioned. Obviously with a Discord revamp (in my opinion) a new or updated version of admins should be considered especially with how Discord is "instant" (lack of better words). I, however, believe that maybe a middle-ground of having a Discord (or subreddit,etc) while also having this forum could be a great solution that could generate new users and help extend the life of Furtopia.



While I wish Furtopia could get better and continue longer, I often find myself thinking that maybe it should just close down. It's had a remarkable run of a little over 20+ years and I'm glad to be a part of it. But I just can't help but think that it's now time to retire the place.  :'(  Sorry to say that. But it's true and how I feel.


Kobuk, I appreciate your feedback and find it very telling of just how far this site has declined. Regardless of my opinion about you, you are one of the main contributors and seem to post/engage daily on Furtopia. My only thought here is you feel like its time to retire this place, by that do you mean the forum itself or rather this specific layout of said forum/site? Like in theory, admins could "retire" this site like many forums have where the all the posts and discussions are locked by still here for others to view, while redirecting everyone who comes here (members and guests) to a new, improved Furtopia (whether it be a new website or a subreddit, discord server, etc). Is that what you're referencing or is it that its time to shut the door on Furtopia? 
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Offline Loc

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Re: Change Is Necessary
« Reply #9 on: June 23, 2022, 02:38:41 pm »
Quote
especially since you seem to be the main/only active admin on this forum.
Oof ouch my feelings :P  :D

I and an IRC mod did do a trial Discord a while back, to see if it could be a replacement for the IRC, but we had concerns about how to keep it family friendly. The IRC had a bot to monitor it. I am unsure if a simialr bot exists in Discord - I don't think one was at the time we attempted it. But this was a few years ago.

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Offline Chewy, God of Rats

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Re: Change Is Necessary
« Reply #10 on: June 23, 2022, 11:06:08 pm »

I and an IRC mod did do a trial Discord a while back, to see if it could be a replacement for the IRC, but we had concerns about how to keep it family friendly. The IRC had a bot to monitor it. I am unsure if a simialr bot exists in Discord - I don't think one was at the time we attempted it. But this was a few years ago.
[/quote

Within that last 24 months it seems Discord has a ton of in-depth bot features and mod control. Should definitely consider at least restarting a trial.
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Offline cause the rat

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Re: Change Is Necessary
« Reply #11 on: June 24, 2022, 12:58:55 pm »
And speaking of family friendly. The adult filter is the only reason I post or read posts on this forum. I turned it off once. It's misleading to call this a family friendly forum when it needs an adult filter.  I'm thankful for this filter. Still misleading.
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