Fur Paws enters open beta
Posted by GreenReaper (Laurence Parry) on Sun 12 Jun 2011 - 20:34 — Edited as of Sat 16 Jul 2011 - 22:39
Furry artistic social community Fur Paws is now in open beta.
Created by Fur Affinity founder Alkora, the site was launched June 2, but went down for two days after a security issue was raised, allegedly involving the naming of uploaded files.
Fur Paws features multi-picture character profiles, folders and a safe-for-work login option. Currently only images and stories are supported; music uploads are planned. Initially known as Art Paws, the site was renamed over trademark issues. It has adopted an 'honest' privacy policy.
About the author
GreenReaper (Laurence Parry) — read stories — contact (login required)a developer, editor and Kai Norn from London, United Kingdom, interested in wikis and computers
Small fuzzy creature who likes cheese & carrots. Founder of WikiFur, lead admin of Inkbunny, and Editor-in-Chief of Flayrah.
Comments
I think it will fall into obscurity like so many other furry sites.
There are ways to make a successful FA "killer" but with so many people making new ones every few weeks it's dividing the community and since FA is so well established you aren't going to have much of a pull beyond a few weeks.
Inkbunny seems to have worked. And then SoFurry is preparing for it's update and just got 150 000 users. Helps every time FA screws up, like not updating.
"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
~John Stuart Mill~
Does anyone remember SheezyArt? I think I'll stick with my FurAffinity and Inkbunny accounts. Let's not even touch the VCL thing.
It's a shame the creators of VCL never tried giving it a face lift. A lot of old school furry artists started on that site.
VCL's issue isn't its looks so much as its application process (which is down right now, too), pernickety upload restrictions, and lack of interaction beyond the forums. It was the best around in 2000, but times have changed.
That said, improving the bare-bones Web 1.0 artists' interface might be a start. A quote from a regular user:
I really liked the VCL's "bare bones" approach. I went for the art, not for a bunch of nerds trading Internet brownie points by "watching" each other (which just sounds creepy, actually).
Of course, I never uploaded art, so I never had to worry about that; opinion might of changed if I was an actual artist rather than viewer.
It is almost as if VCL had a hostile nature towards the very artists it was trying to attract.
What I believe VCL was trying to accomplish was to screen applicants to insure they had at least a modicum of artistic talent, so that not just anyone who could draw stick figures could get an account there. It should also be noted that essentially all material was available to unregistered users. You didn't need to register to view material, only if you wanted to post it.
Like all sites, it should be considered in its context. Yerf had a similar (but stricter) system of review. Concerns over file size are also understandable given that most people were on modems in 1999.
There's still a number of artists active on VCL, so it works for some. It's not a very big number, though.
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