When people are bored, they may begin to dig through old bookmarks, go through old emails, and rustle through things with a slight sense of nostalgia. This is what brought about the discovery that the domain Furbid.ws was for sale.

Older furries may have used furry auction sites such as this site from years ago. Furries used auction sites almost exclusively for many years before many found that announcing commissions on FurAffinity got noticed more than an auction. FurBid was founded in 1999 when it was owned and run by Aatheus.

No information on why it is being sold is available, though WikiFur suggests it stopped its run December 5 of last year.

Furry auction site The Dealers Den is running a sweepstakes to promote increased activity.

Auctions, bids, referrals and invites earn varying numbers of points, which are to be totaled to calculate a user's proportionate chance of winning.

The competition is to end June 16, with the three winners receiving a $50 Amazon.com gift card, a ClawGFX t-shirt, or a Dealers Den t-shirt.

Founded last October by Sinabu, The Dealers Den is offering free advertising, but faces an uphill battle against decade-old competitors FurBid and FurBuy.

Due to Aatheus' interest in furthering his education, he has found he has less time for Furbid. He says, "I don't want to end up giving FurBid and its users any less time than they deserve, but I will have to do so for the next several years." Control will be turned over to Ayukawa, previously an assistant.

Got this in my email box this morning, from the FurBid Administrators: "This is a message to let everyone know that the official Furbid Mascot Contest has begun. For those of you who have not been following its development in both the Furbid Discussion Board and the Furbid LiveJournal group, you can find the official rules here.

Thank you, and good luck to all who apply!"

Hi folks

Well, the .ws folks screwed up our zone again. Register.com shows the correct name server, Worldsite.ws shows the default "No such site" redirector, and some ISPs are showing nothing.

Users can currently access FurBid via http://www.furbid.biz, or http://216.128.90.10.
We've temporily disabled auction closure until the DNS is fixed, and will be extending auctions with bids.

We'll keep you updated on the status of the domain name. They said it should be okay in 48 hrs.

Aatheus
FurBid administaur

POSTED: 18:03 EST

Hi folks

It appears that FurBid's co-lo has fallen off the net, at least temporarily. No call yet on when they'll be back up, but the trace stops dead at their boundry router, so it'll probably be a few hours, at least. I'll post again when it's back up.

I will extend as many auctions as I can.

Thank you for your understanding, and my apologies for the inconvenience.

Aatheus
(who can't remember his password)

While FurBid was down due to the massive power outage in the East Coast, it does appear to be up and running at this time. Be patient if it doesn't work for you, things may still be in flux.

Okay folks, FurBid has been moved to the new server on which it will be running for a while. This box is dedicated, sw33t and should be quite stable.

DNS still needs to propagate (%%&$%^ slow registrar and politics), but you can access the new server via http://216.128.90.10 for the time being.

Aatheus
Flustered Admin at Large

Hi folks

FurBid is temporarily back online on a new server, courtesy of Dragonmagic. Critical bidding functions are working, but some features, like the message board, are still being worked on. I hope to restore full functionality within the week. By then, we should know if our colo's outage is terminal, and whether there are acceptable alternatives.

Oh yes... all auctions closing 6/28 to 6/30 have been extended four days to allow ISPs to play DNS catch-up. If you can't access the site yet, chances are your ISP hasn't updated its DNS cache for furbid.ws yet. Give it a few hours.

--Aatheus
FurBid administaur

Hello everyfur

Our co-locator has lost their T1 for the moment due to moving to a new location. As such, we have lost our access. It is not apparent yet when the T1 will be moved to the new location. Thank you QWest.

As such, FurBid is effectively off-line until further notice. All auctions that close after Friday June 27 at 00:00 PDT are considered null and void, due to difficulty in extending auctions. We're working to get access restored as soon as possible, including possibly finding another colo. Anyfur who'd like to make offers/suggestons, feel free to. [email protected].

Further news as events warrant.

--Aatheus

During a normal replacement of a CPU fan, it was discovered that FurBid's power supply, after two years of dedicated service, has gotten tired. A new PSU was installed, but it was discovered to be inadequate for the power needs of the beast.

So, a new power supply has been placed on order. The problem is, we're not sure when it will get here, due to the mail stoppage until Tuesday. My colo admin has gone to purchase a new power supply today, so hopefully we will be back online before the end of the day. If not, definitely on Thursday. Damn hardware always fails right when it's needed.

Well, it wasn't good press, but it could've been worse...

A Canadian magazine called Shift ("Canada's Technology and Entertainment Magazine") (yeah, I'd never heard of it either) had their annual "100 best web sites for 2003" in their November/ December issue. Now, when I see "Entertainment" I immediately think "tabloid". But, holding my prejudices back I slogged on...

...until I came to the listing. Number four under the category "bizarre" (as I thought), with a snap-shot of the front page.

Synopsis reads: "eBay for furry-animal 'toon fetishists: Use this site to bid on the erotic squirrel prints you've never known you've always wanted. For the true connoisseur, only the creepy lifelike, full-body animal outfits will do. And if you can convince your lover to wear one of those, you're the man, dog. Cute, fuzzy, sexy dog."

Meh. Could've been worse. Mildly humorous, a bit biased, but I won't get inflamed about it.
A quick message off to the editor, pointing out the URL they have is old was all I was provoked into >:-) Hay, they did send me two free copies of the issue it appears in >:-)

--Aatheus

Yes, the passage of Uncle Kage's Hair from Anthrocon 2002 has begun! You too can own a bit of history, and carry on the quest for coconuts at AC 2003.

http://www.furbid.ws/cgi-bin/auction.pl?miscfur&1028143536

Hiya everyfur

I have been informed by my registrar that the .ws namespace experienced some problems last night, resulting in a bunch of domain names being redirected to Under Construction pages instead of the correct IP addresses. Furbid.ws appears to be back online, for the
most part; the correct IP address has propagated again. Please let me know if you're still getting that Under Construction page. Contact address: [email protected]

I've extended any auctions that would have closed during the domain name downtime. Let me reiterate: the furbid.ws disappearence was in no way related to FurBid's server or connectivity. Nic.ws screwed up our record's propagated data.

If you're still having trouble accessing FurBid, http://furbid.transform.to is still online, or you can access directly via IP (http://198.137.201.181). I apologize for their screwup.

Owner of FurBuy states, "We are baffled and amazed, even schocked, that the continued support of the fandom goes to a piece-mail auction system hacked together by an underage individual using a bug-ridden, featureless auction script freely available from the internet. "