Talk:Furry fandom/Archive 14

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Citation needed for sexual aspects?

"Sexual aspects" begins with:

The furry fandom possess a sexual, fetishistic element as a prominent subculture.[citation needed]

-- Well, actually it began with an image link

[[File:Foxie color.jpg|thumb|right|One example of "yiffy" (erotic furry) artwork.]]

that came up badimage, so I removed it. But I digress.

ISTM that the rest of the first paragraph documents this assertion adequately, and the "citation needed" flag should be removed. Comments? --Thnidu (talk) 21:06, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

That image isn't a bad image on this page; it is relevant content. I have requested that an exception be made. GreenReaper (talk) 13:52, 28 June 2011 (UTC)


Bad images: Should we just cut all examples of "yiff" images altogether to avoid "bad images"? The text describes it well enough and people can clearly do a Google search if they actually want to see it instead of just getting information about it. 64.113.172.14 (talk) 19:58, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Recent survey results

These recent survey results might prove a useful reference, coming from the research team that has been studying Anthrocon for the last five years. The sample size is almost 5,000, including 485 for the "non-furry" control group. (They also have another survey running.) GreenReaper (talk) 15:02, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

It's a pretty interesting read. Has it been published/peer reviewed anywhere yet, though? --Conti|✉ 16:23, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
Not that I'm aware of, beyond that website. Of course if this is an issue, we need to remove almost all of the "Sexual aspects" section. GreenReaper (talk) 17:57, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
It would be an issue if this ever would become a featured article, though I'm not entirely sure what our policies say about surveys. We've had this topic a while ago where we rejected a paper because it was neither published nor peer reviewed. --Conti|✉ 18:37, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
Many of the sources in this article are unpublished or self-published. I wish master's theses would take precedence over internet surveys, personal websites, wikis, and original research, or at least that people remove them as diligently as they remove the unreliable master's theses. -Furry-friend (talk) 21:43, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Focussing is misspelled

focussing is spelled with one "s" in American English and 2 "s" in Br. English or one "s." It should be changed to focusing based on the fact that that version is correct in both versions of English. Giambrone (talk) 18:39, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

You don't need to justify proofreading conventions on the Talk page. Simply make your correction and include the rationale in your note. I doubt this is a change that anyone would challenge or revert. 74.83.14.59 (talk) 05:28, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

The influence of Secondlife

As a dabbler (I guess slightly (mostly previously) fuzzy more than fully hirsute) I am definitely no expert so am asking more than suggesting anything. I'm just wondering if Secondlife has been a great deal more influential regarding growth of popularity than the article at present (acknowledges? suggests?) "shows". There is a very large Furry society in-world and I was personally not aware of the phenomenon until I became a resident. Just opening up the subject for consideration. -- FG/T|C 00:49, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

I think it's more that furries dominate Second Life because it is relevant to our interests vs. Second Life recruits furries. We fit the target demographic, and like to show off our characters, which can be done to great effect in a 3D virtual world. Second Life was launched in 2003, at which point Anthrocon already had just shy of 2000 attendees; the growth rate of such events did not change significantly in subsequent years (it drew 4400 this year). GreenReaper (talk) 20:54, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
Mhmm. Although I don't have any doubts that SL does "recruit" Furries I do appreciate that SL is not (by a long shot) responsible for furry popularity. I just looked and was surprised to find that FurNation claims to be 15 years old (no good reason to dispute this). I wonder if instead of my consideration that perhaps SL was worthy of more of a mention because of its influence I should have wondered if it was worthy instead because of its value as a venue. I can't help thinking that there seem to be far more than 4000 Furries in SL, making it (if that estimation is even close to correct) far more worthy of inclusion than as a passing comment in the article. I haven't any vested interest in having this article say more about SL btw, I was just surprised not more was said. As you say yourself GreenReaper, SL is indeed the perfect venue to exercise ones imagination. I shall though leave that up to you and the other far more qualified parties (than I) to decide. Thanx for the comment and interest. -- FG/T|C 03:35, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
I'm not aware that there's ever been any overt attempt to recruit people to become furries, on SL or anywhere else. What typically happens is that people discover that it exists, that there are online communities of people who share this interest, that there are meets and conventions where people can have fun with it, and they decide it's something they want to be part of. Is that recruiting? In my opinion, it is not, though I suppose it depends on your definition of recruit. mwalimu59 (talk) 15:18, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
It's an interesting thought. Furry fandom isn't wanting for new blood, but perhaps we'd do even better if we actively sung our merits rather than complained when people pointed out our flaws (though in the past some have been criticised for doing so in certain venues). Besides, I've always wanted to use the phrase "Furries: We Recruit" [1]. :-) GreenReaper (talk) 16:27, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
"I'm a Furry! Ask me how." buttons? -- FG/T|C 23:31, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
SL doesn't recruit as much as it promotes. It lets people get to know Furries without first exposing them to the controversies on the outside internet. Without that hindrance, it's hard for folks not to notice and be envious of how much cooler Furry avatars are than human avatars, which make it much harder to stand out. So just about anyone in SL will probably visit a Furry store and buy a Furry avatar or two, if just to wear for a party gag once in a while.
Also, being a club owner in SL, just about every time I hire a non-Furry, the first thing they do is buy a Furry avatar to fit in. That might be regarded as a form of recruitment, but it's probably still best thought of as promotion. Perri Rhoades (talk) 21:28, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Split for Yiff?

There's articles about yiff on the Portuguese, Spanish, Finnish and Russian Wikipedia, but why not the English Wikipedia? I think the sexual aspects section should be extended and split to Yiff. SalfEnergy 20:47, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

There used to be a separate article for Yiff. It got AfD'ed twice (1, 2), with the result that it was kept the first time (this was six years ago when the whole "encyclopedia about anything and everything" atmosphere was more prevalent), and merge/redirect to Furry Fandom the second time. The consensus in recent years has been that the current level of coverage of sexual aspects in proportion to coverage of furry fandom as a whole is appropriate. Any attempt to recreate a separate Yiff article would need to adequately address the concerns raised in the previous AfDs. --mwalimu59 (talk) 22:18, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
How about getting some expert attention first to ascertain how intertwined is the furry identity with the sexual aspects of the furry fandom. -Furry-friend (talk) 01:07, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
What do you define as an expert for the furry fandom? A lot of us here (GreenReaper especially) could be dubbed "experts". SilverserenC 02:15, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
If one of the requirements is having a degree of professional detachment that would disqualify anyone who is active in furry fandom, I can only think of one person who has the credentials to be a reliable source and who has studied furry fandom in a significant way. That person is Dr. Kathy Gerbasi. Her work is already cited in the article a couple of times. You should be able to find more by googling on her name. mwalimu59 (talk) 15:22, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
A sociologist who specializes in fringe subcultures that has experience with the furry subculture. Furry-friend (talk) 18:23, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
  • I'm actually quite surprised that we don't have one on yiff, as it is one of the more... well-known... aspects of Furry fandom (although not well-understood). Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:57, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
  • I hope you realize is that much of what is "well known" about sexuality in the furry fandom is based on stereotypes and tabloid journalism. --mwalimu59 (talk) 19:40, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Note that I explicitly said well-known does not mean well-understood. We can all know about a president, but that doesn't mean we understand his/her duties or the person. Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:03, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
Being as Hentai has its own article, there seems some precedent for Yiff having its own page. Though I might propose merging Yiff with Hentai under Toonophilia and just having one page for fandom generated sexual materials with sections for each fandom. Perri Rhoades (talk) 21:43, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Redirection templates and the first manoeuvres in an editing war

I strongly suggest that NO further edits to, for or against redirect templates be made until the subject has been discussed in full and to an agreed conclusion here. If we can't work together instead of against each other we are doomed to failure. -- fgTC 18:21, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Sure. I'd love to hear some arguments why we need this. There is no hatnote at Groove for Grove. There is no hatnote at Hell for Hel. There is no hatnot at Root for rot. Why on earth should we have a typo-hatnote here? --Conti|✉ 19:36, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
I suspect this is a joking reference to Orestes Pursued by the Furies, a parody of which involves furries. Jokes are fine, but keep them out of the main namespace. GreenReaper (talk) 01:30, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
I don't believe Furies is something that is likely to come up often or be of any real use. If a reader types it in wrong, they'll realize their mistake and fix it, but Furies is not an important enough misspelling to include here, there is no proof that it is necessary. SilverserenC 22:12, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
My lord, I can't believe this is what gets your panties in a bunch. If a reader hears something about "furries" or "furies" and tries to come here to learn about it, how are they supposed to realize that's what their mistake is? Wikipedia's purpose is to EDUCATE, this is the whole point of this website. The other arguments are ridiculous, hell/groove/grove are super common words...and other than Hell, those are disambiguation pages that mention the misspellings in the see also. Look at the bottom of Hel, it points to Hell (disambiguation). Hell's disambiguation page also mentions Hel. Going to Keisha mentions Kesha, even Segway mentions Segue (disambiguation). We're talking about 10 words at the top of the page and is following Wikipedia policy. Per WP:HAT "Hatnotes help readers locate a different article they might be seeking. Readers may have arrived at the article containing the hatnote because they were redirected, because the sought article uses a more specific, disambiguated title, or because the sought article and the article with the hatnote have similar names. Hatnotes provide links to the possibly sought article or to a disambiguation page." The diffence between furies and furries is the # of r's...that's it. It's an insanely similar name and both furries and furies are not considered "common knowledge". FYI I've never heard of this "Orestes Pursued by the Furies", this is no joke- this is trying to improve Wikipedia based on sensible edits that clearly fall within Wikipedia policy. --TheTruthiness (talk) 22:21, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
Since finding the correct page even if the search spelling is incorrect is the issue any redirection would aim to solve lets consider that: Searching Furies lands one at Erinyes (a page about angelic looking thingies from Greek croc-pots). At the top of that page there is a disambiguation notice that if followed (if one was searching for Furries) shows a list of not only other single "r"'d furies but also some double "r"'d furries like us! So, if anyone looking for "Furries" searched for "Furies" it would take only two clicks and the ability to read to find their way here. Speaking as someone who spells bad I love it when my poor spelling is foreseen and alternatives are offered. Hyper and/or Wiki-linking also rocks. My personal view is that although TheTruthiness means well and is trying to make life easier for folk like me, it is already quite simple to get from Furies to Furries without any further need for redirection, disambiguation or Hyper/Wiki-linking. -- fgTC 22:57, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
Considering that furies are pronounced in an entirely different way than furries, I fail to see how one could mistake one word for the other. Do you also want a hatnot linking to Fury (note that, again, there's no mention of Furry at Fury)? You're the only one here who seems to think that this is an issue that needs addressing in the first place. --Conti|✉ 23:23, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
Sorry Conti, who is the "you" in your "You're"? To save waiting I'll respond in case it's me. My only concern is that the 7 pointless edits to the article resulting in nothing changing but the history is capped at 7. As for hatnotes: As stated above I feel that no more are needed but, that perhaps (as stated below) the one we already have could be a little more inclusive since pronunciation is one thing whilst spelling is quite another. -- fgTC 23:45, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
Actually, I meant TheTruthiness. My bad, bad indentation. :) --Conti|✉ 07:18, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
No worries Conti. Holding a conversation using this indent style is prone to confusion -- fgTC 14:21, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
Why is Conti talking about pronunciation on a WRITTEN medium as being a reason not to add? They're spelled almost identical which should be more than enough. Why are you also talking about the formatting on disambig pages when this isn't one. And what would be the harm with adding "furry" on the "see also" of fury? Are we charged by the word now?? --208.38.59.163 (talk) 19:55, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
It's really simple: We don't use hatnotes to instruct readers about typos they might have made, unless they are really damn common ones. "Furies" and "furries" are not really damn common typos. So, my question in turn is, why is there such an urge to add this kind of disambiguation here, while there is no effort whatsoever for the same kind of disambiguation in the thousands of other pages that - according to this kind of logic - should also have similar hatnotes? :) --Conti|✉ 20:23, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
Um...most of them already do, champ. Including most of the examples you gave..although you usually give disambig pages which are a different style than regular articles. FYI your saying furries/furies is an uncommon mistake is original research with no evidence to back it up. Your claim that everyone knows the difference between furries/furies enough not to make the spelling mistake, like you can know what everyone else is thinking/knowing. Neither topic would be considered common knowledge so it's an easy mistake to make. I know because I heard about "furies" and ended up at this page. Just noticed your last article edit comment, the reason I haven't added a hatnote to this page on Furies is because that page has a hatnote to a furries disambig page. See, I don't just add them willy nilly. Again you've yet to tell me how this doesn't fall completely within the WP hatnote guidelines other than your opinion that everybody in the world knows the difference between furries & furies. This hatnote follows WP:HAT for "Examples of proper use" as these are "Two articles with similar titles" and doesn't follow any of the examples in "Examples of improper use". If you don't believe they should be used for spelling mistakes, you should discuss it on the HAT talkpage. But this is quite clearly ok other than the fact that you people don't like it because you just don't like it. --TheTruthiness (talk) 02:34, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
The original research argument is nonsense since a) claiming that furries/furies is a common mistake would be the same kind of original research and b) WP:OR is about article content, not hatnotes and the like. I'm sure you know that. :) Second, this is not about whether the topics are common knowledge, but whether the words are common knowledge (cause this is all about spelling mistakes, remember?). And I'm brazen enough to presume that "furry" really is quite a common word in the English language. And, again. Why not add a hatnote for Fury, while we're at it? Again, if we would start with adding hatnotes for uncommon typos then every other article would have a hatnote or three. Just in case. That's what I'm trying to prevent. --Conti|✉ 08:47, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Suggestion We could add to the present template on this article so that it reads something like: ""Furry" and "Furries" redirect here. For the quality of animal hair, see fur. For the rock band, see Super Furry Animals. For mythological winged 'Furies' see Erinyes." This would cover the reverse of my previously described hypothetical search (with spelling issues). -- fgTC 23:18, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Would make more sense/be cleaner to have furies point to 'Furies (disambiguation)' if we went that route. FYI I love how nobody debates 'Super Furry Animals' being hatnoted while furies is apparently like a thousand 9/11's. --208.38.59.163 (talk) 19:57, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
Because the Super Furry Animals are often referred to as "Furries", which is a redirect to this page. --Conti|✉ 20:25, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
"A thousand 9/11's"? Lets keep things in perspective. Don't need to go all Godwin's law now do we? -- fgTC 20:27, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
Apparently you need to look up comedy and exaggeration. Perhaps we could add a hatnote? --TheTruthiness (talk) 02:34, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Hat-note ;-) -- fgTC 21:35, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Yup, putting a pic like that in a discussion is nice and clean, unlike those damn hatnotes which will destroy Wikipedia and the earth itself! --TheTruthiness (talk) 02:43, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
A picture paints a thousand words. -- fgTC 04:14, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Can we start thinking about a solution?

  • TheTruthiness's point is valid insofar that someone searching for Erinyes by searching for Furies (but misspelling it) who like many (including me) is not so good at spelling, could find themselves here via a redirect from Furries without really understanding why. Once here TheTruthiness's method would allow them to realise their mistake and click-bang-zap they're there (at Erinyes).
  • The opposing thoughts are also valid insofar that there is already one hatnote dealing with commonly foreseeable search/redirect mishaps and that anyone searching for Furies would hardly search for Furry fandom.

It must be admitted that the former could happen and some link could be justified in order to aid passers by in finding their way. However it must also be considered that this won't happen often[citation needed] and if we were to add hatnotes to cover all possibilities there might be more hatnotes than article.
I'd like to draw attention to my previous suggestion as just one possible way to solve the conflict in a way that both camps might accept and ask that if my idea is not considered acceptable, that other ideas be suggested in the same manner. -- fgTC 03:42, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

  • Having read the discussion through to this point, I personally don't think there's a huge issue with having the hatnote as proposed; it's a bit more text at the top of the article, really, and given the sad state of spelling and grammar in much of the Western world today the misspelling of 'furies' as 'furries' is possible. If the redirect from 'furries' didn't exist I would say no, but as that's in place there is somewhat of a potential for people to wind up here by accident and wonder what in hell they've done wrong. My two cents. Tony Fox (arf!) 17:11, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

I could be the expert

I own a furry webcomic, and ive been a furry for Eight years and know alot about the Fandom in general — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.235.123.22 (talk) 12:53, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the interest, but Wikipedia can't use personal knowledge as the basis for article content - it has to be backed up in reliable sources. If it didn't, well, there's lots of 'career' furries watching the article. (I wonder what the seniority list would look like if we all started listing how long we'd been in the fandom... suspect around WP I'd probably be close to the top! Which makes me feel old.) Tony Fox (arf!) 17:15, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
Speaking of reliable sources, since nothing has been done about it, I think I'll make the list of sources again and mark out which ones are unreliable according to Wikipedia policy. –Furry-friend (talk) 17:37, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Sources

For the second time I'm making a list of sources, delinating the unreliable sources. Since the previous list went by unnoticed, I figured I'll removed the information that cites bad sources myself this time, and point to this discussion in case of disputes.

Before re-instating any claims cited against these sources please discuss the sources marked as self-published. They will be the first to go because I see no reason to dispute disqualifying them. If anything is mislabeled please assist in correcting it. Furry-friend (talk) 18:14, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Self-published sources really depend on how they're being used and what they're being used for. For example, YARF! as a fanzine would probably fall more under the expert SPS category, making it okay to use. As would ANTHRO. And since Fred Patten is the writer for both, that would certainly make him an expert source and his book Furry! The World's Best Anthropomorphic Fiction fine to use. The Furry Animal Liberation Front i'm not sure about, we'll need to look into that one.
Feel free to remove the Anthrocon source (#3), along with the furry artist sources (#'s 12, 13, and 14). They aren't being used to really reference anything, but to give examples, and that's a bad way to use a reference. Also please remove all of the art site sources (#'s 16, 17, 18, and 19).
Who is Don Mitchell? Just from how the source is organized, he might fall under expert if he's proven to be someone reliable.
All of the game company sources (#'s 33-39) would be reliable, but it does seem like OR. We could quite easily find other, more reliable sources that discuss or point out the existence of anthropomorphic characters in those games, sources that are more secondary in nature. I'm sure we can find a better source than Wikifur (#42) for information on furry convention attendees. And sources 44-51 are bad. I know for a fact that we can find reliable sources pointing out furry websites. We don't need to use these.
The survey (#52) lists reliable sources for its information and the survey itself was conducted in the community, so it would likely fall on the good side of SPS sources. Source #57, the other survey seems unnecessary. The Ursa Major Awards (source 74) definitely fall within the good realm of SPS. Source #75 should just be changed to an actual page from the Ursa Major website. The Osaki survey is actually the major one. The thing with surveys is that, as long as interpretations aren't being made from them, but just straight data, they should be fine to use. SilverserenC 01:24, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
Thank you for your corrections. The new numbers I added don't match up to your numbers, but the specific sources you comment on are understood. Furry-friend (talk) 12:07, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Regarding self-published sources: For contentious issues, it is understandable that self-published sources might be inappropriate. However, for some material, the Wikipedia verifiability policy accepts that self-published material is acceptable:

Self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, usually in articles about themselves or their activities, without the requirement in the case of self-published sources that they be published experts in the field, so long as:

  1. the material is not unduly self-serving;
  2. it does not involve claims about third parties;
  3. it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the source;
  4. there is no reasonable doubt as to its authenticity;
  5. the article is not based primarily on such sources.

For definitional and historical material, I suggest that these sources should be acceptable until such time as a media-published source should be found. In particular, I think that this should apply to Patten's sources in the History section (4, 5, 7). I might suggest that the Anthrocon source for defining fandom would also fall under this category (3), although the statement might stand well enough with the media source provided (2). —Dajagr (talk) 18:27, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

The Patten citations are indeed still in the article. As for an overview, or "definition", of the fandom, I hope some high-quality academic sources may be found in the future. Specifically, I was looking for help from Wikiproject Sociology, but I couldn't find an expert. Furry-friend (talk) 17:52, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Remaining references that might not comply with the verifiability policy:

  1. "alt.lifestyle.furry - Frequently Asked Questions". May 8, 2001. Retrieved 2006-08-26.
  2. TheChainedWolf (2010-03-14). "Ursa Major Awards 2009: predictions and forlorn hopes". FurteanTimes.com/Flayrah. Retrieved 2010-11-11.

Flayrah's article seems particularly superfluous, being a personal blog. The ALF FAQ looks like it's used for original research.

Since the questionable sources have been weeded out, I'd like to ask other editors who are more involved in sociology or Wikipedia Project Sociology to search for academic sources about the furry subculture. –Furry-friend (talk) 11:29, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Per WP:NEWSBLOG, I have attributed the comment about the Ursa Majors to the writer. The piece is originally from the Furtean Times; its content was brought to Flayrah a year ago. It was written by the magazine's lead writer, who was interviewed on the topic of furries by the BBC. GreenReaper (talk) 22:08, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
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