It's been pointed out to the staff that there are users who are saying that if a down payment is made on an alt and the buyer vanishes or backs out, the seller keeps the money.

This sort of behavior goes against our moral code of transactions, and could be considered scamming.

Let's face it; real life happens. You are losing nothing by returning the money or simply by putting the alt on hold.

If you have an issue with people backing out after making a payment, don't put alts on hold or take installments.

We will start suspending if we catch users doing this as it IS considered scamming, so be warned. The ONLY exception will be if the buyer vanishes for an extended period of time.

For more clarification, PM a staff member.

There have been a lot of users lately posting in guest accounts.

Guest accounts are not what they seem like; you either have an account on FAM or you do not. Guest accounts are a placeholder for a deleted account, so when the account is deleted, their posts stay.

This means that when you reply to a thread where the OP is a guest, they will not be able to reply because they no longer have an account.

In the future, instead of posting in such a thread, please report it so it can be removed.

On that note, please be aware of the last time the creator of a thread logged on or posted in the thread they created. There have been a great deal of necro'd threads lately. If the OP hasn't been online/posted in the thread for 30 days, do not post in it. Thread necromancy IS against the rules, and warnings will be given out accordingly.

Let's all do our part to keep the forums clean and the posts relevant!

At FAM/FAZ we're not usually inclined to comment on politics as they are a typical touch off for flame wars and trolling. But there is legislation currently under consideration by the United States Congress that gives us serious concern.

Called the "Stop Online Piracy Act" (SOPA) in the House of Representatives and the "PROTECT IP Act" (PIPA) in the Senate, these bills are a misguided attempt to curb the illegal piracy of copyrighted content (like movies, music and games). Preventing piracy of copyrighted content is a laudable goal, and we support legitimate efforts to combat these activities and protect content creators (like us).

However, SOPA/PIPA goes far beyond simply addressing piracy. This proposed legislation actually threatens any website that features user-generated content. In effect, any copyright holder could file a claim that a website is hosting unauthorized content (such as a copyright name or piece of art). Under the law, ad networks, payment providers and internet service providers are now potentially liable for their user’s infringement. These services could then be compelled to immediately remove support for the website or face a costly legal battle – at a minimum cutting off financial means, and likely shutting off the site entirely.

How would SOPA/PIPA impact FAM/FAZ users?

• Threatens independent content creation. Services we all use to create and share FAM/FAZ related content, such as YouTube, DeviantArt, streaming websites, and more would be at risk of shutting down or greatly restricting the scope of legitimate content allowed on their sites.
• Attacks our community. Aspects of our service such as the forums, user galleries, and patch archive could be taken down or have their features reduced based on user behavior.
• Other harmful effects. SOPA/PIPA undermine established intellectual property legislation like the DMCA, raise serious constitutional free speech issues, and could even compromise the basic security infrastructure of the internet.

Congress will reconvene at the end of January, and with a long roster of supporters on both sides of the aisle, SOPA/PIPA could actually pass. The likelihood is so great that technology giants including Google, Amazon, Facebook and Twitter have gone so far as to publicly consider a simultaneous blackout in protest.

We are opposed to SOPA/PIPA in their present form. While we support efforts to prevent online piracy, the current form of this legislation comes at far too high a cost for us, our users, and online communities across the internet.

Help us take a stand. Write your congressperson today and voice your opposition to this misguided and harmful legislation: https://action.eff.org/o/9042/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=8173[/list]

Happy Holidays to everyone!

As many of you know, FAM started as a small side project by Creative/Spyware back in 2005. At that time he thought maybe there would be 100 users listing 1,000 alts total. Fortunately for us, he was way off! In just these few short years, FAM has had over 18,700 accounts created which have combined to list and relist over 340,000 alts.

With the enormous popularity of FAM, I worked on creating FAZ. As hard as it is for me to believe, that was  4 years ago! To date, FAZ has had over 6,800  accounts created which have combined to upload over 23,500 pieces of art and which have shared over 575 patches, dreams, and free portraits with others via the patch archive. Those shared filed have been downloaded over 358,000 times.

So why does all of this matter? Because despite the claims on Furcadia’s forums that Furcadia is dying I have only ever continued to see both FAM and FAZ grow and thrive. But that means that we are constant struggling to cover our hosting and bandwidth expenses. While many users have been able to make hundreds or thousands of dollars themselves using FAM or FAZ, I remain committed to never charging you for the sites use. But this means that I need your help!

FAM and FAZ combine on a monthly basis to use approximately 40+ GB of bandwidth in addition to needing over 5GB, and growing, of storage space! We’ve recently made some upgrades to our hosting to continue to handle this without interruption, but I continue to need your donations to operate this site for free! As always, if you make a donation of $25 or more, I will make you a permanent site sponsor which removed all of the ads from your viewing experience.

Thank you again to each and every one of you that have contributed to the sites in the past and I look forward to your help and contributions moving forward.

Sincerely,
Matt Hirschfelt
“Narnia”

Hello FAM Users,

Lately, we've noticed a small rise in abusing the Report a Thread feature.

We always gladly accept any help that you provide if you see rule breaking such as multiple bumping in a day or aggressive arguments occurring, but we cannot stress enough the importance of using the feature only if absolutely necessary and only if you are confident what you're seeing is in fact a serious problem requiring immediate attention.

I am sending a reminder that using the Report a Thread feature SHOULD NOT be used for reporting a thread you simply want deleted.
If you want to start a new thread, and you already have another thread, simply rename your old thread "Delete, please" or something specifically denoting removal, and we will remove it when we do our annual thread clear outs.

Do not waste our time by sending in a report for deletion. This is not an emergency requiring us all to drop everything and assist with.

Thank you,
FAM Staff

Hello faithful FAM users!

You may or may not have noticed the downtime and intermittent slowness that we experienced this morning on the site. Basically, FAM (along with FAZ) has outgrown its shared hosting environment and I am in the process of relocating the site to a new hosting package as soon as possible.

However, this does not come without a significant increase to my monthly server expenses. As such, I am now reaching out to the community to make donations to the site so that I can continue to provide you with the same level of accessibility and service that you have come to expect since March of 2005 when the site was launched.

I have enjoyed providing FAM to you for free since I took over in early 2008 and I would like to continue doing so for as long as possible. As such donations of any amount can be sent via PayPal to matt.hirschfelt@gmail.com. Any donation of $25 or more will come with a permanent sponsor status here on FAM which will remove all advertisements from the site during your visits. (If you send a donation of $25 of more, send me a PM with your e-mail address so I can get you set up right away!)

I hope that you can find a few extra dollars to help keep one of your favorite sites running. Your support is appreciated and I hope that you continue to enjoy using the site.

Sincerely,
Matt Hirschfelt
“Narnia”
FAM Owner

As of late, there has been an influx of people switching accounts instead of simply changing their username.

This is NOT allowed.

All FAM users are only allowed one account. If you wish to change your name, you are able to do so yourself by accessing your profile and going to "Account Settings":



When you're there, you can change your display name (it will be a box towards the top).

Anyone found with multiple accounts WILL be banned in accordance with the rules. If you have more than one account that we have not caught yet, PM me so we can take care of the other one before we put a ban in place. If you are already banned, you can contact myself or another moderator ingame or through other means (AIM, FAZ, etc.) to get the ban lifted.

Don't forget to re-read the site rules if you're unclear, and feel free to ask if you have any questions regarding this or any other policy.

If there aren't any staff on Furc or AIM, leave me an offline message on Zim saying which accounts are involved and which you'd like deleted so I can take care of it.

Hello FAM users,

For the last little while, we've noticed a large amount of people selling designs in their alt selling threads. Furcadia Alt Market is for selling alts and their attached designs, not selling the art by itself.

Narnia created Furcadia Art Zone so Furcadian users could sell designs and other art easily, so please make use of that website to sell designs that do not have an attached alt.
 

Users have to clean their threads, then warnings, followed by suspensions will be handed out.

Thank you,
FAM/FAZ Staff

The site has been updated. Please let me know if you experience any errors.

From all of us at FAM & FAZ, we hope you have a great year, and succeed at your chosen resolutions for this year!