Fur Affinity | Code of Conduct
Updated - 3/9/2022Code of Conduct
These standards apply to all aspects of Fur Affinity such as social interaction and content that you upload to the site. Before opening a Trouble Ticket, please be aware that we neither accept third-party reports nor act upon incidents occurring outside Fur Affinity unless a substantial and direct correlation can be made to an incident that is imminent or occurring on Fur Affinity. While personal screenshots, off-site chat logs, and similar evidence will not be reviewed unless irrefutable, you may provide Fur Affinity webpage screenshots using https://archive.today/. If you are reporting a user who is harassing you, it is required that you block the user via Settings > Edit User Page Info > Block List before we can assist you.
Fur Affinity does not mediate business disputes between sellers and buyers. If you did not receive or are not satisfied with your product, please seek resolution via the transaction facilitator (PayPal), your financial institution, or other civil actions.
Fur Affinity Site Moderators will do everything they can to assist you in alleviating issues you may be experiencing on site with professionalism and without bias. However, if at any time you disagree with a decision made by a member of staff, you may request that your issue be escalated to a Site Administrator for review or contact appeals@furaffinity.net with your user name and related ticket number. Rulings are made based upon staff discretion after thorough investigation and reviewing site policies.
1. The Law and You
1.1 Do not encourage or engage in illegal activity.
This includes, but is not limited to, drug use (excluding marijuana use), piracy, and copyright infringement. While you may openly debate the validity of current laws, you may not promote, encourage, engage in, plan, post or link to content or activities that violate federal US law, or anything that could be used as directions for committing a crime.
1.2 Do not discuss violent or sexual crimes.
Do not discuss details or experiences of committing, illegal acts involving sex, violence, or abuse against any creature, living or dead. Recounting and taking responsibility for past history may be allowed at staff discretion provided that harmful or illegal acts are not cast in a positive light.
1.3 Do not host or participate in any form of gambling.
Gambling or games of chance are defined as requiring participants to pay an entry fee for a chance to win a prize but are not guaranteed to get a prize. This may include raffles, sweepstakes, or lotteries. Contests where entry is free or where all participants are guaranteed to receive a prize are allowed.
1.4 Do not encourage or engage in animal cruelty.
While you may openly debate the validity of current laws, you may not promote, encourage, engage in, plan, post or link to content or activities that may constitute animal cruelty, or anything that could be used as directions for committing animal cruelty. Animal cruelty includes, but is not limited to: Torturing or beating an animal, confining or transporting an animal in a way that is inappropriate for its welfare, killing an animal in an inhumane manner, failing to provide appropriate or adequate food or water for an animal, failing to provide appropriate treatment for disease or injury, and failing to provide appropriate living conditions.
2. Other Users and You
2.1 Do not share or try to obtain private information.
This includes attempting to obtain through deception or posting privileged/personal information of other individuals or businesses, such as social security numbers, unlisted contact information, addresses, credit card numbers, and correspondence (logs, emails, notes, etc).
2.2 Do not threaten anyone.
This includes both physical and financial harm (theft or vandalism), alluded or explicit.
2.3 Do not stalk anyone.
Stalking is the willful and repeated harassment of another user. This harassment may also come in the form of repeated communication, following, and gifts to an unwilling recipient.
2.4 Do not harass anyone.
In this context, harassment includes creating an account with an offensive name, impersonation of another user, and remarks which discuss personal grievances, quarrels, malicious rumors, negative statements about, purposefully misgendering or deadnaming other individuals, and attempting to address or contact a user who has blocked you or whom you have blocked, including soliciting other users to pass on messages or otherwise make contact on your behalf. This does not include civil discussions about topics of public interest such as celebrities or government officials, but does include 'bewares' and similar content. If a particular type of content does not appeal to you, then do not seek it out to make disparaging comments. Users with a pattern of this behavior may be cited for harassment.
2.5 Do not promote, glorify, instruct, or encourage anyone to hurt themselves.
Do not encourage other users to engage in harmful behaviors, including suicide, eating disorders, or other forms of self harm. Do not give other users medical or veterinary advice that could result in harm coming to them or their pets. This does not apply to fictional works when used as part of a narrative.
2.6 Do not engage in malicious content.
Do not make derogatory use of caricatures, slurs, nor disparaging remarks about others' race, ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, veteran status, sexual orientation or similar, or make maliciously misleading statements about cultures, religions, etc. This does not apply to fictional works when used as part of a narrative.
2.7 Do not identify with or promote real hate, terrorist organizations, mass murderers, serial killers and their ideologies.
A hate group is one that advocates and practices hatred, hostility, or violence towards members of a designated sector of society (e.g. Nazism, ISIS, KKK) that are reflected in the real world. Users who identify with or promote real hate or terrorist organizations and their ideologies may be permanently banned from Fur Affinity without warning.
2.8 Do not promote ideologies harmful to public safety.
Examples include: Covid misinformation, anti-vaccination, QAnon.
3. Fur Affinity and You
3.1 Do not disrespect site staff or abuse the ticket system.
Our staff is currently made up of volunteers who perform duties that are difficult and time consuming. Please refrain from needless harassment, insults, and arguing as it interferes with the ability for staff to perform their duties. Keep contact with staff concerning issues with Fur Affinity to the ticket system. Do not misrepresent site policies or staff actions, suggest that you have special privilege with staff, or retaliate against other users over staff action.
Trouble ticket abuse includes opening multiple tickets for the same problem, using the prospect of a report as leverage against another user, and encouraging other users to create additional reports for the same violation. If you disagree with a staff member's ruling you may ask to have an issue escalated but may not re-open the escalated ticket after a ruling is made.
3.2 Do not engage in Mature/Adult Rated activity in General Rated or public areas, such as profiles, journals, and shouts.
Prohibited content includes erotic role-play, but excludes discussion of adult themes, provided they aren't explicit. You may review content ratings by accessing the UP under section 1.1.
3.3 Do not post links to content prohibited by Fur Affinity's policies.
If you are not allowed to upload or discuss the content on Fur Affinity, then do not link to it, tell users how to find it, or encourage users to seek it out elsewhere. Violating this rule may also result in citation under the site rule the content violates.
Mature/Adult links are prohibited on General-rated or public areas unless the content requires a login or age verification. This includes advertisements visible on the target URL.
Exemptions: UP 2.8, 2.9, 4.1, and others by staff discretion.
3.4 Do not spam.
We do not allow messaging with unsolicited advertising, promotions, or repetitive content that are unintelligible or intended to clutter pages with unwanted content.
Users engaging in excessive spamming as defined above risk having all comments, shouts, and/or notes deleted and receiving a final warning or permanent suspension.
3.5 Do not promote crypto currency and NFTs
Fur Affinity does not allow for the promotion of crypto currency or NFT platforms.
4. Enforcement
4.1 Penalties
Failure to abide by the content of this document may result in the following penalties. ("You" refers to you and all accounts you own/operate):
- 1st Level Offense - You will receive a Warning Notice.
- 2nd Level Offense - You will be temporarily suspended for 1 day.
- 3rd Level Offense - You will be temporarily suspended for 3 days.
- 4th Level Offense - You will be temporarily suspended for 1 week, and will receive a final warning to cease violating the relevant section.
- 5th Level Offense - You will be permanently banned from using Fur Affinity's services. Any future accounts you create will also be Permanently Banned.
4.2 Stacking
Only violations of the same section stack when concerning penalties. e.g. If you violate section 1.10 and then subsequently section 1.11, you will receive warnings both times.
4.3 Escalation
Violations of the following sections may be escalated immediately to the 4th Offense Level: 1.1, 1.2, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.5, 2.7, and 2.8. These sections have been highlighted for your convenience.
4.4 Blocks, Suspensions, and Bans
If for any reason, your account is suspended, banned, restricted, blocked (via users), or otherwise disabled by Fur Affinity, you may not create another account with the intent to bypass these limitations without our permission. Any effort to evade these limitations yourself or on behalf of another user may result in a suspension or the length of your current suspension being extended or changed to a permanent ban. When permanently banned, you may not use Fur Affinity as a registered user nor create accounts.
4.5 Further Details
All decisions are made based upon your history, the severity of your offense, and the discretion of the Moderator.
If you disagree with the decision of a Moderator, you may appeal the decision by opening a Trouble Ticket under the Dispute Administrative Action section. If your account is currently inaccessible due to a Suspension or Ban, you may email appeals@furaffinity.net. Disputes must be filed within 6 months of when the decision took place.