Hey all, I had a bit of a spontaneous idea and wanted to throw it out there for discussion:
Wouldn’t it be interesting if there was a federated, decentralized platform specifically tailored for the furry community—something that could serve as an alternative to centralized spaces like FurAffinity, WikiFur, etc.?
Let me explain a bit:
FurAffinity (FA) – Probably the largest and longest-running furry art and content platform. It’s where most people host their art, stories, and fursonas. But it’s fully centralized—one site, one set of rules, one point of failure. Moderation controversies and outdated features have led to a lot of frustration in the community over the years.
WikiFur – A community-run encyclopedia that’s been around forever. It’s super informative and has a ton of historical/cultural content, but again, it’s centralized. It’s also not very interactive or accessible for casual users who just want quick slang lookups or term definitions.
•SoFurry - Focused on written content (furry stories and erotica), plus art and music.
Has social features, groups, and forums.
More modern features than FA, but smaller audience.
•FurryNetwork - /Social-media style layout (more like Twitter or Facebook).
Focus on art portfolios and NSFW-friendly.
Centralized and not very actively maintained anymore.
•FurVilla - MMO/forum hybrid with virtual pets and community events.
Strong community element, although it leans more toward a furry-themed game.
•Weasyl - A community art site launched as a modern FA competitor.
Open-source, more advanced features, but never caught on at scale.
Development is slow, community is small but loyal.
etc.
Now obviously, Pawb.Social is already a furry-run Lemmy instance, and I love that we’re carving out furry space(s) in the broader Fediverse.
But I was imagining something a bit more purpose-built—a platform that’s:
Fully federated and decentralized
Designed by, and exclusively for, furries
Combines elements of:
A Lemmy-style discussion space (but specifically furry-centric)
A Furry Dictionary/Encyclopedia, similar in function to Urban Dictionary or Merriam-Webster, but focused on furry terms, slang, lore, species archetypes, cultural norms, history, etc.
Think: a living, community-maintained knowledge base—exclusively furry in focus.
Something truly ours.
Ideally this would be its own standalone federated platform—not just a Lemmy instance, not just another Mastodon server—something unique that could still interoperate with the Fediverse, but serve a more tailored role for our niche.
Unfortunately, I personally don’t have the coding ability or the time to take on something like this, but I wanted to throw it out into the aether and see if:
Anyone else has thought about something similar?
Something like this already exists?
Or maybe someone here has the chops (or interest) to explore it?
Would love to hear your thoughts, even if it’s just “cool but impractical” or “here’s a tool that already does part of that.” or "that sounds like shite. "
Wikipedia - Webring
They also exist nowadays in platforms like Neocities and Nekoweb.
Basically, just websites linking to each other.
That’s pretty cool, but I do understand why it doesn’t exist anymore, it’s quite tedious and requires a lot more work then just having different tabs for stuff. I wonder, what has made stuff like neocities still somewhat popular today?
Having a personal website is cool (in my opinion) and offers infinite customization, so there's an appeal.
Neocities is free (though there is a supporter tier for extra storage and some quality-of-life features) and more convenient than self-hosting a web server.
There's a community around Neocities since the websites are profiles which can be commented on, though participating in social features is optional.
I don't think webrings and different tabs do the same thing, since webrings means linking to other people's websites, while a different tab is, in a static website, just a different page on the same site.