What's new

Hey everyone,

We rarely make these announcements lately. I thought I'd make one just to show users who are not logged in that we are all still alive here and that something is going on. As the guy-who-pays-the-bills I guess it's my responsibility.


Lately there have been changes on Therian Guide. We always try to learn from past experiences and remain open to new views.

What we've learned is that we should focus more inwards and this is mainly what we have been doing. That is, Therian Guide's most important part is it's community. We've promoted staff who genuinely care about our community. We've added customization options to allow you guys to pick your colors. And we've been fine-tuning the rules to make sure therians are comfortable here.


The main challenge we've had to deal with is the massive influx of new members, primarily young people who access TG through their school chromebooks. Therian Guide is classed as an educational website in content filters, because that's what it actually is. We are a community dedicated to learning to live with therianthropy. However, this has also made us a bit of a target of these young people who don't really have any other online communities to choose from, because of content filtering.

If you have newly joined and have been waiting for months to get your account activated, I wanted to inform you that this is normal. Simply put, because our community is so important to us, we can only allow new members to join gradually and slowly, to give everyone a chance to get to know each other. Given the large amount of applications we get, this unfortunately means long wait times for you.

Don't worry though, you will not be forgotten. Staff use tools that make your application obvious even if you have not recently posted. Obviously of course, if you check back regularly that let's us know you are still interested.


There is more I could write here, but as we have been focusing inwards, most of the changes we have been making only really concern our community members and are not appropriate in this public post.

If you are interested, be sure to follow the Staff journal for new relevant information.

LP,
Dusty

(2025-01-07 20:12)DustWolf Wrote:  We've added customization options to allow you guys to pick your colors.

Ok so I may have already asked about this on the staff journal, sorry, but yeah, this is what I meant x3

Hello,

It has come to my attention that this statement has had some unintended consequences:

(2025-01-07 20:12)DustWolf Wrote:  The main challenge we've had to deal with is the massive influx of new members, primarily young people who access TG through their school chromebooks. Therian Guide is classed as an educational website in content filters, because that's what it actually is. We are a community dedicated to learning to live with therianthropy. However, this has also made us a bit of a target of these young people who don't really have any other online communities to choose from, because of content filtering.

If there are any educators out there reading this and have some kind of an opinion, PLEASE CONTACT US. There are a number of ways you could do this, there's a contact email address on the website or you can just get in touch by creating an account like everyone else.

We recognize the right of parents and educators to monitor the usage of internet media by the kids under their care and in fact we applaud it. If you think the kids shouldn't be on our site during class, believe me the adults using this site certainly agree and we'd be willing to work with you to arrive at solutions that would work for you and wouldn't stress out the younger users of our site.

I understand the concern that identity politics presents to the younger people here, however please try to understand that this is the Internet. Even if I outlaw identity politics discussion on this site, they just will just talk about it somewhere else. I've done everything I reasonably can to not draw attention to it in our community.

In addition, prejudice towards therians is very common and so I understand if you feel some kind of knee jerk reaction regarding what we are telling people here. This is why the younger users of this site haven't told you about it. I would like to invite you to read our FAQ for parents of therians, which also nicely works for educators:
https://www.therian-guide.com/index.php/8-Parents

In short, we are not asking anyone to believe this stuff. We are not making it fun and pleasant to do so. Therian Guide is not a commercial entity and we don't have any agenda. This site is dedicated to encouraging people to explore their actual feelings and deciding how to deal with them. We do what we can to discourage people from creating fictional identities and advertising them to their peers, as all this may seem to be at first glance (considering this is also what you have done yourself trying to emulate them). Naturally young teens (people under 13 years old are not allowed on this site) are prone to exploring these topics with play. I have found that allowing them to try things out and see if they fit works with them very nicely and in fact all of them eventually grow out of their pretend phase. We keep a strong emphasis on being honest with themselves and others, to make sure that they are not led astray by something that only exists in their heads.

I am sorry to other people reading this if this sounds condescending, but I have been in this community for over 25 years and I've formed my opinions based on what I've seen. Therian Guide is a family and I feel the same responsibility that drives parents and educators to express concerns about this place.

For educators, please consider again that we are not asking anyone to accept anything we are saying and that we try to encourage the younger ones to decide for themselves based on what is genuine and to have healthy skepticism about what their peers or people in general claim. What people learn about on this site is for their own personal use and what people believe in the privacy of their own thoughts is a danger to nobody.

LP,
Dusty