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

Hello,

The TG staff have decided to add a new rule to our Community rules of conduct:

rules Wrote:23. Pups (users under 16 years old) are not allowed to discuss romantic relationships (whether with other members or in their IRL lives) anywhere on TG. Violating this rule will lead to warnings and eventually bans.

The addition of this rule represents a change in how the staff will deal with these issues going forward, so I posted this announcement to make extra sure that the pups are aware of this new rule, so that it doesn't seem unfair when we start enforcing it.

Just to be extra clear "anywhere on TG" includes private shouts, journals, the life issues and support forum, signatures, everything. As with all rules, teams might have exceptions, discuss that with the team leader.


Basically, there seems to be a recent trend going on with pups (usually age around 13) "dating" people and so forth. The discussions regarding it range from pups calling innocent associations with friends "polyamory", to maintaining stalking journals over unrequited love, to some pups "dating" off-site people with enormous age gaps and dramatic breakups leading to pups posting about self-harm.

I realise that romantic relationships are a part of life and that as young therians, you don't always know exactly where the border between human instinct and animal instinct is, and that talking about animal instincts is very much the subject for Therian Guide... However the amount of problems these discussions have created on the site, are making it difficult for people to even see discussions about actual therianthropy, through all the drama. Not to mention so much of the content created this way really skirts the other rules, which all exist for good reasons.


As such, if romantic relationships are the main thing you are after as a pup on this site, I would politely ask you to find a different community where such discussions are more appropriate. Therian Guide is an educational website on the topic of therianthropy.

I realise through our previous discussions in the staff journal, that there are some of you who really won't like this, but I've considered all the alternatives and at this point this is the best compromise I can think of.

LP,
Dusty

Dear pups, youngsters and those who are in school.

In the past years, laptops have become more present in the classrooms. These laptops are often school owned and governed by them. Meaning they have access to a lot of data from your computer, without you knowing.

You might have noticed that the teacher can see what you are doing on your screen whilst they are far away, schools adding blockers for apps and websites, ...

Truth is they can access your action history as well. What you do during class, what websites you visit, ...

Administrators can view those and if they see a certain website gets visited a lot during classes and causes a lot of traffic (in our case, loading the webpage, fetching posts, shoutbox messages, ...). They may be inclined to add that website to the blacklist. And thus causing your fun websites and therian guide to become blocked.

Why do they do these things?
To remove distractions in class so you'd pay attention in class.

Why would they look at our actions?
There are multiple reasons as for why they might do this.
- routine checks
- grades are low in a certain class / grade
- it is their job
- ...

We, as therian guide, have done everything we can do to prevent schools from banning therian guide. now it is up to you

What can you do?
- only be on here after school
- never be online or open therian guide when in class
- don't browse here during tests, presentations, tasks and lectures

Aka only be on here during your free time!
Doing this will minimize the risk of therian guide being blocked. Minimize the risks of your friends getting blocked. Minimize the risk of your losing your friends.

I know it is enticing to be on here for your friends during class. But is the risk worth it? Is it worth those few chats with friends to then never have contact with them anymore because tg got blocked?
If not for you, do it for others.
What about pups who want to learn about therianthropy but they can't access the website because it got blocked by someone being on here when they shouldn't. This is not only about you but also the future of therian guide.


Tldr: schools block websites that are frequently visited during classes and don't conform to the class subject. Only be on here in your free time.

Hey all,

As you may have noticed, TG has been getting a large influx of young members... I assume this has something to do with Corona and kids getting school chromebooks, where everything is blocked except educational sites such as TG.

This has caused our little chat feature, the shoutbox, to be permanently clogged with conversations about school and parents and the unfairness of life... which all have very little to do with therianthropy. This has caused a number of older therians to experience a sense of feeling unwelcome or out of place here.


If you are younger yourself, you may have noticed that there are now adults in the shoutbox, telling you when you have said or done something wrong. The reason they are doing this, is because I have asked them to tell you if something you are doing is bothering them. This is in an attempt to address those feelings everyone has been having in regards to how TG has changed with your arrival.

Therian Guide is a site dedicated to the education about Therianthropy. For this purpose is is important that therians do not feel unwelcome here. It is true that most of our adults are in fact, not staff, however if they tell you something you are doing is bothering them, I do expect you to correct your behavior if you wish to stay on TG regardless of this detail.

If you're bored or primarily interested in something unrelated to therianthropy, there are many other sites on the Internet where it is more appropriate to have such conversations on. Please respect the fact that TG is one of the few places online which is dedicated specifically to Therianthropy and Therians and that by talking about off-topic stuff all the time, you are taking away the only space that therians have.


I understand that some of this is challenging and perhaps not what you might have wanted or consistent with what TikTok has taught you, however I do believe that we can find a way to make our little community work in a way that is healthy and safe for everyone. Please try to understand that we're not really asking for much and that we are willing to be reasonable.

I also believe, that by actually talking about these things and taking into account how we make each other feel, each one of us can grow as a person to become better people. This is obviously especially important for younger people, where developing the ability to gracefully cope with social challenges, could make a big difference in their quality of life in the long run.

Even if not everyone is really a therian, they might still take something good out of this.


So if you're trying... Thank you.

LP,
Dusty

Hey guys,

Happy therianthropy day!

As is our historic custom, therianthropy day is celebrated on the first full moon in November, which is today on the 27th .

To quote @BearX who posted this back in 2017:

(2017-11-04 14:44)BearX Wrote:  Today is the first full moon of November, 2017. The first full moon of November has been a sort of de facto "Therianthropy Day" since the mid 1990s. It was when, 23 years ago, on the weekend of November 19 & 20, 1994, the first official AHWW howl was held.

I was unable to attend it, although I did make the two that followed. I was a broke college student and had no transportation at the time. It was fun reading the post-howl reports on the newsgroup, though.

I always felt it was a good time to have an official celebration of therianthropy, since the AHWW newsgroup itself was created in November, 1992. Very momentous for therians, November is.

It was first proposed as a sort of holiday in March of 1996, in this thread on AHWW, should you want to investigate the history. Ultimately, AHWW decided to use it, and it stuck. It went through a few iterations of names, "International Werewolf Day", and then the less species-specific "Awereness Day" (since were is the older term for therian), and after the term therianthropy caught on, "Therianthropy Day".

So, happy "Therianthropy Day". Hope it's a good one.

We never quite figured out what we were going to do for Therianthropy Day. Maybe bake a cake. Maybe be proud and celebrate your therianthropy online by bragging about your animal traits. Maybe just chill out and have that one day in a year when you let your animal side out a bit more than usual. There are no rules on what must be done for therianthropy day.

If nothing else, it's a day to be true to ourselves and remember what all this is all about.

Take care.

LP,
Dusty