Old FAQ

SoFurry Version 2.0!

Q: Where is the FAQ for version 2.0? A: FAQ 2.0

Main Site

How does search work?

Searching on sofurry is a simple matter of entering you search terms, preferably separated by comma. To exclude a tag, put a "!" or "-" in front of it, like so: "Wolf, M/M, !Werewolf, !Wolverine"

Search is an AND-search by default, so the more terms you enter the fewer results you will get as less content will match all your search criteria.

You can also simply enter any author name or submission title to search for them. In the future we will add support for OR-search as well as forcing tag-only or title-only searches.

How do I search only stories?

After entering a search term and pressing "Search", the site will display all matching results in separate lists by content type. You can focus your search to display, for example, only stories by clicking on the "stories" tab right below the site banner.

You will find that you can switch between different content types without losing your search. To clear the search click on the "Browse" tab.

Also note that each list has a button labeled "show all" below it. Clicking this button has the same effect as clicking the tab related to this list's content type.

How do I browse to the next picture while viewing?

Instead of a mere "prev/next" button, SoFurry has a very sophisticated quickbrowser that fulfills exactly that function, only better!

A short list of submissions is displayed on the top right area of the site. The current submission is highlighted, the list can be scrolled with prev and next links on the bottom of the list.

Tabs switch between browsing all content, browsing only content of the type you're currently viewing, browsing only that author/artist's submissions, browsing content in the current folder, and browsing this author/artist's favorites.

Is there an app for my mobile phone?

Yes! Check out the [SoFurry Live Wallpaper] for Android 2.1

Also, a full android app for browsing, messaging and chatting is being developed right now. The API is open for other applications.

I'm a developer, can I access sofurry via some API?

Yes. Please see the wiki frontpage for detailed API documentation on how to authenticate with sofurry, send/receive chat messages and upload submissions.

How do I put an avatar-link to another user into my comment/submission?

You can link to another user by writing the following:

@Username or :iconUSERNAME:

This will display a clickable avatar for the user "USERNAME" along with the name. Clicking the username will take you to their user page.

If you want JUST the avatar picture without the username or popup menu, use this:

:USERNAMEicon:

So for example, to link to Toumal, you would write :iconToumal: Note: The username doesn't have to be uppercase. If the username has a space in it include it as in :iconFirst Last:

Want to link to users on another site? Use these codes:

fa!ThatOtherUser will link to the FurAffinity account of ThatOtherUser

ib!ThatOtherUser will link to the Inkbunny account of ThatOtherUser

I wanna link to another submission via thumbnail in my text/description, how do I do that?

In your story text or image description, put the following text:

:link9999:

The number 9999 is the page ID of the submission you want to link to. You can see the page ID in the URL of the page. If the submission you link to is an image, it will be displayed as thumbnail, otherwise a music icon or user avatar of the author will be shown.

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck would chuck wood?

42!

Profiles

How do avatars work and how many can I have?

You can have as many avatars as you like! Avatars are displayed at random. Animated GIFs are supported too. You can even upload a big file and crop the image right on the site, no need to use Photoshop ;)

NOTE: You can upload adult avatars, but you MUST set them to "adult" by clicking on the "toggle adult" link next to the avatar in the list. Adult avatars will only be displayed to users who have set their profile to "adult" as well.

If you want to add an animated GIF for an Avatar however, some might appear as choppy or broken pictures. If this is the case the best option is to make the image's size match its resolution.

For example: Size: 100x100 Resolution: 100 dpi

Uploading

How do I upload?

Depending on the media you are uploading, this varies, but the process remains basically the same.

To upload Journals/Stories: Click the Upload button below the Journals/Stories, depending on which one you are uploading, and then the New Journals/New Stories button. Simply type or Copy/Paste the text into the browser window that comes up. Some word processors may mess with the text slightly, though, from personal experience, Microsoft Word 2007+ seems to preserve all formatting perfectly when copied. Then, once the text is pasted and corrected, set the content level, (See What's a content title, and which one should I choose?), Check what groups (if any) you wish to upload the story too, and set the options (Which Folder, if any, Comments and Votes allowed and the publicity [public, group only, or friend only]) Give it a title of course and the correct tags, (see How do tags work?) and you'll be done when you hit save!

To upload Pictures: Click the Upload button below the Artwork Section, then the new artwork button. Click the "Select File" Button to upload your pic, give it a quick description, the appropriate tags, and content level (again, see What's a content title, and which one should I choose? and How do tags work?), and set the general options and groups just like in stories and journals. Hit save and you are done!

What filetypes are supported?

For Artwork, Avatars, Banners:

PNG JPG GIF

For Music:

MP3

For stories and journals:

Text/HTML

Note that at the moment, animated GIF is not supported for banners and thumbnails of Artwork, animated GIF do work in avatars though. This may change in the future. Furthermore, SWF support is on our todo list as well.

How do tags work?

Tags are short one-word (or two-word) descriptions that tell people what's going on in your submission.

Tags are the single most important thing you have to add to your submission. You can upload a picture without a description, but you absolutely must add some tags to it.

On the surface, they work exactly like you know from delicious or good old Yiffstar: When you upload something, you type some tags into the tag box, separated by comma. For adult or extreme submissions you must also include at least one gender tag like "M/M", or "M/F", or "Male" or "Other", etc.

Tags on SoFurry different from many other sites in several regards:

• Tags are user-extendable

Users may invent new tags, making our tag database more complete over time

• Tags are moderator-reviewed

Our mods will check user-suggested tags, and approve them if they're good, or replace them if not.

• Tags are hierarchy-aware

Forget having to enter "Canine, Dog, German Shepherd" into tags just to make sure people still find your submission if they don't happen to search exactly for the tags you put on it. SoFurry knows that a German Shepherd is a dog, and that all dogs are canines. Just use "German Shepherd", and users will still find your story when searching for "Dog" or "Canine". As part of the tag review process our mods will also integrate your newly-created tags into our hierarchy tree.

Make sure you have tags on your submissions, anything between 3 and 10 should be sufficient. This will make people still find and love your submission many years from now.

Note that adding your name to the tags is not clever. Our search engine already searches for title and submitting user name.

What's a content level, and which one should I chose?

The content level is what you want to be able to see on SoFurry. This option can be changed in account settings, located at the top of any SoFurry page.

CLEAN: The picture or story is of non-adult nature, or contains only decent nudity. Without going into the age-rating crap so prevalent these days, let's just say "worksafe", or "I would show this to my semi-conservative parents".

ADULT: The picture or story contains depictions of sexual acts or other adult subject matter. This amounts to "NSFW" or "my parents would disown me if I showed them"

EXTREME: The picture or story contains extreme fetishes that go beyond regular clean sex or show potentially offensive stuff. This includes, but is not limited to: scat, watersports, snuff, castration, cub, etc.

You should choose one based on what you want to see, select Clean if you only want to see stories and art of a non-adult nature, or you can select Adult if you only want to see non-offending adult subject matter.

Can I upload other people's works?

Yes, provided you have the right to upload it.

Most of the time, people upload commissions someone drew for them. Usually buying a commission from an artist includes the right to repost the image on websites of your chosing. Some few artists may give you less freedom and restrict your reposting to low-res images, or to a limited number of sites. Please check with the artist if you are unsure.

If you ask an artist whether you may repost an image of theirs, then that's of course also alright. We would prefer the artist to post his/her works themselves, but we gladly accept submissions made in the name of the artist if said permission is given.

You may also post works that are in the public domain and/or under a license that grants you reproduction or redistribution rights. You must still abide to the rules of that license however - most of the time in the form of keeping the artist's name and signature intact and/or including the license text. Read the license carefully to find out what you can and can not do.

You may NOT...

• Post something you found on another website without permission
• Post someone's else's work with their original signature removed or obscured
• Upload any content in violation of the license it was put under
• Upload any content that infringes the copyright of the artist or right holder

You may post copyrighted works if your usage falls under fair use. Fair use typically includes things like parody, for example. Note that Fair Use is a complex topic and certainly not a black/white issue. When in doubt, ask the artist for permission.

Can I upload something just for myself/close friends?

Yes.

In the upload/editor form, click on the "Options" area and select the visibility from "Public" to "Private".

Can I upload something just for groups I chose?

Yes. Similarly to making a submission completely private, you can set the submissions to be only visible to those groups it is a part of on the options tab of the upload/edit form.

My story is empty! I copy&pasted it but it uploads as a blank story!!

Thats's a known bug! Thankfully there is a simple workaround: in the upload form, press the "paste as text" button. You can find that one inbetween "paste" and "paste from word".

Then press ctrl-V in the popup that appears.

This will remove formatting, but preserves linebreaks and paragraphs, and should look fine!

Folders

How do I create a folder?

Folders can be created while uploading stories, art, music or journals. In the editor box, click on the options tab, then select "new folder" in the folder dropdown. This will allow you to type a name for the new folder. When you press save, your submission will be put into that new folder.

How do I put something in a folder?

To put your submission into a folder, press on the options tab in the editor box, and select one of the existing folders in the folder dropdown. Note that you can create a new folder by selecting "New folder" there, after which you can type a new folder name.

How do I browse a folder?

Browsing folders is currently done via the quickbrowser, on the top right side of the page while you view submissions. Clicking on the "by folder" tab switches the quickbrowser to display only items in the current folder.

Can I reorder stories/pictures within a folder?

Yes! There is an ordering dropdown in the submission edit box! Just click on "Options" and see the dropdown to the right of the folder selection dropdown.

Note that it may take 5 minutes for the new ordering to become visible.

Groups

What are groups and what do they do for me?

Groups are the sofurry way to bring you content you never knew you wanted, both from artists you know as well as new ones!

For Users Groups are an awesome method to populate your watchlist without having to watch 500 artists. Just join those groups that interest you, and this will cover the same range as 500 watches, but you will also find new artists much easier! Relevant content is brought to your attention based on your interest.

Aside from the group gallery, groups offer their own private forums and chatrooms.

For Artists Artists can put their works into relevant groups to become visible to new fans. This breaks the vicious cycle of invisibility seen elsewhere, where new artists don't get much following because nobody knows them yet, and nobody knows them because they don't have a big following. You don't need a famous artist to fave you to be noticed on sofurry. Look for live and active groups and whenever your submission is relevant to that group, add it. You will find that this yields you a lot of new followers who would never have found you otherwise.

For Community Founders SoFurry offers your community the ability to create your own forums and chatrooms, which you moderate yourself! Appoint modderators and set up the rules, and make your group as private or public as you like!

How do I join a group?

Click "join group" :)

No really, it's that simple. If it's a public group that needs no authorization from the group moderators or admins, you will become a member immediately. Other groups may require moderators to approve your join request.

How do I create a group?

Click on the groups tab, and on "create group". You can enter a group name, description and visibility setting.

How do I put a picture I found into a group's favorite gallery?

You have to be a member in a group first in order to add something into their gallery. Once this is done, adding your works or something you find on the site to a group is easy!

Just go to the submission in question, click on the "+group" tab, check the groups you want to put the submission in to, and press the save button. That's all there is to it!

Where can I see the favorites of all groups I'm a member of?

On the main page, click on "Watchlist", then on "Groups". Afterwards click on "Group Watches" or "Combined Watches" below.

• Group Watches will display only the contents in the group galleries.
• Combined Watches will show your regular watchlist mixed with the group galleries, kind of as a combined feed of new works you may not have seen yet.

Watches and Favorites

How do I watch/unwatch an artist?

Either by pressing +watch on any submission of that artist, or by going to their profile page and pressing the "Watch this user" button.

How do I fav/unfav a submission?

Just press the +fav/-fav link on the submission page. The link can be found in the main tab bar to the left.

How do I browse my favorites?

Go to your profile page, and click on the "favorites" tab.

How do I browse my watchlist?

Just click the "watchlist" tab on the main tab bar, it's the third tab from the left. Note that your watchlist can be toggled to show only your personal watches, group watches, or both. Also, you can enable different watchlist styles and the nuke functionality in the settings.

Commissions

What is the commission system, what can it do for me?

The commission system allows you to

• Browse and purchase commissions
• Offer commmissions to potential customers
• Manage and track commissions you've negotiated elsewhere

Essentially it's a commission marketplace, with the ability to track and manage commissions negotiated both on SoFurry and elsewhere.

I bought a commission on sofurry, now what?

The workflow of commissions is like this: REQUEST COMMISSION -> BUY COMMISSION -> COMMISSION IN PROGRESS -> COMMISSION DONE.

Once you clicked "buy commission" you either engage in further communication with the artist via comments on the commission detail page, or you pay the artist... that's entirely up to what was negotiated. Some artist want to be paid in advance, others send you a sketch before you pay.

How do I create a commission offer?

That's easy: Click on "Manage my commissions" and then on "Create commission offer"!

Be sure to fill out details like how long this offer should be valid, how many slots you offer, price range, a description of what you do and don't do, etc.

How do I manually enter or manage a commission sold/sold elsewhere?

Click on "Manage my commissions" and then on "add commission".

You can enter anything you like there, this is purely for you to be able to keep track of ALL your commissions right here on sofurry.

Do I need to buy commissions on sofurry to use the commission system?

No, commissions can be set up regardless if whether you have bought something or not from a SoFurry Artist/Writer.

On a related note, you can keep track of bought commissions under the "My Commissions" page in the upper right of the Commissions tab. Whether or not these commissions are from SoFurry Artists/Writers is irrelevant, commissions from FurAffinity and related sites can easily and legally be tracked here.

Forums

Can I create my own forums?

Yes. You can create forums inside your own group, or groups in which you have been made a moderator. Forums can not exist outside groups.

How do I make a private forum?

Create a private group, and then create a forum inside it. Private groups require you to approve any new members, so nobody other than users designated by you can enter that forum.

Who moderates public and private forums?

Official forums (i.e. the SoFurry forums) are moderated by our staff. Private or Public forums in user-created groups are not moderated by our staff unless the postings in those groups represent a danger to SoFurry. Daily business in such forums is handled by the group admin and the group moderators. We do not influence who is admin or moderator in a group.

How does posting work?

You write stuff, you boink the POST button ;)

BBCode works btw, just use the buttons on the form. Also, you can highlight any part of a previous post to make a "quote this" button appear.

Chat

Can I create my own chat?

You can create a chat as part of your own group. First create a group, and then create chats within that group. You have the option to create multiple chatrooms within your group.

What chat commands are available?

• /me [action]- perform an action. For example, /me dances appears in the main window as "**Username dances".

• /pm username|message - Sends a whisper, visible only to username, containing message. The easiest way to start a whisper is to click the "(>)" next to the user's name in the chat window, or the "Whisper" link in their mini-profile.

• /afk - sets your status to Away From Keyboard

• /back - sets your status to Online

• /slap username|object - slaps username with object (e.g. /slap glove|Steel Ankh displays Username has slapped Steel Ankh with a glove).

• /bug - Displays a link to Mantis (the SoFurry bug reporting tool) in chat.

• /search [whatever] - displays a link to the results of a google search for "whatever". Brackets should not be included.

• /youtube [whatever] - As above, but for youtube.

You can provide easy to use links to any submission, chatroom, group or forum topic in the chat by using the following commands. To find the number, you need to visit the page you wish to link to and note the numbers at the end of the URL. Replace the ### with that number.

• /contentlink ### - (links to a submission)

• /grouplink ### - (links to a group)

• /topiclink ### - (links to a forum topic)

• /forumlink ### - (links to a forum)

• /roomlink ### - (chat room)

BBCodes:

You can also link other sites, highlight things in bold, change text into italics using a bbcode tag called 'url', 'b', or 'i' in [ ]'s.

Examples:

[url=http://www.sofurry.com/]SoFurry Chat[/url]

You do need to have 'http://' in order for the url tag to work correctly. Also, the 'description' that takes place between the [url] and [/url] is also required, otherwise you will only output a 'blank'.

You can do 'bold' which is [b]BOLD[/b], or [i]Italics[/i]

Hope this helps clear things up.

Can I join the chat via something other than a webbrowser?

Yes, there are several beta clients written in Python and Java that run as desktop applications and connect via our web API. A client for android phones is also in development.