Hamfurs - Telegram Channel

New furry-friendly ham spaces

OARC (https://www.oarc.uk/) would be my suggestion, they're primarily on Discord. There are a couple of furries in the chat, and their club Constitution (effectively a code of conduct) is quite progressive and inclusive. Meetings are on UK time so may be inconvenient for folks on a US timezone - but there are plenty of US members there.

For the US, Pride Radio Group may also be worth a look - https://prideradio.group/

I don't have any affiliation with either of these groups, in the case of OARC I sit in the chat and chime in whenever an interesting conversation comes up.

As a reminder, if you used the old Hamfurs bot, you need to contact @rechner to ask for your information to be removed.

We asked for this after his resignation from the team (after he demanded to be made the owner of Hamfurs) and he steadfastly refused, as can be seen here: https://t.me/+Rrm25OSYUmI3MWNk

We recommend people look into alternative spaces as we have serious concerns about the "replacements" being run by single people, and having no stated rules or code of conduct.
We also have concerns as several people who have been banned from Hamfurs for very serious issues (relating to alleged association with animal and child abuse, or proven data protection breaches) have been welcomed into the new groups.

In the case of one, a former admin of the Hamfurs group (Mahksy) created it, added a group of people who had previously been banned from Hamfurs for a variety of reasons, then foisted group ownership onto Jessica.

At this point people should do their own research. None of the former moderators of Hamfurs are involved in the new groups.

NEW HAMFURS GROUPS

I've been asked to remove the two new groups from here - they've asked for some chill and breathing space while they spin things up

As a personal note, the last fifteen years of my experience - my entire time in furry - is that every decent friend I've had has been snatched away by bad experiences (and rightly leaving) or by being the target of a baseless abuse campaign. Other "friends" I've had turned out to be rapists, paedophiles, animal abusers... one bleached the clothes of a guy who murdered someone... then turned up to a furry con and started talking about it like it was a good thing (he got in the papers for it too).

I've watched as truly awful people hurt a long line of people, and because they're in positions of authority or friends with people who are — it's just dismissed. If anyone says anything — banned, and smeared.

And all the people around fawn - "I'm not culpable for the actions of others, I just enable them". "It's just drama." — All words for "I have no spine and no morals ".

The attitude of "no drama uwu" empowers people to hurt others - because there are no repercussions and at worse, everyone covers and runs interference for each other. The behaviour worsens (and has worsened spectacularly) over time ... and anyone who puts their head over the parapet gets shot, anyone who tries to fix the broken staircase or pull the nails out of the banister gets ridiculed and abused.

And that's what the furry fandom is. A bunch of hurt people hurting other people. Obviously it attracts people who don't really fit in or have unusual interests or quirks ... and that's always been obvious to abusive people who want to hurt others.

I hope one day it grows up like the infosec community did, ten or twenty years ago.

RIP Hamfurs - 2007 to 2024

The hamfurs group has been closed as the entire moderation team resigned, and the group founder and owner is no longer interested in running it.

Rather than letting it suffer like one of a million abandoned telegram groups and become a haven for edgelords and assholes, it was deleted.

I'd like to apologise to all of you for the suddenness of this, but the last two years of near constant drama — and the reactions from the community to any improvements we've tried to make — has burned me out.

I'm taking a long holiday to try and find some joy in life again. If we've talked and you want to stay in touch, please feel free to reach out and nerd out about ham radio or whatever.

At this moment I'm taking my therapist's advice and cutting most of my ties with the furry fandom. Thanks to Toumal for sharing your experiences too, you really opened my eyes about what this scene really is to people...

Some of the former moderators have expressed an interest in starting up a new Hamfurs, if that comes to pass then there will be more information here.

Channel created