The reasons behind our general guidelines.

[feralkiss]

Someone in another community and journal recently brought up the issue of Animal Quills' focus and "unwanted topics" [disinterests list which has since been taken down], and how it may exclude one or more categories of individuals who want to talk about said topics. This subject hasn't been discussed much before because the original people who got involved in AQ's first days share the same position I've had, so there has been a general agreement over what we don't really want to discuss in this space. This entry is mostly intended for prospective members who don't know us well. :)


Why Animal Quills was set up the way it was?

It's a positive thing this aspect of the community gets challenged once in a while, and I'm taking it as an opportunity to explain why I made the choice to discourage certain topics (and encourage others); because there are very legimate reasons and concerns behind those choices. Nothing is ever black and white, and mostly the reasons I did what I did was to create an online space for matters we couldn't discuss elsewhere, in a way that wasn't possible elsewhere.

I think it's essential to understand this - how AQ got created because we had no other space to talk about certain experiences and musings, and how we were a minority in the community and not the norm at all. As an example, several of us didn't have sudden "awakenings" or did not experience "shifts", and that was the kind of experiences that set us appart as a minority, and people felt legitimate to always question the validity of our experiences as though we were not real animal-people. A lot of people refrained from posting at all on public spaces because they didn't want to go through this hassle. All of this because what we experienced or talked about was not considered "canon" or "authentic therian experiences".

So this is why originally AQ had a disinterest list of topics we were tired of and that phagocited our own attemps at discussions. This place was very vulnerable and some people needed it to stay safe. Nowadays the list has been taken down, and I hope people will use common sense to keep the community content mature and beyond the 101 types of discussions. It is true that several items in the disinterest list could be very misleading and put off people even though they were not aimed at them at all. This is mainly for this reason, and because it could be offensive to somes at times, that the disinterest list is gone.

However, I also want to use this entry to explicit what can be wrong with some of these words and why I think it's important to use caution with them, and why I did not (and still do not, personally) support their use. I have two examples in mind, the first being with the term "awakening", and the other with pretty much any "shift" label. When I first was around in the community, they were the norm. It was pretty much mandatory for animal-people to experience sudden epiphanies that marked the start of one's animal identity, and the authenticity of your animality was questionned if you hadn't. Same for shifts (whatever types they were) - if you were not a shifter, then you were suspicious, and probably not a real "therianthrope".

It is only after enough people had fought back and spoken up, and that many heated debates had occurred, that other sorts of experiences started to get acknowledged. And it could (can) be a conscious choice not to use any of these words anymore, words that have been used against a category of animal-people by other animal-people to disprove their animality; because these words enforce the shifter-centric aspect of the community which totally erases us. The point was and still is, it's possible to talk about animal-identity without using a shifter-centric (or werewolf-centric, etc) ideology. What some people see as "reclaiming certain words", others like myself may see under a different perspective, as a backlash against a category of individuals, a return of the old norms - the community coming back to a shifter-centric point of view.

So I guess, you wouldn't know of that and thus wouldn't understand the focus of Animal Quills, if you haven't been around 10 years ago - if you hadn't seen the erasure some people had to deal with. That context is what shaped AQ, and though it has changed a lot and we got rid of many "rules", I want this story not to be forgotten and that people remember the community's original spirit. I'm always open to discussions about the group's guidelines or moderation, however I'm not willing to erase a category of individuals to accomodate another, because there is no overall improvement in that.

I am sorry if the focus of AQ puts off some people, and I can only encourage them to start themselves the communities they want to see to serve their own purposes. To me those spaces aren't mutually exclusive, they complete each other and people can belong to more than one circle. Their specificities enable different debates and opinions to form in a way a general, all-inclusive forum wouldn't. I don't feel all communities should have the same restrictions or lack of thereof, because they may not fulfill the same needs. People should and usually do get involved in more than one place at a time, and this is good to the diversity out there.

I also do not want people to be misled into thinking that writing essays or articles is mandatory to be a "serious animal-person". This isn't what we believe, we just happen to enjoy writing and are interested in other people's writings. Most animal-people do not write articles and they're just as legitimate, there is no "One True Way" to be an animal-person. We're not interested in setting ourselves as role models.


So what does that mean as far as guidelines go?

I wanted/have wanted certain topics to be avoided here - it always has to do with either limitating drama/power struggles, or just staying on-topic regarding our "mission statement". My train of thought comes from several years spent on forums in the past and eventually understanding why and how certain behaviors can become problematic, at least in some contexts.

- Animal Quills is a writing community for animal-people to post their written works; it is not a general therianthropy forum to discuss basic Therianthropy 101 topics, it is first and foremost a place for people who write materials they want to show/share (and get feedback if they want to), and from this starting point discussions may arise. We don't want to be a help center for people asking for guidance: we are no authority on the subject and there are roads people have to walk on their own to find the answers they need. We want to focus on other things here than helping and educating people. There is a links list in the sidebar for further reading, and other communities would be more suitable for general discussions and support.

- We also aren't terribly interested in debating whether the full moon affects us or not, why so many wolf therians, supernatural shape-shifting, "how do you know you're a therian", and a number of similar topics that have been discussed over and over again on general forums. If any of the Therianthropy 101 topics still becomes the subject of one essay here, as an example the longing or irrelevance of packs in our life as animal-folk, it has been done/should be done in an articulate, thought-provoking way which gets past the common (mis)conception of what being an animal-person is like. Another example: it would be on-topic to talk about animal body mods and "species reassignment surgery", but not wishful thinking about the holliwoodian sort of shapeshifting (remember we focus on concrete experiences and not theories).

- We want to read about your present-day experience as an [insert species here], much more than your past lives if you feel you have any. It's okay to talk about feelings of longing, belonging, home and such as, but it should be clearly relevant to the now. It's also safe not to assume we all view our animality as spiritual in origin, not every animal-person is spiritual to begin with, and so on. Some people also identify as "animal-folk" but not "therian", or not "otherkin"; or some other people may not view themselves as part of any community. It's important to respect that.

- Definitions and theories can be debated elsewhere rather than here because we prefer focusing on the way animality is integrated in our worldview and daily life, rather than making wild guesses about why we are animal and which term would better fit. In the end, labels tell absolutely nothing about the way we individually experience animality because it "flattens" our experience as if we we were all interchangeable. On the contrary, here we are interested in reading about what makes you you, how being [insert species here] translates into your own experience. This also is the reason we're not fond of weresymbols, werecards and other charts that tend to put people into boxes and oversimplify their experience of the animal.

- I do not welcome weregurus nor certain categories of insecure people such as folk who are constantly seeking for attention and praise, or those who cannot deal with criticism. We are here to muse and share our thoughts together, not to stroke each others' egos. I just ask that criticism remain polite and constructive, and does not serve to belittle anyone. Also, answering the calls of individuals who desperately want validation creates a category of seemingly more experienced people - whether this is true or not - who seem legitimate enough to validate others and whose opinions will then always appear as "more important" or "more valid" than that of new members. This is difficult to avoid, and it's one of the reason it's not possible to seek for advices here. Building AQ more like a work/creative group and less like a social/support group is a strategy to minimize the kind of attitudes that lead to power struggles.

- Many of us have more than one animal aspect making up who we are, myself included; or we may rely heavily on UPG and hold beliefs that challenge people's views. We have different levels of open-mindedness, but it's safe to assume that not everybody shares the beliefs you have, and like elsewhere the more far-fetched your claims are, the less likely people are to give them credit. Some might as well ask you to back up your claims or at least explain us better why you believe what you believe in (though I will never tolerate personal attacks). To sum up, UPG is welcome, but we also value common sense, you milleage may vary, etc.

- This group isn't really a democracy, though I want to moderate as little as possible and count on everybody to ensure the place stays as safe as possible. I may politely point to the fact an article isn't on-topic, or ask an especially immature, rude or otherwise disruptive member to check their behavior, but I'd rather not chase them away - unless I really have to. I may also edit AQ's guidelines at any point if needed. Regularly I also ask members about what they'd prefer because I'm very aware of the fact it's thank to you folk that this place can exist.

Overall, this community isn't really more moderated than most groups, but I may be more up-front about how things work to keep it safe, and I guess the focus of this place sets us apart a bit; hopefully this explanation cleared things up for the people who expected AQ to be a regular discussion forum for all things therian-related. Also if there is anything, I'm always available to hear your concerns and you can contact me through private messages. If you have questions, just ask!