I saw this just now on FA. I don't know anything else about it other than what is quoted below.

https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/10923887
Aug 6, 2024- Dragoneer Has Passed Away
Aug 6, 2024 11:16 PM
It is with heavy hearts that we announce the sudden loss of Fur Affinity's owner, Dragoneer. He was our friend, family, and a pillar of this community. We ask for your patience and respect for his family’s privacy. We remain committed to supporting each other and the community. Updates will follow when appropriate. Thank you for your kindness.

That 11:16 PM timestamp is probably US Eastern (New York time).

kora_viridian said:
I saw this just now on FA. I don't know anything else about it other than what is quoted below.

That 11:16 PM timestamp is probably US Eastern (New York time).

I saw that too. Apparently he was in the hospital for a few weeks. Had some kind of tumor growing in his lungs suddenly. I don't know. It's just really sad that he died so suddenly.

That's unfortunate.

That FA+ bit at the end(I assume added by a bot) is distinctly distasteful.

foolysh said:
I saw that too. Apparently he was in the hospital for a few weeks. Had some kind of tumor growing in his lungs suddenly. I don't know. It's just really sad that he died so suddenly.

From one of his recent journals:

Met with the specialist today. They think they've narrowed it down to one of two things: an extremely rare, serious bacterial fungal infection... or, well, lung cancer.

Because of the severity of my condition, they're escalating me surgery on Thursday. I'll under go anesthesia (which has its own risks), and stick a camera/robot into my lungs to cut off pieces of the growths so they can determine what I'm dealing with once and for all.

popoto said:
That's unfortunate.

That FA+ bit at the end(I assume added by a bot) is distinctly distasteful.

From one of his recent journals:

Probably one of those new fangled signature systems designed to add something to the end of literally every message, even if it is inappropriate.

"FA news" is an *understatement", think this should be renamed to "FA founder dragoneer passed away".

Anyway hope he can finally rest, RIP...

foolysh said:
Probably one of those new fangled signature systems designed to add something to the end of literally every message, even if it is inappropriate.

Just a default footer you set in your profile, it does appear on every journal as a result though.

Yup I have seen that, it's quite sad to hear about his passing, it also makes me worry about the future of FA.. (hopefully some big ass company doesn't buy it just to censor content..)

This is sad. He wrote a post on Bluesky about 4 hours before the announcement complaining about medical bills.

https://bsky.app/profile/dragoneer.bsky.social/post/3kz3iknq4dk2s

damn, that sucks. I never knew him but he was clearly influential to the fandom itself. what an awful way to go. my condolences.

so, uh... what's gonna happen to FA, if anything?

hiddenbird said:
damn, that sucks. I never knew him but he was clearly influential to the fandom itself. what an awful way to go. my condolences.

so, uh... what's gonna happen to FA, if anything?

Well, he was the owner so there will have to be a transfer of ownership. I am not sure how much executive control he had on anything right before he died. As soon as the new owner is announced, things will probably go back to normal.

This is a farfetched idea, but what are the chances that Bad Dragon would own FA?

alexyorim said:
This is a farfetched idea, but what are the chances that Bad Dragon would own FA?

After the recent events I think its best for both parties to not be much involved.

notknow said:
After the recent events I think its best for both parties to not be much involved.

Indeed.

https://twitter.com/BillyBroccy2/status/1821186668671692875

Not that I'm a big believer in random discord posts, but if I were an artist with artwork on FA, I'd be downloading my entire gallery right now. I'd even download artwork from other artists that I really liked.

It's hard to predict the future of FA with Dragoneer gone. In this period of uncertainty, we should be prepared for all possible scenarios.

i fear who can end up owning the site now that he is gone, for all his flaws, dragoneer at least kept the site to some standards

notknow said:
"FA news" is an *understatement", think this should be renamed to "FA founder dragoneer passed away".

Anyway hope he can finally rest, RIP...

Alkora was the founder. neer was just the current owner.

edu2703 said:
https://twitter.com/BillyBroccy2/status/1821186668671692875

Not that I'm a big believer in random discord posts, but if I were an artist with artwork on FA, I'd be downloading my entire gallery right now. I'd even download artwork from other artists that I really liked.

It's hard to predict the future of FA with Dragoneer gone. In this period of uncertainty, we should be prepared for all possible scenarios.

And Furarchiver.net as well.
But I keep searching for my FA username (alexyorim), but it's not in there.

What a crappy year this has turned out to be... my condolences goes out to his family.

Eh...

He will be missed. more than anyone could know.

Not really familiar with FurAffinity, but this is sad. Condolences to their family.

edu2703 said:
https://twitter.com/BillyBroccy2/status/1821186668671692875

Not that I'm a big believer in random discord posts, but if I were an artist with artwork on FA, I'd be downloading my entire gallery right now. I'd even download artwork from other artists that I really liked.

It's hard to predict the future of FA with Dragoneer gone. In this period of uncertainty, we should be prepared for all possible scenarios.

Deleted now, but if this was what I think it was, multiple staff member for FA claimed it was fake. Unfortunately, FA decided to do away with their public forums in favour of using exclusively Discord, so it's all but impossible to get information on the site.

edu2703 said:
https://twitter.com/BillyBroccy2/status/1821186668671692875

Not that I'm a big believer in random discord posts, but if I were an artist with artwork on FA, I'd be downloading my entire gallery right now. I'd even download artwork from other artists that I really liked.

It's hard to predict the future of FA with Dragoneer gone. In this period of uncertainty, we should be prepared for all possible scenarios.

I think it's merely an overreaction. The site's not going anywhere. 'Neer wasn't the only one contributing to keeping the site up and I doubt he's the only one with access to key parts of it.

edu2703 said:
https://twitter.com/BillyBroccy2/status/1821186668671692875

Not that I'm a big believer in random discord posts, but if I were an artist with artwork on FA, I'd be downloading my entire gallery right now. I'd even download artwork from other artists that I really liked.

It's hard to predict the future of FA with Dragoneer gone. In this period of uncertainty, we should be prepared for all possible scenarios.

I mean to be fair it's super important to back up both SFW and NSFW Artworks as much as you can on multiple platforms, that way if anything happens to any of the sites you have a place for the art to exist

pheagleadler said:
I think it's merely an overreaction. The site's not going anywhere. 'Neer wasn't the only one contributing to keeping the site up and I doubt he's the only one with access to key parts of it.

Not entirely. Consider the whole young purge that happened a while back on this site that generally has a record of being laizze-faire about what can and cannot be uploaded here. Given the circumstances that necessitated that change, it is not out of the question that amidst the transfer of ownership, weird things might happen to some of the more spicey and objectionable content that ends up on Furaffinity like vore, gore, ferals, dubcon, etc.

foolysh said:
Not entirely. Consider the whole young purge that happened a while back on this site that generally has a record of being laizze-faire about what can and cannot be uploaded here. Given the circumstances that necessitated that change, it is not out of the question that amidst the transfer of ownership, weird things might happen to some of the more spicey and objectionable content that ends up on Furaffinity like vore, gore, ferals, dubcon, etc.

wasn't that due to legal reasons? I don't think the owner still being alive would protect against that sort of thing

colacolabug said:
wasn't that due to legal reasons? I don't think the owner still being alive would protect against that sort of thing

Sorta, but not really, in that there's no particular new law in the U.S.. We're not allowed to restart discussions on this topic though, so I won't comment any further. See the staff comments buried within the very long stickied thread: https://e621.net/forum_topics/45501

crocogator said:
Sorta, but not really, in that there's no particular new law in the U.S.. We're not allowed to restart discussions on this topic though, so I won't comment any further. See the staff comments buried within the very long stickied thread: https://e621.net/forum_topics/45501

We have been specifically told that we cannot disclose the reasons behind that decision.
I know that it's frustrating – I would love to be more open about what specifically happened too. But that's just how things are.

More to the point, yes. Let's not have another thread devolve into arguments about young humanoid content.

cinder said:
We have been specifically told that we cannot disclose the reasons behind that decision.
I know that it's frustrating – I would love to be more open about what specifically happened too. But that's just how things are.

More to the point, yes. Let's not have another thread devolve into arguments about young humanoid content.

I genuinely believe you.
And I can relate a little in my way, that little outburst from earlier I hid was wrong given circumstance.

It doesn't matter what some people did.
What matters is that our healthcare system is an amoral process of maximizing the monetary value of both the moral and immoral.

Human life and death and suffering are no kind of commodity to base a business strategy on.

Fur Affinity has set up a gofundme to help cover a variety of expenses, including Dragoneer's funeral and keeping the website up and running. The minimum goal of $75,000 is enough to cover these expenses and one month of Fur Affinity's operation.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-fur-affinity-honoring-dragoneers-legacy

edu2703 said:
Fur Affinity has set up a gofundme to help cover a variety of expenses, including Dragoneer's funeral and keeping the website up and running. The minimum goal of $75,000 is enough to cover these expenses and one month of Fur Affinity's operation.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-fur-affinity-honoring-dragoneers-legacy

One again the community amazes me at how much they're able to donate. The GoFundMe is already well over halfway to its goal.

edu2703 said:
Fur Affinity has set up a gofundme to help cover a variety of expenses, including Dragoneer's funeral and keeping the website up and running. The minimum goal of $75,000 is enough to cover these expenses and one month of Fur Affinity's operation.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-fur-affinity-honoring-dragoneers-legacy

So how will they continue to pay for the website then? I mean they already sell ads, what happens when the money runs out?

FA News Post said:
*In the interest of transparency, the following is a breakdown of the costs. Many are estimates until we have specifics; however, we will be posting the Fur Affinity transactions as they happen. Anything sent to Rita will just be shown as a lump deposit out of respect.
$27k - Medical expenses
$20k - One month estimated FA costs to help with legal transition
$17k - Balance due to IMVU for FA’s buyback (estimated)
$12.6k - Six months mortgage on Dragoneer's house so Rita has time to sort things
$8k - Public celebration of life (estimated)
$3k - Medical examiner and cremation (estimated)
$3k - Family’s funeral (estimated)
$1k - Urn (estimated)
$1k - Rita’s travel costs (estimated)
??? - IRS (unknown total at this time)

TIL that FA is still on the hook to IMVU.

chronicle223344990 said:
So how will they continue to pay for the website then? I mean they already sell ads, what happens when the money runs out?

From the sounds of it, that's what they're trying to determine, but they need the funds to kickstart the necessary legal transition, since the company and all its accounts are still in Dragoneer's name. I expect here in a couple of months, after things have been signed over to Sciggle and the initial accounting of everything, we'll know more about what changes will be made.

kyureki said:
From the sounds of it, that's what they're trying to determine, but they need the funds to kickstart the necessary legal transition, since the company and all its accounts are still in Dragoneer's name. I expect here in a couple of months, after things have been signed over to Sciggle and the initial accounting of everything, we'll know more about what changes will be made.

The good thing is most of these costs are not repeating. Once they're paid off, we can focus on the site again. I don't know how much of the site's costs are supplemented by ads (and FA+) but I hope it's a good majority.