FurryMUCK

From WikiFur, the furry encyclopedia.

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FurryMUCK is the oldest anthropomorphic MUCK, and the second largest by usage (behind Tapestries). It is popular among the furry community, although also used by others. It is owned and operated by Furry Enterprises, a collective organization of its wizards and admins.

1 History
2 Places
3 Regular events
4 Programming
5 Organization
6 See also
7 External links

Addresses:
- MUCK server: muck.furry.com, port 8888 -> 66.154.101.42:8888
- Website: http://www.furry.com/
- MUCK status LJ: http://community.livejournal.com/fm_status/
Ran from/to: August 1990 - present
Motto: The first 99 & 44/100 anthropomorphic/Furry TinyMu*

[edit] History

A pretty good History of FurryMUCK was prepared by Jahangiri, covering 1990 to 2000:

1990 - 91 - 92 - 93 - 94 - 95 - 96 - 97 - 98 - 99 - 2000 - max user counts Sep 1992 - May 2006 - FurrySpace

Here is a summary:

August 1990: BlueMage, Neil M, a student at North Carolina State University started a Muck on one of the servers. The theme was to mimic the university's campus which has unusual areas like underground steam tunnels. There were steam tunnels, a bandstand, and other initial objects. BlueMage, invited Gypsy, Melissa Whitfield, to help out with building the Muck. She was made a wizard (object #2). Melissa saw that the project would be a large endeavor and invited her boyfriend Drew Maxell to help with the building. The NCState theme didnt seem to catch on. A new theme was discussed and Drew brought in the idea of FurryMUCK (hatched from discussions between him and his housemates). Drew then invited his housemates Ashtoreth, Shaterri, Centaur, and Erych, Abigail (Claire Benedikt), Ryuuko - Revar, lynx and Tugrik arrive shortly after the launch
Spring 1991: FurryMUCK outgrows the resources and good graces of the administrators at NC State. It moves to the University of California at Irvine. Siegfried became a wizard, as did Lionman, Carelia, and Tugrik; Erych left soon after. Archteryx was made a wizard for a few days by Drew without approval and was dewizzed shortly after.
April 1991: The original taxi, the Cafe Rose, and Lynx's truffel program are installed; 10,000 objects reached. Drew and Gypsy were no longer dating and personal conflicts led to Gypsy being dewizzed and resigning FurryMUCK. Gypsy occassionally visits FurryMuck to watch its incredible growth.
October 1991: 20,000 objects reached
November 1991: FurryMUCK is forced to move to Carnegie-Mellon University (Shaterri's workplace) by the actions of a user called Bruce
1992: Helpstaff formed; lynx, Revar, Mishael, Kimi and Riss are made wizards, while Ashtoreth, Carelia, Lionman, and Siegfried resign - Revar resigns later in the year
August 1992: 50,000 objects reached
September 1992: FurryMUCK is deleted, but mostly restored from Revar's backups; relaunched at the University of Toronto with Chris Siebemann administering
New Year's Day 1993: The Quicksilver virus written by Targhan infects the MUCK, diverting all conversation to Yozduk, who posts the log on rec.games.mud.tiny
Spring 1993: The Demons vs Angels role-play takes place
April 1993: 75,000 objects reached
Summer 1993: A PG-13 rating is enforced in the Park
October 1993: S'A'Alis begins hosting FurryMUCK, becoming a wizard shortly afterwards
March 1994: Wired publishes Johnny Manhattan Meets the Furry Muckers, and FurryMUCK gets a deluge of sex-seekers
July 1994: 100,000 objects reached
Mid-1994: Triggur is elected as Mayor of FurryMUCK
1995: Data corruption on the move to a new server causes FurryMUCK to finally implement proper backup procedures; Kimi retires from the wizcorp, Nightwind replaced her, and K'has, O'Nara and Slipstream joined too, while AJWolf "acquires" the mayoralty
July 1995: 125,000 objects reached
Late 1995: Lumpy the Squirrel, the primary source of urine in the FurryMUCK park pond, is finally toaded once and for all; the pool is thoroughly cleaned afterwards
February 1996: The passing of the CDA causes FurryMUCK to implement age restrictions on certain areas for people below 18 years of age
March 1996: Vulpine, one of several who has falsely declared his age to pass the restrictions files an affidavit with the ACLU - the result was his permanent banning, after much discussion on alt.fan.furry.muck and elsewhere
November 1996: Chip Unicorn and Points join as wizards at ConFurence 7 in 1996, while Frang takes over as Mayor
1997: Mishael retires as wizard
July 1997: 175,000 objects reached
October 1997: Toast is elected as Mayor
9 February 1998: FurryMUCK records 500 simultaneous users
June-August 1998: Debate over the use of the wixxx flag pedophile causes it to be pulled and replaced with WhatIsz (retaining the same global 'wixxx' command) and the broader term ageplay
August 1998: Inari is elected as Mayor
31 October 1998: FurryMUCK temporarily becomes FurryMORGUE, the last 99 & 44/100% gangrenous Furry TinyMu*
February 1999: Points and Slipstream retire from wizarding
April 1999: Brenda added to wizcorp as coder, while Riss is dewizzed due to lack of time, leaving amicably
11 April 1999: Tugrik takes over site administration duties. FurryMUCK moves to a dedicated server, hosted in a colocation facility in San Jose, California.
June 1999: Silent Red resigns as a wizard
July 1999: Aragh becomes a PR wizard
October 1999: Mwerevu is elected as Mayor
June 2000: Rosa de Stitches is elected Mayor, only to step down a few months later amidst controversy
October 2000: @shout is removed over age concerns and abuse. A private version called "Scream", written by Sarusa, fills the void left by @shout. Being outside of wizard control, it is not censored and becomes a community of its own.
March 2001: Dwight Dutton started an eBay auction on the domain names furrymuck.com/net/org. The wizards were not pleased (see this post to a.f.f. by Shaterri), and shut the auction down, but not before it reached $500. Darrel Exline, the high bidder, bought the names for $550, and later let the domain registrations lapse. Triggur bought them and donated them back to FurryMUCK. The domains are now managed by lynx. One result was an increased highlighting of the use of the term "FurryMUCK" as a service mark.
13 July 2005: The server experienced a massive hardware failure. After discussion with the other wizards, Tugrik and Revar ran a donation drive to fund a new server. Within five days enough had been collected to purchase a new enterprise-class machine, which the Muck currently still runs on.

[edit] Places

In general, all public areas of FurryMUCK are officially PG-13, although conversation has a habit of straying into more mature topics. Private areas, and areas specified for the purpose, may have a higher rating. See also FurryMUCK locations for significant locations with their own articles.

[edit] Hermaphrodite Haven

The Hermaphrodite Haven (t hh) is an establishment for hermaphrodite enthusiasts and fetishists, party to both hermaphrodite or shemale characters and those who enjoy roleplay with them. The grounds are age-locked against minors for sexually explicit behavior. Founded by Tulip, it is now operated by Shadow. Most activity actually takes place in the clubhouse grounds, although there is a truth or dare room inside. Nearby is Lake Hermy, and adjacent to the Haven are the Hermaphrodite Estates, a set of strictly herm-only residences. The structure has been 'under construction' for the better part of a decade, functionally frozen.

[edit] Libertyville Nude Beach

Libertyville Nude Beach (t lnb) is another age-locked social hangout. Characters must be equipped with a nude description before entering.

[edit] Willing Victims Guild

The Willing Victims Guild (t wvg), age-locked, is designed to bring dominant and submissive characters together to arrange roleplay. Safeword rules and BDSM conventions apply.

[edit] The Emerald City Tavern

An adult rated area for casual discussion and socialization. Similar to the West Corner of the Park, but with no conversational age limit. Maintained by Sorien and Cuprohastes.

[edit] Palace of Dragons (gone)

The Palace of Dragons was a very popular Truth or Dare (T|D) area. It was a giant platform floating in the sky, and had four "pools" in which players could sit, and a programmed system by which players can play Truth or Dare with each other. The system kept track of the question being asked, dares given, and whether the questions had been answered or dares completed. For most of its existence until its closure in the late 1990s, the Palace of Dragons was one of the more consistently popular hangouts only second to West Corner of the Park.

Due to an apparent disagreement with the Wizards on its operation and age-locked status, the Palace of Dragons was eventually shut down and moved to Tapestries at some point in the late 1990s. Perhaps the greatest irony is that on Tapestries it hardly gets any use; by moving to a new MUCK, all the culture that had been built around it evaporated instantly; people were not willing to move to a whole other MUCK to continue enjoying T|D games.

There have been several replacements for the Palace of Dragons on FurryMUCK, but none of them have gained any traction; there no longer seems to be a well-known central location to play Truth or Dare on the MUCK.

[edit] Regular events

The Owlhaven Literary Lounge has weekly story readings every Tuesday night at 7pm CST (GMT-6)
Artist's Ambush occurs every Monday in the Studio de l'Artiste at 10:30pm EST (GMT-5) (For January and February 2006, ambushes will be held on Wednesdays instead of Mondays)

[edit] Programming

FurryMUCK offers two types of programming:

MPI, a Lisp inspired text-replacement language used by most regular players for simple scripts
MUF, typically used for more complex operations and to implement system actions - apprentice access typically granted on request

[edit] Organization

FurryMUCK is run by its wizards, those responsible for keeping it up and running smoothly.

[edit] Current wizards

Aragh - Player Relations / Character Creation
Chip_Unicorn - Player Relations
Drew - @age registration / Player Relations
Frang - Player Relations
K'has - Player Relations
Lisa_Lynx - Player Relations
Lynx - Server Problems and Restarts
Mishael - Assistant @age registration and character creation
Nightwind - MUF/MPI / Helpstaff / Idle Purges / @age assistant
Shaterri - Player Relations
Tugrik - Site Administration / Builder Wizard / Quota

Revar is not a wizard, but is responsible for many of FurryMUCK's scripts and helps Tugrik with administration.

[edit] Previous wizards

Players who are no longer wizards for one reason or another include:

Centaur - Recycling
Erych (1990-1991)
Abigail / Claire (Claire Benedikt) (1990-?)
Archteryx (1991)
Lionman (1991-1992)
Revar (1992)
S'A'Alis: Character Creation / Site Administration (Oct 1993 - stepped down Jul 2001)
O'nara: Assistant to S'A'Alis
Kimi (1992-1995)
Silent Red (? - June 1999)
Riss - MUF Wizard / Asst. Character Creation / Zombies (1992 - Apr 1999)
Points (1995 - Feb 1999)
Slipstream: MUF/MPI Asst. / Globals Maintenance (Nov 1996 - Feb 1999)

Note: This list is probably incomplete.

[edit] Mayors of FurryMUCK

FurryMUCK has historically also had a Mayor, typically elected, although the mayoralty has been known to pass hands for as much as $1.37, and little as the wag of a tail. It was an official part of the process that new mayors were selected in a different way each time. The first mayor was selected by a relatively fair election, so all others thereafter were selected by varying other methods, all deliberately corrupt in some way. Bribery, nepotism, theocracy, and vote-buying were all used.

The joke is that despite the good–natured (and otherwise) hullabaloo over the selection process, the post is almost entirely symbolic. The only responsibility of the Mayor being to change the name of the currency. One day you may be strolling through the park and see "You found a reason to taunt a fox!" and the next you might see "You have 234 catnip mice." Toast explains:

A good mayor changes the currency frequently, no less than every other day, RL permitting.

Past Mayors and how they lost their title include:

Triggur (mid-1994 to February 1995) - position bought out in a shady deal with Tugrik
AJWolf (February 1995 to January 1996) - sold for loose change at ConFurence 7
Frang (January 1996 - October 1997?) - lost in a corrupt election where the votes could be bought
Toast (October 1997 - August 1998) - delivered to a god by material sacrifice
Inari (August 1998 - October 1999) - lost a contentious election
Mwerevu - (October 1999 - July 2000) - voluntarily stepped down
Rose de Stitches - (July 2000 - August 2000?) - dethroned after protests, the wizards got annoyed and declared the Mayoralty suspended

While players have asked for the Mayorship contest to return, so far the wizards have not re-approved the event.

[edit] Server and Upkeep of FurryMUCK

FurryMUCK currently runs on a Dell PowerEdge 1850 residing at a co-location facility in downtown San Jose, California. The server is a 3.0GHz Xeon-based machine with 2GB of ram and 36G of RAID-1 mirrored 15K SCSI drives. While Tugrik owns and administrates the machine, Revar and Lynx also have physical access for backup administrative coverage.

Server status and donation information can be found on FM_Status. Monthly co-location fees are paid for by wizard and player donations. Tugrik and Revar pay for the rest when donations don't cover the fees in full.