Rule details

0. Code of Conduct — Follow our instance rules.

The Pawb.social Code of Conduct and it’s included CW Policy cover most of the basic stuff you’d expect regarding illegal content, bigotry, harassment, marking obvious pornographic material as NSFW and the like. Regardless, do read through it if you haven’t already. In regards to the CW policy, here are some addendums for this community in particular:

Overt suicidal themes — Characters depicted as imminently or having already committed suicide must be CWd (on Lemmy this means marked as NSFW, and with text in the body such as ‘suicide’ such that users can filter it). More absurd Wile E. Coyote type slapstick like a falling grand piano or rocketing to the sun are fine as is, but if it features methods people typically use to actually end their lives, please be courteous.

General weed usage — CoC 5.1.4 mentions all schedule I and II drugs. I believe weed is still erroneously labeled as a schedule I substance in the US, despite having medicinal usage, and also being fully legal in many states. If your furry meme comic has a bong in frame, or your character has red eyes, I’m not coming after it if it’s not CWd. This obviously doesn’t extend to depictions of abuse / misuse.

1. Post formatting — All titles should be a single word, followed by _irl. An emoji may substitute the underscore.

If you’re familiar with other irl communities, post formatting rules like this are likely second nature already. Pick any word (typically something vaguely related to the post) and you’re golden. If you’re not sure, just title it furry_irl. Capitalization doesn’t matter.

2. Credit artists — If it’s not your art, include who made it in the title or the post body. Links are appreciated, except to X/Twitter.

Artists should be credited when you share their images. At a minimum, include an artist’s username when rummaging about your phone to dump your furry memes. This can be in the title (e.g. Furry_irl (by UserName)), in the post body, or both. Furthermore, direct links to where the artist is are greatly appreciated in the post body, unless it is to the Nazi owned platform Twitter / X. Do not link there, or to any website which scrapes its data (e.g. xcancel).

If you’re posting your own art to Furry_irl, first off, thank you! Second off, please give some form of indication it’s OC in the title or post body. Anything from just saying the word, to talking about drawing it or taking the photo. You could also put a link to where to find well, you, if you’d like!

I do not expect specific artist credits for captioned images sourced from large corporations, such as big TV shows, movies, or video games. This rule is to ensure indie artists are given their dues, and can be discovered by others easier.

3. Stay on topic — Images should contain or be related to furries. Images should be relatable or a meme. This isn’t the place for general art posts.

There isn’t much to expand upon here, but here are some explicit examples of furry posts to avoid for this community:

• General art of any kind without a joke or relatable experience. If the image has no text, it likely shouldn’t be here.
• Comics spanning multiple pages/posts to tell a story. Comics posted here should be short form (e.g. 4-panel humor).
• Character reference sheets
• Legitimate commission or purchase ads of any kind (e.g. custom pieces, YCHs, adpots, refsheets). Jokes containing fake ads are fine of course.

4. Avoid AI images — Our fandom has countless artists, please share their (or your own) labors of love instead.

We have a vast artist pool, and that vast pool tends to absolutely hate anything to do with generative AI. Please be courteous to them and others by not posting such generations here. You should know explicitly who made the art before posting anyway, so this should be a fairly simple request.

I do not condone AI witch-hunt accusations. Don’t be antagonistic in post comments. If there is definitive proof a sourced image is generated, include relevant link(s) in a report. I will not act on ‘vibes’.

Past posts

Some posts made before 2025/02/18 are likely breaking some of the new community specific rules. They will be considered grandfathered.

Actions

Posts that break the rules will be removed at moderator discretion. If you do not include artist credit, I may request you add it, and give you some time to modify the post first.

If you make a habit of me removing your posts, I will remove you from being able to post.

Meta discussion

Any questions, comments, critique, or suggestions regarding this community can be posted here and discussed openly.

I am trying to provide some sensible supplemental rules, and write down things people seemed to know already (such as the furry_irl post formatting style). If community members think something isn’t a good fit, I want to hear about it so it can be evaluated. Overall, I feel the community has been decent about self regulating, and I’m not expecting the supplemental rules to change much, besides a request for who made some art here and there.

I am also adding some basic flair to the community (an icon and banner) so that it is no longer barren. Please consider these placeholders instead of anything I am particularly dead-set on keeping around. It’s just some basic vector graphics I created in Krita. If you have ideas, or wish to submit art (it must be your own art), I highly encourage you to do so. If several people are interested, we could turn it into a community vote event, or make it some sort of collab!

Please share your voice, I want the community to have a proper say in how it looks and is run. Thank you!