The Future of ARR

Final edit, 05/10/26:

ARR is now archive only; only members may comment, and membership is closed, so no one can comment, not even to leave screened comments.

For full transparency, I have unscreened all the comments on this post. None have been deleted. [They would show up as (deleted comment)]

A few entries had their comments disabled, so I will be going through them to turn them back on so the threads will be restored. Thank you for your patience while I restore the comm now that I have had time to double check that no one can abuse the comm's contents.

Original Post, 4/32/26:

After taking a break, @vasemod and I have talked and mulled over things.

ARR as it is currently isn't working. The purely anonymous aspect of ARR is what set it apart from Tumblr, at least until Tumblr allowed for people to reply to posts from side blogs, remaining detached from their main blogs and avoid direct harassment.

However, SMR doesn't have the same culture/rules as ARR, and it is what continues to set the two communities apart.

We aren't going to reopen the community - not right now. We need more time due to real life, but in the mean time, I am making an announcement:

ARR will open again in a month or so - but only to registered users, with all anonymous commenting disabled.

The short of this decision: Accountability and the health of the community.

We have not been the perfect community and I don't claim it ever has been, with past incidents, and I want to rectify the shortcomings of our community's current format.

The nitty gritty of this decision:

Accountability: With accounts required, any harmful comments made can be reported to dreamwidth, and if we have a repeat of our worst offense, steps can be made to address it.

Samenoning/Bait threads: By having accounts attached, it's easier to see who's saying what, and we can hopefully prevent the same asinine threads that were causing petty infighting.

Administration: It allows @vasemod and I to ban commenters with repeat offenses/warnings. (We'll be doing a three-strike warning system before banning.)

This place was supposed to be a place for people to air out salt, warn of bad players, and complain about general grievances that would otherwise get you banned/suspended from FR. It turned into SMR with anonymity that made it a cesspool and a literal cause of stress for Vasemod and myself. It went from a project and a labor of love to a job that we dreaded having to deal with.

Vasemod and I are tired of this, so we're wanting to take control and accountability back, and this is the best way to do so.

Dreamwidth accounts are free, and you don't have to put anything in your profile that ties you to your FR/Tumblr account, allowing you to remain anonymous in that regard, but giving us the ability to maintain decorum.

The rules of ARR will likely be edited when this goes into effect (with full transparency of these changes with annotations and dates), and once they're edited, we will be posting them again, so folks in the community- new and old- can go over them again.

I am leaving comments open on this entry to allow feedback, suggestions, and questions - and only related to this matter. We're not open for general FR drama right now. (Anonymous comments will be screened, but I will unscreen them as I reply, and will freeze as necessary to prevent pointless drama.)

I am sorry we've had to go this route, but it's a last attempt at trying to keep the community going - keeping it anonymous would likely have just ended up with Vasemod and I abandoning it altogether. We ask for your patience while we work on this.

Thank you for your time.

PS: The hateful comments left on the various entries have not helped. If you hate us that much, you are free to make your own community; if you think you can do better, do so, and we will close ARR for good.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I just wanna say thanks for the work you guys have put into this comm, and I think this is a reasonable compromise to keep it working.

Thank you. We wanted to keep this comm anonymous, but this was a compromise we felt would best fit. (And make moderation a bit easier.)

Thank you both for you hard work and take care of yourselves and honestly keep this shit closed until the salt over the new breed and the new ui dies down at the very least. The vibes are so bad right now.

I think accounts are the only way to go and appreciate the transparency.

Yeah definitely keeping it closed for that until things die down lol.

Just a message to the mods but not an emergency so not using the email -- I just wanted to say thank you for the effort you've put into this. If you do decide to step away and shut ARR for your own wellbeing, I would completely understand. It's a massive undertaking and not a very rewarding one. But I appreciate that you two are being considerate and transparent about the future. Wishing you the best.

Thanks, we really appreciate it!

i've missed ARR and i'm glad to see it can return even if it has to change to do so! i appreciate both of you modding this page and i hope the addition of accounts will make it easier for you. no suggestions from me, just wanted to say yahooo we're back!!!

Yeah it's definitely something we took the time to consider, and it's just best for the community to stay up and running. Thank you <3

great idea. completely agree with the new direction. will also make it easier to read convos.

I can't imagine the logic behind "Well if I'm nasty enough then they will definitely bring it back faster" 😩 Hobbyless behavior. Sorry you had to deal with that.

The changes sound reasonable to me. I just want a community to have a semi normal conversation about things that we can't talk about on site, with some reasonable venting allowed. I'm so sick of the stupid shit that the old format kept devolving into

Thank you for the updates and I hope you are all doing okay with everything!

Thank you for moderating this community. I feel like it's definitely attracted the worse side of people, unfortunately all too common with salt things... When it's a job and no a passion, you'd be well within your rights to just close it. I appreciate that you are trying to see if requiring accounts works, even though it really has been a mess. Good luck to you and vasemod, hope you're doing well.

I've missed ARR so much thank you so much for all your hard work!! It has been my main way to keep up with FR news and discussion for so long now (silly, i know) and I really hope a non-anon community will make this work out in a way that's sustainable for both you and vasemod

henlo I am also here to say thank you to the mods; this is one of my favorite dragon neopets adjacent communities and it absolutely could not exist without you two. we see you, we appreciate you, yall are the best and I hope the new rules will make it easier for you to continue herding cats (us) without so many stress headaches.

as a frequent commenter here, i think this is a great path forward!! im sorry to hear that moderating this comm has become so stressful and while i've greatly missed ARR, i completely understand why this and the break has become necessary

question - with posters having accounts, will there be rules against threads that are calling out specific ARR posters? this is the only concern i can think of really, because with the history of recent posters i can definitely see people trying to do this.

in the same vein i can see people making more attempts to say: "hey [ARR poster], you're [FR user] aren't you", with it being easier to see what one anon is saying over a period of time.

also in relation to bans, if you were to ban a poster's account from posting on ARR, is there anything preventing them from making another account and continuing to post? or are they also IP blocked when their acct is? not at all familiar with how dreamwidth works sorry!

This is a very excellent question and will likely be worked into the rules, but to give you a simple answer:

The rules will still apply "No 'Hi X'" threads/comments, because unless someone directly mentions/references their FR account, that is 100% on them.

It's not against the rules to de-anon, but given the state of things, I really don't suggest it.

As for banning, Vasemod and I can block accounts from commenting in ARR, and they could very well remake, but at least with actual accounts, I can report them to Dreamwidth.

Dreamwidth DOES do IP blocking - they block IPs if they're suspected of bot activity, or if they're located in Mississippi

I'm hoping this will be a good compromise of anonymity and security while still maintaining ARR's format.

Thank you guys for your continued patience and support, it means a lot <3

this sounds like a reasonable compromise and i'd love for y'all to do whatever you need to do to moderate the community. ARR is like the only place i interact with the FR community outside of the site itself and i really appreciate its existence, i'm sorry people suck and have made it strenuous to deal with. much love <3

Mods, thank you so much for not letting this community fizzle out! I had to talk to FR players that aren't you guys and it sucked

Bad idea, bad mods. I do hope you close this place down, or at least pass it along to people who still appreciate what ARR is supposed to be and can handle that as it has been handled in the past because that's not something either of you are up for, evidently. Like genuinely, if you're so stressed like you two always be posting about, QUIT.

The comm itself is not stressing us out. Folks were just being completely asinine at a time where real life was throwing curveballs at us both at the same time. I understand if this confused you as I may not have been entirely clear with this post.

If you have suggestions to go with your disagreement, by all means, share your grand schemes and plan of action.

This post was for feedback, so if you have some to contribute other than "Bad idea," then please. Enlighten us.

If the comm itself isn't the problem, you shouldn't want to change it fundamentally. It's fine that you don't have the capacity to make it work. My suggestion which I've already made is to hand over the reigns instead of retailoring the whole comm for the sake of two busy/stressed people who won't accept new mods due to personal privacy concerns, iirc.

Not to sound petty, but this is our comm and we don't have to hand it over. If a new community is wanted that badly, no one is stopping anyone from making it.

And again, you have no other advice except "give it up"

We take a harsh approach, we got called tyrannical (back in the beginning). We take a lighter touch, and someone gets doxxed. We get hard ass again, and folks go crying to smr and we're compared to kiwifarms. We go hands off approach, we get complaints that there's pointless drama.

This likely won't be permanent, but I'm trying to find a middle ground that gives us accountability, which is why I have made this post. For feedback.

And your only feedback is that you can do better, but you won't say how. And until you do in a civilized way, I won't be unscreening your comments.

not AYRT but im happy to hear this likely won't be permanent. ive made an account, hope yall let us post soon.

I hear you that you're pressed I'd prefer a different mod team instead of taking the A out of ARR. Was the point of this thread to 'not be petty, but' to anyone that isn't clapping and cheering?

I just don't like the work you guys do as mods and I said so plainly, that's not uncivilized. Sorry my feedback isn't to your liking but I gotta point out, you asked for it qualifier free.

If you want advice so badly, here's some: learn how to read. Anon told you twice what they mean and you're still putting words in their mouth, plus whining that they're not being "civilized" enough. Embarrassing.

You've always been a substandard mod, so I'm not surprised to see you react this way to criticism, but it's still annoying to see. This kind of poor leadership is a contributing factor to why the place has gone so far downhill, and I genuinely hope somebody does make a different one.

This sounds more than reasonable. Thank you for all the work, both of you.

Quick question, will there be a rule about using accounts named after flight rising familiars since you and vasemod use them already? I'm just thinking it could be kinda fun for those of us having to create dreamwidth accounts. Thank you for your hard work!

This is something we'll more than likely discuss and myself say it's probably fine, Mindless is outright named after a familiar while I am only referencing one set.

We'll get back to you on that one.

Shoot I got excited and named my account after a FR familiar. /sweats

Well, now we all have to make FR familiar based accounts. I don't make the rules.

This may be petty of me but I'd rather not start associating familiars with ARR regulars... you guys are cool though you get a pass.

It also may just be paranoia talking but I fear allowing accounts with too recognizable of an identity might encourage more drama and infighting later on. Would it be too harsh to only allow nonsensical or numerical username strings and no avatar as a medium between full-character and anonymity?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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