Summary: This posting describes the alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.plushies newsgroup, including where to find more information. It should be read by anyone who wishes to post to the a.b.p.e.p newsgroup. Archive-name: abpep-faq/welcome Posting-Frequency: Weekly Last-modified: Apr 25, 2003 Version: 1.8 URL: http://velocity.net/~galen/abpepfaq.txt Copyright: (C) 1997-2003 by FoxWolfie Galen Maintainer: FoxWolfie Galen =========================================================================== ADVISORY -- ADULTS ONLY The following text contains information on erotic acts with plush stuffed animals (plushies) and furry animal costumes (fursuits). If you are a minor, or believe you may be offended by descriptions of eroticism with plush stuffed animals or animal costumes, please stop reading this text now. =========================================================================== Welcome to alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.plushies Frequently Asked Questions version 1.8 (Last revised Apr 25, 2003) (C) 1997-2003 by FoxWolfie Galen =========================================================================== Table Of Contents: 1. What is alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.plushies? 2. What is a Plushie? 3. What is a Plushophile? 4. What is a Fursuit? 5. What is a furry? 6. What is on-topic? 7. What is off-topic? 8. How should I post pictures to the group? 9. How do I avoid all the off-topic spam and commercial posts? 10. What other plushie/fursuit or related newsgroups are there? 11. Is there a mailing list for plushies/fursuits? 12. How do I find out more? =========================================================================== 1. What is alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.plushies? alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.plushies is a newsgroup that was created for adults to share photographs and drawings of plushies and fursuits. This group differs from alt.binaries.pictures.plushies in that adult images are encouraged and expected. 2. What is a Plushie? A plushie is simply what most people call a stuffed animal or a plush animal. Plushies can be almost any size from a few inches to six feet tall or larger. Plushies are usually made in the form of some type of animal, with bears and bunnies probably being the most common. Plushies are usually covered in soft plush material, however this is not always the case. Some plushies are made out of smooth nylon or some other fabric. They are generally stuffed with soft polyester fiber. Beanie babies are also considered to be plushies, as are many handpuppets. Sometimes the word plushie is used as a term to refer to a person who is a plushophile. 3. What is a Plushophile? A plushophile is someone who loves plushies. This can be for any reason and ranges anywhere from those love to collect them to those who like to cuddle, sleep with or who become sexually involved with their plushies. Many, probably most, plushophiles are also furries. 4. What is a Fursuit? A fursuit is a full-body costume that makes the wearer look like a furry character or a favorite animal. Costumes like this are often seen at sporting events in the form of team mascots. They are often worn at amusement parks by people who dress up as popular cartoon characters. Since a person wearing a fursuit looks and feels a lot like a large living plushie, these costumes are usually quite popular among plushophiles. Several plushophiles here have made their own fursuits or own store-bought versions. A Zootaphile is a person who has a strong personal attraction to fursuits. 5. What is a furry? A furry is any character who has some attributes of both animal and human. This can range from ordinary animals that have attained sentience to humans with some animal-like characteristic. They are most commonly represented as anthropomorphic animal characters. A furry can also refer to a fan or a collector of things such as pictures or stories that have furry characters in them, or to someone who is spiritually, emotionally or otherwise interested in animals or furry characters. Many cartoon characters, such as the Animaniacs or Disney's Robin Hood, are furries. People sometimes differ on exactly which characters they consider to be furry. Many consider turtles or other creatures to be furries even though they have no fur. As long as they exhibit some human attribute, even if it is only sentience, they might be considered furries. A large number of plushophiles are furries, or relate strongly to them. 6. What is on-topic? * Photographs or drawings of plushies in sexually explicit situations. This can include, but is not limited to, any of the following: + Plushies in sexual/erotic/suggestive positions. + Plushies with anatomically correct modifications. + Plushies with evidence of semen/urine stains or other sex activity. + Plushies with people having sex with them. * Photographs or drawings of fursuits in sexually explicit situations. This can include, but is not limited to, any of the following: + Fursuits in sexual/erotic/suggestive positions. + Fursuits with anatomically correct modifications. + Fursuits with evidence of semen/urine stains or other sex activity. + Fursuits with people having sex in, or with, them. * Images of plush animal handpuppets being used for sex or with evidence of such use. * Images of plush bean-bags (beanie babies) being used for sex or with evidence of such use. * Comments on previous on-topic binary images. 7. What is off-topic? * Commercial advertisements, whether or not they are plush or fursuit related. * Any image depicting sexual acts or nudity that is not directly related to plushies, fursuits or handpuppets. This includes animal-human bestiality. Images designed to feature plump women are specifically off-topic, regardless of the fact that they might be referred to as plushies by some people. That is not what the plushie groups were created for. Plump women pictures belong in the 'plumpers' and/or 'fat-chicks' groups. * Images or discussions featuring pedophilia, even if it involves other on-topic material. * Non-binary related discussion. Please take such discussions to alt.sex.plushies. * Anything that is not plush/fursuit/puppet/beanie related. 8. How should I post pictures to the group? JPEG, GIF and PNG are the preferred image formats. BMP, TIFF, PICT and other formats should be avoided since not everyone is set up to view them easily. Progressive JPEGs are ok, but more people will be able to view your images if they are standard JPEGs. Images should be uploaded to the group as attachments using either MIME/Base64 or UUEncoding. Please don't post images using BinHex. This is a format that is proprietary to the Macintosh, and is not easily decoded by most viewers on other computer platforms. YEnc should also be avoided - at least until most of the major newsreaders decide to support it. Hopefully that will be soon. Your subject line should be prefixed by the word PLUSH:. It is helpful to many users if your news reader inserts the image name after the subject as well. Due to the spammy nature of this group, it is acceptable to repost your images several days after the original post. This insures that all users can see the images, and new users will have a greater chance of seeing an image that is on-topic. Reposted images should be identified by the addition of REPOST: in the subject line. Subject lines should contain no more than about 80 characters. Some users are viewing their message headers on 80-column non-scrollable displays. HTML formatting should be avoided. Many users simply cannot read HTML easily without loading a browser. Some users don't have that option. 9. How do I avoid all the off-topic spam and commercial posts? There are several methods for avoiding spam, however, none is 100 percent effective. The easiest is to use filters. Most news readers support them, but not all. If yours does not, it might be a good idea to think about one that does. Some good news readers that allow filtering are: + Agent/Free Agent for Windows 3.x and Windows 9x users: http://www.forteinc.com/ + Gravity for Windows 3.x and Windows 95 users + MacSOUP for Mac users: http://www.snafu.de/~stk/macsoup/ + Newswatcher for Mac users When using filters, you might want to set them to allow only messages that include certain key words in the subject line. For this group, these seem to work best: plush*, fur*, abpep If the message does not contain any of these, you can simply have the filter delete them or mark them as having been read. Most regular users include PLUSH:, ABPEP: or FURSUIT: at the start of their subject lines to differentiate their messages from the spam. Anything else is likely to be off-topic. Another way to fight spam is to go after the spammers in an attempt to stop them from abusing the net. This isn't always easy. Most spammers are using fake return addresses and they are often good at faking other information in their message headers. If you can determine where an off-topic message originates from, you can send a complaint to that person's provider. This will usually be something like abuse@spam.site or postmaster@spam.site, where spam.site is the domain name the spammer posted from. Do not assume that the From: header reflects the real name. The NNTP-Posting-Host: and the last entry on the Path: line are harder to fake and are more likely to point to the real sender's domain. Please be polite, and include the full headers from the spammer's message, when complaining to their provider. It usually gets better results. One of the most effective ways to fight the spammers is to post more than they do. When plushophiles post, new plushophiles have something to see and respond to. If all they see is spam, they will often leave without ever posting. 10. What plushie/fursuit related newsgroups are there? Discussions may be carried out in the following newsgroups: alt.sex.plushies (Adult discussions of plushies/fursuits) alt.fan.plushies (General discussions of plushies/fursuits) alt.lifestyle.furry (A plush-friendly furry discussion group) de.alt.fan.pluesch (German language plush discussion) alt.collecting.teddy-bears (General, mostly commercial topics) alt.collecting.beanie-babies (Collecting Ty Beanie Babies) alt.collecting.beanie-babies.forsale (Ty Beanie Babies for sale) alt.collecting.beanie-babies.uk (Collecting Ty Beanie Babies, UK) Images may be posted to the following newsgroups: alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.plushies (Adult plushies/fursuits) alt.binaries.pictures.plushies (General plushies/fursuits) alt.binaries.erotica.beanie-babies (Adult beanie-babies) Some of these groups are available on private newsservers, often with spam-filtering. These private servers generally only carry certain plush or furry newsgroups and little else. Some require a password in order to post. These can often be found by asking other plushophiles or furries. Here are some of the servers you could try: news.critter.net furry.ao.net 11. Is there a mailing list for plushies/fursuits? There are a few of them: * The Plushie Mailing List (PML) -- To subscribe, go to: http://www.critter.net/mailman/listinfo/plushie/ This list has a fairly even mix of emotional, romantic, sexual and erotic areas of plush love. It is probably a good list for new people to join if they are not too sure what they might like. * Yahoo! Groups: Plushie Perversions -- To subscribe, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/plushie_perversions/ This list focuses more on the sexual and erotic areas of plush love. Graphic sexual content is acceptable and encouraged here. The main topic of each mailing list is the adult appreciation of plushies. Fursuits are also a popular topic on some of the lists. All of these lists require you to be approved before being subscribed. You must state that you are at least 18 before you will be approved. This is necessary to prevent spam and to prevent minors from joining. There is also a fursuit list for those who are constructing or who already own a fursuit. Common topics include fursuit construction techniques, performance issues and where to find supplies. The list is for a general audience, therefor, sexual discussions are off-topic. Discussions involving fursuit-sex are welcome on some of the plushie lists and newsgroups. * The Fursuit Mailing List -- For more information, go to: http://fursuit.org/ 12. How do I find out more? Visit any of these sites for more information: * Captain Packrat's Plush Central http://plushie.info/ * FoxWolfie Galen's Plushie Page http://velocity.net/~galen/ * Maximilian's Plush Page http://www.coyotes.org/fangwolf/plush.html * Vortex Kangaroo's Plushie Page http://www.vortexk.com/ Be sure to follow the PlushieRing from many of these sites for a variety of plushie-related webpages. You can always post questions to the plushie newsgroups. The people are friendly and always willing to help. =========================================================================== The latest alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.plushies FAQ can be found at: http://velocity.net/~galen/abpepfaq.txt Constructive comments and suggestions regarding this FAQ can be sent to: galen (at) velocity (dot) net FoxWolfie _]\-/[_ =_^o^_= ^U^ Galen