BARQ!

Great app, does exactly what’s advertised- except for one thing. Zero notifications. You can have all the notification setting enabled on both your device and the app itself, and you don’t even see a banner or pop-up. The majority of people move off-app for communication because of this, making the chat feature almost useless. I’ve redownloaded this app multiple times within the past 6 months or and it’s still like this. I’ve had plenty of time to try everything on my end, so I’m confident it’s a bug of some sort. It’s gotten pretty frustrating, I’ll be talking to someone and they’ll respond 2 weeks later because they never got a notification. Please fix!

I used to be able to post in groups with no problem, and my reputation has always been fine until now. I think the added verification of age (which is not yet fully implemented, and shows up as “currently unavailable”), is preventing me from having a proper reputation and creating posts? It shows up that I can either verify my age (which I cannot), or become a BARQ! Supporter to have a reputation level of 5 (which I used to have) and create posts again. Is this by design? If so, that is quite unfortunate that I can no longer use this app to connect with new people unless I pay for it. Other than that, I have really enjoyed the app…

I’ve genuinely enjoyed using this app and have always been happy with its features and overall experience. The interface is nice, and the app offers a lot of functionality that works well. It is always delightful to be able to see furries around you, even when you are in a place where you don’t expect there to be furries. However, user safety, specifically around non-consensual content, is handled very poorly on this platform. In simple terms, if someone posts explicit artwork depicting you without your consent, the app does not handle it the way most other platforms do. After reporting the issue to the moderation team, users may be told that the team is entirely volunteer-based and does not have the time or resources to take action, and the content may continue to be hosted despite clear notice that it is non-consensual. It is quite concerning that an app of this nature lacks a properly resourced moderation team and relies on the explanation that moderation is volunteer-run when serious safety issues are reported. This shows that the app does not provide effective safety mechanisms for its users. While the app itself has strong features, the lack of meaningful moderation in situations involving non-consensual explicit content is something potential users should be aware of.