FARI · Public field archive Feline Autonomy Research Institute
Issue 14 · Vol. 5 Established 2021 Updated 28 March 2026 Editor: M. Voronova
Method & mission

A small archive about animals, ordinary rooms, and the devices that have moved in with us.

FARI is a volunteer reading desk. We keep a public record of household observations and publish anonymized summaries so that readers can see the same kinds of behavior in different homes without anyone losing their privacy. The work is unhurried on purpose.

Russian version: эта страница на русском
A short history

The archive began in October 2021 as a shared spreadsheet between two readers who had been trading email about a kitchen-timer story for months. By the end of that year it had forty-something entries, a vague editorial policy, and the modest hope that someone else might find it useful. We added the Russian pages in 2023 after a year of receiving polite emails written in two languages.

Today the desk reads a few hundred submissions a year, publishes roughly a quarter of them as anonymized summaries, and revises older entries when readers send better context. We are not a journal. We are closer to a careful newsletter with footnotes.

How a report becomes an entry

Collect

A reader sends a written note with time, room, devices present, behavior observed, and what changed afterward. We ask for the smallest amount of detail that lets a second person picture the scene.

Review

Two editors read each report against the working glossary. We tag the confidence level, mark whether a simpler explanation could account for the event, and decide whether to ask for a follow-up.

Publish

If the report holds up, the desk writes a short public summary and removes anything that could identify the household. The original stays with the sender unless they ask us to keep a redacted copy.

Limits we take seriously
No clinical claimsFARI does not give medical, veterinary, psychological, or legal advice. If a report describes injury, illness, or fear, the desk replies with veterinary referrals and stops.
No claims of intentReports describe what happened and where. The desk does not write that an animal “wanted” or “decided” anything. Readers are welcome to draw their own conclusions; we do not put them on the page.
No surveillance workWe do not accept submissions that depend on hidden recording, distressed animals, monitoring of other people in the home, or changes to normal animal care.
No data resaleThe archive is volunteer-funded. We do not run ads, sell submissions, or pass material to third parties.
Who is at the desk

FARI has a standing reading group of six. Three of us write under our own initials at the bottom of entries; the rest prefer not to be named in public, which we respect. New readers join after writing two trial summaries and sitting in on one editorial call.

  • M. Voronova — review editor

    Reads incoming reports, sets confidence labels, and drafts most of the published summaries. Tallinn.

  • K. Hirsch — intake

    First point of contact for submissions and questions. Writes the bulletin. Berlin, occasionally Tbilisi.

  • A. Lange — Russian editor

    Edits the Russian pages as standalone copy. Corrects translations that read like translations. Riga.

How to disagree with us. If you think an entry is wrong, write to the intake desk with the report number and the context that should change. Corrections are tracked on the entry itself; we do not silently rewrite history.