Server Shutdown

The following is the exchange I had between me and the "man" in charge of the Lethbridge Community College server that the site was recently pulled from. The server was shut down and all of my files were deleted. While it may be true that the staff didn't exactly award me a halo upon graduating, was it really necessary for them to come out and say that I'm a useless bum who needs to get a job? True or not, you decide. I have changed the names to protect the guilty.

Fred!

Hey man, how's it going? I found that my directory is empty and all my files are gone. There probably a couple things that I didn't back up. I don't know for sure.

Do you have any idea what happened? Either way, talk to ya later.

Colter

Reply:

Colter,

Your site came down early (not "the other day" but this morning) because a number of people complained about offensive language. The College's domain isn't the place for that sort of shock-jock form of self-expression. Just register your own domain, "colteramazing.com" or whatever, and then you can put whatever you like on it. Domain hosting is cheap--pennies a day. Although, even with your own domain, if attracting clients and/or getting work is any concern to you, you might want to rethink your current strategy.

If you had unsecured data on the server, just send me a mailing address and I'll burn a CD and send your whole folder to you.

Cheers,

Fred

Reply:

Fred,

That's funny that people complained about my site because there wasn't anything offensive on there. My site www.nakedapefilms.com is hosted with www.elkvalley.net in Fernie. There was however, a link from my portfolio on to my Naked Ape Films site that was readily accessible from my portfolio. I put that html page up the other day. Anything on my Naked Ape Films site that is questionable at all, I put (perverted) in brackets so that people that were looking at links could steer away from the ones that might offend them. Those people had to follow two separate links to two separate pages in order to access "offensive content". Those people weren't forced into looking at those links. I think that someone is just complaining because they like complaining.

Do you mind putting the info up on the server for a day so that I can grab it? There are some files that I wouldn't mind having. Thanks Fred,

Colter Ripley

Reply:

Colter,

I guess I wasn't clear. We have always agreed to maintain student sites for a year after graduation, so all of the sites for your group will be coming down shortly. What we will maintain indefinitely is a single link to an external site, and a standard format bio note for those who want it. More on that later.

Your site was removed because "We like to fuck shit up to the extreme," etc., was perceived as offensive by people whose opinions matter. Again, since it was time for the site to come down anyway, I didn't even look to see whether or not the offensive material was still there.

Fred