RANT IN E MINOR

For those unfamiliar, Weekend Update was a thing I used to do on the old Wordpress blog. And since Legion's tickled me in apparently exactly the right spot, I've decided it was time to bring back a time honored segment. So, tuck in...

MEMORY LANE
While we're on the subject of the old Wordpress blog, I thought it would be timely to talk about it here. Since I no longer own the domain or have hosting with GoDaddy it would seem irrelevant, but recently it became anything but, thanks to a foreign entity. But before we get to that, a little backstory...

This blog has gone through multiple iterations, but before landing here in it's current form it was being hosted on a paid server through GoDaddy. In those days, the blog was as it is now dedicated to WoW, but was almost entirely focused on gold making. At a certain point however (Cataclysm) I lost the old fire in the belly, and I ended up quitting World of Warcraft. There were a few posts here and there, but practically speaking I was done.

So, when my computer suffered an unfortunate encounter with a pretty flashy storm a few years back, I didn't care much about keeping the hosting going. Eventually the domain name and apparently contents of the blog went to GoDaddy to be sold to the highest bidder. This is what we call in the writing profession foreshadowing...

In the months that followed there were actually several attempts to resell me my old domain name. I initially was uninterested, then I noticed the price they were attempting to sell the domain for. The domain had gone from $12 per year to literally thousands. I attempted to reclaim the files, but had no real luck and wrote it all off as gone for good until recently.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
I'm not entirely sure where I land specifically on the subject of Intellectual Property, however I do know that if you literally copy/paste something someone else wrote without giving them credit, and attempt to make money from it you're a limp dick (the most useless kind). Recently, while doing research for the rollout of the new and improved SRS BUSINESS I decided to check the status of the old domain, since it had gone unsold for literally years at this point. And it looks as if some enterprising plagiarist did indeed purchase my old work this year. The new site is embarrassing, it's not the worst thing I've ever seen but compared to what was there before it...

Seriously, if I can be a mean girl for a second it looks like something you'd turn in for a desktop publishing class in the late 90s. The actual layout isn't terrible, it's a functional, clean, and free theme with a logo that would not look out of place on an Angelfire site. Shit, I'm sorry Angelfire, it looks like you guys joined the new millennium too. So, yeah that thing is dated even for Angelfire.

The real problem isn't even with the way the site looks, it's theirs, so whatever. There's plenty of shitty looking webpages on the internet. Mine is definitely in need of a facelift too, hence what got this whole thing started, but I digress. The real trouble is when I did a quick browse of their page and noticed some oddities. At first blush this is exactly what it says on the tin, tips for online shopping. And lame cheats for even lamer games. Odd mix, but then... what in the fuck is this? And this?

Oh, just some posts I made literally years ago about World of Warcraft when the site at that domain looked like this...

Majestic as a motherfucker...

As of this writing, I've reached out to the relevant parties and we'll see what happens, for now I just have to say... the internet never forgets. You can take that to the bank, cash it and buy a ticket out of my life as far as I'm concerned. An object lesson. So, where does that leave me and this blog?

Previously, I'd mentioned research because frankly there's a lot in those old blog posts I want to archive. Additionally, the site has changed considerably since those days. I'm not running a successful raiding guild anymore, I am my own raiding guild. I'm still working the auction house, albeit on a completely different server/faction. So, I'm still thinking about where I want to go with this thing. I did a good job with the original iteration of the site, and my thinking now is that I can do it again. The form this will take is really the big question. I'll just keep that under my hat until the legalities of the aforementioned situation with the unoriginal hack above are resolved. For now, I say go forth and kick ass!

K