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All about WhiteShepherd

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WhiteShepherd:
More to come here soon.  .....  .....  Ok is it soon yet?

A little about me and more about Furtopia...  I've been a furry since I was born (love or animals and animal arts).  I got involved with the fandom in the mid 80s.  Though I really wasn't very active in the fandom till the 90s.  I'm a country dog working a small farm school and spending time with the dogs.  I loved nature and spending time out doors.  My family is part Cherokee and they helped me appreciate the value of the natural world. I spent a LOT of time in the woods with the dogs.

I also loved computers (I still have a Tandy PC-6 pocket computer {best calc/computer ever made}) and I got into BBS.  I ran a local BBS by the name of Music & More BBS.  For several years it was the largest music BBS in the world and was listed in (at the time) huge magazine "Computer Shopper" with 8 telnet nodes and 5 dial-up lines.  As my interest in Furry grew I stepped up and got the domain whiteshepherd.net in 96 (for some reason the domain date reset in 2000 when I transfered from Joker to Godaddy).  

The first manifestations of Furtopia began in 98 when I began hosting websites for other artists as a learning experience.  I started by running Xitami under OS/2 and offering web space to artists.  I learned a lot during this time and hosted a handful of happy artists.  

In 2000 I was unhappy with the hosting situation for furry artists.  All to often I saw hosting sites opened for the wrong reason.  Men who wanted respect so they could take on a god ego and/or crafty men who wanted money and figured getting a rush of users could turn a hobby into a business "without" telling the users. Ie: "Now we've got big our costs are big... so if donations aren't met to status we shut down." The problem with these models is they typically fail.  These guys find out quickly hosting is a nameless job.  At best when things run smoothly nobody knows your name.  When things have problems your to blame and LJ is on fire. ;D  Plus unless you cherry pick your artists the term "Starving Artist" also applies to most of the fandom.  It's incredible seeing the art and what bringing these artists together will give back to the community.  But it's very hard to make a dime.  So many of these hosts take the trust and quit from burn out or turn shady.

In 2002 I created Furtopia with Kada-Ru.  I started with the mission and the server work.  Kada-Ru helps me with the HTML.  The idea was to create a non-profit furry community with "reliable" hosting and a "old community" style moderated forums. Furtopia was born as a ".org" TRUE non-profit community service.

Today Furtopia has grown a LOT. Furtopia hosts artists because it's goal is letting artists share their artwork enriches the community.  The Furtopia forums is a "respect" based community (if you knew the feel of the newsgroups before AOL).  Unlike most other forums we moderate to allow furs/people with diverse differences to communicate side-by-side as long as they keep respect towards others they agree/disagree with in conversation.  For it's good and bad without this moderation others can and do try to pick on other members for show boating/ego.  We set rules to allow as many as possible to feel as ease talking about interests involved with furry.

Well there is lots more.  But rather than talk on minutia if anyone wants to know more on me or Furtopia just feel free to ask.

  WhiteShepherd

WhiteShepherd:
Unlocked.

Mazz:
can I take over Furtopia?

Blastdav:
You mean again Mazz? ^.=.~

How did you come up with the name "Furtopia"?

WhiteShepherd:
Mazz is that the rebels of Coffeeville I hear in the woods? ;)

Blast: I was originally thinking of a art utopia (or as close as I could make one) and so blended the name.

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