Post by: WhiteShepherd on October 14, 2007, 02:26:36 am
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
Post by: WhiteShepherd on October 24, 2007, 02:43:17 am
Post by: Mazz on October 24, 2007, 10:43:51 am
Post by: Blastdav on October 24, 2007, 12:17:32 pm
How did you come up with the name "Furtopia"?
Post by: WhiteShepherd on October 25, 2007, 03:21:34 pm
Blast: I was originally thinking of a art utopia (or as close as I could make one) and so blended the name.
Post by: Baconstrip on October 25, 2007, 03:49:54 pm
I apologize if this is a rude question to ask... but I've always been curious!
If you don't want to answer, I do completely understand ^^Post by: Kobuk on October 25, 2007, 06:38:23 pm
When do I get my turn at ruling Furtopia? For I am going to ban everyone from drinking coffee, Dr. Pepper, and any other drink, and members can only drink Dew instead. 
Post by: Savaaha on October 25, 2007, 06:40:37 pm
Post by: Mazz on October 25, 2007, 09:11:22 pm
Quote
Mazz is that the rebels of Coffeeville I hear in the woods? ;)THE COFFEE WILL RISE AGAIN!
Post by: WhiteShepherd on October 25, 2007, 10:57:51 pm
Quote
How can you afford running furtopia, which must cost a LOT of money each month, without even a donation button or any sort of advertisements? And about how much does it cost?
The costs have grown quite a bit since it first started as a spare cyrix 166 PC on my coffee table. With better prices for net lines I've managed to get the costs down quite a bit while still improving over all bandwidth/speed. These days we run 3 servers around the country. Our primary one is in Texas (main web host with multiple giga feeds), a secondary server here in Ohio (FAST Dual core, 2 gigs ram server that runs our forums and other services) is on a 1.5MB upstream Time Warner feed, and a virtual linux server in Washington State which we put linux only or bandwidth hungry websites. I'd say costs for the three right now run me around $250/month. Not cheap but a lot cheaper than what I used to pay.
We will gladly take any donations/help (bills DO get tight often). But at the same time me and Kada's wanted to make sure this was a "stable" home for furs. We wanted a stable home where artists could work and safely post their work without worrying about weather the donation jar was full enough to keep going or if the owner would switch to a pay site. Donations help us a lot but we will keep it going till whatever time is right and we will pass the torch to the next care takers (hopefully not for a while).
I also want to give special notice to my mods and staff. Without their HUGE donated countless hours this place would never of made it. I owe a HUGE thanks to them I could never repay. I also want to give a special thanks to Nocte! He has saved my bacon many times with his great fur programming skills. Many of the added features on this board are because of his coding brilliance. He has also helped many times with paying the bills! So thanks a million Nocte you and the others are AWSOME!
WhiteShepherd
It costs a lot. But this has been my and Kada's contribution to the fandom and it's artists.
Post by: Savaaha on October 26, 2007, 01:43:20 am
Quote
*hides behind a bush* I smell columbian slow roasted.QuoteMazz is that the rebels of Coffeeville I hear in the woods? ;)THE COFFEE WILL RISE AGAIN!
Post by: Albino From About on October 26, 2007, 02:08:12 am
Quote
Quick somebody switch her regular coffee with decaf before it’s to late.Quote*hides behind a bush* I smell columbian slow roasted.QuoteMazz is that the rebels of Coffeeville I hear in the woods? ;)THE COFFEE WILL RISE AGAIN!
Post by: Baconstrip on October 26, 2007, 10:02:27 am
Quote
That's really awesome WS... very respectable and we all appreciate it very very much. Thanks for the interesting info too.. it's neat to hear the technical details. A cyrix 166... *snickers*!QuoteHow can you afford running furtopia, which must cost a LOT of money each month, without even a donation button or any sort of advertisements? And about how much does it cost?
The costs have grown quite a bit since it first started as a spare cyrix 166 PC on my coffee table. With better prices for net lines I've managed to get the costs down quite a bit while still improving over all bandwidth/speed. These days we run 3 servers around the country. Our primary one is in Texas (main web host with multiple giga feeds), a secondary server here in Ohio (FAST Dual core, 2 gigs ram server that runs our forums and other services) is on a 1.5MB upstream Time Warner feed, and a virtual linux server in Washington State which we put linux only or bandwidth hungry websites. I'd say costs for the three right now run me around $250/month. Not cheap but a lot cheaper than what I used to pay.
We will gladly take any donations/help (bills DO get tight often). But at the same time me and Kada's wanted to make sure this was a "stable" home for furs. We wanted a stable home where artists could work and safely post their work without worrying about weather the donation jar was full enough to keep going or if the owner would switch to a pay site. Donations help us a lot but we will keep it going till whatever time is right and we will pass the torch to the next care takers (hopefully not for a while).
I also want to give special notice to my mods and staff. Without their HUGE donated countless hours this place would never of made it. I owe a HUGE thanks to them I could never repay. I also want to give a special thanks to Nocte! He has saved my bacon many times with his great fur programming skills. Many of the added features on this board are because of his coding brilliance. He has also helped many times with paying the bills! So thanks a million Nocte you and the others are AWSOME!
WhiteShepherd
It costs a lot. But this has been my and Kada's contribution to the fandom and it's artists.
I will certainly donate a chunk of money sometime in the near future. Furtopia has been great to me, and I'd love to help out in what little way I can :)
Thanks much to all you who help foot the bills and do the work to keep this site running :)
Post by: Ponder on October 26, 2007, 06:21:52 pm
Quote
More to come here soon. ..... ..... Ok is it soon yet? ;)Wow. I love history. I didn't know that furries have been around since before the 1980's, that's a long time. Interesting. ;) *Keeps reading* That's cool, so you were a businessmen and decided to combine your love of nature with both? I must admit WS this is pretty interesting stuff and your story is wonderful. I'd like to hear more sometime, or whenever I pay tribute (my next visit) to this site again.
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
Post by: Kobuk on October 26, 2007, 06:29:56 pm
http://cgi.furtopia.org/cgi-bin....;t=6466 (http://cgi.furtopia.org/cgi-bin/ib311/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=12;t=6466)
;)
Post by: Kyo-San on November 21, 2007, 04:00:31 am
I really appreciate it. ^^
~Kyo.
Post by: Shim on September 22, 2010, 08:58:59 pm
I've had a question for you for a while :o!
You're the founder of this forum, and from what I've seen, conversations back and forth with server updates and whatnot, you seem to never have much time for anything else forum related. Is being as busy as you seem to be, the reason that you don't post a lot here?
Post by: Kobuk on September 22, 2010, 09:03:42 pm
Post by: Alexandre on September 23, 2010, 12:05:27 pm
Hi there ;)
I've had a question for you for a while :o!
You're the founder of this forum, and from what I've seen, conversations back and forth with server updates and whatnot, you seem to never have much time for anything else forum related. Is being as busy as you seem to be, the reason that you don't post a lot here?
quote author=Kobuk link=topic=29413.msg765133#msg765133 date=1285203822]
I doubt you'll get a reply, Shim. WS is pretty heavily busy with RL stuff. ;) Although he's very busy IRL, he does pop in to Furtopia once in a while whenever the rest of the staff need him for something.
[/quote]
lol... perhaps it's because I'm sleep deprived that I found this funny, but seems like Kobuk answered your question, Shim. :)
Post by: Shim on September 23, 2010, 04:00:42 pm
lol... perhaps it's because I'm sleep deprived that I found this funny, but seems like Kobuk answered your question, Shim. :)
Nono, don't worry, I thought the exact same thing :D!
Post by: Kobuk on June 16, 2013, 11:23:29 pm
HAPPY FATHER'S DAY! :D
Thanks for being the "father" (creator/owner) of this wonderful furry website and allowing all us "kids" (members) the pleasure of posting and participating here. :) Thank You.
Post by: Old Rabbit on June 17, 2013, 11:46:10 am
Post by: Mylo on June 19, 2013, 10:51:09 am
Post by: Kobuk on June 19, 2016, 09:43:20 am
(http://stepdadding.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Happy-fathers-day1.jpg)
(https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/2b/80/f6/2b80f6579f52aec2967a98fbbeeeb040.jpg)