On Silver Linings and The Value of Non-Evil
Sat 2006-05-27 00:31:55 (in context)
I would just like to say, right now, that--all MySQL discomforts aside--I am very glad I am hosting with Drak.Net and not with another web site. Specifically, I am glad I am hosting with a company whose policy is not to pull the plug on a customer within the hour of receiving an abusive phone call from someone who doesn't know the DMCA from the YMCA.
The ignorant screaming meemy in question is Barbara Bauer, one of the Twenty Worst Agents (according to Preditors and Editors, and Miss Snark, both of whom know a thing or two).
The foolish and possibly dishonest web host owner would be Stephanie Cordray, who gave the good people at AbsoluteWrite one hour after that phone call to grab their data before she took down the site.
Do you know how much useful crap is at AbsoluteWrite? 7,000+ writers in a forum well known, among other things, for being a home to the Bewares and Background Checks forum and the Learn Writing With Uncle Jim thread, both of which have saved many a newbie writer from falling into the hands of, well, scammers such as Barbara Bauer. And that's just the forum. The main site is full of online classes, articles, and all sorts of good stuff.
You know what else? While the funeral meats were still warm, so to speak, Stephanie Cordray resurrected her own writer's community. Conflict of interest much?
So. The one time I was implicated in anything unsavory at all--and that was when a spammer hijacked one of my email-me forms--Drak.net's owner worked it out with me. She did have to temporarily suspend the account in order to shut down the spammer's access, but soon after that we spent about 2 hours on the phone trying to figure out how spam was managing to get sent through their smtp via me, and how to stop it. Right now, even as I write, she's digging up the "last good" backups for littlebull.com and dreamvortex.net so that those sites can be restored. (Thankfully, there was a good, recent backup of my writing database available where I could get it; that's why this blog is now error free. But for the other sites, sadly, I only have access to backups made after things exploded. Sorry, Story participants and Dream sharers.) Sure, I have my quibbles, no one's perfect, mistakes happen--but even the woes of this week are far outweighed by the peace of mind I get from knowing that my ISP have nothing but the best intentions, upon which they do act.
My ISP would never, ever do to me what Stephanie Cordray did to AbsoluteWrite.
In short: Thank you, Drak.Net, for not being evil.