I have been surfing through Sailormoon sites on the web, and I'm simply disgusted with the quality of the sites out there!! Now, I'm not saying that my site is perfect - far from it - but it's viewable! I have been reminded why I absolutely cannot stand randomly surfing through Sailormoon (or any anime for that matter) personal pages.

Incidentally, I will not provide the names of the sites I'm talking about, nor URLs to them for several reasons. One, I think that providing the URLs of sites you have problems with for people to visit (and probably subsequently flame) is wrong (unless you're running a review site and they apply or something), and two, the sites suck and I don't want them to get any more traffic than they've already managed to get. If you must have examples, pick about twenty random SM pages on Anipike and I'm sure you'll more than realize what I'm talking about. On with the rant.

It's rather sad to see how inconsiderate some people can be. There are a lot of things I'm talking about that fit into this category, but I'm going to name a few. First off, direct linking. Now, as I said in my FMOCT Web Tips & Tricks, I know that some people honestly do not know what they're doing or that it is wrong, but nine times out of ten I think it's complete and utter bullshit when people claim ignorance if they get caught. If you've been on the web for any amount of time, you pick things up. Guaranteed. There's no way to avoid it. You can visit a plethora of pages that say on them specifically "do not direct link these files". From there you think, "Hmm, wonder what that means?" and do some scouting around. You might ask someone. Either way, you find out what it is and that it is wrong. So theoretically, you shouldn't do it, right?

Apparently not. Some people are just so damn lazy (or maybe it's simply spite) that they don't want to take the time to put things on their own server. Our server got in trouble for bandwidth again, and we found the major cause of the problem. People were direct linking mp3 files. Entire albums of them. So, in other words, the Kaze hostees, who have to pay to keep our sites up and who were being nice enough to share our mp3s with our visitors, were losing our allotted bandwidth to some shit-ass sites on free servers of people who were just too fucking lazy to upload their own mp3s and who didn't care that they were potentially endangering our sites' existence. See why I hate direct linkers? If I ever find anyone direct linking any of my files for any reason whatsoever, I will not hesitate to promptly turn you in to your webhost. You'll get a warning only if I'm feeling gracious. We've gotten people kicked off their servers before for stealing graphics and some of AR's material - none of us will mind sending a few direct linkers packing on their merry way. So, direct linkers, unless you feel like paying us the $240 we're shelling out to keep our sites up for people like you, you'd better hope and pray we never find out that you're direct linking us.

Another of these inconsiderate acts I was referring to is graphic and HTML theft. Another huge no-no. Copying someone's text on their page word for word, using someone's fanfiction or poetry for your site without asking, taking someone's layout or pieces of their layout (and this includes backgrounds) simply because you "like" it, taking people's banners and editing off their text to add your own, and copying someone's summaries or site content are all forms of stealing. Yeah, that's right - like, you know when you take something that's not yours? Kind of like breaking into someone's house and taking their stereo because it's better than yours. It might not be on so large a scale, but theft is theft. Servers have and will continue to kick people off for theft, the same as direct linking. You can get in a whole load of trouble. Aside from losing credibility on your site, you have the possibility of getting flamed, losing your hosting space, having your entire page deleted, getting blacklisted, you name it. All kinds of unpleasantness.

Is it honestly so hard to make your own freaking graphics? Or if you just can't make graphics (you don't know how, don't have a good program, just simply suck at it, etc.), can't you find a nice happy free graphics place to download a layout from? How hard would that be? "Oh but it's easier to just take this one - it's prettier than all the ones in the free graphics place." Do you know why it's prettier? Because someone spent a whole lot of fucking time making it, that's why. (Note to free graphics webmasters - I'm not saying all your work is trash! I know there are a lot of really good f.g. places, as well as a whole lot more really crappy ones, just like with any kind of page. I'm speaking generally here.) How would you feel if you worked really really hard to write a piece of music or write a short story to publish, and one day you turn on the radio and - there's your song - or open a book at the library and - there's your story! Someone else is getting credit and praise for your work! That would make you really mad, wouldn't it? OK, so let's apply this to the Internet.

Let's see... "I just got Photoshop 6! Oh good, now I can finally make that great layout I've been wanting to do..." You fiddle around for hours on end getting your layout to look just perfect, and then you spend more time making banners for your page and putting together some nice little graphics to go on some of your pages... So you proudly launch your new layout, stating that you worked really hard to make it, so please don't anyone steal it! A few weeks pass. You're searching around the Internet a few days later, thinking you'll see what's new in the Sailormoon world when you click a link and - blip! - it's your splash page, right there in your face with a different title. You enter the site, already seething that someone had the nerve to take your splash image. The main page loads and your jaw subsequently hits the floor. Your entire layout is sitting right there in front of you. You spent all that time on it and someone else just decided it was cooler than theirs so they decided they would use it too. That doesn't feel too good, does it?

By the way, just because you credit the layout you take to the person who made it does not give you the right to use it unless that person specifically told you that you have permission!! Using things without permission with the correct credits is the same as taking it and claiming it as your own! If you really like someone's background on their page, how hard would it be to e-mail them and ask them where they got it - or, if they made it - if you can use it on your page if you credit them properly? You know why I think most people don't ask? One of two reasons - they either want to use it immediately, without waiting for a response, and figure, "Hey, out of the millions of SM pages out there, what are the odds they'll stumble across mine?", or they are afraid the person will say no and will come back to check their site to make sure they didn't use it.

Theft and direct linking isn't the only thing that pissed me off about the pages that I visited. If I'm in the rare mood to surf around, I'll generally go to Anipike and just scroll through the lists of site titles. If I see one that sounds interesting, I'll usually just click and go. I find it incredibly annoying when people have site names like, "The Ultimate Sailor Moon Page Ever Created!" or "The Biggest SM Picture Archive On The Net" and when you go to them, it's nothing but a trashy Yahoo/Geocities page with one huge shitty image on it and a promise from the webmaster/mistress that "I'm working reealy hard to make this the bigest Salor moon page ever! This page is undr majer contrsuction right now, but come back in a few days when i update Again! Byeeeeeee!" followed, perhaps, by a list of the few pages they might have up. Sometimes you'll shrug, figuring, "OK, so maybe they're just really bad at spelling. I'll take a look." You click the link for the galleries... And are either met with three small images that are on every Sailormoon page in existence, or a page full of large, non-thumbnailed, crappy ones. Yeah, this is certainly the biggest SM image archive. Don't brag if you can't deliver. It's generally a fair idea, if only for modesty's sake, not to use terms like "the best", "the biggest", or "the ultimate" when talking about or naming your site unless you really are.

Another thing that really bothered me, especially when I was hunting for my domain name, is so-called "free" domain names from places like NameZero. (To those of you who use NZ, you're not going to want to read this.) It should be a big step, getting your own domain name. It requires a little bit of sacrifice (for someone anyway - if you can convince your parents that you need to own SailorplutosTheBest.org then it's not you who have to pay, however, they are still sacrificing some of their hard-earned cash to do something special for you). Even if you still have to use free hosting, your own domain name distinguishes you from the other sites, and makes it that much easier for people to find your site. However, NameZero provides a "service" that gives people free domain names in exchange for simply putting a frame (large and hideous, I might add) at the bottom of your site.

In other words, NameZero buys legitimate domain names and gives them to snot-nosed little twelve year olds (no, not all twelve year olds are snot-nosed, but the majority I've known are) with their crappy little "Salor Scouts" pages instead of someone worthy of the space. If you were just dying to buy kawaiisenshi.org (which, incidentally, is a NZ domain, but, at the time this rant was written was not currently being used - so whoever gets that, don't even try yelling at me for badmouthing your site, mmkay?). You surf on over there and are dismayed to see the damn NZ frame at the bottom. Just think of the budding web designer who could have had a beautiful Sailormoon page at that address. Instead, it's up for grabs for the first webmaster/mistress who signs up for it, regardless of how much absolute ass their page may blow. (Excuse the phraseology. o.O) Now, I'm not saying that just because someone went out and bought a domain name as opposed to using a free service, they will automatically have a beautiful site (nor am I saying that everyone with a free domain is will have the world's shittiest page) - I'm just saying that the potential is blown to have anything eye-pleasing by that nasty NZ frame. If you absolutely are dying to have your own domain name, save a little money. You can get a domain name for anywhere from $8 to $35 a year. That's not that expensive. The average kid gets an allowance, usually at least $5 a week. If you can't sacrifice three or four weeks allowance for a whole twelve months of owning your own domain name, then you probably don't want it bad enough in the first place. If you can't refrain from buying bubblegum and Star Wars toys to save a measly $15 for the entire year, then you're not responsible enough to have a domain name. Simple as that.