This reminds me of the time I built one of my larger bonfires in Usenet Land, then immolated myself (well, my reputation) in the resulting pyre.<p>In Usenet Land I spent most of my time in the poetry groups. In 2002 I came up with the idea of doing a weekly review of some of the poems and debates I had enjoyed, with short comments added to each link to make the post more legitimately "review-y"[1]. These were the last days of Usenet (my personal view) and Dejanews - the Usenet archiver of choice back in the day - was long deceased. Which meant I had to post links to posts using long-and-very-ugly Google links.<p>So I built my own link shortener service. It was a fun weekend exercise, with links going through a web domain I owned at the time[2]. The results were much more pleasing.<p>Sadly I was dealing with Usenet Poets, some of whom took massive umbrage at the shortened links "stealing their copyrighted work"[3]. I fought my corner but, by the time the flames died down, I had lost all enthusiasm for the project. The link shortener code died a few weeks after I posted my last review.<p>[1] - Long Ladle Review Issue 1, posted to RAP 14 Oct 2002: <a href="https://groups.google.com/g/rec.arts.poems/c/VBRR28g-jnM/m/hPRFWcMX3H0J" rel="nofollow">https://groups.google.com/g/rec.arts.poems/c/VBRR28g-jnM/m/h...</a><p>[2] - The shortened links don't work anymore! I gave up the `kalieda.org` domain years ago; it's now owned by some US medical company. You have been warned!<p>[3] - The final argument thread in the flame war: <a href="https://groups.google.com/g/rec.arts.poems/c/WT_dTrs0Up0" rel="nofollow">https://groups.google.com/g/rec.arts.poems/c/WT_dTrs0Up0</a>