Hi Ray. Thank you for taking the time to leave the comment but we were able to figure the new link to most of your projects and the link(s) were already updated previously. I believe we only mentioned, in passing, an issue with the zombie mask. I don’t recall mentioning any issue with the other projects you’re mentioning although it’s possible we noticed an issue and corrected it a while back. As for comments regarding issues with the host site, I’m sorry if they offended you. In actuality that was the issue and that was the concise explanation we could provide to frustrated visitors blaming our site for issues beyond our control.

Our links definitely worked at the time we created the post because we triple checked everything. It appears at some point the link structure on your site and other sites changed. It is common practice for a webmaster or site author to redirect old links if they restructure or move things around on a site. Unfortunately not everyone does so. It’s a bit preposterus to expect another website linking to know when you’ve moved content around or changed links. That’s why ensuring the old link automatically redirects to the new URL is common practice. It avoids issues with search engine results and prevents issues like this.

We provided a simple and brief explanation of the issue to our readers. As for “casting shade” on you I’m not seeing that anywhere in the post or our comments. I do apologize if we’ve done something to lead you to have that unfortunate point of view. Maybe you’re reading into things and assuming all comments on this page referred to you and your site alone? Although, I’m not really seeing anything that appears that way. Over the years there have been a few instances of broken links to several different sites and they were all issues with the host site either moving things around and not redirecting old links or issues with the site simply not existing anymore.

This post is over 4 years old at this point. Our continued responses to comments here and the fact that we’ve updated this post multiple times over the years and continue to support it should be clear evidence we do our best to stay on top of things. Over the years we’ve updated this post several times with new links when we get angry comments and emails from people who want to download a zombie papercraft project and then find they cant’ do so. So there are definitely no “shortcomings” there.

Sites move things around. Websites disappear. These things happen. Every time we’re made aware there is an issue we update the post. We usually take the brunt of the hostility because “our” links don’t work when it is actually an issue on the site we’re linking to. With this post, broken links almost always boil down to “issues with the host site.” That’s the nicest way we can point out to our readers it isn’t our fault that something went wrong on someone else’s site. I apologize for not using different terminology other than “issue with the host site.” I’d be open to any suggestions for future reference.

Obviously we update links, and this post, on an ongoing basis. Implying we don’t is rather silly. Sites move things around and don’t redirect old links correctly. It’s not a big deal. It happens to the best of us. If explaining that to our readers upsets you I apologize. Your comments here almost make it appear that it may be you attempting to cast shade on us to cover up your own shortcomings. That looks equally unimpressive. But who are we to judge?

I’m sorry it bothers you that we loved your zombie themed papercraft and chose to share it with zombie lovers and fans of horror culture. It appears we’ve made some incorrect assumptions:
* We assumed you publicly posted free zombie and horror related content because you wanted it to be seen, enjoyed and shared by zombie and horror fans.

* We assumed you’d be pleased we employed best practices such as properly crediting you as the source, not “hotlinking’ images and correctly linking to your site was the appropriate way of doing things.

People steal and use other people’s content for commercial gain without proper credit given all the time. It’s happened to us on several occasions. . . which is why we’re very careful to give proper credit.

I can assure you there is no commercial benefit to posting your, or any other, zombie paper projects. The purpose of this post was to offer zombie and horror fans a source of free zombie papercraft and to highlight and credit the talented folks responsible for them. I apologize if you didn’t want your publicly posted free work to be a part of that.

I’m at a loss with understanding how including your free projects in this post “bolsters” our sales. I’d argue this post couldn’t be set up any better to guarantee we LOSE traffic and sales. It is on our blog and not on our main sales site. In addition, 99% of this post is dedicated to sending traffic AWAY from our site and TO the sites of the papercraft author etc. Any sites we link to in this post that sell items, run advertisements or otherwise monetize their content are certainly potentially benefiting from any traffic we send them. Whether you choose to do so with your site I don’t know and I’m honestly not concerned with. That’s your prerogative. We simply loved the work and wanted to share it with our fans. I apologize if that is an issue for you.

In conclusion, I’m a bit perplexed on just why you’re upset we’re honoring your papercraft talents and sending traffic your way. That being said, you definitely have the option of refusing traffic from our domain and websites. I’d talk with your webmaster or hosting company on how to do that. Alternatively, we’re more than happy to remove the links to your site at your request. We’ll simply add a note to the post and remove all outgoing links.

Regardless, we love the the work and wish you continued happiness and success.

For further clarification to anyone following along:

The original link we posted to the zombie mask was:
http://ravensblight.com/Mask3.html

That was correct for years. At some point between 2014 and March of 2015 they moved the location of the zombie mask page on their site and the URL changed to:
http://ravensblight.com/ZombieMask.html

Unfortunately the old link for the zombie mask wasn’t setup at the host site to automatically forward traffic to the new URL. Therefore anyone clicking or using the old link would receive a 404 error. Unfortunately it’s an issue with the host site and something beyond our control until we’re made aware of the problem. Once we were aware of the situation we looked into the new location and updated the post with the correct working link.

Unfortunately we have no easy way of knowing when someone else moves material on their site without forwarding traffic to the new location. We do our best to update broken links but frankly it is not our responsibility and not within our ability to know when a third party moves material on their site without redirecting old links. It’s the host website’s responsibility to ensure continuity and accessibility of material when something changes or moves. We would only discover the issue with our own manual check of outgoing links (which we do from time to time) or when visitors make us aware that a link is no longer functioning correctly.

You’ll find the zombie mask here…
http://ravensblight.com/ZombieMask.html

And the six zombie figurines can be found here…
http://ravensblight.com/monsters5.html
http://ravensblight.com/monsters6.html

As for “issues with the host site”, it bothers me when commercial websites use my free material to bolster their sales. When they fail to update their links and then cast shade on me for their own shortcomings… well, let’s just say I’m not very impressed.

For others reading this, I did a quick check of the links on this page and it appears most of the links are in fact working perfectly fine and lead you directly to the download. We linked to about 11 different zombie papercraft projects here. Links to eight of the projects are working just fine.

It does appear that as of today 4/29/2016 the cute little George Romero papercraft project, the zombie mask and the first “Zombiefie six” links are dead due to issues with the host site either being gone or having moved things around without forwarding visitors from the old link. All of the remainder, and indeed the majority of the links on this page, still work perfectly fine if you bother to scan down the page past the first 3 projects or so.

UPDATE: 6/13/2016
Shortly after posting this original comment we were able to determine the correct link for the zombie mask. I simply forgot to update this comment to reflect that. Shouldn’t be an issue since there is no reference to a broken link in the post itself and the mask links all work correctly after we updated the link URL. A comment from the source site’s author led to the discovery that I forgot to remove this reference pertaining to the broken zombie mask link. The zombie mask URL has been correct for quite some time but I did want to update this comment for future reference.

Hayley,
I’m sorry finding dead links makes you so frustrated. Unfortunately this is a 4 year old post which is an eternity on the web. I can assure you all links were valid and working back in 2012 when the original post went up. I know a great deal of time went into this post. Unfortunately responsibility ultimately lies with the webmaster and author of the sites we’ve linked to. It appears some of the sites are likely dead and gone. Many have also employed some poor web practice by restructuring their site and moving things around without forwarding the old URL to the new one. I’m sure there was also a domain or two that simply couldn’t handle all the increased traffic we sent their way and simply blocked us from referring traffic. I’ll do my best to see this post gets updated or a new post gets created in the future.

Mind? Heck no! We’re honored! I need to update this post though…there’s so much cool stuff I’ve come across that hasn’t been listed here. It’s definitely on my “To-Do” list.