History of "Anime Alpha"?

Ideas, gripes, suggestions, questions - Talk about Anime-Beta in general!
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sensei
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History of "Anime Alpha"?

Post by sensei »

Can anyone provide some history of this forum's predecessor? It came before my time, and I only know the name. A Google search turns up nothing definite.

On a thread titled 6 years ago today--remember when I found a few mentions. I gather:

* It evolved from a site called "Porn Epsilon" where otaku uploaded hentai images and commented on them (or is that just mightymask pulling newbies' legs?)
* It was primarily a DBZ fansite with no special emphasis on animation art collecting.
* It predated Rubberslug (founded August 2001)
* There was some dispute with the mods, and as a result a group of dissidents created Anime-Beta (April 2002)
* After the “migrationâ€
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ReiTheJelly
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Post by ReiTheJelly »

Anime-Alpha was before my time, but The Way Back Machine seems to have a few snapshots of it archived. At least, I assume this is the correct site...

http://replay.waybackmachine.org/200111 ... nboard.cgi
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Post by Tabbykitty »

I vaguely remember Anime Alpha. It was one of the first resources/boards I remember using when I started collecting. It definately was more of a fan/collecting site initially (as you can see from the different forum subsections). There definitely was a big falling out which led to folks following Sith Krillen and company here. Perhaps Magician and Gold Knight may know more?
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Post by sensei »

Thank you, Rei, for the tip to the Wayback Machine. I find the earliest page dated October 13, 2001 (a little after RS started up in August 2001). It's definitely a cel-collectors' page, calling itself the "Best Cel Forum on the Net." But it's obviously dominated, at least at the start, by lovers of Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z,, though with forum subcategories for cels from Outlaw Star, Trigun, Cowboy Bebop, and the Gundam series. A section for just chat about anime has two sections: "Dragonball" and "Other."

I was able to access one from the following February. The membership had grown from 25 to 90 in four months, and while the chat section still is "DB/Other," there are now cel-related sections for Rurouni Kenshin, Fushigi Yuugi, and Sailor Moon. I take it that this reflected a stronger female presence (though of course there are male collectors devoted to all of these series).

Can anyone who was there put human flesh on these dry bones?

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Post by Golden Boy »

well, sensei, this topic will definitely fire some very old neurons in my brain.

just seeing "animeal" (which i always read as ani-meal even though i knew it was anime-al) jogs a lot of old memories, some of which may or may not be true.

as i recall, al started the forum mainly to talk about dbz even though there were other anime sections. this was at the height of dbz popularity on CN. anyway, there was some dispute between al and some of the other members. for the life of me, i can't recall what it was about: name-calling, cel critiques, bad attitudes, etc. i'm just not sure. hopefully, an oldtimer can help me out on this. so al said f u to everyone and kicked everyone off the board. he would then slowly invite people he "liked" back to the forum. i got said invitation and was wondering what everyone else was going to do.

i then found out about beta and joined that forum instead. al also found his way to beta and wanted to make peace. he eventually drifted away.

i'm afraid i could only add some ligaments to the bone. hopefully someone will add more meat to the story and/or correct my memories.

gb :wink:
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Post by Deadly Whispers »

I was invited to Alpha shortly after I purchased my first cel. I got the cel in October 00 during Nan Desu Kan (when it was still held in the Sheraton off 6th and Union), and then started surfing the 'net for more. I don't remember how long I was there, or who invited me, but I met GK and Sith through a mention of the Avalanche . . . there was an Outlaw Star collector (oh noes, I can't remember his name!!!) who encouraged me to post more because there was SO MUCH DBZ . . . but I was still more of a lurker. I was Lady of Knight in those days.

I still think most of the collectors back then were coming into the hobby because of Cartoon Network and the few anime they chose to air. Sensei, your original list of titles reflects that.

Ninjitsuworm started a Burning Board version of Anime-Beta after the falling-out. Animeal suddenly went kaiser on a whole bunch of people. There was a disagreement (*cough*ask GK*cough*) and he started banning his members. Then when others spoke up against this, he banned them, too. It was really weird. I escaped the blanket ban simply because I wasn't outspoken, so I was invited to the original Beta about a month later. And then Alpha died. Mass exodus.

Sith helped Allison build this phpBB Beta we know because, frankly, BB sucks. LOL. Rubberslug's grand opening was a really wonderful thing for us, also.
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Post by sensei »

Thanks, DW. I'm not sure I want to resurrect what the actual disagreement was after all these years, but it's useful to me that the issue was moderator overload. That's a point addressed by the colleague whose lead I'm following here, which is that the moderator role is crucial to long-term health of virtual communities. That can be hurt both through lax tolerance of bullying and also through unnecessary use of banning and sanctioning.

The origins of the group as a reaction to Cartoon Network's programming is also useful, as it was also the key factor in my daughter's interest in the genre during the same period (she was absolutely blown away by Gundam Wing).

Being a proactive parent, I of course thought it proper to check out what kind of garbage she was watching on TV and ...

... and to order the poster of Duo Maxwell she wanted for her birthday, I had to register on something new called PayPal and ...
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Post by Goldknight »

DW wrote:There was a disagreement (*cough*ask GK*cough*) and he started banning his members.
I don't know what you're talking about. :roll :rollin
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Post by Deadly Whispers »

SNICKER. :friends: No, nor do I anymore!
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Post by sensei »

/hmm
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Post by JWR »

sensei wrote:/hmm
"The female mind is capable of understanding analytic geometry... The difficulty may just be that we have never yet discovered a way to communicate with the female mind. If it is done in the right way, you may be able to get something out of it."
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Post by blueheaven »

It wasn't so much a moderator overload, but rather one very dictatorial mod. Maybe I'm splitting hairs. I left because I was tired of AnimeAl overriding everybody's posts and only allowing what he wanted to have posted on his site. Jason Blagg, a fellow collector at the time, steered me in the direction of Beta (I think that is who you were referring to, DW). The idea behind Beta was to be a place that was in sharp contrast to Alpha and Animanga. More friendly mods and less spam.
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Post by Deadly Whispers »

Yes! That was who. Thank you, bh.
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Post by iceman57 »

blueheaven wrote:It wasn't so much a moderator overload, but rather one very dictatorial mod. Maybe I'm splitting hairs. I left because I was tired of AnimeAl overriding everybody's posts and only allowing what he wanted to have posted on his site. Jason Blagg, a fellow collector at the time, steered me in the direction of Beta (I think that is who you were referring to, DW). The idea behind Beta was to be a place that was in sharp contrast to Alpha and Animanga. More friendly mods and less spam.
@Sensei
Interesting aspect of folklore for your study as there is the same history in France almost a decade later. Online community splitted in two parts due to similar listed points of censoring, posts rewriting, PM reading and abusive banishments.
That may cross with your previous analyse of "fight for the unique" art, especially with online supply, where, in fact, all balances only on 100 yens. In a so short winning situation, if driven by despotic owners, boards can turn to a powerful intelligence agency tool to handle the market.
Sharing information on non desired items but using the same board as a fantastic desinformation tool, driving members on some arts to maintain a minimum quotation on a collected series, light counterfire to drain competitors buying capacity, collecting the private estimates of members placing bids and many other possibilities...
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Post by glorff »

In the early days Beta was pretty much DBZ and everything else too. That took quite a while to change.

I am not an Alpha refugee, but it sure seems like I have been here for a really long time. 8)

I do miss the old smarmy days :wink:
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