Bringing Cel Collecting into the 21st Century and etc.

Topics of anime/other animation art and collectibles.
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Jadeduo
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Bringing Cel Collecting into the 21st Century and etc.

Post by Jadeduo »

So there was recently a thread on RS that got pretty nasty... And it was a discussion started by one of our concerned newbies, about how the community is kind of in this hidden corner of the web. And that we should possibly do something about our antiquated sites... RS in particular is buggy the forums don't work unless you don't use any punctuation, the site somedays says, you know what, you shouldn't update today, and the search hasn't been updated in 5+years. These are just the facts and I'm sure there are more issues I am forgetting.

So to make a long story short Zerospace asked that we move thread over here to just talk about possibly creating something new to bring us as a community into the 21st Century, and to leave the ugliness of that other thread behind. Also Beta's forum while antiquated is a much better place for a discussion as we can reach out to each other privately much easier than on RS, as the Gallery Feedback button sometimes doesn't work.

Here are her thoughts which I think personally are spot on, she gives credit to those of the past and speaks about how we should be looking toward the future!
I wasn't going to post here, but after reading the ugliness that this thread has become, I'm going to step in and say something grossly unpopular: Rubberslug needs to and should be replaced. RS has been a great site for the community, but as life has taken its toll on Jason, it's probably about time to say goodbye. You cannot demand that he work on it or demand that he pass the reins over to someone else. RS belongs to Jason at the end of the day. I offered years ago to help him, as I code in open-source cousins to the languages he uses, but he declined (politely).

What people here don't seem to grasp is that the community has no claim to Rubberslug or the code behind it. I realize how that sounds, but it is the truth. It belongs to Jason. He wrote it. He poured blood, sweat and tears into building and rebuilding this site over the years, and it should not be taken from him unless he is willing to give it. And even if he is willing, the undertaking that is de-constructing someone else's complex code is as massive as writing your own. It would be best for the community to start fresh and clean.

I have written web gallery software that is even more capable than what RS provides in terms of image handling, detailed information, category sorting, etc. That in itself was a massive project. I've spent years making it better after taking almost a year to build the original in my spare time (though admittedly, I keep intending to work on it, and I've made small changes and notes, but not updated it in awhile). I've thought many times about turning it into a community site. I never have in part because of threads like this one. The thought of being responsible for everyone's gallery data is scary to me. I sometimes find it hard to believe that people RELY on RS to store that information without having it stored anywhere else. (Crazy!!)

I would propose something different for a Rubberslug replacement, though -- perhaps it is time to ditch the free curated galleries model. Make Rubberslug's replacement a social hub for the community that links to images and collections curated on sites and services designed to handle the massive amounts of data (there are other ways to curate an image gallery than here on RS, ya know!). The modern web is all about social media. Everything is about sharing -- most services have ways to hook into data feeds from other sites. Let's use it! Link up to Facebook groups. Link to Anime-Beta (as in, pull data feeds from these sources). The community should get together and create something totally new!

I'm willing to lend my web expertise to something new. I might even be willing to code and host something, so long as it isn't just a replacement for Rubberslug. I'd like to see the cel community advance into the modern web era, because it's been stagnant for far too long. Let's move forward, people, not take a giant step sideways.
I am just going to say I would be 100% behind this, and I think it is a good thought. Right now the way things are, we are just going to get quiet if one of the active members has to take a break. When both me and Sensei got quiet this summer due to injury/illness it just about died over here. We need to move forward make a site that works well with social media, maybe even start breaking our galleries out of Rubberslug. RS is a great free service, KUDOS to Jason, but it does not allow for a lot of personality come through with the design choices that are available.

I can volunteer for Testing and I would have to work out how much money but I am in monetarily as well, this discussion needs to happen and those interested should post here.

Anyone who is against this please don't post here, we don't need another fight and I would prefer to have an interesting discussion of how we should go about this and put together a project team of sorts! Instead of dealing with Drama! Thanks so much in advance, and I am super pumped about this project!

Jadeduo :bounce
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Re: Bringing Cel Collecting into the 21st Century and etc.

Post by cutiebunny »

I'll help fund this project too. If there's any repetitive coding (ie. I can copy/paste with minimal adjustments), I can help with that. I'd also be willing to test the site out too.

I'd be great to work on this project now while the con season is over and done with.
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Re: Bringing Cel Collecting into the 21st Century and etc.

Post by KuroiTsubasa4 »

I always like redecorating so I'd be all for a new site and would be up for monthly donations etc. How would the hub feature work in your plan? Is it something that could still incorporate defunct RS galleries into searches? My only regret moving onto a new site would be losing touch with long unupdated galleries but if we could have our cake and eat it too..,
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Re: Bringing Cel Collecting into the 21st Century and etc.

Post by zerospace »

Hey, thanks you two for bringing this here. As I said (thanks, JD for copying/pasting my RS post), I think its time for a constructive NEW project to come to the cel community. I think the community is something of a shadow of its former self these days, though it does seem that some old-timers are still around. With so many lurking now, maybe we could make it easier to participate without having to wade all the way into the deep end of the pool.

I'm not a Facebook person. I've said as much to most people. I have an account there ... erm, well, if you could call it that. Most of the info on the account is fake :rollin. My profile pic is of my dog. :D I have the account so I can save some mobile game data to it. Heh. :D But I also realize that if you want to engage the newbies coming into the hobby, social media is probably where you will find them. I can't tell you how many people on eBay that I sell stuff to who have NO IDEA all these people are out there! We really, really need a place where people can SHARE this hobby again. Rubberslug has been dying for years. No one has wanted to admit that out loud (except me, it seems LOL). I've been seeing the writing on the wall for a long time. But because RS was such a central part of the community, it's kind of taken everything with it, since there isn't anywhere else but here on Beta to interact.

I don't want to really totally replace everything that already exists, but I'd like to see it all pulled together and if people want to grow beyond those things, that'd be great, too. I've been shown scans of newbie collector's artwork that's hosted on typical image hosting sites that are free. It'd be nice if they could share those things and interact with older collectors without needing an RS or Beta account to do it. It'd be nice if we all shared insight on how to create your own non-Rubberslug gallery! It isn't actually that hard to do. I'm sure it's going to involve some crazy anti-bot tactics (captchas... UGH). Maybe I can come up with something more clever than a captcha? I digress..

My thought is that we need a central hub site to tie everyone and everything that is this community together in one place. You to go one site (mobile friendly, too! Lord knows we are SO behind on mobile-friendly in this community), and you can get updates on everything in the cel community. I'd love to see a feed from Beta on there -- perhaps the gracious admins can provide a way for me to pull the most recent posts for display. It should update preferably in real-time, have integration with Facebook (so you can like someone's gallery update or new piece of artwork if you want), and maybe even pull twitter feeds from those who want to share such things or data *insert whatever social media platform here*.

That's where my rather disorganized thoughts are on this right now. I'm honestly just growing tired of this stagnant and getting nastier and more bitter by the day community. For awhile, I visited RS and Beta often and mostly chuckled at how sad they are now. But in reality, these used to be my favorite places to hang out and chat with cel collecting friends. Yeah, I have a life now and I'm busier than heck most of the time, but I wouldn't mind having some peeps who love anime (even my old fav Gundam Wing) to talk to and share with more often, even tho I rarely watch anime anymore. So, I'm willing to dig in and do my part to bring us up to modern times.

That said, I wish we could pull data from Rubberslug, too, but I'm afraid of taxing poor Jason even further on that front. I suppose I could go easy on it by just writing a script that pulls recently updated galleries every couple of hours... but I'd rather leave that on the shelf for now.
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Re: Bringing Cel Collecting into the 21st Century and etc.

Post by lunacels »

Wow, that was a heck of a thread. I always forget about the RS board so I'm a bit late to the game.

I don't know code, but I'm a quick learner and will be happy to help, including funding! Also Jadeduo, do you need help with the awards? I wasn't planning on participating but I'll do what I can. PM me and I can see what I can do. I've never participated in prior rounds so I don't know how they go exactly, nor the requirements for creating the awards, but I'd love to pitch in! Have photoshop, will travel! :handshake:
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Re: Bringing Cel Collecting into the 21st Century and etc.

Post by Maxsidious »

Hey everyone!

Glad to see another discussion on the topic :). I never intended for the original discussion to get out of hand; however, it is inevitable that in discussions such as this that some things can be misconstrued or taken out of context. Either way, it was very informative!

As I mentioned previously, I plan on going to work on a new site very soon. It will take time to get it to a "beta-testing" level; however, I do have every intention of trying to get it there before the end of this year. I will likely outsource a good percentage of the back-end coding in order to speed things up; however, the end product will definitely be customized to fit our needs. For the time being, I wouldn't mind hearing suggestions on what a new site should be expected to provide. My hope is to provide a website similar to say Deviant Art, but with a social networking platform similar to FB. Priority will lie in user galleries and the forums, but adding in the ability to like, share and comment on images would add a much needed improvement.

I know many of you have expressed funding a site, but at the early stages of development i'd much rather go out of pocket. The coding "can be" expensive; however, the bulk of the cost in this case will come from hosting. Hosting thousands of images can require a lot of space on a server..and likely a dedicated server at some point. To offset that cost, we as a community can come together to think of a way to raise the funds.

Anyhow, glad to see everyone is talking about this :) Let the fun begin :D
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Re: Bringing Cel Collecting into the 21st Century and etc.

Post by under9000 »

Being able to like and comment on individual cels would be key to have i think like was said above, how about being able to create a form of playlist of users you'd want to follow in order to see who in the community you know has updateded? So your friends/connections can have its own spot?

On RS there is live chat feature which ive never been able to use, would be good to have a sort of instant messaging space but maybe thats alot to ask I dont really know the logistics to it? Maybe it could be a private group party chat type system where you can invite people in from your playlist of users?

Just some thoughts, keep up the good work :cheers
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Re: Bringing Cel Collecting into the 21st Century and etc.

Post by Maxsidious »

under9000 wrote:Being able to like and comment on individual cels would be key to have i think like was said above, how about being able to create a form of playlist of users you'd want to follow in order to see who in the community you know has updateded? So your friends/connections can have its own spot?
Consider it done! :) This was a feature I already have pinned to the "drawing board" so to speak. Sharing, liking, following, and commenting has become an essential tool these days on most social platforms and this community could certainly benefit from it.
under9000 wrote: On RS there is live chat feature which ive never been able to use, would be good to have a sort of instant messaging space but maybe thats alot to ask I dont really know the logistics to it? Maybe it could be a private group party chat type system where you can invite people in from your playlist of users?
Chat is something that I could consider adding, but I imagine it would likely be hard on the server and likely come with it's fair share of bugs. Profile to Profile private messaging will definitely be a feature though!
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Re: Bringing Cel Collecting into the 21st Century and etc.

Post by Jadeduo »

BTW they are still being Debbie Downers over at RS... I don't even know... *shakes head*

Okay on a more positive note, ideas on the hub:

I agree we should have a social Media feed based on Users signed up that don't mind attaching their accounts over to the hub. I just started using twitter, and posted some pictures of my last unboxing from my deputy. And will be looking at possibly continuing on Cel/Based Convention Feed for it. We shall see how it goes... I basically started my twitter ages ago and forgot about it... I also heard that MajinTangerine posts about cels on Reddit.

Pulling the update data from RS is smart, and we could talk to some of the other private gallery owner's and see how they would feel about finding a way to post their updates from their private site to the hub. I know if I don't remember to go hunting I miss all kinds of updates from sites I like stalk... Zerospace, Key's Little, Etc.

Pulling the updates from RS seems like a smart idea, I don't know how hard it would be, and that way we can still interact with those who don't like change. ^_^

A feed from Beta is a must!

We also need to find out who owns the Facebook feed and see if there is anyone who would be willing to take the time to manage it and post links and get some interaction going. We could even get a group together and rotate who works the Facebook page so not one person is responsible I think that is part of the problem, when you count on one person to do something they can get burnt out.

I say we should also continue talking about putting together the cel collecting primer that we have been talking about since before Sensei got sick and see if we can assign topics have Beta-ers do the write up and treat it like a writing group, so once they are finished pass it around to the next member of the group to edit and add as needed. This way we will have various opinions of all kinds of collectors that choose to contribute and we can put the primer up on the new hub. This is something non-technical Beta-ers could work on.

I would love to see an updated Keep track as part of the sites features, I miss that little bugger and the one someone put together years ago really only has older sites in it that don't update any longer.

And while advertising is a taboo, I think we should when everything gets in place see about getting the people we buy from all the time that benefit from the community to buy advertising on the site to help with some of the costs obviously we would not choose weird ads like deodorant. But like Deputy adds, and shops that sell anime online. Like a banner on the side or towards the top of the page.

I also like the idea of an IM type thing... I don't know how successful a chat room would be as I pop into the one on RS occasionally and no one is ever in there. That could just be related to the bugginess of the site though.

For an RS replacement, reaction buttons are a great idea and posting feedback to a cel would be great idea. Although I think that it would be important for the gallery owner to have the ability to delete negative comments, you won't see negative comments from me but maybe some finger wagging... :D I also think it would be important if the RS replacement get done it should be also tied to the hub as well.
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Re: Bringing Cel Collecting into the 21st Century and etc.

Post by Maxsidious »

Jadeduo wrote: Pulling the updates from RS seems like a smart idea, I don't know how hard it would be, and that way we can still interact with those who don't like change. ^_^
Although it would be a wonderful idea, this would rely heavily on working with RS. I hope that by providing an easier, more efficient way of uploading images, people will slowly migrate to the new site because they like it :D. Obviously I don't want people to abandon their galleries at RS, but I also don't want to rely on that site to dictate how the new site will function.
A feed from Beta is a must!
Yes!

I say we should also continue talking about putting together the cel collecting primer that we have been talking about since before Sensei got sick and see if we can assign topics have Beta-ers do the write up and treat it like a writing group, so once they are finished pass it around to the next member of the group to edit and add as needed. This way we will have various opinions of all kinds of collectors that choose to contribute and we can put the primer up on the new hub. This is something non-technical Beta-ers could work on.
This sounds awesome. If their is anyway I could help then let me know :)
I would love to see an updated Keep track as part of the sites features, I miss that little bugger and the one someone put together years ago really only has older sites in it that don't update any longer.
Will be included. :)
And while advertising is a taboo, I think we should when everything gets in place see about getting the people we buy from all the time that benefit from the community to buy advertising on the site to help with some of the costs obviously we would not choose weird ads like deodorant. But like Deputy adds, and shops that sell anime online. Like a banner on the side or towards the top of the page.
This is a possibility, but what would you all think about an online store? I have a few ideas in mind, but I would like to hear what others think of this as well :)

I also like the idea of an IM type thing... I don't know how successful a chat room would be as I pop into the one on RS occasionally and no one is ever in there. That could just be related to the bugginess of the site though.
IM'ing will be available for sure :D

For an RS replacement, reaction buttons are a great idea and posting feedback to a cel would be great idea. Although I think that it would be important for the gallery owner to have the ability to delete negative comments, you won't see negative comments from me but maybe some finger wagging... :D I also think it would be important if the RS replacement get done it should be also tied to the hub as well.
The site will definitely be programmed with the ability to like, fave, share and comment on someone's uploaded image. However, sometimes a rating system can get out of hand. I've seen plenty of individuals become frustrated when they don't receive a certain rating on something they feel strongly about. So maybe just a like button will suffice? Do let me know what you think :)
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Re: Bringing Cel Collecting into the 21st Century and etc.

Post by Maxsidious »

I do have to express one concern about the creation of the new site. This site will not be RS v2.0.

Jason and the admins at RS created a wonderful site that has existed for quite a few years, and will likely remain in existence for many more to come. I don't wish to discredit his handwork and dedication by re-branding his site with a new name and a flashy logo. Rather, I hope to provide the community with a whole new platform that, as your title suggests, "brings cel collecting into the 21st Century." :)

Also, it's great to be working with so many individuals dedicated to reviving this hobby and preserving a dying art form. :D
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Re: Bringing Cel Collecting into the 21st Century and etc.

Post by Jadeduo »

100% behind you, but as Jason has said before he is not going to be doing anything more to it, he will kept it stood up but it is starting to feel the strain of the new web. Nothing can replace the history of RS, or even the history here on Beta. But we need to move forward. I think Zero's hub idea is excellent, and RS could be hooked into it so we would still be paying homage to the past as long as it is up, and if you create a more social focused Gallery hosting platform it is a step forward into the future.

I wasn't thinking about a rating system persay I was thinking like reactions like, Happy, Sad, Wow!, you know how the piece makes you feel. Facebook is testing them out now in certain markets and I think it would be an interesting idea.

I will try and find Sensei's post about the Primer and poke it a little.

I was having a thought, because a lot of peeps where either indirectly claiming laziness or announcing laziness. Would there be a way to migrate a personal RS over to the new Gallery hub somehow? I know I've heard of it as a feature when switching hosts for your own website. But wanted to see if you guys thought it would be technically possible?

I'm in the process of backing up my purchase data to a spreadsheet but it is time consuming. And I just finished Sailor Moon, DBZ and CCS. I still have to do all the Saiyuki and the other sundry series I collect ^_^;; Never mind even thinking of getting my private site back up, which I still have the code for but it was written in 2005 so it might not be a good fit for my collection now ^_^;;
Last edited by Jadeduo on Thu Oct 15, 2015 8:12 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Bringing Cel Collecting into the 21st Century and etc.

Post by zerospace »

Wow... I missed a lot already. Couple of things:

1) Maxsidious, I mean no offense, but I'd like to play a part here, considering this "social hub" site was my idea. Thanks. ;). I don't know about you, but everything I've suggested is something that's well within my programming skill set. I use JavaScript (hate it, but use it), PHP and MySQL mostly, and I currently have my own virtual private server at my disposal, at least for the development process (where this new site is hosted ultimately, I don't care). Perhaps we should be working together, unless you have a problem with that? I don't, provided we're working in the same languages. My personal preference is to plan out my project, slice it up into logical chunks, and then build each piece and start assembling them as they are finished and ready to test.

2) JD -- regarding hooking into RS and/or downloading data from galleries: It'd be content scraping there (meaning, a script essentially downloads every "page" needed and pulls and sorts the information off of it). I've done this before and can probably tweak what I already wrote to gather gallery data. Beyond that, though, and I have to start again from scratch for anything else. Where that data goes, though.... that's anybody's guess. Something to consider here as I said before: Hooking into RS may be a BAD IDEA given that Jason's server has proven in the past to be unreliable. I do not want to place a large burden on RS, and that's exactly what this will do. You may want to leave this idea unless Jason wants to allow us more direct and less intrusive access to the data.
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Re: Bringing Cel Collecting into the 21st Century and etc.

Post by Jadeduo »

Thanks for explaining Zero! I'm going to be shopping around for a new host this weekend... And will see who has the best deal for putting back up my site, and going and looking at my ancient site code... and cleaning up my computer files which are a bit um... Messy, as I have been using RS exclusively for a while now. I might just scrap the whole original site directory and start over from scratch. If I remember correctly the site was black and white... Gah, what was I thinking? :/
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Re: Bringing Cel Collecting into the 21st Century and etc.

Post by zerospace »

Jadeduo wrote:Thanks for explaining Zero! I'm going to be shopping around for a new host this weekend... And will see who has the best deal for putting back up my site, and going and looking at my ancient site code... and cleaning up my computer files which are a bit um... Messy, as I have been using RS exclusively for a while now. I might just scrap the whole original site directory and start over from scratch. If I remember correctly the site was black and white... Gah, what was I thinking? :/
Be careful in your host shopping, girl. It is tricky business ;). If you want me writing code, the host should be a pretty standard LAMP stack (Linux Apache MySQL PHP). If you run with something else, I won't be able to help. I was willing to learn ASP and MS SQL to help Jason, but not for this :P. I prefer to work with a somewhat non-standard version of PHP called suPHP or PHPsuexec, but I can work with it in any form. I just like suPHP if I'm going to be dealing with file uploads and writing to directories on the server (helps me keep file permissions at a minimum). A lot of shared hosts use this form of suPHP, but be careful on that front, too. Shared hosts tend to oversell server space and resources, which results in a lot of downtime and issues for sites. Just saying... do your homework!
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