Lightning Updaters, Slow Updaters, and Black Hole Collectors

[Moop]

Perhaps because after one of the crashes it was set up to exclude search engine bots? (Excuse if I'm misremembering this -- this would have been when poor Cloud was also disabled.)

Wow. If that's the case, then the thing which was done to save the forum may have inadvertently done some serious, slow damage.

[Jadeduo]

That is a thought... I didn't even think to check, when I came back a few years ago I just googled Anime-Beta I didn't even think to look under animation forums for googling. @Moop great idea! IF they can't find us then how are they going to get here!!?!?!?!? Is there anyone with any technical expertise that could chime in here?

JD

[Moop]

Sorry for being about ten steps behind, but does Magician have his finger in this pie at all anymore, or did someone else take over as official technical, uh, magician?

[sensei]

Rakka Alexiel is currently the forum administrator, though I believe a number of matters remain unresolved between her and Magician (e.g., the physical ownership of the forum). I'll ask on the admin. forum and report back.

[Moop]

Thanks, sensei! *sigh* I really miss Cloud. The forum just isn't the same without that little bot.

[zerospace]

Because it means the work we are doing here is not in vain and there is still some hope about keeping this community going! It also gives me a list of new anime to watch, if anything, and that is never bad thing!

So after listening to some responses, there seems to be not much we can do here, except to continue to keep our pompoms raised and cheer on the community! *raises pom poms and shakes* Goooooooooooooooooooo BETA!

You know, this is pretty OT, and it might not even be worth mentioning...but just out of curiosity I tried doing a basic search for 'animation art collectors forum' and a few other wordings of the kind someone might use if they were just browsing the web - and Beta never showed up (at least not before I got bored with changing pages). RS did, and even a Ghostbusters animation art collectors forum was there on page one...but no AB. Maybe this place is just too hard to find.

Funny -- I have directed MANY eBay artwork buyers both to Beta and Rubberslug. I don't think I've ever actually seen too many sign up, though. *shrug*

I will *try* to update more often and err... maybe I can bring myself to post the updates here if anyone really wants to see them. I'm not actively TRYING to be a black hole collector.

Slightly O/T:
For those who want their own galleries off Rubberslug, you are welcome to use my gallery software, Meteor Galleries, if you like. It requires a relatively small download, creation of a MySQL database on your host and a quick installation script needs to run to configure the basic stuff. It's still on version 3.5, though, and is badly in need of updating (I've had an update in the works for the past 2 years, but changes to PHP and MySQL libraries have slowed me down considerably because I need to re-write ALL of my database queries for the absolute newest versions of PHP). Needless to say, I have yet to take the time to re-write that much code

JD -- this is how I can maintain my gallery (and bulleta). We're both using my software, which makes gallery updates and maintenance as easy as on Rubberslug, but with more customization options . At one time, I even wrote a script that could crawl an unprotected RS gallery and import everything, but I doubt that it works now with all the changes to RS.

If there's any interest in me actually updating my software, I'd be willing to do it. It ended up mostly on the back-burner because bulleta and I are the primary ones who use it, so I typically fix little bugs as she and I find them, but not much else. ^^;

end slightly O/T comments --- >

[x]

Because it means the work we are doing here is not in vain and there is still some hope about keeping this community going! It also gives me a list of new anime to watch, if anything, and that is never bad thing!

So after listening to some responses, there seems to be not much we can do here, except to continue to keep our pompoms raised and cheer on the community! *raises pom poms and shakes* Goooooooooooooooooooo BETA!

You know, this is pretty OT, and it might not even be worth mentioning...but just out of curiosity I tried doing a basic search for 'animation art collectors forum' and a few other wordings of the kind someone might use if they were just browsing the web - and Beta never showed up (at least not before I got bored with changing pages). RS did, and even a Ghostbusters animation art collectors forum was there on page one...but no AB. Maybe this place is just too hard to find.

I believe the reason why Anime Beta forum does not show up on Google searches for animation/anime art is due to the sites 'robots.txt' configuration file currently requesting that content on the site be blocked from web crawlers.

If you google for 'Anime Beta' directly you will see the following message as the description of the site:-
A description for this result is not available because of this site's robots.txt – learn more.

Google uses web crawlers to retrieve information about each website including details that it uses for describing the website.
So if the 'robots.txt' config file is set up to block web crawlers then Google complies with this and does not retrieve information for that website. This effectively means that Google is not listing Anime Beta as an animation/anime cel based site on its searches.
This means that knowledge of Anime Beta is currently only via 'word of mouth' and redirects from current members.

I am not sure where the forums are currently hosted but you would need someone with admin access to the server where it is hosted to update the robots.txt file to remove the 'block' directive. The Google crawler will then eventually come around again and update its information and create a proper description for the site which would show up on its searches.

Anyway, to get back on topic. I started of as a lightning updater when I first started collecting but gradually became slower as other things caught up and I started to collect less. I then went into Black Hole status when my original website got nuked when I changed ISPs and I just couldn't bring myself to rescan everything.
Only this year have I reappeared after discovering backups of my original scans and am pretty much back to a slow update mode. I don't think I'll ever be a lightning updater anymore though.

[sensei]

I believe the reason why Anime Beta forum does not show up on Google searches for animation/anime art is due to the sites 'robots.txt' configuration file currently requesting that content on the site be blocked from web crawlers.

Yes, this is my understanding. Thanks for confirming.

I have a thread open on this matter on the administrative staff folder. We will discuss this and the other suggestions (accept advertising, remove the "invite-only" requirement for registration) and respond to the membership. As this matter has come up over a holiday weekend in the States, where most of the team is located, this is taking longer than usual. However, be assured that the current team is aware of the issue and will respond to it in due time.

[Moop]

Would it help, when removing the 'invite only', if part of the registration process involved the person doing something to prove they're human? RS has a simple math problem, some sites have you retype something that you see in a box...something like that...? I'm so not technically oriented, but I think those serve a similar purpose, don't they?

[zerospace]

Would it help, when removing the 'invite only', if part of the registration process involved the person doing something to prove they're human? RS has a simple math problem, some sites have you retype something that you see in a box...something like that...? I'm so not technically oriented, but I think those serve a similar purpose, don't they?

I think this is how Beta was set up before the invite system was implemented. The problem is that bots can get around those measures nowadays...

[Moop]

How horrible. Not to mention frustrating.

[Jadeduo]

SO interesting this thread has gotten! It is so nice to see old friends come out of the woodwork! ^_^

@X I am totally with you on the starting out as a lightning updater, but now I spend so much time on my descriptions I can't bring myself to post anything without one! It sucks that you have to start over from scratch, but at least you had some backups ^_^ And continue to post them, I'm sure there is stuff you have that we forgot you have! I hope you participate in the cel contest again this year I will start to put that together again sometime in September ^_^

@Sensei It's great to hear about what the admins and mods are doing behind the scenes and to answer our questions, and @Zerospace, that is super cool that you have all that technical ability. Basic HTML is just about my limit. I used to know it off the top of my head and now I have to google it cause I can't remember how to make the IMG tags work, LOL. That is a great offer I've got to spends some more time stalk... I mean looking at your gallery!

This is sooooo interesting everyone keep responding!!

JD

[theultimatebrucelee]

In the past I updated the gallery every 2-4 months, which correlates to the proxy's duration of storage. Not sure thats lightning speedy or not, but certainly I don't believe it to be slow.

I'd be really be carious as to which group of people have the largest collection, the updater or the black hole collectors. I do see some massive galleries online and I'm sure that's only a part of what those collectors own but there is just no way to tell how big are the collections of the top level black hole collector. I'd be at least a bit surprised if they are in fact the biggest hoarders(in a positive way) around.

One thing that might possibly help to gather more fellow collectors here might be to set some kind of referral on rubberslug regarding A-B. I recall joining the forum months after starting my collection because some other galleries pointed me this way. People don't seem to have trouble googling up rubberslug. Then again, I recall someone else here mentioning the reason there are so few new collectors is because the current public market doesn't offer much from the newer series, how are the anime fans supposed to consider this hobby on older series they never even heard of?

[Jadeduo]

LOL, I think this was my drive to ask the black hole collectors what causes them to hide, and maybe ask if there was anything we could do to convince them to come in once in a while and amaze us with all their lovely hidden gems! I'm sure there are pieces out there that I would love to see come to the light... well figuratively ^_^

Part of the problem I am finding, is that people don't realize that there is even art out there from these newer shows, a lot of people think it is 100% computer animated, and that is just not true as of yet. I picked up a genga set from one of Sunrise's new shows Buddy Fight for a pretty decent price, the air date on that show is 2014. I have also noticed some of the newer art is rougher, because it can be cleaned up quicker in the computers, but some of the stuff from Heaven's Lost Property is gorgeous, of course not my cup of tea - harem, but it is GORGEOUS and I will freely admit that! There is new art is out there it just takes time and patience, and the willingness to stalk the auction sites for your favorite new shows. Some yes is rarer than others, and a lot of Studios took to destroying the original artwork they created, which is a real shame. I always think they should have at least dumped it in bulk to the dealers if they didn't have the space to store it.

This is why I am so passionate that we need to get out into the wide world and do the conventions, giving panels, bring artwork, and use it as a chance to educate those who don't know that this is something that we can collect, rarer than DVDs, or special edition figures. Something that was actually used to make your favorite show!

And realistically most of the cel based series still actively collected have not fallen into a black hole that no one has ever heard of, yes there are some like Tennimon, and I personally haven't seen any Fushigi Yuugi cosplay at any conventions in a good while. Cardcaptor Sakura just hit Blu Ray last year, Sailor Moon is getting re-dubbed and re-released, they have only done the first season but they are fixing to do Stars this time, and that has NEVER been available in English. Dragonball Z has new movies coming out, and a new series starting in Japan soon, these shows still have excellent art available and new things have been coming to market at pretty decent prices

JD

[cutiebunny]

I think another reason why new blood doesn't flock to the hobby is because they assume that it costs thousands of dollars to own artwork. While there are some items that sell for those prices, there are also lots of douga cuts from popular shows like Naruto where you can pick up a decent cut of certain characters for under $50.

I wanted to respond to this topic earlier, but with Anime Expo, if I wasn't spending my time waiting in lines, I was trying to cram in as much sleep as possible. Getting up for 4 am for 3 days just to spend the next 4 hours in line for autograph tickets was insane.

I am very guilty of not updating my gallery, and there are items I've had since 2007(?) that I have yet to add. When I first discovered Rubberslug, I updated very frequently after receiving an item. However, this was short lived as, due to the competitiveness and vindictiveness of certain Sailor Moon collectors, updating frequently was a good way to make them target you the next time a new batch of god_hand777 SM cels showed up. It's strange that, even though most of these people have stopped collecting and I have moved on to focus on original art, I still operate under the assumption that, if I update too quickly after a win, someone will target me.

Right now, my biggest delay is weather. My scanner is on the top floor of my house, and due to the energy conservation measures we have in California, it's pretty costly to run your air conditioner during the summer. With the warm temperatures now starting around April and going through October, I have a more limited window to scan. I definitely don't want my computer to overheat while doing a massive scanning batch. I had been dividing my scanning time between scanning my collection and helping a scanlation service by providing them raws, but now that they've disappeared without so much as a word, I can devout myself again to my collection.

I've thought about doing an art presentation at conventions before, but the main reason that prevents me from doing so is that, outside of work, I get rather nervous in front of a large crowd of strangers. I also don't want to come off as a braggart, which is why, unless asked, I never talk about my collection.

The best way for me to speed up an update is if I know a fellow collector wants to do an update together, such as in cases where we both went to the same convention. If I know that a friend wants to update their artwork together, that spurs me to scan it.