the color of money: orange?

Howdy.We're starting a program to recognize site members who have been generous enough to donate to the site. You may have noticed a few changes already, mostly in the form of new icons under feature images, gallery listings, and a new gallery catagory.For the moment, we have three tentatively named sponsorship levels: silver ($10), gold ($20), and platinum ($50). Keep in mind that all donations from one user accumulate over time, so feel free to pace yourself. Of course, if you'd like to give us enough to name a scholarship after you, then by all means please do.The site will always be operated with the core features free of charge. We need everyone's contributions to maintain our position as a prime animation collector destination.However, we'd like to offer a few incentives to becoming a sponsor. These may include exclusive features, more personal assistance with your gallery, prominent gallery placement on the site, discounts on site-branded merchandise (thanks Glorff), discounts with online anime stores (if any want to trade us ad space for coupons), and more.Final note: a few new (and returning) donors have dropped in recently -- just want to mention that I'll have your contributions in the system soon... having a bit of home cable modem trouble tonight. =/Thanks for all the support. More changes coming soon.

Suggestion (feel free to shoot me down)Looks like the recent gallery updates and recent sponsor updates on the home page are now seperate (sponsors aren't included in regular recent updates). If this is true, would suggest putting the sponsor galleries on the top of the regular ones - as at resolution use at work don't even see the sponsor updates when first load up the homepage but see regular updates.

My first impression of the sponsorship program is mixed. It seems to take away some of what drew me to Rubberslug, that is the feeling of community amongst japanese animation collectors and the coolness of a site for that community to call home. It may just take time for the change to sink in, but IMHO, the special mention of sponsoring gallery curators goes against the Rubberslug grain. Don't get me wrong, Rubberslug is (along with cels.org) one of the BEST sites around for japanese animation collectors. It's just that I hate seeing these kind of semi-underground haunts going commercial.My two cents.

Yeah, I was thinking about doing this since there's an interesting sort of "problem" with listing sponsor updates in a separate thing.The problem? The people who have the largest and/or most active galleries are the same people who tend to donate more often. Result: the sponsor updates cycle even faster than the regular updates! Not intended!Second problem is deciding how to fairly distribute sponsorship perks between the three levels. It might just be based on how difficult something is for me to program, but I want to make sure that the majority of the not-yet-sponsors don't get ignored. (Btw, if someone can think of a more unique naming system than metals, I'm listening...)First new sponsor-only feature: rank displays restored... since it really wasn't any of the active donor members who were fiddling with the rankings to begin with, I think this should be safe. Haven't applied any new formulas, though. This first upgrade will be available to all sponsors. I really do think rankings are fun and vast majority don't take it too seriously at all.Haven't sent us any loot yet? Don't worry. New things are in store for you too today. (log in and they're marked "coming soon" on your member home page).

Quote: It's just that I hate seeing these kind of semi-underground haunts going commercial.

Yeah, I know what ya mean. I'll be the first to admit that it makes me uncomfortable.Reality is, though, lots of people are giving us money with no expectation of anything good ever happening in return. I really, honestly, feel bad. We didn't even offer the ability to donate for the first year because I just felt weird taking people's money that I barely know.Keep in mind that this site has been built with a few hundred hours of my spare time for almost three years (the core system took a few months to build before RS opened). That's a voluntary thing, though, and I've never compared donations to time spent. The whole project is several thousand in the drink from server costs alone, though -- ten times that if I inflate it by calculating how much this would cost if it were a billable project. I'm not complaining -- I honestly like working on this compared to most "real" work (some of which hedges this site). It's an expensive project, though, no two ways about it.If Michael Eisner, Bill Gates, LeBron James, and Martha Stewart pooled together two hundred grand for this site, would I sell out? You bet. Is it gonna happen? Nope. If we can't be rich, might as well be.... famous? *mysterious laugh*