The state of the Anime Cel collecting community.

Agreed U9. Plus it's not a long term solution. We'd be in the same boat, if not worse, within a year.

I can, of course, only speak for myself, but I don't think anyone wants to leave Rubberslug. We all have a history here.
The problem is stagnation and instability. I got several error pages yesterday during updating, one even said the server could not be found, and I got that one for several minutes.

I don't know about you guys, but that scares the crap out of me.

"The resounding opinion was that no one was going to pay a maintenance fee if no additional work would be done to the site."

That just makes sense. We'd be willing to pay if the site were maintained, but not if it's just to be able to sell.

The whole reason we went off-RS was because we didn't like some of the situation with RS... unable to permanently delete sold items, instability and uncertainty about the site's future, etc.

We took it upon ourselves to maintain our own independent site as a result, since that was what we could do.

Since there may not be a suitable RS replacement and we can't count on RS being stable forever, the only other option is to preserve your own artwork elsewhere. That's really the only action anyone can realistically take at this point, and that's something we already did six years ago.

The community won't die if RS does. It will change a LOT though, as most folks won't likely be willing/able to make their own site.

You were able to put your trust in Jason's site but you're not willing to put your faith into another site? Seems kinda silly to me.

I'm also not sure why you'd expect anything for free, other than this gross sense of entitlement that seems to be quite a pervasive trait of our generation. It's unfair to expect someone to foot the bill, both in the case of maintaining RS in its basic form, or creating a new site elsewhere.

If RS falls, yes, there will still be people collecting. But there will probably be a lot more 'black hole collectors' than there are now. A good part of whatever collectiveness we have will be gone as well.

It's sad that only a few RS users have commented. But what I continue to see is just more of the same; I'll participate as long as someone else does the footwork and pays the fees. It's like this every time the Cel/Sketch Awards pop up, or anything else that requires significant time investment. People you never hear from otherwise jump out of the woodwork if there's an accolade to be won, but very few people ever volunteer to do the footwork. And when you ask for help, you're bombarded by a million excuses as to how everyone is busy because they have a job and a family...because, apparently, those that organize these events don't? No. It's just called "good time management skills".

We, as a community, can and SHOULD do better. The fact that we're not able to speaks volumes for the current state of the collecting community.

Are you talking to anyone in particular in that first part of your comment, Cutiebunny? Or are you just being offensive in general?

I also think you're not reading our comments right.
But hey... *shrugs*

I'm relatively new here, so I do not feel as though I have much say, but I am up for anything in order to help out rubberslug, like many others have stated.

It is an invaluable asset to the community. Everything is here, and even though a-lot of members don't actively participate, there is still a wealth of art for all of us to enjoy that can't be found elsewhere.

Whatever is needed, I will do my best to help. I really enjoy this site, and the community which is here. I have made a-lot of friends, and to me that is the most important part!