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Yadda Yadda...
Tell me Cel Community, What the F happened? last modified: Friday, August 08, 2014 (12:24:24 PM) So, after a three year hiatus I've returned to cel collecting...sort of ^^
I have decided to keep only my Windaria section (there is no way I will ever be selling those) and start over on creating a small collection of my first love, the Dragonball series. So, I have been revamping the gallery, checking the old sites and putting my feelers out and I have learned several interesting things: - Rubberslug is on life support. My feedback does not work, I can not move items, can not upload PNG files in some areas even though the site tells me PNGs are accepted and my gallery kicks me out everytime I want to make changes. I have a new featered gallery image pending approval for over 17 days and my Popular Items list only consists of cels that have been sold years ago. Nice. - Anime-Beta has become a pretty boring place. *snooze* - Rubberslug has become even more boring than that *comatosed* - SSJ4 Gogeta is apparently worth the price of a small second hand car nowadays. And to think I sold my SSJ4 Gogeta cel for $350 bucks back then, I guess I forgot a zero. - Genga of Goku doing a kamehameha are worth $600 *laughs the laugh of over 9000 laughs* - Mysteriously though my original pencil and ink sketch of D made by Yutaka Minowa is worth only $90. Go figure. I received an offer last night of $90 for that baby, with a sidenote that it was an honest offer and I should consider because it is a fair deal. I honestly do not know if I should be amused or insulted. - Leah has been cheating on Ichigo with Ranma en Batman. - Only 1 out 10 collectors responds to gallery feedback. - Animanga forum is still running. - No, really. - But nobody ever won that horrible cel that has been listed in the Cels Lottery for decades. - And Richard Self is the most persistent man on the net. - Collectors are being harrassed into selling their shit. - Nobody wants high end cels for high prices, but weirdly enough nobody wants them for low prices either. - Except on Mandarake BWA. - I have rated every single rateable gallery on Rubberslug. Where is my frickin medal! Did I miss anything?
you did miss something!! 😉 Rings of Saturn has died. have you tried contacting JWR through beta to get your featured image approved? collectors are being harassed to show their stuff? That''s the first I''ve heard of that please enlighten me :-)
Anipike is still up and running too. a lot of us are being tagged and credited over there for having cells and sketches from various anime shows, myself included.
Wow. I can''t believe someone offered you $90 for the Minowa sketch AND told you that it was a fair price. Who quantifies their offers like that? Let me ask - Is this from a French collector? I get some of the weirdest e-mails from French collectors when it comes to selling stuff. They usually go something like "I like this. I will give you x for it. Please tell me your Paypal address so I can pay." Although I love collecting original sketches, I''m often hesitant to offer on other people''s artwork, especially if the gallery has been active in the past two years. I always feel that, if they wanted to part with it, they would have done so during that period. If they haven''t, it means they still love it, and it''s best not toaster them.
Hi Wendy, LOL I am totally with you on this! I''ve been trying to drum up interest over at beta for a while we''ve come up with some good ideas I think but it sounds like we need volunteers! We are doing an Open House reviewy thing there is still plenty of time to join! ^_^ it''s weird hearing about collectors getting harassed for their pieces, I''m sorry that happened to you! Welcome back from your lurk I hope you stick around for a while! Jadeduo
Lol girls, thanks for posting. Seeing how inactive this site has become I really didn''t expect comments but I love them! ^^ @Ginga, I haven''t tried contacting JWR yet, and I don''t think I will to be honest. It''s pretty clear this site is totally unmonitored and I do not want to go through another board to ask attention for this one. And yeah, I have been talking to various collectors, old and new, and it seems quite a few of them are getting regular emails from people trying to buy their items even though they do not want to sell. Some of them even hide items because of that.
@Cutiebunny - Yeah, $90 :P I have no idea what they were thinking. Maybe they didn''t realize it is an original drawing. And no, not a French collector. To tell you the truth I have had really good experiences with French collectors. Most crap I have had to endure came from US collectors, sadly :( And you know, I have learned that you should always try and contact the gallery owner if they have something you''d like. As long as you''re polite in your asking, I really do not see the harm. I for one have never minded people asking me if I wanted to sell a piece. If anything it gave me the idea people at least appreciated my collection ^^
@Jadeduo - I have seen the open house thingy. You know, I have been sending out feedback a lot these past weeks and I haven''t gotten much response, maybe 2 out of 10 :( But then, my feedback doesn''t work at all, so maybe this is true for more galleries?
That pretty much sums up what''s been happening. I moved and haven''t had much time to dedicate to my collection. I''ve tried buying a few pieces through the RS marketplace, but either my offers are ignored or declined with no counter offer...
Rei - Not one of my cels right? I don''t know why I even bother with the RS shop anymore. I do not get notifications whatsoever, maybe the same is true for more collectors who sell through the shop?
I need to update but I am being lazy about that. I also ns ex to sell some stuff. Yeah, I only go to beta for the sale page. I would be annoyed If someone offefed a low price for somthing that an origin al arfist did. Then again I think newer collecfors want a bargin for cels sketcbes.
I meant to put need to sell L. that''s whaf I get for using my phone.
Hey Kira ^^ Yeah, that''s pretty much the same reason I go to Beta too. Sad really :( And I was talking to a friend collector the other day and we were saying just that. New collectors nowadays are lucky; they can get some really great cels for very low prices. They don''t even realize it. Tony just sold a Meier Link cel on eBay for 60 bucks! I remember he used to go for at least 300, 500 if his eyes were open. Times sure are strange :D
I''m still around, though (as with everyone) I''ve been busy with life lately. Mainly I think it''s Gen 01 moving on: anna-may was the big new thing in 2000-05, and Japan''s economic condition meant studios were happy to let lots of art go on the market. So life was good: new collectors, nice new stuff coming on the market all the time, deputy services proliferating. That was then, now is now, and cels have become the box of baseball cards under the bed for many people. That said, I''m encouraged that there is a core of long-term collectors who are committed to preserving what they have and keeping galleries fresh for new audiences. As anime becomes better established as an artform deserving serious attention, both for content and technique, galleries will get wider attention. But now we are dealing with a change of leadership all around. It''s unlikely that RS will get a tune-up anytime soon, but ongoing curators have found hacks around most of the serious issues. And Beta is undergoing a change of admins/mods with the hope of doing a long-needed revamping of that forum. (But forums also were the Previous Big Thing, so maybe it''s time for something less focused, more individually interactive ala Facebook?) Bottom line: animation art collecting has gotten somewhat old, both as a hobby and as an incentive for chatter. On the other hand, there''s a lot of information here and on Beta that new collectors and observers of the art form find useful. I''d hate to have all this knowledge disappear and lose the contact with friends that I''ve generated over the last 14 years. So I''ll try to be part of a solution rather than curse the silence.
Hi Sensei ^^ Good to see you''re still around. I think you''re right on a lot of things. I was just trying to get a discussion going, but I guess RS has never been the place to do that ^^ The fact that Rubberslug basically is on life support and left neglected troubles me so because this place is such a treasure throve of cel images and with that quite unique. Imagine all those collections disappearing into obscurity again :( I''d love to see Rubberslug evolve into something more like DeviantArt, and I would not mind paying a membership fee to get there either, but I know it''s not going to happen. I do, however, feel a little frustrated (for lack of a better word) it''s being left like this. I spend a lot of time and effort to present my both my gallery and my collection in the best way possible for others to enjoy, and I hate to see it neglected like this. I never expected it to be a totally free service, but sadly Jason pretty much closes the door to all options. I''m not sure Facebook can be a solution. Not like it is now. In my eyes, this hobby is quite special and with that requires (and deserves) a little more specialization. We may have taken it for granted, but with Rubberslug hundreds of production art collections are only a click away. And that’s pretty special ^^
I''d be comfortable moving this site to a new domain and webhost, and get the dang thing revamped and finished, if only we could. Jason would still maintain ownership of the site and receive "kickbacks" but we''d be in charge of it. I''ve honestly been domain shopping myself. I want to keep what I have going too bc I enjoy it just as much as you you Wendy. I think I might have found one too. It''s called Jimdo.com. Please check it out. This is more along the lines of what I was thinking of when Sensei mentioned Beta revamping. I''m debating between Free or Professional account for now. For a monthly fee, one can upgrade to Professional or Business, and gain access to a wide variety of marketing tools. This includes RSS Feed, Newsletter-making, Search Engine Optimization (bring new blood to Beta and RS!), working Store to sell stuff. Plus, with all of these your website is also viewable via Mobile phone, which studies have shown that a potential new customer is 67% more likely to return to visit or buy something from you if your site is accessible via mobile.
I agree. I am not sure whether Facebook is an option at this very moment. WordPress, perhaps? Exposure-support by high traffic anime sites, perhaps Anime News Network, would also be helpful down the road. First we need to start by utuilizing the free, accessible tools we have and start advertising in person in cons by hosting panels like Jadeduo and Cutiebunny mentioned on Beta. RePete has a Computer Science degree. He''s expressed interest in fixing some bugs if he was allowed to become an MOD-Admin on his recent post under the Support section in the forum. I hate to say this, out loud, but I''m sure someone out there has thought of this---do we have to resort to ninja hacking the site to get the bugs fixed? Let''s hope not!
Hey this is repete here ;) I am currently studying a computer science degree and will finish it in November. After then I would be more than happy to dive deep into the inner-workings of the server and RubberSlugs code. Honestly I have no idea exactly how he has implemented certain things and there is a lot of guess work at the moment but if he has used some good practices, structures and has written clean code I reckon I could make some changes and clean/update the website. I can write C++, C, Java, Javascript, PHP, XHTML/CSS, SQL to name a few so actually writing and reading code shouldn''t be to much of a problem. The number of technical problems with rubberslug seem to be increasing in frequency and if this continues I may see if I can lend a hand in the meantime. As for the suggestion of starting fresh on a new website ie facebook, wordpress, jimdo etc. Don''t think it would be a good idea. The beauty of Rubberslug is that it is a handmade website solely for us collectors. This makes it powerful and specific. The only thing that could be considered would be to have a professional website created and migrate galleries/whatever data we could. This would cost thousands, more likely like ten-thousand plus. Then there would be ongoing maintance costs of hundreds and unless you got some tech savvy guy in to help you with the websites code you would end up exactly where we are now eventually unless you pay out the butt. Now we are not loaded with cash so I suggest life support and bandages in the meantime.
Thanks Ginga for looking into alternatives, I checked Jimdo out and it looks very good. Easy to use too. Certainly a good alternative should RS break down. And I know you love RS too ^^ After all, you were the one who got Jason to crawl out from under his rock to talk to us. But I’m afraid that fow now I have to agree with Repete; Rubberslug is, besides utterly perfect for what it was designed for, quite unique and special and I really think it should be preserved. I know Jason said he has no plans of shutting RS down, but sadly he isn’t open to either financial nor technical help either and he simply leaves this site just limpin along. We don’t have much choice other than to accept it, but maybe it’s time that we, the users of RS, should apply at least a little pressure? I realize it may not be easy for Jason to hand over part of the reigns and it would mean a certain amount of commitment for RePete, but maybe it could help if RePete was made able to help out. Sadly though, many users don''t seem to care all that much about the fate of RS :(
And in the meantime JWR has approved my featured gallery image. Thanks Joe! I think of all the mods you are the only person still active on this site.
why do you think I''ve hid all of my gallery??? I was getting the worst emails from the most entitled people. "You obviously don''t love this piece as much as I would, so you should seek it for dirt cheap!" F that. And f them. And i STiLL cannot upload images even though it was supposed to be fixed maybe that is just Karma''s way of telling me that I shouldn''t bother uploading the images at all. I''m happy to have the items in my collection after all...
Hey Jenn! Good to see you here. Yeah, I was wondering where your collection went and thought it had to be something like that. That sucks so much ball, people have no decency anymore. I have heard several stories like that now, it''s ridiculous. But It''s weird you still can''t update though...Do you get that same error message?
You''re welcome! :) That site''s ease of use factor is very attractive and I look forward to trying it out. My feedback must be broken. I have yet to be blasted with offers of any kind if everyone else is getting these emails.
Hey wen!! Still no change with the updates. And I may be alright with that....it''s stuff that I''ve been sitting on for some time. Just wanted to update it finally. But considering the state of affairs out there, I may continue to sit on it.
@ Ginga - I registered with Jimdo and made a quick website yesterday as a test. This is the result: http://royallycrimson.jimdo.com It''s a crude first set up, but it was incredibly easy to do, I even have a store Let me know what you think ok?
@ Jenn - how weird you''re still getting that error message...maybe deleting cookies on your comp might help? It sucks that rude people are making you hide your gallery though, in a way it feels like they win. Or at least like we loose :(
I think I might go make a site over there. I like the site you made.
Wendy--- It''s awesome! I really like it! ^_^ Kira likes it too. Thank you for sharing. Wow, is it really easy? I look forward to giving it a try!
Thanks girls ^^ And yes, it really is ridiculously easy to use. My site now is just a quick set up, but I think if you take some time to explore all the possibilities, or even upgrade to Pro, you could create a really good looking website. The free feature allows you to create a shop for 5 items, if you want to sell more you must upgrade. The blog feature is free too I believe, haven''t tried that yet. I think it''s not a bad idea to create a back up gallery with them, you know, just in case Rubberslug kicks the bucket :P
I''ve started the Jimdo version of my gallery today but I''m having trouble with navigating and setting up additional pages in general. I want a page entitled Gallery with subpages under that heading for each anime title. I''ll have to ask them if that is possible? Or does it depend on your template? I don''t like the other free templates but I do want 2 ways to easily navigate. FrontPage navigation and drop down menu navigation. Here''s a really rough setup of my Jimdo: www.gingasanime.Jimdo.com feedback is highly welcomed as I am under the construction process. my gallery is known for easy navigation on rubber slug and I don''t want to lose that translation during transition.
Sorry Ginga, for the late reply. I don''t know what happened but after you posted I got an error message every time I wanted to open my blog. Strangely enough I can access it now :/ I like your site. the navigation bar was a bit difficult to find, but I got there fairly quickly :D
not a problem. the rest is hidden right now. yes! i am trying to fix that by creating 2 ways to navigate. wish me luck! lolol |
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