Thread: At the Cross Roads - The Rise of Otaku Zen

As many of you have noticed lately, the quality of Animeonline has been on the decline for many months, nay, most of the last year has seen a steady decline.

We've been hacked, spam bots are attacking the site, and the site's primary feature, its gallery, is broken.

And this is the real tragedy. I've spent pretty much the last 9 years of my internet life on this website. I first joined AO shortly after DeviantART got rid of its anime wallpaper section and I found AO's gallery through a google search. That was back in 2002.

Since then, the site has gone through many owners (Gig, SPDude, Dragonball, Cowboy Bebop), some have been good, like Gig and Dragonball, one of them awful, SPDude, and the last and current one, Cowboy Bebop, absent.

Over the last year or so, the site has been hacked and bombarded with spam attacks, and our current owner, Cowboy Bebop, has shown that he has not been up to the task to combat this. After some discussions with Trunks, it also seems that he lacks the technical skills to do so as well, since some major bugs and broken features have yet to be fixed (like the site upload script), and other things like the forum software being updated (right now the current vB version that AO is running is 3 versions out of date).

None of the staff have had any contact with CB for months, despite the fact that his last login to the site was January 10th 2011. For what ever reasons, be it personal or otherwise, all staff at Animeonline are required to report any instances of prolonged absences like moving, loss of internet, ect. on the staff forum, or we face a demotion from staff rank as a result. Yet we've heard nothing from CB.

With out Cowboy Bebop, the only person with the access to fix Animeonline, nothing can be done. Nothing will be fixed, and Animeonline will die.

I love this site, I love this community. Since becoming a mod in 2007, I've worked my proverbial fingers to the bone. I've been insulted, made fun of, and threatened for the sake of this community.

And it is for the sake of this community that it pains me to leave it, and risk being banned at the community I love.