Roophilia Update: Is it the end?

[marko_the_rat]

• Two new photos of Tasmanian Devils feeding, including a great shot of their dentition.
  
• Tasmanian Devils fighting (probably over the aforementioned food).
  
• Close up of Eastern grey kangaroo's nose and tongue.
  

Wow! Over two years since my last update. No wonder it took me a while to remember how to update it all and to repair the shell scripts that help to automate the process. But is it worth it? Updating Roophilia seems so clunky in the age of web 2.0, and its design does not fit the higher resolution photos I want to upload nowadays. Also, Roophilia does not get anything like the attention it did in the old days. I suppose I could make a Roophilia page on FaceBook and pimp for "likes" for it and either upload photos there (thus leaving behind my friends on LJ) or maybe devote a page on Flickr to it and notify my followers of updates in the usual manner (it would take me a while to fill 1TB). Either way, I would be effectively relinquishing possession of my photos (which is why I've been reluctant up till now) and any photos of a reproductive nature (or even too gory, as one photo arguably could be) would still have to go to the old site (which would stay up indefinitely as long as Bang keeps furry.org.au going. Thoughts, anyone?

Comments

[avon-deer.livejournal.com]

I remember that site..it was part of an awakening for me :)

[valleydee-groo.livejournal.com]

I like the new roo pic, but I use your photos as references for drawings for a lil while, and that nose pic is a good one- might have to show my suit maker that pic- see if it can be recreated!

[schnee.livejournal.com]

You'll probably have to engage in some sort of marketing to get the word out on the site. The web has grown incredibly, so any individual site will be lost in that vast sea of sites unless it somehow manages to make itself stand out. Also, digital cameras are so ubiquitious that photos of just about anything (certainly roos!) are easy to come by, and people's first instinct when looking for photos will be to go to Flickr, or Google Images, or the Wikimedia Commons, or so. Actively looking for smaller, topic-specific sites isn't gonna be very high on their lists anymore.

That's not to say a smaller site with high-quality content can't find its niche. But I think you need to reach out — they won't come just because you built it, as it were.

If the design feels old to you, give it a fresh makeover! There's all sorts of CMSes that you could use, from Drupal to MediaWiki. If you want to roll your own, there's all sorts of useful Javascript libraries to make sites feel nicer, from jQuery and jQuery UI to various shadowbox scripts and so on.

I'd advise against walled gardens like Facebook. Flickr might work, and would give RSS feeds etc. (and hence syndicated accounts on LJ), which I think is important, as it allows people to easily keep up to date without having to check the site for updates.

I'm not sure what you mean about relinquishing possession of your photos. Anyone who wants to keep them already can, and server operators/companies like Flickr will not usually attempt to claim transfership of copyright interests. Of course, it doesn't hurt to check — and it doesn't hurt to err on the side of caution, but don't let your fears get the better of you.

Flickr at least allows mature/adult photos, too, as long as they're marked as such. Whether pictures of kangaroos mating would even qualify as that is another question; I seem to recall that their definition of "mature" was "if you wouldn't show it to your mother, it's probably mature", but pictures of kangaroos mating don't appeal to the prurient interest: they're merely educational.

Cute roo nose, BTW. :)

[harvardheinous.livejournal.com]

That's a little *too* close to a roo's nose! :P

[bob-bunny.livejournal.com]

You need to be careful getting photo's of roo's nose and mouth they do have bad breath :)

I do speak from experience here, horrible smell, probably most ruminant animals have that problem.

Site updates are always a lot of work and in our busy lives finding time to keep a site up to date can be difficult, I did however find your site in my pre furry days and it was useful in filling gaps in my knowledge.