Death, not with a bang, but a whimper

Well, it’s now, as in the Iron Maiden song, “2 Minutes to Midnight”, as on Friday all UK members get kicked into purgatory, but attempts to download previously posted pictures has been a fool’s errand due to the site’s instability, so I’ll lose pretty much all I’ve posted here.  Whilst I’ve been, in my opinion, justifiably grumpy about the site direction, I always hoped the site would weather it’s problems and come out the other side stronger.  Sadly it seems to be in freefall with more and more site issues, image tagging hasn’t worked reliably since September 2024, and in trying to compete against the bot cheats that was the only defence- apart from Robotka (not technically a friend as we haven’t conversed, but someone I respect), pretty much all my friends have left in disgust at the unaddressed bot cheating (roxin282 posted a good farewell article).  While the fires have been burning to prevent the site functioning in any meaningful sense for at least 6 months, we’ve still been subjected to frankly offensive announcements along the lines of “we’re incredibly excited to announce” some other meaningless feature.  Add that to increasingly desperate attempts to monetise the site via pay-to-win, and my constant bugbear regarding the non pay-to-win selected features images (insert picture of plastic food here), and this isn’t the site I joined.  I previously posted about dropping out of membership due to disagreements over the site’s direction, now this really is the end.  Whilst I’m not in the best mindset right now, I’d wish to express genuine thanks to everyone who’s reacted positively to my images over the past 13 months.  Plus, big win, you won’t need to complain about me spamming less than enthusiastic articles, as this time, it really is the end.  Arigato and sayonara.