Group Closing

I keep getting people asking about joining so I'm just going to make this official. I'm going to close down the group.

I'll leave it "open" as in all the kitties will stay up so that everyone has theirs still available to them, however we will no longer be doing any work for the group. This includes accepting art, changing information, ect.

I'm going to go ahead and explain why, and I'm very sorry to everyone running this group was a lot of fun but due to multiple circumstances I think it's best to close down.

One reason is me, as the founder, I already have a lot of work to do with my job in real life as well as freelance work as an artist. It leaves me busy and I rarely have time to even draw art for myself, adding more work to my schedule at this point is just overkill and I want to shift my focus towards projects that will help me grow as an artist.

Another reason is the mods, and while our mods past and present have all been wonderful, kirikitties has been around for over 4 years now, and in that time frame people come and go. A lot of our colorists and admins have moved on and are either no longer on Deviantart or are busy with their own work. This means we are unable to access the kitties that have been created by said artists. We could possibly save and re-upload every single kitty but it'd be a huge chore and it leaves a mess since we're not able to delete the past kitties.

Supergroup status is another issue, and while it's not one that's too big it does come into account. Because of the way this group works it's not really possible to keep it functioning without a subscription due to the folder layout and other things. Supergroups are expensive of course and along with the other issues we've had it's just not worth keeping up.

Lastly the Deviantart name change feature (while it's wonderful and a lot of us have taken advantage of it) makes keeping the kitties and journals organized a complete disaster. We honestly don't know who's who anymore and only a handful of people keep us up to date with their name changes. And again because we're unable to access most of the kitties, we can't even apply these name changes to the kitties.

Is there a possibility this group will open again? I wouldn't say it's out of the question but at this time I'm going to say not to count on it.  If the group does re-open I will probably start from scratch  and put all old kitties into a folder and start over with a new base, new admins and new system that would hopefully prevent the problems we've had.

My ultimate goal is to keep the kirikitties franchise alive. I would love to turn the idea into a site similar to neopets and other adoptable sites but at the moment that is out of the question due to financial and time regulations. I want to thank all of you for being with the group for so long.  You are free to leave we won't take your kitties from you at this point. I'm going to drop down as founder and put the group into the care of the kirikittyadmin account to keep it up for all those who have kitties and other of our pets already. Thank you again guys we'll miss you!